1
00:00:15,410 --> 00:00:15,890
Speaker 1: Pushkin.

2
00:00:18,810 --> 00:00:21,930
Speaker 2: It's nice to have visitors from time to time, especially

3
00:00:22,090 --> 00:00:26,410
Speaker 2: cute visitors. So it was in America in the nineteen fifties.

4
00:00:26,930 --> 00:00:30,130
Speaker 2: Who wouldn't want an adorable little parakeet for a pet?

5
00:00:31,250 --> 00:00:35,690
Speaker 2: In Argentina, the parakeet was an agricultural pest, rats with

6
00:00:35,850 --> 00:00:41,170
Speaker 2: gaudy wings, brightly feathered, chattering locusts. The Argentines were happy

7
00:00:41,210 --> 00:00:44,370
Speaker 2: to ship them up north as an exotic pet, and

8
00:00:44,610 --> 00:00:48,330
Speaker 2: for a while America was happy to receive those parakeets.

9
00:00:48,810 --> 00:00:54,930
Speaker 2: Except parakeets can be gratingly annoying. All that talking and talking.

10
00:00:55,330 --> 00:01:00,570
Speaker 2: It's cute until it isn't, And so people started releasing

11
00:01:00,610 --> 00:01:06,490
Speaker 2: them into the wild. And then in nineteen sixty nine catastrophe,

12
00:01:07,090 --> 00:01:10,730
Speaker 2: a shipping crate fell apart at jf K Airport. Hundreds

13
00:01:10,770 --> 00:01:15,730
Speaker 2: of parakeets escaped, maybe thousands. Maybe everyone could see what

14
00:01:15,770 --> 00:01:19,570
Speaker 2: would happen next. They would breed and breed, and soon

15
00:01:19,650 --> 00:01:24,490
Speaker 2: there would be parakeets everywhere, marauding and pillaging like cute

16
00:01:24,490 --> 00:01:29,690
Speaker 2: little flying vikings. I'm Tim Harford, and this is a

17
00:01:29,730 --> 00:01:57,290
Speaker 2: special cautionary conversation about the Great parakeet panic. Today, our

18
00:01:57,530 --> 00:02:02,290
Speaker 2: cautionary conversation is with Ben Nadaf Haffrey, the longtime producer

19
00:02:02,330 --> 00:02:05,090
Speaker 2: and the new host and writer of our sister podcast,

20
00:02:05,330 --> 00:02:06,210
Speaker 2: The Last Archive.

21
00:02:06,250 --> 00:02:07,970
Speaker 1: Hello Ben, Hey Tim, how you doing.

22
00:02:08,610 --> 00:02:12,930
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. Welcome to Cautionary Tales. I loved the

23
00:02:12,970 --> 00:02:16,250
Speaker 2: story about the parakeet panic. We should probably start with

24
00:02:16,250 --> 00:02:19,530
Speaker 2: a little bit about you. You're a self confessed bird lover?

25
00:02:19,730 --> 00:02:20,290
Speaker 2: Am I right?

26
00:02:20,730 --> 00:02:23,490
Speaker 1: I am a bird lover? It's true. It sort of

27
00:02:23,530 --> 00:02:27,490
Speaker 1: struck during the pandemic. It actually involved an episode of

28
00:02:27,530 --> 00:02:31,810
Speaker 1: the Last Archive in our first season. There's a story

29
00:02:32,090 --> 00:02:35,610
Speaker 1: about the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which has this amazing

30
00:02:35,770 --> 00:02:39,330
Speaker 1: archive of bird song, and we were doing an episode

31
00:02:39,370 --> 00:02:41,690
Speaker 1: about that lab. I was working with a lot of

32
00:02:41,690 --> 00:02:43,210
Speaker 1: the bird song from it. It was one of the

33
00:02:43,290 --> 00:02:46,210
Speaker 1: last trips I took before the pandemic struck. So I

34
00:02:46,370 --> 00:02:49,290
Speaker 1: was in this mixing hole, listening to tons and tons

35
00:02:49,370 --> 00:02:53,290
Speaker 1: of bird song and not really leaving my apartment. And

36
00:02:53,330 --> 00:02:56,370
Speaker 1: then one morning a mourning dove started to show up

37
00:02:56,410 --> 00:02:59,610
Speaker 1: on our fire escape and would coop in the way

38
00:02:59,650 --> 00:03:01,970
Speaker 1: that morning doves do and sort of winny when it

39
00:03:02,010 --> 00:03:04,570
Speaker 1: flew away, which is another kind of funny thing about

40
00:03:04,610 --> 00:03:08,290
Speaker 1: these rather absurd birds. And there's a term in birding

41
00:03:08,290 --> 00:03:10,450
Speaker 1: called spark bird, which is the bird that kind of

42
00:03:10,610 --> 00:03:13,050
Speaker 1: kicks off your fascination with birds, the moment when you

43
00:03:13,130 --> 00:03:16,610
Speaker 1: stop seeing them as an undifferentiated population and start to

44
00:03:16,930 --> 00:03:22,410
Speaker 1: see them as individual, magnificent creatures. And that morning dove

45
00:03:22,690 --> 00:03:26,970
Speaker 1: was my spark bird, swiftly followed by a family of

46
00:03:27,330 --> 00:03:31,330
Speaker 1: bluebirds and of tree swallows, who I was lucky enough

47
00:03:31,370 --> 00:03:33,890
Speaker 1: to live in close proximity to and watch grow up.

48
00:03:34,050 --> 00:03:39,490
Speaker 1: So I sort of became fascinated by birds in twenty twenty,

49
00:03:40,250 --> 00:03:43,370
Speaker 1: and it was that love that led me to the parakeets.

50
00:03:43,770 --> 00:03:48,050
Speaker 2: I think you're not alone in having had this appreciation

51
00:03:48,330 --> 00:03:51,690
Speaker 2: for birds and for bird's song during the pandemic, in

52
00:03:51,690 --> 00:03:55,690
Speaker 2: particular those strange lockdown months. Although I love the fact

53
00:03:55,690 --> 00:03:58,530
Speaker 2: that you basically you were seduced by the audio. You're

54
00:03:58,530 --> 00:04:00,650
Speaker 2: listening to tape of bird songs, and that's what softened

55
00:04:00,650 --> 00:04:00,930
Speaker 2: you up.

56
00:04:01,650 --> 00:04:03,490
Speaker 1: Yeah, And even with the morning of, you know, we

57
00:04:03,610 --> 00:04:05,250
Speaker 1: keep the curtains closed over at night, and so it

58
00:04:05,250 --> 00:04:07,210
Speaker 1: would be in the morning when the morning of would land,

59
00:04:07,290 --> 00:04:10,050
Speaker 1: and I would hear it rather than see it. At first,

60
00:04:10,530 --> 00:04:13,130
Speaker 1: So it was the audio, and then it became more

61
00:04:13,250 --> 00:04:14,890
Speaker 1: typically visually oriented.

62
00:04:15,330 --> 00:04:17,690
Speaker 2: And I remember that episode of the Last Archive. We

63
00:04:17,690 --> 00:04:20,730
Speaker 2: should probably explain to to loyal Cautionary Tales listeners that

64
00:04:20,770 --> 00:04:22,730
Speaker 2: the few of them who don't listen also to the

65
00:04:22,810 --> 00:04:26,090
Speaker 2: Last Archive, that the Last Archive is. It's a wonderful podcast,

66
00:04:26,250 --> 00:04:30,690
Speaker 2: also produced by Pushkin. Like Cautionary Tales, aims to tell

67
00:04:30,690 --> 00:04:33,930
Speaker 2: these really rich stories, although it has it has a

68
00:04:33,970 --> 00:04:37,010
Speaker 2: slightly different air to it and lots of beautiful, beautiful

69
00:04:37,090 --> 00:04:39,330
Speaker 2: archive audio, among other things.

70
00:04:39,810 --> 00:04:42,250
Speaker 1: Like you said, I do consider Cautionary Tales like our

71
00:04:42,250 --> 00:04:45,130
Speaker 1: sister podcast. I love Cautionary Tales. I feel like it's

72
00:04:45,290 --> 00:04:47,890
Speaker 1: it's very much in a similar vein. But one thing

73
00:04:47,970 --> 00:04:49,930
Speaker 1: that we always try to do on the show is

74
00:04:49,970 --> 00:04:51,250
Speaker 1: use a lot of archival tape.

