Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: I really thought you were going to go for a nickname.
Speaker 1: There you something you're throwing up? Cool on topic. Nickname,
Speaker 1: I can really think a nacking. It's really Dumpsy Douglas,
Speaker 1: may Bagel Oranges Douglas. Yeah, he would be your your
Speaker 1: mafia names. You're you're you're a monster personas. Yeah, Julie
Speaker 1: bat in the corner, Douglas, bat in the corner baseball back.
Speaker 1: I was thinking an actual bat since we just did
Speaker 1: an episode on Vampire Back. Oh no, no, no, it's
Speaker 1: like I got a bat in the corner. This this
Speaker 1: guy might be rabbit. I'll just unleash ing at you
Speaker 1: any moment you have to go get a raby shot
Speaker 1: and everything going from the jugula. Yeah, all right, Or
Speaker 1: maybe we can just call me Joe Pesci, Joe Phi okay,
Speaker 1: forever associated with movie. That's right, very very typecast that man. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: if you haven't guessed already or bothered to read the
Speaker 1: title of podcasts, we are of course talking about the
Speaker 1: cuckoo mafia. We're talking about the animal mafia. We're talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about the the human mafia as well,
Speaker 1: and in the various forms one encounters it. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you do if you actually take this system, this organized system,
Speaker 1: when you begin to really peel back the layers you
Speaker 1: can see in all different places in society, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you really begin to see mafia organized crime. And is
Speaker 1: not this uh bunch of stereotypical looking guys. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Pesci's and uh and and their their ilk standing
Speaker 1: in the corner and doing very stereotypical things. You see
Speaker 1: it as kind of an economic model that is spread
Speaker 1: not only through all human culture, but even into the
Speaker 1: animal world. Well, I was gonna say, like even in
Speaker 1: our break room, you have Jonathan Strickland there, who you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta put money in a certain place in the
Speaker 1: the break room right to get access to the coffee. Coffee, right,
Speaker 1: or there's no more coffee. And that's just the way
Speaker 1: it is, right if you want coffee supply fresh and
Speaker 1: you want it every day, and then Stricklin gets his payment, right,
Speaker 1: Or the way that when we bring our yogurts and
Speaker 1: we always have to bring in that one extra yogurt
Speaker 1: because one Christian conger insists on having quote just enough
Speaker 1: to wetter beak otherwise, otherwise all the yogurt winds up
Speaker 1: on the floor, all of it, and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: discussing in it and it it really takes to that
Speaker 1: because like that's delicious yogurt and it all went to waste.
Speaker 1: And why because I wasn't willing to put up with
Speaker 1: just a little yogurt loss in my diet each week.
Speaker 1: That's right. Everybody loses the yogurt if you do not
Speaker 1: supply it for Kristen alright, So we are not trying
Speaker 1: to glorify the mafia, which is actually if you think
Speaker 1: about mafia, that is a huge umbrella term under which
Speaker 1: many different organizations from different cultures around the world huddle underneath.
Speaker 1: And we tend to think of the Godfather and then
Speaker 1: this quaint group of men just playing checkers and their undershirts. Um.
Speaker 1: But worldwide we'd see mafia doing different types of damage
Speaker 1: in the way of human trafficking, legal wildlife trading, uh
Speaker 1: drugs of course, to just to name a few. So
Speaker 1: I want to put that out there. This is not
Speaker 1: glorifying the mafia, but we just wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: cover how they work in the world, so that we
Speaker 1: have a better understanding of how animals may be doing
Speaker 1: the same sort of strategies and tactics at the mafia
Speaker 1: is indeed, Yeah, And I should add I love the
Speaker 1: Guy Father movies. Those are some great films, and there
Speaker 1: are a few other organized crime pieces here and there
Speaker 1: that I've really enjoyed over the years. But I find
Speaker 1: more and more I just cannot watch films or get
Speaker 1: involved in in media that is about those sort of
Speaker 1: stereotypical gangster character is one of the reasons I never
Speaker 1: even could manage to watch The Sopranos, even though I
Speaker 1: know The Sopranos is supposed to be brilliant. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, but at the at heart, it's about these, uh,
Speaker 1: these these criminal guys that I've seen are you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure less um artistically solid takes on them so
Speaker 1: many times before, it's like I just don't have any
Speaker 1: more room for it, Like I'm not convinced there's anything
Speaker 1: new that I can gain from characters that are even
Speaker 1: partially cast from this mold. All right, let's talk about
Speaker 1: this mold. Because when we talk about in the mafe,
Speaker 1: we are essentially talking about Kosa nostra, which is roughly
Speaker 1: translated as our thing, which is kind of this closed
Speaker 1: circuit within a criminal syndicate. And we talked about these
Speaker 1: criminal syndicates we're really talking about, at least in this
Speaker 1: old usage of that term um in southern Italy Sicily,
Speaker 1: these different neighborhoods in which certain families lorded over those communities.
