Crimanimals

them in Australia? What fishy business are aquatic connartists up to? And of course the age old question, oh you good boy? With me? Today is Alec Schmidt, comedian and host of the Cracked podcast. Alex and I are going to look at a couple of the most unlikely paramaniacs from both the natural and human world. So I live and I grew up in southern California, UM, where we don't have

snow days, we have fire days. And instead of looking outside at this white winter wonderland, you see this orange sun in a red sky and ash raining down and it was really scary. Uh. And I think it was this idea that you can have this relatively small fire that starts to burn out of control, and no matter how much we try to contain it, it just has this will of its own that that can't really be stopped.

And I think the reason I'm afraid of fire, those same reasons might be why a paramaniac is actually attracted to it, the idea of this uncontrollable, huge event that just spirals into this massive inferno. So Alex and I are going to look at a couple of the most unlikely paramaniacs from both the natural and human all and we're gonna try to find out what makes them want to watch the world burn. So, Alex, have you have

you done crimes? You're gonna the jinx right now. I don't think I've ever done any crimes that I can think of. Yeah, like not like not a crime, crime for sure, Well, you know, crimes. We feel like crimes is sort of a human only phenomenon um, and it's I don't know, I'm here to challenge that notion that only yeah catching up to us. There, they're the animals and the probably you know, bacteria also are catching up.

I don't think bacteria isn't anyways, They're they're catching up to us competition, right they're barging into the organized crime of humans. Uh so I want to talk about a few crimes. Let's get into it. I want to start with, to me, one of the scariest kinds of things, which is um pyromania. Like I've always had an enormous respect for fire because it's very frightening. Yeah, Like there's a fire and you like tip your cap to it. I'm like, you're like, good dave, Mr Fire, please don't burn me.

I always call fire by its last name. But yeah, so pyromania is this fascination with fire. So, you know, most people kind of like you see a camp fire, it's like neat, but this goes far beyond that. It's uh yeah, it is exciting, even at a really young age. Like I was part of Y m C, a Indian guides as a kid, and so we would go camping and do campouts, and like the dads would all be trying to start the fire, but we'd be all like, let me start the fire. I want to be you know.

And my family didn't do it, but a lot of families I knew would drive I grew up around Chicago, and they would drive over the border to Indiana just to get fireworks because they didn't sell them in Illinois, so they sold them at exit one of every Indiana Highway and you would buy them there and truck them all back and then just like lite them off in a driveway because they're illegal. Yeah, you weren't allowed. Yeah, And I've heard there's other states like that, Like I

think New Hampshire it's legal and Misachusetts it isn't. There's a but there's a bunch of like symbiotic relationships where one state sells it to two states. You know, I lived in a very sort of in a tinder box because I lived in southern California and Sandy Yes, um so fireworks were super not not cool and also just not really socially accepted because it was just like, don't

don't burn us all down, please. Oh yeah. I remember one time my mom got us sparklers, which is not an illegal firework, but like I thought it was, and I was like, I was just dizzy with excitement. I was like, we're committing arson crime before the jewel, Why we're breaking California law right, the strongest law, the most exciting moment of my life, and it's all been pretty plateaued.

From there. But I mean it's interesting because pyromania is it's not like Arson where you're setting a fire too clean evidence of your misdeeds. It's like you the feeling of setting that fire and watching the fire and it's like it's a thrill. Um. Yeah, you're like that narration from fahrekneight. But all the time, if the whole book was just look at the fire, look at it, like

there's no plot or nothing. Yeah, exactly. Can even be kind of like it can be a fetish, which is weird to me because it's like, you know, typically it's like, well, you know, it can kill you. To me, it's like having a fetish of like the ocean and drowning. Wait wait, so you're kink shaming people who drown or burden to death? Is death sex positive? This is an extremely uh death

sex positive show. So this is a crazy story. Um there, we're a bunch of Arson's in l a and uh this is in the I think in the eighties, and the fire investigators are kind of stumped and you know, they're chasing all these leads not really fine in anything, and they had their that old corkboard next to my broccoli crimes. They're like, we gotta get these fire crimes. They probably they should have just let the broccoli crimes go and then you know, combine the task forces. But

is there a connection? But yeah, I mean there were serious fires. About four people died, um, because you know that's the arsonist was setting fire to stores and while people were in sights. It was very very scary stores in Metro l A Like yeah yeah, um. And he would like put like set up incendiary devices and then like those would like slowly kind of go off so he could leave and escape. And I guess watched from afar um and this one investigator was like, this is weird.

