March 10, 2022 • 41 mins
The Cobra Effect - a particularly extreme form of unintended consequences - isn't limited to India and Vietnam. In China, the technically successful Four Pests eradication campaign led to tremendous ecological disaster, as the mass murder of sparrows led to a plague of ravenous locusts. In part two of this week's two part episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore what went wrong, how it affected later generations, and what the Cobra Effect can teach us about unforeseen consequences.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. That's our one and only
super producer, pest controller, all around man at arms not
paid in rat tails. Mr Max Williams. Give him a hand,
just don't give him a rat tail. Uh. They called
(00:48):
me Ben. I went with a snake bite last time.
I'm gonna I'm gonna have a new moniker by the
end of this I suspect and and nol in the
time between now and our previous episode, did you have
to resort to your serpentine street name? Not yet man,
not yet Still, I'm still sitting on that one. I'm
(01:08):
also reserving, like shaving my beard for when that moment comes.
God forbid, because I will be unrealizable. I've been rocking
this thing since I was about fourteen, so I will
be a completely new person. Uh. Maybe I'll have to
wear an eyepatch or something to go along with my
badass snake nickname. I got eyepatches. I got a eyepatch guy. Um,
Oh my god, that conversation. It's a true story, folks. Uh,
(01:33):
Noel and I are good friends. We've known each other
for a number of years. And of course friend of
the show, the guy who does the actual work here,
Max Williams, you are a famous friend. You've you've known,
You've known uh Noel for a while too, and this
is a true fact. This is what I'm gonna call
a hashtag nold fat. When we first met, we're first
becoming friends all these years ago. I had asked this guy.
(01:57):
I said, oh, man, you know, we're talking about beer
and I'll grow mine out every so often until I
miss soup. And Uh I was talking with Nolan said
so hey, man, like, how long you've been growing the beard?
And that's when I learned that my friend has ever
since he grew facial hair, he has always had a beard.
I believe once you showed me one picture of you
(02:22):
from years and years back where you did not have
a beard. I think it was maybe a photo from
a band you were in. Well, yeah, so that's funny.
Even the photo from the band that I was in,
um I still was rocking, sort of a little bit
of a chin strap kind of situation. Um My kid
found a CD that I made with the band that
I was in in nineteen If you want to date me.
(02:45):
I was about fifteen, I think, and I still had
kind of a little fred Durst, little soul patch beard situation. UM,
very very funny looking. But yeah, from then on I
just kind of let it ride. Well it looks good man,
it excuse and not everyone can pull it off. So
we are returning to another example of people not being
(03:07):
able to pull something off. There we go, that's our segue. Uh.
We talked previously about something called the Cobra effect. We've
seen this phenomenon occur in India. We saw it occur
in hannoy Uh or in Via Nam rather and both
times it happened during eras of colonial rule. Today we're
(03:30):
seeing the Cobra effect take place in a nearby part
of the world, but under much different circumstances. Long story short,
The Cobra effect basically describes unintended consequences of decisions in
complex systems. It's a game of public health, and it's
a very tough game. You know. You have to ask yourself,
(03:53):
how do you get a bunch of people a k a.
The public to change their behavior for the common good
without um, without going too far in one direction, and
still managing to get everybody to follow along with you
and not think you're an iron fisted dictator or authoritarian.
(04:14):
It's tough because you know, we see it even now
with the idea of people wearing masks during the height
of the COVID pandemic, right, or the idea of getting
people to stay home and not go to big celebrations
close together, you know, having spit contests or whatever. So, yeah,
(04:35):
you also have to pay for it, you have to, like,
that's one of the big things. We saw this in Delhi,
we saw this in Hallinois. It was the idea that
you could incentivize people to help eradicate pest. You could
crowdsource pest eradication by paying folks. But in today's episode,
we're looking at a slightly different governing structure. In the
(04:57):
nineteen forties, just a few decades after what went down
with rats in Vietnam, the People's Republic of China found
themselves in a tough spot. That's right. I mean, I
think that's no secret that the leadership of the People's
Republic of China has typically operated with that iron fist
(05:18):
that you speak of. You know, one way of getting
things done, it's just by not taking no for an answer,
not really caring about people's feelings or the feelings of
the public, or having to you know, negotiate with a
competing political party. Uh not just sound like a dictatorship apologist.
It certainly does simplify things to a degree. Um, you know,
(05:38):
and there are benevolent, more benevolent dictatorship type models, I suppose,
But again that all depends on the whims of a
single human and as we know, uh, those whims can
be flighty. I mean, the nature of the word whim
in and of itself implies sort of like how am
I feeling today? My feeling benevolent? Or am I feeling
a little grouchy? Am I just gonna kind of bend
(05:59):
people to you? My will? Exactly well said. And if
you can use this power of centralized authority two just
make things happen the way you would like them to happen,
you honestly opened the door to even more unintended consequences
because regardless of the kind of government you control, nature
(06:20):
follows its own rules. To paraphrase the famous Jeff Goldblum,
disease and vermin Uh find a way. So this is
what happened. Today's story is about how the People's Republic
of China did successfully accomplish an enormously difficult public health
(06:42):
objective eradicating some diseases and eradicating vermin, but in doing
so they created and honest to god environmental catastrophee. Let's
look at it. So communist forces gain power in the
fall of nine teen forty nine, and when they do,
China is already in a bad way. It is inundated
(07:05):
with very dangerous infectious diseases. We're talking all the hits, tuberculosis, plague, cholera, malaria, polio, smallpox, hookworm.
I almost want to max to drop a beat there.
Point is they were endemic throughout a lot of the country.
Roughly ten and a half million people had a liver
(07:26):
parasite named shistos, somiasis, cholera. Epidemics happened like regularly, and
it wasn't uncommon for thousands and thousands of people to
die every year. Infant mortality was skyrocketing. It was a
dangerous place to live. Yeah, it was a great article
that goes into this in depth on NPR by Vicky Valentine,
(07:49):
which a great name from November of two thousand five.
So here's the gist. The Communist government UH did begin
to initiate these why had spread mandatory vaccination campaigns UM
against those UH the conditions that you're referring to, the
plague smallpox. They've actuated nearly three hundred million people. They
(08:13):
put into place UM sanitation measures to allow for clean
drinking water and the disposal of waste UM. And they
actually copied the Soviet Unions model of healthcare. There were
all of these little kind of offshoots of medical and
public health officials that UM were meant to focus more
(08:36):
on UM being stewards of of healthcare to the population.
They would actually go out into rural areas and treat
diseases whenever possible. And we're talking about limited resources, we're
talking about issues of logistics. We're talking about people doing
their best under series of at times fluid constraints. Medical care, sanitation, immunization,
(09:04):
all of that can make a big difference, but it
can only do so much if you don't cut off
the sources of an infection or the you know, the
vectors of a disease at the root. And that meant
you have to get rid of the pest that transmit
those diseases. Think of malaria and mosquitoes, Think of the
(09:27):
fleas on rodents that spread the plague, Think about flies.
What about sparrows that eat the fruit from fields of
grain and rice. Those sparrows aren't necessarily spreading disease. They
are literally taking the food upon which human beings depend.
These are our four pests, that's what they were called.
(09:49):
Here that capital F here, that capital P four pest, flies, mosquitoes, rats,
and weirdly enough, sparrows. Oh mind. But the thing about
sparrows is they don't only eat that stuff that's meant
(10:10):
for human consumption. They also eat some of those insects
that spread those other diseases, right, which is going to
be a big deal. Second, so this is all kind
of wrapped up in what's known as the Great Leap Forward. Um, Ben,
can you give us a little bit of background on then?
