WEBVTT - Scalp Hunters and the Cobra Effect 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:05.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:15.520 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.400 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.040 this episode, we're gonna we're gonna be talking about some 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.599 darker content towards the end, as the title of the 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.800 episode implies, and indeed even the darker, the less dark 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.280 elements we're gonna talk about are kind of a crash 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:37.559 course in the the The Misadventures of Coloni Hillism. But 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:39.360 before we get into all of that, we thought we'd 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.200 we'd kick off with maybe some lighter content. Yeah, Robert, 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.080 I understand that you want to tell me about peep nuts. Yes, 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.040 I would love to tell you about not only peep nuts, Joe, 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.000 but poop candy as well. Poop candy that's what the 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.720 dog believes comes out of the cats. But oh, now 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.480 you've taken into darker territory, Joe, But no, I'm not. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.800 I'm talking about the rearing of human children as opposed 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.360 to dogs here. Um and this ties into the overall 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:08.640 theme here, the use of the often the use of 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.160 bounties and bribes, and then what happens when the economics 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.600 of that spirals out of control. So my son is 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.200 for now, But there was a time not too long 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.200 ago when we were trying to potty train him to 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.280 get him to actually um urinate and defecate in the 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.559 toilet when he needed to go, listen to his body 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.640 and follow up. So it's apparently not enough just to 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.440 say that is where you go do such business and 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.120 point to the toilet. You actually you need to introduce 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.880 some incentives to motivate this behavior, right and there there 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.240 there are as many different schools of parenting as there 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.520 are parents. So some some people have a real problem 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.520 with with using bribes in any situation. But hey, that's 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.040 what we did in it work for us. Then you've 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.640 also got the poop anywhere parents, who I hear a 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.440 real trouble. Well that's now I know people who are 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.320 using that technique and that that seems to work for them. 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.760 But I was just kidding. Wait, that's a real parenting philosopher. 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.720 I thought you were anywhere. Well, there's there are different 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.760 toilet training techniques that imply it's not so much a 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.880 poop anywhere. Um, what it means is like the kid 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.760 will go around without pants on, and then when they 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.480 need to go, you scoop them up. Um, that's sort 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:20.920 of thing. So that's what I thought you were okay there, 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.679 Believe me. There are a lot of different techniques out there. 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:25.960 And uh, and and that one in particularly, I know 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:27.639 some people who have used that and it made work 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.560 for them. In our case, though, we we issued a 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:35.400 strict bounty for every successful urination in the potty. Um, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.800 he would get one honey sessame nut from this little 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.840 bag honey sesame. Yeah, like you buy a Trader Joe's. 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.640 And oh, they're they're delicious. U. I had to stop 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:47.440 eating them for a while when they were when they 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.480 became peepy nuts for me, and kind of there by association. 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.160 But they're great. Uh. And on the other hand, for 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.560 every successful poop in the toilet, which is was even 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.440 more important to us at the time, he would get 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.399 a single fruit gummy and that was the poop candy. 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.080 So the policy proved effective for us, but it also 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.640 led to a period during which he began to make 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.960 a case that each piece of feces was surely a 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.240 separate poop and should then result in additional poop candies 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.320 as well as the as any interruption in the stream 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.239 of urine would result in two or more instances of urination, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.120 and each would require a separate reward. Okay, well this 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.680 this is smart bargaining. Actually, yeah, yeah, and it's I mean, 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.800 it's crazy too when I look back and realized that 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.280 he hadn't and he still hasn't really discovered the power 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.440 of lying. Uh so, but there was still this tendency 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.760 to bend the rule and even break the spirit of 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.080 the rule for greater rewards. Now, after that we clarified 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.160 the policy and then luckily we were able to phase 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.960 it out shortly after that. But how might things have 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.720 escalated if if we hadn't You know, That's that's something 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.640 to think about and I've been thinking about in researching 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.240 this topic. Well, Robert, I want to tell you at story. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.640 It might not be a true story, but but it's 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.840 an interesting story with some very true analogs about the 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:12.760 power of incentives and the sometimes unintended consequences of incentives, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.719 and about serpents of course, asps very dangerous. Now, the 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:22.560 story goes something like this, In colonial India, you had 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.320 a British colonial administrator who decided there were too many 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.839 cobras in the city of Delhi. You know, I got 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.600 cobra's coming out of my ears. We gotta get rid 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.280 of all these things. Though, I wonder what that actually 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.200 looked like. I mean, if this really happened. I know 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.080 we're all picturing that scene in Raiders of the Lost 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.120 Art exactly, but it was probably more like I saw 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.240 one cobra and that was too many. We've got a 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.239 cobra problem in the city. But anyway, so he wanted 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.160 to get rid of the cobras in the city, kill 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.440 them all, get him out of here. So he came 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.520 up with a solution. Put a bounty on the Cobraska. 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.719 That makes sense. So if you kill a cobra, just 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.400 bring the dead snake to the government office and receive 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.440 a cash award. Yeah. They are making it worth your 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.720 while to take time out of your day to kill 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:08.880 a snake or two. Yeah. And at first it seemed 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.880 like this was working great. They're collecting plenty of cobras. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:16.680 But before long, the local administrators discovered a problem. The 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.039 people have figured out a way to game the system 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.839 and turn the snake bounty into free money. They weren't 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.039 catching cobras from the city and killing them. They were 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.960 farming cobras at home, killing them once they were mature, 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.680 and then bringing them in to get the bounty. Now, 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.560 obviously they couldn't allow this kind of mischief to continue, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.400 so the administrators ended the cobra bounty. But now you 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.279 had all these snake breeders who had been farming cobras 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.560 in order to get the bounty, and they're they're stuck 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.719 with hundreds of worthless snakes. So what do you do 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.320 with them. We'll just release them, so they have no 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.920 inciative for keeping them. They release them into the streets, 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:59.599 and the cobra population in the city drastically increases. This 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.280 lead to the principle that's now known to economists as 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.960 the cobra effect, and it's when a strategy implemented to 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:13.400 solve a problem directly makes the problem worse. And the 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.640 story about cobras and Delhi, as I mentioned, might be 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.080 nothing more than a modern folk tale. I haven't come 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.280 across any evidence that it actually happened, but there are 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.440 plenty of examples where exactly this type of thing has 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.479 definitely occurred in the real world. That's right, and one 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:34.640 of them occurs with another colonial situation, another infestation in Hanoi, Vietnam. 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.640 All right, this would have been the nineteenth century. So 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:42.039 you have French colonial authorities in Vietnam, and you know, 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.359 there are various problems to focus in on, but the 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.400 one they choose to really apply their attention to is 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.960 the city's rap problem. Now, I can imagine the rap 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.039 problem was probably a real problem, probably a real problem 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.479 that you know, like the cobra thing. You can imagine 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.719 a colonial administrator sees one cobra and decides that there's 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.240 a hober problem in the city, right, Yeah, because I 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.360 can't think of a situation where another city has had 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:10.440 had a snake infestation problem off hand. But rats, of course, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.600 rat problems have been an issue throughout human history. Yeah, 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.320 it's quite common to have rat problems in any large 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.160 population center. People produce a lot of garbage. Garbage is tasty. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.240 They have sewers that are great places to dwell in 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.320 and have your little breeding grounds. Yeah, they're smart and 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.240 they're successful. And uh as was learned. And this is 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.440 the other key thing. This is one of the reasons 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.720 that they focused in on rats so much, is that 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:41.480 in eighteen four, that's when Alexandra Yearson discovered that debonic 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.720 plague was caused caused by little fleas that wrote on rats. 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.760 So that so you can see why they were concerned. 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.560 So what did they do? Well, they did what what 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.360 often happens in these cases. They assigned some professional rat 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.040 catchers to take care of everything. But then that's not enough, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.120 so they turned of all and tears. They turned to 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.680 two mercenary rat catchers, and they offer a bounty of 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.000 one cent per rat tail. And the idea here was that, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.160 especially since the disease was an issue, asking the rat 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.360 catchers to handle the body was gonna be too much 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.280 to ask, would be a burden and just a little 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.480 growth right from what I've read, You know, they'd catch 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.960 thousands of rats in the sewer in in a very 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.559 short period of time. Lugging all those dead rat bodies 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.240 would actually be really heavy, yeah, and then discussing, so 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.640 just to prove how many you killed, really, just take 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.360 the tail, right, So that's yeah, that's exactly what they did. 