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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In

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Speaker 1: this episode, we're gonna we're gonna be talking about some

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Speaker 1: darker content towards the end, as the title of the

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Speaker 1: episode implies, and indeed even the darker, the less dark

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Speaker 1: elements we're gonna talk about are kind of a crash

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Speaker 1: course in the the The Misadventures of Coloni Hillism. But

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Speaker 1: before we get into all of that, we thought we'd

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Speaker 1: we'd kick off with maybe some lighter content. Yeah, Robert,

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Speaker 1: I understand that you want to tell me about peep nuts. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I would love to tell you about not only peep nuts, Joe,

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Speaker 1: but poop candy as well. Poop candy that's what the

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Speaker 1: dog believes comes out of the cats. But oh, now

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Speaker 1: you've taken into darker territory, Joe, But no, I'm not.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about the rearing of human children as opposed

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Speaker 1: to dogs here. Um and this ties into the overall

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Speaker 1: theme here, the use of the often the use of

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Speaker 1: bounties and bribes, and then what happens when the economics

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Speaker 1: of that spirals out of control. So my son is

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Speaker 1: for now, But there was a time not too long

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Speaker 1: ago when we were trying to potty train him to

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Speaker 1: get him to actually um urinate and defecate in the

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Speaker 1: toilet when he needed to go, listen to his body

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Speaker 1: and follow up. So it's apparently not enough just to

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Speaker 1: say that is where you go do such business and

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Speaker 1: point to the toilet. You actually you need to introduce

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Speaker 1: some incentives to motivate this behavior, right and there there

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Speaker 1: there are as many different schools of parenting as there

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Speaker 1: are parents. So some some people have a real problem

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Speaker 1: with with using bribes in any situation. But hey, that's

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Speaker 1: what we did in it work for us. Then you've

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Speaker 1: also got the poop anywhere parents, who I hear a

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Speaker 1: real trouble. Well that's now I know people who are

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Speaker 1: using that technique and that that seems to work for them.

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Speaker 1: But I was just kidding. Wait, that's a real parenting philosopher.

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Speaker 1: I thought you were anywhere. Well, there's there are different

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Speaker 1: toilet training techniques that imply it's not so much a

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Speaker 1: poop anywhere. Um, what it means is like the kid

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Speaker 1: will go around without pants on, and then when they

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Speaker 1: need to go, you scoop them up. Um, that's sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. So that's what I thought you were okay there,

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Speaker 1: Believe me. There are a lot of different techniques out there.

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Speaker 1: And uh, and and that one in particularly, I know

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Speaker 1: some people who have used that and it made work

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Speaker 1: for them. In our case, though, we we issued a

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Speaker 1: strict bounty for every successful urination in the potty. Um,

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Speaker 1: he would get one honey sessame nut from this little

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Speaker 1: bag honey sesame. Yeah, like you buy a Trader Joe's.

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Speaker 1: And oh, they're they're delicious. U. I had to stop

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Speaker 1: eating them for a while when they were when they

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Speaker 1: became peepy nuts for me, and kind of there by association.

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Speaker 1: But they're great. Uh. And on the other hand, for

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Speaker 1: every successful poop in the toilet, which is was even

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Speaker 1: more important to us at the time, he would get

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Speaker 1: a single fruit gummy and that was the poop candy.

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Speaker 1: So the policy proved effective for us, but it also

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Speaker 1: led to a period during which he began to make

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Speaker 1: a case that each piece of feces was surely a

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Speaker 1: separate poop and should then result in additional poop candies

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Speaker 1: as well as the as any interruption in the stream

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Speaker 1: of urine would result in two or more instances of urination,

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Speaker 1: and each would require a separate reward. Okay, well this

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Speaker 1: this is smart bargaining. Actually, yeah, yeah, and it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's crazy too when I look back and realized that

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Speaker 1: he hadn't and he still hasn't really discovered the power

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Speaker 1: of lying. Uh so, but there was still this tendency

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Speaker 1: to bend the rule and even break the spirit of

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Speaker 1: the rule for greater rewards. Now, after that we clarified

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Speaker 1: the policy and then luckily we were able to phase

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Speaker 1: it out shortly after that. But how might things have

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Speaker 1: escalated if if we hadn't You know, That's that's something

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Speaker 1: to think about and I've been thinking about in researching

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Speaker 1: this topic. Well, Robert, I want to tell you at story.

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Speaker 1: It might not be a true story, but but it's

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Speaker 1: an interesting story with some very true analogs about the

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Speaker 1: power of incentives and the sometimes unintended consequences of incentives,

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Speaker 1: and about serpents of course, asps very dangerous. Now, the

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Speaker 1: story goes something like this, In colonial India, you had

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Speaker 1: a British colonial administrator who decided there were too many

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Speaker 1: cobras in the city of Delhi. You know, I got

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Speaker 1: cobra's coming out of my ears. We gotta get rid

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Speaker 1: of all these things. Though, I wonder what that actually

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Speaker 1: looked like. I mean, if this really happened. I know

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Speaker 1: we're all picturing that scene in Raiders of the Lost

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Speaker 1: Art exactly, but it was probably more like I saw

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Speaker 1: one cobra and that was too many. We've got a

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Speaker 1: cobra problem in the city. But anyway, so he wanted

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Speaker 1: to get rid of the cobras in the city, kill

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Speaker 1: them all, get him out of here. So he came

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Speaker 1: up with a solution. Put a bounty on the Cobraska.

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Speaker 1: That makes sense. So if you kill a cobra, just

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Speaker 1: bring the dead snake to the government office and receive

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Speaker 1: a cash award. Yeah. They are making it worth your

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Speaker 1: while to take time out of your day to kill

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Speaker 1: a snake or two. Yeah. And at first it seemed

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Speaker 1: like this was working great. They're collecting plenty of cobras.

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Speaker 1: But before long, the local administrators discovered a problem. The

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Speaker 1: people have figured out a way to game the system

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Speaker 1: and turn the snake bounty into free money. They weren't

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Speaker 1: catching cobras from the city and killing them. They were

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Speaker 1: farming cobras at home, killing them once they were mature,

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Speaker 1: and then bringing them in to get the bounty. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously they couldn't allow this kind of mischief to continue,

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Speaker 1: so the administrators ended the cobra bounty. But now you

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Speaker 1: had all these snake breeders who had been farming cobras

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Speaker 1: in order to get the bounty, and they're they're stuck

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Speaker 1: with hundreds of worthless snakes. So what do you do

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Speaker 1: with them. We'll just release them, so they have no

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Speaker 1: inciative for keeping them. They release them into the streets,

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Speaker 1: and the cobra population in the city drastically increases. This

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Speaker 1: lead to the principle that's now known to economists as

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Speaker 1: the cobra effect, and it's when a strategy implemented to

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Speaker 1: solve a problem directly makes the problem worse. And the

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Speaker 1: story about cobras and Delhi, as I mentioned, might be

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Speaker 1: nothing more than a modern folk tale. I haven't come

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Speaker 1: across any evidence that it actually happened, but there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of examples where exactly this type of thing has

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Speaker 1: definitely occurred in the real world. That's right, and one

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Speaker 1: of them occurs with another colonial situation, another infestation in Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Speaker 1: All right, this would have been the nineteenth century. So

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Speaker 1: you have French colonial authorities in Vietnam, and you know,

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Speaker 1: there are various problems to focus in on, but the

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Speaker 1: one they choose to really apply their attention to is

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Speaker 1: the city's rap problem. Now, I can imagine the rap

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Speaker 1: problem was probably a real problem, probably a real problem

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Speaker 1: that you know, like the cobra thing. You can imagine

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Speaker 1: a colonial administrator sees one cobra and decides that there's

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Speaker 1: a hober problem in the city, right, Yeah, because I

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Speaker 1: can't think of a situation where another city has had

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Speaker 1: had a snake infestation problem off hand. But rats, of course,

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Speaker 1: rat problems have been an issue throughout human history. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's quite common to have rat problems in any large

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Speaker 1: population center. People produce a lot of garbage. Garbage is tasty.

