WEBVTT - What was the Four Pests Campaign? 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.439 It's just us and that's okay because we are going 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.919 to do our best today pronouncing Chinese words, which is 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.600 always a laugh riot. If you're a fan of the. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.320 Podcast, Yeah, you can take those, my friend, because I'm 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.440 meant to look up the pronunciations and I didn't get 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.320 a chance to. But this topic about the four pests 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:38.200 campaign comes to you from listener, actually non listener, Emily Bryant, 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.800 my wife, No nice. She gave me the idea and 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:43.360 I was like, oh yeah, I looked into a little bit. 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:44.640 It's like, yeah, this will be good. 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.760 That's funny. I wondered if you had thought of it 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:52.160 because of you killing the cockroach recently on air. 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.680 No, but I do have to say you judge me 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:02.440 pretty hard on the cockroach, and while just very casually 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.280 talking about how much you would kill a mosquito and 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.800 ticks and flees, but oh not the cockroach, Chuck. 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.759 No, was I a little harsh? 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:13.520 I'm sorry, No, you weren't harsh, but I was like, 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:15.600 wait a minute, you're killing three out of fourties and 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.960 acting like you're, you know, gods get the insects. 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:25.720 Yeah, my boundaries apply to all. Yeah, okay, we're not 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:31.920 talking about cockroaches yet, we're talking about rats, mosquitoes, flies. 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.280 I have an issue with rats, but I get where 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.920 they're coming from. And sparrows. These were the four pests 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.479 that made up of the Four Pests campaign carried out 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:44.640 at the end of the fifties beginning of the nineteen 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.800 sixties in communist China, which newspapers at the time called 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:56.360 Red China. And it was an enormously successful communist eradication 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.520 campaign that was bent on controlling nature. And did it 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:01.120 ever work. 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:06.200 Yeah, I mean successful in one way, very destructive in another. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.040 And we'll get to all that. Obviously, we're talking about 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.960 the leader at the time, mal Zedong, And this had 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.040 was not the first time something like this had been tried, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:17.920 and it's been tried since then over there as well. 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.560 In the nineteen twenties and thirties. In China, they had 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:26.079 fly killing campaigns. In mid nineteen twenties, it was a 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:31.840 fly campaign such that the Southeast University in Nanjing was 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.800 it was very effective and they were you know, this 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.840 is very much like anecdotal, like there were practically no 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.079 flies there all summer. Yeah, but apparently it worked pretty good. 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:42.840 And then they did this at other times in the 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.440 nineteen twenties and thirties where they were incentivized, like middle 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:48.399 schoolers to go out and kill flies and bring them 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.440 in and show them to their teachers and like a 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.400 little matchbox, let's say, and things like that. But apparently 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.120 that resulted in more than ten million dead flies. So 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.440 there was precedent in China for doing stuff like this. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.280 Yeah, so much so that I actually saw a contemporaneous 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.280 newspaper account that was talking about the Four Pests campaign 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.400 when it kicked off, and the newspapers is an American 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.960 newspaper just kind of chied it and said the fact 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:19.440 that they're having to include flies belies the boasts that 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.760 there were no flies in China. So apparently after these 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.320 eradication campaigns, I told the rest of the world, we 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.400 don't have flies anymore, suckers, because we get rid of it. 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.800 We takes care of business, I think, is how they 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:31.200 put it. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:33.920 Yeah, the Four Pests that we need to sort of 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:35.840 set the stage because it's kind of rooted in the 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:40.480 Great Leap Forward and that was a very ambitious campaign 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:44.400 in nineteen fifty eight January nineteen fifty eight that had 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.880 a lot of initiatives, but the real goal, the kind 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.920 of stated goal, was to industrialize and to overtake the 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:56.840 UK's industrial output in less than fifteen years, mainly in 0:03:57.840 --> 0:03:59.720 There are lots of ways they wanted to do this, 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.360 but mainly to outdo them and steel production. 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.160 Yeah, and just a quick reminder, the UK is where 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:11.800 the industrial revolution began. So this was beyond ambitious for China, 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.320 especially from the place that they were coming from. So 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:20.600 MAO was extremely ambitious, I guess. And to do something 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:25.680 like this that required really huge, sweeping changes and for 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.560 them to happen immediately. You weren't transitioning into anything. It 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:31.560 was stop doing this and start doing this. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.159 Yeah, like stop farming and build a steel furnace in 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:41.320 your backyard and start smelting. Was tried new weird sort 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.440 of farming techniques that weren't tested. It was. It was 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.599 a pretty enthusiastic campaign, you know, from the people, just 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:50.160 how they received it and how they got into it. 