Speaker 1: M Hi there, it's me Josh and for s Y
Speaker 1: s K Selects. This week, I've chosen what was the
Speaker 1: Most Peaceful Time in History? Which originally came out in
Speaker 1: March two thousand. Um, there's a big discussion about Stephen
Speaker 1: Pinker and uh, if this kind of thing floats your boat,
Speaker 1: check out Reality Denial. Stephen Pinker's Apologetics for Western imperial Violence,
Speaker 1: which was a Public Intellectuals Project article, makes kind of
Speaker 1: a good companion piece to this episode at any rate.
Speaker 1: Enjoy it's a good one. Welcome to Stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hi, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: We're being very professional and this is stuff should are.
Speaker 1: This is decided, you know all we're saying, Josh, let's
Speaker 1: get a piece of chance, who says me? And John
Speaker 1: Lennon and you know the follow up I think that
Speaker 1: that line was if it doesn't work out, kill someone.
Speaker 1: But then he Yoko said you should take that part out.
Speaker 1: Thank God for Yoko. Yeah, that's what I always say. Um, well,
Speaker 1: I think that was a nice little intro. Chuck just
Speaker 1: made it up close off the cuff clearly on the fly.
Speaker 1: Um have you ever heard of the group vision of Humanity?
Speaker 1: I have. I wonder where groups like this get their
Speaker 1: cash because this is kind of um. I mean, they
Speaker 1: make a social statement, but how are they? Are they
Speaker 1: selling ads on their annual report? What's going on here?
Speaker 1: I don't know? They may be an NGO, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they are. I think it's valuable research.
Speaker 1: I agree because it brings into focus, like, you know,
Speaker 1: what we're going towards. What I should say. What they
Speaker 1: do is they they use in twenty three different indicators
Speaker 1: and uh crunch some numbers from all over the world
Speaker 1: to determine what is the most peaceful countries on Earth?
Speaker 1: And it's fairly predictable. The top and the bottom. What
Speaker 1: were you surprised by? Did you like at two thousand twelves? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll go ahead and go over the top and bottom
Speaker 1: ten and then we'll talk about surprises, because that sound
Speaker 1: it sounds delicious. The number one most peaceful country was Iceland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you got Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Austria, Oireland, Slovenia,
Speaker 1: Finland and Switzerland are the top ten most peaceful countries.
Speaker 1: I could have guessed all those. Maybe not Austria. Oh yeah, yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: there's like super chill, very peaceful people. Got anything in
Speaker 1: Western Europe basically is very peaceful these days. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean Western Europe typically is very peaceful. By it's the
Speaker 1: most peaceful region according to this list in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just a little out of okay, I feel
Speaker 1: like that Iranic surprised by one. Okay, so I picked Austria,
Speaker 1: all right. I was surprised by Oh, I'll go with Slovenia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know much about Slovenia. That's why I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: So the worst is Somalia, and then Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq,
Speaker 1: Republic of Congo. Here's where I was surprised. Russia, I
Speaker 1: was too. Russia is just slightly better than Congo as
Speaker 1: far as peaceful countries go. Yeah, and slightly worse than
Speaker 1: North Korea, and then the Central African Republic and then
Speaker 1: Israel and in Pakistan is the tenth worst. And I
Speaker 1: was also surprised by Israel. And then once I thought
Speaker 1: about I was like, man, that really stinks. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was surprised by Russia. Yeah I was too, And um,
Speaker 1: this one tends to fluctuate a little bit more depending
Speaker 1: on these little civil wars that crop up in some
Speaker 1: of these countries. Because like a place like Syria had
Speaker 1: the biggest fall, they fell thirty places in a year,
Speaker 1: and then Sri Lanka rose thirty places because their civil
Speaker 1: war ended. So oh yeah, man, if you want to
Speaker 1: like change big time in this rating, start or finish
Speaker 1: a civil war, that's thirty points right there one way
Speaker 1: or the other. Um. So yeah, I think the United
Speaker 1: States tends to rank pretty much somewhere in the middle,
Speaker 1: usually about the eighties. Yeah. Um, and the UK was
Speaker 1: twenty nine. Just you know, that's another notable that is
Speaker 1: very notable country or region. Uh. And you could probably
Speaker 1: guess one of the things that one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why the UK is higher than the United States is
