Veiled threats or polite requests convey a message without making it "official" common knowledge. This preserves the existing social relationship (e.g., friends, colleagues) by providing plausible deniability, even when the underlying meaning is clear to both parties.

When you are insulted, onlookers look to your reaction to determine if the insult is true. Responding with laughter or nonchalance signals that the attack has no merit, effectively invalidating it. An emotional or defensive reaction, however, can give the insult credibility.

Women are often taught that there is virtue in not taking credit and staying in the background. This social conditioning encourages self-erasure, preventing them from claiming their power and perpetuating a system where their contributions are overlooked.

The speaker introduces "mate suppression" as a twisted biological impulse, particularly prevalent in toxic femininity, to harm the reproductive chances of perceived rivals. This drive manifests in behaviors that sabotage others' attractiveness or access to mates, explaining seemingly irrational social rules that secretly aim to handicap competitors.

We use hints and innuendo not to deny what we said, but to avoid a state where both parties know the other knows the true intent. This "common knowledge" can irrevocably change a relationship, whereas indirectness allows a shared fiction (e.g., a platonic friendship) to continue even after a proposition is rejected.

People are more effective at deceiving others about their true motivations when they first deceive themselves. Genuinely believing your own pro-social justification for a self-interested act makes the act more compelling and convincing to others.

Human societies are not innately egalitarian; they are innately hierarchical. Egalitarianism emerged as a social technology in hunter-gatherer groups, using tools like gossip and ostracism to collectively suppress dominant 'alpha' individuals who threatened group cohesion.

People's conscious, stated reasons for their actions (proximate explanations) often obscure deeper, unconscious evolutionary drivers (ultimate explanations), such as the drive to reduce mating competition while appearing compassionate.

People are more willing to accept and incorporate feedback about traits they see as secondary, like being "well-spoken" or "witty." Tying feedback to core identity traits, such as kindness or integrity, is more likely to be perceived as a threat and trigger a defensive response.