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Speaker 1: They have sewers that are great places to dwell in

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Speaker 1: and have your little breeding grounds. Yeah, they're smart and

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Speaker 1: they're successful. And uh as was learned. And this is

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Speaker 1: the other key thing. This is one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: that they focused in on rats so much, is that

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Speaker 1: in eighteen four, that's when Alexandra Yearson discovered that debonic

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Speaker 1: plague was caused caused by little fleas that wrote on rats.

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Speaker 1: So that so you can see why they were concerned.

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Speaker 1: So what did they do? Well, they did what what

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Speaker 1: often happens in these cases. They assigned some professional rat

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Speaker 1: catchers to take care of everything. But then that's not enough,

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Speaker 1: so they turned of all and tears. They turned to

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Speaker 1: two mercenary rat catchers, and they offer a bounty of

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Speaker 1: one cent per rat tail. And the idea here was that,

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Speaker 1: especially since the disease was an issue, asking the rat

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Speaker 1: catchers to handle the body was gonna be too much

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Speaker 1: to ask, would be a burden and just a little

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Speaker 1: growth right from what I've read, You know, they'd catch

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Speaker 1: thousands of rats in the sewer in in a very

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Speaker 1: short period of time. Lugging all those dead rat bodies

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Speaker 1: would actually be really heavy, yeah, and then discussing, so

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Speaker 1: just to prove how many you killed, really, just take

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Speaker 1: the tail, right, So that's yeah, that's exactly what they did.

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Speaker 1: Brought in the tail, and it seemed to be working

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Speaker 1: at first, but then the authorities began to notice something

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Speaker 1: curious in the streets. They've noticed a bunch of rats

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Speaker 1: running around without tails, So they quickly realized that some

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Speaker 1: of those enterprising rat catchers out there were simply lopping

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Speaker 1: the tails off of the wild rats when they caught them,

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Speaker 1: perhaps out of laziness, but more likely so that tail

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Speaker 1: is rats could go forth breed and produce more rat

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Speaker 1: tails to harvest. You know, they were being economically smart,

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Speaker 1: they were they were trying to you know, if you

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Speaker 1: are living off the land, you don't want to destroy

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Speaker 1: all of the vegetation in the land, so you only

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Speaker 1: pick from some of the plants. You don't kill every plant. Right,

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Speaker 1: It's like the policy or the policy that's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be in place with stone crabs. You harvest one of

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Speaker 1: the of the the clause and then you let the

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Speaker 1: creature go. You don't harvest them both. So that that

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Speaker 1: was one of the ramifications of the bounty. But much

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Speaker 1: like our cobra example, this the exact same thing took place.

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Speaker 1: Um others took advantage of the law by establishing rat farms. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because rats are are easy to breed. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: don't even have to try. I really don't have to try.

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Speaker 1: You just to collect some rats and let them do

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Speaker 1: their thing, and you're gonna have more rats, which you

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Speaker 1: can then lock their tails off and collect your bounty.

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Speaker 1: So the French were horrified that their efforts to curb

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Speaker 1: the rat population was actually increasing it, and they scrapped

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Speaker 1: the bounty program entire early. And in nine three bubonic

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Speaker 1: plague broke out in Hanoi. Oh no, Yeah, so there's

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Speaker 1: there's a lot more there are. There are a number

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Speaker 1: of more angles to this story. There's a great paper

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Speaker 1: out there that ties all of this in with this

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Speaker 1: sort of the doom nature of French rule in Vietnam,

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Speaker 1: and it's titled of Rats, Rice and Race, The Great

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Speaker 1: annoy Rat Massacre, An Episode in French Colonial History by

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Speaker 1: Michael g Van. Yeah. And there's an older episode of

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Speaker 1: Freakonomics Radio actually the deals exactly with the Cobra effect

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Speaker 1: that I listened to, and it's a good episode. It's

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Speaker 1: worth checking out. So we won't rehash everything they cover

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Speaker 1: in their show, but just to mention a couple other

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Speaker 1: interesting examples they bring up. One is a very similar

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Speaker 1: situation to the rats in Hanoi, but this is with

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Speaker 1: Ferrell pigs in Fort Benning, Georgia. So it's a local tale. Right,

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Speaker 1: have you been to Fort Benning? I've been through there,

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Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, did you see any pigs? No? No,

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Speaker 1: I saw I saw an interesting overpass, and I believe

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Speaker 1: that's that's the extent of it. Okay, Well, anyway, it's

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Speaker 1: in I think southwest Georgia's that. Yeah. So there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of wild pigs in this area. They're they're

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Speaker 1: invasive Ferrell pigs, and they do a lot of damage.

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Speaker 1: They dig everything up, they get into your garbage, they

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Speaker 1: eat everything. They caused damage to government property and buildings.

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Speaker 1: So people wanted to do something about this Ferrell pig problem.

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Speaker 1: So there was a cash bounty exchange program for pig

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Speaker 1: tails established to fight the feral pig problem. But same

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Speaker 1: problems we've encountered before. There's a lot of suspicion that

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Speaker 1: some of these pig tails people were turning in for

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Speaker 1: a cash reward came from illicit sources, maybe some meat processing,

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Speaker 1: We're not exactly sure. And then in the end, it

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Speaker 1: looks like baiting practices established by the pig bounty hunters

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Speaker 1: actually probably increased the number of wild pigs in the area.

