Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / On the Job

Transcript

On the Job · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: If you're a fan of reality TV, then you might
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: have seen the British television show World's Most Dangerous Roads.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: The host travelsome of the most treacherous roads the world over,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: taking viewers through hairpin turns and dizzy heights. Or maybe
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you're a fan of Deadliest Catch, a series that follows
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: crab fishermen braving rough weather and rogue waves out on
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the bearing Straight. We have long had a fascinating with
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: dangerous jobs and those who perform them. Like Ronan. He
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: spent years working a deadly job as well, But unlike
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: reality stars, he doesn't do it for the money. In fact,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: he doesn't get paid at all. Every day he risks
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: his life to help make communities safer, and he does
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it for free. On a hot April morning in twenty
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: twenty five, Ronan arrived at the commune of Schwa'oram in Cambodia,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: where he'd been working for the past four years. His
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: job is perilous and few are qualified to do it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: He arrived at the edge of a vast grassy valley
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: marked by a series of metal poles. These poles hold
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: up a grid of high wires that Ronan uses to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: move across the field section by section. It's taken years
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to canvass the entire area, but all he has left
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: now is a small section in the corner by the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: jungle tree line. For safety, his partners clip him into
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a bright red harness so that his feet barely touched
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the ground, and then light as air. He makes his
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: way mission impossible style, across the grid, searching for any
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: indication that there might be something lethal buried beneath the grass.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Over the past four years, Ronan has found dozens of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: buried land mines, all left over from the Cambodian Vietnamese War.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He works for a Dutch organization called the Anti Personnel
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Landmines Detection Product Development or at POPO for short. Their
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: mission is to travel the world clearing out land mine
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: fields left behind in former conflict zones. It's estimated that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: there are more than one hundred and ten million land
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: mines buried in sixty countries around the world, but the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: number of land mines in Cambodia has been especially treacherous.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Over the last forty five years, land mines have caused
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: more than sixty five thousand deaths in Cambodia and more
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: cases of amputation due to land mines than in any
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: other country in the world. But at Popo is committed
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: to change that with the help of highly skilled workers
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: like Ronan. Since they were founded twenty five years ago,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: they have cleared almost one hundred and seventy fires, land mines,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and other explosives, making the world a safer place. One
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of the amazing things about Ronan is that rather than
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: scanning the landscape for signs of these deadly devices with
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: his eyes, he uses a different method his sense of smell.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: The chemical compounds found in land mines can be detected,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and when he locates one, Ronan points out its location
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to his partners By doing something incredibly risky, he stands
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: on top of it. Thankfully, Ronan does it way enough
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to actually detonate the land mine. In fact, he only
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: clocks in at roughly three pounds, and that's because Ronan
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: isn't human. No, He's an African giant pouched rat, the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: largest species of rats in the world. He's about three
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: feet long from nose to tail, with oversized ears and
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a bullet shaped face, and like most giant pouch rats,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: he is highly intelligent, with a keen sense of smell,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: which makes him an ideal candidate for this kind of work.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: In fact, at Popo, rats are trained to detect far
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: more than land mines. Some of Ronan's co workers are
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: capable of smelling tuberculosis in medical settings to help stop
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the spread of the deadly disease. They can also sniff
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: out earthquake survivors buried beneath rubble, and detect smuggled wildlife
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: parts like elephant tusks to help catch poachers. But few
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: rats are as prolific as Ronan. In fact, earlier this year,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: he became the first Apopo rat to detect one hundred
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: land mines, setting a new world record, and in the
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: days that followed, he finished his sweep of that particular valley,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: detecting nine more. That is, one hundred and nine more
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: lives potentially saved and one hundred and nine land mines
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: rated out. You may have heard the phrase the gold standard,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: but it's not something most people fully understand. And sure,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: we know that gold is valuable, and they might be
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: aware that the American government keeps a lot of it
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: at Fort Knox, but mostly just because of the James
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Bond movie Goldfinger. In reality, the gold standard is no
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: longer in use, although gold still holds its value. It's
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a long curious history, one that includes multiple well known presidents.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt inherited a catastrophic economy when he
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: took office in nineteen thirty three. The nineteen twenties had
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: been prosperous, but led to overproduction, overspending, and over speculation
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that caused the stock market to crash in nineteen twenty
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: nine and the subsequent Great Depression to follow. Herbert Hoover,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the president before FDR, tried to solve the problem by
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: raising tariffs on other countries and revoking the work visas
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of almost two million Mexican immigrants. He hoped to make
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: more off the exports to other countries and to provide
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: more jobs for Americans, but neither action worked. The other
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: countries just raised tariffs of their own in return, and
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the loss of Mexican immigrants actually led to more unemployments
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: among American citizens as corporations suffered from the loss of
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: cheap labor. While assessing the situation, FDR felt that the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: United States needed to incentivize other countries to buy its exports. Again,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the country was suffering from deflation. In other words, prices
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: had far exceeded demand because no one was buying anything anymore. Also,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: at this time, most global currencies were based on what
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: was known as the gold standard, the idea that the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: government of a country could back up its currency with
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: actual physical gold. In nineteen thirty three, a US dollar
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was worth one twentieth of an ounce of gold. Some
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: feared that the government would try to print more dollars
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to pay off its debts, and this would mean that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: money was worth even less than gold, and so Americans
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: started to hoard what gold they had. The idea was
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that even if the dollar became worthless, the perceived intrinsic
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: value of gold might still make it worth something. A
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: bit confusing, but keep in mind economics is all just
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: about perceived value. A dollar or a stock is valuable
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: because people agree that it's valuable. Gold is a rare
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: mineral with many practical applications, but the majority of it
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: is used to make jewelry. It has value because humans
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: have simply decided that it does. And with all of
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: this in mind, FDR came up with a very controversial
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: solution to solve the country's problems all at once. He
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: issued Executive Order six' one zero, two which made it
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: illegal For americans to old gold bullion or. Coins they
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: had to trade it into the government for. DOLLARS fdr
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: also began printing more dollars and reduced the value of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a dollar from one twentieth of an ounce of gold
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to one thirty fifth of an ounce of. Gold this
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: basically created the scenario that individual gold hoarders had hoped
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: would benefit, them but instead it allowed it to benefit
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the federal. Government and this might have hurt the Average
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: american if it wasn't for the fact that it completely
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: reinvated the. Economy with The american dollar now, Worthless american
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: goods were now in higher demand overseas because they were.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Cheaper american manufacturers could resume high levels of, production attract,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: investors and employ more. Workers, meanwhile the government could leverage
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: its gold reserves to spend more on government programs that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: also benefited the Average. American the gold standard was effectively
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: ended in THE us because now gold was just a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: commodity that the government bought and, sold not this all
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: powerful resource that the dollar depended. On it continued to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: be illegal to own, gold although gold, jewelry, artwork and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: manufactured parts were allowed all the way up until nineteen seventy.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Four today you can buy gold like you might buy
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: a publicly traded, stock or even purchase physical coins and
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: bars that you can. Hold that, is of, course if
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you can afford. It so the next time someone uses
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the phrase the gold, standard just remember how complicated that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: idea really is and how our move away from it
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: transformed the. WORLD i hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of The cabinet Of. Curiosities subscribe for free On Apple,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: podcasts or learn more about the show by Visiting curiosities
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: podcast dot. Com the show was created by Me Aaron
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: mankey in partnership with How Stuff. WORKS i make another
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: award winning show Called, lore which is a, podcast book,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: series and television, show and you can learn all about
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it over at the worldoflore dot, com and until next,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: time stay. Curious