I know this is very much an area of interest
for you personally. Yeah. The what became called the Four
(10:35):
Pest campaign was part of the Great Leap Forward, which
is also known as the Second Five Year Plan. This
was a massive economic and social campaign led by the
Chinese Communist Party and particularly chairman Mao zed Dong and
the idea was we are going to take China's largely
(10:58):
a grarian economy and we were and to transform it
into a communist society. It is important if you're not
familiar with anything other than the name Great Leap Forward.
It is mission critical. It is crucial for you to
realize that the name might be seen as misleading. Millions
(11:20):
of people died in China during the Great Leap Forward.
It's still a matter of debate today amongst historians. Estimates
range from as little as fifteen million people dying to
as many as fifty five million people dying. This is
terrible stuff, but it's also a study in the tremendous
(11:45):
balancing act and tremendous danger of affecting large scale change
on a massive level as quickly as they attempted. So, yeah,
the Great Leap Forward. Um, this part of it, the
four Pest campaign, was a health campaign and said we're
targeting vermin that spread disease. If you kill small bothersome
(12:11):
animals and insects, you are being a good communist. You
are doing your part for the nation. So they were
kind of paying people in like ideological points, if that
makes sense. Instead of rat tails or cobra skins and
which you know, one would argue is just as effective
(12:35):
and maybe does not have the same potential for abuse.
Uh if if the instructions being given to the good
people of communist China were in fact the right ones, right,
because there's no way to really game the system for
personal benefit, because in the communist system there really is
no personal benefit. It's all for the good of the
(12:56):
greater good. Right, Yeah, Yeah, And there were there were
still you know, again we talked about the death toll.
There were a lot of a lot of problems with
allocation of resources and logistics during the Great Leap Forward,
Like let's talk about nineteen fifty eight. All right, in
ninety you're walking around China, you're going to be now
(13:20):
living in a commune of some sort if you formerly
were just in a village on a farm. You are
also going to see a ton of propaganda that the
government has issued to try to crowdsource tackling these four pests. Uh.
The weather was really nice in the harvest was good,
(13:42):
but unfortunately the centralized government had sent a bunch of
former farmers off to work in steel production, and the
harvest was rotting because it wasn't getting collected. That's the
thing about a harvest. You gotta get the stuff out
of the ground, out of the field, and somehow process
(14:03):
it and get it to people so that they can
need it. That just wasn't happening. But if you're let's
say it's early, you don't know that this is about
to go down. You're seeing a lot of posters, and
the posters are like, I love propaganda from this time period.
The posters show kids hanging with their elders and all
(14:27):
these art pieces, works of art that are telling the
people of China to just carry around fly swatters, use guns,
use gongs. Let's set to start them into submission. Well,
it looks really good. Gongs are fun to draw on
propaganda posters, and you can see them now online. If
(14:50):
you go to Chinese posters all one word dot net,
you'll see one picture. I believe it's called Everybody comes
to Beat Sparrows And it looks like there's some siblings.
There's like an older brother and a younger sister, and
the brother has a sling shot and the sister is
just like holding dead sparrows. Uh. And then there's another
(15:12):
one night, which is a knife cool looking knife daggerish
based on the animals for scale and on it are
the four pest mosquito, a fly, a sparrow, and a rat.
And let me just tell you, Noel Max, I don't
know if it's just artistic license, but that fly is huge.
Oh yeah, is it? Is it? Like? I mean, the
(15:34):
Chinese zodiac doesn't have like the year of the rat,
like it wasn't the rat almost kind of like revered
in certain ways in the Chinese culture. Yeah, there is
the year of the rat. The rat is one of
the astrological signs in Chinese astrology or the Chinese zodiac.
I believe was the last year of the rat. It
(15:54):
happens every twelve years in in the Chinese zodiac, the
rat is served pretty quick witted, wise entity. And so
the idea is that if you if your sign in
Chinese civitiact is rat, it depends both on the year
you're born and the time of year you're born, then
(16:16):
you are quick witted, resourceful, and you're smart, but you're
kind of cowardly. Well, there's also different flavors of rat,
like there are for you, like the metal the metal rat,
the fire rat, things like that. So we've established that
this series of episodes is about unintended consequences. The first
episode focused largely on you know, individual people citizens gaming
(16:39):
these sort of government incentive programs. Um and you you
made a really good point earlier in the episode today, Ben,
where you sort of aligned this or compared this with
maybe some of the programs that are happened that we're
happening through COVID relief and things like that, where while
they're intended to help people who really need it, we
also saw people using some of that need to buy
(17:00):
like expensive Pokemon cards. Where there's a government relief program,
there's a way people are going to figure out how
to take advantage of it. Today's episode is about much
more of an iron fisted, you know, unilateral approach where
the only incentive for participating is to look good in
(17:20):
the eyes of the all powerful government. So this program
that you've been describing Ben through through these propaganda means,
these posters and whatnot, and just kind of the rhetoric
that was going around was wildly successful. We have some
stats here. I think it was something in the neighborhood
of a billion sparrows were taken out, one point five
(17:43):
billion rats, I love this one. A hundred million kims
of flies and eleven million kilograms of mosquitoes were absolutely destroyed.
So on that level, this was a screaming six tests.
You know, it really worked. People were doing what they
were supposed to be doing. The fly swatters were out,
(18:06):
people were you know, just outright murdering, Uh, sparrows by
hook or by crook, or by gong or by slingshot.
But here's the thing. The government significantly miscalculated, which is understandable.
I mean science, I was the fifties, I mean the science.
I think that the understanding of the balance of ecosystems
(18:26):
should have been pretty fully formed at this point, right,
this kind of research. They are these webs of interconnectedness
with different species, and how you know this balance exists?
I think it should have been available, should have been
on the table. But for whatever reason, whether through pure
blind patriotism or some megalomaniacal sense of purpose that it
often comes along with these kinds of dictatorships. Uh, this
(18:49):
this connection was ignored. And the connection I'm referring to
is the role of the sparrow in maintaining a balance,
because as we mentioned, yeah, sparrows are a pest, and
that they'll pick through your fields and eat your your
fruits and your seeds and all that, and they can
cause a problem. But there's a there's another species of
critter that could cause even more of a problem, like
(19:09):
a biblical level problem, the humble on its own locusts.
But as we know, locusts don't just hang on their own.
Locusts roll deep, like really deep, millions and millions of
them that can just swarm these fields. And just we've
we've seen it, pitt I mean not I haven't seen
it personally, but that we've seen it depicted in film.
(19:30):
And I think there's probably footage out there of literally
these just waves of locusts coming in and just you know,
leaving a skeletal remain of what once was there in
terms of these crops or harvests. Um. And it turns
out that sparrows also eat locusts. They would if they
(19:51):
were alive. Yes, yes, the circle of life indeed, And
that's what happens when you break the circle. The sp
arrows were doing something, and without sparrows fulfilling that predator role,
the locusts just went ham It went hard. In the
paint in addition to, as you said, a disaster on
(20:14):
the level of a biblical plague, the Great Leap Forward
involved some new ideas about agriculture, and the agricultural techniques
they implemented just made things worse. There's a great quote
you can read it and Discover magazine dot com that
says the mass deaths of sparrows and nationwide loss of
(20:36):
crops resulted in untold millions starving. And they put the
number at twenty to thirty million people died from nineteen
fifty eight nineteen sixty two, and it was a demographic crisis.
