WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Cobra Effect 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.840 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.120 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.320 We're going into the vault for a classic episode from September. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.720 What was this episode about, Robert, Well, this is yeah. 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.320 This one was titled Scalp Hunters and the Cobra Effect, 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.880 and it basically dealt with the unintended consequences um of 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.680 of of of putting value on certain things. What we're 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.360 referencing with the title, of course, is what happens if 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:32.600 you say, all right, we want to deal with the 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:34.880 cobra problem, so we're gonna put a price on bringing 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.400 in cobra's or in the one of the more you know, 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.519 horrific stories of of American colonialism putting a price on 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.400 the scalps of Native people. But then what happens when 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.199 you do that? What kind of how does that shift 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.200 the quota of violence? What do people start doing then 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.160 to cheat the system? And in both of these cases 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.680 you see people doing things to cheat the system. Well, 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:01.520 it's sort of In the episode, we explore the nature 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.840 of incentives and what what incentives due to address problems 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.639 people think they're trying to address and then to create 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.800 other problems people don't predict. Yeah. I can't remember if 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.319 I've discussed this example uh in the episode, but it 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.119 reminds me of when we're trying to potty train our 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.480 child and we know you give did I give this 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.320 this explanation? All right? Save it for the episode? Okay, alright, 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:27.560 but it involves I'll just say it involves peepy nuts 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.959 and poop candy and uh and and everyone can enjoy 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.040 the either enjoy it a second time or you can 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:40.720 enjoy it for the first time. Welcome to Stuff to 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:50.760 Blow Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:52.560 welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.760 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In this episode, we're 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.920 gonna we're gonna be talking about some darker content towards 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.240 the end, as the time all the episode implies, and 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.040 indeed even the darker the less dark elements that we're 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.360 going to talk about are kind of a crash course 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:14.720 in the the the Misadventures of colonialism. But before we 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:16.400 get into all of that, we thought we'd we'd kick 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.440 off with maybe some lighter content. Yeah, Robert, I understand 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:22.760 that you want to tell me about peep nuts. Yes, 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.680 I would love to tell you about not only peep nuts, Joe, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.640 but poop candy as well. Poop candy that's what the 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.359 dog believes comes out of the cats. But oh, now 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.160 you've taken into darker territory, Joe. But no I'm not. 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.440 I'm talking about the rearing of human children as opposed 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:43.000 to dogs here. Um, and this ties into the overall 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.280 theme here, the use of the often the use of 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.800 bounties and bribes, and then what happens when the economics 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.240 of that spirals out of control. So my son is 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:54.840 for now, but there was a time not too long 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:56.840 ago when we were trying to potty train him, to 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.920 get him to actually um urinate and aivocate in the 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.800 toilet when he needed to go to listen to his 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.080 body and follow up. So it's apparently not enough just 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.959 to say that is where you go do such business 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.280 and point to the toilet. You actually you need to 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.480 introduce some incentives to motivate this behavior, right and there. 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.680 There there are as many different schools of parenting as 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.760 there are parents. So some some people have a real 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:27.160 problem with using bribes in any situation. But hey, that's 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:28.919 what we did in work for us. Then you've also 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.959 got the poop anywhere parents, who I hear a real trouble. 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.480 Well that's now I know people who are using that 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.200 technique and that that seems to work for them. But 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.400 I was just kidding. Wait, that's a real parenting philosopher. 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.360 I thought you were anywhere. Well, there's there are different 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.400 toilet training techniques that imply it's not so much a 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.520 poop anywhere. Um, what it means is like the kid 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.400 will go around without pants on and then when they 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.120 need to go, you scoop them up. Um, that's sort 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.560 of thing. So that's what I thought you were, ok there, 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.320 believe me, there are a lot of different techniques there. 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.600 And uh, and and that one in particularly, I know 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.720 some people have used that and it made work for them. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.960 In our case, though, we we issued a strict bounty 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.480 for every successful urination in the potty. Um, he would 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:17.039 get one honey sesame nut from this little bag honey sesame. Yeah, 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.560 like you buy a Trader Joe's and they had that. 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.560 Oh they're they're delicious. Um. I had to stop eating 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.320 them for a while when they were when they became 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.120 peepy nuts for me and kind of there by association. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.800 But they're great. Uh And on the other hand, for 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.200 every successful poop in the toilet, which is was even 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.080 more important to us at the time, he would get 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.080 a single fruit gummy and that was the poop candy. 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.720 So the policy proved effective for us, but it also 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.280 led to a period during which he began to make 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.599 a case that each piece of feces was surely a 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.880 separate poop and should then result in additional poop candies 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.960 as well as the is any interruption in the stream 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.880 of urine would result in two or more instances of urination, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.760 and each would require a separate reward. Okay, well, this 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.320 this is smart bargaining. Actually yeah, yeah, and it's I mean, 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.880 it's it's crazy too when I look back and realize 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.440 that he hadn't and he still hasn't really discovered the 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.599 power of lying. Uh So, but there was still this 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.279 tendency to bend the rule and even break the spirit 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.159 of the rule for greater rewards. Now, after that we 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.560 clarified the policy and then luckily we were able to 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.480 phase it out shortly after that. But how might things 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.080 have escalated if if we hadn't you know, that's that's 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.599 something to think about, and I've been thinking about in 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.080 researching this topic. Well, Robert, I want to tell you 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.840 a story. It might not be a true story, but 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.200 but it's an interesting story with some very true analogs 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:48.560 about the power of incentives and the sometimes unintended consequences 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:54.080 of incentives, and about serpents of course, asps very dangerous. Now, 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:59.000 the story goes something like this, In colonial India, you 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.719 had a British colonial administrator who decided there were too 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.240 many cobras in the city of Delhi. You know, I 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.080 got cobra's coming out of my ears. We gotta get 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.479 rid of all these things. Though I wonder what that 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.560 actually looked like. I mean, if this really happened. I 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.520 imagine we're all picturing that scene in Raiders of the 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.479 Lost Arc exactly, but it was probably more like, I 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.800 saw one cobra and that was too many. We've got 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.560 a cobra problem in the city. But anyway, so he 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.599 wanted to get rid of the cobras in the city, 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.839 kill them all, get him out of here. So he 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.080 came up with a solution. Put a bounty on the cobras. 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.359 That makes sense, So if you kill a cobra, just 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.040 bring the dead snake to the government office and receive 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.480 a cash award. Yeah. They're making it worth your while 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:43.440 to take time out of your day to kill a 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.680 snake or two. Yeah. And at first it seemed like 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.680 this was working great. They're collecting plenty of cobras. But 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:53.679 before long the local administrators discovered a problem. The people 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.920 have figured out a way to game the system and 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.920 turn the snake bounty into free money. They weren't catching 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.320 cobras from the city and killing them. They were farming 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.839 cobras at home, killing them once they were mature, and 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.840 then bringing them in to get the bounty. Now, obviously 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.680 they couldn't allow this kind of mischief to continue, so 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.240 the administrators ended the cobra bounty. But now you had 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.040 all these snake breeders who had been farming cobras in 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.320 order to get the bounty, and they're they're stuck with 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.760 hundreds of worthless snakes. So what do you do with them. 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.560 We'll just release them so they have no incidive for 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:31.720 keeping them. They release them into the streets, and the 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.760 cobra population in the city drastically increases. This leads to 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:41.480 the principle that's now known to economists as the cobra effect, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.320 and it's when a strategy implemented to solve a problem 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.880 directly makes the problem worse. And the story about cobras 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.040 and Delhi, as I mentioned, might be nothing more than 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.680 a modern folk tale. I haven't come across any evidence 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.880 that it actually happened, But there are plenty of examples 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.360 where exactly this type of thing has definitely occurred in 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.880 the real world, that's right. And one of them occurs 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:11.800 with another colonial situation, another infestation in Hanoi, Vietnam. Al right, 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.520 this would have been the nineteenth century. So you have 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.920 French colonial authorities in Vietnam, and you know, there are 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.280 various problems to focus in on, but the one they 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.520 choose to really apply their attention to is the city's 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.360 rat problem. Now, I can imagine the rat problem was 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.160 probably a real problem, probably a real problem that you know, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.439 like the cobra thing. You can imagine a colonial administrator 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.400 sees one cobra and decides that there's a cobra problem 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.360 in the city, right, Yeah, because I can't think of 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.640 a situation where another city has had a had a 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:47.720 snake infestation problem off hand. But rats. Of course, rat 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.439 problems have been an issue throughout human history. Yeah, it's 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.839 quite common to have rat problems in any large population center. 