Latest / Ridiculous History / The Cobra Effect, Part 1: Snakes, Rats, and Unintended Consequences

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The Cobra Effect, Part 1: Snakes, Rats, and Unintended Consequences · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. I hope you're not afraid
0:34
Speaker 1: of sneaks, folks, though it is an understandable, almost primal
0:39
Speaker 1: fear common to so many people today and throughout the past.
0:43
Speaker 1: That's our one and only snake tamer slash super producer,
0:47
Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. They called me Ben snake bite Boland. No,
0:54
Speaker 1: what do you have a snake nickname? Yeah? Yeah, definitely.
1:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep that one in my back pocket though
1:05
Speaker 1: for a for a future time in case I need
1:07
Speaker 1: to go on the Lamb and I need like a
1:09
Speaker 1: you know, a really cool badass nickname from my new
1:12
Speaker 1: criminal life. So I'm gonna sit on this one. Hopefully
1:17
Speaker 1: go get bitten there we go, watch out for that part. Yeah.
1:23
Speaker 1: My mom has terrified of snakes, like even like images
1:26
Speaker 1: of snakes. And I think I've made no secret about
1:28
Speaker 1: my phobia's bird related. But like I can watch people
1:31
Speaker 1: always like, oh God, have you seen the movie The Birds?
1:34
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can watch a movie about birds, It's fine.
1:38
Speaker 1: I just don't want actual physical birds coming at me.
1:41
Speaker 1: Which they will do because they are untrustworthy and they're
1:44
Speaker 1: basically little winged dinosaurs with no you know, emotion. They
1:48
Speaker 1: they look at them, there's nothing there. But my mom
1:50
Speaker 1: can't even look at a picture of a snake, or
1:52
Speaker 1: see a nature documentary about a snake, or even have
1:55
Speaker 1: like a rubber snake in her presence, she will lose
1:58
Speaker 1: her mind, so that the primal urge you speak of
2:01
Speaker 1: Ben is strong with her. M What about you, Max?
2:03
Speaker 1: Where are you at real snakes? Yeah? I don't know.
2:07
Speaker 1: I don't really have much opinion about him, Like I
2:09
Speaker 1: don't love them too much, don't really hate them too much.
2:11
Speaker 1: What if what if someone were to ask you to
2:13
Speaker 1: place a you know, the venomless, harmless quote unquote boa
2:18
Speaker 1: constrictor around your neck for a cute photo op. Would
2:21
Speaker 1: you do it? Would you do it? I mean they're
2:24
Speaker 1: literally constrictors. I don't know that. What if it was
2:27
Speaker 1: like what if it was like a real sexy Siegfried
2:31
Speaker 1: and Roy slash stage magician in Vegas thing, you know
2:35
Speaker 1: what I mean, and you were like you were like
2:40
Speaker 1: the magical Max or something like that, and you had,
2:44
Speaker 1: you know, a boa constrictor. Yeah, I mean the find
2:47
Speaker 1: I would probably do it. I mean, I'm downe to
2:49
Speaker 1: like yes and that shows and stuff. I'll go along
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Speaker 1: with it all. Like you know, if you do an
2:54
Speaker 1: improv with a snake, I mean, which was like Fred
2:57
Speaker 1: behind an alley, He's like, hey, hold my magical stay,
3:00
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely not. But if it's like a professional production.
3:02
Speaker 1: If if a random dude in an alley asked you
3:05
Speaker 1: to hold his magical sea, I think he'd probably be
3:07
Speaker 1: talking about something a little language bearer. Thing might be euphemism.
3:12
Speaker 1: I like snakes, you know, I'm a huge fan in
3:16
Speaker 1: the natural world in general. Um, but there is this
3:22
Speaker 1: there is this innate ability that people appear to have
3:27
Speaker 1: that allows them to detect snakes and spiders and an
3:30
Speaker 1: aptitude for learning to fear them very quickly. There was
3:34
Speaker 1: some research from the University of Virginia that found this.
3:38
Speaker 1: But people have lived with snakes for a long long time.
3:42
Speaker 1: A good friend of the show, actually several several of
3:46
Speaker 1: our colleagues, several of my friends are long time snake owners.
3:50
Speaker 1: Armchair herpetologist. I guess you could call them as an
3:53
Speaker 1: etymology nerd, as someone obsessed with it. I do need
3:57
Speaker 1: to check out to see, I do need to figure
4:00
Speaker 1: out why herpes and herpetology sounds so similar. One is
4:04
Speaker 1: an STD One is the study of like snakes and reptiles. Anyhow,
4:08
Speaker 1: what we're saying is people have lived with snakes for
4:11
Speaker 1: such a long time, and today's episode takes us you
4:15
Speaker 1: can actually lead a very normal life. Well, actually, depending
4:19
Speaker 1: on which simplex you're talking about, I think by a
4:21
Speaker 1: certain age, the vast majority of human beings actually have that.
4:25
Speaker 1: Uh So we're not here to vilify people or snakes,
4:29
Speaker 1: but we are here to talk about something that happened
4:34
Speaker 1: in India back in the day, something that now is
4:37
Speaker 1: called the cobra effect. So yeah, so India, especially Delhi,
4:45
Speaker 1: had an abundance of cobras, and cobras are dangerous, you
4:52
Speaker 1: know what I mean. They're They're not like a garden snake.
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Speaker 1: They can kill you. So the British governor, this is
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Speaker 1: under colonial India, by the way, the British governor of
5:01
Speaker 1: Delhi said, you know, like rom from from something must
5:05
Speaker 1: be done, and he put out a bounty on cobras.
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Speaker 1: Seems normal, Yeah, you may. You know, this may conjure
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Speaker 1: images of like cross legged dudes in open air marketplaces,
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Speaker 1: coaxing cobras out of elaborately woven baskets um with a
5:23
Speaker 1: flute or something. Well, that may be a very stereotypical image,
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Speaker 1: it exists for a reason because these things were literally
5:29
Speaker 1: just coming out of baskets. They were they were just
5:31
Speaker 1: plopped falling out of the ceiling. They were just everywhere.