There's like a string of arson's between the arson investigation conventions, like the conventions for fire investigators, like because like they have conventions, Yeah they do. Oh man, that sounds really fun. It's just a room full of people like carefully watching the room they're in, you know what I mean. Like someone's like cosplaying is a fire and they're like, dude, not appropriate. Um. Yeah, And so he's saying like maybe the arsonist is a fire investigator, and like nobody believed him.

But then he was comparing the lists of attendees to the like all the ones like where there were sort of like he could draw a line like here's a Arson Investigator convention, and then a line of these Arsons and then another one. And so he he compared the lists of attendees to the ones that were the sort of the locust points, and he found about like, I think they're only handful of people. So it made the

investigational a lot easier. And they finally caught the sky John leonard Or, who was an Arson investigator and he was actually briefly being consulted on this very case like his own arsening crimes, and uh, it was devastating because everyone was like, we had no idea that I mean, he seemed like seemed really passionate about stopping fires, not causing. Well, he's like fire Dexter, you know the TV Exter where he's like solving serial killer. He's fired Exter. Yeah, exactly.

They should call it fired Exter and make a show right copyrighted here, we get to make it. D M. Yeah, we need fire, Michael C. Hall, we need fire. Whoever wrote the show. I know so little about this that I cannot contribute to this. Alex, You're going to have to carry the bit as you can tell, I do one actor's name, so pretty good. Okay, here's the best part. I mean, none of this is good. Disclaimer, fire Arson is bad pyromania doing it and destroying property and endangering people.

It's so much shaming on this, but you know it's just a little shaming. I just want to commit a crime and die a bit um. But okay. He was also a novelist, an amateur novelist, perfect, and so he could write fired Exter. He wrote fired Exter. No he did, Alex, you were joking, but he didn't. He wrote fired Dexter.

He wrote about an arsonist called Aaron Styles, and uh and it was like he described all of his motivations and how he got like how he like got a boner from starting fires and like and just all this insight into this character's psychology, which you know, upon reviewing you're like, maybe that's him. And then investigators worked out that Aaron Styles, the name of the book's protagonists is

an anagram for I set l a Arson. This is like it's a book where when you would get to that point, you'd be like, come on, crime writer, what's a crime writer? Who does crime writings and Patricia cornwell, yeah, yeah exactly, like like come on, like two on the nose. But it's crazy. It's like, get these guys on the Zodiac killer? Why why aren't they on the Zodiac? Right? They worked out this like intensely constructed puzzle from where the calls coming from inside the police station or like

okay here like between the fire conventions. It's like a movie, and I am shocked and appalled that this movie has not been made. Yeah, exact well even not to not to celebrate this insane person, but like setting fires in stores? Is he doing that because because four people died? I assume he's set way more fires than that, Like is he burning stores because he thinks no one will be in there at night or something and so he can like get his fire without a death or something. No,

I think it was He's probably just a maniac. I think I think he's he's set the fires like wild people were still in it. It doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like he necessarily had the motive of killing people. But I think he just you know, he was like a psychopath and he didn't care whether you know, he killed people um, and he just maybe he did it during the day because it was more exciting, Like the idea of getting caught and doing it in public was

more Oh these were daytime fires. Yeah, yeah, it could be like uh, it was just like people were around. He was just like, you know, witness my terrible fires. Oh man, it's always confused, Like they talk about it being really powerful, and it's like it's always kind of confused me because like it's really easy to start a fire even when you don't want to. Like yeah, well, like all these all these people with these compulsions, like