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:55.000 Apparently that farmers sometimes or people would just work late 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:56.839 into the night and they called it catching the moon 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.440 and stars and public officials were they would issue these 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.160 steel and grain quotas to like, you know, make as 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.080 much steel and grow as much grain as you could. 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.799 But they were very unrealistic quotas. They were not able 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.640 to fulfill those, and in that time, with you know, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:18.800 this sort of idealistic, authoritative approach to government, they were 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.640 over reporting output. And as we'll see, that kind of 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:24.400 happened again with a four pest campaign. 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.479 Yeah, that was an enormous problem that China ran into, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.560 and almost immediately after they began the four Pest campaign, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.440 and even though they were kind of parallel to one another, 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.200 they were definitely intertwined at least to some degree. Right, Yeah, 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:44.240 So the four Pest campaign itself, you might say, like, Okay, 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:46.680 China's trying to industrialize and catch up to the UK, 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.320 who cares about flies and sparrows? And it turns out 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.560 that Mao cared a lot about flies and sparrows and 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.640 other pests. He and I've noticed this before, and a 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.960 lot of the stuff he talked about, he almost had 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.400 like a contempt for nature and a real like inner 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:09.160 desire to dominate nature and bend it to human will, 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.480 to his will. At least he had a slogan called 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.520 man Must Conquer Nature. Yeah, pretty on the nose, right, Yeah. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.119 And also apparently he was quoted back in nineteen fifty 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.120 eight that he wanted to make the high mountain bow 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.400 its head, make the river yield the way, and so 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.040 this really kind of tied these eradication campaigns. And make 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.320 no mistake, the point was to get rid of every fly, 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:38.679 every rat, every mosquito, and every sparrow in all of China. 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.200 So this eradication campaign really kind of fit into that 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:43.919 viewpoint that he held. 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.280 Yeah, for sure, So there was some megalomania involved, for sure, 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.640 but it definitely had genuine roots and amibition to be 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.920 to get rid of disease, to stop these contagions from spreading, 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.200 because they were out of a decade in the nineteen 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.920 forties where they had smallpox and cholera and malaria and 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.160 the infant mortality rate was like thirty percent. So there 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.160 was definitely you know, they reacted with these big, large 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:19.160 scale vaccination drives, sanitation initiatives, but getting rid of these 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.720 pests they thought could get rid of the things that 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.960 were causing these diseases to begin with. Yeah, and getting 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.560 rid of these pests, and three of the cases would 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.560 get rid of these diseases to begin with. In the 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.320 case of sparrows, they're not spreading disease, but he sparrows 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.760 are grain thieves. They eat grain, and so they had 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.520 these wild estimates that sparrows could, like the food they 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.400 lost to grain by sparrows could feed up to sixty 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.280 thousand people. So that's why they were on the list. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.880 Yes, somehow they calculated that each sparrow stole in eight 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:58.000 about four and a half kilograms a year, which equals 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.680 to about ten pounds, which is a staging amount of 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:05.160 grain for one single bird to steal from, like right 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.280 out of the Chinese people's mouths. So that was why 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.520 sparrow's were on there. You might have been sitting here 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.440 the whole time, going, what are you talking about with 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.960 sparrow's the little bird, They're the greatest of all birds potentially, 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.200 why would you want to kill sparrows? And sparrows just 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.640 got wrapped up into this big drag night essentially. 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.000 Yeah, along with other birds by accident, of course. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.280 Yes, so the whole thing was essentially like an adopt 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.360 a mile program, except with killing animals. 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.480 Yeah, I mean they had sanitation teams that people would 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.280 organize in communities. They would go out together and hunt rats. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.800 They encourage kids, of course to do this, but just individually, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.160 they were encouraging people like, hey, kill every mosquito you 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.000 can find, kill every fly that comes near you. It's 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.319 your patriotic duty to do so. They would incentivize and 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.520 reward people sometimes, but usually it was just like, this 0:08:58.559 --> 0:08:59.840 is something you need to get on board with. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.840 Make us all healthier, exactly, And going back to that 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.559 infant mortality rate, talking about making them healthier, like, this 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.600 is where they were coming from. That thirty percent. The 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.360 way that it's expressed typically is number of deaths per 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.320 one thousand berths, So that's three hundred deaths per one 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:22.640 thousand berths. So this was an staggering infant mortality rate 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.800 that they were dealing with, and it kind of drives 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.000 home like, Okay, this was even more ambitious than it 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.600 seems on its face, because not only are they trying 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.360 to leap forward, they're really having to come from a 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.839 deficit to even begin to leap. 