The amount of people dying changed the nation for generations
(20:58):
to come. And the and part of it is because
the four Pest program was on its own enormously successful.
It did work. People did posse up and kill vermin together,
so they also stopped some diseases right that were spread
(21:18):
by mosquitoes and rats and so on. It made it
one of the most successful public health campaigns in history,
at least if you just bracketed off by itself. But
nothing exists in a vacuum, right, I say this all
the time. This was a massive cost for the Chinese government,
(21:39):
for the Chinese people, ecologically, demographically, the human species in
this case sort of failed to acknowledge the system that
had already existed, the system that had predated humanity, which
is that you need to have predators and pray interacting
because if you remove one from the suation, if you
(22:01):
remove one constraint, then you know something else is going
to grow to fill that space. And in this case,
it was a horrendous plague of lucus and millions of
people did starve. That is a downer, but it is true, right,
So let's put it. Let's put a fine point on it.
(22:23):
Let's put a button in a bow on it. Millions
of people in part died because of one of the
most successful public health campaigns in history. It's weird when
you put it that way, but it's true because the
four past campaign did do what it's set out to do.
And that is a classic example of Cobra effect. And
(22:44):
you know, again to the point about things not existing
in a vacuum, people are smart. People were aware that
something went wrong. Right, So no, from my understanding there
they made some efforts to mitigate this, right, did they do? Yes,
we'll get to that into two seconds. I was just
wanted to point out I sort of half made a
(23:05):
joke earlier about you know, we had gongs in the
list of of of ways of combating the sparrows, and
I said, well, he was just gonna startle them to death. Yeah,
that's exactly what it was. Not only would they use
gongs and drums, they'd use pots and pans and then
just make tons of noise and it would apparently, uh
scare or startle the sparrows to the point where they
(23:26):
would fall from the sky out of exhaustion. And in
addition to you know, targeting them with weapons, their nests
were torn apart, their eggs were broken, any like, baby
fledgling sparrows that were found were murdered unequivocally, So this
would have been a pretty pretty gnarly time, you know,
to be to be a kid. They're just you're literally
(23:47):
just stomping on baby sparrows all the time. I just
I can't imagine this wouldn't have had some sort of
traumatic impact. You know. It reminds me of there's a
story in the movie Mandy, which I the you and
I both love quite a bit, where the character of
Mandy's telling a traumatic story about how her father forced
her to try to force her to murder a bag
(24:11):
of baby starlings, because starling similarly, you know, mess with crops.
I think they were farmers as well. And it was
the way she describes the story was she had to
she ran away in terror, because yeah, that's the pretty
gnarly thing to ask little kids to do. Um. So
I can't so, I can't imagine there wouldn't have been
psychological impacts of this kind of stuff on, you know,
(24:32):
these kids that would grow into maybe it was rather
ruthless adults. Yeah. Also we should point out Malsa Dong,
who was, you know, the chairman of the government who
was also leading the ideation of this campaign. He knew
he didn't know anything about animals, He was not an ecologist,
(24:55):
He didn't want to talk about the plan. He didn't
have any experts come in and talk with him. He
just kind of decided there were four past they would
call it the four Past plan and that and they
would kill those four pasts. Yeah. Yeah, And I like
that you mentioned the mandy aspect there, because kind of
like forcing kids or peer pressuring kids to kill wild animals,
(25:17):
it's a very strange psychological position to put any kid
in you know what I mean absolutely um and uh
you know, and and of course, as you mentioned, the
result of all of this sparrow murder was in fact
the Great Chinese Famine. But you know, once that, once
(25:39):
this realization kind of came into focus for maw uh,
he decided that not throw the whole program out, you know,
with the with the bathwater. Um. He instead decided to
replace the sparrow in that four past campaign with the
humble bed bug. And while you know this definitely made
(26:00):
people a little less itchy, the genie was already out
of the bottle in terms of the famine aspect of it,
so this would not have actually had any impact whatsoever
on you know, bringing the crops back. So the Great
Leap Forward ended, or the whole campaign ended in nineteen
sixty two, uh, and with it also ended the four
(26:22):
Pest campaign. But in nine the government actually sort of
resurrected this program with a new round of propaganda posters
that you could see in Beijing, um and as well
at the Southwest Agricultural University in Chong King that once again,
once again I am asking you to please murder these
(26:44):
four pests. And at this point it became rats, flies, mosquitoes,
and cockroaches. Yeah, leave the higher order animals alone, they said,
But you know this one kind of this was less
of a spectacle because people were already killing rats, flies, mosquitoes,
(27:06):
and cockroaches. It wasn't particularly new, or it wasn't a
weird question. But I love that you bring up modern opportunities.
Man for the cobra effect, Mexico City had a cobra
effect that didn't involve animals at all. We've ever been
to Mexico City, you know, they've had an air pollution
problem for a long time. In nine, Mexico City said
(27:30):
all right, we're gonna make this car rationing policy or
set a laws. Basically that's based on the numbers on
your license plate. The way it worked is that it
was rationing the amount of days in a week you
could drive based on your license plate. But it didn't
(27:55):
limit the number of cars you could buy. I think
I missing car stuff years back. So what people did
is they said, Okay, I've got a car. You know,
just off top of my head, you can't drive on
Wednesdays or whatever, So I'll just try to find a
cheap car with a different license plate. And that will
be like my Wednesday car. And then the people who
(28:17):
could do it started buying these cars. Then, Uh, there
was a flood of cheap cars coming into Mexico City
that made it easier for people to buy a cheap
you know, Wednesday car or whatever. That just made the
problem worse. They ended up with more cars in the
city than they had when they started the plan. Oh
(28:38):
and that's also a city that suffers from traffic congestion,
you know, problems, as any major city often does, but
I believe it's particularly bad there. So this is like
contributing to a whole another set of problems in addition
to the pollution unintended consequence. Let's move to Bogata, Colombia.
UM In that's involves a band uh similar to the
(29:03):
Mexico City issue, also based on license plate numbers. And
in fact, they they looked to the Mexico City Initiative
as as the influence for starting this program. UM. But
they tried to improve upon it by switching the combinations
of days and license plate numbers every year. But of course, again,
(29:23):
where there's a will, there's a loophole. Uh, And the
Colombian people figured out ways to kind of get around
the law by driving during off peak hours, which again
contributes to additional pollution because now you've got more people
driving at what would have been kind of the sort
of like reprieved time and contributing to overall worse congestion
(29:47):
and worse pollution. That's happening more consistently. Then. In two
thousand five we have another example um involving the U
N inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change. We know about
bees ben and the unintended consequences or the very least
the perceived unfairness of things like carbon credits. Right, yeah,
(30:09):
carbon credits the neoliberal solution to fighting pollution accidental rhyme
hashtag yeah. The idea is that you can incentivize companies
by paying them to have participate in this carbon credit
program without getting in the weeds, and that you can
(30:30):
learn more about this in our other shows stuff they
don't want you to know. What happened is companies actually accelerated.
They ramped up the production of a gas called HFC
DASH twenty three, huge pollutant byproduct of coolant production, helped
them cash in on the credits. The coolant is bad
for the environment. There's another there's another example from ours,
(30:54):
our fair state of Georgia in which ridiculous history is based.