Speaker 1: because I think one of the indicators has to do
Speaker 1: with access to guns a k. A. Ease of access
Speaker 1: to weapons of minor destruction. Yeah, the UK's access against
Speaker 1: is far more restricted. Um number of jailed inmates for
Speaker 1: one thousand people. Uh. Military capability, Hey, US has got
Speaker 1: that in aces. Yeah, well so does England though Uh
Speaker 1: potential for terrorists acts. Yeah, I take that to mean
Speaker 1: like maybe being a target for it. Uh, that's what
Speaker 1: I took it as yea. And then some of the
Speaker 1: other indicators they use our number of homicides per one
Speaker 1: thousand people, um, how you get along with your neighbors
Speaker 1: country wise, um, number of deaths from organized conflict, respect
Speaker 1: for human rights, and number of heavy weapons so not
Speaker 1: just guns and things, but scud missiles and like bunker busters.
Speaker 1: That's the Global Peace Index. And again it's Vision of
Speaker 1: Humanity and NGOs UM annual data that they crunched together,
Speaker 1: which is pretty sweet, and that was there's just like
Speaker 1: a little cheat sheet that we were working off of,
Speaker 1: but there's a whole publication that really goes into depth
Speaker 1: if you're interested. And they pretty much have a lock
Speaker 1: on what the most peaceful country in the world is,
Speaker 1: But the question still remains, what is the most peaceful
Speaker 1: time in history? A lot of people ask that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's been several candidates. Um. Probably the most readily
Speaker 1: identified as the packs Romana, which means the Roman Peace.
Speaker 1: This gets a lot of press, at least um thanks
Speaker 1: to a seven I'm sorry. An eighteenth century historian named
Speaker 1: Edward Gibbon, who wrote the History of the Decline and
Speaker 1: Fall of the Roman Empire pretty light reading um and
Speaker 1: given was the first to really say, hey, there's this
Speaker 1: thing called the Pax romana, or is the first one
Speaker 1: to popularly right about it and actually try to date
Speaker 1: this period. It was about a hundred and fifty years
Speaker 1: and it started. Um was it a hundred and eighty years?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, yeah, well they rounded up to two hundred Yeah,
Speaker 1: two hundred years things. Man, he puts it at twenty
Speaker 1: seven BC, is beginning when Octavian, who was gayest Julius
Speaker 1: Caesar Augustus, the great nephew of the stabbed one Julius Caesar,
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know what, I'm in office now,
Speaker 1: and I'll know what all we've always done is just conquered, conquered, conquered,
Speaker 1: conquer and spread the empire. We got enough junk. Now
Speaker 1: can we work on our what we have and just
Speaker 1: like quit conquering and work on our infrastructure and just
Speaker 1: being more peaceful and getting along within our own uh
Speaker 1: land bounds right, making our people happy. We've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of people, let's start focusing on them. And it
Speaker 1: actually had a really big impact. The popular rebellions dropped
Speaker 1: off pretty quickly in the Roman Empire. No, they point out,
Speaker 1: but they I get the impression that they were a
Speaker 1: lot more frequent and widespread than they were during the
Speaker 1: pax Row model. Um. There there's these things called the
Speaker 1: Gates of Janice, and they were built by the second
Speaker 1: Emperor of Rome. I can't remember his name. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: looked it up to I can't remember he. Uh. He
Speaker 1: built these things and left them open, and while they
Speaker 1: were open, somebody noticed like Rome was at peace, and
Speaker 1: then another emperor later on closed them and Rome was
Speaker 1: at war, and these gates would stay open or closed
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years at a stretch, mostly open for
Speaker 1: hundreds of years at a stretch, because they were always
Speaker 1: at war. Yeah, and they became the symbolic, um, I guess,
Speaker 1: kind of indicator of how Rome was doing right then
Speaker 1: as far as war and peace went. And so during
Speaker 1: the pet Romana, the Gates of Janis were ceremonially closed
Speaker 1: and stayed closed for a couple hundred years, which is
Speaker 1: a big deal. It was opposite of how I thought
Speaker 1: it would be. I thought you would close them during
Speaker 1: times of war, But um I I couldn't get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of it. Was definitely symbolic. But is it
Speaker 1: symbolic of Rome had troops out there that they needed
Speaker 1: to leave the gates open for or if the gates
Speaker 1: for closed. Rome was focusing inward rather than outward. See,
Speaker 1: you thought more much more about it. I just thought,
Speaker 1: if you're a war man, you better close the gates.