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.920 People produce a lot of garbage. Garbage is tasty. They 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.920 have sewers that are great places to to dwell in 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.959 and have your little breeding grounds. Yeah, they're smart and 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.000 they're successful. And as was learned, and this is the 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.160 other key thing, this is one of the reasons that 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.520 they focused in on rats so much, is that in 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:18.120 eighteen nine four, that's when Alexandra Yearson discovered that debonic 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:22.360 plague was caused caused by little fleas that wrote on rats. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.400 So that so you can see why they were concerned. 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.200 So what did they do. Well, they did what what 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.000 often happens in these cases. They assigned some professional rat 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.680 catchers to take care of everything. But then that's not enough, 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.240 so they turned to volunteers. They turned to two mercenary 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.079 rat catchers, and they offer a bounty of one cent 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.559 per rat tail. And the idea here was that, especially 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.439 since the disease was an issue, asking the rat catchers 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.000 to handle the body was going to be too much 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:52.920 to ask would be a burden and just a little 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.120 growth right from what I've read. You know, they'd catch 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.600 thousands of rats in the sewer in in a very 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.199 short period of time. Lugging all those dead rat bodies 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.880 would actually be really heavy, yeah, and then discussing, so 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.280 just to prove how many you killed, really, just take 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.000 the tail, right, So that's yeah, that's exactly what they did, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:12.720 brought in the tail, and it seemed to be working 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.920 at first, But then the authorities began to notice something 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.280 curious in the streets. They noticed a bunch of rats 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:24.160 running around without tails. So they quickly realized that some 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.920 of those enterprising rat catchers out there were simply lopping 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.640 the tails off of the wild rats when they caught them, 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.400 perhaps out of laziness, but more likely so that tail 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.520 is rats could go forth breed and produce more rat 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.720 tails to harvest. Yah know, they were being economically smart, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.480 they were they were trying to you know, if you 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.240 are living off the land, you don't want to destroy 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.840 all of the vegetation in the land, so you only 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.800 pick from some of the plants. You don't kill every plant. Right. 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.000 It's like the policy or the policy that's supposed to 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.440 be in place with stone crabs. You harvest one of 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:00.160 the of the clause and then you let the each 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.120 your good. You don't harvest them both. So that that 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.960 was one of the ramifications of the bounty. But much 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.480 like our cobra example, this the exact same thing took place. 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:14.200 Um others took advantage of the law by establishing rat farms. Yeah, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.200 because rats are are easy to breed. I mean, you 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.680 don't even have to try. I really don't have to try. 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.079 Just to collect some rats and let them do their thing, 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.559 and you're gonna have more rats, which you can then 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.679 lock their tails off and collect your bounty. So the 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.880 French were horrified that their efforts to curb the rat 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.720 population was actually increasing it, and they scrapped the bounty 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:40.600 program entirely, and in bubonic plague broke out in Annoy. 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.280 So no, yeah, so there's there's a lot more there are. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.120 There are a number of more angles to this story. 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.240 There's a great paper out there that ties all of 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.680 this in with this sort of the doom nature of 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.160 French rule in Vietnam, and it's titled of Rats, Rice 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.240 and Race. The Great Annoying Rat Massacre, An episode in 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.200 French colonial History by Michael G. Van yeah, And there's 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.960 an older episode of Freakonomics Radio actually the deals exactly 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.040 with the Cobra effect that I listened to, and it's 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.199 a good episode. It's worth checking out. So we won't 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.800 rehash everything they cover in their show, but just to 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.400 mention a couple other interesting examples they bring up. One 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.920 is a very similar situation to the rats in Hanoi, 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.360 but this is with Ferrell pigs in Fort Benning, Georgia. 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.640 So it's a local tale. Right. Have you been to 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.679 Fort Benning. I've been through there, I believe yeeah, did 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.200 you see any pigs? No? No, I saw. I saw 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.559 an interesting overpass, and I believe that's that's the extent 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.040 of it. Okay, Well, anyway, it's in I think southwest 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.600 Georgia's right. Yeah, So there are a lot of wild 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.640 pigs in this area. They're they're invasive Ferrell pigs, and 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:46.880 they do a lot of damage. They dig everything up, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.360 they get into your garbage, they eat everything. They cause 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.960 damage to government property and buildings. So people wanted to 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.719 do something about this Ferrell pig problem. So there was 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:02.320 a cash bounty exchange program or pigtails established to fight 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:06.840 the feral pig problem, but same problems we've encountered before. 