75
00:04:51,370 --> 00:04:54,130
Speaker 2: So we should talk about parrots and parakeets. Are they

76
00:04:54,170 --> 00:04:56,770
Speaker 2: the same thing? I should? This is a terribly ignorant

77
00:04:56,810 --> 00:04:59,050
Speaker 2: question that kind of like little parrots or what.

78
00:04:59,890 --> 00:05:02,690
Speaker 1: Yeah, So parakeets are are a parrot, and there are

79
00:05:02,770 --> 00:05:07,210
Speaker 1: many different kinds of parakeets. This specific story is about

80
00:05:07,370 --> 00:05:10,930
Speaker 1: monk parakeets. They, similar to other kinds of parrots, have

81
00:05:11,010 --> 00:05:14,130
Speaker 1: the capacity to mimic human speech, though it's not as

82
00:05:14,170 --> 00:05:16,370
Speaker 1: pronounced in a monk parakeet as it is in an

83
00:05:16,370 --> 00:05:20,330
Speaker 1: African gray for instance. But they're kind of your classic

84
00:05:20,570 --> 00:05:23,010
Speaker 1: parrot looking bird in that they're bright green and they

85
00:05:23,050 --> 00:05:26,250
Speaker 1: have a hooked bone colored beak, and they're sort of

86
00:05:26,530 --> 00:05:32,570
Speaker 1: gorgeous and have extremely gregarious, larger than life personalities, which

87
00:05:32,610 --> 00:05:35,890
Speaker 1: is part of why you might want them as a pet.

88
00:05:36,490 --> 00:05:38,770
Speaker 2: And also part of why you might not want them

89
00:05:38,770 --> 00:05:39,890
Speaker 2: anymore after a while, not.

90
00:05:40,170 --> 00:05:43,730
Speaker 1: Want them as a pet. Yeah, So in the nineteen

91
00:05:43,770 --> 00:05:47,330
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, there was a huge market for monk parakeets.

92
00:05:47,330 --> 00:05:49,690
Speaker 1: I think there's something like sixty thousand more than sixty

93
00:05:49,730 --> 00:05:52,530
Speaker 1: thousand monk parakeets purchased in the United States in a

94
00:05:52,570 --> 00:05:55,410
Speaker 1: period of three years in the nineteen sixties. And it

95
00:05:55,490 --> 00:06:00,050
Speaker 1: was part of this broader exotica craze that was happening,

96
00:06:00,730 --> 00:06:04,330
Speaker 1: like you got pink flamingos, Hawaiian shirts, tiki torches. A

97
00:06:04,370 --> 00:06:06,690
Speaker 1: lot of what it was is gis coming back from

98
00:06:06,770 --> 00:06:09,490
Speaker 1: the war who'd been stationed in the South Pacific and

99
00:06:09,530 --> 00:06:12,970
Speaker 1: then bringing this love of other parts of the world,

100
00:06:13,050 --> 00:06:17,170
Speaker 1: but also this kind of comforting fiction of kind of

101
00:06:17,210 --> 00:06:20,130
Speaker 1: everywhere that wasn't America mashed up into one place. So

102
00:06:20,170 --> 00:06:23,530
Speaker 1: you had this Polynesian culture but also South American culture,

103
00:06:23,570 --> 00:06:27,330
Speaker 1: and the parakeets kind of fit in there, right alongside

104
00:06:27,370 --> 00:06:31,450
Speaker 1: your pink flamingos, with the added bonus that you could

105
00:06:31,450 --> 00:06:33,810
Speaker 1: try and teach these birds to talk like. People made

106
00:06:33,890 --> 00:06:38,730
Speaker 1: records of training birds how to speak that you were

107
00:06:38,770 --> 00:06:41,570
Speaker 1: supposed to use as instruction or even just play, so

108
00:06:41,650 --> 00:06:44,170
Speaker 1: that your bird could learn from the record how to talk.

109
00:06:45,130 --> 00:06:48,810
Speaker 2: The people used to teach their parakeets to scream obscenities,

110
00:06:48,810 --> 00:06:50,810
Speaker 2: because I mean, that's really what the British like to

111
00:06:50,810 --> 00:06:53,090
Speaker 2: do with parrots. They teach them to say rude things.

112
00:06:53,130 --> 00:06:55,210
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are plenty of Americans. Probably a lot

113
00:06:55,210 --> 00:06:58,490
Speaker 1: of the New York parrots especially, were being taught how

114
00:06:58,530 --> 00:07:01,530
Speaker 1: to swear loudly. There's a lot of colorful swearing around here.

115
00:07:01,930 --> 00:07:05,730
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, Ben, are you among parakeet fan.

116
00:07:06,050 --> 00:07:09,370
Speaker 1: I would never own among parakeet I actually do think

117
00:07:09,450 --> 00:07:12,530
Speaker 1: that would drive me insane. But there's a cemetery in

118
00:07:12,530 --> 00:07:15,370
Speaker 1: Brooklyn about a mile from where I live. I found

119
00:07:15,370 --> 00:07:17,930
Speaker 1: out that there was a colony of bright green monk

120
00:07:17,970 --> 00:07:21,250
Speaker 1: parakeets living in the front gate of the cemetery. I

121
00:07:21,290 --> 00:07:23,130
Speaker 1: love living near them, but no, I would not want

122
00:07:23,170 --> 00:07:23,650
Speaker 1: to own one.

123
00:07:24,210 --> 00:07:26,730
Speaker 2: I really wanted to talk about this idea of the

124
00:07:27,050 --> 00:07:29,810
Speaker 2: parakeet panic, but the sense that the parakeets were going

125
00:07:29,850 --> 00:07:32,530
Speaker 2: to take over and that something had to be done

126
00:07:32,810 --> 00:07:33,490
Speaker 2: tell us about that.

127
00:07:33,810 --> 00:07:36,930
Speaker 1: So basically, over the course of the sixties, a lot

128
00:07:36,930 --> 00:07:38,970
Speaker 1: of these birds throw up in the United States, and

129
00:07:39,050 --> 00:07:41,050
Speaker 1: people very swiftly get sick of them and start to

130
00:07:41,090 --> 00:07:44,690
Speaker 1: release them. It's not known at first that the bird

131
00:07:44,810 --> 00:07:47,330
Speaker 1: can survive quite well in New York City, or that

132
00:07:47,370 --> 00:07:49,770
Speaker 1: it's as flexible as it is, But it turns out

133
00:07:49,850 --> 00:07:52,770
Speaker 1: monk parakeets are able to sort of change the kinds

134
00:07:52,770 --> 00:07:55,290
Speaker 1: of things they eat, and they're also really good at

135
00:07:55,370 --> 00:07:58,130
Speaker 1: keeping warm in their nests because they have these sort

136
00:07:58,170 --> 00:08:01,290
Speaker 1: of complicated nests, little cubby holes that they fit into,

137
00:08:01,370 --> 00:08:03,050
Speaker 1: and they keep each other warm because they have high

138
00:08:03,050 --> 00:08:06,130
Speaker 1: body temperatures. So it turned out that the monk parakeet

139
00:08:06,290 --> 00:08:10,050
Speaker 1: was quite able to survive in New York. It was

140
00:08:10,450 --> 00:08:14,210
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one that a woman was walking in

141
00:08:14,290 --> 00:08:17,530
Speaker 1: Long Island and noticed a sort of speck of bright

142
00:08:17,570 --> 00:08:20,650
Speaker 1: green in the grass, a strange looking bird called an

143
00:08:20,730 --> 00:08:23,850
Speaker 1: ornithologist who came and identified it as a baby monk parakeet,

144
00:08:24,010 --> 00:08:27,010
Speaker 1: and this was proof that monk parakeets were reproducing in

145
00:08:27,050 --> 00:08:30,530
Speaker 1: the wild in New York State. This sort of led

146
00:08:30,570 --> 00:08:34,970
Speaker 1: to mass campaign on the state level, in partnership with

147
00:08:35,010 --> 00:08:38,210
Speaker 1: the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, and even with

148
00:08:38,210 --> 00:08:42,330
Speaker 1: some involvement from the federal government to stamp out the

149
00:08:42,330 --> 00:08:47,650
Speaker 1: bird before it established itself as a large population. Because

150
00:08:47,810 --> 00:08:51,690
Speaker 1: in Argentina and other South American countries, the monk parakeet

151
00:08:51,730 --> 00:08:54,250
Speaker 1: was thought to be an agricultural pest, and so the

152
00:08:54,330 --> 00:08:57,210
Speaker 1: fear was, it's going to kill native birds, It's going

153
00:08:57,250 --> 00:08:59,650
Speaker 1: to eat up crops from our crop land. It's going

154
00:08:59,690 --> 00:09:03,970
Speaker 1: to cause tons and tons of damage and have really

155
00:09:04,010 --> 00:09:09,210
Speaker 1: significant agricultural costs and also just be really annoying. The

156
00:09:09,250 --> 00:09:12,610
Speaker 1: model for this was sort of thinking about other invasive species,

157
00:09:12,690 --> 00:09:17,010
Speaker 1: but in particular the starling, which is another bird that

158
00:09:17,290 --> 00:09:20,610
Speaker 1: was introduced famously in New York State in the late

159
00:09:20,690 --> 00:09:25,690
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and has become a significant population since then

160
00:09:25,730 --> 00:09:27,810
Speaker 1: and was thought to be a major agricultural pest.