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.040 Brought in the tail, and it seemed to be working 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.280 at first, but then the authorities began to notice something 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.600 curious in the streets. They've noticed a bunch of rats 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:47.520 running around without tails, So they quickly realized that some 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.280 of those enterprising rat catchers out there were simply lopping 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.000 the tails off of the wild rats when they caught them, 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.760 perhaps out of laziness, but more likely so that tail 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.880 is rats could go forth breed and produce more rat 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.080 tails to harvest. You know, they were being economically smart, 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:06.839 they were they were trying to you know, if you 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.600 are living off the land, you don't want to destroy 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.200 all of the vegetation in the land, so you only 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.160 pick from some of the plants. You don't kill every plant. Right, 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.360 It's like the policy or the policy that's supposed to 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.800 be in place with stone crabs. You harvest one of 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.240 the of the the clause and then you let the 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.480 creature go. You don't harvest them both. So that that 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.320 was one of the ramifications of the bounty. But much 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.840 like our cobra example, this the exact same thing took place. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.560 Um others took advantage of the law by establishing rat farms. Yeah, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.080 because rats are are easy to breed. I mean, you 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:42.920 don't even have to try. I really don't have to try. 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.000 You just to collect some rats and let them do 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.600 their thing, and you're gonna have more rats, which you 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.199 can then lock their tails off and collect your bounty. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.920 So the French were horrified that their efforts to curb 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.600 the rat population was actually increasing it, and they scrapped 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.600 the bounty program entire early. And in nine three bubonic 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.880 plague broke out in Hanoi. Oh no, Yeah, so there's 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.240 there's a lot more there are. There are a number 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.480 of more angles to this story. There's a great paper 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.640 out there that ties all of this in with this 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.440 sort of the doom nature of French rule in Vietnam, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.440 and it's titled of Rats, Rice and Race, The Great 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:23.280 annoy Rat Massacre, An Episode in French Colonial History by 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.840 Michael g Van. Yeah. And there's an older episode of 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.320 Freakonomics Radio actually the deals exactly with the Cobra effect 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.120 that I listened to, and it's a good episode. It's 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.880 worth checking out. So we won't rehash everything they cover 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.160 in their show, but just to mention a couple other 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.000 interesting examples they bring up. One is a very similar 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.439 situation to the rats in Hanoi, but this is with 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.480 Ferrell pigs in Fort Benning, Georgia. So it's a local tale. Right, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.360 have you been to Fort Benning? I've been through there, 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.439 I believe. Yeah, did you see any pigs? No? No, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.080 I saw I saw an interesting overpass, and I believe 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.439 that's that's the extent of it. Okay, Well, anyway, it's 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.400 in I think southwest Georgia's that. Yeah. So there are 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.720 a lot of wild pigs in this area. They're they're 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.280 invasive Ferrell pigs, and they do a lot of damage. 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.679 They dig everything up, they get into your garbage, they 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:16.040 eat everything. They caused damage to government property and buildings. 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.640 So people wanted to do something about this Ferrell pig problem. 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.920 So there was a cash bounty exchange program for pig 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.880 tails established to fight the feral pig problem. But same 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.400 problems we've encountered before. There's a lot of suspicion that 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.720 some of these pig tails people were turning in for 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:38.240 a cash reward came from illicit sources, maybe some meat processing, 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.120 We're not exactly sure. And then in the end, it 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:46.040 looks like baiting practices established by the pig bounty hunters 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.480 actually probably increased the number of wild pigs in the area. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.920 So people claim all these cash rewards because they put 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.640 out a bunch of food to attract pigs, and then 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.400 they shoot some of them, but you know, you were 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.960 feeding the pig EIGs, fattening them up for breeding and 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.600 producing more pigs, because you're you're trying to put a 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.000 value on the elimination of the animal, but in doing so, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:14.719 you've put a value on the continued life of the animal. Exactly. Yes, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:16.920 it's interesting how that how that plays out. And this 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.760 brings me to a thought about the nature of incentives, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:24.360 because it's sort of highlights that you can't have an 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:29.040 incentive that's just sort of logically associated with the outcome 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.079 you want. In order to try to prevent the gaming 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.680 of the system, you really need to make incentives as 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.959 closely aligned to the actual desired outcome as possible. So 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:42.440 what I mean by that is, if you want to 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.080 eliminate cobras from the city, don't offer cash rewards for 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.880 dead cobras because you don't want dead cobras. That's not 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:54.480 the outcome you're looking for. You want an absence of cobras. So, 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.360 but that's a lot harder to incentivize, right, Yeah, you 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.080 have to somebody come along and investigate for cobra free 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.120 spaces exactly. Yeah, you need more complex systems to try 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:09.040 to incentivize that. So, for example, maybe you could establish 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.880 a Cobra Control Authority and then