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.199 There's a lot of suspicion that some of these pigtails 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.240 people were turning in for a cash reward came from 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.240 illicit sources, maybe some meat processing, We're not exactly sure. 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.000 And then in the end it looks like baiting practices 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:25.320 established by the pig bounty hunters actually probably increased the 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.839 number of wild pigs in the area. So people claim 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.080 all these cash rewards because they put out a bunch 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.000 of food to attract pigs and then they shoot some 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.840 of them. But you know, you were feeding the pigs, 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.160 fattening them up for breeding and producing more pigs, because 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.400 you're you're trying to put a value on the elimination 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.400 of the animal, but in doing so, you've put a 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:51.400 value on the continued life of the animal. Exactly. Yes, 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.560 it's interesting how that how that plays out, And this 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.400 brings me to a thought about the nature of incentives, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.960 because it's sort of highlights that you can't have an 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.679 incentive that's just sort of logically associated with the outcome 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.720 you want. In order to try to prevent the gaming 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:12.320 of the system, you really need to make incentives as 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:17.600 closely aligned to the actual desired outcome as possible. So 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.080 what I mean by that is, if you want to 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.720 eliminate cobras from the city, don't offer cash rewards for 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.520 dead cobras because you don't want dead cobras. That's not 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.320 the outcome you're looking for. You want an absence of cobras. 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.880 So ind but that's a lot harder to incentivize, right, Yeah, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.920 you have to somebody come along and investigate for cobra 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.360 free spaces exactly. Yeah, you need more complex systems to 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.920 try to incentivize that. So for example, maybe you could 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.320 establish a cobra control authority and then the employees of 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.400 this organization are given a cash bonus that's proportional to 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.120 how few cobra bytes are reported in local hospitals in 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.800 a given year. But even with that, you run into 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.800 some some problems, right like without strict controls on that, 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.119 what if you have members of the cobra control authority 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.520 intimidating people not to report their cobra bites or not 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.640 to go to the hospital, or intimidating people at hospitals 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.560 not to report them to the government. Uh So, it 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:21.040 just seems like whenever you introduce incentive programs to to 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.200 a wide ranging you know, a group of participants to 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.800 the public. Essentially, you you introduce the problem that people 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.720 are going to find ways to access the reward without 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.280 helping you achieve your goal. It's it seems like it 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.800 should be a Doctor Seuss book or kind of um, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.400 a Sourcer's Apprentice kind of tail, right, just as it 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.200 spirals out of control on these examples, UM, I can't 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.880 help but think of quotas that are set forth for 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.000 law enforcements. Sometimes, you know, like you know, you've got 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.800 to get so many speeding tickets out there, and so 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.040 you end up having a police officers setting up and 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.240 speed traps to to hit those quotas, which in that case, 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.240 I guess it's not a clear it's not necessarily making 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.680 the problem worse, but it's also just kind of like 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.120 we're not really stopping it. We're just kind of like 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:18.920 setting up a system to continually collect the bounty on speeding. Yeah, Like, 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.720 I guess I can see where there's a balance there, right, 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.560 So if if it depends on how the quota is 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.120 and how aggressive you are and carrying it out, because 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.120 if there's a balance to where all right, You're just 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.480 people know not to go above a certain speed or 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.320 they should know and and if they don't, they get 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.240 a ticket. So like both in that is going to 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.400 make the roads safer. But I guess the more the 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.040 focus is on hitting the quota, getting the essentially the bounty, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.480 and losing sight of the purpose of the law entirely, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.280 that's where things get out of whacking, you end up 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.120 with like notorious speed traps, right. And I think this 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.480 gets into a concept that's very closely related to the 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.800 Cobra effect, though I think technically the Cobra effect wouldn't 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.440 have to be just in incentives and economics if you're 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.359 talking more generally about anything where an attempt to solve 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.000 a problem makes the problem worse. You can even go 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.240 to the example of of like aka Homo. You know 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.720 that that great story of the person who is trying 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.320 to touch up this this classic painting of Christ in 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.680 his passion moment had some damage to it over the 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:23.960 years trying to touch it up, and he ends up 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.720 having this kind of wailing monkey face. Yes, which is 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.480 one of my favorite images from the whole Internet. Yes, 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.919 but and she wasn't working for a bounty, but imagine 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.680 if there was a bounty out there on restoring old 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.840 works of art, right, you could end up with with However, 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.600 many of these strange little monkey faces just completely obliterating 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.440 art history. Yeah. I guess the problem there is that 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.760 you are you are giving people who don't have proper 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.840 training in an area and incentive to participate in the area, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:18:03.720 and thus they're probably going to make things worse. But 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.160 another way of framing the issue is just the concept 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:11.000 of perverse incentives, meaning, specifically, in the Cobra effect, you're 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.840 the intended solution to a problem makes that problem worse. 