Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: We are back in the studio after a long labor
Speaker 1: day weekend away. Um, what'd you get up to? Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I just I went to a densely populated
Speaker 1: area and hung out, took some notes, watch my fellow humans.
Speaker 1: Oh that a good weekend. A good weekend. Then, yeah,
Speaker 1: what about you? Well, I've ventured, uh my wife and
Speaker 1: I've entured up into the hills of rural Tennessee and
Speaker 1: I actually visited the farm which is of course the
Speaker 1: hippie commune there in middle Tennessee, um, famous for its
Speaker 1: midwifery and and and soy products and tempe and and
Speaker 1: all this, uh, which which was pretty interesting. But I
Speaker 1: was also talking to my mom, who's a kindergarten teacher,
Speaker 1: and she reminded me of of this really cool phenomenon
Speaker 1: that kind of ties in with today's episode. You know
Speaker 1: how it is with classroom sizes. Oh yeah, talk about
Speaker 1: dense populations. Yeah, you end up throwing in more and
Speaker 1: more kids, especially at the beginning of the class. So
Speaker 1: my mom will start off a school year and she'll
Speaker 1: have just an exorbitant number of of kindergarteners there. But
Speaker 1: inevitably what will happen is that one or two of
Speaker 1: the kindergarteners will develop an extra large jaw with with
Speaker 1: extra large teeth, and then it will that kindergartener will
Speaker 1: eat several of the other kindergarteners, thus balancing out the
Speaker 1: population in the classroom, and then from then on for
Speaker 1: the rest of the year, everything is a little more normal.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that people don't normally talk about, right,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's it's pretty standard in public schools
Speaker 1: in the United States, and it is a good way
Speaker 1: to sort of weed down the population and make it manageable. So, yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: we are talking about population density and its effects on organisms. Um.
Speaker 1: The the kindergartener thing we just went through there, we
Speaker 1: will explain a little more detail because because what we
Speaker 1: really want to talk about here is the comparison that
Speaker 1: can be made between um various organisms and their ways
Speaker 1: of dealing with with population density and resource shortage and
Speaker 1: humanity's own ways of dealing with it. Where we're similar,
Speaker 1: where we're very different and where even are different approaches
Speaker 1: are kind of achieving the same ends. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is where that don't don't part comes in because we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before and it's coming. Twenty is estimated
Speaker 1: that we will add another two point five billion people.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people. So we're at about seven
Speaker 1: billion right now, and right now, fifty percent of us
Speaker 1: live in cities. But by of us excuse me, two
Speaker 1: thirds of us of us will be living in cities.
Speaker 1: And what does that spell for us? That's that's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of people, elbow to elbow. Uh,
Speaker 1: So we want to talk about this a little bit
Speaker 1: and talk about chicken particular resources that are and aren't
Speaker 1: available in this scenario, right because we're talking about more
Speaker 1: and more people that need more and more resources, obviously,
Speaker 1: and are we gonna be able to meet that need?
Speaker 1: Are we space wise we're gonna be able to meet
Speaker 1: that need? We've we've devoted an entire episode in the
Speaker 1: past to discussing this and about even even if you
Speaker 1: started building these vertical cities, even if you you you
Speaker 1: become smarter and smarter with how how you use available space,
Speaker 1: can you actually keep up with the with the demand. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've talked about vertical farming as as a possible um
Speaker 1: solution to this, but the fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: is that to feed that many people, food production will
Speaker 1: need to grow by seven Yeah, that's huge. And to
Speaker 1: say nothing of drinking water, which which continues to be
Speaker 1: this big illusion here, especially in the United States, and
Speaker 1: and I guess much of the western world where drinking
Speaker 1: water is considered, this just there's just no end to it, right,
Speaker 1: it's cheer it's everywhere we poop into it, which continues
Speaker 1: to just like once once you you really think about that,
Speaker 1: and lord knows, I spent a lot of my life
Speaker 1: not thinking about that, but once you really think about
Speaker 1: the fact that in the United States we have clean
Speaker 1: drinking water that we defecate into, whereas on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world you have people who who don't
Speaker 1: even have access to that clean drinking water, and certainly
Speaker 1: not as regular. Yeah, and we could do an entire
Speaker 1: podcast on it, and in fact we probably that's a
Speaker 1: topic that we should investigate further. But yes, that's a
Speaker 1: huge problem on the horizon, certainly for the West end.
Speaker 1: It's because this dream scenario is not going to continue
Speaker 1: for for the for the world, no, no, and UM,
Speaker 1: just to add a little more information to that whole
Speaker 1: water scenario, current agriculture practices UM use of the fresh
Speaker 1: water resources and then it renders a lot of that
Speaker 1: really unsafe to drink because of pesticides and fertilizers. So
Speaker 1: there you go with that. UM. Obviously that we're gonna
Speaker 1: need some more solutions in the future here to fix
Speaker 1: that problem. And there's another thing that we're not quite
Speaker 1: focused on here in the West end that UM. It's
Speaker 1: the existence of slums. Okay, So when I talked about
Speaker 1: the fact that fifty percent of us now live in
Speaker 1: cities and that of us will live in cities, the
Speaker 1: United Nations and the World Healthcare Organization all say that
Speaker 1: it's very possible that half of the people who are
Speaker 1: living at cities at that point will be living in
Speaker 1: slum cities. Again, this is not something that particularly in
Speaker 1: the United States that we that is front and center
Speaker 1: for us, But in India and other places throughout the world,
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen this born out. So that's something
Speaker 1: to think about, UM in terms of resources and how
Speaker 1: we're all going to get along and what's going to
Speaker 1: be available to us. In fact, the u N says
Speaker 1: in its State of the World Cities Report that we're
Speaker 1: moving towards mega regions that create miles upon miles of
Speaker 1: what they call endless cities, capable of holding up to
Speaker 1: a hundred million people. So, you know, keep this in context.
Speaker 1: Maybe you live in a city right now that has
Speaker 1: three thousand people, and that seems quite large. That really
Speaker 1: is nothing in comparison to you know, forty years out
Speaker 1: from now, when you have these huge, sprawling cities across
Speaker 1: miles and miles of land. So let's turn our attention
Speaker 1: to the animal world, how to end and take a
Speaker 1: look at how certain organisms deal with overpopulation, because this
Speaker 1: is something that has occurred, you know, since time out
Speaker 1: of mind. You have a successful organism in a given environment,
Speaker 1: it's gonna keep growing and growing, but it's eventually going
Speaker 1: to press the envelope. You know, it's going to reach
Speaker 1: that point where it's it's not sustainable within its own environment.