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Speaker 1: So people claim all these cash rewards because they put

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Speaker 1: out a bunch of food to attract pigs, and then

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Speaker 1: they shoot some of them, but you know, you were

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Speaker 1: feeding the pig EIGs, fattening them up for breeding and

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Speaker 1: producing more pigs, because you're you're trying to put a

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Speaker 1: value on the elimination of the animal, but in doing so,

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Speaker 1: you've put a value on the continued life of the animal. Exactly. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting how that how that plays out. And this

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Speaker 1: brings me to a thought about the nature of incentives,

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Speaker 1: because it's sort of highlights that you can't have an

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Speaker 1: incentive that's just sort of logically associated with the outcome

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Speaker 1: you want. In order to try to prevent the gaming

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Speaker 1: of the system, you really need to make incentives as

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Speaker 1: closely aligned to the actual desired outcome as possible. So

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Speaker 1: what I mean by that is, if you want to

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Speaker 1: eliminate cobras from the city, don't offer cash rewards for

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Speaker 1: dead cobras because you don't want dead cobras. That's not

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Speaker 1: the outcome you're looking for. You want an absence of cobras. So,

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Speaker 1: but that's a lot harder to incentivize, right, Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: have to somebody come along and investigate for cobra free

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Speaker 1: spaces exactly. Yeah, you need more complex systems to try

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Speaker 1: to incentivize that. So, for example, maybe you could establish

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Speaker 1: a Cobra Control Authority and then the employees of this

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Speaker 1: organization are given a cash bonus that's proportional to how

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Speaker 1: few Cobra bytes are reported in local hospitals in a

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Speaker 1: given year. But even with that, you run into some

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Speaker 1: some problems, right like without strict controls on that, what

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Speaker 1: if you have members of the Cobra control authority intimidating

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Speaker 1: people not to report their Cobra bytes or not to

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Speaker 1: go to the hospital, or intimidating people at hospitals not

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Speaker 1: to report them to the government. Uh So, it just

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Speaker 1: seems like whenever you introduce incentive programs to to a

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Speaker 1: wide ranging you know, a group of participants to the public,

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Speaker 1: essentially you you introduce the problem that people are going

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Speaker 1: to find ways to access the reward without helping you

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Speaker 1: achieve your goal. It's it seems like it should be

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Speaker 1: a doctor's Seuss book or kind of um, a source

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Speaker 1: of apprentice kind of tail, right, just that as it

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Speaker 1: spirals out of control in these examples, UM, I can't

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Speaker 1: help but think of quotas that are set forth for

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Speaker 1: law enforcements. Sometimes you know, like you know, you've got

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Speaker 1: to get so many speeding tickets out there, and so

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Speaker 1: you end up having a police officers setting up in

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Speaker 1: speed traps to to hit those quotas, which in that case,

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Speaker 1: I guess it's not a clear it's not necessarily making

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Speaker 1: the problem worse, but it's also just kind of like

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Speaker 1: we're not really stopping it. We're just kind of like

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Speaker 1: setting up a system to continually collect the bounty on speeding. Yeah, Like,

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Speaker 1: I guess I can see where there's a balance there, right,

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Speaker 1: So if if it depends on how the quota is

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Speaker 1: and how aggressive you are and carrying it out, Because

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Speaker 1: if there's a balance to where all right, you're just

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Speaker 1: people know not to go above a certain speed or

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Speaker 1: they should know and and if they don't, they get

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Speaker 1: a ticket. So like both and that is going to

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Speaker 1: make the road safer. But I guess the more the

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Speaker 1: focus is on hitting the quota, getting the essentially the bounty,

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Speaker 1: and losing sight of the purpose of the law entirely,

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Speaker 1: that's where things get out of whacking. You end up

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Speaker 1: with like notorious speed traps, right, And I think this

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Speaker 1: gets into a concept that's very closely related to the

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Speaker 1: Cobra effect, though I think Technically, the Cobra effect wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to be just in incentives and economics. If you're

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Speaker 1: talking more generally about anything where an attempt to solve

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Speaker 1: a problem makes the problem worse. You couldn't even go

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Speaker 1: to the example of of like aka Homo. You know

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Speaker 1: that that great story of the person who is trying

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Speaker 1: to touch up this this classic painting of Christ in

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Speaker 1: his passion moment had some damage to it over the

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Speaker 1: years trying to touch it up, and he ends up

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Speaker 1: having this kind of wailing monkey face. Yes, which is

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite images from the whole Internet. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but and then she wasn't working for a bounty. But

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Speaker 1: imagine if there was a bounty out there on restoring

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Speaker 1: old works of art you could end up with with however,

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Speaker 1: many of these strange little monkey faces just completely obliterating

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Speaker 1: art history. Yeah, I guess the problem there is that

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Speaker 1: you are you are giving people who don't have proper

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Speaker 1: training in an area and incentive to participate in the area,

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Speaker 1: and thus they're probably going to make things worse. But

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Speaker 1: another way of framing the issue is just the concept

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Speaker 1: of perverse incentives, meaning, specifically, in the Cobra effect, you're

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Speaker 1: the intended solution to a problem makes that problem worse.

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Speaker 1: Perverse incentives can just mean incentives that cause unintended negative outcomes,

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Speaker 1: especially if they're contrary to the benefit of the people

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Speaker 1: who offer the incentives. This all also reminds me of

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Speaker 1: a moment in one of my favorite books, Uh, Cornman

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Speaker 1: McCarthy's sentry. Oh yeah, we talked about this the other

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Speaker 1: day where there's a bounty on I think raybies bats

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Speaker 1: in that book in there, Yeah, like the local university

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Speaker 1: there there, they want to or is it health of

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Speaker 1: Art and I can't remember it's been but interested official

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Speaker 1: parties would like to see the bodies of local bats. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think it's because of rabies. Yeah. There's

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Speaker 1: a very enterprising young character in the book named Harrogate.

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Speaker 1: At the beginning of the book is arrested for having

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Speaker 1: illicit relations with watermelons that did not belong to him.

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Speaker 1: But then later on he comes up with some just

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Speaker 1: ingenious schemes for collecting bats. I think, far more bats

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Speaker 1: than was really than he was intended to collect. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he ends up strolling into town was just a sack

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Speaker 1: of dead bats, which he gets by belief. He buys

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Speaker 1: some poison, and he poisons little pieces of meat and

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Speaker 1: slingshots them into the air because the bats are accustomed

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Speaker 1: to praying on insects that are flying through the I

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Speaker 1: believe that's the scheme. That's a great book. It is

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Speaker 1: this is that makes me want to read it. Aget

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Speaker 1: that at any rate. The end up the doctor the

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Speaker 1: scientists confronting him when he brings this bag in, and

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Speaker 1: he's says, we know you you did not define these bats,

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Speaker 1: but we can't forge out how you did it. You've

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Speaker 1: got to tell us how you actually killed these bats.

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Speaker 1: And then he he relates the story of the slingshot.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's it. He was supposed to be collecting

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Speaker 1: dead bats. When he said he was killing, he was

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Speaker 1: making dead bats. So you know, in a sense they

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Speaker 1: were I guess the effort here was to protect humans,

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Speaker 1: protect health, but also you know, not eradicate bats. That

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Speaker 1: was not the intended outcome, but Harrogate did his best

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Speaker 1: to do just that in order to get the sweet bounty.