Speaker 1: And I thought this was really interesting. I found this
Speaker 1: little tidbit of John Gotti talking to some of his
Speaker 1: subordinates about Kosa nostra and um. This was right before
Speaker 1: he got ratted out by a bunch of people. And
Speaker 1: he says, this is going to die. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: quit doing that being an hour from now, or be
Speaker 1: it tonight or a hundred years from now, when I'm
Speaker 1: in jail. It's gonna be a cost some guys, some
Speaker 1: people downstairs. He's referring to the nightclub below. Now, who
Speaker 1: I know who's babe, stomach is rotten. I know who
Speaker 1: stomach ain't rotten. You could I could smell it the
Speaker 1: way a dog senses when a guy's got fear. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's not just for local color to give you an
Speaker 1: idea of what the mafia sounds like, because everybody probably
Speaker 1: already knows that. Um, but I thought that that conversation,
Speaker 1: just that little excerpts spoke volumes about the environment of
Speaker 1: fear and implied violence that would come to those who
Speaker 1: crossed the code. Yeah. There you see, um, the beginnings
Speaker 1: of a system that's keeping everybody in check because it's hard.
Speaker 1: It is a parasitic relationship. It is a parasite feeding
Speaker 1: up on the host. But on top of that, we
Speaker 1: have this layer of fear and intimidation, which and it
Speaker 1: comes down to an economic model. I mean, did just
Speaker 1: think of just your average mafia scenario from a thousand movies, right,
Speaker 1: some guys running a shop and some uh you know
Speaker 1: individual walks in, perhaps with a heavy behind him, and says, hey,
Speaker 1: you've got a nice shop. Here. Would be a pity
Speaker 1: if something happened to it. I can prevent things, bad
Speaker 1: things from happening to it, if you give me X
Speaker 1: amount of dollars, you know, per per month. So it
Speaker 1: comes down to, all right, which if I'm gonna expend,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to waste some energy, expend some energy
Speaker 1: to pay this man, all right, so we we will
Speaker 1: put how much we stack that money up on the counter.
Speaker 1: But then if I were to resist this individual, I
Speaker 1: would have to expend even more energy, right, I would
Speaker 1: have to somehow fight him back physically or align with
Speaker 1: those who would and and then that comes with inherent risks.
Speaker 1: So it comes down to just an economic decision which
Speaker 1: is easier and which entails less risk. And the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about this is that within this code, this system,
Speaker 1: there's a kind of justice that is doled out, particularly
Speaker 1: if you are in the mafia landscape, right and you're
Speaker 1: one of the enforcers. If the person doesn't pay up,
Speaker 1: there's a justice. You know, you're not your restaurant's not
Speaker 1: going to run very well pretty soon. Maybe your brother
Speaker 1: won't get that promotion. You know, there are things that
Speaker 1: benefit the person who's paying, not just um, just the
Speaker 1: maintenance of their restaurant, but perhaps there's social stature right
Speaker 1: and there, and I've been often there is some degree
Speaker 1: of protection there, certainly from other nefarious individuals. Like you're
Speaker 1: probably not going to be paying to protection rackets to
Speaker 1: two different parasitic mafia dudes. You're gonna be paying one dude,
Speaker 1: and that dude is going to keep you have to
Speaker 1: dude off your back because you are now part of
Speaker 1: his turf. So that's a great point. That's safety elements.
