Latest / Ridiculous History / The Cobra Effect, Part 2: Four Pests and a Disastrous Success

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The Cobra Effect, Part 2: Four Pests and a Disastrous Success · 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. That's our one and only
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: super producer, pest controller, all around man at arms not
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: paid in rat tails. Mr Max Williams. Give him a hand,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: just don't give him a rat tail. Uh. They called
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: me Ben. I went with a snake bite last time.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna have a new moniker by the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: end of this I suspect and and nol in the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: time between now and our previous episode, did you have
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to resort to your serpentine street name? Not yet man,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: not yet Still, I'm still sitting on that one. I'm
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: also reserving, like shaving my beard for when that moment comes.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: God forbid, because I will be unrealizable. I've been rocking
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: this thing since I was about fourteen, so I will
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: be a completely new person. Uh. Maybe I'll have to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: wear an eyepatch or something to go along with my
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: badass snake nickname. I got eyepatches. I got a eyepatch guy. Um,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, that conversation. It's a true story, folks. Uh,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Noel and I are good friends. We've known each other
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: for a number of years. And of course friend of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the show, the guy who does the actual work here,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Max Williams, you are a famous friend. You've you've known,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: You've known uh Noel for a while too, and this
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is a true fact. This is what I'm gonna call
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a hashtag nold fat. When we first met, we're first
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: becoming friends all these years ago. I had asked this guy.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I said, oh, man, you know, we're talking about beer
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and I'll grow mine out every so often until I
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: miss soup. And Uh I was talking with Nolan said
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: so hey, man, like, how long you've been growing the beard?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: And that's when I learned that my friend has ever
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: since he grew facial hair, he has always had a beard.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I believe once you showed me one picture of you
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: from years and years back where you did not have
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a beard. I think it was maybe a photo from
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a band you were in. Well, yeah, so that's funny.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Even the photo from the band that I was in,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: um I still was rocking, sort of a little bit
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of a chin strap kind of situation. Um My kid
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: found a CD that I made with the band that
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I was in in nineteen If you want to date me.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I was about fifteen, I think, and I still had
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  Speaker 1: kind of a little fred Durst, little soul patch beard situation. UM,
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  Speaker 1: very very funny looking. But yeah, from then on I
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  Speaker 1: just kind of let it ride. Well it looks good man,
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  Speaker 1: it excuse and not everyone can pull it off. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: we are returning to another example of people not being
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: able to pull something off. There we go, that's our segue. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: We talked previously about something called the Cobra effect. We've
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  Speaker 1: seen this phenomenon occur in India. We saw it occur
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  Speaker 1: in hannoy Uh or in Via Nam rather and both
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  Speaker 1: times it happened during eras of colonial rule. Today we're
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  Speaker 1: seeing the Cobra effect take place in a nearby part
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of the world, but under much different circumstances. Long story short,
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  Speaker 1: The Cobra effect basically describes unintended consequences of decisions in
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: complex systems. It's a game of public health, and it's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a very tough game. You know. You have to ask yourself,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: how do you get a bunch of people a k a.
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  Speaker 1: The public to change their behavior for the common good
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  Speaker 1: without um, without going too far in one direction, and
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  Speaker 1: still managing to get everybody to follow along with you
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  Speaker 1: and not think you're an iron fisted dictator or authoritarian.
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  Speaker 1: It's tough because you know, we see it even now
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  Speaker 1: with the idea of people wearing masks during the height
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  Speaker 1: of the COVID pandemic, right, or the idea of getting
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: people to stay home and not go to big celebrations
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  Speaker 1: close together, you know, having spit contests or whatever. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you also have to pay for it, you have to, like,
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  Speaker 1: that's one of the big things. We saw this in Delhi,
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  Speaker 1: we saw this in Hallinois. It was the idea that
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  Speaker 1: you could incentivize people to help eradicate pest. You could
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  Speaker 1: crowdsource pest eradication by paying folks. But in today's episode,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: we're looking at a slightly different governing structure. In the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forties, just a few decades after what went down
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  Speaker 1: with rats in Vietnam, the People's Republic of China found
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  Speaker 1: themselves in a tough spot. That's right. I mean, I
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  Speaker 1: think that's no secret that the leadership of the People's
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  Speaker 1: Republic of China has typically operated with that iron fist
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  Speaker 1: that you speak of. You know, one way of getting
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  Speaker 1: things done, it's just by not taking no for an answer,
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  Speaker 1: not really caring about people's feelings or the feelings of
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  Speaker 1: the public, or having to you know, negotiate with a
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  Speaker 1: competing political party. Uh not just sound like a dictatorship apologist.