it makes me glad. I don't like anything, you know what I mean, Like there's stuff that's cool, but I'm not like that into anything, and it is probably really good for my life that I'm not, because like if you're that into anything at all, you become an errand styles or something, you know. Jeez. I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't had like a pyromania horror movie, you know, half wey like I don't know, yeah, I'm not a

horror expert, so I wouldn't know for sure. I mean there might be one, but I can't think of one that's really like mainstream where the kind of Texas chainsaw massacre style, but he has like a flamethrower. Oh that would be awesome. Actually, it's like it's a lot scarier to me because it's like it's not just him like being there, like he's actively modifying the environment to be hostile to you. Yeah, I'm assuming it's a heat but that's that's sexist. He or she the or anyone this

fire fire uh fire villain, yeah, a fire persons. Yeah, I mean they like I guess an Avatar the Last Airbender they somewhat did that, but that wasn't really a whore. It was sort of oh yeah, yeah, there's that like fantasy realm trope of like the classical four elements and fire is a kind of magic kind of thing, right, But it's not really the same thing because it's sort of you don't get a sense of foreboding. It's just like action. Like I think that I'm curious why we

haven't Why we I don't. I don't know where I'm saying. I've never directed because I'm lazy. I haven't gotten around um Alex's horror movie like Snoop. When Snoopy comes, there's my wrist, but for doing it. Yeah, you should follow Alex's Twitter at Alex at Alex Yeah, where he posts snoopies sometimes. Yeah, I don't drum, but I feel like a picture of Snoopy playing the saxophone is just generally more exciting than most of the tweet, and I encourage

people to just start posting that. Yeah, I won't you won't find an argument here, but yeah, I'm just like, I don't know. I just imagine being sort of like being chased down a dark halloway and then you run to the other end of the hallway, but then that's on fire, so you have to go back, and then the killer is there. It's like it's such a scary because it's like it's they're controlling everything around you and

you're just sort of hoplessly trying to escape. Yeah, it almost feels like it'd be a Batman villain or something, because they have that for everything else, like there's a guy calendar and everything. You know, they have the Ice guy, which is much less scary than fire, Like who's afraid of ice? Yeah? Yeah, they basically need a fire version of Mr Freeze. That would be great fire to meet you just the exact same fun structure, but you put in the word fire comedy genius. You all need to

fire out. It makes sense. I'm going to flame away. I don't I don't even think that was a joke by the Freeze guy. Schwartzenegger could sell it right, right, Yeah, Well I've got I've got bad news for small animals in Australia. A platypus just dropped its iPhone. What it's like one of those news stingers, like bad news for animals in Australia, and they're like, oh crap, but after the commercials odd damn it. Um. So there are these birds of prey that are not just satisfied with screaming

fiery anger down at the little animals. They're also like, no, we'll set actual fires and flush the little mammals out and the need them. Yeah, it's this. It's a new

definitely a new discovery. So there's not been anything that like, there's not like solid research behind it, but they're basing it on anecdotal evidence of researchers and also, um, the indigenous population has long known about this or long documented and they call them fire hawks and they have this really cool uh, they have this cool ceremony where people will act out as birds carrying smoldering branch is and you know there, I think it's that's really convincing that

this is definitely been happening for a long time. And so like the birds will it's not that they start

a fire from nothing. There's like a fire that exists because they're not they're not agile enough to like take a flint just like they've got like like they're trying to do the thing where they get the stick and the thing and that you're ribbing the stick really fast, so the friction causes the fire like with their little wings, like, but they pick up like a smoldering stick from the existing fire and then carry it over to a prey dense area where they where the hunting is good and

then like set a fire and then like them and all their buddies just kind of like as as like the little little lizards and little roads, like they get out of the fire like few at least that's over. Oh No, what's really crazy is like these birds, these like pyromaniac birds that are extremely scary for the little rodents, like, but they may have actually helped shape the savannah because if they're if they're spreading fire, they're they're changing the

environment of the savannah. They're like, I'm not I'm not a fire expert, but I would assume it has a lot to do with you know, you're kind of creating new growth and getting rid of old growth, and yeah, that's a that's the thing in some ecosystems, I think, Like I like, growing up in Illinois, we had the mostly former prairie. You know, it used to be the