Speaker 1: So that kind of comes down to this idea of
Speaker 1: what is altruism and we should probably do another episode
Speaker 1: UM that is completely dedicated to altruism because it's very interesting. UM.
Speaker 1: But there's this idea of altruistic punishment versus selfish on
Speaker 1: selfish punishment, which is what the mafia does write that
Speaker 1: selfish unselfish and according to Princeton University and University of
Speaker 1: Arizona researchers, society's rule against selfishness or rules rather are
Speaker 1: rooted in the very exploitation that they condemn. And it
Speaker 1: may be that the reason that some of the selfish
Speaker 1: unselfish UM justice punishment comes down the pike is because
Speaker 1: it's a resources issue. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit easier to seed control to a
Speaker 1: couple of really influential UM peddlers out there in the
Speaker 1: community and say rather than really be engaged civically and
Speaker 1: try to meet out justice in a way that is
Speaker 1: thoughtful and community minded. Yeah, because on one hand, with
Speaker 1: the altruistic punishment model. You have the idea of you know,
Speaker 1: like the wise, benevolent mayor of the town saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if you break the rules, they're gonna be there. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be a cost, or you know you're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna wind up in the jail cell. You're gonna
Speaker 1: wind up with a with a fine, Are you gonna
Speaker 1: be expelled? What have you? And then on the on
Speaker 1: the selfish on selfish side of the the word, agin the
Speaker 1: mafia punishment, that is one guy saying, hey, these people
Speaker 1: on my turf, you can't mess with them, that's what
Speaker 1: I do. You can't exploit them because I am exploiting
Speaker 1: them to the degree that I can get away with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the system of altruism was actually reported in the
Speaker 1: journal Evolution. And what they did is they they took
Speaker 1: a simulation model that gauged tow community with Stanza system
Speaker 1: built on altruistic punishment or selfish on selfish punishment, and
Speaker 1: they did they found that that um, that kind of
Speaker 1: altruistic punishment which the community comes together and is very
Speaker 1: civic minded, does demand a lot of resources. And that
Speaker 1: is perhaps why systems like the mafia tend to do
Speaker 1: really well because as a result, there is a lower
Speaker 1: instance of crime overall in that community against citizens. So
Speaker 1: you may say, oh, hey, a couple of people become
Speaker 1: fat cats and they're awful and they do some terrible things,
Speaker 1: but as a whole, the community is protected. Yes. And
Speaker 1: what was what's really fascinating about this, uh, this Princeton
Speaker 1: University University at Arizona study, was how they draw in
Speaker 1: that idea that not only does the simpler economic model
Speaker 1: again is that is the fat cat model, the mafia
Speaker 1: model as opposed to the altruistic ruler model, but their
Speaker 1: idea that we get that that more altruistic version of
Speaker 1: civilization and society emerges from the fat cat model. It
Speaker 1: evolves over time. And you really see this if you
Speaker 1: sort of squint your eyes and really think about the
Speaker 1: systems of power in the world, Like, what is the
Speaker 1: difference between the mafia boss who keeps things under wrap
Speaker 1: but is getting plenty on the side, is living very
Speaker 1: comfortable at the top. What is the difference between that dude,
Speaker 1: that Joe Pesci sort of type cast character and a government.