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  Speaker 1: It certainly does simplify things to a degree. Um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and there are benevolent, more benevolent dictatorship type models, I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: But again that all depends on the whims of a
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  Speaker 1: single human and as we know, uh, those whims can
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  Speaker 1: be flighty. I mean, the nature of the word whim
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: in and of itself implies sort of like how am
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  Speaker 1: I feeling today? My feeling benevolent? Or am I feeling
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  Speaker 1: a little grouchy? Am I just gonna kind of bend
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  Speaker 1: people to you? My will? Exactly well said. And if
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  Speaker 1: you can use this power of centralized authority two just
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  Speaker 1: make things happen the way you would like them to happen,
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  Speaker 1: you honestly opened the door to even more unintended consequences
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  Speaker 1: because regardless of the kind of government you control, nature
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  Speaker 1: follows its own rules. To paraphrase the famous Jeff Goldblum,
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  Speaker 1: disease and vermin Uh find a way. So this is
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  Speaker 1: what happened. Today's story is about how the People's Republic
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  Speaker 1: of China did successfully accomplish an enormously difficult public health
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  Speaker 1: objective eradicating some diseases and eradicating vermin, but in doing
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: so they created and honest to god environmental catastrophee. Let's
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  Speaker 1: look at it. So communist forces gain power in the
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  Speaker 1: fall of nine teen forty nine, and when they do,
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  Speaker 1: China is already in a bad way. It is inundated
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  Speaker 1: with very dangerous infectious diseases. We're talking all the hits, tuberculosis, plague, cholera, malaria, polio, smallpox, hookworm.
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  Speaker 1: I almost want to max to drop a beat there.
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  Speaker 1: Point is they were endemic throughout a lot of the country.
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  Speaker 1: Roughly ten and a half million people had a liver
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  Speaker 1: parasite named shistos, somiasis, cholera. Epidemics happened like regularly, and
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't uncommon for thousands and thousands of people to
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  Speaker 1: die every year. Infant mortality was skyrocketing. It was a
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  Speaker 1: dangerous place to live. Yeah, it was a great article
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  Speaker 1: that goes into this in depth on NPR by Vicky Valentine,
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  Speaker 1: which a great name from November of two thousand five.
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  Speaker 1: So here's the gist. The Communist government UH did begin
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  Speaker 1: to initiate these why had spread mandatory vaccination campaigns UM
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  Speaker 1: against those UH the conditions that you're referring to, the
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  Speaker 1: plague smallpox. They've actuated nearly three hundred million people. They
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  Speaker 1: put into place UM sanitation measures to allow for clean
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: drinking water and the disposal of waste UM. And they
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  Speaker 1: actually copied the Soviet Unions model of healthcare. There were
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: all of these little kind of offshoots of medical and
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  Speaker 1: public health officials that UM were meant to focus more
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  Speaker 1: on UM being stewards of of healthcare to the population.
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  Speaker 1: They would actually go out into rural areas and treat
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  Speaker 1: diseases whenever possible. And we're talking about limited resources, we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about issues of logistics. We're talking about people doing
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  Speaker 1: their best under series of at times fluid constraints. Medical care, sanitation, immunization,
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  Speaker 1: all of that can make a big difference, but it
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  Speaker 1: can only do so much if you don't cut off
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  Speaker 1: the sources of an infection or the you know, the
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  Speaker 1: vectors of a disease at the root. And that meant
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  Speaker 1: you have to get rid of the pest that transmit
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  Speaker 1: those diseases. Think of malaria and mosquitoes, Think of the
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  Speaker 1: fleas on rodents that spread the plague, Think about flies.