It's called the pig radic Asian program started two thousand
and seven. Uh. Some people might have thought it was crazy,
you know, with the idea of somebody rationalizing owning high
powered firearms by saying, how how am I going to
take out forty Ferrell hogs or something like that. I
(31:15):
was hoping that one. Yeah, who is not only a
very talented musician, he is a masterful twitter. Yes, yes,
and uh, Georgia made this pig radic eradication program in
Fort Benning. Specifically, locals are alleged to buy pigtails in
(31:38):
bulk from Butcher's to collect the bounty. And as they
do this, the wild pig population continues to grow, at
least during the years of the pig eradication program. Uh.
And oh side note, we've got an excellent opportunity. While
we're talking about Fort Benning for a little moment, we
(31:59):
like to call next with the facts enough just for
you right now, I'm here. Yes, so, Fort Benning is
probably gonna be no more soon because it is named
(32:20):
after a Confederate general. Like a lot of things in
Georgia unfortunately, but there has been an active campaign to
remove that name. So I guess theder that a good thing.
This wasn't the guy that was also like a high lansman,
so that was that was Gordon, who also has a
ford in Georgia. Yeah, in my hometown of Augusta. Benning
(32:40):
was a big fan of seating from the Union and um,
you know, like people can figure out probably what a
stands this were. But thankfully there's a lot of great
people such as Alwin Cash, who was awarded the Medal
of Honor. He would be a great person to put
the name on the or we do Henry Flipper, who
(33:02):
was born in Thomasville, Georgia as a slave but went
on to be the first African American to graduate from
West Point Military Academy. So those are some good names
we could put on the fort. And if you want
to find out more about, you know, the story and
other potential names that are being flowed around the a
j C has a great write up just titled Fort
(33:23):
Benning and Fort Gordon to be Renamed, and that is
written by Jeremy Redman, So give that a look. It's
a you're a pretty important story going around. Yeah, to
my knowledge, for Gordon has not yet been renamed. They're
looking at I could take so long, just have a
new name on it. Man, what's the ideal have would
be fort Nole and then one fort Bed Yeah, and
(33:45):
then the s s Max Williams Destroyership off the coast.
Uh huh and Max with the facts indeed? Sure for you? Yes,
(34:06):
and and Max when when I hear this on air,
I'm hoping it comes with a sound cue with the
Max with the facts. We can make it a whole thing.
Just I'm trying to read your your facial expression getting
a very very yeah, gives very weird nods. Let's move on. Yeah,
let's it's not just Max is weird nods. They're my
(34:27):
favorite and if they're the weirdest of nods. But yeah,
moving past racist you know military basis, Hey, accidental rhyme,
racist military basis. We are now in Australia and the
year two thousand nineteen when Senator Pauline Hansen Um proposes
a program called Cash for cane Toads. I love the commercial.
(34:49):
You know, Hello, good day, Do you have a bunch
of cane toads? Would you like some cash? Trades or
cane toads for cash. One eight hundred toads for cash.
I don't know how the numbers will work up. And
and these are not the kind of toads you want
to lick unless you want to you know, die. Uh.
And there's a different kind of trip, the trip to
the afterlife. And that's because these cane toads are incredibly
(35:12):
toxic and they're incredibly invasive. Yeah, check out you can
get a look at the cane toad. There's a great
article written on this in The Conversation by David Smerdon,
who is a professor or assistant professor at the School
of Economics in the University of Queensland. The economics of
cash for cane toads a textbook example of perverse incentives.
(35:33):
The idea would you would give welfare recipients ten cents
for every living toad that they collected. They weren't killing
the toads. He collected them while they were alive. They
gave them to the local council or government, and those
folks would kill the toads in large freezers. They would
freeze them to death. And while this while this cane
(35:55):
toade situation hasn't reached the level of Cobras Inda or
rats in Vietnam. There's a great line that Professor Smritan
ends his article with where he says, this proposal was
no doubt made with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, in reality,
the only real beneficiaries would be economics teachers, which for
(36:17):
an economics professor is like a mic drop moment. Uh.
There's another example of Cobra effect that I think will
be familiar to all of our fellow ridiculous historians who
are denizens of the Internet. It is called the Streisand effect,
where your request to suppress or remove something from the
(36:39):
public eye only brings more attention to it. It's named
that because Barbara Streisand the musician in two thousand three,
she attempted to take down some public aerial photos of
her mansion in Malibu. Barbara Streisand has had quite a
(37:00):
successful career. You can imagine the mansion is pretty swank.
The issue was that the folks that took the photo
were TMZ or you know, a journalistic or pop culture outfit.
There was something called the California Coastal Records Project. They
document the coastline for study for science and before she
(37:23):
before the news about her contacting them came out, nobody cared.
The only way you would look at their archives is
if you were somehow involved in the study of beach
front erosion in California. Yes exactly. I mean it's it's
true of anything, you know, when you make a stink
about it publicly like that, it piques people's interests every time.
(37:45):
Yeah exactly. So I want to point that out because
it brings up something crucial to remember. Even if we
are attempted to look back with the benefit of retrospect
and say, oh wow, I can't believe these people didn't
think of all these uh terrible consequences, you have to
remember that the Cobra effect is still very much in play,
(38:05):
and it's not just India, It's not just the British
raj It's not just Cobra's. You have to think through
the consequences of your actions. We say this as fans
of improv A little planning does matter. Just plan a
little think about what could or could not go wrong.
But I'll tell you what went great this week. Noal
in my opinion, was our two part episode on the
(38:30):
Cobra effect, and we didn't even mention Cobra insurance. Thank goodness.
No oh yeah, that's like an acronym though, isn't that
what I always wanting with? That stands for I forget?
But yeah, this is a mainly intentional two partner, uh,
a pretty beefy two partner, if I might add, So
you're welcome. I know there was some gross stuff in here,
but I think there was also some illuminating and of
(38:51):
course ridiculous stuff in here as well. So huge thanks
to you ridiculous historians for tuning in. Huge thanks to
super producer Max Williams Alex Williams, who composed this banging
bop that you're hearing in your very ears right now.
And thanks to our show's own Barbara streisand Jonathan Strickland
(39:11):
ak the quister. There we go. That one landed for backs,
thanks of course to Eaves, Jeff, Go to Christopher Haciotis,
Thanks to our friends over at Ridiculous Romance Eli and
Diana Banks. Thanks to our good pals over at Ridiculous Crime,
Zarin Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton. And there's one more thing
(39:34):
that we have to announce, right Noel, Yes are good pals.
Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley have just dropped the trailer
for their new ridiculous show, Ridiculous News, giving you a
weekly dose of topical news e type items, as well
as a more evergreen deep dive into concepts that are
(39:57):
going to help you wrap your head around the ridiculous
that is the news, which is, of course, you know,
modern history. So it's very much in the wheelhouse what
we do here, what they do on Ridiculous Romance and
on Ridiculous crime, and we're happy to welcome them to
the family. So check out the trailer for Ridiculous News,
available now on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio, Apple,
(40:18):
wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, yes, over the moon.
We are so excited. We know you'll love these shows.
Don't take our word for it. Check them out today
thanks to the entire Ridiculous universe. And you know what
special shout out to Max for. Uh. We're hurting so
many cats on this thing, man, I can't wait. You
(40:40):
know what's next? No, what, Let's get some new T
shirt ideas, Let's do some uh, let's do some live appearances.