Speaker 1: What's the difference between that dude and a corporation what's
Speaker 1: the difference between that dude and just a you know,
Speaker 1: you're average local, nice guy employer, Like there are elements
Speaker 1: of the same model everywhere you look. Well, yeah, and
Speaker 1: talk about influence peddlers and fat cats if you're talking
Speaker 1: about lobbyists. And I'm not saying that all lobbyists are
Speaker 1: working outside of the margins, but we have a couple
Speaker 1: of cases under our belt that we can point to
Speaker 1: lobbyists having tremendous wealth and power and essentially some people,
Speaker 1: looking at it this way, buying politicians, uh literally buying
Speaker 1: them by offering them money or goods um or maybe
Speaker 1: just even their influences so great that they have that
Speaker 1: politician in their pocket. Now, let's get out of the
Speaker 1: mafia model for a moment, and let's get into a
Speaker 1: more medieval model, which actually, yeah, I mean this, this
Speaker 1: predates the mafia right and medieval Knights basically a military
Speaker 1: order created in nine to protect Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Knights Templar. They branched out over
Speaker 1: time in Western Europe and they created a network of
Speaker 1: banks that in the abled religious pilgrims to deposit assets
Speaker 1: in their home countries and then withdrawal of the funds
Speaker 1: in the Holy Land. Right, so what do you have
Speaker 1: over time? You have the Nights Templar gaining huge amounts
Speaker 1: of financial resources, and we still have that protection element
Speaker 1: in there. So all of a sudden the threat becomes
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's not even the threat is so pervasive
Speaker 1: they don't have to say it. If you don't pay up,
Speaker 1: if you don't give it to the Knights Templar, perhaps
Speaker 1: something bad will befall you. It's in the Nights Templars
Speaker 1: model is an interesting to want to look at too,
Speaker 1: because of course the Knights Templars did reach that point
Speaker 1: we're talking about, at what point do I say it's
Speaker 1: actually worth the effort to break down this organization, And
Speaker 1: that eventually occurred there would be Catholic Church, of course,
Speaker 1: eradicated the Templars after a while. So and you can
Speaker 1: definitely make the argument that this is a case of
Speaker 1: one fat cat looking over the other fact at and
Speaker 1: unim like, you know what used to be a smaller
Speaker 1: cat in our feral community, but now you're a little
Speaker 1: too big, a little too powerful, and uh and uh,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see that you go away and I
Speaker 1: don't want to put it all on the the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: The King of France also played a substantial role in
Speaker 1: that scenario as well. But that does go back to
Speaker 1: um that mathematical model in which we're talking about two people,
Speaker 1: those two fat cats that are trying to cancel each
Speaker 1: other out and and say, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: their coda rules. Yeah, because everybody can't be a fat cat,
Speaker 1: and you can only have so many parasites living off
Speaker 1: the host. Uh and and so there's there's a careful
Speaker 1: balance that has to be maintained. And again, you can
Speaker 1: look to governmental models, you can look to big business,
Speaker 1: and you see very similar things. There can only be
Speaker 1: so many dominant players in the particular commercial market, and
Speaker 1: what did they do that. There's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: competition they will tolerate, and then there are certain certain
Speaker 1: types of competition that they will readily feast upon or destroy.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're gonna talk about Kuka birds, gonna
Speaker 1: talk about their spaghetti dinners in their back room. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. Before we start talking about our fine feathered friends,
Speaker 1: let's talk about tree wasps and cancer cells because they
Speaker 1: do actually have something to do with this whole mafio.
Speaker 1: So this system, indeed, we now wasps engage in UH
Speaker 1: and some of the other practices. We're going to discuss
Speaker 1: UH shortly. But tree wasps. UH haven't observed that police
Speaker 1: hives to make sure that no member other than the
Speaker 1: queen lays eggs. And the same police, though, will often
Speaker 1: lay illicit eggs themselves. So that's the case where it's
Speaker 1: my job to lay down the law. But since I'm
Speaker 1: the one laying down the law, I'm the one that
Speaker 1: can bend it a bit, indeed, and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. I'll just slip in a couple of my eggs.