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  Speaker 1: What about sparrows that eat the fruit from fields of
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  Speaker 1: grain and rice. Those sparrows aren't necessarily spreading disease. They
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  Speaker 1: are literally taking the food upon which human beings depend.
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  Speaker 1: These are our four pests, that's what they were called.
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  Speaker 1: Here that capital F here, that capital P four pest, flies, mosquitoes, rats,
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  Speaker 1: and weirdly enough, sparrows. Oh mind. But the thing about
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  Speaker 1: sparrows is they don't only eat that stuff that's meant
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  Speaker 1: for human consumption. They also eat some of those insects
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  Speaker 1: that spread those other diseases, right, which is going to
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  Speaker 1: be a big deal. Second, so this is all kind
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  Speaker 1: of wrapped up in what's known as the Great Leap Forward. Um, Ben,
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  Speaker 1: can you give us a little bit of background on then?
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  Speaker 1: I know this is very much an area of interest
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  Speaker 1: for you personally. Yeah. The what became called the Four
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  Speaker 1: Pest campaign was part of the Great Leap Forward, which
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  Speaker 1: is also known as the Second Five Year Plan. This
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  Speaker 1: was a massive economic and social campaign led by the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese Communist Party and particularly chairman Mao zed Dong and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the idea was we are going to take China's largely
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  Speaker 1: a grarian economy and we were and to transform it
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  Speaker 1: into a communist society. It is important if you're not
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  Speaker 1: familiar with anything other than the name Great Leap Forward.
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  Speaker 1: It is mission critical. It is crucial for you to
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  Speaker 1: realize that the name might be seen as misleading. Millions
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  Speaker 1: of people died in China during the Great Leap Forward.
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  Speaker 1: It's still a matter of debate today amongst historians. Estimates
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  Speaker 1: range from as little as fifteen million people dying to
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  Speaker 1: as many as fifty five million people dying. This is
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  Speaker 1: terrible stuff, but it's also a study in the tremendous
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  Speaker 1: balancing act and tremendous danger of affecting large scale change
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  Speaker 1: on a massive level as quickly as they attempted. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the Great Leap Forward. Um, this part of it, the
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  Speaker 1: four Pest campaign, was a health campaign and said we're
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  Speaker 1: targeting vermin that spread disease. If you kill small bothersome
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  Speaker 1: animals and insects, you are being a good communist. You
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  Speaker 1: are doing your part for the nation. So they were
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  Speaker 1: kind of paying people in like ideological points, if that
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  Speaker 1: makes sense. Instead of rat tails or cobra skins and
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  Speaker 1: which you know, one would argue is just as effective
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  Speaker 1: and maybe does not have the same potential for abuse.
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  Speaker 1: Uh if if the instructions being given to the good
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: people of communist China were in fact the right ones, right,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: because there's no way to really game the system for
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  Speaker 1: personal benefit, because in the communist system there really is
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  Speaker 1: no personal benefit. It's all for the good of the
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  Speaker 1: greater good. Right, Yeah, Yeah, And there were there were
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  Speaker 1: still you know, again we talked about the death toll.
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  Speaker 1: There were a lot of a lot of problems with
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: allocation of resources and logistics during the Great Leap Forward,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Like let's talk about nineteen fifty eight. All right, in
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  Speaker 1: ninety you're walking around China, you're going to be now
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  Speaker 1: living in a commune of some sort if you formerly
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: were just in a village on a farm. You are
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: also going to see a ton of propaganda that the
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  Speaker 1: government has issued to try to crowdsource tackling these four pests. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The weather was really nice in the harvest was good,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately the centralized government had sent a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: former farmers off to work in steel production, and the
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  Speaker 1: harvest was rotting because it wasn't getting collected. That's the
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  Speaker 1: thing about a harvest. You gotta get the stuff out
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  Speaker 1: of the ground, out of the field, and somehow process
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: it and get it to people so that they can
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  Speaker 1: need it. That just wasn't happening. But if you're let's
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  Speaker 1: say it's early, you don't know that this is about
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: to go down. You're seeing a lot of posters, and
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  Speaker 1: the posters are like, I love propaganda from this time period.