What what do you think about a what did Zarin
call it ridiculous? Palooza, Ridicular Ridicula Paloza. There you go, there,
thank you. Yes, we'll see you there, folks, and you
(41:01):
know next time. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. That's our one and only
super producer, pest controller, all around man at arms not
paid in rat tails. Mr Max Williams. Give him a hand,
just don't give him a rat tail. Uh. They called
(00:48):
me Ben. I went with a snake bite last time.
I'm gonna I'm gonna have a new moniker by the
end of this I suspect and and nol in the
time between now and our previous episode, did you have
to resort to your serpentine street name? Not yet man,
not yet Still, I'm still sitting on that one. I'm
(01:08):
also reserving, like shaving my beard for when that moment comes.
God forbid, because I will be unrealizable. I've been rocking
this thing since I was about fourteen, so I will
be a completely new person. Uh. Maybe I'll have to
wear an eyepatch or something to go along with my
badass snake nickname. I got eyepatches. I got a eyepatch guy. Um,
Oh my god, that conversation. It's a true story, folks. Uh,
(01:33):
Noel and I are good friends. We've known each other
for a number of years. And of course friend of
the show, the guy who does the actual work here,
Max Williams, you are a famous friend. You've you've known,
You've known uh Noel for a while too, and this
is a true fact. This is what I'm gonna call
a hashtag nold fat. When we first met, we're first
becoming friends all these years ago. I had asked this guy.
(01:57):
I said, oh, man, you know, we're talking about beer
and I'll grow mine out every so often until I
miss soup. And Uh I was talking with Nolan said
so hey, man, like, how long you've been growing the beard?
And that's when I learned that my friend has ever
since he grew facial hair, he has always had a beard.
I believe once you showed me one picture of you
(02:22):
from years and years back where you did not have
a beard. I think it was maybe a photo from
a band you were in. Well, yeah, so that's funny.
Even the photo from the band that I was in,
um I still was rocking, sort of a little bit
of a chin strap kind of situation. Um My kid
found a CD that I made with the band that
I was in in nineteen If you want to date me.
(02:45):
I was about fifteen, I think, and I still had
kind of a little fred Durst, little soul patch beard situation. UM,
very very funny looking. But yeah, from then on I
just kind of let it ride. Well it looks good man,
it excuse and not everyone can pull it off. So
we are returning to another example of people not being
(03:07):
able to pull something off. There we go, that's our segue. Uh.
We talked previously about something called the Cobra effect. We've
seen this phenomenon occur in India. We saw it occur
in hannoy Uh or in Via Nam rather and both
times it happened during eras of colonial rule. Today we're
(03:30):
seeing the Cobra effect take place in a nearby part
of the world, but under much different circumstances. Long story short,
The Cobra effect basically describes unintended consequences of decisions in
complex systems. It's a game of public health, and it's
a very tough game. You know. You have to ask yourself,
(03:53):
how do you get a bunch of people a k a.
The public to change their behavior for the common good
without um, without going too far in one direction, and
still managing to get everybody to follow along with you
and not think you're an iron fisted dictator or authoritarian.
(04:14):
It's tough because you know, we see it even now
with the idea of people wearing masks during the height
of the COVID pandemic, right, or the idea of getting
people to stay home and not go to big celebrations
close together, you know, having spit contests or whatever. So, yeah,
(04:35):
you also have to pay for it, you have to, like,
that's one of the big things. We saw this in Delhi,
we saw this in Hallinois. It was the idea that
you could incentivize people to help eradicate pest. You could
crowdsource pest eradication by paying folks. But in today's episode,
we're looking at a slightly different governing structure. In the
(04:57):
nineteen forties, just a few decades after what went down
with rats in Vietnam, the People's Republic of China found
themselves in a tough spot. That's right. I mean, I
think that's no secret that the leadership of the People's
Republic of China has typically operated with that iron fist
(05:18):
that you speak of. You know, one way of getting
things done, it's just by not taking no for an answer,
not really caring about people's feelings or the feelings of
the public, or having to you know, negotiate with a
competing political party. Uh not just sound like a dictatorship apologist.
It certainly does simplify things to a degree. Um, you know,
(05:38):
and there are benevolent, more benevolent dictatorship type models, I suppose,
But again that all depends on the whims of a
single human and as we know, uh, those whims can
be flighty. I mean, the nature of the word whim
in and of itself implies sort of like how am
I feeling today? My feeling benevolent? Or am I feeling
a little grouchy? Am I just gonna kind of bend
(05:59):
people to you? My will? Exactly well said. And if
you can use this power of centralized authority two just
make things happen the way you would like them to happen,
you honestly opened the door to even more unintended consequences
because regardless of the kind of government you control, nature
(06:20):
follows its own rules. To paraphrase the famous Jeff Goldblum,
disease and vermin Uh find a way. So this is
what happened. Today's story is about how the People's Republic
of China did successfully accomplish an enormously difficult public health
(06:42):
objective eradicating some diseases and eradicating vermin, but in doing
so they created and honest to god environmental catastrophee. Let's
look at it. So communist forces gain power in the
fall of nine teen forty nine, and when they do,
China is already in a bad way. It is inundated
(07:05):
with very dangerous infectious diseases. We're talking all the hits, tuberculosis, plague, cholera, malaria, polio, smallpox, hookworm.
I almost want to max to drop a beat there.
Point is they were endemic throughout a lot of the country.
Roughly ten and a half million people had a liver
(07:26):
parasite named shistos, somiasis, cholera. Epidemics happened like regularly, and
it wasn't uncommon for thousands and thousands of people to
die every year. Infant mortality was skyrocketing. It was a
dangerous place to live. Yeah, it was a great article
that goes into this in depth on NPR by Vicky Valentine,
(07:49):
which a great name from November of two thousand five.
So here's the gist. The Communist government UH did begin
to initiate these why had spread mandatory vaccination campaigns UM
against those UH the conditions that you're referring to, the
plague smallpox. They've actuated nearly three hundred million people. They
(08:13):
put into place UM sanitation measures to allow for clean
drinking water and the disposal of waste UM. And they
actually copied the Soviet Unions model of healthcare. There were
all of these little kind of offshoots of medical and
public health officials that UM were meant to focus more
(08:36):
on UM being stewards of of healthcare to the population.
They would actually go out into rural areas and treat
diseases whenever possible. And we're talking about limited resources, we're
talking about issues of logistics. We're talking about people doing
their best under series of at times fluid constraints. Medical care, sanitation, immunization,
(09:04):
all of that can make a big difference, but it
can only do so much if you don't cut off
the sources of an infection or the you know, the
vectors of a disease at the root. And that meant
you have to get rid of the pest that transmit
those diseases. Think of malaria and mosquitoes, Think of the
(09:27):
fleas on rodents that spread the plague, Think about flies.
What about sparrows that eat the fruit from fields of
grain and rice. Those sparrows aren't necessarily spreading disease. They
are literally taking the food upon which human beings depend.
These are our four pests, that's what they were called.
(09:49):
Here that capital F here, that capital P four pest, flies, mosquitoes, rats,
and weirdly enough, sparrows. Oh mind. But the thing about
sparrows is they don't only eat that stuff that's meant
(10:10):
for human consumption. They also eat some of those insects
that spread those other diseases, right, which is going to
be a big deal. Second, so this is all kind
of wrapped up in what's known as the Great Leap Forward. Um, Ben,
can you give us a little bit of background on then?