Speaker 1: That's all right. I'm the influence peddler here exactly. And
Speaker 1: then in terms of cancer cells, we know that mutations
Speaker 1: and a cell's own DNA initiate the changes that put
Speaker 1: it on a really destructive path. But it's a lot
Speaker 1: more or nuanced than that, because the micro environment of
Speaker 1: a tumor acts like a kind of co conspirator. And
Speaker 1: we won't get way into this because we could dedicate
Speaker 1: entire podcast to this, but essentially, what you see our
Speaker 1: cancer cells that will prevent other tumors from forming, as
Speaker 1: if to say, no, no, no, this is my my
Speaker 1: tumor corner here, which you know, essentially at the same
Speaker 1: time as kind of a good things. There's no more
Speaker 1: tumors that are forming. But you see this again in
Speaker 1: nature and you see it best and birds ah yes,
Speaker 1: And that of course is why we call this episode
Speaker 1: the Cuckoo Mafia, because we see some really fascinating birds
Speaker 1: that are involved in brood paraticism also known as egg
Speaker 1: dumping now egg dumping. When you just say that, it
Speaker 1: brings to mind like just this idea of of a
Speaker 1: bird that I know what to do with his eggs,
Speaker 1: just like throwing them off a cliff or something. But
Speaker 1: that's not not what's going on here. This is the
Speaker 1: idea that that on one hand, you have the birds
Speaker 1: that are are are laying their heads, they're raising their young,
Speaker 1: uh and it's a nice, beautiful, wonderful thing that you
Speaker 1: would see in a child's book about nature. And then
Speaker 1: you have those other birds. Those birds don't care. They
Speaker 1: don't want to look after that egg and raise that
Speaker 1: that chick and and vomit food into its mouth. They
Speaker 1: have other things to do. They have a different set
Speaker 1: of values, but they have a genetic mission. Like all organisms,
Speaker 1: they need their offspring to survive. So they've developed this
Speaker 1: practice of dumping eggs on these other bird nests, on
Speaker 1: these other more stable environments, with the intention that the
Speaker 1: egg will hatch and the chick will be raised in
Speaker 1: that environment. And ha ha ha on that that poor
Speaker 1: bird in the nest, right, And we see this in
Speaker 1: sea birds. But the thing about seabirds is that they
Speaker 1: will deposit their eggs and then take off, and then
Speaker 1: they won't know whether or not this actually came to
Speaker 1: fruition there. They're young, broad right, and in some cases,
Speaker 1: if the ag hatches, it's likely going to be eaten
Speaker 1: by the very family that they were dumped upon. It's
Speaker 1: not a good model, really, And they have to find
Speaker 1: eggs that are species that are somewhat similar to them
Speaker 1: so that the egg can maybe squeak in there and
Speaker 1: go unnoticed at least for a while, right, Because eggs,
Speaker 1: if you just looking at chicken eggs in the fridge,
Speaker 1: you know, just the white kind that come from here supermarket.
Speaker 1: You may miss out on this. But there is a
Speaker 1: lot of difference among all the different types of bird
Speaker 1: eggs out there. There's different colors, different patterns, and so
Speaker 1: a bird is going to be able to tell if hey,
Speaker 1: I I lay brown eggs and there is a blue
Speaker 1: speckled one in here. Something is off. Somebody's trying to
Speaker 1: pull one over on me, It's true. And so we
Speaker 1: have birds that will do the sort of egg dumping,
Speaker 1: but they're going to take these mafia like tactics and
Speaker 1: ensure that that egg will be taken care of, that
Speaker 1: it gets protected, and it does that vise of the
Speaker 1: the own protection or destruction that it offers. Right. One
Speaker 1: of the best examples of this, of course, is the
Speaker 1: the cowbird. There are two species of cowbird. You'll find
Speaker 1: both in North America, and they've they've managed to spread
Speaker 1: out even more from their original territory due to the
Speaker 1: way that we we treat our land as a as
Speaker 1: a human species. But what's remarkable here is that they
Speaker 1: are very much like that that scenario we're talking about earlier. Hey,
Speaker 1: nice story, would it would be a pity if something
Speaker 1: happened to it? And then if you don't pay up,
Speaker 1: what happens, Well, suddenly the front window to your store
Speaker 1: is broken, your your merchandise is thrown out in the street,
Speaker 1: maybe something catches on fire. There's retribution if you do
Speaker 1: not obey the laws. Now, these earlier models that these
Speaker 1: these sea birds we're talking about, there's no retribution. They're
Speaker 1: just they're just taking a risk. Maybe maybe they'll raise it,
Speaker 1: maybe they won't. Maybe it'll hatch and the young, young
Speaker 1: one will will be able to squirm away before it's
Speaker 1: it's pecked off as as an interloper. But with a cowbird, uh,
Speaker 1: there is retribution. Now this used to be just more
Speaker 1: of a theory than anything. Believe. The original theory, the
Speaker 1: mafia theory of the cowbird, came from evolutionary biologists uh
Speaker 1: Amas Xavi and back in seventy nine. But eventually scientists
Speaker 1: put all this to the test. That's right. Jeff Hoover
Speaker 1: at the Illinois Natural History Survey in Champagne, Illinois, provided
Speaker 1: artificial nests for one and eighty pair of profonetary warblers
Speaker 1: and then waited for the cowbirds to cuckle them to
Speaker 1: deposit their eggs. Then he selectively removed the cowbird eggs.