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Speaker 1: But of course, that is not the only book by

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Speaker 1: our great brutal novelist Cormick McCarthy to feature bounties. That's right,

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Speaker 1: there's also blood Meridian great novel, horrific novel um in

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Speaker 1: large ways, I think unfilmable novel, and I kind of

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Speaker 1: hope it's unfilmable. It is, uh would you would you

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Speaker 1: call it nihilistic? Yes? It is. Uh. Yeah, there's just

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Speaker 1: not much redeemable in the world than it is. A

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Speaker 1: book of uh, brutal and cruel people doing brutal and

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Speaker 1: cruel things, and one individual who might not be a

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Speaker 1: person at all, who might be an embodiment of of

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Speaker 1: awfulness to judge Judge Holden, who himself is probably based

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Speaker 1: very loosely on a real individual who was in a

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Speaker 1: gang of scalp hunters led by an actual historic individual,

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Speaker 1: one John Galton, who was indeed a superstar in the

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Speaker 1: vile trade of scalp hunting um harvesting, by some accounts

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Speaker 1: that two and fifty scalps in a single raid once

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Speaker 1: and fittingling. His group was eventually ambushed and scalped by

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Speaker 1: a band of Quichan tribespeople. So um, So we shouldn't

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Speaker 1: dwell too much on the nasty details, but we do

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Speaker 1: need to discuss what scalping is and and scalp hunting,

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Speaker 1: what what this practice consists of, and where it came from. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so uh. I mean most of you probably don't even

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Speaker 1: need to be told, especially if you've consumed much in

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Speaker 1: the way of American Western history or fiction. Not only

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Speaker 1: Blood Meridian, but Larry mcmurtry' is a Lonesome Dove. Novels

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Speaker 1: instantly come to mind as well, but actually never read

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Speaker 1: Lonesome Dove. Oh it's it's quite it's quite good. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Comanche Moon is another one in that series that I

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Speaker 1: read that was really good and really bizarre in many ways.

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Speaker 1: But both of these authors really really gaze deep into

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Speaker 1: the gruesome spectacle of the act. It entails the slicing flame,

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Speaker 1: ripping away of a portion or all of the human

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Speaker 1: scalp um and then then then you have this resulting trophy. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The victim can be living or dead. And there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of tales of scalping survivors, including in eighteen sixty four.

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Speaker 1: Probably the most famous is a thirteen year old Robert

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Speaker 1: McGee um. And he's famous because there's a wonderful, gruesome

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Speaker 1: photograph of him as an adult showing off his scalping

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Speaker 1: scars scars so um. And in this case he was

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Speaker 1: helped by a band of uh. Sioux Indians. So I

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Speaker 1: look up that photo online if you don't really want

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Speaker 1: to see it. Um, But where did the act come from?

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Speaker 1: That's actually something that has been, uh there's been a

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Speaker 1: kind of a debate on that over the years, right,

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Speaker 1: because we definitely do see it practiced by by both

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Speaker 1: sides in the American frontier. Right. Yeah, So it's it

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Speaker 1: comes down to, is this, uh, an ancient Native American

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Speaker 1: act that various cultural groups took part in, or is

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Speaker 1: this something that westerners introduced, that the colonists introduced to

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Speaker 1: the New World. Um. Now, certainly scalping was long attributed

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Speaker 1: as a purely Native American act, and indeed we see

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Speaker 1: plenty of examples of of scalping, both between tribes and

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Speaker 1: against the colonial invaders. Yeah, and that's that's something I

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Speaker 1: think even when I was a kid. Just my idea

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Speaker 1: of where this came from. I guess if you watch

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Speaker 1: old cartoons or something like that, you get the idea

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Speaker 1: that this is something that Native American tribes that their

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Speaker 1: warriors would do to the enemies, not something that was

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Speaker 1: done by European settlers. But in fact, it was done

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Speaker 1: by European settlers. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll see some plenty

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Speaker 1: of examples of that to come here, But it was

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Speaker 1: I think it is often presented as this kind of

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Speaker 1: savage thing that savage tribes people do. Um Eurocentric view

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Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, Now there was certainly a backlash against

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Speaker 1: that view, has pointed out in a wonderful article titled

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Speaker 1: The Unkindest cut Or Who Invented Scalping by James Axtell

405
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Speaker 1: and William C. Struvan in nineteen eighty And if you

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Speaker 1: want to blow by bloody blow account of the history

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Speaker 1: of scalping, that's a good article to seek out. But

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Speaker 1: they say that the the quote unquote savage Indian take

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Speaker 1: on scalping was replaced during the twentieth century for a

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Speaker 1: spell there by Native American activists who who really pushed

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Speaker 1: forward the view that all that it was basically bloodthirsty

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Speaker 1: colonials who introduced the practice to the native peoples of

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Speaker 1: the America's by encouraging them to do so by instituting

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Speaker 1: bounties on on other on other tribes people and essentially

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Speaker 1: teaching them to take these headskins from others. So, under

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Speaker 1: this revisionist view, the scalping practice came from the European

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Speaker 1: settlers and was transferred to the frontier tribes correct time. However,

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Speaker 1: after this, a lot of you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people on the other side of the the issue they

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Speaker 1: weighed in. And really, when you do look at the

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Speaker 1: history and look at the historical accounts, you see that

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Speaker 1: the practice of taking scalps goes back way through colonial

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Speaker 1: invasion to pre Columbian times, okay, and it was quite

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Speaker 1: widespread through North America, even parts of South America. There's

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Speaker 1: there's archaeological evidence that shows evidence of post mortem scalpings

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00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 1: and skulls that showed evidence that the victim survived the

427
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: mutilation long enough for the bone tissue to regenerate. And

428
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 1: another point that's often brought up is that certainly Europeans

429
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: had had plenty of ways to torment and torture and

430
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 1: mutilate the body, not trying to make them look good

431
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: by parison, right, but for all their drawing and quartering

432
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: and hanging and hacking and what have you, you really

433
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: don't see much in the way of scalp taking in

434
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: European tradition prior to this point, and even in even

435
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: language itself, um so scalping as a word, the word

436
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 1: itself scalp predates the seventeenth century. It arises from a

437
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: scandin Navian Route and Uh and it was featured in

438
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: a in a sixteen o one edition of Plenty of

439
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: the Elder's Natural History, though the explorers in the New

440
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: World tended to be unversed in Latin classics, so they

441
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:38,400
Speaker 1: probably weren't exposed to it now. Instead, such trophies were

442
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 1: described as head skins or hair scalps. They just talked

443
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: about skinning and flying um until scalps and scalping became

444
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: a popular term in sixteen seventy six during King Phillip's

445
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 1: War between Uh Native American tribes and the English colonists

446
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 1: and their Native American allies. And meanwhile, there's a on

447
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: the other hand, tho, there's a fairly robust vocabulary for

448
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: scalps in many of the native tongues. The the Ojibwa

449
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 1: language distinguishes between scalp and sioux scalp, and there's a

450
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: separate word for each, while Eastern Abenaki language has special

451
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 1: terminology for enemy scalps that are already taken, its trophies

452
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: for scalps that could be taken, and scalps from the

453
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: living and the dead so it's kind of like those

454
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: uh the Old World where the old saying that Inuits

455
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: have all these different words for snow. Because there's so

456
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: much of it, you can make the the argument that

457
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: the scalping was enough of the practice that there were uh,

458
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: specific terms that were used in some of these cultures

459
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: for specific types of scalps. Yes, but of course, as

460
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 1: we see with the European invaders of the American continents, uh,

461
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: they they had all of their own barbaric and violent practices,

462
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: and even though scalping doesn't traditionally appear to be strongly

463
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 1: represented among them, they took to it quite rapidly. Yeah,

464
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: you could definitely say that. I mean they were kind

465
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: of like, well, the way we did it back home

466
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,160
Speaker 1: is we just or a person into four pieces with horses.