Speaker 1: You guys could come in. Um. There was also something
Speaker 1: called the Aura Passus, the Altar of peace, that was
Speaker 1: built during this time as well. And then the whole
Speaker 1: thing came to an end thanks to a guy named Commodus. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was more into conquering. Yeah. He was Marcus Aurelius's son,
Speaker 1: and Marcus Aurelius was a really great general, we should say. Um,
Speaker 1: during this time, during the Pax Romana, like you said,
Speaker 1: there were still some popular rebellions. Um. There was one
Speaker 1: in Hispania which is now modern day Spain. In Portugal. Um,
Speaker 1: there was there's a border between the Roman Empire and
Speaker 1: Germania which is modern day Germania. Um. And then also
Speaker 1: during the Pax Romana, Rome invaded England and subjugated it.
Speaker 1: So depending on who you were, the Pax Romana could
Speaker 1: have been very violent. You may have come to a
Speaker 1: violent and but if you're if you look at the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire as a whole, this was a very peaceful time.
Speaker 1: And Rome was pretty much running the world at the time.
Speaker 1: So this you could say was the most peaceful time
Speaker 1: in world history, I think, compared to how Rome usually was.
Speaker 1: It was pretty peaceful. Yeah, but it wasn't all like
Speaker 1: you said, daisies and uh honey bees. Did you know,
Speaker 1: I had no idea where I was going? Um? Did
Speaker 1: you know you know a vomitorium? Yeah, that's it's it's
Speaker 1: a popular misconception, really not true. No, Um, Romans actually
Speaker 1: didn't really use feathers to vomit up their meals. Vomitorium
Speaker 1: was like a place of ingress and egress into um,
Speaker 1: like a form or colosseum or something like that. It's
Speaker 1: basically the place where everybody walked in. They called it
Speaker 1: the vomitorium. So all those stories about eating to excess,
Speaker 1: bening and purging are not true as far as I know.
Speaker 1: The purging part is a misconception. Interesting. Yeah, they definitely
Speaker 1: went to excess, especially followers of Bacchus. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: can you believe that, like could you imagine, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna eat so much like lamb and beef and drink
Speaker 1: mead until I can't move, and then I'll throw it
Speaker 1: all up and I'll do it all over again, and
Speaker 1: then will honor the God that I follow, which and
Speaker 1: why I follow this sex with like eighteen people at
Speaker 1: once ancient Roman, that place was a party. Rodney McDowell,
Speaker 1: huh yeah. And Helen Mirren young was she? And that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was in it and naked crazy quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I never saw it, Caligula, it's really not very good.
Speaker 1: It's well, it's just long and dull, and you expect
Speaker 1: way more than you get. As far as when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, Colia was like the dirtiest thing ever,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And then you watch it now you're like, God,
Speaker 1: what a bore that clash of the Titans without the
Speaker 1: good fighting without pants? Yeah, um, you jaded, bright uncle Agula. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am all right. So that is the pats Romana.