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Speaker 1: The place was lousy with them, and the bounty was
5:37
Speaker 1: pretty generous, um to the point where it kind of
5:40
Speaker 1: had people making this like a secondary revenue stream and
5:45
Speaker 1: going cobra hunting, which at first worked right because the
5:50
Speaker 1: cobra population dropped. But that's when the whole idea of
5:54
Speaker 1: the cobra effect comes into play. And what this episode
5:57
Speaker 1: is about, truly is unintended consequences. When when when good
6:02
Speaker 1: intentions go awry because of people's like bad intentions and
6:06
Speaker 1: just you know, general greediness and the fact that, you know,
6:10
Speaker 1: when there's money to be had, people will usually go
6:13
Speaker 1: to whatever means necessary to acquire said money. Yes, yes, classic,
6:20
Speaker 1: classic example of the old monkeys paw conundrum. I wish
6:24
Speaker 1: there were fewer cobras monkeys. First finger curls. Can we
6:29
Speaker 1: get a creek on that? You guys know what I'm
6:31
Speaker 1: talking about, right, the short stand of the monkeys Paw.
6:33
Speaker 1: There's a great reddit for this too, called there's a
6:35
Speaker 1: great subreddit called the monkeys Paw. Check it out. Uh,
6:39
Speaker 1: it's it's a fun thought experiment. You're absolutely right. This
6:42
Speaker 1: is about unintended consequences. People started trying to rig the
6:47
Speaker 1: game in the days of what was called the British Raj,
6:51
Speaker 1: the colonial powers that be in India. We're increasingly miffed,
6:58
Speaker 1: let's say, about the number of venomous cobras infesting Delhi
7:03
Speaker 1: in particular. So they said, here's how we'll tackle the problem.
7:08
Speaker 1: Will put out off for this bounty, and then to
7:11
Speaker 1: verify that someone's killed the cobra, they're gonna bring us
7:14
Speaker 1: the skin of the snake. And they realized all of
7:20
Speaker 1: a sudden their storage rooms were full of cobra skins,
7:24
Speaker 1: and if first, it didn't seem to have a noticeable
7:29
Speaker 1: effect on the population in Cobra and Delhi. And that's
7:34
Speaker 1: where city officials figured out local farmers being incredibly intelligent,
7:40
Speaker 1: people said, why do I need to go out in
7:42
Speaker 1: the streets hunting for snakes when I can just catch
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Speaker 1: a couple and then keep them and basically farm them,
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Speaker 1: raise them. I can grow cobras at home, kill them,
7:55
Speaker 1: and then get some cash. Yeah, and the cost benefit
7:58
Speaker 1: analysis was in their favor because they would enough profit
8:01
Speaker 1: by you know, investing in raising the snake. Let's do
8:04
Speaker 1: it to sell on a one snake basis, and then
8:06
Speaker 1: they'd get that bounty and they would have, you know,
8:09
Speaker 1: turned to profit per snake. And they could do this, however,
8:12
Speaker 1: many times because there probably wasn't really a cap on it.
8:14
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't know the exact specifics of the deal,
8:17
Speaker 1: but it sounds to me like it was pretty loosey goosey,
8:20
Speaker 1: you know, or snaky um. And the thing that's so
8:24
Speaker 1: interesting is like this is, uh, this seems in general
8:29
Speaker 1: like a pretty good idea, you know. I mean, nobody
8:31
Speaker 1: wants the streets just teeming with venomous snakes that will,
8:35
Speaker 1: you know, from one bite from which could could put
8:38
Speaker 1: you down. Literally. This seems like humans working against their
8:42
Speaker 1: own self interest in the name of of the almighty dollar.
8:45
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe these farmers lived more like out
8:48
Speaker 1: in the sticks or something like that, and they weren't
8:50
Speaker 1: as concerned about city life. I'm not sure. It's a
8:53
Speaker 1: little unclear but this is not a problem that just
8:56
Speaker 1: existed in Delhi. This is an India. This is like
8:59
Speaker 1: they call it the cobra effect because it's named after
9:01
Speaker 1: the situation, but it was something that extended, you know,
9:05
Speaker 1: all across the world. Yes, yeah, and let's walk through
9:10
Speaker 1: the next step of the cobra effect before we go global.
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Speaker 1: This is where things get even worse. So the people
9:19
Speaker 1: empower the British colonial forces realize what's going on. They say, Okay,
9:24
Speaker 1: these guys are gaming the system and we're not going
9:28
Speaker 1: to permit that. Because the colonial British authorities in general
9:34
Speaker 1: hated whenever anything good happened to the actual population of India,
9:40
Speaker 1: they were not particularly good rulers, so they canceled this
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Speaker 1: cobra hunting plan. They stopped paying out bounties for cobra skins.
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Speaker 1: And without the bounties, these cobra farmers said, oh, these
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Speaker 1: skins are worthless. All these captive cobra we have they're
10:00
Speaker 1: now pointless. So you know, we're snake meat. I don't
10:05
Speaker 1: know if you guys know this. I haven't eaten an
10:06
Speaker 1: actual cobra yet, but snake meat in general doesn't taste
10:10
Speaker 1: particularly great. I mean it's edible, it's not my bag.
10:14
Speaker 1: So they said, you know, we're not gonna eat these things.