161
00:09:28,770 --> 00:09:31,930
Speaker 2: There's a crazy subplot there to do with Shakespeare, which

162
00:09:31,970 --> 00:09:34,730
Speaker 2: we won't get into. People should listen to the episode.

163
00:09:35,530 --> 00:09:38,090
Speaker 2: But look, forgive me. Maybe this is my ignorance, but

164
00:09:38,090 --> 00:09:42,250
Speaker 2: when I think of the major problems facing the United

165
00:09:42,330 --> 00:09:46,770
Speaker 2: States in twenty twenty three. Even if I limit myself

166
00:09:46,770 --> 00:09:50,170
Speaker 2: to the major environmental problems facing the United States in

167
00:09:50,210 --> 00:09:54,050
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, I do not think to myself monk parakeets.

168
00:09:55,010 --> 00:09:58,330
Speaker 2: They're the guys. If only we didn't have the monk parakeets,

169
00:09:58,370 --> 00:10:01,090
Speaker 2: it would all be fine. So but you found I mean,

170
00:10:01,090 --> 00:10:04,930
Speaker 2: it's hilarious. You found this seven hundred page document in

171
00:10:04,970 --> 00:10:09,530
Speaker 2: the New York State Archives and they were really really

172
00:10:09,530 --> 00:10:11,010
Speaker 2: worried about the parakeets.

173
00:10:11,050 --> 00:10:14,890
Speaker 1: It seems yes, they were extremely concerned. It's important to

174
00:10:14,930 --> 00:10:17,170
Speaker 1: note I think that this is happening right at the

175
00:10:17,170 --> 00:10:20,810
Speaker 1: birth of the environmental movement in the United States. First

176
00:10:20,850 --> 00:10:25,090
Speaker 1: Earthday is April twenty second, nineteen seventy. It's basically within

177
00:10:25,130 --> 00:10:28,010
Speaker 1: a year of that that the monk parakeet panic really

178
00:10:28,090 --> 00:10:32,570
Speaker 1: gets going. The New York State Department of Conservation is

179
00:10:32,610 --> 00:10:36,490
Speaker 1: a newly formed body, the same way the Environmental Protection

180
00:10:36,570 --> 00:10:39,730
Speaker 1: Agency is newly formed body, and they're part of managing

181
00:10:39,890 --> 00:10:43,770
Speaker 1: the parakeet population. So there's this sense that we are

182
00:10:44,370 --> 00:10:47,810
Speaker 1: destroying the planet and the small things we do are

183
00:10:47,850 --> 00:10:51,930
Speaker 1: spiraling wildly out of control, and the parakeet is sort

184
00:10:51,970 --> 00:10:54,570
Speaker 1: of a paradigmatic example of this. It's like, oh my god,

185
00:10:54,730 --> 00:10:57,490
Speaker 1: look what we've done. You know, we've got rivers catching fire,

186
00:10:57,610 --> 00:11:00,090
Speaker 1: and also we let this bird loose, and now that's

187
00:11:00,130 --> 00:11:02,130
Speaker 1: going to go crazy, and we're just going to be

188
00:11:02,210 --> 00:11:05,730
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by a booming parakeet population in addition to all

189
00:11:05,770 --> 00:11:07,810
Speaker 1: of the other things we've started that have spun wildly

190
00:11:07,810 --> 00:11:10,770
Speaker 1: out of control. The state was really concerned about this,

191
00:11:11,130 --> 00:11:14,770
Speaker 1: and they mounted a campaign for people to write in

192
00:11:14,850 --> 00:11:17,530
Speaker 1: and say if they'd seen monk parakeets where they'd seen them,

193
00:11:17,930 --> 00:11:20,770
Speaker 1: and they had, you know, employees who were going out

194
00:11:20,810 --> 00:11:24,130
Speaker 1: and trapping and killing these birds by various means. But

195
00:11:24,810 --> 00:11:27,650
Speaker 1: I found this folder in the state archives that has

196
00:11:27,890 --> 00:11:32,130
Speaker 1: seven hundred and eighty three pages of correspondence and research

197
00:11:32,210 --> 00:11:36,250
Speaker 1: and wanted posters and just all manner of things related

198
00:11:36,290 --> 00:11:40,690
Speaker 1: to this campaign to completely annihilate the population of monk

199
00:11:40,730 --> 00:11:43,410
Speaker 1: parakeets in New York State, which was thought to be

200
00:11:43,450 --> 00:11:46,330
Speaker 1: four hundred to six hundred birds and was feared that

201
00:11:46,450 --> 00:11:48,970
Speaker 1: it was going to double every three to four years.

202
00:11:49,490 --> 00:11:51,010
Speaker 2: Can you give us a flavor of what was in

203
00:11:51,050 --> 00:11:52,170
Speaker 2: this archival folder?

204
00:11:53,570 --> 00:11:56,010
Speaker 1: Sure, I thought i'd show you first. This is a

205
00:11:56,250 --> 00:12:01,730
Speaker 1: wanted poster from Virginia that says wanted information relating to

206
00:12:01,890 --> 00:12:04,250
Speaker 1: escaped alien at the top and then has this sort

207
00:12:04,290 --> 00:12:06,210
Speaker 1: of sketch of a monk parakeet.

208
00:12:05,850 --> 00:12:07,610
Speaker 2: On it escaped alien and love it.

209
00:12:08,490 --> 00:12:11,370
Speaker 1: I know there's this is sort of undertone of xenophobia

210
00:12:11,530 --> 00:12:14,890
Speaker 1: to it that I think the poster captures very effectively.

211
00:12:15,370 --> 00:12:17,610
Speaker 1: If you should see this bird, please report your observation

212
00:12:18,090 --> 00:12:22,370
Speaker 1: to your VPI extension officer. This is from New York State.

213
00:12:22,530 --> 00:12:26,330
Speaker 1: This is a second grade class in Bellport, New York

214
00:12:26,450 --> 00:12:29,930
Speaker 1: who we're writing to the state about their parakeet sighting.

215
00:12:30,050 --> 00:12:34,650
Speaker 1: So it's got this amazing double space line paper child's handwriting.

216
00:12:34,850 --> 00:12:37,650
Speaker 1: Dear mister Brown, the monk parakeet is all over Bellport.

217
00:12:37,930 --> 00:12:41,090
Speaker 1: I have seen about thirty of them underlined, and one

218
00:12:41,170 --> 00:12:44,650
Speaker 1: nest and the one is written backwards. The nest is

219
00:12:44,690 --> 00:12:46,930
Speaker 1: on the gutter. But what I really want to know

220
00:12:47,130 --> 00:12:49,690
Speaker 1: how to get rid of them. Please send back a

221
00:12:49,770 --> 00:12:52,970
Speaker 1: letter and tell me how very truly it is.

222
00:12:53,090 --> 00:12:53,290
Speaker 2: Lee.

223
00:12:54,130 --> 00:12:57,570
Speaker 1: Well, so Lee sounds really worried. Lee was very concerned.

224
00:12:57,650 --> 00:13:00,610
Speaker 1: And then this I love is a letter from a

225
00:13:00,650 --> 00:13:03,810
Speaker 1: corrections officer on Riker's Island, which is a famous and

226
00:13:03,890 --> 00:13:08,170
Speaker 1: much hated island prison in New York. It says mister Trim,

227
00:13:08,330 --> 00:13:10,530
Speaker 1: I am an ny to see correction officer assigned to

228
00:13:10,570 --> 00:13:13,370
Speaker 1: Riker's Island. My post as workang officer takes me over

229
00:13:13,450 --> 00:13:15,690
Speaker 1: most of the island, which is still wooded and undeveloped.