Speaker 1: Resources are gonna dwindle and something's gonna have to give,
Speaker 1: right So, one of the more remarkable examples of this
Speaker 1: we see with the tiger salamander, which you find in
Speaker 1: North America ranges from Florida to northern Mexico southern Canada
Speaker 1: rocky mountains. It hibernates during the winter and during the
Speaker 1: summer rains, it migrates in larger numbers to breeding ponds.
Speaker 1: That this is where the males compete for females, and
Speaker 1: after mating, a female lays one or more eggs, egg
Speaker 1: masses that have fifty eggs each, depending upon the particular
Speaker 1: subspecies of the salamander. All Right, the eggs hatch and
Speaker 1: approximately four weeks into larva, and these larva fies with
Speaker 1: like feathery gills. You've probably seen photographs. They're they're they're
Speaker 1: cute and weird and and wonderfully beautiful in their own
Speaker 1: subterranean way, slightly prehistoric. Yeah, And so these larva feed
Speaker 1: on aquatic insects, small invertebrates and and even some small fish.
Speaker 1: And the larva remain in these ponds an whole late
Speaker 1: early August, uh well, late July early August, and then
Speaker 1: transformed into air breathing subadults, which are four to five
Speaker 1: inches in rank length. But this is where it gets
Speaker 1: really interesting. Um. The tigers alamander is particularly unique because
Speaker 1: the eggs can develop into two types of larva and
Speaker 1: ultimately three types of adults. Now, but those two types
Speaker 1: of larva, that's where it gets interesting, and this is
Speaker 1: where I got the the deal. For the kindergarten example earlier.
Speaker 1: The two types of larva that are produced are normal
Speaker 1: tiger salamander larva plant and eating. Yeah, and then there
Speaker 1: are the cannibal morphs. The cannibal morphs. Uh, these larva
Speaker 1: have larger heads, bigger mouths, more well developed teeth, and
Speaker 1: when ponds start to dry up and other food sources
Speaker 1: become scarce, the cannibal more larva then turn on the
Speaker 1: other salam mander larva in the pool with them and
Speaker 1: start eating them, gobbling them up and growing faster. Their
Speaker 1: maturing at a faster rate, and they're achieving adulthood at
Speaker 1: a faster rate while eating the competing larva. Now it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that they they they do not eat kin larva.
Speaker 1: I'm less resources are particularly unless they're in dire straits.
Speaker 1: Then let's meet the brother or sisters. Yeah, So if
Speaker 1: it's a kindergarten classroom, just know that a brother and
Speaker 1: sister in the same room and one of them developed
Speaker 1: that extra large cannibal jaw. It's not gonna eat it's sibling.
Speaker 1: And this is called genetic polyphenism, and I think it's
Speaker 1: fascinating because it is a response directly to the environment. Right,
Speaker 1: So if they began to run into each other with
Speaker 1: her feeling, you know, if the larva are detecting that
Speaker 1: the environment and the resources are shrinking, then they will
Speaker 1: respond in one of two ways. Yeah. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like how Iron Man has different armors for different things,
Speaker 1: Like if he's battling Hulk, he has like a Hulkbuster armor,
Speaker 1: and he's battling thori as a thorbuster armor. Um, and
Speaker 1: it and the the environmental stimuli depends dictates which armor
Speaker 1: Tony Stark is gonna put on. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: that sept on a on a genetic level, and in
Speaker 1: response to environmental stimuli which form this salama, it will
Speaker 1: take all right. Um, So let's look at another example
Speaker 1: of a high density population with creatures. This is also
Speaker 1: an example of genetic polyphenism, except a little less um
Speaker 1: grizzly in a way, because the two types that you see,
Speaker 1: there's a gregarious morph and a solitary morph, and the
Speaker 1: gregarious morph or is the one that arises as response
Speaker 1: to population density, and it's more adept at flying, so
Speaker 1: it can get the heck out of dodge and it
Speaker 1: can find other patches grass or other resources. Yes, so
Speaker 1: this would be in a kindergarten classroom environment. This would
Speaker 1: be the child that instead of developing giant jaws to
Speaker 1: gobble down its classmates, it would sprout beautiful wings and
Speaker 1: then fly populated classrooms. That the kid who would pull
Speaker 1: the fire alarm or just to get out of dodges
Speaker 1: and say yeah. Um. And then there are swarm crickets,
Speaker 1: which I think are really interesting. Um, these are Mormon crickets.
Speaker 1: That is a good example there. They themselves are a
Speaker 1: good sport of protein, okay and salt. So they're just
Speaker 1: naturally going to be delicious to one another. Little beef
Speaker 1: turkey exactly exactly like think of like, for instance, if
Speaker 1: if uh us humans were covered in bacon and resources
Speaker 1: were low and straight up like fried bacon skin, bacon skin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're just cruising around there's not much to eat.
Speaker 1: We might might turn to one another and say, you
Speaker 1: look delicious. That's one thing to think you always keep
Speaker 1: in mind about cannibalism and humans is that. Um, humans
Speaker 1: tend to go for cooked food with with a few
Speaker 1: rare exceptions, but but certainly when it comes to eating
Speaker 1: other mammals, we tend to like it cooked. And uh,
Speaker 1: and we're not that so much into just eating it
Speaker 1: living off the bone. But if but if we were,
Speaker 1: would that change the same? Would we just peel off
Speaker 1: a limb right now? And I just like pull off
Speaker 1: one of your digits there, Like if everybody's skin was
Speaker 1: like already like tan doorid and cooked and seasoned and all,
Speaker 1: I mean it would it would be a different proposition.
Speaker 1: Is it wrong that I'm salivating a little bit and
Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian? But no, these It's true. These guys
Speaker 1: are their chock full of protein. They are in the
Speaker 1: right circumstance, delicious to one another, these these Mormon crickets,
Speaker 1: and they actually create these migratory formations. Okay, so um,
Speaker 1: this actually creates an order, this march that they conduct.
Speaker 1: And the reason why it creates this order is because
Speaker 1: they're they're marching in mass, and they're moving like each
Speaker 1: cricket is moving away from the one behind it towards
Speaker 1: the one in front of it, and it puts them
Speaker 1: in a in a very strange position in which they
Speaker 1: are both the prey and the predator. So they're they're marching.