467
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: But hey, if you want to just take the scalp,

468
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,120
Speaker 1: we can do that too. Um. And that's the crazy part,

469
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: because it's one thing to to look at these native

470
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: tribes who had who had this in their culture and

471
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,239
Speaker 1: their tradition, and there may even be certain you know,

472
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: supernatural elements that are factored into it, but the columnists

473
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: had none of that. You just had a bunch of

474
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 1: in most cases Protestants showing up in the New World

475
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: and and readily getting into the act. Right, it's not

476
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 1: a part of their traditional cultural war practice. It's more

477
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: just sort of an adopted act of violence, and violence,

478
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: of course becomes a standard in relations between columnists and

479
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: the native inhabitants of the America's pretty much pretty much

480
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 1: from inception, pretty much from that first outside context event

481
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: when the two met, violence just continues to be a

482
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: part of their history. Um and uh, And that's where

483
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: the scalping really begins to to pick up. So it

484
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: seems based on most accounts, all right, it's a pre

485
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: existing thing that happens between tribe members in their tribal wars,

486
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: often as as a way to take a trophy and

487
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: then travel a long distance back with it, kind of

488
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 1: getting back to the idea of taking the tail of

489
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: a rat. Right. But then, uh, the Protestants, the colonials

490
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: here they begin they begin to perpetuate the practice by

491
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: putting putting a bounty, say ten shillings worth of truck

492
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 1: cloth on native scalps, uh, that are taken by your

493
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: native ally, So take the scalps from the enemy tribes

494
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: people to people that we don't have alliances with and

495
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: we will pay you in some cloth, all right. But

496
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: then in the midst of Kings King Philip's War, which

497
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, which went from about six seventy eight,

498
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: they extended the bounty to mercenaries thirty shillings per scalp um.

499
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: And you you end up with plenty of horrific cases. There's, um,

500
00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 1: there's this case of Puritan kidnappy Hannah dustin uh She

501
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: and her fellow kidnappies they were held by by by

502
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: a band of tribespeople and then they escaped and they

503
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 1: went on to execute two men to women in six children,

504
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: and they received fifty pounds as a as a reward

505
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: for that act. And there's actually a statue of this

506
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:25,400
Speaker 1: woman in uh Bosco in New Hampshire, just a statue

507
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: of a murderer. Yeah, I mean, because that's it really

508
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: kind of sums up the weird ways we we have

509
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: historically made sense of this violence between these two people. Well, yeah,

510
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about perverse incentives. So so you've got

511
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: a rat bounty system where you assume, well, there's a

512
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: rat problem, so we need to do something about it.

513
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: So let's just collect rat tails and that will let

514
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: us know there's at least some significant amount of rat

515
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: killing going on. This seems like exactly the same principle

516
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: being applied to human beings. Yeah, yeah, I think that's

517
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: the thing. We see this this bounty system spiral ever

518
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: more out of control. Um, the French engaged in it,

519
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: the English engaged in it, and it eventually becomes not

520
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: only this thing that you're asking other tribes people to do, like, hey,

521
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: you guys, take scalps, right, take the scalps of our

522
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: enemies and will pay you. Scalps become the become a

523
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: valuable item for for colonial individuals as well, hunters and trappers, etcetera. Yeah,

524
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: it's just evidence that you are carrying out the genocide

525
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: that we're encouraging. Yeah. The first Massachusetts Act of sixteen

526
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: ninety four encouraged a bounty for Indie any Indian life. Uh,

527
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: while a seventeen or four renewal of that act amended

528
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: it so you only got a hundred pounds for adults,

529
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: ten pounds for children ten and older, and nothing for

530
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: kids under ten, which sounds semi decent at first, and

531
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: to realize that those children would be sold as slaves

532
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: are transported out of the country. Now, as early as

533
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: seventeen twelve, some folks were uneasy about that, And this

534
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: is this is kind of a sobering thought to realize

535
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: that not everybody was just completely on board with this. Yeah,

536
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: I would hope not. I mean, this is straightforwardly encouraging

537
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: a bounty for murder, right. I mean, though, at the

538
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: same point, you have to acknowledge that, like this was

539
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 1: a this was a tough time to be alive, Like

540
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of fear going on in these

541
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: communities and among these lawmakers. But but even even then,

542
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: there were people who said, I'm not sure about this.

543
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Judge Samuel Sewell spoke in a session of the

544
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: Massachusetts General Court and he said he he laid out

545
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: that he really thought that that this was it was

546
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: only okay. It should only be done if you're doing

547
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: it to protect your family, and if it's becoming something

548
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: that you're doing for commerce, then that's that's bad. Wait,

549
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: so it's okay to murder a Native American and collect

550
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: their scalp and turn it in for money, as long

551
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: as the reason you did it wasn't the money so

552
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 1: much that it was out of love for family. Yeah. Mean,

553
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: that's just the basic Protestant ethos, right, that's the that's

554
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: the the I'm kidding, but I mean, obviously that's the

555
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: horrible situation here is that you have it becomes the practice,

556
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: and then people have to people in positions of power

557
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: and authority have to find ways to support it and

558
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: rationalize it in their own mind. Yeah, but these rationalizations

559
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: seem to becoming indirect conflict with the economic incentives being offered.

560
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: If that's the case, why are you still offering the bounty? Yeah, yeah,

561
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: I agree. Um, and then it, uh, it gets ever

562
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: more out of control there, especially when ministers are are

563
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: speaking about it and they're not condemning it. There's this

564
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 1: wonderful quote here from Actual Instruments Peace. It goes when

565
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: ministers not only look the other way, but shared in

566
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: the profits from Indian deaths. The moral barometer of America

567
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: dipped dangerously low. At the bottom, however, lay the American Revolution,

568
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: in which Englishmen scalped Englishmen in the name of liberty.

569
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: Scalping and other techniques of Indian warfare placed in the

570
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: hands of a larger European population eventually sealed the Indian's

571
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:10,719
Speaker 1: fate in North America, but not before wreaking upon the

572
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: white man a subtle form of moral vengeance. So at

573
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: this point, I think, when we think about the cobra

574
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: effect in relation to scalping, is this an example of

575
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: the cobra effects, right, Because on one hand, it's kind

576
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: of doing exactly what the bounty is supposed to do,

577
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: bringing about genocidal violence against the native population. Then again,

578
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: I guess if you interpret the purpose of such a

579
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: bounty on on Indian scalps as to be, I don't know,

580
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: to pacify the border, you know, to make the frontier

581
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: less bloody, you're obviously having a perverse incentive there. I mean,

582
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: you're you're causing murderous havoc, right. And there are plenty

583
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: of examples to where the scalp trade just intensifies the violence. Uh.