Speaker 1: So what happened pretty soon the cowbirds swooped in, they retaliated,
Speaker 1: They returned to the nest to eat or destroy the
Speaker 1: remaining warbler eggs. And what's more, warblers that had laid
Speaker 1: too early for the cowbirds to cuckle them, they also
Speaker 1: suffered retrobration to their nests also got turned over and destroyed,
Speaker 1: and the cowbirds would routinely eat or trash these more
Speaker 1: developed eggs to force the warblers to rebuild their next
Speaker 1: elsewhere and start over again and hopefully have it in
Speaker 1: sync when with the cowbirds could swoop in and deposit
Speaker 1: an egg. So, yeah, they came in and just totally
Speaker 1: devastated things. They really drove home and we're again we're
Speaker 1: gonna anthromorphize a little to layer that mafia understanding of
Speaker 1: this on the behavior, but they really come in tear
Speaker 1: everything up, murder with the strong message, Hey, do you
Speaker 1: want to survive in this world? If you want to
Speaker 1: carry out the genetic mission of passing on your own
Speaker 1: genetic material and saying that your children exist into the
Speaker 1: next generation generation behind it, the only way you're gonna
Speaker 1: do it is by playing along with this little scheme
Speaker 1: of ours. You're gonna have to accept it to a
Speaker 1: agree because the cost is way too high for you
Speaker 1: to pay. Yeah, and to put numbers behind that cost.
Speaker 1: Hever says that, um, I get that this is what
Speaker 1: you just described as an evolutionary state of acceptance, and
Speaker 1: that the cost is that on average, the host birds
Speaker 1: will raise three of their own chicks when they also
Speaker 1: support a cowbird chick. Yet they raised just one of
Speaker 1: their own if a cowbird egg has been rejected. And
Speaker 1: I like this idea of it's an evolutionary state of acceptance,
Speaker 1: like I gotta, I gotta accept this because of terms,
Speaker 1: it's an offer I can't refuse. Yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: extrapolate that to to human culture as well, that there's
Speaker 1: sort of this built in mathematical reason for why we
Speaker 1: will tolerate a certain amount of of corruption, a certain
Speaker 1: amount of of criminal activity, in a certain amount of
Speaker 1: just general awfulness on the part of people's and organizations
Speaker 1: that rule over our world. Yeah. And speaking of mathematical models,
Speaker 1: this mafia hypothesis, which had been really controversial, was finally
Speaker 1: borne out uh Maria Abou Chakra, Arnie Charleston, and Christigian
Speaker 1: hill Bay. They modeled this hypothesis with cuckoopers who were
Speaker 1: ravaging I think they are magpie birds, and they found
Speaker 1: that this theory does explain the behavior as long as
Speaker 1: two conditions are met, one that the cuckoos visit the
Speaker 1: same nest repeatedly, into that the host birds are capable
Speaker 1: of learning. That's pretty important, right, because they also point
Speaker 1: out that they never establish an equilibrium here. So they
Speaker 1: are regular cycles, uh, in terms of the frequency of
Speaker 1: mafia such as we're talking about with retribution and non
Speaker 1: mafia no retribution parasites and host and the acceptance of
Speaker 1: the egg. So it's so you will have periods where
Speaker 1: it's kind of like did you ever read Fwick The
Speaker 1: Big Hearted Moose by by Dr Seuss's fabulous story Moose
Speaker 1: has antlers. He lets one animal live in his antlers,
Speaker 1: then another one's living there, and then there are more
Speaker 1: and more animals living in his antlers until he finally
Speaker 1: says enough is enough and he takes the antlers off
Speaker 1: and he's no longer supporting all of these freeloaders. So
Speaker 1: you kind of so inevitably you see this this cycle,
Speaker 1: like how is it builds up? How much criminal behavior
Speaker 1: is a species going to accept before they retaliate? And
Speaker 1: then it gets back down? And then which ones are
Speaker 1: going to actually um come in and destroy your stuff
Speaker 1: if you throw the parasites out. So it's the the
Speaker 1: relationship has to continually um find itself. Yeah, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because um there is as you say, there's no equilibrium
Speaker 1: here and um when you see the host behavior here,