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  Speaker 1: The posters show kids hanging with their elders and all
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  Speaker 1: these art pieces, works of art that are telling the
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  Speaker 1: people of China to just carry around fly swatters, use guns,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: use gongs. Let's set to start them into submission. Well,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: it looks really good. Gongs are fun to draw on
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  Speaker 1: propaganda posters, and you can see them now online. If
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: you go to Chinese posters all one word dot net,
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  Speaker 1: you'll see one picture. I believe it's called Everybody comes
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  Speaker 1: to Beat Sparrows And it looks like there's some siblings.
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  Speaker 1: There's like an older brother and a younger sister, and
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  Speaker 1: the brother has a sling shot and the sister is
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  Speaker 1: just like holding dead sparrows. Uh. And then there's another
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  Speaker 1: one night, which is a knife cool looking knife daggerish
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  Speaker 1: based on the animals for scale and on it are
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  Speaker 1: the four pest mosquito, a fly, a sparrow, and a rat.
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  Speaker 1: And let me just tell you, Noel Max, I don't
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: know if it's just artistic license, but that fly is huge.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, is it? Is it? Like? I mean, the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac doesn't have like the year of the rat,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: like it wasn't the rat almost kind of like revered
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: in certain ways in the Chinese culture. Yeah, there is
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the year of the rat. The rat is one of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the astrological signs in Chinese astrology or the Chinese zodiac.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I believe was the last year of the rat. It
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: happens every twelve years in in the Chinese zodiac, the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: rat is served pretty quick witted, wise entity. And so
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: the idea is that if you if your sign in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Chinese civitiact is rat, it depends both on the year
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you're born and the time of year you're born, then
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  Speaker 1: you are quick witted, resourceful, and you're smart, but you're
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: kind of cowardly. Well, there's also different flavors of rat,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: like there are for you, like the metal the metal rat,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the fire rat, things like that. So we've established that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: this series of episodes is about unintended consequences. The first
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: episode focused largely on you know, individual people citizens gaming
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: these sort of government incentive programs. Um and you you
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: made a really good point earlier in the episode today, Ben,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: where you sort of aligned this or compared this with
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: maybe some of the programs that are happened that we're
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: happening through COVID relief and things like that, where while
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: they're intended to help people who really need it, we
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: also saw people using some of that need to buy
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: like expensive Pokemon cards. Where there's a government relief program,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: there's a way people are going to figure out how
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to take advantage of it. Today's episode is about much
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: more of an iron fisted, you know, unilateral approach where
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the only incentive for participating is to look good in
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the eyes of the all powerful government. So this program
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that you've been describing Ben through through these propaganda means,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: these posters and whatnot, and just kind of the rhetoric
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that was going around was wildly successful. We have some
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: stats here. I think it was something in the neighborhood
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  Speaker 1: of a billion sparrows were taken out, one point five
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: billion rats, I love this one. A hundred million kims
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of flies and eleven million kilograms of mosquitoes were absolutely destroyed.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So on that level, this was a screaming six tests.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it really worked. People were doing what they
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be doing. The fly swatters were out,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: people were you know, just outright murdering, Uh, sparrows by
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: hook or by crook, or by gong or by slingshot.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. The government significantly miscalculated, which is understandable.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I mean science, I was the fifties, I mean the science.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I think that the understanding of the balance of ecosystems
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: should have been pretty fully formed at this point, right,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: this kind of research. They are these webs of interconnectedness
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: with different species, and how you know this balance exists?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I think it should have been available, should have been
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: on the table. But for whatever reason, whether through pure
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: blind patriotism or some megalomaniacal sense of purpose that it
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: often comes along with these kinds of dictatorships. Uh, this
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  Speaker 1: this connection was ignored. And the connection I'm referring to
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: is the role of the sparrow in maintaining a balance,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: because as we mentioned, yeah, sparrows are a pest, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that they'll pick through your fields and eat your your
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: fruits and your seeds and all that, and they can
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: cause a problem. But there's a there's another species of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: critter that could cause even more of a problem, like
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a biblical level problem, the humble on its own locusts.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: But as we know, locusts don't just hang on their own.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Locusts roll deep, like really deep, millions and millions of