584
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: And you end up with uh, with with various native

585
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: chiefs in some cases who are putting bounties then for

586
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,479
Speaker 1: their own people upon the white man. And and so

587
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: you have this this kind of a war of extermination

588
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: from both sides. There are examples, um, some of the

589
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: like in the Mexican examples will get to in a

590
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: second where Galton and his gang in that specifically, they

591
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: would roll into an area and violence would just intensify

592
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: because they're just stirring up all of this hatred. So,

593
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: of course scalp hunting continued, um and uh, and falsified

594
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: scalping also pops up as an inevitability weight. So maybe

595
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: just like collecting pigtails from a meat processing plant and saying, yeah,

596
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: I shot all these pigs, you might have people getting

597
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: scalps or parts of scalps from illicit sources, a sort

598
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: of yeah, there's a there's a quote that I ran

599
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: across these materials from nineteenth century American historian Francis Parkman,

600
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: and he said the hunting of humans would constitute at

601
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: profitable occupation if only the prey was not so shy

602
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: and nimble. So I mean, well, you can't just with

603
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: the rats. You can just raise them, right, and rats

604
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: are everywhere. People are can prove a little harder to kill,

605
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: even if you're a ruthless gang of mercenaries roving about,

606
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: and people are gonna inevitably to figure out how can

607
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: I get the most out of this kill? Uh? If

608
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: you would read this next quote to for us, it

609
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:31,720
Speaker 1: comes from twentieth century German ethnologist of European colonization George Frederici. Okay,

610
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: it says this, along with the high profits of the

611
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: fatal business, soon taught the shrewd tribes people and their

612
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 1: quick learning students, the lawless backwoodsmen and hunters the art

613
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: of skillfully making two, three, or even more scalps from

614
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 1: one scalp and selling them. People were not always very

615
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: particular about where the scalp came from because it was

616
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: difficult or impossible to distinguish between a French scalp and

617
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: an English one. Members of friendly tribes and even fellow

618
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: countrymen fell victim to greed and the scalping knife. Not

619
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: even the dead were spared. Yeah, so you could. This

620
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: is interesting. It goes even beyond what what what Ferci

621
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: was talking about here, because you could apparently take a

622
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 1: single adult scalp, you could stretch it as you dried

623
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,720
Speaker 1: it out, and you could cut it into a dozen

624
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: different things that you could pass off or try to

625
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: pass off as scalps, which is is quite You can

626
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 1: see the financial possibilities there. This is one of those

627
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 1: moments where it comes up every now and then you

628
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: just imagine aliens coming in and observing our behavior, and

629
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: they're seeing somebody take the skin off the top of

630
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 1: another human's head and stretch it and cut it into

631
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of pieces. Yeah. Yeah, And it became such

632
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: a problem in Mexico where you had the Mexican States,

633
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: they're paying mercenaries to go around and hunt for scalps um.

634
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: They had to demand that scalps include one or both

635
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: ears or the crown, and they even set up regulatory committees.

636
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 1: But the thing here is that and I guess you

637
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: kind of have to put yourself in their their their shoes,

638
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: or try to imagine the kind of individual who ends

639
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:14,839
Speaker 1: up taking the job as a scalp inspector. Uh. Your

640
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: job is to inspect these grizzly trophies of of human

641
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: murder and genocide. Uh, and then uh, you know, reject

642
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: it if it's the wrong type of scalp, or if

643
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 1: it's been falsified. Apparently they were easily bought off and

644
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: you gelt to so you just bribe them, and then

645
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: they'll accept a child scalp as an adult. And therefore,

646
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: you know, there's even more incentive to kill a bunch

647
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: of children. And that's exactly uh, the type of behavior

648
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: you saw from individuals such as John Glanton earlier. Yeah,

649
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 1: we said Galton, but it was Glanton, the Glanton Gang.

650
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:48,720
Speaker 1: I think I had him confused with the The Eagles

651
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: song about the Dalton's very different view of the American West.

652
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 1: But still, the scalp trade continued, and in many cases

653
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 1: it seemed to escalate and uh So, like July fourteen

654
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: sixty three, in response to raids by Dakota in southern Minnesota,

655
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: the state issued twenty five dollar bonus pavements to scalps

656
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: who brought back a scalp a hundred dollars for non soldiers,

657
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: and this later hit two hundred bucks. So, needless to say,

658
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: a lot of scalping ensued. Uh And in between eighteen

659
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: thirty five and the eighteen eighties, Mexican authorities, as we

660
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: already mentioned, they paid private armies to hunt Native Americans,

661
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: specifically targeting apaches and comanches. And I always find the

662
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: inclusion of comanches, um and stuff like this to be

663
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: interesting because the comanches in large part were um you know,

664
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: there were the people of the horse. And where did

665
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: they get this horse technology, this biotechnology? They got it

666
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: from the Spanish who introduced the Horse into North America. Yeah,

667
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: so you you know, they encountered this this outside context problem.

668
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: They survived it and and really became the the notorious

669
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: uh warring people of the Horse because of our interference. Um.

670
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:00,720
Speaker 1: But that's kind of that's kind of a step to tangent.

671
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: But commanding history is very, very fascinating. But wherever these

672
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: uh these bounties persisted, you just saw genocidal violence persist,

673
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: and it really really continued until the balance was successfully

674
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: tipped completely in favor of the colonials, and then was

675
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: replaced by new uh anti native activities such as relocation

676
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 1: programs and re education centers, so that the horrible history

677
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: um did not stop there by any means. So, in

678
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: one sense, this might not be an example of cobra

679
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: effect at all. If you just as we said, think

680
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: of the the ultimate goal of the Scalp Bounty as being, well,

681
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 1: just where we want to exterminate the people who live

682
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,760
Speaker 1: here so we can make room to uh to occupy

683
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: the land ourselves. It seems like that's sort of worked. Yeah,

684
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: I mean, the the unintended consequence, if there is one here,

685
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 1: aside from having to deal with with individuals who are

686
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: falsilvank scalps and and getting more money than they should have.

687
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: Um is just the like the backwash of bloodshed and

688
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 1: the fact that we just the idea that the that

689
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: the colonists bloodied themselves, bloodied their souls and really just

690
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: created this this stain of shame for all time. Yeah, well,

691
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,720
Speaker 1: perhaps we should leave the realm of scalp hunting, human

692
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: bounties and genocide and and uh come back to the

693
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: idea of uh backfiring incentives in general. Yeah, let's send

694
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: it on a lighter note. All right, now, Robert, I

695
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: want to talk about the idea of negative incentives. So

696
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: we've seen the idea that positive incentives can backfire. Sometimes

697
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: they backfire in just ways that produce unintended negative consequences.

698
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,919
Speaker 1: Sometimes they backfire in a way that completely contradicts your

699
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 1: intention setting out, you know, makes the problem worse. But

700
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: there are also negative incentives. Sometimes you want to take

701
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: steps to prevent something from happening and discourage it. But

702
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: what about when that may the thing you're trying to

703
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: discourage more likely to happen. Here's one model. What if

704
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: a punishment for a discouraged behavior itself becomes desirable in

705
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: some way, especially like a symbol of coolness. So I

706
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: can think of one good potential example of this, and

707
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: there's a New York Times article from two thousand seven

708
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: I came across describing a problem within the Bangkok Police

709
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:33,319
Speaker 1: Department at the time. So department officials were, according to

710
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 1: this article, trying to put a stop to misbehavior among

711
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 1: the rank and file officers. So if you park in

712
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: the wrong spot, if you show up for work late,

713
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: if you get caught littering, etcetera. You know, there's some

714
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: bad behavior among the cops and they're trying to disincentivize it.