entire bit west. Now it's just very specific spots. But uh, something that we were taught frequently, especially because sometimes we see, like I live near one, and there'd be a column of smoke coming up from it and I'd be like, that seems wrong. But we would be told frequently like prairies need to burn with some regularity. You must burn to please the prairie gods, which is a prairie dog

spelled backwards, thank you for celebrating my faith. No, And like so a guy with the name that's an anagram for I love burning prairies would tell us that you need to burn the prairie because, like the plant, there will be too many old dead plants and they just need to be cleared out and then as soon as it burns like that charred stuff becomes very good fertilizer and there's a lot of benefits to uh just consistently burning down some py and so they would do that,

and maybe the Australian environment is kind of like that. I guess they have a few kinds of Yeah, I'm sure it. You know, fire has definitely has an impact

on the Yea in the epic or whatever. Um, but it's really I mean, like definitely keep your eyes open everybody for research about about these birds because like you know, not it's it's all on right on the cusp of like finding out what's going on, and it's really exciting, uh because I think that'd be crazy if like birds setting fires to terrorize rodents like shaped the Australian outback just like it's it's like, you know, we think of

big environmental changes being something like big like a glacier, not like this like little falcon with like fire right like a very slow period of time, but not like just a jerk bird burn it. Well, it's amazing too that you said that science is just starting to maybe prove this and there's a local tradition where people re enact it. Yeah, fully, like we all know this is

happening and we do it right. I mean, I would bet that there's it's probably a new sadly a new trend for researchers to actually pay attention to non Western cultures. Oh these are sorry, these are like Aboriginal people. Yes, indigenous people know what I should call um? Yeah, I'm sure that's that's okay, but like, yeah, so they they've had this long doc umented um. So it's like, you know, it's kind of interesting. We sometimes you know, don't pay

as much attention to, uh, non Western histories. But I think it's really great that the researchers are working with, like, you know, the the native culture and yeah, and against the birds. We must unite to defeat the birds. It's like how we end all hate is just fighting birds. Though pyromanian today's society is destructive behavior. At some point early humans had to have an arsonist streak to be

able to learn to utilize fire. How did we go from being fearful of flamed to actively trying to attain it? One clue maybe in the behavior of chimpanzees. Primatologist Jill Purts witness the strangely calm demeanor of chimps in the midst of wildfire. People in the region do controlled burns to clear the land and aid in hunting. Though most of the animals flee and terror the chimp seemed relatively unflappable. Parts observed that quote, they were so calm about it.

There were a lot better than I was, that's for sure. I was surprised at how expert they were handling the fire. She also saw male chimps doing a quote fire dance. It's a dominance display that was modified to be slower and directed towards the fire. This may be an indication of how human ancestors began to master their fear of fire and a foreshadowing of burning man. Let's take a moment to cool off with a few messages. Back soon

with more lawbreak environments. So cheaters represent a huge conundrum and evolutionary biology, and also in human philosophy. Adam Smith, the Invisible hand Dude, is a famous economist and author of the Wealth of Nations. He's often credited as the first opponent of the idea of the free market the unrestrained ability to compete. So here's the problem. If nature or human society operates in the free market, wouldn't it

become inundated with stammers and connartists. How can a group of social animals remain stable when the rewards of cheating are so damn good? Any cooperative society should, in theory, crumble because natural selection will always reward swindlers. Steve Frank is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of California at Irvine. He studies the problem of cheaters in evolutionary genetics, and one of these talks took an unexpected

turn towards moral philosophy. He pointed out that there's a lesser known second part to Adam Smith's work, a book called Moral Sentiments. In this work, Smith re examines the idea of the free market, pointing out that if it's in a collective's interest, they will work together to suppress the activity of these is taking the advantage of the group, So our free markets never truly free. Alex Schmidt and

I will discuss whether fish might have the answer. Later, we'll find out what your genome has to do with moral philosophy. Alex, Yeah, are you ever gullible for things? Yes? Just generally, Um, yeah, I don't. I don't have something like jump in a mind immediately for it. But I feel like I spend a solid chunk of many days or weeks just being like do you mean that for real?