Speaker 1: it's either one of two things. Conditionally they'll accept an
Speaker 1: egg or completely unconditionally, And that conditionally only occurs when
Speaker 1: there is not a large population of um, the parasitic birds,
Speaker 1: the cuckoo parasitic birds exhibiting that mafia behavior. So in
Speaker 1: other words, they tend to be the majority. But what
Speaker 1: happens is that the pendulum begins to swing back the
Speaker 1: other way, because then the parasitic birds go, hey, we
Speaker 1: need to start tipping over some nust here. Let them know.
Speaker 1: And as soon as they become the majority the birds
Speaker 1: that are exhibiting that mafia tendency, then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you have absolutely, like unconditionally of course drop her
Speaker 1: egg to do it. I'd love to host them great.
Speaker 1: And why this is so important is that this means
Speaker 1: that the cowbirds they don't have to specialize uh, their
Speaker 1: their eggs. They don't have to change any of the
Speaker 1: dynamics and try to you know, fit in with other species.
Speaker 1: They don't have to worry about that that egg just
Speaker 1: looking completely out of place, because it does. Because the
Speaker 1: message is like, hey, if you know it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: we're not trying to be a subtle here. You know,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't pay me money, I'm going
Speaker 1: to break your shop. If you don't raise this egg,
Speaker 1: which looks sotly different from the other eggs, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come in and tear up your nest. And don't you
Speaker 1: wish that dinosaur train had started with this modia parasite premise?
Speaker 1: Oh man, you know, because isn't it The t rex
Speaker 1: has been dropped in the nest and it's very obvious
Speaker 1: to the mom turnded on like, oh, this is not
Speaker 1: my kid here, Yeah, well it is her kid. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying in in the mafia version that hasn't
Speaker 1: come out yet, Yeah, yeah, it would be it would
Speaker 1: be interesting to explore the certainly the the the animal
Speaker 1: mafia side of that family dynamic. Indeed, although I guess
Speaker 1: you know, historically wouldn't be necessarily accurate because we don't
Speaker 1: have evidence during that period and then the fossil record
Speaker 1: to say that we would have some parasitic well, they
Speaker 1: have that character that marches out of the door and
Speaker 1: uh and and explains to us what's real. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: big downer, right, the debut downer who's like the dinosaurs
Speaker 1: aren't actually purple and red and green spotted. Yeah. Alright,
Speaker 1: So there you have it. The animal mafia, the cuckoo mafia,
Speaker 1: the cowbird mafia. But let's turn back, just just one
Speaker 1: last time, even away from dinosaur train, and discuss the
Speaker 1: real world of human mafia, because you found a little
Speaker 1: bit of interesting data about their renewable energy interests. Look, yeah,
Speaker 1: because again, the mafia is a huge thing, right, It's
Speaker 1: not just a bunch of you know, Italian in their
Speaker 1: undershirt explain checkers. Um. But I will say it goes
Speaker 1: back to the roots here in Sicily, because it turns
Speaker 1: out that the mafia is very interested and renewable energy,
Speaker 1: specifically wind farms. Because one, it fits the landscape of
Speaker 1: southern Italy right where they have a lot of influence
Speaker 1: and a lot of land under their sway. Too, it's
Speaker 1: really easy for them to launder money for renewable energy
Speaker 1: as you can you can make a lot of money
Speaker 1: is renewable energy. I mean it's a fact. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's not that there's not a lot of checks and
Speaker 1: balances going on with that, and so as a result
Speaker 1: you have this great robust alternative energy source going on
Speaker 1: in Italy. So also government government money flowing into it
Speaker 1: as well, you know, because ultimately that comes down to
Speaker 1: it if if if money is to be made off
Speaker 1: of it, the mafia is interested in it, if there's
Speaker 1: blood to come out of the host, then the parasite
Speaker 1: wants a taste, and they're being smart about their money.