the employees of this 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.120 organization are given a cash bonus that's proportional to how 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.560 few Cobra bytes are reported in local hospitals in a 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.480 given year. But even with that, you run into some 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.520 some problems, right like without strict controls on that, what 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.360 if you have members of the Cobra control authority intimidating 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.040 people not to report their Cobra bytes or not to 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.200 go to the hospital, or intimidating people at hospitals not 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.080 to report them to the government. Uh So, it just 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.600 seems like whenever you introduce incentive programs to to a 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.120 wide ranging you know, a group of participants to the public, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.400 essentially you you introduce the problem that people are going 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:56.600 to find ways to access the reward without helping you 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.000 achieve your goal. It's it seems like it should be 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.760 a doctor's Seuss book or kind of um, a source 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.760 of apprentice kind of tail, right, just that as it 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.560 spirals out of control in these examples, UM, I can't 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.240 help but think of quotas that are set forth for 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.360 law enforcements. Sometimes you know, like you know, you've got 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.160 to get so many speeding tickets out there, and so 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.400 you end up having a police officers setting up in 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.600 speed traps to to hit those quotas, which in that case, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.600 I guess it's not a clear it's not necessarily making 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.040 the problem worse, but it's also just kind of like 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.480 we're not really stopping it. We're just kind of like 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:42.280 setting up a system to continually collect the bounty on speeding. Yeah, Like, 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.080 I guess I can see where there's a balance there, right, 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.920 So if if it depends on how the quota is 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.480 and how aggressive you are and carrying it out, Because 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.480 if there's a balance to where all right, you're just 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.840 people know not to go above a certain speed or 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.680 they should know and and if they don't, they get 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.600 a ticket. So like both and that is going to 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.760 make the road safer. But I guess the more the 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.400 focus is on hitting the quota, getting the essentially the bounty, 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.840 and losing sight of the purpose of the law entirely, 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:13.640 that's where things get out of whacking. You end up 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.480 with like notorious speed traps, right, And I think this 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.840 gets into a concept that's very closely related to the 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.200 Cobra effect, though I think Technically, the Cobra effect wouldn't 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.800 have to be just in incentives and economics. If you're 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.720 talking more generally about anything where an attempt to solve 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.360 a problem makes the problem worse. You couldn't even go 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.600 to the example of of like aka Homo. You know 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.080 that that great story of the person who is trying 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.680 to touch up this this classic painting of Christ in 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.040 his passion moment had some damage to it over the 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.320 years trying to touch it up, and he ends up 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.080 having this kind of wailing monkey face. Yes, which is 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.840 one of my favorite images from the whole Internet. Yes, 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:55.880 but and then she wasn't working for a bounty. But 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.640 imagine if there was a bounty out there on restoring 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.200 old works of art you could end up with with however, 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:07.200 many of these strange little monkey faces just completely obliterating 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.840 art history. Yeah, I guess the problem there is that 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.160 you are you are giving people who don't have proper 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.240 training in an area and incentive to participate in the area, 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.520 and thus they're probably going to make things worse. But 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.920 another way of framing the issue is just the concept 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.840 of perverse incentives, meaning, specifically, in the Cobra effect, you're 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.680 the intended solution to a problem makes that problem worse. 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:37.400 Perverse incentives can just mean incentives that cause unintended negative outcomes, 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.160 especially if they're contrary to the benefit of the people 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.400 who offer the incentives. This all also reminds me of 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.760 a moment in one of my favorite books, Uh, Cornman 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.120 McCarthy's sentry. Oh yeah, we talked about this the other 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.920 day where there's a bounty on I think raybies bats 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.160 in that book in there, Yeah, like the local university 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:59.960 there there, they want to or is it health of 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.240 Art and I can't remember it's been but interested official 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:09.159 parties would like to see the bodies of local bats. Uh, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.360 you know, I think it's because of rabies. Yeah. There's 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.320 a very enterprising young character in the book named Harrogate. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.000 At the beginning of the book is arrested for having 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.760 illicit relations with watermelons that did not belong to him. 