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: them that can just swarm these fields. And just we've
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: we've seen it, pitt I mean not I haven't seen
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: it personally, but that we've seen it depicted in film.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: And I think there's probably footage out there of literally
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: these just waves of locusts coming in and just you know,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: leaving a skeletal remain of what once was there in
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: terms of these crops or harvests. Um. And it turns
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: out that sparrows also eat locusts. They would if they
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: were alive. Yes, yes, the circle of life indeed, And
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that's what happens when you break the circle. The sp
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: arrows were doing something, and without sparrows fulfilling that predator role,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the locusts just went ham It went hard. In the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: paint in addition to, as you said, a disaster on
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the level of a biblical plague, the Great Leap Forward
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: involved some new ideas about agriculture, and the agricultural techniques
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: they implemented just made things worse. There's a great quote
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you can read it and Discover magazine dot com that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: says the mass deaths of sparrows and nationwide loss of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: crops resulted in untold millions starving. And they put the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: number at twenty to thirty million people died from nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty eight nineteen sixty two, and it was a demographic crisis.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: The amount of people dying changed the nation for generations
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to come. And the and part of it is because
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the four Pest program was on its own enormously successful.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: It did work. People did posse up and kill vermin together,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: so they also stopped some diseases right that were spread
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: by mosquitoes and rats and so on. It made it
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: one of the most successful public health campaigns in history,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: at least if you just bracketed off by itself. But
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: nothing exists in a vacuum, right, I say this all
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the time. This was a massive cost for the Chinese government,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: for the Chinese people, ecologically, demographically, the human species in
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: this case sort of failed to acknowledge the system that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: had already existed, the system that had predated humanity, which
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is that you need to have predators and pray interacting
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: because if you remove one from the suation, if you
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: remove one constraint, then you know something else is going
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to grow to fill that space. And in this case,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: it was a horrendous plague of lucus and millions of
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: people did starve. That is a downer, but it is true, right,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So let's put it. Let's put a fine point on it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Let's put a button in a bow on it. Millions
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: of people in part died because of one of the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: most successful public health campaigns in history. It's weird when
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you put it that way, but it's true because the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: four past campaign did do what it's set out to do.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: And that is a classic example of Cobra effect. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: you know, again to the point about things not existing
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: in a vacuum, people are smart. People were aware that
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: something went wrong. Right, So no, from my understanding there
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: they made some efforts to mitigate this, right, did they do? Yes,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: we'll get to that into two seconds. I was just
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to point out I sort of half made a
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: joke earlier about you know, we had gongs in the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: list of of of ways of combating the sparrows, and
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I said, well, he was just gonna startle them to death. Yeah,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what it was. Not only would they use
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: gongs and drums, they'd use pots and pans and then
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: just make tons of noise and it would apparently, uh
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: scare or startle the sparrows to the point where they
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: would fall from the sky out of exhaustion. And in
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: addition to you know, targeting them with weapons, their nests
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: were torn apart, their eggs were broken, any like, baby
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: fledgling sparrows that were found were murdered unequivocally, So this
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: would have been a pretty pretty gnarly time, you know,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to be to be a kid. They're just you're literally
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: just stomping on baby sparrows all the time. I just
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine this wouldn't have had some sort of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: traumatic impact. You know. It reminds me of there's a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: story in the movie Mandy, which I the you and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I both love quite a bit, where the character of
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Mandy's telling a traumatic story about how her father forced
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: her to try to force her to murder a bag
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of baby starlings, because starling similarly, you know, mess with crops.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I think they were farmers as well. And it was
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the way she describes the story was she had to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: she ran away in terror, because yeah, that's the pretty
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: gnarly thing to ask little kids to do. Um. So
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I can't so, I can't imagine there wouldn't have been
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: psychological impacts of this kind of stuff on, you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: these kids that would grow into maybe it was rather
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: ruthless adults. Yeah. Also we should point out Malsa Dong,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: who was, you know, the chairman of the government who