Speaker 1: We we put it up for consideration and we're striking
Speaker 1: it down. The sound of it being stricken down up next,
Speaker 1: we have a time that you might not think was
Speaker 1: the most peaceful, and that was the time of Genghis Khan.
Speaker 1: What Genghis Khan who we have talked about murdering what
Speaker 1: like a million people? One point eight million people? We
Speaker 1: put that one to rest. Yes we did, um, but
Speaker 1: he did. We should probably go over it real quick.
Speaker 1: The reason he was he was known for killing one
Speaker 1: point eight million people in an hour is because in
Speaker 1: just one particular city, Nishapur, he had his people sack
Speaker 1: it and then he went in and said, cut everyone's
Speaker 1: head off and stack it into a giant pyram. And
Speaker 1: everybody's man, woman, child, baby, dog, You got your head
Speaker 1: cut off and stacked. That was jengas CON's orders. Jingis,
Speaker 1: that's how you say it. Okay, I saw the thing
Speaker 1: that fern bank. They kept saying jengas Con. So that's
Speaker 1: how I'm saying it, not Janis, No, okay, Jengis. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with Gingis Khan, Gingi Kahan ging Juice. Alright.
Speaker 1: So um, sure there was a lot of conquering of
Speaker 1: people's when you were bringing together the Mongol hordes. You
Speaker 1: gotta do some killing. But apparently once all the killing
Speaker 1: was accomplished, or not all of it, but enough of it,
Speaker 1: he was like, you know what, I think now we
Speaker 1: really need to like take care of folks. Yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of like protect people, kind of like when who started
Speaker 1: the Pax Romana, Uh, the Great Nephew, Yeah Octavia's Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it was. It was very much like, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: under our control now, which means you're now protected by
Speaker 1: our laws, which was good for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially the Mongol hordes that he uh he basically brought
Speaker 1: under his um his kingdom, I guess King Chip whatever um.
Speaker 1: And some of the some of the innovations that Jengis
Speaker 1: Khan came up with where things like freedom of religion,
Speaker 1: what yeah, women's rights. Um. He devised a postal system,
Speaker 1: not the first, but he divides the postal system yeah,
Speaker 1: sort of like the pony express that we talked about.
Speaker 1: They had stations and horses and they would go from
Speaker 1: station to station delivering mail. And if you listen to
Speaker 1: the Postal Service episode, you know that that is something
Speaker 1: that is intended to create culture and spread information, share
Speaker 1: information easily. Um. Kubla Khan two hundred years after Jengis
Speaker 1: Khan uh he established a system of printing presses. Two
Speaker 1: hundred years before Guttenberg sublicon it's uh, it's pronounced um. There.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of really great innovations as
Speaker 1: far as like promoting individual and human rights um. And
Speaker 1: they protected these things using really really strict punishment, so
Speaker 1: much so that there's a very old legend that a
Speaker 1: woman are saying that a woman could walk from one
Speaker 1: end of the Mongol Empire to the other about a
Speaker 1: million square miles, holding a sack of gold, and be
Speaker 1: just completely left alone. That's awesome, it is because there
Speaker 1: was a lot of you were you were going to
Speaker 1: be punished pretty severely, but a lot of people would
Speaker 1: point out, uh, if the state doles out capital punishment
Speaker 1: or physical punishment pretty easy, pretty strictly. And can you
Speaker 1: say that's very peaceful? Yeah? And can you say it's
Speaker 1: peaceful even though like millions of people potentially were killed
Speaker 1: in order to establish that that huge area of land,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I guess afterwards maybe, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna say no on Gingis con So, no to the
Speaker 1: pox Romana, No to Jengis Khan's Mongol Empire founded around
Speaker 1: a d win. Then Chuck, I'm gonna put up a
Speaker 1: boat along with our buddy Stephen Pinker that says right now,
Speaker 1: my friend, are the most peaceful times in world history? Man,
Speaker 1: that is crazy, chuck his think about it. During the
Speaker 1: twentieth century we had two World wars, countless civil wars. Um,
Speaker 1: We've had genocides, terrorism, We've had a lot of um,
Speaker 1: lynch ings, lots of lots of death like violence, like
Speaker 1: how can you call it homicide? Patricide? Matricide, brother and
Speaker 1: sister side. That's a phil phil side, is it? I think? So? Okay? Um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's a lot of killing going on. But
Speaker 1: evolutionary psychologist Stephen Finker, who I think we talked about before,
Speaker 1: haven't we. It's not really familiar. Yeah, we have, Uh,
Speaker 1: we talked about him in Um Emotion and Art. He
Speaker 1: said that music is auditory cheesecake. That's right. Um, he said.