230
00:13:15,890 --> 00:13:17,690
Speaker 1: I was pleased to find that remote areas of the

231
00:13:17,690 --> 00:13:21,330
Speaker 1: island are overrun with pheasant. One day in February, while

232
00:13:21,370 --> 00:13:23,850
Speaker 1: on my outside patrol, I saw feeding on slices of

233
00:13:23,850 --> 00:13:26,810
Speaker 1: bread that inmates throw from the windows, the usual accumulation

234
00:13:26,890 --> 00:13:29,370
Speaker 1: of local birds, and what I identified as a half

235
00:13:29,370 --> 00:13:32,090
Speaker 1: moon parrot. I observed him for several minutes, and he

236
00:13:32,130 --> 00:13:34,890
Speaker 1: was then joined by others. I counted, counting as my

237
00:13:34,930 --> 00:13:38,050
Speaker 1: business twenty seven birds in all. I made inquiries of

238
00:13:38,090 --> 00:13:40,490
Speaker 1: other CEOs and inmates, and could not come up until

239
00:13:40,490 --> 00:13:44,850
Speaker 1: now with a logical explanation. An inmate truck driver told

240
00:13:44,850 --> 00:13:47,530
Speaker 1: me that at our abandoned ferry house there were hundreds.

241
00:13:47,850 --> 00:13:50,730
Speaker 1: I checked this out and found this to be true.

242
00:13:50,770 --> 00:13:53,850
Speaker 1: For obvious reasons, the island is restricted and cameras are forbidden. However,

243
00:13:53,890 --> 00:13:56,090
Speaker 1: if the proper requests are made, it just might be

244
00:13:56,130 --> 00:13:58,490
Speaker 1: permitted to check out this sanctuary of what I believed

245
00:13:58,530 --> 00:14:01,410
Speaker 1: to be monk parrots, and then the state actually does

246
00:14:01,450 --> 00:14:04,610
Speaker 1: go to Rikers Island to capture the parrots and seems

247
00:14:04,610 --> 00:14:05,850
Speaker 1: to have failed in that endeavor.

248
00:14:06,490 --> 00:14:11,890
Speaker 2: An old stored for posterity and incredible. I'm speaking to

249
00:14:12,010 --> 00:14:16,370
Speaker 2: Ben Adaph Haffrey, the host of the last Archive Cautionary

250
00:14:16,410 --> 00:14:28,650
Speaker 2: Tales will be back after the break. Now, this all

251
00:14:28,730 --> 00:14:32,250
Speaker 2: reminds me of something, and it clearly reminded you of

252
00:14:32,250 --> 00:14:39,850
Speaker 2: something similar, which is these worries about overpopulation human overpopulation,

253
00:14:40,170 --> 00:14:43,970
Speaker 2: which we're catching on at around the same time. And

254
00:14:44,210 --> 00:14:46,930
Speaker 2: the person I always think of is is the ecologist

255
00:14:47,010 --> 00:14:50,450
Speaker 2: Garrett Hardin, who wrote a very influential piece in the

256
00:14:50,450 --> 00:14:52,970
Speaker 2: Social Science Is about the tragedy of the commons, as

257
00:14:53,050 --> 00:14:57,570
Speaker 2: Paul Erlich famously nineteen sixty eight to the population bomb.

258
00:14:57,730 --> 00:15:01,130
Speaker 2: You actually take it back to the work that inspired

259
00:15:01,330 --> 00:15:03,930
Speaker 2: Paul Erlick, this guy Charles Elton, who had never heard of.

260
00:15:04,090 --> 00:15:07,330
Speaker 1: Totally there's this big concern about you and overpopulation, like

261
00:15:07,370 --> 00:15:10,490
Speaker 1: these are the parakeet years, they're the Uman overpopulation years,

262
00:15:10,690 --> 00:15:13,530
Speaker 1: and people were concerned about that at Earth Day as well.

263
00:15:14,010 --> 00:15:18,370
Speaker 1: But a lot of our ideas about population booms and

264
00:15:18,450 --> 00:15:22,130
Speaker 1: busts they're informed at least by how we think about

265
00:15:22,290 --> 00:15:26,850
Speaker 1: animal population cycles, and that work has been around for

266
00:15:26,890 --> 00:15:28,770
Speaker 1: a while. There's Thomas Malthus at the end of the

267
00:15:28,770 --> 00:15:32,650
Speaker 1: eighteenth century talking about human overpopulation already, and a lot

268
00:15:32,690 --> 00:15:34,450
Speaker 1: of these people in the seventies are thought of as

269
00:15:34,490 --> 00:15:37,930
Speaker 1: like neo Malthusians. But there's also the ecologists and the

270
00:15:37,970 --> 00:15:42,330
Speaker 1: animal population people, including this guy Charles Elton, who founds

271
00:15:42,370 --> 00:15:45,930
Speaker 1: Oxford's Bureau of Animal Population in the nineteen thirties and

272
00:15:46,090 --> 00:15:49,450
Speaker 1: is the guy who in nineteen fifty eight writes a

273
00:15:49,450 --> 00:15:52,650
Speaker 1: book called The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants,

274
00:15:53,010 --> 00:15:57,170
Speaker 1: which is actually first done as a three part program

275
00:15:57,210 --> 00:15:59,850
Speaker 1: on the BBC in nineteen fifty seven, so it's written

276
00:15:59,850 --> 00:16:04,210
Speaker 1: for a popular audience and is one of the first

277
00:16:04,250 --> 00:16:10,370
Speaker 1: places where this idea about invading animal populations booming and

278
00:16:10,410 --> 00:16:14,090
Speaker 1: growing wildly out of control becomes popularized. Even though the

279
00:16:14,090 --> 00:16:17,050
Speaker 1: field of invasion biology doesn't really take off until the

280
00:16:17,130 --> 00:16:20,850
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. He's still to this day the most cited

281
00:16:21,010 --> 00:16:24,810
Speaker 1: person in the field, and he's been doing this research

282
00:16:24,810 --> 00:16:28,570
Speaker 1: on animal populations over the twentieth century. But interestingly, there's

283
00:16:28,610 --> 00:16:31,050
Speaker 1: this kind of cross pollination between how we think about

284
00:16:31,090 --> 00:16:35,050
Speaker 1: animal populations and human populations. Like there's a guy, William

285
00:16:35,130 --> 00:16:38,450
Speaker 1: vohtenn ornithologist who writes a book called The Road to

286
00:16:38,490 --> 00:16:43,130
Speaker 1: Survival I believe in the nineteen forties that inspires Paul

287
00:16:43,170 --> 00:16:47,890
Speaker 1: Aralix the Population Bomb. There's this kind of shared anxiety

288
00:16:48,210 --> 00:16:52,290
Speaker 1: about growth in natural things, like whether they're animals or

289
00:16:52,330 --> 00:16:56,090
Speaker 1: people are happening at the same time, and this confusing

290
00:16:56,290 --> 00:17:00,930
Speaker 1: work of basically how to manage populations because the fear

291
00:17:01,010 --> 00:17:03,810
Speaker 1: is that they're going to overwhelm the natural limits of

292
00:17:03,850 --> 00:17:06,770
Speaker 1: the planet, which is sort of a harmful idea for

293
00:17:06,930 --> 00:17:08,730
Speaker 1: the environmental movement in those eras.

294
00:17:09,850 --> 00:17:11,850
Speaker 2: I think it's done a lot of damage. I think

295
00:17:11,890 --> 00:17:15,410
Speaker 2: about Garrett Hardin, for example, the Tragedy of the Commons guy.

296
00:17:15,610 --> 00:17:18,810
Speaker 2: I remember coming across him as a young economic student.