715
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: And the disincentive they came up with to stop this

716
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: behavior was a form of a badge of shame, you know,

717
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: like the red letter. You get to wear something that

718
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 1: lets people know that you have paved badly, and what

719
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: they chose was a tartan arm band. Unfortunately, this policy

720
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 1: seemed to backfire, and the officers ended up regarding the

721
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: disciplinary arm bands as collectible souvenirs to take home with them,

722
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: So the badge of shame became a minor badge of honor,

723
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: and in in trying to work around this problem, they're

724
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,760
Speaker 1: there Chief of the crime Suppression division at the time

725
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: came up with uh, Instead of Tartan arm bands, they

726
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: used these Hello Kitty arm bands, hoping this would be

727
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: seen as sort of a humiliating affront to the officer's

728
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,919
Speaker 1: sense of power and masculinity. I'm not sure how well

729
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 1: that worked out in the end, but anyway, this one

730
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: very small example illustrates the principle that a poorly conceived

731
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 1: disincentive can not only fail to provide discouragement of a

732
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: target behavior, it could potentially even increase the behavior if

733
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: the disincentive comes to be seen as having some kind

734
00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: of value. Now, maybe that could be some kind of

735
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 1: mono terry or material value, or maybe it could just

736
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: be some kind of cred or social capital coolness. Okay,

737
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: there's certainly a sense of countercultural coolness, right, you know,

738
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 1: like if if a certain kind of shaming can be

739
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,399
Speaker 1: taken with pride. Yeah, like, oh, it's too extreme for TV,

740
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: too hot for for prime time. It's too hot for

741
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:24,879
Speaker 1: prime time. I've got to see it. How hot could

742
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: this be? Right? But then, of course, there are also

743
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: examples where you could maybe have a material advantage. For example,

744
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: I think I think about supposed tax schemes that reward

745
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: people for making failed business investments, you know, supposedly like

746
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,760
Speaker 1: you can you can if you finance a really bad

747
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: movie that bombs or something, you can end up manipulating

748
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: your taxes in such a way that you end up

749
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: with more money because the thing you financed bombed. Kind

750
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 1: of a producer's scenario, right, Yeah, exactly. I don't know

751
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:03,759
Speaker 1: if that's really the case in any country today, but

752
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: I've at least heard accusations that that is how some

753
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: very bad films of the past few decades got financing.

754
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 1: Don't know whether it's true. But there's another version of

755
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 1: this I want to talk about, and that is the

756
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 1: case of censorship. I think censorship is a classic example

757
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: of attempts to stop a problem causing the opposite of

758
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 1: the intended effect of the problem. Is there is a

759
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: message or a meme or an idea or you know,

760
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: anything that is spreading content that you don't want disseminated,

761
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:42,760
Speaker 1: and attempting to stop the dissemination of that content very

762
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: very often seems to have the opposite of the intended effect. Yeah,

763
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 1: it just makes you want to see it or hear

764
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: it or read it. If the man is telling me

765
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: not to consume it. I kind of want to consume it,

766
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 1: at least to see what the fuss is all about exactly.

767
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 1: So there is a I found a Mercury News article

768
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:02,280
Speaker 1: from way back in two thousand three describing the event

769
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: that inspired what's now known as the Streisand Effect. I

770
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 1: assume you've heard of this, Robbert. I had not. Actually

771
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with Barber Streisand but I wasn't familiar with

772
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: the Streisand Effect. Well, that is indeed the title celebrity

773
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 1: behind this effect. So here's how the story went. So

774
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,239
Speaker 1: there's an environmentalist photographer named Ken Edelman, not the same

775
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: as the political operative, but he was operating a website

776
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: that I think at the time was called California Coastline

777
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: dot org. California coastline dot org dot org is still

778
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: up I checked. And the purpose of this was to

779
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: photograph many, many miles of the California coast to have

780
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:45,799
Speaker 1: before and after pictures of coastal development projects to tract

781
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 1: sort of coastline erosion and other potentially destructive effects of

782
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: building projects along the coast. So it's almost kind of

783
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: like a Google Maps scenario where they're just gonna take

784
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of pictures to give an overall visual

785
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: impression of something. Yeah, And I think the reasoning was that,

786
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 1: so if you know you have a project come in

787
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: build a bunch of stuff on the coast, you might

788
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:11,240
Speaker 1: think that they have been destructive to the coastal ecosystem,

789
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: But you don't exactly know because you don't have a

790
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 1: picture of what it looked like before they build. But

791
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: now you've got before and after photos. But apparently in

792
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,319
Speaker 1: two thousand three, the actress Barbara Streisand discovered that the

793
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: site featured a photograph of her ocean front home in Malibu,

794
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 1: and she felt this was an invasion of her privacy

795
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: and filed a ten million dollar lawsuit to to have

796
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,280
Speaker 1: the photograph and references to her removed from the site

797
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:42,279
Speaker 1: or taken down. And before her lawsuit, it appears that

798
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: the photo of her home was not not a big hit.

799
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,720
Speaker 1: It was accessed by only a handful of site visitors.

800
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: But in the month after the suit was filed, according

801
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: to this two thousand three article, more than four hundred

802
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: and twenty thousand people visited the California coast Line site,

803
00:45:57,440 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: presumably to see what all the fuss was about. Now,

804
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: I don't know what their traffic was before that month.

805
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: It was a you know, coastal Coastal Photographs project in

806
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: two thousand three. I can guess that it was not

807
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: anywhere near food visitors. Yeah, probably only the hottest websites

808
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,399
Speaker 1: out there, right, So, Yeah, that's one example. But are

809
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 1: there any other examples of this strisand effect where the

810
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: attempt to shut down discussion or or to hide evidence

811
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,399
Speaker 1: of something just draws more and more attention to it.

812
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 1: I can definitely think of the example of Boycott's movie boycotts.

813
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,800
Speaker 1: So let's say we've got a new awesome demonic possession

814
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: movie coming out, and it's got tons of graphics, sex

815
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: and violence and blasphemy, just wall to wall, and you

816
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: get a bunch of church groups who call for a

817
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: boycott of the film. They go stand outside theaters to

818
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: protest it. Does this end up hurting the film's ticket

819
00:46:56,000 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 1: sales or discouraging filmmakers from making movies like this in

820
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: the future. Well, it's almost impossible to say, because you

821
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: can't go back in time and compare the film success

822
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: under a boycott and protest with the success of the

823
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: same film under normal conditions like you can't run the

824
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 1: experiment with the control it happened in reality, um, and

825
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 1: there's no way to control the experiment, but it is

826
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: widely speculated and I'm quite sure I'd agree that these

827
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: kinds of responses more often have the opposite of the

828
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: intended effect, generating more publicity for an interest in the movie. Yeah. Like,

829
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: I can definitely think of films that were considered video

830
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: nasties in the UK that we became underground hits and

831
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: we're the kind of things you go to kind of

832
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: great links to get on video caauseet back in the day. Uh,

833
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: and you look at them today now that kind of

834
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:52,919
Speaker 1: you know, you can get anything. You can actually find

835
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: these films that you heard about and having such notorious histories,

836
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 1: and you you watch them. In many cases they're just

837
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,359
Speaker 1: they're they're horrible, They're it's just nothing. They're not even

838
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: that shocking. But the mere fact that they were labeled

839
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 1: as such, that they were banned, that they were prohibited

840
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:11,839
Speaker 1: and made this video nasties list, they they end up surviving,

841
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: They end up becoming far more famous than they had

842
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: any right to be. Yeah. Uh yeah. The insistence that

843
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 1: you must not look at a thing really increases your curiosity. Yeah,

844
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: I mean there's plenty of people today who are seeking

845
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: out and watching some really terrible, low budget Italian horror

846
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: films and finding themselves very disappointed because they don't match

847
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: up to the reputation they had acquired over the years.