Speaker 1: Each one is marching towards a cannibalistic feast in a
Speaker 1: way from a cannibalistic death. Yes, and again this is
Speaker 1: in in the case where the population gets very high,
Speaker 1: resources are dwindling. But to me, this is the more
Speaker 1: psychological example or a terror actually than the salamander, because
Speaker 1: those guys they just come at you with with big
Speaker 1: jaws and you know, what's the end. But yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, it's not nothing personal, it's business. Now.
Speaker 1: I've got a giant job with which to eat you exactly,
Speaker 1: and I developed that just for this purpose. But this
Speaker 1: other one, it's like, you know, it's either be eaten. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and the important thing is that the cannibal morph
Speaker 1: is sort of like, all right, we gotta roll out
Speaker 1: the cannibal model to deal with this market. Whereas the
Speaker 1: crickets are everyone is already on board with cannibalism. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: they're ready to go. Um. Now, primates. We have seen
Speaker 1: instances of cannibalism before primates, but generally this is not
Speaker 1: something that is um is the norm Yeah, as we
Speaker 1: just gotted. We had an episode called Finding on Cannibals,
Speaker 1: I believe, which I we found out after we released
Speaker 1: it that I think some people skipped over it because
Speaker 1: they thought it was going to be about human cannibals,
Speaker 1: which can be is a fascinating topic, but can be
Speaker 1: the more disturbing topic that some listeners want to hear about.
Speaker 1: That episode is entirely about animal cannibals. Cannibalism as an
Speaker 1: economic factor, uh, in various organisms, and and and as
Speaker 1: we highlighted in that episode, cannibalism on an economic level,
Speaker 1: remove all the moral um you know what have you
Speaker 1: on a on a biological economic level. It can be
Speaker 1: a very good proposition, but it but while it drives
Speaker 1: really well with some animals like these, like the crickets,
Speaker 1: the Mormon crickets, it doesn't necessarily work so well with
Speaker 1: other modes of life well, and like primates are a
Speaker 1: good example because they're highly social, just like we are.
Speaker 1: So um, it's sort of bad form to go around
Speaker 1: eating one another. Um. So that generally doesn't happen in
Speaker 1: a primate uh community, and I wanted to so we do.
Speaker 1: This is why we don't see cannibal morphs among primates,
Speaker 1: and certainly not in actual kindergarten classrooms outside of my imagination. No, no,
Speaker 1: but if we did, could you imagine like the giant
Speaker 1: jaws on Great eight canture, the like the classroom page
Speaker 1: in the yearbook, and you being able to pick out
Speaker 1: the cannibal morphs like look at the mouth on that
Speaker 1: one that way, whoa whoa, Yeah, Jimmy, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to watch out for that one next year. Well, they
Speaker 1: get they become buyers at that age too. Not defeed,
Speaker 1: this absurd notion any I see what you're saying. You're
Speaker 1: trying to make us all feel like there's the undercurrent
Speaker 1: of of possible canibalism in the elementary set. Um, I
Speaker 1: am going to pull this information or just actually, um,
Speaker 1: just highlight this information from a paper called Sociality in
Speaker 1: the City, using biological principle pools to explore the relationship
Speaker 1: between high population in density and social behavior. Yes, by
Speaker 1: Daniel O'Brien and uh and we'll link to this in
Speaker 1: the blog post that accompanies this episode, but the entire
Speaker 1: paper is available in PDF form on lines and it's
Speaker 1: the fascinating, fascinating read. Yeah, he says that Maccaux and
Speaker 1: high density populations, do you see an increase in intra
Speaker 1: sexual aggressive behavior for females when when the population becomes
Speaker 1: much larger, resources dwindle um. But he also says that
Speaker 1: this is a companied by an increase in intra sexual
Speaker 1: grooming um. Presumably this is the reaction to kind of
Speaker 1: try to calm everybody down once there have been aggressive acts.
Speaker 1: So it'd be like everyone's a little stressed out by
Speaker 1: the overpopulation, but instead of digging nails and claws into
Speaker 1: each other, everyone just goes and gets there their hair done,
Speaker 1: I think, so it's sort of like, sorry about that,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to do that. Let me gram you
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. But when there is a chimp
Speaker 1: population that is artificially elevated, by the way artificially artificially
Speaker 1: elevated is important because this is how they're they're testing this.
Speaker 1: It was found that aggression actually decreased, but self scratching,
Speaker 1: which is an indicator of anxiety, increased, and it's thought
Speaker 1: that this is a form of self control, and this
Speaker 1: is a deliberate um act that they're doing in order
Speaker 1: to avoid any sort of unnecessary conflict. So on one account,
Speaker 1: we see pro social actions counteracting stress hormones. Instead of
Speaker 1: tearing it up, We're gonna just comb each other's hair
Speaker 1: and meet each other's parasites. And we see anxiety and
Speaker 1: conflict of avoidant self control. So instead of just completely
Speaker 1: freaking out and murdering my my fellow chimps, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna maybe stress a bit and uh stare at the
Speaker 1: wall and scratch myself. Yea. And if you look at
Speaker 1: all these models, this is actually good news for us, right,
Speaker 1: because we're a lot closer to tom a primate than
Speaker 1: say a cricket. Um. So when you take this model
Speaker 1: and you say, okay, there's going to be an increase
Speaker 1: in population, there's going to be a dwindling of resources
Speaker 1: for humans. Um, what is this going to look like
Speaker 1: for us? How are we gonna act? And we should
Speaker 1: probably take a break, But when we get back, let's
Speaker 1: talk about how we may all turn into a loose urbans.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, And yes, we've talked about what
Speaker 1: happens when salamander's encounter population density and dwindling resources. We've
Speaker 1: talked about locusts, we've talked about primates, but really the
Speaker 1: big question is what does it mean for humans? Cities
Speaker 1: are not the exclusive domain of cannibalistic hordes. Um, obviously
Speaker 1: as far as we know, as far as we know,
Speaker 1: I mean there might be some underground sex. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean even when you look in fiction, um, you see
Speaker 1: there are just as many cannibalistic hillbilly families as there
Speaker 1: are cannibalistic underground dwellers. It kind of balances out. So
Speaker 1: so even in the world of the of imagination, we
Speaker 1: don't see the tendency towards cannibalism in large cities. But
Speaker 1: but undeniably, cities are places where people are just stacked
Speaker 1: on top of each other. Resources various, uh you know,
Speaker 1: definitions of resources are harder to come by, be it
Speaker 1: be it just you know, simply food, water, um, a
Speaker 1: livelihood or socialization. There's sometimes there's just less of it
Speaker 1: to go around. I have to say, when I was
Speaker 1: reading the part about the chimpanzees beginning to scratch themselves,
Speaker 1: um and then anxiety, I couldn't help but think of
Speaker 1: Woody Allen immediately, who is it? Uh No, I just
Speaker 1: kind of was imagining him as as a chimpanzee because
Speaker 1: the typical neurotic city dweller exactly, exactly, someone who has
Speaker 1: been shaped by his experiences in the city and high density. UM.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about what we do
Speaker 1: know when it comes to that sort of situation. We
Speaker 1: have talked about the bystander effect before. UM again, this
Speaker 1: is I guess you could look at it as a
Speaker 1: social norm from not really helping people. And this is
Speaker 1: evolved from our continual exposure to these instances that we
Speaker 1: just kind of get UM hardened too, I guess you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this this reminds me of another sort of sort
Speaker 1: of in a way, I feel like kind of an
Speaker 1: emerging modern Woody Allen Um in some senses we've mentioned before.