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.760 Yeah, for sure, And of course in communists China, how 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.280 are you going to get this ball rolling through government propaganda? 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.880 It was a big, big part of mobilizing people to 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.640 do this stuff. They had posters just sort of encouraging 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.280 people to kill the pest. They would say things like 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.640 it would lead to happiness for ten thousand generations. They 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.120 would also have posters like positive ones like here's what 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.280 our future is going to look like with like farms 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.600 that are flourishing and industry that is doing great, and 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.720 all you have to do is is kill these pests. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.920 It even filtered down to the level of children. They 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:16.120 had like children's songs and kids books talking about killing sparrows. 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.400 Yeah, they did absolutely everything right to change people's views 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.160 on sparrows so thoroughly, because before they hadn't been seen 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.520 as pests until those grain estimates came in. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:28.319 Yeah, they're sparrows exactly. 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.600 So I believe the Chinese in up to nineteen fifty 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:37.120 eight fifty nine viewed sparrows pretty normally, and then all 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.560 of a sudden, the whole country was like, yes, well, 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.600 we'll kill sparrows, no problem, because that propaganda campaign was 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:44.280 so effective. 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.200 Yeah, they had they filled out the questionnaire how do 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:51.080 you view sparrows A favorably B not favorably? See don't 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:52.640 really have an opinion. 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.640 And everybody said not favorably anymore. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.920 So we should give the old grain of salt here. 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.240 As far as the numbers we're about to start talking about, 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.320 it is very hard for a few reasons, as it's 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.800 communists China, so any statistics need to have the grain 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.720 of salt that they put out. And also we're talking 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.440 about killing individual flies and mosquitos, so it's just really 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:17.720 tough to quantify that. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.520 Yes, but as we'll get to in a minute, I 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:22.480 tried to quantify it, and I think I did a 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:23.000 great job. 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.200 Oh boy, does that mean there's going to be some 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:26.200 Josh maths. 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.440 Yeah, aces of Josh math You ready? 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:29.880 Yeah? Wait? 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:33.520 Yeah, Well let's just jump to that. Okay, Okay, we'll 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.000 come back to rats in a second. But flies, let's 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.520 talk about flies. One of the reasons flies were chosen 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.560 because they transfer all sorts of diseases because they like 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.079 to hang out on poop, and then they like to 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.960 go hang out on food that people eat. One of 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.760 the big problems, one of the big problem diseases that 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.520 they spread as cholera, which is not fun and it 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.680 spreads very easily. So flies were targeted in two hundred 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:00.600 and twenty million pounds of flies were killed. 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.280 Okay, hold on, I have a question, I got it. Interrupt. Okay, 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:05.840 are you about to say that you found out the 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.920 weight of an average fly to find the total number 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.320 of flies out of that two hundred and twenty million pounds? Yes, amazing? 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:13.280 You ready? 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:13.960 Yeah? Yeah? 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.000 First of all, I have to shout out being and 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.240 it's ai. When I said how much is how many 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.520 flies are in one pound? I guess I actually put 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.760 one to two pounds. I tried to take the shortcut. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.120 Bing comes back with one to two pounds of flies. 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.920 Biomass equals one to two pounds of flies. Say thanks 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:36.800 for the help, Bing. So I had to sledge forward 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:38.480 and do it myself. So I looked up how much 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.320 a house fly weighs. I saw fifty milligrams. I saw 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:46.120 ten milligrams. Okay, So if you divide that per pound, 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.959 that equals nine thousand flies per pound. Okay, it also 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.200 equals more. I'll get to that in a second. But 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.440 that so nice. So at fifty milligrams a fly, which 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.720 is way high, that's nine thousand flies per pound. Types 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.000 two hundred and twenty million pounds of flies equals one 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.600 point nine to eight trillion flies that were killed in 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.280 just a couple of years. Mind boggling. Right, we'll get this. 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:16.280 If you adjust to a fly weighing ten milligrams, the 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:21.160 ables almost the equals almost ten trillion flies that were 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.480 killed in China over the course of this four pest campaign. 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:26.240 Just a few years. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:31.000 Ten trillion flies. That's that's the numbers I'm coming up with. Guys. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.560 That's amazing. And this wasn't a bit. I genuinely didn't 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.000 know that Josh was going to do that, but I 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:37.400 saw the riding on the wall. As soon as I 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.000 knew that it was pounds of flies, I was like, 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.000 I know he's going to figure out total flies. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.560 Yeah. Yeah. I didn't go ahead and convert it into 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.600 big max, which I feel a little bit about, but 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.600 you know, I still feel like I did a good job. 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.160 All right. That's amazing. Rats they carry a disease called 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:58.200 scistos somiasis. I probably mispronounced that, but that is something 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.160 that can kill you with organ failure, can give you cancer. 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.520 Rats also stole grain, and apparently they would drive these 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.080 rats out of their holes, kill them, and allegedly get 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.200 the grain out of their heidi holes. And feed that 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.720 to livestock is supposedly what happened. 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.720 That's vengeance right there. You actually take the grain that 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.120 the rats stole back. Yeah, something else. So one point 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:22.720 five billion rats were killed? 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.000 How many pounds of brat is it? You got to 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:26.880 reverse engineer it? 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:33.400 So I would say about point seven a billion point 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:34.920 seven billion pounds of rats. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.200 I'm going to go mean that I've seen New York rats. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.120 I don't know if Chinese rats hold a candle beds 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.560 those New York rats. Those suckers can weigh several pounds. 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.200 I feel like, oh several pounds. Yeah, yeah, so I 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.000 stand by my estimate. Let's say point nine because not 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.560 all of them are going to weigh two pounds. 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:51.440 I love a rat, by the way. 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.080 That's what I'm saying. I'm not fully on board. I 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.320 get rats really easily spread a lot of disease in 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.520 they had wow throughout human history. Rats themselves don't I 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.400 don't think are problematic and like individually. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.320 Like the pet rat, Give me that little guy and 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:08.760 let me scratch it under the chin. 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.880 Super sweet. Yeah, so yeah, a lot of rats died. Again, 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.400 the reason why they targeted rats is not just from 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.720 spreading disease. But also they stole that grain too. They 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.440 estimated that rats stole way more than sparrows, at about 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.400 nine kilograms or twenty pounds per rat per year. So 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:30.480 the writing was on the wall for rats. 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.920 They were well, mosquitos, no one likes. They spread malaria, 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:39.160 which is a bad problem. Obviously everyone knows that mosquitos, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.400 you know, hosts their larvae and wet things and puddles 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.040 and spare tires and things like that still waters. So 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.520 citizens where they were like, hey, dredge your rivers, fill 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.160 your fill these watery ditches up with dirt, don't let 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.480 water collect. Get rid of those feet breeding grounds. They also, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.280 and this is pretty remarkable, they fish and ducks to 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.920 specifically feed on their larva, which is pretty impressive. And 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.280 then you know, obviously swatting them is one way, but 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.520 lots of awful, harmful insecticides just being sprayed everywhere. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:18.960 Yeah, this is our requisite reminiscence of the mosquito fogging 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.720 truck driving down the street at night in your neighborhood 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:22.800 in the summer. You remember that. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:25.840 Yeah, we didn't have those because we didn't live in neighborhoods, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:26.800 but I knew they existed. 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.400 Yeah, they were something. Even back then in the seventies 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.280 and eighties, it was like, well, you need to steer 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.520 clear of those. They just looked ominous. 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:40.440 Yeah. The very first opening shots of my beloved documentary Vernon, 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.760 Florida is a mosquito truck going through the town. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:47.600 Oh boy. Yeah, so they killed as far as China 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.480 estimates twenty four million pounds of mosquitoes or four point 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.400 three five four trillion mosquitos over the course of this campaign. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.280 Hey, aside from the insecticide, I say hats off to 0:16:59.400 --> 0:16:59.920 that one. 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.760 Yeah. Remember we talked about it before, if not in 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.080 an episode, then on like Internet roundup, where there was 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.920 a geneticist or a molecular biologist maybe who's like, hey, 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:11.560 you know, I figured out a way so that we 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.359 can get rid of mosquitos forever in just a few 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.480 generations if we adjust this gene and release these genetically 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.399 modified mosquitos into the wild, and like it would have worked. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.159 And everyone was like, you know, I don't know if 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.840 we should do that. Mosquitos might be providing some service 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.960 that we're just not aware of. It just seems wrong 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.480 or dumb to just eradicate them all. And so we 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.720 didn't pull the trigger on it, but some I think, 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.840 like Yukon or something. Professor had figured out exactly how 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:39.400 to do it. 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.680 Yeah, but didn't they also come back and say like no, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.960 like we have yet to find any like if mosquitos 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:51.600 were removed, there's no domino effect in the insect chain, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.639 like they could really go away and everyone would be fine. 