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: was also leading the ideation of this campaign. He knew
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: he didn't know anything about animals, He was not an ecologist,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: He didn't want to talk about the plan. He didn't
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: have any experts come in and talk with him. He
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: just kind of decided there were four past they would
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: call it the four Past plan and that and they
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: would kill those four pasts. Yeah. Yeah, And I like
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that you mentioned the mandy aspect there, because kind of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: like forcing kids or peer pressuring kids to kill wild animals,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: it's a very strange psychological position to put any kid
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in you know what I mean absolutely um and uh
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you know, and and of course, as you mentioned, the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: result of all of this sparrow murder was in fact
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the Great Chinese Famine. But you know, once that, once
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: this realization kind of came into focus for maw uh,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: he decided that not throw the whole program out, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: with the with the bathwater. Um. He instead decided to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: replace the sparrow in that four past campaign with the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: humble bed bug. And while you know this definitely made
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: people a little less itchy, the genie was already out
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of the bottle in terms of the famine aspect of it,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: so this would not have actually had any impact whatsoever
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: on you know, bringing the crops back. So the Great
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Leap Forward ended, or the whole campaign ended in nineteen
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: sixty two, uh, and with it also ended the four
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Pest campaign. But in nine the government actually sort of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: resurrected this program with a new round of propaganda posters
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that you could see in Beijing, um and as well
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: at the Southwest Agricultural University in Chong King that once again,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: once again I am asking you to please murder these
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: four pests. And at this point it became rats, flies, mosquitoes,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and cockroaches. Yeah, leave the higher order animals alone, they said,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: But you know this one kind of this was less
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of a spectacle because people were already killing rats, flies, mosquitoes,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and cockroaches. It wasn't particularly new, or it wasn't a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: weird question. But I love that you bring up modern opportunities.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Man for the cobra effect, Mexico City had a cobra
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: effect that didn't involve animals at all. We've ever been
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to Mexico City, you know, they've had an air pollution
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: problem for a long time. In nine, Mexico City said
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna make this car rationing policy or
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: set a laws. Basically that's based on the numbers on
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: your license plate. The way it worked is that it
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: was rationing the amount of days in a week you
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: could drive based on your license plate. But it didn't
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: limit the number of cars you could buy. I think
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I missing car stuff years back. So what people did
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: is they said, Okay, I've got a car. You know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: just off top of my head, you can't drive on
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Wednesdays or whatever, So I'll just try to find a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: cheap car with a different license plate. And that will
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: be like my Wednesday car. And then the people who
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: could do it started buying these cars. Then, Uh, there
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: was a flood of cheap cars coming into Mexico City
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: that made it easier for people to buy a cheap
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: you know, Wednesday car or whatever. That just made the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: problem worse. They ended up with more cars in the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: city than they had when they started the plan. Oh
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and that's also a city that suffers from traffic congestion,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: you know, problems, as any major city often does, but
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I believe it's particularly bad there. So this is like
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: contributing to a whole another set of problems in addition
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to the pollution unintended consequence. Let's move to Bogata, Colombia.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: UM In that's involves a band uh similar to the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Mexico City issue, also based on license plate numbers. And
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: in fact, they they looked to the Mexico City Initiative
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: as as the influence for starting this program. UM. But
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: they tried to improve upon it by switching the combinations
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of days and license plate numbers every year. But of course, again,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: where there's a will, there's a loophole. Uh, And the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Colombian people figured out ways to kind of get around
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the law by driving during off peak hours, which again
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: contributes to additional pollution because now you've got more people
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: driving at what would have been kind of the sort
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of like reprieved time and contributing to overall worse congestion
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and worse pollution. That's happening more consistently. Then. In two
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: thousand five we have another example um involving the U
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: N inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change. We know about
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: bees ben and the unintended consequences or the very least
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the perceived unfairness of things like carbon credits. Right, yeah,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: carbon credits the neoliberal solution to fighting pollution accidental rhyme
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: hashtag yeah. The idea is that you can incentivize companies