I know this is very much an area of interest
for you personally. Yeah. The what became called the Four
(10:35):
Pest campaign was part of the Great Leap Forward, which
is also known as the Second Five Year Plan. This
was a massive economic and social campaign led by the
Chinese Communist Party and particularly chairman Mao zed Dong and
the idea was we are going to take China's largely
(10:58):
a grarian economy and we were and to transform it
into a communist society. It is important if you're not
familiar with anything other than the name Great Leap Forward.
It is mission critical. It is crucial for you to
realize that the name might be seen as misleading. Millions
(11:20):
of people died in China during the Great Leap Forward.
It's still a matter of debate today amongst historians. Estimates
range from as little as fifteen million people dying to
as many as fifty five million people dying. This is
terrible stuff, but it's also a study in the tremendous
(11:45):
balancing act and tremendous danger of affecting large scale change
on a massive level as quickly as they attempted. So, yeah,
the Great Leap Forward. Um, this part of it, the
four Pest campaign, was a health campaign and said we're
targeting vermin that spread disease. If you kill small bothersome
(12:11):
animals and insects, you are being a good communist. You
are doing your part for the nation. So they were
kind of paying people in like ideological points, if that
makes sense. Instead of rat tails or cobra skins and
which you know, one would argue is just as effective
(12:35):
and maybe does not have the same potential for abuse.
Uh if if the instructions being given to the good
people of communist China were in fact the right ones, right,
because there's no way to really game the system for
personal benefit, because in the communist system there really is
no personal benefit. It's all for the good of the
(12:56):
greater good. Right, Yeah, Yeah, And there were there were
still you know, again we talked about the death toll.
There were a lot of a lot of problems with
allocation of resources and logistics during the Great Leap Forward,
Like let's talk about nineteen fifty eight. All right, in
ninety you're walking around China, you're going to be now
(13:20):
living in a commune of some sort if you formerly
were just in a village on a farm. You are
also going to see a ton of propaganda that the
government has issued to try to crowdsource tackling these four pests. Uh.
The weather was really nice in the harvest was good,
(13:42):
but unfortunately the centralized government had sent a bunch of
former farmers off to work in steel production, and the
harvest was rotting because it wasn't getting collected. That's the
thing about a harvest. You gotta get the stuff out
of the ground, out of the field, and somehow process
(14:03):
it and get it to people so that they can
need it. That just wasn't happening. But if you're let's
say it's early, you don't know that this is about
to go down. You're seeing a lot of posters, and
the posters are like, I love propaganda from this time period.
The posters show kids hanging with their elders and all
(14:27):
these art pieces, works of art that are telling the
people of China to just carry around fly swatters, use guns,
use gongs. Let's set to start them into submission. Well,
it looks really good. Gongs are fun to draw on
propaganda posters, and you can see them now online. If
(14:50):
you go to Chinese posters all one word dot net,
you'll see one picture. I believe it's called Everybody comes
to Beat Sparrows And it looks like there's some siblings.
There's like an older brother and a younger sister, and
the brother has a sling shot and the sister is
just like holding dead sparrows. Uh. And then there's another
(15:12):
one night, which is a knife cool looking knife daggerish
based on the animals for scale and on it are
the four pest mosquito, a fly, a sparrow, and a rat.
And let me just tell you, Noel Max, I don't
know if it's just artistic license, but that fly is huge.
Oh yeah, is it? Is it? Like? I mean, the
(15:34):
Chinese zodiac doesn't have like the year of the rat,
like it wasn't the rat almost kind of like revered
in certain ways in the Chinese culture. Yeah, there is
the year of the rat. The rat is one of
the astrological signs in Chinese astrology or the Chinese zodiac.
I believe was the last year of the rat. It
(15:54):
happens every twelve years in in the Chinese zodiac, the
rat is served pretty quick witted, wise entity. And so
the idea is that if you if your sign in
Chinese civitiact is rat, it depends both on the year
you're born and the time of year you're born, then
(16:16):
you are quick witted, resourceful, and you're smart, but you're
kind of cowardly. Well, there's also different flavors of rat,
like there are for you, like the metal the metal rat,
the fire rat, things like that. So we've established that
this series of episodes is about unintended consequences. The first
episode focused largely on you know, individual people citizens gaming
(16:39):
these sort of government incentive programs. Um and you you
made a really good point earlier in the episode today, Ben,
where you sort of aligned this or compared this with
maybe some of the programs that are happened that we're
happening through COVID relief and things like that, where while
they're intended to help people who really need it, we
also saw people using some of that need to buy
(17:00):
like expensive Pokemon cards. Where there's a government relief program,
there's a way people are going to figure out how
to take advantage of it. Today's episode is about much
more of an iron fisted, you know, unilateral approach where
the only incentive for participating is to look good in
(17:20):
the eyes of the all powerful government. So this program
that you've been describing Ben through through these propaganda means,
these posters and whatnot, and just kind of the rhetoric
that was going around was wildly successful. We have some
stats here. I think it was something in the neighborhood
of a billion sparrows were taken out, one point five
(17:43):
billion rats, I love this one. A hundred million kims
of flies and eleven million kilograms of mosquitoes were absolutely destroyed.
So on that level, this was a screaming six tests.
You know, it really worked. People were doing what they
were supposed to be doing. The fly swatters were out,
(18:06):
people were you know, just outright murdering, Uh, sparrows by
hook or by crook, or by gong or by slingshot.
But here's the thing. The government significantly miscalculated, which is understandable.
I mean science, I was the fifties, I mean the science.
I think that the understanding of the balance of ecosystems
(18:26):
should have been pretty fully formed at this point, right,
this kind of research. They are these webs of interconnectedness
with different species, and how you know this balance exists?
I think it should have been available, should have been
on the table. But for whatever reason, whether through pure
blind patriotism or some megalomaniacal sense of purpose that it
often comes along with these kinds of dictatorships. Uh, this
(18:49):
this connection was ignored. And the connection I'm referring to
is the role of the sparrow in maintaining a balance,
because as we mentioned, yeah, sparrows are a pest, and
that they'll pick through your fields and eat your your
fruits and your seeds and all that, and they can
cause a problem. But there's a there's another species of
critter that could cause even more of a problem, like
(19:09):
a biblical level problem, the humble on its own locusts.
But as we know, locusts don't just hang on their own.
Locusts roll deep, like really deep, millions and millions of
them that can just swarm these fields. And just we've
we've seen it, pitt I mean not I haven't seen
it personally, but that we've seen it depicted in film.
(19:30):
And I think there's probably footage out there of literally
these just waves of locusts coming in and just you know,
leaving a skeletal remain of what once was there in
terms of these crops or harvests. Um. And it turns
out that sparrows also eat locusts. They would if they
(19:51):
were alive. Yes, yes, the circle of life indeed, And
that's what happens when you break the circle. The sp
arrows were doing something, and without sparrows fulfilling that predator role,
the locusts just went ham It went hard. In the
paint in addition to, as you said, a disaster on
(20:14):
the level of a biblical plague, the Great Leap Forward
involved some new ideas about agriculture, and the agricultural techniques
they implemented just made things worse. There's a great quote
you can read it and Discover magazine dot com that
says the mass deaths of sparrows and nationwide loss of
(20:36):
crops resulted in untold millions starving. And they put the
number at twenty to thirty million people died from nineteen
fifty eight nineteen sixty two, and it was a demographic crisis.