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Speaker 1: I guess we'll just let him go. And so let
10:21
Speaker 1: all these cobras back on the street in Delhi. We
10:24
Speaker 1: need a new scheme. We gotta revert back to our
10:27
Speaker 1: old ways of farming. So what are we gonna do
10:28
Speaker 1: with all these cobras. Let's just let them run rampant
10:31
Speaker 1: back in the streets. So consequently, there were more cobras
10:35
Speaker 1: at the end of the whole thing than there were
10:37
Speaker 1: at the beginning. So snakes flooded the streets. Uh, this
10:41
Speaker 1: story got a lot of press, and like you said,
10:45
Speaker 1: Noel Deli's snake problem was worse than it was in
10:49
Speaker 1: the beginning. That's what we call it the cobra effect,
10:52
Speaker 1: which some of us fellow eighties babies may remember from
10:56
Speaker 1: the show g I Joe got that also. I gotta say,
11:05
Speaker 1: I think the Cobra effect would be a great name
11:08
Speaker 1: for either an eighties hair metal type band or maybe
11:10
Speaker 1: like an early Adds kind of like emo dance punk
11:15
Speaker 1: type band. I don't know, Cobra Effect. I like that.
11:18
Speaker 1: I'm still sad that it didn't become an eighties new
11:21
Speaker 1: wave band with people dressed as Cobra Commander. I was
11:27
Speaker 1: so fascinated a cobra commander as a kid. Anyway, Um,
11:32
Speaker 1: Cobra Commander was one guy. He was just the cobra
11:34
Speaker 1: commander of all of all the cobras. Yeah, you have
11:38
Speaker 1: to leave it was the guy with a silverhead. Silverhead.
11:41
Speaker 1: It's costume is so awesome. He also had a hood sometimes. Um,
11:45
Speaker 1: and then you always wonder what his face was, which is,
11:48
Speaker 1: by the way, revealed in the g I. Joe animated
11:52
Speaker 1: series or no g I Joe animated film, which gets
11:55
Speaker 1: deep in the weird otherworldly cobra lore. No spoilers, is
12:00
Speaker 1: a supernatural or anyway, we're not doing the show about
12:03
Speaker 1: cobraate commander. Unfortunately they had supernatural powers. Well, man, you're
12:08
Speaker 1: just gonna have to not all, you're not all, but
12:11
Speaker 1: you gotta watch I'll watch it with you. A double
12:15
Speaker 1: feature with that and the g I and the Transformers
12:19
Speaker 1: movie that has the the amazing eighties kind of soundtrack. Yeah, deal,
12:24
Speaker 1: you got the touch, you got the power. Damn sorry,
12:30
Speaker 1: I love that. No, it's perfect. I like this idea
12:33
Speaker 1: because if we're gonna segue, it's called the Cobra effect,
12:37
Speaker 1: because people do tend to have an enormous touch on
12:41
Speaker 1: their local on their local environment, and they have a
12:45
Speaker 1: lot of power, but it's not always good. If you
12:54
Speaker 1: travel to Annoy during the time that French powers were
12:59
Speaker 1: ruling it, you see the same thing again old but
13:02
Speaker 1: instead of the Cobra effect, this is like what would
13:05
Speaker 1: you call it, the rat consequence? Yeah, exactly. I always
13:09
Speaker 1: think too, it's interesting. This is it's a little aside.
13:10
Speaker 1: You know how obviously England ruled over India under the
13:15
Speaker 1: what was it called the English Raj British Raj, and
13:20
Speaker 1: you know kind of developed some light they really like
13:24
Speaker 1: developed a taste for Indian food where certain versions of
13:27
Speaker 1: it kind of were developed that were like to suit
13:30
Speaker 1: the English palette and kind of became really really popular
13:33
Speaker 1: in you know, London and in the UK. But it's
13:35
Speaker 1: something you would never have seen in you know, actual
13:37
Speaker 1: ectual Delhi, like things like chicken tika massala and all that.
13:41
Speaker 1: Same with French rule over Vietnam. It's what gives you
13:45
Speaker 1: things like the bond Me sandwich, which is essentially a
13:48
Speaker 1: you know, a French baguette with all of this amazing
13:51
Speaker 1: you know, barbecued Vietnamese meats and and uh seasonings and
13:55
Speaker 1: you know, vegetables and stuff. So I do appreciate that
13:59
Speaker 1: consequence of empire building. But the rest of it's a
14:03
Speaker 1: little sketch culinary colonialism, I like to call it. Yeah,
14:08
Speaker 1: And it leads to an amazing uh syncretism, just like
14:12
Speaker 1: with religion, right, and you could look at I was,
14:16
Speaker 1: honestly because I get in weird rabbit holes. I was
14:19
Speaker 1: reading earlier this weekend the amazing story of Chinese food
14:25
Speaker 1: throughout the diaspora. You know, in an American Chinese food,
14:28
Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, is a cuisine all its own.
14:32
Speaker 1: But yes, I love it. Also lucky for the United
14:36
Speaker 1: Kingdom that they they learned from the Indian subcontinent about
14:41
Speaker 1: you know, I'll say it how to cook. Oh, I
14:44
Speaker 1: would say, curry is the national is pretty much like
14:47
Speaker 1: the national dish of the UK exactly. Yeah. But but
14:50
Speaker 1: but it's like there's a name for it. There's like
14:53
Speaker 1: there's a name for the style of cooking, uh, that
14:56
Speaker 1: type of Indian cuisine that's it's called like fast British
15:00
Speaker 1: style or something like that. Or there are these like
15:02
Speaker 1: little curry shops that like have a very specific order
15:05
Speaker 1: of operations. It's very different from traditional cooking, and they
15:07
Speaker 1: acknowledge that there's another name for that. I'm spacing on.
15:09
Speaker 1: But last day, Uh, the dough Boys podcast brought up
15:12
Speaker 1: this question, and I want to put it to you guys.
15:14
Speaker 1: Is a bond Me a sub sandwich? Yeah? I guess
15:20
Speaker 1: I don't. I've never thought about it, but I guess.
15:22
Speaker 1: So it's really whether you emphasize the bread or the ingredients.