297
00:17:18,930 --> 00:17:21,210
Speaker 2: The basic idea is, if you don't have ownership over

298
00:17:21,250 --> 00:17:26,930
Speaker 2: common land, then people will just let their livestock overgraze

299
00:17:26,930 --> 00:17:28,890
Speaker 2: the common land. Too many cows on the common land,

300
00:17:28,930 --> 00:17:31,090
Speaker 2: too many sheep on the common land. Common land gets

301
00:17:31,250 --> 00:17:35,170
Speaker 2: used up, everybody dies, it's a disaster. And I remember

302
00:17:35,170 --> 00:17:37,970
Speaker 2: explaining this to my girlfriend at the time. Happily man

303
00:17:38,010 --> 00:17:42,330
Speaker 2: explaining away and She was outraged because I was basically saying, oh,

304
00:17:42,330 --> 00:17:43,930
Speaker 2: and this is why it's a good idea that we

305
00:17:43,970 --> 00:17:46,730
Speaker 2: don't have commons anymore. And she was much more interested

306
00:17:46,770 --> 00:17:48,890
Speaker 2: in medieval history than I was. And she's like, no,

307
00:17:49,210 --> 00:17:52,250
Speaker 2: they privatized the commons, They drove all the peasants off,

308
00:17:52,410 --> 00:17:56,330
Speaker 2: they all starved, the commons worked. This is a willful

309
00:17:56,410 --> 00:18:02,770
Speaker 2: misreading of history. Hardin had basically made this purely mathematical argument.

310
00:18:03,330 --> 00:18:06,090
Speaker 2: Write down the equations, and this is what happens. And

311
00:18:06,090 --> 00:18:08,850
Speaker 2: when I looked into it more closely, I realized that

312
00:18:09,850 --> 00:18:13,170
Speaker 2: social scientists who had looked at this with more interest,

313
00:18:13,690 --> 00:18:17,850
Speaker 2: found that, in fact, people did find ways to manage

314
00:18:18,570 --> 00:18:24,850
Speaker 2: common property. These things didn't inevitably end in collapse. I

315
00:18:25,050 --> 00:18:28,610
Speaker 2: became fascinated by Elana Ostrom, who won the Nobel Memorial

316
00:18:28,610 --> 00:18:31,570
Speaker 2: Prize in economics, who basically looked at the same problems

317
00:18:31,610 --> 00:18:33,930
Speaker 2: as Garrett Harden, but actually looked at how those problems

318
00:18:33,970 --> 00:18:37,930
Speaker 2: were solved in reality. She found, Oh, actually, these can

319
00:18:37,970 --> 00:18:41,050
Speaker 2: be tough problems, but communities for centuries, for millennia have

320
00:18:41,090 --> 00:18:42,770
Speaker 2: been figuring out how to solve them.

321
00:18:43,450 --> 00:18:45,810
Speaker 1: And it does remind me of the parakeet situation, and

322
00:18:45,850 --> 00:18:49,570
Speaker 1: the overpopulation situation, because there's this thing in common to

323
00:18:49,650 --> 00:18:51,290
Speaker 1: it all, which is you have this kind of brute

324
00:18:51,330 --> 00:18:56,090
Speaker 1: force intellectual tool or this kind of overly simplified schematic

325
00:18:56,170 --> 00:18:58,530
Speaker 1: for looking at things, and you lose some of the

326
00:18:58,530 --> 00:19:03,210
Speaker 1: fine grain detail and individuality and flexibility that allows you

327
00:19:03,250 --> 00:19:06,210
Speaker 1: to come to happier conclusions than the commons. Will always

328
00:19:06,210 --> 00:19:10,650
Speaker 1: be a tragedy, and pop is the central problem we

329
00:19:10,690 --> 00:19:13,010
Speaker 1: have to solve if we want to solve our environmental woes.

330
00:19:13,450 --> 00:19:15,810
Speaker 1: So I do think there's a meaningful parallel there.

331
00:19:16,130 --> 00:19:19,450
Speaker 2: Yeah, people got very interested in things like forced sterilization.

332
00:19:19,810 --> 00:19:22,010
Speaker 2: There was a famine in Sub Saharan Africa, I think

333
00:19:22,010 --> 00:19:24,330
Speaker 2: it was the early nineteen eighties and Garrett Harden basically

334
00:19:24,370 --> 00:19:26,770
Speaker 2: said that we can't help these people. And the image

335
00:19:26,850 --> 00:19:31,530
Speaker 2: he conjured was of a lifeboat. Americans are in the

336
00:19:31,570 --> 00:19:36,210
Speaker 2: lifeboat and these Africans are in the water, drowning and

337
00:19:36,290 --> 00:19:38,210
Speaker 2: asking to be pulled onto the lifeboat. But if we

338
00:19:38,250 --> 00:19:41,450
Speaker 2: pull them onto the lifeboat with us, then the lifeboat

339
00:19:41,450 --> 00:19:45,690
Speaker 2: will sink. There's a racist undertone to that. There's a

340
00:19:45,810 --> 00:19:47,930
Speaker 2: very much like you got to let those guys starve,

341
00:19:48,450 --> 00:19:51,170
Speaker 2: and that may seem heartless, but actually it's really the

342
00:19:51,250 --> 00:19:53,610
Speaker 2: right and ethical thing to do if you really think

343
00:19:53,610 --> 00:19:58,570
Speaker 2: about it, right, the mathematically necessary. Yeah, yeah, I mean

344
00:19:58,610 --> 00:20:01,650
Speaker 2: really horrendous. And now, of course people are worried that

345
00:20:02,290 --> 00:20:05,210
Speaker 2: maybe population is falling, right, So in a lot of

346
00:20:05,290 --> 00:20:08,130
Speaker 2: rich countries, So South Korea, South Korea is crazy zero

347
00:20:08,130 --> 00:20:12,610
Speaker 2: point seven to eight children per woman in South Korea

348
00:20:12,690 --> 00:20:16,250
Speaker 2: at the moment, you need roughly two children per woman

349
00:20:16,290 --> 00:20:19,570
Speaker 2: to maintain the populations. So at that rate, the population

350
00:20:19,610 --> 00:20:23,170
Speaker 2: of South Korea is collapsing, absolutely collapsing. And that's the

351
00:20:23,170 --> 00:20:26,930
Speaker 2: most extreme example. But there are lots of wealthy countries

352
00:20:26,970 --> 00:20:31,530
Speaker 2: where the headache now is population falling, not population rising.

353
00:20:32,090 --> 00:20:34,090
Speaker 1: Yeah, and here we are just a half century away

354
00:20:34,090 --> 00:20:37,970
Speaker 1: from at least the most recent panic about this, And yeah,

355
00:20:38,010 --> 00:20:40,130
Speaker 1: I agree. The narrative has completely flipped.

356
00:20:42,210 --> 00:20:43,810
Speaker 2: What happened to the monk parakeets.

357
00:20:45,450 --> 00:20:48,570
Speaker 1: Basically, the state sought to eliminate all of the birds

358
00:20:49,010 --> 00:20:54,410
Speaker 1: in the wild, and they in nineteen seventy four really

359
00:20:54,450 --> 00:20:56,810
Speaker 1: begin to wind this down. It's thought that there are

360
00:20:56,930 --> 00:21:01,170
Speaker 1: fewer than ten monk parakeets remaining in the wild, and

361
00:21:01,290 --> 00:21:05,370
Speaker 1: so they declare mission accomplished. But of course there are

362
00:21:05,530 --> 00:21:07,770
Speaker 1: still a monk parakeets in the wild. They did not

363
00:21:07,890 --> 00:21:10,930
Speaker 1: succeed in getting every last one, and probably there have

364
00:21:10,970 --> 00:21:15,570
Speaker 1: been subsequent introductions from the pet trade. So now there

365
00:21:15,610 --> 00:21:19,570
Speaker 1: are monk parakeets living in New York City still. They

366
00:21:19,610 --> 00:21:22,130
Speaker 1: live in Brooklyn College, they live in the aspires of

367
00:21:22,170 --> 00:21:25,530
Speaker 1: the main gate at Greenwood Cemetery, but there are pretty

368
00:21:25,930 --> 00:21:29,530
Speaker 1: controlled populations. They aren't doing agricultural damage, at least that

369
00:21:29,530 --> 00:21:34,010
Speaker 1: we know of. They're not competing with native species in

370
00:21:34,090 --> 00:21:37,690
Speaker 1: any particularly egregious way. I actually believe that their nests

371
00:21:37,730 --> 00:21:42,530
Speaker 1: provide housing for other birds, so they're a neutral to

372
00:21:42,610 --> 00:21:46,850
Speaker 1: positive impact on the environment. Those sort of initial projections

373
00:21:47,490 --> 00:21:49,610
Speaker 1: about what the monk parakeet was going to do to

374
00:21:49,650 --> 00:21:55,330
Speaker 1: this country were overblown. And you know, anyone listening in

375
00:21:55,370 --> 00:21:57,610
Speaker 1: the United States today will know that we are not

376
00:21:58,010 --> 00:22:01,850
Speaker 1: living in the post parakeet apocalypse. So it has a

377
00:22:01,890 --> 00:22:04,530
Speaker 1: happy ending, and for me, it has this sort of

378
00:22:04,810 --> 00:22:08,850
Speaker 1: greater significance about how we think about the natural world.