The amount of people dying changed the nation for generations
(20:58):
to come. And the and part of it is because
the four Pest program was on its own enormously successful.
It did work. People did posse up and kill vermin together,
so they also stopped some diseases right that were spread
(21:18):
by mosquitoes and rats and so on. It made it
one of the most successful public health campaigns in history,
at least if you just bracketed off by itself. But
nothing exists in a vacuum, right, I say this all
the time. This was a massive cost for the Chinese government,
(21:39):
for the Chinese people, ecologically, demographically, the human species in
this case sort of failed to acknowledge the system that
had already existed, the system that had predated humanity, which
is that you need to have predators and pray interacting
because if you remove one from the suation, if you
(22:01):
remove one constraint, then you know something else is going
to grow to fill that space. And in this case,
it was a horrendous plague of lucus and millions of
people did starve. That is a downer, but it is true, right,
So let's put it. Let's put a fine point on it.
(22:23):
Let's put a button in a bow on it. Millions
of people in part died because of one of the
most successful public health campaigns in history. It's weird when
you put it that way, but it's true because the
four past campaign did do what it's set out to do.
And that is a classic example of Cobra effect. And
(22:44):
you know, again to the point about things not existing
in a vacuum, people are smart. People were aware that
something went wrong. Right, So no, from my understanding there
they made some efforts to mitigate this, right, did they do? Yes,
we'll get to that into two seconds. I was just
wanted to point out I sort of half made a
(23:05):
joke earlier about you know, we had gongs in the
list of of of ways of combating the sparrows, and
I said, well, he was just gonna startle them to death. Yeah,
that's exactly what it was. Not only would they use
gongs and drums, they'd use pots and pans and then
just make tons of noise and it would apparently, uh
scare or startle the sparrows to the point where they
(23:26):
would fall from the sky out of exhaustion. And in
addition to you know, targeting them with weapons, their nests
were torn apart, their eggs were broken, any like, baby
fledgling sparrows that were found were murdered unequivocally, So this
would have been a pretty pretty gnarly time, you know,
to be to be a kid. They're just you're literally
(23:47):
just stomping on baby sparrows all the time. I just
I can't imagine this wouldn't have had some sort of
traumatic impact. You know. It reminds me of there's a
story in the movie Mandy, which I the you and
I both love quite a bit, where the character of
Mandy's telling a traumatic story about how her father forced
her to try to force her to murder a bag
(24:11):
of baby starlings, because starling similarly, you know, mess with crops.
I think they were farmers as well. And it was
the way she describes the story was she had to
she ran away in terror, because yeah, that's the pretty
gnarly thing to ask little kids to do. Um. So
I can't so, I can't imagine there wouldn't have been
psychological impacts of this kind of stuff on, you know,
(24:32):
these kids that would grow into maybe it was rather
ruthless adults. Yeah. Also we should point out Malsa Dong,
who was, you know, the chairman of the government who
was also leading the ideation of this campaign. He knew
he didn't know anything about animals, He was not an ecologist,
(24:55):
He didn't want to talk about the plan. He didn't
have any experts come in and talk with him. He
just kind of decided there were four past they would
call it the four Past plan and that and they
would kill those four pasts. Yeah. Yeah, And I like
that you mentioned the mandy aspect there, because kind of
like forcing kids or peer pressuring kids to kill wild animals,
(25:17):
it's a very strange psychological position to put any kid
in you know what I mean absolutely um and uh
you know, and and of course, as you mentioned, the
result of all of this sparrow murder was in fact
the Great Chinese Famine. But you know, once that, once
(25:39):
this realization kind of came into focus for maw uh,
he decided that not throw the whole program out, you know,
with the with the bathwater. Um. He instead decided to
replace the sparrow in that four past campaign with the
humble bed bug. And while you know this definitely made
(26:00):
people a little less itchy, the genie was already out
of the bottle in terms of the famine aspect of it,
so this would not have actually had any impact whatsoever
on you know, bringing the crops back. So the Great
Leap Forward ended, or the whole campaign ended in nineteen
sixty two, uh, and with it also ended the four
(26:22):
Pest campaign. But in nine the government actually sort of
resurrected this program with a new round of propaganda posters
that you could see in Beijing, um and as well
at the Southwest Agricultural University in Chong King that once again,
once again I am asking you to please murder these
(26:44):
four pests. And at this point it became rats, flies, mosquitoes,
and cockroaches. Yeah, leave the higher order animals alone, they said,
But you know this one kind of this was less
of a spectacle because people were already killing rats, flies, mosquitoes,
(27:06):
and cockroaches. It wasn't particularly new, or it wasn't a
weird question. But I love that you bring up modern opportunities.
Man for the cobra effect, Mexico City had a cobra
effect that didn't involve animals at all. We've ever been
to Mexico City, you know, they've had an air pollution
problem for a long time. In nine, Mexico City said
(27:30):
all right, we're gonna make this car rationing policy or
set a laws. Basically that's based on the numbers on
your license plate. The way it worked is that it
was rationing the amount of days in a week you
could drive based on your license plate. But it didn't
(27:55):
limit the number of cars you could buy. I think
I missing car stuff years back. So what people did
is they said, Okay, I've got a car. You know,
just off top of my head, you can't drive on
Wednesdays or whatever, So I'll just try to find a
cheap car with a different license plate. And that will
be like my Wednesday car. And then the people who
(28:17):
could do it started buying these cars. Then, Uh, there
was a flood of cheap cars coming into Mexico City
that made it easier for people to buy a cheap
you know, Wednesday car or whatever. That just made the
problem worse. They ended up with more cars in the
city than they had when they started the plan. Oh
(28:38):
and that's also a city that suffers from traffic congestion,
you know, problems, as any major city often does, but
I believe it's particularly bad there. So this is like
contributing to a whole another set of problems in addition
to the pollution unintended consequence. Let's move to Bogata, Colombia.
UM In that's involves a band uh similar to the
(29:03):
Mexico City issue, also based on license plate numbers. And
in fact, they they looked to the Mexico City Initiative
as as the influence for starting this program. UM. But
they tried to improve upon it by switching the combinations
of days and license plate numbers every year. But of course, again,
(29:23):
where there's a will, there's a loophole. Uh, And the
Colombian people figured out ways to kind of get around
the law by driving during off peak hours, which again
contributes to additional pollution because now you've got more people
driving at what would have been kind of the sort
of like reprieved time and contributing to overall worse congestion
(29:47):
and worse pollution. That's happening more consistently. Then. In two
thousand five we have another example um involving the U
N inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change. We know about
bees ben and the unintended consequences or the very least
the perceived unfairness of things like carbon credits. Right, yeah,
(30:09):
carbon credits the neoliberal solution to fighting pollution accidental rhyme
hashtag yeah. The idea is that you can incentivize companies
by paying them to have participate in this carbon credit
program without getting in the weeds, and that you can
(30:30):
learn more about this in our other shows stuff they
don't want you to know. What happened is companies actually accelerated.
They ramped up the production of a gas called HFC
DASH twenty three, huge pollutant byproduct of coolant production, helped
them cash in on the credits. The coolant is bad
for the environment. There's another there's another example from ours,
(30:54):
our fair state of Georgia in which ridiculous history is based.