Because I'm like, I'm like earnestly interested. People will joke about like, yeah, I guess i'd like go to the moon or something, and I'm like, so you're interested in being an astronaut for really, but that'll pretty frequently happen for me. Yeah, yeah, I'm not. I'm not trying to put you on the spot because I'm very glible to like I um, sometimes I don't pick up on sarcasm or like someone will say something and cry do ble and like really because like I like to think of

it as just being very open minded. Uh yeah, I like I would be very excited to be surprised by life just all of the time. And so a lot of times people will think they've nailed being completely over the top with something crazy and then no they haven't. I want to find out if that's true. Yeah, let's do it. I've always like whenever people say I have a bridge to sell you, you know, like you fall for fall for someone someone's prank and they're like, oh,

I have a bridge to sell you. I don't get it because it's like, okay, I don't why would I want a bridge? Why would you be selling me a bridge? Um? But I just found out that Well, first of all, I found out what it means, which is a you know, the idea that you would trick someone into thinking that person would own the bridge and then we would sell it to you. Um. But it was based on an

actual con artist. His name was George Parker. Uh. He was criminally active around the turn of the century, and he would he would literally sell people the Brooklyn Bridge. And I mean this is a new fact to me. I apologize if like everybody knows this, but me, I'm just like, do you guys know this? Because I think I know a bridge sales story, but I don't know if it's the same thing where like somebody sold the London Bridge to some town in the US something like that. Oh,

I don't know that one. But they also thought they were buying what's actually called Tower Bridge in London. That's the famous one that's has very tall towers on it. And then every other bridge across the Thames is like just kind of a regular bridge, and so they moved

this enormous regular bridge to this town. Yeah, that's crazy that there's like more than one bridge scams, Like, yeah, I don't know who's buying them, no, and I don't know, Like like when you're trying to be a connorist, you're like, well, what what would be a good conical bridge? Right? The class maneuver of selling infrastructure sexy infrastructure. Infrastructure is hot right now, that is a con I'm different from just

getting a job. Yes, yes, um so George Parker. He would also sell things like the Statue of Liberty, um, just landmarks and pieces of property he definitely did not own, but he had like he forged documents as it was like like see here on this paper it says I own the bridge, I will sell it to you and like and some people would like actually go up and set up tolls on the bridge, thinking they were now the owners, and police would be like ha, buddy, no or what like I guess it was a turn of

the centuries. Like listen, guy got squeezed. They just kick him out. Yeah, well so I have I want you to go on an imagination journey with me. Alex oh about is about a very strange scam. Uh So, imagine you're going in. Well, first of all, you gotta imagine you have really long hair, uh like like Jesus levels of of of great hair. Yeah, okay, you're there, good um, and you just kind of want general trim, you maybe

want some layering and styling Alla Jesus um. And you know, you're just kind of relaxing, and then you tear around and you know it's like all your hair is on the floor and big piles. You're like, what the heck did you just do? I don't look like Jesus anymore? I look like you know, John Stoffel. Wait, wait, so they gave me an incredible mustache. The hair has fallen onto your upper lip um and the hair stylist apologist saying, oh,

I'm so sorry. I misunderstood. I thought you wanted a big and you're you're just you're fuming because you know you had been oiling and conditioning this hair for months and it was great, and and you leave in a huff and then you return. Um, hey, look in the window, and there's a wig that looks suspiciously similar to your hair. You're wonderful Christ like locks. Yeah, and then I go on TV and starstle them out of business, go on yelp and go like this, John Stoffel is unhappy. Um,

there is this is an actual thing. But in fish Land. So fish land does that clarify to it? Where we are society, un sometown, sometown, sometown, ocean, oceansburg. Um. So I'm sure you're saying, like, well, fish don't have hair, haitie, you're dumb. Good point. Um Yeah, yeah, calm the heck down,