15:25
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, man, I've gone through I'm like
15:28
Speaker 1: Doctor Strange with the timestone. I've gone through every iteration
15:32
Speaker 1: of what is a sandwich? Or what is what kind
15:34
Speaker 1: of sandwich? Question? I think I might have a problem.
15:37
Speaker 1: But yes, well, but it's like, you know, a meat
15:40
Speaker 1: ball sub is in the name, you've got like an
15:42
Speaker 1: Italian sub, you've got like a veggie sub or like
15:46
Speaker 1: you know whatever, a turkey sub sub is usually in
15:49
Speaker 1: the name. Bond Me has all the makings of a sub,
15:52
Speaker 1: but you never call it that. So I just uh.
15:54
Speaker 1: One of the one of the dough Boys was was
15:56
Speaker 1: vehemently anti bond Me being a sub and then resent
16:00
Speaker 1: today when everybody else on the show just rolled forward
16:02
Speaker 1: with that as though well he can he can call me.
16:05
Speaker 1: We can talk a sub as a sub, as a sub.
16:07
Speaker 1: To paraphrase the old literature quote, a sub by any right,
16:12
Speaker 1: a sub by any other name, and a cobra effect
16:15
Speaker 1: by any other name. Hannoy is annoyed with all the rats.
16:21
Speaker 1: It's guy named Paul Dumer goes to Vietnam. He's still
16:27
Speaker 1: in the younger part of his middle age. He's he's
16:30
Speaker 1: forty something and he is a government worker for France.
16:35
Speaker 1: But he just had a big swing and a mist
16:38
Speaker 1: in his career. He had a scheme for a new
16:41
Speaker 1: kind of income tax and it failed, and so he
16:44
Speaker 1: resigned from his job as Minister of Finance and decided
16:48
Speaker 1: to you know, to hit the rails, or to hit
16:51
Speaker 1: the high seas, to ghost in other words, and try
16:54
Speaker 1: to find a new life abroad. He'd been appointed Governor
16:58
Speaker 1: General of French Indo, kind of a group of colonies
17:02
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia, and that includes what is now present
17:06
Speaker 1: day Vietnam. So he was like, I'm gonna make everything modern.
17:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put into all this modern infrastructure in Hannoi.
17:15
Speaker 1: I want you to feel like you're walking in France
17:19
Speaker 1: when you walk in Hannoi and it kind of worked
17:23
Speaker 1: for a while. You know, they built things in a
17:26
Speaker 1: lot of European styles. Uh. He was very, very proud
17:30
Speaker 1: in particular of bringing what he saw as the modern
17:33
Speaker 1: European toilet to Hannoi. Yeah, you know the French and
17:37
Speaker 1: their their bi days and all of that. They're really
17:39
Speaker 1: big on on toilet training. It's it's it's it's it's
17:41
Speaker 1: a it's a huge part of the culture. So they
17:44
Speaker 1: wanted to distinguish French Hannoi from the rest of the country.
17:48
Speaker 1: And there was already a massive network of sewers that
17:52
Speaker 1: ran under the French section of the city, and there
17:56
Speaker 1: was a smaller network of these tunnels that served specifically
18:01
Speaker 1: the neighborhoods where Vietnamese people actually lived. It was seen
18:07
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the French overlords is kind of
18:10
Speaker 1: a sign of of this I'm not joking this you know,
18:13
Speaker 1: culture of kind of cleanliness and civility. So it wasn't
18:17
Speaker 1: a great look or feeling or or vibe in general
18:21
Speaker 1: when massive sewer rats started literally popping out of toilets
18:26
Speaker 1: that were connected to them. Yeah, they didn't have a
18:29
Speaker 1: they didn't have the little s shape. Probably that's in most, uh,
18:34
Speaker 1: most commodes that people are familiar with, rats literally began
18:38
Speaker 1: emerging for the drains. And I mentioned this off air,
18:41
Speaker 1: but it's pretty common fear. A lot of people have
18:43
Speaker 1: both snakes and rats emerging from commodes. Uh, you don't
18:49
Speaker 1: have personal experience with this, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
18:53
Speaker 1: thankfully the freaking lid was down, but I just heard
18:56
Speaker 1: something rustling about in there, and I'm like, it was
18:59
Speaker 1: like a movie moment, you know, where I'm like slowly
19:02
Speaker 1: lifting up there and there's this big honking, nasty wet
19:05
Speaker 1: sewer rat in there. I had to do it. I
19:08
Speaker 1: had to kind of take a beat. I don't remember exactly.
19:10
Speaker 1: I think I had called a braver friend than me
19:13
Speaker 1: who kind of helped me with the situation. But yeah,
19:17
Speaker 1: he helped me bag it and tag it and toss it.
19:20
Speaker 1: It was really gross and really scary, and thankfully I
19:23
Speaker 1: wasn't sitting on the thing at the time. Well you
19:26
Speaker 1: probably would have heard something, so uh, yes, yes, I'm
19:30
Speaker 1: glad as well. I've had rats emerged from drains in kitchens,
19:36
Speaker 1: not like the kitchen sink, but like a back access
19:39
Speaker 1: area where piping goes outside during floods. Things like that,
19:44
Speaker 1: and you know, when New York floods, for instance, you'll
19:47
Speaker 1: see a proliferation of rats. Rats are incredibly intelligent creatures.
19:53
Speaker 1: If you're looking for a fun nonfiction book to read
19:56
Speaker 1: and the phobia is not too much for you, there's
19:59
Speaker 1: a great book out there named Just Rats, and it's
20:02
Speaker 1: about all their amazing abilities. I think that one focuses
20:05
Speaker 1: on rats in New York, but both Robert Lamb, friend
20:07
Speaker 1: of the show, and myself were big fans of that book. Anyway,
20:11
Speaker 1: here's what happens. Paul her buddy Paul d His vision
20:17
Speaker 1: was pretty ambitious and he did follow through on it.