Speaker 1: You know what, things seem violent now for several reasons.
Speaker 1: One reason is because of media coverage and you hear
Speaker 1: about everything and you're inundated with it. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: you know, if you watch the evening news, it's violence
Speaker 1: upon violence upon violence. He says. If you go to
Speaker 1: the hunter gatherer days where you think they're all this
Speaker 1: out hunting and gathering of the men died at the
Speaker 1: hands of violence compared to two of men today dying
Speaker 1: at the hands of violence during the twentieth century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a lot more people, a lot more dudes,
Speaker 1: of course, so take that into account. But compared to
Speaker 1: like the Middle Ages and in times like that, much
Speaker 1: much more peaceful and less violent today. He makes the
Speaker 1: point that Hobbs Thomas Hobbs, not Calvin Hobbs, which is
Speaker 1: what I always want to say. Um. He that he
Speaker 1: was correct and his whole idea that life was brooty, brutish,
Speaker 1: nasty and short before government. Um. And that he points
Speaker 1: to a times of like anarchy or a failed state
Speaker 1: like in Guinea Bissau or Somalia where you have huge
Speaker 1: escalations of violence. And he said the rise of the
Speaker 1: state and the state monopoly on violence, which means like
Speaker 1: the states is the only one that can execute somebody. Um.
Speaker 1: Has created this way for people to to get redressed
Speaker 1: for wrongs against them, go to court and the government
Speaker 1: does it for you. You don't have to go kill
Speaker 1: that man and then he doesn't come kill your family,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah and back and forth. UM. So
Speaker 1: that was one thing, one reason, um, why we've gotten
Speaker 1: more peaceful. Uh yeah, he he thinks technology, UM, which
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense, has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with it because we are connected now like we never
Speaker 1: have been in world history, and connected to other countries.
Speaker 1: And and I think people and this is me talking,
Speaker 1: I think people fear what they don't understand. And there
Speaker 1: is a better understanding now than there ever has been,
Speaker 1: so there's not as much fear, and people oftentimes react
Speaker 1: from fear with violence. Yeah. And what a guy named
Speaker 1: Peter Singer came up with is called the expanding circle.
Speaker 1: It was It initially started with UM, you know, our
Speaker 1: your family, and then clans, tribes, whatever. And as we
Speaker 1: got bigger and bigger, and societies got bigger and bigger. Uh,
Speaker 1: this circle of who was okay in our book UM
Speaker 1: expanded more and more until it was like one culture
Speaker 1: warring with one culture. But then as we came to
Speaker 1: understand other cultures a little better, that circle got bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger, until now not only does it include UM
Speaker 1: basically all humans, but other species of animals as well.
Speaker 1: Like they're okay, maybe we shouldn't kill maybe we shouldn't
Speaker 1: eat octopi, you know, because they're intelligent and we know
Speaker 1: they're intelligent because we understand them a little more. We've
Speaker 1: we've gotten closer to them, we've been hugged by them.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. And he goes on Pink or
Speaker 1: Dust to talk about healthcare. It's sort of along the
Speaker 1: same lines. Not only can are we better at saving people,
Speaker 1: but it also has given us more value about saving people,
Speaker 1: And just the notion of saving human lives through medicine
Speaker 1: has increased or decreased violence. That one kind of like
Speaker 1: didn't quite click with me. It seems like super for me.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna die at thirty or thirty five, that
Speaker 1: would make life even with no chance of reviving you.