Alex god. Um. So, uh they're a little these really pretty little fish called cleaner rass, and uh, they do this incredibly important function for coral reef communities because like the coral reefs, which are all dying, um have are so cared about not just because they're pretty, but because they are the homes of a huge variety of fish and they all kind of congregate there like a little, just like in Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo is like basically

a documentary. They're the big cities of swim down right right. Yeah, it's the it's the Chicago. But I mean that wasn't the best best word play I could have done. But Alex is from Chicago. That was the one closest to my heart. I really appreciate it. You should have said ship cargo. But also, fish don't do chips. They don't need them, right, right, so never mind. That was fine. So fish have this um mucus membrane covering them and

it protects them. It's it's like if you've ever had a fish tank, sometimes you put in stuff like stress coat, and that's that's sort of like it's to keep this membrane healthy and it protects their skin. But they also get little parasites which are really bothersome for fish because they can't scratch um. So the little cleaner else go up to the fish and he's like, hey, buddy, you want your body detail, and uh. They will go all

over the fish and pick off these little parasites. And fish will lineup for this like they're at a little car wash and just be like just patiently waiting, like oh boy, it's my turn x right, like a like an enormous barbershop situation, right right, but there's only one barber um, So yeah, it's and you'd think, like that's perfect. Fish are wonderful. We could learn a lot from fish. But here's the here's the problem is that slimy muca see stress coat that I was talking about. It's apparently

real good. It's a real good tasting, it's super delicious. I'm going to need a second opinion. Um well in in uh in fish land, it is like it is the prime for a little clean arounds. It is like their crack. So they really want to nibble on this this sweet sweet snot coat and uh they but the fish don't want that because it's like must slime give me back by slime. It's it's bad for them to get their slime chewed off. There's their key, their protective bugs gotta have it. And so this is where it

gets like really interesting because this is like economics in fish. Okay, I'm gonna make economics sound really fun because it's fish. Yeah. So the cleaner grass, which are the little little conmon sometimes are you know, they want to get at that mucus. But they will um, they'll try a little nibble every once in a while, and the fish are like, hey, don't do it. And then the fish, if they're noticing that the cleaner rass is nibbling too much on their

their cool slime, like they boycott them. They stopped going to their business and and it's it's like they get on fish yelp and they're like, don't go here, he'll eat your slime. I didn't come in to get my slime eaten, just just the bugs on my skin. Um and uh. And they'll actually the cleaner mouths if like the fish shows anger, which I'm not I guess fish show anger by kind of chasing them around and like making a real like oh you face. They don't yell

like Albert Press why I oughta um. But but then they'll kind of like they'll try to play Kate the angry cuffed Stomer by kind of like giving them a little massage like I'm sorry, buddy, a massage. Yeah. Yeah, this is like I am so glad we are a species that can like deal with our own self cleaning

and like has hands and arms and stuff. Like so much of the animal kingdom just goes around waiting for another animal to clean it up, like those rhinos with little birds on them, just like somebody hell, like what a what a nightmare? We're the best, really great, but there is that like the blind the blind zone, like right, sort of like that one spot on your act. That's

the blind zone. But then we can also we're like we can you can do the bear thing where you like you know, get like a nice jagged wall and get that blind spot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so we're the perfect animal. Yeah. And I also I didn't know if fish could give the equivalent of a massage because they're handless and they're freaky. Well I it's kind of like, um, they sort of like go up to them and kind of rub their rub their like dorsal fins against them

or something. It's kind of it's sort of weird. It's like the back scratch with the wall. Yeah, yeah, a little bit like like it's not they're not quite like getting in there and like you know actually sort of like doing the doing a whole like like doing a little chopping motions on the back. Um. But uh and

then here and then like they're like market forces. So when there are plenty of clients, um, the clean arounds will take more chances and do more do more crimes, which you know, it is kind of like similar like when there are companies that have no competition and lots of customers, they'll try to get away this stuff like offshore bank accounts are like, you know, eating people's mucus. Now I have a new thing to compare the cable company to perfect time. Ward are always eating my slime.