20:21
Speaker 1: Under his direction, the French colonial government laid out almost
20:27
Speaker 1: ten miles more than nine miles of sewer pipe beneath Hannoy.
20:31
Speaker 1: But when it did that, it accidentally created a really
20:36
Speaker 1: cool new suburb for rodents. The temperature wasn't crazy, it
20:41
Speaker 1: was nice and dark. Predators get didn't go down there.
20:46
Speaker 1: So the first like Rat, Adam and Eve, of these
20:50
Speaker 1: miles of sewer pipe are able to reproduce like never before.
20:55
Speaker 1: And if they get hungry, then they've pretty much got
21:00
Speaker 1: a road system underground that takes them to the most
21:05
Speaker 1: expensive part of town which I'll have the nicest food,
21:09
Speaker 1: which I'll have the nicest trash, and then they can
21:12
Speaker 1: go back and they can reproduce again. They multiplied exponentially
21:18
Speaker 1: until they overran their nifty new subterranean suburb, and then
21:24
Speaker 1: they skittered to the surface. That's enough alliteration for me today.
21:28
Speaker 1: I accidentally improved myself into a corner with that one.
21:32
Speaker 1: But it's a good corner, Ben. It was a very
21:35
Speaker 1: classy corner that you find, thinks man, Well, you know
21:38
Speaker 1: what happens historically, there are some stereotypes about rats, and
21:41
Speaker 1: unfortunately some of them are a little bit you know,
21:45
Speaker 1: based in fact. As if being overrun with rodents didn't
21:50
Speaker 1: disrupt this illusion of old world Europe already, the bubonic
21:58
Speaker 1: plague started started popping. All the bubbles are coming. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 1: that's the that's the thing. Rats were carrying that that
22:09
Speaker 1: that particular bug and spreading it around, you know, through
22:14
Speaker 1: far and wide, through through this network of sewage pipes.
22:18
Speaker 1: It was a pretty pretty bad scene. We had cases
22:22
Speaker 1: starting to present themselves. This is when it became much
22:26
Speaker 1: less an issue of decorum and civility and much more
22:29
Speaker 1: of like a public health disaster. That needed to be
22:32
Speaker 1: dealt with. So enter Vietnamese rat hunters. Very similar situation
22:39
Speaker 1: to what we had in Delhi, only I believe these
22:43
Speaker 1: were sanctioned or hired. Right. This wasn't like a kind
22:47
Speaker 1: of mercenary system with a bounty. This is like these
22:51
Speaker 1: were hired by the colonial government. Um they would go
22:55
Speaker 1: down into the sewers to hunt down the rat and
22:57
Speaker 1: then get paid per rat. But still when you're when
23:03
Speaker 1: you're paying per rat, though, similar kind of situation is
23:08
Speaker 1: going to present itself where it's like, gosh, it sure
23:10
Speaker 1: is a pain hunting these rats down on the sewer. Um.
23:14
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a workaround. There's got to be a better way,
23:19
Speaker 1: says says the main character of every made for TV commercial. Uh, yes, yeah,
23:26
Speaker 1: that's the idea. They began what is called the Great
23:29
Speaker 1: Annoy Rat Massacre. It's April two, the last week of
23:35
Speaker 1: the month. In that last week alone, almost eight thousand
23:39
Speaker 1: rats are murderized, uh, seven thousand nine to be exact.
23:46
Speaker 1: That's just the beginning. Because the rate of the rate
23:50
Speaker 1: of murders of rat assassinations, we'll get there one day.
23:55
Speaker 1: These continued as time went on. The death toll in
24:01
Speaker 1: May got to be around four thousand rats per day
24:07
Speaker 1: by May. Just that day alone, just that twenty four
24:12
Speaker 1: hour period, the rat hunters and rat catchers killed fifteen
24:17
Speaker 1: thousand plus rats. Yeah, I mean it started off in earnest.
24:23
Speaker 1: It was an absolute, you know, rat apocalypse, a rat apocalypse.
24:28
Speaker 1: I'll take that one, um, you know, and yeah, what
24:31
Speaker 1: was it like twenty twelve rats in a single day.
24:34
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what methods were used for killing
24:38
Speaker 1: the rats, presumably the government didn't care. But we do
24:41
Speaker 1: know about this period is from a Storian named Michael
24:43
Speaker 1: Van who was in France doing some research on French colonialism,
24:47
Speaker 1: and he came upon a file that was called Destruction
24:50
Speaker 1: of Animals Rats uh, inside of which he found some
24:55
Speaker 1: kind of esoteric, not particularly well organized paperwork listing numbers
25:00
Speaker 1: of rats that were exterminated in Hanoi around that time
25:04
Speaker 1: throughout the century. He this begged the question to Van,
25:08
Speaker 1: like what would happen to these rats? How were they destroyed? Um?
25:13
Speaker 1: And it really wasn't clear. But he wrote a paper
25:16
Speaker 1: on the rat masker and he kind of described the
25:19
Speaker 1: nasty business of of rat hunting leslie uh quote. One
25:23
Speaker 1: had to enter the dark and cramped sewer system, make
25:26
Speaker 1: one's way through human waste in various forms of decay,
25:30
Speaker 1: and hunt down a relatively fierce wild animal which could
25:34
Speaker 1: be carrying fleas with the bubonic plague or other contagious diseases.
25:39
Speaker 1: This is not even to mention the probable existence of
25:41
Speaker 1: numerous other dangerous animals such as snakes, spiders, and other
25:45
Speaker 1: creatures that make this author's skin crawl with anxiety. Yeah. Yeah,
25:51
Speaker 1: they realized that. They realized that this was a dangerous
25:57
Speaker 1: job for these rat hunters, these government sanctioned rat hunters.