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: by paying them to have participate in this carbon credit
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: program without getting in the weeds, and that you can
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: learn more about this in our other shows stuff they
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: don't want you to know. What happened is companies actually accelerated.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: They ramped up the production of a gas called HFC
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: DASH twenty three, huge pollutant byproduct of coolant production, helped
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: them cash in on the credits. The coolant is bad
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: for the environment. There's another there's another example from ours,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: our fair state of Georgia in which ridiculous history is based.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It's called the pig radic Asian program started two thousand
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and seven. Uh. Some people might have thought it was crazy,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you know, with the idea of somebody rationalizing owning high
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: powered firearms by saying, how how am I going to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: take out forty Ferrell hogs or something like that. I
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: was hoping that one. Yeah, who is not only a
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: very talented musician, he is a masterful twitter. Yes, yes,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and uh, Georgia made this pig radic eradication program in
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Fort Benning. Specifically, locals are alleged to buy pigtails in
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: bulk from Butcher's to collect the bounty. And as they
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: do this, the wild pig population continues to grow, at
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: least during the years of the pig eradication program. Uh.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And oh side note, we've got an excellent opportunity. While
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: we're talking about Fort Benning for a little moment, we
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: like to call next with the facts enough just for
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you right now, I'm here. Yes, so, Fort Benning is
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be no more soon because it is named
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: after a Confederate general. Like a lot of things in
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Georgia unfortunately, but there has been an active campaign to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: remove that name. So I guess theder that a good thing.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: This wasn't the guy that was also like a high lansman,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: so that was that was Gordon, who also has a
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: ford in Georgia. Yeah, in my hometown of Augusta. Benning
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: was a big fan of seating from the Union and um,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like people can figure out probably what a
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: stands this were. But thankfully there's a lot of great
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: people such as Alwin Cash, who was awarded the Medal
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of Honor. He would be a great person to put
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the name on the or we do Henry Flipper, who
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: was born in Thomasville, Georgia as a slave but went
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: on to be the first African American to graduate from
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: West Point Military Academy. So those are some good names
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: we could put on the fort. And if you want
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to find out more about, you know, the story and
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: other potential names that are being flowed around the a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: j C has a great write up just titled Fort
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Benning and Fort Gordon to be Renamed, and that is
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: written by Jeremy Redman, So give that a look. It's
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: a you're a pretty important story going around. Yeah, to
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: my knowledge, for Gordon has not yet been renamed. They're
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: looking at I could take so long, just have a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: new name on it. Man, what's the ideal have would
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: be fort Nole and then one fort Bed Yeah, and
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: then the s s Max Williams Destroyership off the coast.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Uh huh and Max with the facts indeed? Sure for you? Yes,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and and Max when when I hear this on air,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping it comes with a sound cue with the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Max with the facts. We can make it a whole thing.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Just I'm trying to read your your facial expression getting
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: a very very yeah, gives very weird nods. Let's move on. Yeah,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: let's it's not just Max is weird nods. They're my
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: favorite and if they're the weirdest of nods. But yeah,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: moving past racist you know military basis, Hey, accidental rhyme,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: racist military basis. We are now in Australia and the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: year two thousand nineteen when Senator Pauline Hansen Um proposes
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a program called Cash for cane Toads. I love the commercial.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: You know, Hello, good day, Do you have a bunch
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: of cane toads? Would you like some cash? Trades or
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: cane toads for cash. One eight hundred toads for cash.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know how the numbers will work up. And
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and these are not the kind of toads you want
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: to lick unless you want to you know, die. Uh.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: And there's a different kind of trip, the trip to
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the afterlife. And that's because these cane toads are incredibly
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: toxic and they're incredibly invasive. Yeah, check out you can
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: get a look at the cane toad. There's a great
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: article written on this in The Conversation by David Smerdon,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: who is a professor or assistant professor at the School
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of Economics in the University of Queensland. The economics of
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: cash for cane toads a textbook example of perverse incentives.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: The idea would you would give welfare recipients ten cents
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: for every living toad that they collected. They weren't killing
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: the toads. He collected them while they were alive. They
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: gave them to the local council or government, and those