It's called the pig radic Asian program started two thousand
and seven. Uh. Some people might have thought it was crazy,
you know, with the idea of somebody rationalizing owning high
powered firearms by saying, how how am I going to
take out forty Ferrell hogs or something like that. I
(31:15):
was hoping that one. Yeah, who is not only a
very talented musician, he is a masterful twitter. Yes, yes,
and uh, Georgia made this pig radic eradication program in
Fort Benning. Specifically, locals are alleged to buy pigtails in
(31:38):
bulk from Butcher's to collect the bounty. And as they
do this, the wild pig population continues to grow, at
least during the years of the pig eradication program. Uh.
And oh side note, we've got an excellent opportunity. While
we're talking about Fort Benning for a little moment, we
(31:59):
like to call next with the facts enough just for
you right now, I'm here. Yes, so, Fort Benning is
probably gonna be no more soon because it is named
(32:20):
after a Confederate general. Like a lot of things in
Georgia unfortunately, but there has been an active campaign to
remove that name. So I guess theder that a good thing.
This wasn't the guy that was also like a high lansman,
so that was that was Gordon, who also has a
ford in Georgia. Yeah, in my hometown of Augusta. Benning
(32:40):
was a big fan of seating from the Union and um,
you know, like people can figure out probably what a
stands this were. But thankfully there's a lot of great
people such as Alwin Cash, who was awarded the Medal
of Honor. He would be a great person to put
the name on the or we do Henry Flipper, who
(33:02):
was born in Thomasville, Georgia as a slave but went
on to be the first African American to graduate from
West Point Military Academy. So those are some good names
we could put on the fort. And if you want
to find out more about, you know, the story and
other potential names that are being flowed around the a
j C has a great write up just titled Fort
(33:23):
Benning and Fort Gordon to be Renamed, and that is
written by Jeremy Redman, So give that a look. It's
a you're a pretty important story going around. Yeah, to
my knowledge, for Gordon has not yet been renamed. They're
looking at I could take so long, just have a
new name on it. Man, what's the ideal have would
be fort Nole and then one fort Bed Yeah, and
(33:45):
then the s s Max Williams Destroyership off the coast.
Uh huh and Max with the facts indeed? Sure for you? Yes,
(34:06):
and and Max when when I hear this on air,
I'm hoping it comes with a sound cue with the
Max with the facts. We can make it a whole thing.
Just I'm trying to read your your facial expression getting
a very very yeah, gives very weird nods. Let's move on. Yeah,
let's it's not just Max is weird nods. They're my
(34:27):
favorite and if they're the weirdest of nods. But yeah,
moving past racist you know military basis, Hey, accidental rhyme,
racist military basis. We are now in Australia and the
year two thousand nineteen when Senator Pauline Hansen Um proposes
a program called Cash for cane Toads. I love the commercial.
(34:49):
You know, Hello, good day, Do you have a bunch
of cane toads? Would you like some cash? Trades or
cane toads for cash. One eight hundred toads for cash.
I don't know how the numbers will work up. And
and these are not the kind of toads you want
to lick unless you want to you know, die. Uh.
And there's a different kind of trip, the trip to
the afterlife. And that's because these cane toads are incredibly
(35:12):
toxic and they're incredibly invasive. Yeah, check out you can
get a look at the cane toad. There's a great
article written on this in The Conversation by David Smerdon,
who is a professor or assistant professor at the School
of Economics in the University of Queensland. The economics of
cash for cane toads a textbook example of perverse incentives.
(35:33):
The idea would you would give welfare recipients ten cents
for every living toad that they collected. They weren't killing
the toads. He collected them while they were alive. They
gave them to the local council or government, and those
folks would kill the toads in large freezers. They would
freeze them to death. And while this while this cane
(35:55):
toade situation hasn't reached the level of Cobras Inda or
rats in Vietnam. There's a great line that Professor Smritan
ends his article with where he says, this proposal was
no doubt made with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, in reality,
the only real beneficiaries would be economics teachers, which for
(36:17):
an economics professor is like a mic drop moment. Uh.
There's another example of Cobra effect that I think will
be familiar to all of our fellow ridiculous historians who
are denizens of the Internet. It is called the Streisand effect,
where your request to suppress or remove something from the
(36:39):
public eye only brings more attention to it. It's named
that because Barbara Streisand the musician in two thousand three,
she attempted to take down some public aerial photos of
her mansion in Malibu. Barbara Streisand has had quite a
(37:00):
successful career. You can imagine the mansion is pretty swank.
The issue was that the folks that took the photo
were TMZ or you know, a journalistic or pop culture outfit.
There was something called the California Coastal Records Project. They
document the coastline for study for science and before she
(37:23):
before the news about her contacting them came out, nobody cared.
The only way you would look at their archives is
if you were somehow involved in the study of beach
front erosion in California. Yes exactly. I mean it's it's
true of anything, you know, when you make a stink
about it publicly like that, it piques people's interests every time.
(37:45):
Yeah exactly. So I want to point that out because
it brings up something crucial to remember. Even if we
are attempted to look back with the benefit of retrospect
and say, oh wow, I can't believe these people didn't
think of all these uh terrible consequences, you have to
remember that the Cobra effect is still very much in play,
(38:05):
and it's not just India, It's not just the British
raj It's not just Cobra's. You have to think through
the consequences of your actions. We say this as fans
of improv A little planning does matter. Just plan a
little think about what could or could not go wrong.
But I'll tell you what went great this week. Noal
in my opinion, was our two part episode on the
(38:30):
Cobra effect, and we didn't even mention Cobra insurance. Thank goodness.
No oh yeah, that's like an acronym though, isn't that
what I always wanting with? That stands for I forget?
But yeah, this is a mainly intentional two partner, uh,
a pretty beefy two partner, if I might add, So
you're welcome. I know there was some gross stuff in here,
but I think there was also some illuminating and of
(38:51):
course ridiculous stuff in here as well. So huge thanks
to you ridiculous historians for tuning in. Huge thanks to
super producer Max Williams Alex Williams, who composed this banging
bop that you're hearing in your very ears right now.
And thanks to our show's own Barbara streisand Jonathan Strickland
(39:11):
ak the quister. There we go. That one landed for backs,
thanks of course to Eaves, Jeff, Go to Christopher Haciotis,
Thanks to our friends over at Ridiculous Romance Eli and
Diana Banks. Thanks to our good pals over at Ridiculous Crime,
Zarin Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton. And there's one more thing
(39:34):
that we have to announce, right Noel, Yes are good pals.
Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley have just dropped the trailer
for their new ridiculous show, Ridiculous News, giving you a
weekly dose of topical news e type items, as well
as a more evergreen deep dive into concepts that are
(39:57):
going to help you wrap your head around the ridiculous
that is the news, which is, of course, you know,
modern history. So it's very much in the wheelhouse what
we do here, what they do on Ridiculous Romance and
on Ridiculous crime, and we're happy to welcome them to
the family. So check out the trailer for Ridiculous News,
available now on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio, Apple,
(40:18):
wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, yes, over the moon.
We are so excited. We know you'll love these shows.
Don't take our word for it. Check them out today
thanks to the entire Ridiculous universe. And you know what
special shout out to Max for. Uh. We're hurting so
many cats on this thing, man, I can't wait. You
(40:40):
know what's next? No, what, Let's get some new T
shirt ideas, Let's do some uh, let's do some live appearances.
What what do you think about a what did Zarin
call it ridiculous? Palooza, Ridicular Ridicula Paloza. There you go, there,
thank you. Yes, we'll see you there, folks, and you
(41:01):
know next time. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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