379
00:22:09,130 --> 00:22:13,250
Speaker 1: I think there's this urge to define what is natural

380
00:22:13,850 --> 00:22:16,690
Speaker 1: and to say these animals belong in this place and

381
00:22:16,730 --> 00:22:20,810
Speaker 1: those animals don't. And of course introduced species can absolutely

382
00:22:20,890 --> 00:22:23,850
Speaker 1: become problems and often do for people or for other

383
00:22:23,970 --> 00:22:27,890
Speaker 1: native species. But I think it's this sort of over

384
00:22:28,090 --> 00:22:32,250
Speaker 1: zealous attempt to preserve one idea of what is natural

385
00:22:32,690 --> 00:22:35,610
Speaker 1: against all of the changes that we have inevitably created

386
00:22:35,690 --> 00:22:38,490
Speaker 1: on the planet that leads to this kind of a

387
00:22:38,610 --> 00:22:42,050
Speaker 1: have in the white whale quality to the monk parakeet pursuit,

388
00:22:42,530 --> 00:22:45,730
Speaker 1: and I think that it's in the awestrum way necessary

389
00:22:45,770 --> 00:22:49,490
Speaker 1: to have a more finer grained, nuanced attitude towards these things.

390
00:22:50,130 --> 00:22:53,930
Speaker 1: But there's also this thing about parrots where they kind

391
00:22:53,930 --> 00:22:56,370
Speaker 1: of blur the line between human and animal in a

392
00:22:56,370 --> 00:22:58,210
Speaker 1: funny way. I think one of the reasons people are

393
00:22:58,250 --> 00:23:01,570
Speaker 1: driven crazy by birds is because there's this at first

394
00:23:01,650 --> 00:23:03,930
Speaker 1: charming and then sort of unsettling way in which they

395
00:23:03,970 --> 00:23:07,090
Speaker 1: approximate a lot of human behaviors in human speech, and

396
00:23:07,130 --> 00:23:09,650
Speaker 1: I think being reminded of the fact that there is

397
00:23:09,810 --> 00:23:11,810
Speaker 1: less than we'd like to think that separates us from

398
00:23:11,810 --> 00:23:14,650
Speaker 1: the animals as a thing people don't like very often.

399
00:23:14,810 --> 00:23:18,450
Speaker 1: And so that is my conspiratorial view of what was

400
00:23:18,490 --> 00:23:21,130
Speaker 1: going on on some level with the monk perokeets. They

401
00:23:21,570 --> 00:23:25,130
Speaker 1: kind of stand in for us and for our place

402
00:23:25,130 --> 00:23:26,930
Speaker 1: in the animal world and for the damage that we've

403
00:23:26,930 --> 00:23:30,170
Speaker 1: done to the environment and so it must be stamped out.

404
00:23:31,970 --> 00:23:35,330
Speaker 2: I loved listening to the story, as you can tell.

405
00:23:35,370 --> 00:23:37,610
Speaker 2: It made me think. It sparked a lot of thoughts,

406
00:23:37,770 --> 00:23:39,850
Speaker 2: and I hope people will look up this episode of

407
00:23:39,850 --> 00:23:44,370
Speaker 2: The Last Archive, if only for the Shakespeare subplot. Stay

408
00:23:44,410 --> 00:23:47,050
Speaker 2: with us, Ben, after the break, I want to talk

409
00:23:47,090 --> 00:23:50,690
Speaker 2: about the greatest author of fantasy and science fiction in

410
00:23:50,730 --> 00:23:53,690
Speaker 2: the twentieth century. Arguably we'll find out who she is.

411
00:23:59,010 --> 00:24:02,330
Speaker 2: We're back. I'm Tim Harford. This is a cautionary conversation

412
00:24:02,610 --> 00:24:05,250
Speaker 2: with Ben Nadaf Haffrey, who is the host of our

413
00:24:05,330 --> 00:24:10,570
Speaker 2: sister podcast, The Last Archive. Ben. I was absolutely delighted

414
00:24:10,610 --> 00:24:13,610
Speaker 2: when an episode of The Last Archive dropped into my

415
00:24:13,650 --> 00:24:22,290
Speaker 2: feed and it revolves around Legwin and an Ursula Legwin story.

416
00:24:23,090 --> 00:24:24,810
Speaker 2: I don't want to say anything at all about this

417
00:24:24,890 --> 00:24:27,370
Speaker 2: episode because it it's just magnificent and I don't want

418
00:24:27,370 --> 00:24:29,290
Speaker 2: to spoil any of it. But I do want to

419
00:24:29,290 --> 00:24:32,210
Speaker 2: talk about Ursula Legwinn because I'm a huge fan. I

420
00:24:32,210 --> 00:24:35,050
Speaker 2: would love to, and I've only read certain of her stories.

421
00:24:35,450 --> 00:24:37,410
Speaker 2: When I say I'm a huge fan of Lagwin, I'm

422
00:24:37,410 --> 00:24:41,130
Speaker 2: a huge fan of her Earth Sea stories. So tell

423
00:24:41,130 --> 00:24:43,050
Speaker 2: me what am I missing? What else should I read?

424
00:24:43,090 --> 00:24:44,010
Speaker 2: By Legwin?

425
00:24:45,410 --> 00:24:47,850
Speaker 1: My favorite of her stories is The Ones Who Walk

426
00:24:47,890 --> 00:24:50,770
Speaker 1: Away from Omlass, which is the short story that the

427
00:24:50,810 --> 00:24:55,530
Speaker 1: episode revolves around, kind of a utopian thought experiment. But

428
00:24:56,170 --> 00:24:58,010
Speaker 1: of her novels, the one that I love that I

429
00:24:58,050 --> 00:25:02,010
Speaker 1: actually I suspect you would like as well is The Dispossessed.

430
00:25:02,850 --> 00:25:04,770
Speaker 1: Do you know anything about the plot of that one?

431
00:25:05,490 --> 00:25:05,970
Speaker 2: I don't.

432
00:25:06,090 --> 00:25:09,890
Speaker 1: The Dispossessed I love because it it has a similar

433
00:25:10,010 --> 00:25:14,810
Speaker 1: kind of anthropological attitude towards these different planets and how

434
00:25:14,810 --> 00:25:17,490
Speaker 1: their societies are structured. But it's got a great story too,

435
00:25:17,850 --> 00:25:21,210
Speaker 1: And it's set in this galaxy where there's a capitalist

436
00:25:21,250 --> 00:25:25,850
Speaker 1: planet called Erras, and at some point in the distant

437
00:25:25,890 --> 00:25:29,610
Speaker 1: past there was an anarchist uprising on the planet, and

438
00:25:30,450 --> 00:25:34,290
Speaker 1: the way that they resolved this tension is they shipped

439
00:25:34,290 --> 00:25:37,410
Speaker 1: the anarchists off to a moon called an Eiras, And

440
00:25:37,490 --> 00:25:41,490
Speaker 1: so there is now an anarchist planet an Eras, and

441
00:25:41,570 --> 00:25:45,330
Speaker 1: a capitalist planet er Us, and they just sort of

442
00:25:45,650 --> 00:25:47,770
Speaker 1: keep their distance from each other except for the exchange

443
00:25:47,770 --> 00:25:51,450
Speaker 1: of resources. But on the anarchist planet, there is a

444
00:25:51,490 --> 00:25:56,490
Speaker 1: young physicist named Schevik who is a genius. He's quite

445
00:25:56,490 --> 00:26:00,170
Speaker 1: brilliant I think he's modeled on Robert Oppenheimer, who was

446
00:26:00,210 --> 00:26:04,890
Speaker 1: actually Ursula Lagwin's father's friend. And he is seeking to

447
00:26:04,890 --> 00:26:10,010
Speaker 1: produce a kind of scientific truth that the economics of

448
00:26:10,090 --> 00:26:12,690
Speaker 1: an heiress don't really support. And so he is the

449
00:26:12,730 --> 00:26:16,290
Speaker 1: first man from an heiress to go to us in

450
00:26:16,410 --> 00:26:19,210
Speaker 1: some very long period of time. And the story is

451
00:26:19,250 --> 00:26:23,330
Speaker 1: about his stay on the planet and the compromises that

452
00:26:23,370 --> 00:26:25,890
Speaker 1: he makes and the kind of what his quest for

453
00:26:26,330 --> 00:26:30,130
Speaker 1: knowledge and his experience of this capitalist planet due to him.