26:01
Speaker 1: But perhaps more importantly, they realized even as these rat
26:07
Speaker 1: hunters were working full time, they weren't doing much to
26:11
Speaker 1: stem the growth of the rat population. So the colonial
26:14
Speaker 1: powers do what colonial powers from Britain did in India.
26:21
Speaker 1: They opened the gates. They said, look, if you live here,
26:24
Speaker 1: you don't have to be a government sanctioned rat hunter.
26:28
Speaker 1: You give us a rat tail at any municipal office
26:32
Speaker 1: and we will give you one cent. So you're on
26:34
Speaker 1: a one cent per rat tail commission. And they wanted
26:37
Speaker 1: rat tails so that the government would not be flooded
26:41
Speaker 1: with a bunch of full rat carcasses, which prompted Dr Van,
26:47
Speaker 1: who sounds like a fun guy to hang out with,
26:49
Speaker 1: actually brought the doctor Van to say, who's this poor
26:53
Speaker 1: guy who has to sit around and count all the
26:55
Speaker 1: rat tails? And factions of the French colonial government were
26:59
Speaker 1: pretty happy with this because they have been encouraging like
27:04
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship in Vietnam, and they thought it was working. Tails
27:09
Speaker 1: were pouring in. Then there was something else they saw.
27:14
Speaker 1: It was all around town there were rats that were
27:17
Speaker 1: alive and for the most part healthy, They just didn't
27:21
Speaker 1: have their tails turned out. The hunters would rather take
27:32
Speaker 1: the tail, then take a healthy rat which is capable
27:37
Speaker 1: of breeding and creating a bunch of rats. Then take
27:39
Speaker 1: a rat with those tales out of commission. So you
27:44
Speaker 1: would kill the animal and you let it go to
27:46
Speaker 1: breed to make more rats who would have more tails,
27:48
Speaker 1: and you would cut those tails and then you would
27:49
Speaker 1: sell those for a cent and you would let those
27:51
Speaker 1: rats go and they would reproduce. And additionally, Noel Max
27:56
Speaker 1: some people were smuggling rats into the city and then
28:03
Speaker 1: all the cobra effects. This is the effect at large. Yes,
28:12
Speaker 1: so they felt that they were pop up farming operations
28:17
Speaker 1: that were breeding rats out in the outskirts of hannoy,
28:20
Speaker 1: and of course don't cut the rat's tail off. It
28:23
Speaker 1: sucks for the animal, of course, it sucks for the Yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's cruel. All of this is horribly cruel.
28:29
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a situation that's that's very difficult
28:32
Speaker 1: because you know, you can't have rats just shooting out
28:36
Speaker 1: of toilet's willy nilly. That's no good for anybody, not
28:39
Speaker 1: just because it's gross, but again they're they're plague carriers,
28:42
Speaker 1: so you do have to do something about it. But
28:45
Speaker 1: this is a great example of that human ingenuity. And
28:48
Speaker 1: I'm using that word as a stand in for greed
28:50
Speaker 1: and laziness. Um, essentially in this situation, Uh, it's it's
28:55
Speaker 1: it's really rearing its ugly head. Um. Ben. Are you
28:57
Speaker 1: familiar with the myth of the idea of a rat king? Yes, yes,
29:02
Speaker 1: the bundle of it again. I literally read a book
29:05
Speaker 1: just called rats. Yeah yeah, but it's not true, right, Like,
29:09
Speaker 1: there's really no real evidence that this is a thing,
29:11
Speaker 1: but it's the idea. Fair listener of like this, like
29:14
Speaker 1: cluster of rats that have entangled themselves together with their
29:19
Speaker 1: tails kind of becoming this giant knotted thing. And essentially
29:23
Speaker 1: they've like become this single organism or something like, was
29:27
Speaker 1: there more to it than that been? Or is that
29:28
Speaker 1: essentially it's the urban legend of it. It's the urban legend. There.
29:33
Speaker 1: There's a great the earliest report goes back to like
29:36
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds, I think. But there's a great, great
29:40
Speaker 1: podcast on this. Uh stuff to blow your mind. The
29:43
Speaker 1: second time I'm shouting out Robert Lamb today, I believe
29:45
Speaker 1: that they have a podcast episode entirely on the rat King.
29:51
Speaker 1: I think some have been found because it can happen
29:53
Speaker 1: when they're in crowded conditions. I believe there was one
29:58
Speaker 1: that was filmed in twenty twenty one and the rats,
30:02
Speaker 1: you'll be happy to know, we're saved. Their tails were untangled.
30:06
Speaker 1: This was in Russia. But I think the part, I
30:09
Speaker 1: think you're right that the the big mythical part is
30:13
Speaker 1: that it moves as one organism. It's just a bunch
30:15
Speaker 1: of separate organisms that unfortunately got the tails tangled. Um yeah,
30:22
Speaker 1: so still don't cut off the tails the rat king. God,
30:26
Speaker 1: it's fascinating, fascinating lore. But you know, the French didn't
30:30
Speaker 1: care at this point. They just wanted the rats gone
30:34
Speaker 1: and they had failed. They have failed at least in
30:41
Speaker 1: regards to pest eradication. But they have one out because
30:44
Speaker 1: they did make a bunch of entrepreneurs and everybody living
30:48
Speaker 1: in the city, from the wealthiest to the most impoverished,
30:53
Speaker 1: just said, I guess we all have rats as roommates.
30:56
Speaker 1: Now that's where we're at. But it turns out, Noel,
31:01
Speaker 1: the French forces were right about at least one thing.