Speaker 1: If like you, like fell in a puddle, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: that would make life more valuable in that sense. Whereas like,
Speaker 1: if people are walking around like well, a doctor could
Speaker 1: probably fix them. If I hit him over the have
Speaker 1: with this lead pipe, it might make people a little
Speaker 1: more prone to use the lead pipe on somebody. I
Speaker 1: don't know that lead pipe eaters think about that stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: but think about this, like, let's say we got to
Speaker 1: the point where you had a chance being fully revived
Speaker 1: and restored within a couple of days after being shot.
Speaker 1: That medicine advances to that point, I'd be shooting people
Speaker 1: all over the place exactly. So that's my point, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like it seems like that seems
Speaker 1: counterintuitive to me, and I've been trying to wrap my
Speaker 1: mind around it. And I'm also really worried that I've
Speaker 1: just given my myself aways like a complete sociopath somehow
Speaker 1: by not understanding that you know now that one didn't
Speaker 1: hit his home as much with me either. I also
Speaker 1: want to say too, with the government monopoly on violence, um, yes,
Speaker 1: the government used to have a monopoly on violence in
Speaker 1: other ages as well, but that wasn't um, that didn't
Speaker 1: have the companion of protecting individual and human rights like
Speaker 1: we have today to where it's not just like yeah,
Speaker 1: kill him for you know, next to nothing. Like Pinker
Speaker 1: points out that during the Middle Ages when m violence
Speaker 1: peaked and by his estimation, um, like you stuff that
Speaker 1: we would a government would find someone for. Today you
Speaker 1: would be killed for. Yeah, that's good, right. Uh. He
Speaker 1: also makes some good points about things like the United Nations,
Speaker 1: like the cooperation between countries these days is unparalleled, the
Speaker 1: EU um sharing responsibility for international conflicts, like teaming up
Speaker 1: with other countries to go you know, peace keep I guess,
Speaker 1: or conquered, depending on which way you want to look
Speaker 1: at it. Um common currency, I guess it was a
Speaker 1: lot more violent back in the day when you had
Speaker 1: everyone trading different things. Common currency would sort of bind
Speaker 1: people together. Yeah, at the very least. Different currencies maybe
Speaker 1: promote a sense of otherness too, you know, yeah, in
Speaker 1: group out group stuff. I take an anthropology class once.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've talked about it before. The
Speaker 1: first one I ever took great class, and the the
Speaker 1: um instructor challenged the class to go a full day
Speaker 1: without using any in group or outgroup language like us
Speaker 1: them we they Wow, I bet that stuff. It's impossible.
Speaker 1: You can't do it, But just paying attention to it,
Speaker 1: trying just for a day really kind of brings out
Speaker 1: how much you see other people in other groups. Is
Speaker 1: different in other and and that's not necessarily a good thing. No,
Speaker 1: I would I would like to strive to be more
Speaker 1: open minded and inclusive like that. I would say, try that, then, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think everyone should, though I agree, you got anything else. No,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty cool thing UM called Stephen Pinker on
Speaker 1: the Decline of Violence UM by Ethan Zuckerman. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the name of the site it was on, but
Speaker 1: if you search that, it will bring it up from
Speaker 1: two thou seven. And it sounds like Stephen Pinker was
Speaker 1: like preparing his notes for Angels of Our Better Nature,
Speaker 1: that book he came out with where he argues we
Speaker 1: just talked about, Um, that's pretty cool little primer, a
Speaker 1: little brief rundown of it. I love Pinker And if
Speaker 1: you want to read this article, um, you should. You
Speaker 1: can type in peaceful History in the search bart how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com and it will bring it up.
Speaker 1: And I said search bar, which means it's time for
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. It is time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna call this more on Condoms in
Speaker 1: New York because you just can't get enough of that apparently. Uh.