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.119 But then later on he comes up with some just 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.880 ingenious schemes for collecting bats. I think, far more bats 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.480 than was really than he was intended to collect. Yeah, 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.719 he ends up strolling into town was just a sack 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.040 of dead bats, which he gets by belief. He buys 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.639 some poison, and he poisons little pieces of meat and 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.639 slingshots them into the air because the bats are accustomed 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:47.399 to praying on insects that are flying through the I 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.199 believe that's the scheme. That's a great book. It is 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:51.880 this is that makes me want to read it. Aget 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.280 that at any rate. The end up the doctor the 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.439 scientists confronting him when he brings this bag in, and 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.919 he's says, we know you you did not define these bats, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:04.959 but we can't forge out how you did it. You've 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.480 got to tell us how you actually killed these bats. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.320 And then he he relates the story of the slingshot. 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.600 Oh yeah, that's it. He was supposed to be collecting 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:14.840 dead bats. When he said he was killing, he was 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:19.360 making dead bats. So you know, in a sense they 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.040 were I guess the effort here was to protect humans, 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.159 protect health, but also you know, not eradicate bats. That 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.720 was not the intended outcome, but Harrogate did his best 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.200 to do just that in order to get the sweet bounty. 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:36.320 But of course, that is not the only book by 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:41.760 our great brutal novelist Cormick McCarthy to feature bounties. That's right, 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:47.800 there's also blood Meridian great novel, horrific novel um in 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.840 large ways, I think unfilmable novel, and I kind of 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.560 hope it's unfilmable. It is, uh would you would you 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.080 call it nihilistic? Yes? It is. Uh. Yeah, there's just 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.760 not much redeemable in the world than it is. A 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:05.439 book of uh, brutal and cruel people doing brutal and 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.840 cruel things, and one individual who might not be a 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.879 person at all, who might be an embodiment of of 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:18.760 awfulness to judge Judge Holden, who himself is probably based 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:23.119 very loosely on a real individual who was in a 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.320 gang of scalp hunters led by an actual historic individual, 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:32.000 one John Galton, who was indeed a superstar in the 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:36.000 vile trade of scalp hunting um harvesting, by some accounts 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.679 that two and fifty scalps in a single raid once 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.280 and fittingling. His group was eventually ambushed and scalped by 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:48.240 a band of Quichan tribespeople. So um, So we shouldn't 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.960 dwell too much on the nasty details, but we do 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.920 need to discuss what scalping is and and scalp hunting, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.600 what what this practice consists of, and where it came from. Yeah, 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.560 so uh. I mean most of you probably don't even 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:02.800 need to be told, especially if you've consumed much in 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.680 the way of American Western history or fiction. Not only 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:11.000 Blood Meridian, but Larry mcmurtry' is a Lonesome Dove. Novels 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.520 instantly come to mind as well, but actually never read 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.320 Lonesome Dove. Oh it's it's quite it's quite good. Uh. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:18.720 Comanche Moon is another one in that series that I 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.399 read that was really good and really bizarre in many ways. 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.960 But both of these authors really really gaze deep into 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.919 the gruesome spectacle of the act. It entails the slicing flame, 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.840 ripping away of a portion or all of the human 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:37.879 scalp um and then then then you have this resulting trophy. Uh. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.199 The victim can be living or dead. And there are 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.920 plenty of tales of scalping survivors, including in eighteen sixty four. 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.680 Probably the most famous is a thirteen year old Robert 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.920 McGee um. And he's famous because there's a wonderful, gruesome 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.640 photograph of him as an adult showing off his scalping 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.600 scars scars so um. And in this case he was 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:04.720 helped by a band of uh. Sioux Indians. So I 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:06.920 look up that photo online if you don't really want 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.080 to see it. Um, But where did the act come from? 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.680 That's actually something that has been, uh there's been a 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:14.880 kind of a debate on that over the years, right, 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.359 because we definitely do see it practiced by by both 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.439 sides in the American frontier. Right. Yeah, So it's it 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.400 comes down to, is this, uh, an ancient Native American 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:30.199 act that various cultural groups took part in, or is 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:35.159 this something that westerners introduced, that the colonists introduced to 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.280 the New World. Um. Now, certainly scalping was long attributed 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.640 as a purely Native American act, and indeed we see 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.960 plenty of examples of of scalping, both between tribes and 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.840 against the colonial invaders. Yeah, and that's that's something I 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.200 think even when I was a kid. Just my idea 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:52.960 of where this came from. I guess if you watch 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.720 old cartoons or something like that, you get the idea 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.200 that this is something that Native American tribes that their 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.000 warriors would do to the enemies, not something that was 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.120 done by European settlers. But in fact, it was done 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.920 by European settlers. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll see some plenty 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.240 of examples of that to come here, But it was 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.040 I think it is often presented as this kind of 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:17.920