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.600 Perverse incentives can just mean incentives that cause unintended negative outcomes, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.359 especially if they're contrary to the benefit of the people 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.640 who offer the incentives. This all also reminds me of 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.960 a moment in one of my favorite books, uh Cornman 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.320 McCarthy's sentry. Oh yeah, we talked about this the other 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.120 day where there's a bounty on I think rabies bats 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.320 in that book in there, Yeah, like the local university 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.399 there there they want to or is it the health department, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.440 I can't remember. It's been amber there, but interested official 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:52.280 parties would like to see the bodies of local bats. Uh, 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:54.560 you know, I think it's because of rabies. Yeah, there's 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.520 a very enterprising young character in the book named Harrogate. 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.840 At the beginning of the book is a tested for 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.960 having illicit relations with watermelons that did not belong to him. 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.320 But then later on he comes up with some just 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.080 ingenious schemes for collecting bats. I think far more bats 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.680 than was really than he was intended to collect. Yeah, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.919 he ends up strolling into town. Was just a sack 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.720 of dead bats, which he gets. But I believe he 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.640 buys some poison and he poisons little pieces of meat 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.280 and slingshots them into the air because the bats are 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.560 accustomed to praying on insects that are flying through the air. 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.159 I believe that's the scheme. That's a great book. It 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.040 is this is that makes me want to read it again. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.360 But at any rate, they end up kind of the doctor, 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.439 the scientists confronting him when he brings this bag in 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.399 and he's says, look, we know you you did not 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.640 just find these bats, but we can't figure out how 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:49.080 you did it. You've got to tell us how you 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.520 actually killed these bats. And then he he relates the 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.639 story of the slingshot Oh, yeah, that's it. He was 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.080 supposed to be collecting dead bats. When I said he 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:01.040 was killing, he was making dead bats. So you know, 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.720 in a sense they were I guess the effort here 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.879 was to protect humans, protect health, but also you know, 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:12.399 not eradicate bats. That was not the intended outcome, but 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.400 Harrogate did his best to do just that in order 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.119 to get the sweet bounty. But of course that is 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.639 not the only book by our great brutal novelist Cormick 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:26.520 McCarthy to feature bounties. That's right, there's also Blood Meridian, 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:32.040 great novel, horrific novel um in large ways I think 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.119 unfilmable novel, and I kind of hope it's unfilmable. It is, 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.879 uh would you would you call it nihilistic? Yes, it is. 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.240 Uh yeah, there's just not much redeemable in the world. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.120 And it is a book of uh, brutal and cruel 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.280 people doing brutal and cruel things. Yeah. And one individual 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.280 who might not be a person at all, who might 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:58.959 be an embodiment of of awfulness, Judge Judge Holden, who 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:04.399 himself is probably based very loosely on a real individual 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.720 who was in a gang of scalp hunters led by 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.840 an actual historic individual, one John Galton, who was indeed 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:18.400 a superstar in the vile trade of scalp hunting um harvesting. 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.840 By some accounts that two and fifty scalps in a 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.640 single raid once, and fittingly, his group was eventually ambushed 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:30.320 and scalped by a band of Quichian tribes people. So um, 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.800 so we shouldn't dwell too much on the nasty details, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.080 but we do need to discuss what scalping is and 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:40.199 and scalp hunting, what what this practice consists of, and 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.879 where it came from? Yeah? So uh, I mean, most 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:44.760 of you probably don't even need to be told, especially 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.680 if you've consumed much in the way of American Western 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:52.359 history or fiction. Not only Blood Meridian, but Larry mcmurtry' 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.760 is a Lonesome Dove novels instantly come to mind as well, 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:58.200 but actually never read Lonesome Dove. Oh it's it's quite 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.240 it's quite good. Uh. Comanche Moon is another one in 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.000 that series that I read that was really good and 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.720 really bizarre in many ways. But both of these authors 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.880 really really gaze deep into the gruesome spectacle of the act. 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.560 It entails the slicing, fling, ripping away of a portion 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.760 or all of the human scalp um and then then 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:21.959