31:06
Speaker 1: The rats really were carrying bubonic plague. The bubos were
31:12
Speaker 1: coming in nineteen o six because the rats have been
31:15
Speaker 1: able to multiply without without predators of any sort or
31:21
Speaker 1: without human interference there in the sewer. There was an
31:24
Speaker 1: outbreak of bubonic plague in Hanoi, tragically. That's right, and
31:29
Speaker 1: the backtrack really quickly. There are several images of rat
31:33
Speaker 1: kings that you can find on the internet. One was
31:35
Speaker 1: discovered in Estonia. Uh not that long ago. This article
31:40
Speaker 1: on the Guardia was from one um and the thirteen
31:44
Speaker 1: rats entangled together, several of which are already dead. Uh
31:47
Speaker 1: it's really pretty gnarly and um it's considered to be
31:50
Speaker 1: an omen of plague. Uh so yeah, that's right. There
31:55
Speaker 1: was an outbreak and again you could really blame this
31:59
Speaker 1: on these these rat hunters not doing what they were
32:03
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing. But also, I mean, of course
32:04
Speaker 1: it's the government's job to oversee this program that they've created.
32:09
Speaker 1: Their dollar is essentially feeding this, you know, um, this
32:14
Speaker 1: workaround that they have not yet become wise to, right,
32:18
Speaker 1: so you can get it's sort of a twofold problem
32:20
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, irresponsibility of people just not
32:23
Speaker 1: thinking about the big picture and just wanting to get
32:26
Speaker 1: that that that money, and also the government administering a
32:30
Speaker 1: program that is just inherently ineffective. Would you guys save
32:34
Speaker 1: roaches if the city you lived in gave you a bounty? Not? Yeah,
32:40
Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not. It's one of the few animals
32:42
Speaker 1: I'm not a friend of. I respect them, and they
32:46
Speaker 1: may well last beyond humanity, But I don't know. If
32:49
Speaker 1: I want to keep a jar, it have to be
32:51
Speaker 1: a high bounty, you know what I mean. You have
32:54
Speaker 1: to be like that's insane. You could make you could
32:59
Speaker 1: make a living doing that. You would breed roaches cobra effect.
33:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, as someone who's lived in a
33:04
Speaker 1: house with a cockroach infestation, I mean, hey, you don't
33:08
Speaker 1: need to breathe them. They just do that on their
33:10
Speaker 1: own and be absolutely not early experienced enough of that
33:16
Speaker 1: that he's just scarred, all right. Man, So I'm hearing
33:21
Speaker 1: that for Halloween, you're gonna be you wanna like become
33:25
Speaker 1: the enemy? Do you want to become the cockroach? We
33:27
Speaker 1: can get you one of those cool costumes with the arms.
33:31
Speaker 1: How did you make that leap from what I said?
33:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, It's just it's a cool costume idea.
33:37
Speaker 1: Tell you what, Tell you what. We'll put a pin
33:39
Speaker 1: in it. We'll wait till we get closer to October.
33:41
Speaker 1: See how you feel. Can we do with the horse
33:43
Speaker 1: thing where like on the head of the cockroach and
33:45
Speaker 1: you're you're like the feet of it. We're dodem but
33:49
Speaker 1: we could. We'll work on something and will be able
33:51
Speaker 1: to do so because we do not have bubonic plague.
33:55
Speaker 1: At least two hundred and sixty three people died as
33:59
Speaker 1: it was all too this nights, you know, six outbreak,
34:02
Speaker 1: which is a relatively small number considering the types of
34:06
Speaker 1: plagues that we've been you know, reading about and living
34:09
Speaker 1: through of late. But still that's that's that's a lot.
34:13
Speaker 1: That's a lot of human lives that could have been
34:15
Speaker 1: saved if only this had been monitored a little more closely. Yeah,
34:20
Speaker 1: and most of the people who died, at least that
34:25
Speaker 1: we know of, were themselves actually actual Vietnamese people. Despite
34:31
Speaker 1: this tragedy, Paul Domeo's reputation is repaired. He has returned
34:40
Speaker 1: home to France and he becomes celebrated as quote the
34:44
Speaker 1: most effective governor general evendo China date he went on
34:49
Speaker 1: to become president. And Van has this wonderful observation, I
34:54
Speaker 1: think we should you're reading full and also hat tipped
34:58
Speaker 1: to our pals Atlas obscure for the US because they
35:01
Speaker 1: pulled this excerpt, and I quite like it. It's sort
35:04
Speaker 1: of a morality tale for the arrogance of modernity that
35:08
Speaker 1: we put so much faith into science and reason and
35:10
Speaker 1: using industry to solve every problem. This is the same
35:14
Speaker 1: kind of mindset that lead to World War One, the
35:17
Speaker 1: idea that the machine gun, because it kills so efficiently,
35:21
Speaker 1: is going to lead to a quick war, and what
35:24
Speaker 1: that actually led to is a long war where many
35:27
Speaker 1: many people lost their lives. And he goes on to
35:31
Speaker 1: talk about how the Great Hannoi Rat massacre is often
35:34
Speaker 1: cited as an example of the Cobra effect, and the
35:37
Speaker 1: Cobra effect as we've established an economic theory about how
35:40
Speaker 1: incentives in a complex system can lead to unintended consequences.
35:46
Speaker 1: And this sometimes gets inspires people to say, well, you
35:51
Speaker 1: know what's bad. You know what's bad, right, any government
35:54
Speaker 1: intervention of any kind. But he says that misses the point.
36:01
Speaker 1: He says, you have to make sure that you have
36:04
Speaker 1: to make sure that people are taking honest looks at
36:06
Speaker 1: the evidence around them instead of ignoring it. Uh. And
36:11
Speaker 1: then he adds, this is one beautiful moment where let's
36:16
Speaker 1: see noise said Dr Van was doing this research in
36:19
Speaker 1: the nineties when you found that folder. This was as
36:26
Speaker 1: he was searching through this file. Uh, this file cabinet
36:30
Speaker 1: or excuse me, a card catalog a rat and real
36:35
Speaker 1: quick over his hand while it was in the in
36:38
Speaker 1: the drawer, which to him meant the French forces had
36:42
Speaker 1: tried to kill all the rats. They tried to rule Vietnam.