Speaker 1: In one of our podcasts we talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that you find condoms just playing around the street New
Speaker 1: York and I was kind of like, where are those
Speaker 1: coming from? And we had one dude right in that
Speaker 1: worked for the ferry. I think that all that stuff
Speaker 1: gets washed out down there. And what do they call him?
Speaker 1: The uh oh white snakes or something icone island like whitefish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think whitefish, white snake. Yeah. So uh this uh,
Speaker 1: this guy Aaron listened to that, and he has a
Speaker 1: theory here um about New Yorkers. Generally, we tend to
Speaker 1: engage in otherwise private behavior in public. For many of us,
Speaker 1: privacy is hard to come by. Remember this was the
Speaker 1: birthplace of the tenement. The whole family is living in
Speaker 1: one room. Unfortunately for some, this remains a reality. For
Speaker 1: most people. However, even living with one's family in separate
Speaker 1: rooms or roommates in a cramped department means little privacy.
Speaker 1: Going outside doesn't help. Uh. It might in the suburbs,
Speaker 1: but here in New York there are always people walking
Speaker 1: around everywhere all the time. Once in a while, I
Speaker 1: will see if I can find a place where there's
Speaker 1: no one around and no one can see me. It's
Speaker 1: pretty tough. So people adapt to this reality by blocking
Speaker 1: out reality, so to speak, pretending as if no one
Speaker 1: is around. That's why New York has a reputation for
Speaker 1: having a lot of crazy people, because a lot of
Speaker 1: us talk and sing and laugh and gesture to ourselves.
Speaker 1: I believe this goes on all across the country. It's
Speaker 1: just that everyone else does it behind closed doors. I
Speaker 1: like what he's saying here. By the way, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: So while some people merely talk to themselves in public,
Speaker 1: a few people engage in more vulgar behavior, from picking
Speaker 1: one's nose all the way to having sex. Not only
Speaker 1: have I witnessed three separate acts of public sex in
Speaker 1: my youth, I engaged in public sex three times. All
Speaker 1: of these acts witnessed and engaged and occurred in public parks,
Speaker 1: and I'll except one occurred during the daytime. Personally, I
Speaker 1: remember trying to minimize the chances of being seen somewhat
Speaker 1: but not too hard. If someone saw, they would be
Speaker 1: unlikely to a no, mere my girlfriend or be do
Speaker 1: anything but ignore it and keep on walking. Which is
Speaker 1: the great thing about New York. You can really do anything.
Speaker 1: Then you will be completely ignored because no one wants
Speaker 1: any part of that. You know. Uh So that is
Speaker 1: exactly what I did, guys um as a witness. I
Speaker 1: hope this helps explain why your chances of stepping on
Speaker 1: a used condom while out on the stroll is higher
Speaker 1: in New York City than anywhere else in the country.
Speaker 1: It is certainly the wrong way to dispose of condoms,
Speaker 1: to be sure, and that's because we're a bunch of
Speaker 1: self centered, selfish people for whom littering is a way
Speaker 1: of life. Please don't judge us for public sex, Aaron,
Speaker 1: I like Darren. Thanks Aaron, what a level headed approach
Speaker 1: to explain anything. Yeah, I like that sort of armchair
Speaker 1: psychology about stuff like that. Yeah, those armchair dr ruth in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that's all I got about that. One's good
Speaker 1: for you, Aaron, if you want to explain something that
Speaker 1: we've talked about and couldn't quite get to the bottom two,
Speaker 1: we're always happy to cross all of our teas and
Speaker 1: daught our eyes if you will. Um. You can tweet
Speaker 1: to us s ESKA podcast. You can join us on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
Speaker 1: can send us an email The Stuff Podcast at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com. But wait, you should first also join us
Speaker 1: on our website. Our website chuck Yeah, lots of cool
Speaker 1: stuff there. It's called Stuff you Should Know dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
Speaker 1: it How stuff works dot com