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: folks would kill the toads in large freezers. They would
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: freeze them to death. And while this while this cane
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: toade situation hasn't reached the level of Cobras Inda or
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: rats in Vietnam. There's a great line that Professor Smritan
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: ends his article with where he says, this proposal was
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: no doubt made with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, in reality,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the only real beneficiaries would be economics teachers, which for
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: an economics professor is like a mic drop moment. Uh.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: There's another example of Cobra effect that I think will
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: be familiar to all of our fellow ridiculous historians who
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: are denizens of the Internet. It is called the Streisand effect,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: where your request to suppress or remove something from the
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: public eye only brings more attention to it. It's named
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: that because Barbara Streisand the musician in two thousand three,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: she attempted to take down some public aerial photos of
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: her mansion in Malibu. Barbara Streisand has had quite a
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: successful career. You can imagine the mansion is pretty swank.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: The issue was that the folks that took the photo
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: were TMZ or you know, a journalistic or pop culture outfit.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: There was something called the California Coastal Records Project. They
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: document the coastline for study for science and before she
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: before the news about her contacting them came out, nobody cared.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: The only way you would look at their archives is
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: if you were somehow involved in the study of beach
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: front erosion in California. Yes exactly. I mean it's it's
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: true of anything, you know, when you make a stink
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: about it publicly like that, it piques people's interests every time.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. So I want to point that out because
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: it brings up something crucial to remember. Even if we
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: are attempted to look back with the benefit of retrospect
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and say, oh wow, I can't believe these people didn't
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: think of all these uh terrible consequences, you have to
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: remember that the Cobra effect is still very much in play,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and it's not just India, It's not just the British
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: raj It's not just Cobra's. You have to think through
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the consequences of your actions. We say this as fans
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of improv A little planning does matter. Just plan a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: little think about what could or could not go wrong.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what went great this week. Noal
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, was our two part episode on the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Cobra effect, and we didn't even mention Cobra insurance. Thank goodness.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: No oh yeah, that's like an acronym though, isn't that
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: what I always wanting with? That stands for I forget?
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a mainly intentional two partner, uh,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: a pretty beefy two partner, if I might add, So
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: you're welcome. I know there was some gross stuff in here,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: but I think there was also some illuminating and of
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: course ridiculous stuff in here as well. So huge thanks
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: to you ridiculous historians for tuning in. Huge thanks to
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: super producer Max Williams Alex Williams, who composed this banging
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: bop that you're hearing in your very ears right now.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: And thanks to our show's own Barbara streisand Jonathan Strickland
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: ak the quister. There we go. That one landed for backs,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: thanks of course to Eaves, Jeff, Go to Christopher Haciotis,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our friends over at Ridiculous Romance Eli and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Diana Banks. Thanks to our good pals over at Ridiculous Crime,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Zarin Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton. And there's one more thing
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: that we have to announce, right Noel, Yes are good pals.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley have just dropped the trailer
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: for their new ridiculous show, Ridiculous News, giving you a
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: weekly dose of topical news e type items, as well
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: as a more evergreen deep dive into concepts that are
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: going to help you wrap your head around the ridiculous
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that is the news, which is, of course, you know,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: modern history. So it's very much in the wheelhouse what
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: we do here, what they do on Ridiculous Romance and
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: on Ridiculous crime, and we're happy to welcome them to
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the family. So check out the trailer for Ridiculous News,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: available now on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio, Apple,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, yes, over the moon.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: We are so excited. We know you'll love these shows.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Don't take our word for it. Check them out today
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: thanks to the entire Ridiculous universe. And you know what
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: special shout out to Max for. Uh. We're hurting so
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: many cats on this thing, man, I can't wait. You
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: know what's next? No, what, Let's get some new T
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: shirt ideas, Let's do some uh, let's do some live appearances.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: What what do you think about a what did Zarin
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: call it ridiculous? Palooza, Ridicular Ridicula Paloza. There you go, there,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: thank you. Yes, we'll see you there, folks, and you
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: know next time. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.