Speaker 1: Louis c K I believe it's the third episode of
Speaker 1: the first season of the show. Louis on fx UM.
Speaker 1: He's talking about coming to going to New York Port
Speaker 1: Authority picking up a cousin from the country, and they
Speaker 1: see a homeless man just lying there against the wall
Speaker 1: in dreadful shape, just like madded hair, you know, looks
Speaker 1: like he's on death's doorstep. And and the cousin from
Speaker 1: the Country's like, oh, whoa, what is he supposed to
Speaker 1: be here? What's what should we do should we help him?
Speaker 1: Does he need our help? And uh? And and Louie
Speaker 1: who has this very very dark at times goofy but
Speaker 1: but at times very dark and um and reflective philosophically,
Speaker 1: they're very philosophical at times. Um he he he says, well, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: he needs your help. He needs your help more than
Speaker 1: anything in the world. But but we don't do that
Speaker 1: here and don't don't touch him, just keep moving. And
Speaker 1: that in essence is the bystander effect. Um. There are
Speaker 1: basically four key components. And we discussed bystander effect before,
Speaker 1: but but just to refresh their four key components um
Speaker 1: self awareness, to perceived the presence of an audience to
Speaker 1: his or her action inhibits the individual from acting. He
Speaker 1: or she does not want to appear foolish or inappropriate
Speaker 1: in front of others. So Louie is in front of
Speaker 1: other New Yorkers. He doesn't want There's a there's a
Speaker 1: certain sense of being a city person, you know, like
Speaker 1: just us, you know, walking around Atlanta, you know not
Speaker 1: to gaze up and stare at our few skyscrapers. If
Speaker 1: we go to New York, we're conscious of the fact
Speaker 1: that we are supposed to be some sort of a
Speaker 1: city person, even in this much larger city. So we
Speaker 1: don't stare up at the skyscrapers. You're not supposed to
Speaker 1: stand around and look lost, because you'll look out of step,
Speaker 1: you'll look like an outsider, and I don't know, you'll
Speaker 1: be eaten or something. Well, but yeah by the underground cannibals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to violate the social norms and the
Speaker 1: and these and the social rules that are in place,
Speaker 1: which say when it is appropriate to do something when
Speaker 1: it is not well. And then we've talked about before
Speaker 1: too that that there's the psychological component of it, where
Speaker 1: you say someone else will deal with that. The more
Speaker 1: people that are witnessed to something, the more or the
Speaker 1: less likely that person will receive help. Because everybody's sort
Speaker 1: of saying that person will help for that personal help.
Speaker 1: Eventually that person will the homeless person will go to
Speaker 1: a shelter and receive help. Right, I mean this gets
Speaker 1: into a diffuse responsibility, which is another aspect of the
Speaker 1: bystander effect, which says, then in a situation where only
Speaker 1: a small percentage of the bystanders can take action, responsibilities diffused.
Speaker 1: So this that say a hundred people are standing by
Speaker 1: and there's a guy that it's you know, clearly he
Speaker 1: needs help. He's laying there right there on on the
Speaker 1: floor of the port authority. We can't all help him, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, we can't all go and pick him up.
Speaker 1: Only like how many people can pick up a human
Speaker 1: being at a time, how many can reasonably take him
Speaker 1: to the shelter or to a hospital. And since we
Speaker 1: can't all help him, there's this sense that that each
Speaker 1: of us has less of a responsibility for helping. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a matter of resources too, because if you were
Speaker 1: to help every single person, then would you spend your
Speaker 1: entire day and your material wealth actually helping that person?
Speaker 1: So that is an extreme proposition right there. But but
Speaker 1: you know if you were to stop and help in
Speaker 1: the high density population like New York City, because spend
Speaker 1: your entire day doing that, and some people actually do.
Speaker 1: I did want to mention bring okay, just real quick
Speaker 1: self awareness and this is just you look to see
Speaker 1: what everyone else is doing. No one else is helping
Speaker 1: this guy, so maybe I shouldn't either. Um, And then
Speaker 1: there's blocking, and this is where there's a perception that
Speaker 1: if you take action, uh, you could actually make matters
Speaker 1: worse because you're getting the way of somebody else who
Speaker 1: can actually do better with this situation. So it's like
Speaker 1: I could try and help this guy, but surely, out
Speaker 1: of all the hundreds of people walking by, someone else
Speaker 1: here is better suited, Like some one of these people
Speaker 1: is an actual care worker or they have some sort
Speaker 1: of health training. I do not. I am not the
Speaker 1: person for this job. And there are a ton of
Speaker 1: studies that corroborate this um and in fact, in in
Speaker 1: Socuality in the City, the author talks about how a
Speaker 1: meta analysis of studies dealing with pro social behavior and
Speaker 1: degrees of helping behavior found that population is greater than
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand have lower helping behaviors and lower pro
Speaker 1: social behaviors. Can you think of a specific example where
Speaker 1: you've you've found yourself wrapped up in the bystander effect?
Speaker 1: I mean, I probably, especially if you take public transportation
Speaker 1: there and dur encounters like this every day. But I
Speaker 1: know I have I can't, like I'm the top from
Speaker 1: the top of my head, I can't, But I know
Speaker 1: that there have been times before I vacillated and and
Speaker 1: have finally said, like, could you need help or you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, you kind of stand there and
Speaker 1: try to assess the situation. Yeah, the I guess the
Speaker 1: two times that come to mind that we're particularly kind
Speaker 1: of interesting for me. Once I was I was walking
Speaker 1: This was near Crag Tunnel in in Atlanta. I forgot
Speaker 1: that is a great graffiti to great graffiti free zone.