36:49
Speaker 1: They failed in both regards, but you know it's still
36:52
Speaker 1: around the rats. The Bottomy sandwich. The Bottoy sandwich came
36:56
Speaker 1: about as a result. Yeah, it's a good sandwich. There's
36:58
Speaker 1: a great place called someone saying it perseveres to me.
37:01
Speaker 1: That is the lasting legacy of this relationship, even if
37:04
Speaker 1: the rest of it was an abject failure. You can
37:06
Speaker 1: get like six for five a great place here called
37:10
Speaker 1: Lee's Bakery. If you're if you're ever ever in Atlanta,
37:14
Speaker 1: do visit Buford Highway. It is a tremendous gift to
37:18
Speaker 1: the city. It's got some of the truly it's some
37:20
Speaker 1: of the most amazing food. Man, So we have cobras
37:24
Speaker 1: with rats, but we're not at the end of the story.
37:28
Speaker 1: The Cobra Effect continues. In fact, this is the first
37:33
Speaker 1: of a two part episode that we are going to do.
37:37
Speaker 1: And you know, there's some stuff we could have maybe
37:41
Speaker 1: glossed over. There's some stuff we didn't have to talk
37:43
Speaker 1: about in as much depth, but we we off Mike
37:48
Speaker 1: agree that there's stuff we don't want to skip. So
37:51
Speaker 1: please please tune in later this week for part two
37:54
Speaker 1: of the Cobra Effect, which takes us to the Great
37:58
Speaker 1: Leap Forward under Mouse Dong in China. It's a which
38:04
Speaker 1: I know is a particular area of fascination and expertise
38:08
Speaker 1: in your wheelhouse, Ben, So I figured it made sense
38:11
Speaker 1: to to keep this as its own episode. Plus it's
38:14
Speaker 1: four pests, right, We're talking about four pests here, and
38:17
Speaker 1: we haven't even talked about the organ Man. Do you
38:19
Speaker 1: guys remember those commercials where he's like a weird tune, like, yeah,
38:26
Speaker 1: he was a cyborg. That was cool. That was like
38:28
Speaker 1: some very high production value in those uh in those ads.
38:32
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I was impressed. So we'll get to
38:36
Speaker 1: a wait, No, I was just doing Trojan man. I
38:38
Speaker 1: was doing Trojans the same organ Man had had a
38:42
Speaker 1: theme to he sure did. I'll have to figure that
38:47
Speaker 1: out for next time. But yeah, so again we've got
38:49
Speaker 1: mouse state tongues, four pests, disaster looming on the horizon,
38:54
Speaker 1: which is just like even further escalation of the Cobra effect.
38:57
Speaker 1: In the meantime, find us online can do that thing. Um.
39:01
Speaker 1: We are Ridiculous History on Instagram and Facebook. You can
39:04
Speaker 1: join the Ridiculous Historians group on Facebook if you wish.
39:07
Speaker 1: You can find each of us, each of the three
39:10
Speaker 1: of us, as individual human people um on the internet.
39:13
Speaker 1: I am on Instagram exclusively at how now Noel Brown?
39:17
Speaker 1: How about you, fellas If you would like a behind
39:20
Speaker 1: the scenes peak at the things I am reading the
39:22
Speaker 1: things I am researching my future secret projects that I
39:26
Speaker 1: can't talk about just yet on air. Visit me on Twitter.
39:30
Speaker 1: I'm at Ben bulland hs W shout out to the
39:34
Speaker 1: listeners who participated in my riff on sanctions jokes. Stuff
39:39
Speaker 1: like sanctions are getting crazier and crazier. It's only a
39:42
Speaker 1: matter of time before Blockbuster Video releases a statement about
39:47
Speaker 1: the status of membership cards in Russia. You can also
39:51
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram, where I am at Ben bullan
39:54
Speaker 1: bo w l I N Mr Max Williams. Hey k
40:00
Speaker 1: A the cobra No mongoose, right, Ricky Ticky taving all
40:05
Speaker 1: that they hunt the moose, hunt the snake and the mongoose.
40:08
Speaker 1: How come they didn't deploy any mongooses in that whole
40:11
Speaker 1: O G cobra effects story. Are you gonna have the
40:13
Speaker 1: whole deal? The mongoose is the natural enemy of the
40:15
Speaker 1: of the cobra, Yeah, according to popularized by Richard Kipling,
40:19
Speaker 1: for sure, but also the I think the British colonials
40:24
Speaker 1: just really didn't know what they were doing in a
40:26
Speaker 1: lot of general, lot of senses because they didn't imagine,
40:28
Speaker 1: they didn't listen to the people who lived their thousands
40:31
Speaker 1: thousands of years anyway, speaking of authorities, Mr Max Williams,
40:37
Speaker 1: go on Twitter. I am on Twitter. You can find
40:39
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at at l Underscore Max Williams. You
40:42
Speaker 1: can I'll see some of my other work that I'm
40:44
Speaker 1: doing on my other show Ephemeral. You do that by
40:46
Speaker 1: searching at ephemeral dot show. And thanks as always to
40:50
Speaker 1: super producer Max Williams, Thanks to Casey Pegram who must
40:55
Speaker 1: must must return soon, and thanks of course to our
40:58
Speaker 1: favorite snake in the grass, the cobras, who are mongoose
41:02
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland a k a. The Quist confirmed by the
41:06
Speaker 1: way the Internet says. Mongooses are known for their ability
41:09
Speaker 1: to fight and kill venomous snakes, especially cobras. They're specialized
41:14
Speaker 1: Achille colleen receptors render them immune to venom there like
41:19
Speaker 1: the honey badger, while they're thick coats and quick speed,
41:22
Speaker 1: also coming handy during conflicts. You think someone would have
41:25
Speaker 1: told the Brits about this. We'll see you next time.
41:37
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
41:39
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
41:42
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.