848
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: So here's the idea I have about how to how

849
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 1: to turn the strisand effect into money. Okay, Uh, if

850
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: there aren't marketing and pr firms that already specialize in this,

851
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: I suspect actually maybe there are, we just don't know

852
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: about them. There should be, and what they should do

853
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: is you come to them with a movie or you know,

854
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: any kind of media property that you're trying to generate

855
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: interest in, and what they do is put that thing

856
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 1: in front of people who they know will hate it,

857
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 1: and our activists in nature who start to generate a

858
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: boycotting or censoring, calling for censorship kind of reaction to it,

859
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 1: and then that of course draws in you know, all

860
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: this curiosity. Oh, people are saying, well, I shouldn't look

861
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: at this thing. I wonder what it is. So you're saying,

862
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,800
Speaker 1: send out screeners of the exorcism film. You're talking about

863
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 1: two church groups yeah, to to whoever's the most conservative

864
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: and censorious person who would hate it, or you could

865
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 1: do it the other way around. Really you could be

866
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: uh I guess use using something that would be offensive

867
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 1: to any group, and almost anything might be offensive to somebody, right, Yeah,

868
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: I mean I can. I can think of several cases,

869
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 1: none of I'm not going to mention any of their

870
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: names because they don't deserve any more publicity. But there

871
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: are several individuals who have who you know, continue to

872
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: seek out that notoriety for their creations, to create things

873
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: purely to just sicken and piss people off, and that

874
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: that's there the whole appeal. Like that you're thinking about

875
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 1: a film about a mini segmented creature. Uh, yeah, that's

876
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: one that comes to mind, Like that's I think that's

877
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,439
Speaker 1: a clear case of a guy who like, there's nothing

878
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,439
Speaker 1: at the heart of anything. There's nothing artistically pure, there's

879
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,919
Speaker 1: nothing creative, there's nothing nothing even fun, not nothing fun

880
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 1: or even all that shocking per se. In a grander scheme,

881
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:20,719
Speaker 1: there's certainly more shocking pieces of cinema out there that

882
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 1: have been created by by by actual artists, but it's

883
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: just the storm that they're able to to to raise

884
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 1: up around those creations, and then make it like a

885
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: part of our culture, you know, just empty cynical bids

886
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,320
Speaker 1: for attention. Yeah exactly. But yeah, So I think the

887
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: takeaway from this is that there does seem to be

888
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: almost no surer way to draw attention to something than

889
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 1: to try to prevent people from seeing it, almost like

890
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 1: any attempt to manipulate the attention that we give to

891
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 1: something being negative or positive. Like it's just it's so easy,

892
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: Like we think that it's going to be easy to

893
00:50:55,280 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: economically manipulate something or even you know, through censorship, manipulate

894
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,839
Speaker 1: the scenario, manipulate the way we interact with something. But

895
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 1: it's just such a complicated affair. It's just we're gonna,

896
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna overfloak the tub either way. I think people

897
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 1: do just have a sort of contrarian nature where we

898
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 1: want to try to uh, upset the narrative of the

899
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:20,840
Speaker 1: institutional authority. I think about this with so the strisand

900
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: effect definitely occurs with brands. You know, you'll have a

901
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: an article or a meme or something like that that

902
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 1: makes Coca Cola or Pepsi or McDonald's or something look

903
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 1: bad and they'll they'll try to shut it down, you know,

904
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: no more than this, and that just doesn't work, right, Yeah,

905
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 1: it just draws more attention to it. And it especially

906
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:42,880
Speaker 1: happens when you see these uh you know, these like

907
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 1: social media crowdsourcing message campaigns, Like I can't remember what

908
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: any of these hashtags are, but you know what I'm

909
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 1: talking about. It'll be like hashtag uh coke feelings, and

910
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,439
Speaker 1: Coca Cola is trying to get you to do free

911
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:59,120
Speaker 1: advertising for them on your social media page. But of

912
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: course people respond into it with stuff, you know, diabetes

913
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I can just tell any time a

914
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: brand tries to shut down those sort of mischievous responses

915
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: to their campaign, they're just going to make people want

916
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,800
Speaker 1: to do it more. Yeah. Indeed, you see that almost

917
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis these days. Yeah. All right, So

918
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: there you have it. We went from cobras and rats

919
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: and pigs to the horrors of scalp hunting, and then

920
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 1: back into the world of censorship. Um. So hopefully we

921
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:32,759
Speaker 1: gave you a lot to consider in terms of the

922
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: cobra effect here. I think this makes me want to

923
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,240
Speaker 1: hear what your thoughts are you out there? The listener

924
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: what what your thoughts are about the nature of incentives?

925
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 1: How do you actually guide people's behavior in a reliable

926
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: way that doesn't produce these unintended and perverse consequences? Yeah?

927
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: I mean really, we can hear from just about anybody

928
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 1: on this. Are you a pet owner? Are you a parent?

929
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 1: Are you a boss? Are you at all involved in

930
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:02,879
Speaker 1: or at least a close follower of a politics? Are

931
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: you a government policymaker? Yeah? Yeah? What happens when you

932
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,279
Speaker 1: start trying to push an issue with a you know,

933
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: stick with some money stuck on the end of it, Uh,

934
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:15,399
Speaker 1: to get the results you need? Let us know. I'm

935
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: sure some carrots work better than others. Yeah. Yeah, there's

936
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,359
Speaker 1: so many different types of carrots, so many different types

937
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:24,360
Speaker 1: of sticks. Sometimes you just end up with no carrots

938
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: or a horse that likes to be poked with the stick.

939
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 1: I don't know how do we get that? Okay? Sorry? Alright?

940
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 1: So hey, you wanna you wanna get in touch with us,

941
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: you want to share your thoughts on this topic or others.

942
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:36,839
Speaker 1: First of all, head on over to stuff to Blow

943
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,759
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com newly redesigned. It's looking great, um,

944
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:43,400
Speaker 1: easy to interact with. You'll find that again. It's stuff

945
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:45,760
Speaker 1: to blow your Mind dot com. Along with the various

946
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,759
Speaker 1: links out to our social media accounts such as Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, Instagram.

947
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: We are blow the Mind on most of those, and

948
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with this directly

949
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: to let us no feedback on this episode or any others,

950
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 1: or to give us a suggestion for a topic we

951
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,240
Speaker 1: should cover in the future, you can email us directly

952
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com

953
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

954
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com.