Speaker 1: And then what's the name of the of the restaurant,
Speaker 1: Historia Historia? Yeah, I was leaving there with with my
Speaker 1: wife and our friend j T. And we're walking down
Speaker 1: the street there and uh, and we were just talking
Speaker 1: about something and we pass a girl that's like passed
Speaker 1: out in the gutter there by the We're not really
Speaker 1: the gutter, but but the sort of shadowy side of
Speaker 1: the road by this restaurant. And we all three passed by.
Speaker 1: And then after we've passed by, you know, one of
Speaker 1: us pipes up and says, hey, did you guys see
Speaker 1: that back there? Should we we should do something? And
Speaker 1: then we turned back around and and the three of
Speaker 1: us sort of as a combined effort, went back and
Speaker 1: checked on her, and she popped up and ran away.
Speaker 1: But I see, isn't it interesting that one of you
Speaker 1: it took like, you know, the three of you guys
Speaker 1: were thinking about it, but it took one person to say, well, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys before yes, because before that we were all
Speaker 1: it was kind of like we were seeing what is
Speaker 1: the social norm here? Do we are? Do we as
Speaker 1: Atlanta residents, as city dwellers, as modern humans? Do we
Speaker 1: let that go? You know? Do we? Or if we?
Speaker 1: Does she know what she's doing? Maybe that's her thing,
Speaker 1: you know, And there are all these different levels at
Speaker 1: which you can sort of rationalize passing it by until
Speaker 1: you actually on the question on yourself and say, no, seriously,
Speaker 1: why did you just pass that? Yeah? I think she
Speaker 1: was just really drunk, because, you know, because that's a
Speaker 1: it's a bar there, and she she seemed fine. She
Speaker 1: was not injured or bleeding around. I know that ditch
Speaker 1: she I've done that too. You just need to rest sometimes.
Speaker 1: The only other time that it comes to mind is
Speaker 1: when I saw an unintended package or what I thought
Speaker 1: was an unattended package on Marta. And this was this
Speaker 1: wasn't like immediately after a terrorist thing, but it was
Speaker 1: still you get piped in your head. You see an
Speaker 1: unintended package, you need to tell somebody, Well, and that's
Speaker 1: our train system, right, so you don't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: mess with that. Yeah, And so there was this pack
Speaker 1: and like I spent like a whole like if it
Speaker 1: was gonna blow up, it had plenty of time to
Speaker 1: blow up with me on that train because I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and I'm like, all right, is is that nobody's
Speaker 1: And I'm like seeing nobody sitting next to it? And
Speaker 1: so I finally ring the bell and then some guy says, hey,
Speaker 1: that's my package, And I'm like, well, do why were
Speaker 1: you sending halfway across the train from it if it
Speaker 1: wasn't filled with bombs? But anyway, I'm sure everyone has
Speaker 1: at least a dozen stories of this nature. But I
Speaker 1: just thought I mentioned to come yeah, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to here um from our listeners to if they have
Speaker 1: any stark examples of this um collective efficacy. This is interesting.
Speaker 1: This is predicated on humans defending their territory by forging
Speaker 1: bonds with neighbors and and displaying an unspoken rule of
Speaker 1: order through the way that their own properties look, which
Speaker 1: is I think about this less an urban setting, but
Speaker 1: this is what the paper um Sociality and the City
Speaker 1: is applying it to But I do understand that because
Speaker 1: what they're saying, or rather the author Daniel O'Brien is
Speaker 1: saying that this is a quote. When collective efficacy is weak,
Speaker 1: undesirable behaviors like disorderly conduct and public drunkenness go unpunished
Speaker 1: and are likely to rise. Because I guess the point
Speaker 1: is is that if you turn a corner in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood begins to look like it's in disrepair and nobody
Speaker 1: necessarily cares, the idea is that you could get away
Speaker 1: with um, some illicit behavior because nobody's necessarily watching or
Speaker 1: governing this. So this is this one's kind of interesting,
Speaker 1: And then it kind of falls back on sort of
Speaker 1: ideas of of of like a Mayberry kind of situation
Speaker 1: where everyone knows everybody and everything's harmonious for that versus
Speaker 1: a city model where you don't know the person in
Speaker 1: the apartment across the hall from you, and it creates
Speaker 1: this high sense of isolation and also a less of
Speaker 1: a sense that I need to actually do what I
Speaker 1: should because I'm I'm held in a social contract with
Speaker 1: those around me. Well, the idea is that then if
Speaker 1: you're not connected to your neighbors. Then you feel anonymous
Speaker 1: and you feel like you're not as empowered. And if
Speaker 1: you're the person who is is mischief making, then you
Speaker 1: feel like you have a greater degree of freedom or
Speaker 1: power because you are anonymous and other people are taking
Speaker 1: on the same roles, so you don't have this informal
Speaker 1: governance in check. And when we talk about me berry um,
Speaker 1: this informal governance is a is a really good thing
Speaker 1: to think about. Think about gossip, think about trying to
Speaker 1: maintain one's reputation, think about being socially shunned. Think about
Speaker 1: setting on your front porch with a jug band as
Speaker 1: the sun goes down, which is actually just think about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but actually I say that jokingly as as a
Speaker 1: may ory reference, but but actually you do see theories
Speaker 1: where people say that that that is when everyone got
Speaker 1: air conditioning, that that had a huge intrimental effect on
Speaker 1: um on neighborhoods because before that you did set on
Speaker 1: the front front porch, you did sort of hang it.
Speaker 1: That was the only place during the hot summer months
Speaker 1: that you could actually feel comfortable. If you're inside, you're sweltering,
Speaker 1: and if you're out on the front porch, or within
Speaker 1: side of other front porches, people make the rounds, people
Speaker 1: say hi to each other. It's not an airtight theory necessarily,
Speaker 1: but it's but it's an interesting way of looking at things.
Speaker 1: Then we get air conditionings, so instead of setting on
Speaker 1: the front porch, we're back inside. In many cases we
Speaker 1: actually wall up that front porch and make it into
Speaker 1: a part of our our castle. Yeah, and it's interesting that,
Speaker 1: you know, even if you were um to try to
Speaker 1: organize and know as many neighbors as POSSI will and
Speaker 1: try to put an effort into this into two you know,
Speaker 1: really crowded areas, the fact of the matter is the
Speaker 1: more people that you add, the more fragmented it gets.