454
00:26:30,330 --> 00:26:32,810
Speaker 1: And it's just a really great story. It's really really

455
00:26:32,850 --> 00:26:33,970
Speaker 1: rich and interesting stuff.

456
00:26:34,690 --> 00:26:36,010
Speaker 2: Okay, I will read it.

457
00:26:36,930 --> 00:26:39,570
Speaker 1: Can you tell me? Like, what is Earthy all about?

458
00:26:39,610 --> 00:26:40,610
Speaker 1: And why do you love it?

459
00:26:42,170 --> 00:26:48,450
Speaker 2: Well, there are several books in the Earth's sequence. So

460
00:26:48,530 --> 00:26:52,810
Speaker 2: one interesting thing about them is that Legwinn wrote three

461
00:26:52,850 --> 00:26:56,130
Speaker 2: in I think the nineteen seventies early nineteen seventies, and

462
00:26:56,170 --> 00:27:00,410
Speaker 2: then came back twenty years later and started writing more.

463
00:27:00,450 --> 00:27:04,130
Speaker 2: And the later books are almost a repudiation of the

464
00:27:04,130 --> 00:27:07,130
Speaker 2: earlier books in a way that is, oh whoa quite upsetting.

465
00:27:07,210 --> 00:27:10,130
Speaker 2: If you loved the earlier books, which I did, she

466
00:27:10,970 --> 00:27:14,450
Speaker 2: is almost attacking her own creation. There's some really interesting

467
00:27:14,530 --> 00:27:19,410
Speaker 2: politics there. So if you think about all the best

468
00:27:19,410 --> 00:27:22,170
Speaker 2: bits of Star Wars and all the best bits of

469
00:27:22,210 --> 00:27:26,970
Speaker 2: Harry Potter before either Star Wars or Harry Potter existed,

470
00:27:28,090 --> 00:27:31,970
Speaker 2: plus a whole lot of awesomeness that George Lucas and JK.

471
00:27:32,050 --> 00:27:36,970
Speaker 2: Rowling couldn't even dream of. That's earthy. So it's about

472
00:27:37,010 --> 00:27:41,890
Speaker 2: a boy who is a gifted raw wizard talent who

473
00:27:41,970 --> 00:27:46,690
Speaker 2: gets sent to wizard school. But it does not unfold

474
00:27:46,690 --> 00:27:50,290
Speaker 2: in the way that you think it might unfold. I mean,

475
00:27:50,330 --> 00:27:52,170
Speaker 2: as with any great novel, you have to read it

476
00:27:52,210 --> 00:27:55,010
Speaker 2: to appreciate it. But there are a couple of lovely touches.

477
00:27:55,050 --> 00:27:59,010
Speaker 2: One is that the first book he's an adolescent, and

478
00:27:59,050 --> 00:28:03,610
Speaker 2: the second book is he's middle aged, and the book

479
00:28:03,650 --> 00:28:06,810
Speaker 2: is told from the perspective of an adolescent girl who

480
00:28:06,810 --> 00:28:09,570
Speaker 2: meets him. And the third book he's an old man,

481
00:28:10,250 --> 00:28:12,650
Speaker 2: and the story is told from the perspective of an

482
00:28:12,650 --> 00:28:16,130
Speaker 2: adolescent boy who is watching him move through the world

483
00:28:16,210 --> 00:28:20,130
Speaker 2: as a great and accomplished archmage. He's also a person

484
00:28:20,130 --> 00:28:22,050
Speaker 2: of color. So our hero is a person of color,

485
00:28:22,090 --> 00:28:27,010
Speaker 2: and it's barely mentioned and in fact often not correctly depicted.

486
00:28:27,130 --> 00:28:29,330
Speaker 2: You know, on book covers. I've talked too much about

487
00:28:29,330 --> 00:28:30,370
Speaker 2: it already, he's just read it.

488
00:28:30,410 --> 00:28:33,690
Speaker 1: I really want to read it. I'm first curious to

489
00:28:33,730 --> 00:28:35,730
Speaker 1: know what you think the best bits of Star Wars are,

490
00:28:36,090 --> 00:28:38,610
Speaker 1: and I also I actually am really curious to know

491
00:28:38,650 --> 00:28:40,810
Speaker 1: how she repudiates it in her later work.

492
00:28:41,970 --> 00:28:45,890
Speaker 2: So the echo of Star Wars is that the magicians

493
00:28:45,970 --> 00:28:50,770
Speaker 2: in earth'sy have this tremendous power to control the natural world.

494
00:28:50,850 --> 00:28:53,050
Speaker 2: So it's like the Force. And again this is before

495
00:28:53,050 --> 00:28:58,210
Speaker 2: Star Wars ever existed, So they control magic, but it

496
00:28:58,250 --> 00:29:02,570
Speaker 2: can be abused or it can be used wisely. And

497
00:29:02,650 --> 00:29:07,530
Speaker 2: I think she delivers a much more subtle and interesting

498
00:29:07,970 --> 00:29:14,010
Speaker 2: take on the consequences of misusing that power. What does

499
00:29:14,050 --> 00:29:17,490
Speaker 2: it mean to have such control over the world through

500
00:29:17,570 --> 00:29:20,690
Speaker 2: your magic and then to abuse that control? And it's

501
00:29:20,770 --> 00:29:25,290
Speaker 2: so much more unsettling than Darth Vader. And don't get

502
00:29:25,330 --> 00:29:27,050
Speaker 2: me wrong, I mean I'm a Star Wars kid. I

503
00:29:27,130 --> 00:29:30,250
Speaker 2: like Star Wars. That's good, but Ertie is even better

504
00:29:30,370 --> 00:29:35,610
Speaker 2: in that sense of what corruption looks like for these superheroes. Almost.

505
00:29:35,730 --> 00:29:38,250
Speaker 1: I actually have the audiobook downloaded, so I'm excited to

506
00:29:38,290 --> 00:29:39,130
Speaker 1: start listening to it.

507
00:29:39,530 --> 00:29:41,970
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the repudiation, So there are a couple of

508
00:29:41,970 --> 00:29:44,210
Speaker 2: things that I didn't notice as a boy when I

509
00:29:44,250 --> 00:29:48,730
Speaker 2: first read these books, all the wizards are men or boys.

510
00:29:48,970 --> 00:29:52,370
Speaker 2: There are no female wizards. And that's just something you

511
00:29:52,410 --> 00:29:53,930
Speaker 2: sort of take for granted because, like you know, as

512
00:29:53,930 --> 00:29:56,250
Speaker 2: a fantasy world and whatever, you just don't even notice

513
00:29:56,250 --> 00:30:00,210
Speaker 2: it because so often, in particular, we men don't notice

514
00:30:00,370 --> 00:30:02,570
Speaker 2: that actually there aren't really very many women in the story.

515
00:30:03,570 --> 00:30:07,250
Speaker 2: And that's interesting in that this story was written by

516
00:30:07,250 --> 00:30:12,690
Speaker 2: a woman. And so yeah, book four, suddenly she starts

517
00:30:12,730 --> 00:30:14,610
Speaker 2: to chip away, And you thought these guys were the

518
00:30:14,610 --> 00:30:18,050
Speaker 2: good guys, But are they the good guys? What happened

519
00:30:18,090 --> 00:30:20,170
Speaker 2: to all the female power? What happened to all the

520
00:30:20,210 --> 00:30:25,650
Speaker 2: female wizards? It really makes you start to rethink the

521
00:30:25,730 --> 00:30:28,970
Speaker 2: people and the culture that you previously viewed as heroic.