Speaker 1: Of course, now people will say that doesn't make things
Speaker 1: right just because this is going on there. There are
Speaker 1: terrible things that are being exacted upon humanity as a result,
Speaker 1: But it does make it that the whole point about, um,
Speaker 1: greater resources and protection for the community. Uh, pretty plain
Speaker 1: and insight with this example of renewable energy making that
Speaker 1: part of Italy, which historically has been poor flush with money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, you watch Breaking Bad, correct, you reached
Speaker 1: the point where you think it's early on in one
Speaker 1: of the couple of seasons where you you encounter a
Speaker 1: potential money laundering business, a laser tag establishment. Yes, that
Speaker 1: is really colored the way I think about a lot
Speaker 1: of businesses. Like if I go to do a business
Speaker 1: and it's just a little too dream come true, then
Speaker 1: I start to think about about the possibilities that it's
Speaker 1: just a money laundering front. Like there are a few
Speaker 1: different stores. I'm not gonna name any names, of course,
Speaker 1: but there are few different stores in the Atlanta area,
Speaker 1: you know, And maybe I go inside and they just
Speaker 1: have a few many toys for sale, or it just
Speaker 1: seems that it seems just like a like too much
Speaker 1: of a dream store. And I started doing customers, right,
Speaker 1: maybe there aren't that many customers, and I started I
Speaker 1: started thinking, it's like, how is this staying afloat? This
Speaker 1: has to be some sort of a money laundering scheme. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that show has completely changed my, uh perspective of nearly
Speaker 1: everything that I encounter. In fact, I was driving through
Speaker 1: my neighborhood the other day and the house was being
Speaker 1: tented for pest control, and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what's going on in there. Uh oh, Walter White,
Speaker 1: You've changed our lives. It really should have invested in
Speaker 1: wind farms, So didn't you think that would have been
Speaker 1: kind of a jam. That would have been an interesting place.
Speaker 1: I can I mean that sounds very breaking bad. If
Speaker 1: it were still going on, and I could, I could
Speaker 1: easily imagine that point, and I a should have also
Speaker 1: pointed out we discussed before that the wasps of course,
Speaker 1: that the world of wasps includes a lot of vile behavior,
Speaker 1: and that you'll see plenty of examples of parasitic wasp
Speaker 1: laying their young inside of other nests, zombifying poor ladybugs,
Speaker 1: but either bidding but also like hatching early in alien
Speaker 1: nests and then eating all the other young. So so no,
Speaker 1: no matter how bad you've got it, birds, just remember
Speaker 1: it could be worse. You could have to put up
Speaker 1: with the wasps. Alright, so well, we thank you for
Speaker 1: putting up with us uh and joining us for the show.
Speaker 1: And if you want more, then be sure to check
Speaker 1: out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is
Speaker 1: our our mothership. That's where you'll find all the episodes
Speaker 1: of the podcast. You'll find all of our video products.
Speaker 1: You'll find our blog posts as well as links out
Speaker 1: to other stuff. We're up to various social media accounts,
Speaker 1: including Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler. I believe we even have a
Speaker 1: Pinterest account. There's the YouTube channel mind Stuff Show. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us there, but just go to stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com and you will find
Speaker 1: all of those roads leading out. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you have any mafia tinged thoughts or strategies to share
Speaker 1: with us, you can do so at blow the Mind
Speaker 1: at discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.