Speaker 1: So it's a difficult thing to organize. But um, Daniel O'Brien,
Speaker 1: the author of Sociality in the City did say, when
Speaker 1: when you look at these locustwarms, so there's a silver lining,
Speaker 1: because he says that recall that, well, not just the
Speaker 1: glimmering wings. No, no, a real silver lining. It's it's
Speaker 1: just you know, it's funny that he's pumping up like this,
Speaker 1: because I'll tell you what that silver lining is, and
Speaker 1: then you decide if it's silver lining um that while
Speaker 1: members of the swarm were inclined towards cannibalism, their marching
Speaker 1: formation was an emergent adaptation for for avoiding this threat
Speaker 1: and others. So I think what he's saying is that
Speaker 1: to some degree, we're pretty self organizing and we're going
Speaker 1: to prevent as much violence as we can. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: like you saw in the primate population, perhaps turned to
Speaker 1: scratching ourselves or whatnot to try not to express, um
Speaker 1: some of the frustration and anxiety on onto others. In
Speaker 1: In his paper, Daniel O'Brien also mentions a Stanley Milgram
Speaker 1: system overload theory which was pretty interesting, and this basically
Speaker 1: saying population density acts on adaptive psychology in a number
Speaker 1: of key ways, one of which is the bystander effect,
Speaker 1: which we've covered, but he also says that it creates
Speaker 1: an enhanced feeling of vulnerability, which which having just spent
Speaker 1: the weekend out in the middle of nowhere in the
Speaker 1: country and then return to the city, I mean, I
Speaker 1: can I can definitely vouch for that if you're surrounded
Speaker 1: by nobody and you're not superstitious or afraid of cryptid
Speaker 1: animals and bigfoot attacks, or or the stray bullet of
Speaker 1: a hunter who mistakes you for a deer. Then then
Speaker 1: you you feel pretty safe out in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: out in that splendid isolation. You move into the city
Speaker 1: and you're the city is teeming with people you don't know,
Speaker 1: people you on site don't trust, and who knows what's
Speaker 1: out there? Right, There's just so many people and you
Speaker 1: know that this percentage wise, a large proportion of them
Speaker 1: are no good. Do you think, yeah, of course, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, you know, it's like it's like in
Speaker 1: a sense there, you know, they're accountable morphs out there,
Speaker 1: just show you that they're they're a cannibalistic crickets out there.
Speaker 1: Not maybe not they're not actually going to eat you,
Speaker 1: but they will definitely take from you. And I'm not
Speaker 1: just saying, oh, they're gonna still my law on its
Speaker 1: but but you know that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: forces out there that if you come into contact with them, um,
Speaker 1: it could have a negative effect on you. That being said,
Speaker 1: that feeling also plays into this whole loss of connection
Speaker 1: with neighborhood. We just trust everyone, and therefore we're less
Speaker 1: likely to forge these these neighborhood bonds that can actually
Speaker 1: have a beneficial effect on our society, which and this
Speaker 1: is something I encounter as a as a homeowner in
Speaker 1: in the Atlanta you know, it's like you, and as
Speaker 1: also being the kind of person who's not the most
Speaker 1: social animal on the planet, I find myself thinking, Oh,
Speaker 1: I should I should go meet that new neighbor, you know,
Speaker 1: that would be the nice thing to do. But then
Speaker 1: I should bring a pie to that. I should bring
Speaker 1: a pie to them and tell them about the neighborhood
Speaker 1: association and tell them about the dude I know it
Speaker 1: was down the street. But then I don't because that's
Speaker 1: talking to a new person, and that's that person could
Speaker 1: be all sorts of the stripes of nuttiness. Well, no,
Speaker 1: it's not so much that it's just like talking to
Speaker 1: a new person that's stressful. They could just be normal,
Speaker 1: and that's stressful enough for someone like me. Okay, all
Speaker 1: right now I'm thinking about all of this. I'm just
Speaker 1: taking it in because I take the opposite tact where
Speaker 1: if I'm out in the middle of nowhere, then I'm
Speaker 1: more frightened than when I'm surrounded by people. I feel
Speaker 1: more comforted by being around people. Well, well, of course,
Speaker 1: real quick, I should also point out that high levels
Speaker 1: of distrust and avoidance of strangers, that's also part of
Speaker 1: the system overload theory. But to your point, feelings of
Speaker 1: distrust in the in the country versus the city, Like
Speaker 1: I said, in our fiction, we see just as many
Speaker 1: cannibalistic hillbowy families as we see cannibalistic livers and dwellers
Speaker 1: in the subway. And I have to say that, um,
Speaker 1: looking at times that I have walked up to a
Speaker 1: stranger's door or pulled into a stranger's driveway while lost,
Speaker 1: only once have I had a gun pulled on me.
Speaker 1: And it was up in the mountains of only once,
Speaker 1: and it was like the mountains of Kennasa or someone.
Speaker 1: I'm not as good about the geography of the vast
Speaker 1: hills surrounding Atlanta. But we were up there for a
Speaker 1: wedding or something, and um, no, not worth something. It
Speaker 1: was a wedding, Uh should I helped my wife shoot
Speaker 1: a wedding for a friend. We attended it, and then
Speaker 1: afterwards we were trying to find a bed and breakfast
Speaker 1: that we had arranged to stay out and we're trying
Speaker 1: to use GPS out there and it can't get a
Speaker 1: signal where we're According to it, we're driving on imaginary
Speaker 1: roads to nowhere. And then since we were, because we
Speaker 1: ended up pulling, like going down this really steep gravel
Speaker 1: driveway and some dude like walks out on his front
Speaker 1: porch and he's just astounded that we're on this driveway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for twenty years and no one has shown up, and
Speaker 1: here you guys are. And so I'm busy trying to
Speaker 1: get the car to go back up the gravel road
Speaker 1: because it's not really going and I'm having to carefully
Speaker 1: figure out how traction works on the steep grade. And
Speaker 1: meanwhile my and my wife sees this and she doesn't
Speaker 1: tell me till till afterwards, but the guy had had
Speaker 1: grabbed a shotgun. She's like, you know, just let you
Speaker 1: focus on just trying to get the car out of there.