522
00:30:29,130 --> 00:30:31,250
Speaker 1: It sounds really cool. So she's dealing in a lot

523
00:30:31,250 --> 00:30:33,490
Speaker 1: of ideas from anthropology, and I talked to a lot

524
00:30:33,490 --> 00:30:36,970
Speaker 1: of anthropologists about our Soliliguin, and they love her because

525
00:30:37,370 --> 00:30:41,490
Speaker 1: these science fiction societies and other planets, they're kind of

526
00:30:41,650 --> 00:30:45,850
Speaker 1: anthropological exercises, Like you have these descriptions of other ways

527
00:30:45,890 --> 00:30:51,050
Speaker 1: of being and sometimes really intricately worked out language systems

528
00:30:51,370 --> 00:30:56,250
Speaker 1: and symbolic systems. I guess I'm curious. Do you feel

529
00:30:56,250 --> 00:31:00,530
Speaker 1: like your love of Versuliloguin and or science fiction more

530
00:31:00,570 --> 00:31:05,170
Speaker 1: generally has anything to do with your interest in economics.

531
00:31:05,490 --> 00:31:08,170
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question, but I think well, I

532
00:31:08,290 --> 00:31:13,810
Speaker 2: certainly was reading Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and McCaffrey

533
00:31:13,810 --> 00:31:16,250
Speaker 2: and Frank Herbert and Ursula Legwinn long before I even

534
00:31:16,290 --> 00:31:19,850
Speaker 2: knew what economics was, so I think it predates that.

535
00:31:20,690 --> 00:31:23,330
Speaker 2: But I mean, Legwin is she's a touchdown. While you

536
00:31:23,370 --> 00:31:27,930
Speaker 2: were looking at birds and starting to really appreciate birds

537
00:31:27,970 --> 00:31:33,050
Speaker 2: song during lockdown in the spring of twenty twenty, I

538
00:31:33,170 --> 00:31:38,370
Speaker 2: was creating a role playing game heavily inspired by Ursula

539
00:31:38,450 --> 00:31:43,090
Speaker 2: le Gwinn and earth See and running that over Zoom

540
00:31:43,490 --> 00:31:46,010
Speaker 2: for my friends. So as the world was burning all

541
00:31:46,050 --> 00:31:52,490
Speaker 2: around us, I was collectively spinning this fantasy universe inspired

542
00:31:52,530 --> 00:31:57,490
Speaker 2: by Ursula Lagwinn because who better, oh col People should

543
00:31:57,530 --> 00:32:03,050
Speaker 2: also look up this amazing Last Archive episode about well,

544
00:32:03,090 --> 00:32:05,930
Speaker 2: it's sort of about Ursula Lagwin, and it's about a

545
00:32:06,090 --> 00:32:08,690
Speaker 2: much bigger topic than that. They should look up the

546
00:32:08,690 --> 00:32:11,490
Speaker 2: episode about the parakeep panic tell us a little bit

547
00:32:11,490 --> 00:32:14,410
Speaker 2: about the Last Archive in general. It's motivated by this

548
00:32:14,490 --> 00:32:17,370
Speaker 2: question who killed Truth? So where did that come from?

549
00:32:17,570 --> 00:32:21,330
Speaker 2: The show began about I guess four years ago.

550
00:32:21,450 --> 00:32:24,970
Speaker 1: Now. It was created by the historian Joe Lapour, who

551
00:32:25,090 --> 00:32:29,330
Speaker 1: was my thesis advisor in college, and it was occasioned

552
00:32:29,370 --> 00:32:34,010
Speaker 1: by the Trump administration really, where there's all this panic

553
00:32:34,410 --> 00:32:38,290
Speaker 1: about alternative facts and post truth and deep fakes, this

554
00:32:38,370 --> 00:32:42,170
Speaker 1: sort of epistemological chaos where it felt as if nobody

555
00:32:42,370 --> 00:32:45,690
Speaker 1: knew what to believe anymore, and there was a lot

556
00:32:45,730 --> 00:32:48,810
Speaker 1: of media attention given to the idea that we were

557
00:32:48,850 --> 00:32:52,170
Speaker 1: in this epistemologically unstable ground, all of us all the time.

558
00:32:52,970 --> 00:32:58,210
Speaker 1: And I think something that bothered us about that, and Jill,

559
00:32:58,330 --> 00:33:04,250
Speaker 1: especially as an American historian, is that that epistemological instability

560
00:33:05,210 --> 00:33:08,530
Speaker 1: just absolutely does not begin with Donald Trump. There's a

561
00:33:08,610 --> 00:33:13,330
Speaker 1: much larger history there, and there's especially a twentieth century

562
00:33:13,450 --> 00:33:16,730
Speaker 1: history there that has to do with technology, the history

563
00:33:16,770 --> 00:33:19,010
Speaker 1: of science, and the history of media, as well as

564
00:33:19,130 --> 00:33:21,970
Speaker 1: rising polarization. And of course this is not just a

565
00:33:22,050 --> 00:33:25,770
Speaker 1: US problem, but US history is the focus of the show,

566
00:33:26,370 --> 00:33:30,010
Speaker 1: looking at times people have created new ways of knowing

567
00:33:30,090 --> 00:33:33,050
Speaker 1: things and how these new truths get worked into a

568
00:33:33,090 --> 00:33:36,610
Speaker 1: democratic society and also new ways of doubting things. So

569
00:33:36,650 --> 00:33:38,290
Speaker 1: there's a lot of history of science, a lot of

570
00:33:38,370 --> 00:33:42,490
Speaker 1: history of technology, history of the media. But it's also

571
00:33:42,570 --> 00:33:45,290
Speaker 1: meant to be a celebration of the many different ways

572
00:33:45,290 --> 00:33:48,970
Speaker 1: of finding truth, and especially of finding historical truth, even

573
00:33:49,010 --> 00:33:52,970
Speaker 1: if it's a seven hundred page document about killing all

574
00:33:52,970 --> 00:33:56,890
Speaker 1: the monk parakeets in the nineteen seventies. So it's a celebration.

575
00:33:57,050 --> 00:34:01,410
Speaker 1: It's epistemological mystery, and hopefully it is a podcast people

576
00:34:01,450 --> 00:34:01,970
Speaker 1: will enjoy.

577
00:34:03,290 --> 00:34:05,170
Speaker 2: I'm sure they will. I love it, and one of

578
00:34:05,250 --> 00:34:07,130
Speaker 2: many things I love about it is that it never

579
00:34:07,170 --> 00:34:11,570
Speaker 2: really tells you what to think. It just keeps surprising

580
00:34:11,610 --> 00:34:15,970
Speaker 2: you and prodding your curiosity and inviting you to think

581
00:34:15,970 --> 00:34:19,610
Speaker 2: for yourself. So people can find and subscribe to the

582
00:34:19,690 --> 00:34:24,130
Speaker 2: last archive wherever you listen to your podcasts. Benadaff Haaffrey,

583
00:34:24,290 --> 00:34:26,250
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining Cautionary Tales.

584
00:34:26,770 --> 00:34:28,450
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me onna. I really

585
00:34:28,490 --> 00:34:30,330
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and I love the show, so it's very

586
00:34:30,330 --> 00:34:30,810
Speaker 1: fun for me.

587
00:34:35,370 --> 00:34:39,450
Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright.

588
00:34:40,490 --> 00:34:44,210
Speaker 2: It's produced by Alice Fines with support from Edith Russlo.

589
00:34:45,090 --> 00:34:47,850
Speaker 2: The sound design and original music is the work of

590
00:34:47,970 --> 00:34:52,090
Speaker 2: Pascal wise, the show wouldn't have been possible without the

591
00:34:52,090 --> 00:34:56,770
Speaker 2: work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilley, Julia Barton, Greta Cohne,

592
00:34:56,930 --> 00:35:03,290
Speaker 2: Little Millard, John Schnaz, Carli Migliori, Eric Sandler, Maggie Taylor, Nicolmrano,

593
00:35:03,650 --> 00:35:08,970
Speaker 2: and Morgan Ratno. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries.

594
00:35:09,330 --> 00:35:12,370
Speaker 2: If you like the show, please remember to share, rate,

595
00:35:12,530 --> 00:35:16,330
Speaker 2: and review. It helps us for mysterious reasons. If you

596
00:35:16,330 --> 00:35:19,170
Speaker 2: want to hear the show, add free sign up for

597
00:35:19,250 --> 00:35:22,730
Speaker 2: Pushkin Plus on the show page and Apple Podcasts, or

598
00:35:22,850 --> 00:36:09,570
Speaker 2: at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus, woo