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.320 Yes, I do remember that too, And before you can 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.560 say anything else, to say, we take a break. 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:02.359 That sounds great, great. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.240 Thanks man, I appreciate the support. 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:42.399 All right. So the fourth I know you were just 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.120 waiting with baited breath about sparrows. They again weren't considered 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.760 pest before the Great Leap Forward, which kind of preceded this. 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:53.800 But he had a very mouth, had a very effective 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.840 anti pest campaign going, so people bought into it, and 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.159 they would kill them. They would crush their little eggs. 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:03.919 They would like firecrackers and throw them at them. They 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.520 would destroy their nests. They would scare set up, scarecrows 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.600 or scare sparrows and fields and then shoot them dead. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.800 But apparently the most popular, far and away the most 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.080 popular method is that they would just make such a 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.320 racket in the streets banging pots and pans and yelling 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.800 and screaming that the sparrows would fly until they tired 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.200 and then would just drop down from the sky. 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.639 Right but not dead. The people have to kill for them, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.159 would go kill them by hand, usually squire storm or 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.200 break their necks or something like that. And guys, if 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.879 you are not familiar with sparrows, and you are not 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.560 driving right now, go look up sparrows. They're the little 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:47.520 cute brown birds that hop around outside on the cafe patio, 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:52.080 not bothering anybody, just being cute. These are the birds 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.720 that the people of China were killing by hand in 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.600 nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty one. 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.560 I think, yeah, of finchy looking just they're very very cute. 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:05.879 Oh wow, for cute. I'm actually seeing a one of 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:11.560 those propaganda posters right now that has a rat, a sparrow, 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.359 a mosquito, and a fly impaled on a Chinese sword. 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.640 Yes, that works. That makes me want to kill a sparrow. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.080 It's kind of a really sweet poster actually, but I 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:22.040 just don't like the message. 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.320 Yeah, for sure, So as you can bet like this 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.240 led to the near extinction of sparrows in just a 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:31.280 few years. 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:38.120 So here's the problem is with the sparrows. Sparrows eat locusts, 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.760 and locusts are a true pest. So without the sparrows, 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:46.960 the locusts really really thrived. It turns out that sparrows 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.600 are a very crucial part of maintaining that ecosystem, and 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.600 without them there were no natural predators for the locusts, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.239 and they ballooned and the crops were devastated. I think 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.600 the World Atlas estimated that the locusts were ponssible for 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.520 destroying hundreds of thousands of pounds of grain because of. 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.160 This, right, So that was I mean, that equals a 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.439 lot of crop yield, even in China with all of 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:14.840 the arable land that they have. And so if you're 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.200 familiar with Chinese history, especially in the late fifties to 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:23.800 nineteen sixties, you know what's coming. The Great Famine of China. 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.800 It lasted from nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty one, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.640 and it is far and away the most devastating famine 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.960 in the history of humanity as far as recorded history goes. Yeah, 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.359 estimates run from fifteen million to up to seventy eight million, 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.200 and I saw reasonable people estimating it was actually between 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:49.480 twenty and fifty million people who starved to death from 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.520 just nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty one in China. 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.879 That's how bad the famine was. And some people tie 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.000 that back to at least in part, the four Pest 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:03.200 campaign and the effect of removing sparrows from the ecosystem. 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.879 Yeah, for sure. I mean there was many reports and 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:13.000 instances of suicide, apparently cannibalism, people murdering each other to 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.680 get to their food. It got really really bad. There 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.480 was also it was also while it was happening, Mal 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:22.760 refused to acknowledge that it was happening, like there is 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.560 no famine. It was after everyone died, like a year 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.639 later that Mal finally admitted that a famine had occurred, 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:31.679 which is like everyone knows there's a famine going on. 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.240 So that's like the ultimate sort of gas lighting when 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.800 your leaders not even acknowledging that. But he didn't accept, 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.160 you know, he blamed it on rightists and their failure 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:43.120 to implement his policies correctly. 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:45.800 From what I could tell, I did not see how 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:50.080 much he actually was aware. Part of the issue was 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.879 how just ensconced and insulated he was from bad news 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.679 because all of the people under him, and all the 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.840