Speaker 1: I understand that. So so yeah, just from my own
Speaker 1: personal experience, you know, knock on wood, but that's the
Speaker 1: that's the only time that I've had a gun pulled
Speaker 1: on me when I was lost and just needed some direction,
Speaker 1: and that was in the country. So which makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if you can still have an isolationist mentality among
Speaker 1: a great number of people. Yeah, because that's what we
Speaker 1: see a lot a lot of times politically. So that's
Speaker 1: just a sort of fought experiment. Let's revisit really quickly
Speaker 1: because we have some thoughts about this. We we've talked
Speaker 1: about the population increase, the explosion. I wanted to also
Speaker 1: mention something called the youth bulge according to Kenneth Wise,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a band, but it's u it does.
Speaker 1: It sounds one that you could kind of snicker a
Speaker 1: little bit at the title, but it is not. According
Speaker 1: to Kenneth Wise, of the l a times of the
Speaker 1: two billion or more people who will be added to
Speaker 1: the planet by nine, seven percent of the two billion
Speaker 1: are expected to be born in Africa, Asia and Latin America. UM,
Speaker 1: he says, led by the poor, smoot, volatile countries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is worth pointing out to and this is
Speaker 1: from the same article. All right, So in many developing countries,
Speaker 1: runaway population growth creates hoards of restless young men, and
Speaker 1: in about eight percent of the world civil conflicts since
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies UM. They have occurred in countries with young,
Speaker 1: fast growing populations. Again, the youth bulges and that's according
Speaker 1: the Population Action International nonprofit. So even if you look
Speaker 1: back before nineteen seventy, a youth boom contributed the rise
Speaker 1: in the Nazis in the nineteen thirties Germany and to
Speaker 1: Japan's military ambitions in the Pacific uh and even more
Speaker 1: recently you look just you also look to stuff like
Speaker 1: Tianamen Square UM protests in China. You see UM, you
Speaker 1: see young activists UM. And also in the US, look
Speaker 1: at the nineteen sixties, look at the seventies, look at
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Occupy Wall Street movement. You're seeing large
Speaker 1: numbers of young people engaged in these these activities. Yea,
Speaker 1: And I wanted to point out to that. You know,
Speaker 1: there are certain parts of which will stabilize in population. China,
Speaker 1: for example, right now it has like fifty of the
Speaker 1: world's population. By fifty they will add only one percent more.
Speaker 1: So really you are seeing the greater growth in Africa,
Speaker 1: Asia and Latin America. And Whist does talk about Afghanistan
Speaker 1: in his article as an example of this. He says
Speaker 1: that since the US lead Envision in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: the population has swelled from twenty three million to thirty
Speaker 1: three million, and that nearly three fourths of Afghans are
Speaker 1: under the age of thirty, the median age of sixteen
Speaker 1: compared to thirty seven in the United States. So he's
Speaker 1: saying this is a real problem because if you have
Speaker 1: a sluggish, a grarian economy like they do, and you
Speaker 1: have men, young men who can't find legitimate employment, and UM,
Speaker 1: you also have young men who want to get married
Speaker 1: but they require a dowry, then they're going to go
Speaker 1: probably toward um illicit activities or towards the Taliban to
Speaker 1: get some source of money or food to sustain themselves.
Speaker 1: So they're saying like, even if they're not too interested
Speaker 1: in the Taliban's politics or agenda, then they're probably gonna
Speaker 1: go toward that route anyway because they don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of options to choose from. The other huge problem
Speaker 1: here is that UM, and again Afghanistan as the model here,
Speaker 1: women truly are considered second class citizens and they don't
Speaker 1: have many rights, and they don't have access to birth control.
Speaker 1: And you will see time and time again that UH,
Speaker 1: young girls who are educated who have access to birth
Speaker 1: control will delay marriage, they will delay having children, and
Speaker 1: will have less of them. UM. And you know, I
Speaker 1: bring this up only because when when you're in that
Speaker 1: situation Afghanistan in the average amount of children a female
Speaker 1: has is seven seven babies. That's that's astounding, UM for
Speaker 1: the lack of resources available to those children. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's there is there's a comparison to be made there.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could think of these uh, these angry
Speaker 1: young men is larval salamanders in a pool of it's
Speaker 1: it's quickly filling up that whether resources are not optimal
Speaker 1: and what are they going to do to deal with
Speaker 1: that situation. So we've talked about this this problem before
Speaker 1: and it's not just a question and and solution of
Speaker 1: urban design that certainly helps UM and rethinking agriculture to
Speaker 1: meet our needs that helps too, but it really is like,
Speaker 1: what is this lookli and how can you help people
Speaker 1: best um, particularly this youth bulge, And how can you
Speaker 1: help society not just a self governed but to organize
Speaker 1: itself to to really accommodate all the very his problems
Speaker 1: that could arise. So there you go. If you live
Speaker 1: in the city, I hope you'll think about all of
Speaker 1: this as you walk the streets today or tomorrow. And uh,
Speaker 1: information looking behind information, running from the cannibal behind you
Speaker 1: and chasing after that tasty looking stranger in front of you.
Speaker 1: And if you live in the in the country, I
Speaker 1: I you know, think about all these things when you
Speaker 1: plan your next trip to the city or Robert shows up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to protect that mental app I guess. But
Speaker 1: that's the only thing I could figure it is, like, dude, dude,
Speaker 1: is that crazy about someone showing up? You must have
Speaker 1: something to hide or captives in the in the cellar
Speaker 1: that I almost that I almost joined. UM, So let's
Speaker 1: call over the robit uh and get a few listener
Speaker 1: mails from him. And while he's doing that, I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention that we had uh an email from Linda
Speaker 1: and she wrote into correct me about the f m
Speaker 1: l A Act, and I'm very glad that she did. Um.
Speaker 1: I had stated that this is the yeah, this is
Speaker 1: from the milk episode. I've stated that women get six
Speaker 1: weeks of unpaid leave office in fact, twelve weeks. UM,
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that she pointed that out. And when
Speaker 1: we talk about fm l A, we're talking about the
Speaker 1: Family Medical Leave Act and that's not just for for children,
Speaker 1: but also for taking care of other members of your family,
Speaker 1: and it is available to people who have worked at
Speaker 1: their job for a year and two companies they have
Speaker 1: to uh, they have to actually offer it if they
Speaker 1: have more than fifty employees. Okay, there we go. Cool.
Speaker 1: And I should also note uh that I corrected this
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Twitter, but for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't follow those, I also in the milk episode, uh,
Speaker 1: and without thinking, I mentioned Romulus and Remus, and I
Speaker 1: think I either said or implied that they breastfed from
Speaker 1: a cow, and of course they breastfed from a she
Speaker 1: wolf in the Roman mythology. So my apat a duies
Speaker 1: to Romulus, my apologies to Remus, and of course my
Speaker 1: apologies to the sheet will Well, and I like how
Speaker 1: you call the Rami and Remi and Remi. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that was those for their kids names. They're embarrassed when
Speaker 1: you call them that now, but at the time. So hey,
Speaker 1: let's let's read a couple of these mails. These are
Speaker 1: some quick ones. Uh. We we get more mail than
Speaker 1: we have space to to read on on air these days,
Speaker 1: but and certainly this is a longer episode, so I'll
Speaker 1: just read a couple of short ones, uh Andy writes,
Speaker 1: and this is dear Julian, Robert just wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for putting out your science podcast. I really love
Speaker 1: that you add a lot of philosophical ruminations to the
Speaker 1: information you impart It's a great extra element that keeps
Speaker 1: me coming back for more. Thanks again, sincerely, Andy. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. That's one of the things we
Speaker 1: love about it is UH. It's not only talking about
Speaker 1: these these very scientific topics or even kind of out
Speaker 1: there topics, but ultimately bringing it all back to the
Speaker 1: human condition and in our perception of the cosmos, in
Speaker 1: our place in it, and how does it potentially shift
Speaker 1: or outright change that proposition. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: feedback that we it from you guys really helps to
Speaker 1: feel that as well. We've gotten some incredible thoughts from
Speaker 1: you all. All right, and here's one from Jerich Jerk
Speaker 1: writes in UH in response to our Seven Deadly Sins series,
Speaker 1: which which was a real popular one with with you guys.
Speaker 1: Send gals, He writes in and says, Hi, Robert and Julie,
Speaker 1: I'm a new listener to the show, and I just
Speaker 1: finished listening to the Seven Deadly Sin series. I was
Speaker 1: wondering if anyone brought up the correlation between the seven
Speaker 1: deadly sins and many of America's major holidays. The thought
Speaker 1: first hit me several years ago after I had just
Speaker 1: stuffed myself with turkey on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for gluttony, eat two,
Speaker 1: you can't move and take a nap, Valenstein's Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: for lust, a whole day dedicated to luthern Wace, Labor
Speaker 1: Day for sloth, have a day off you deserve it.
Speaker 1: Christmas for greed, presence presence, Fourth of July for wrath,
Speaker 1: celebrate your country's independence by blowing up a small portion
Speaker 1: of it um and Veterans Day for pride. I don't
Speaker 1: have any commentary for this one yet. I don't have
Speaker 1: a holiday for envy, but I would love to hear
Speaker 1: if you have an idea for for one. I also
Speaker 1: realized that you may need need a somewhat cynical point
Speaker 1: of view for the holidays, but I submit that a
Speaker 1: decent argument could be made for each of the sins.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed your podcast. Please keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: Jarek Um. Yeah, all those comparisons I think are pretty apt.
Speaker 1: But indeed, is there one for envy? This could be
Speaker 1: for envy as well. Could do you do Old Judy
Speaker 1: in the Yeah, I mean indeed, because you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about the interconnectedness of some of these and indeed,
Speaker 1: coming down to at heart, it's about grasping for something
Speaker 1: that you don't have on a certain level, So you
Speaker 1: could you could see Christmas is that you're you're grasping
Speaker 1: for something. You you see things you want and you
Speaker 1: desire them, So you could make an argument there, I
Speaker 1: think more so than you could for like say Patty's Day,
Speaker 1: which is probably just another that's that's cluttony as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah um oh. And then Jarek also adds while writing this,
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Way of the Sword podcast
Speaker 1: and feel it should be noted that watching a real
Speaker 1: sword fight is not nearly as entertaining as watching the
Speaker 1: movie fights. I have fence for several years in college,
Speaker 1: and when friends and family would come to watch competitions,
Speaker 1: most would get bored before too long. While the added
Speaker 1: blood effects of a real fight would be exciting, I
Speaker 1: doubt it would be overly enjoyable to witness an extremely
Speaker 1: painful death. So that's interesting that he brings that up,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think I thinking to sword fights
Speaker 1: that have been most entertaining in in films like that.
Speaker 1: I guess that you have to you have to walk
Speaker 1: that line between believability and enjoyability. I'm just imagining now
Speaker 1: that that fencers should start to smuggle in blood capsules
Speaker 1: right and employ them at the right moment. I really
Speaker 1: feel like you guys would get huge sponsorship dollars if
Speaker 1: you did this, or if they incorporated more of the
Speaker 1: the old swash buffling, like you know, you run up
Speaker 1: a chair and then you sort of like tip forward
Speaker 1: with it. Things like that roll over the back of
Speaker 1: the table, so more. If they just held Olympic fencing
Speaker 1: events in side crowded pubs, that might that might help.
Speaker 1: Although somehow I just doesn't seem like the right fit,
Speaker 1: does it. Fencing I think is always going to be
Speaker 1: just sort of a white glove thing and beautiful and
Speaker 1: and a wonderful art. But blood capsules, pubs, crazy costumes,
Speaker 1: you know, paint those suits up. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, this is me talking. I've yeah, I tend
Speaker 1: to gravitate towards the gravitate towards the professional wrestling because
Speaker 1: I find that it is, uh, it is just fake enough, um,
Speaker 1: whereas I find real fighting is either boring or disturbing.
Speaker 1: But if you if it's if it's fake enough, it's
Speaker 1: theatrical enough that I can get behind it. And I
Speaker 1: guess I'm kind of the same way with sword fights.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see a clinical exhibition of someone's
Speaker 1: fencing prowess, but I also don't want to see a
Speaker 1: like a plotless just you know, flashing images of laser
Speaker 1: swords hitting each other and needs to tell a story.
Speaker 1: So what you guys are hearing, I think are the
Speaker 1: seeds of a science of wrestling podcasts to come to see. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I've rambled enough, uh and now once you're turning to ramble,
Speaker 1: So if you have something you would like to share
Speaker 1: with us, If you have some interesting notes of by
Speaker 1: standard effect in your life, um, if you have thoughts
Speaker 1: about cannibal morphs and uh and and just anything regarding
Speaker 1: h uh stuff that we've talked about in this episode
Speaker 1: or other episodes, let us know about it. You can
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