They also cheat less when they noticed that they're being watched by potential future clients, so they're they're like they're like, oh no, I'm I'm I might get yelped. Yeah, what do we we need? Can we call it kelp yelped? Oh my god, I could have just had kelped. God damn it. But that's great. Yes, that's excellent. I'm just kind of a pillar of stown community, you know, keep it going. Um, the sou They also this is like

it gets really sophisticated. So the cleaners will perform extra services for big fish that are sort of from outside the reef literal big fish. Yeah. So like it's sort of like if you've ever I don't know people who have ever had office jobs or something where you have like, um, you have like people flown in, important people kind of coming from like corporate and then like they get to cut in front of the gosh darn lunchline because they've

been flown in and they're important, I guess, um. But yeah, so they'll they're trying to reward these fish for choosing their particular reef, and they're like, hey, come on back to Joe's reef because we give you dorsal fin massages. That's such a I'm just realizing that as humans, we have so many idioms for like somebody being a big fish, or even like oh, whale, you know, they're very importan shark tank. Yes, we used the ocean to describe most business,

and the ocean has business going. It's like it's it's sa capitalism. Let's revisit Steve Frank, the evolutionary biologists with a fondness for moral philosophy. Frank has an interesting idea on rals and ethics explaining the human genome. John Rawls was a twentieth century moral philosopher who spent a lot of time thinking about fairness. One of his theories was

the veil of ignorance. It's the idea that in order to create a truly just and fair society, you should make the rules while still naive about your place in that society, so you don't know if you're rich or poorer men or women. So when you craft the laws, you want them to be equitable and fair to as many people as possible, since you don't know which one of those people you're going to be. It's like if you have a pizza and you're tasked with slicing it,

but you don't know which slice you'll be given. You'll try to make the slices as even as possible so you'll be given a fair portion no matter which random

piece you'll get. On the genetic level, you're doing this all the time when you're creating sperm or egg cells, because you have paternal and maternal genes that they both want to get in that sperm or that egg, and in order to do that without competing with each other, there's a randomized process called fair myosis, where essentially you're slicing up that pizza at random, and the maternal and paternal genes have an equal chance of getting into one

of those baby slices, which means that as long as they're working together to make you really fit and make your egg and sperm really fit, unless your offspring really healthy, then they have a good chance at winning that bottery and getting passed down well that we will be right back. We're gonna hear a message from some of our awesome,

awesome sponsors. One of the earliest lessons we learned as children, other than don't touch fire, don't hit your sister, and don't feed forks to Mr Toaster, is that stealing is wrong. Stealing so undermines a society of rules and laws. Historically, there have been some pretty gruesome penalties for theft. Cutting off ears, hands, and noses were common in ancient Egypt

and medieval Europe. In England during the seventeen hundreds, pirates were killed and their bodies were hung up on gibbets, which are tall wooden beans that held cages which were used to display the decaying corpses of criminals. Even worse, sometimes live pirates would be displayed in the cages, left

to die of exposure thirst. In seventy three there was the simultaneous hangings of twenty six young pirates whose bodies were buried between the high and the low tidal water marks, which was thought to ensure their souls would never be at pressed. So what is it in the life of a vagabond that's so appealing? A longitudin will study found that sixteen percent of people pulled recorded having stolen something worth more than fifty dollars in the last year. Most

thieves aren't career criminals. Their flirtation with the pirates life typically only last for about a year. Alex and I will discuss the motives behind human kleptomaniacs and why the life of a pirate calls to seabirds and land birds alike. Uh So, there is an English comedian who sadly he just passed away. Um his name was Kin DoD and uh he I don't know his stuff now, but yeah, I mean I didn't. I actually didn't hear about him until I was doing research for this. And he has

this excellent quote. Uh he says, Um, I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, it takes something for it. Yeah, got him. Ums, such a classic joke. I know, it's great. It's like a million dad's all cried out at once. Um. So clepto mania. As you may know, it's an impulse control disorder. And it's different from stealing because they're not actually taking things they want. They're just like stealing things

almost for the thrill of stealing it. And it's right, like the broccoli was there, Yeah, Like I don't want broccoli.

I just want to do broccoli crime. So it's something where it's I feel a lot of sympathy with people who have cleptomania because it's it's kind more of a control thing, like like maybe they feel like something has happened in their life where they've lost control, like a family member dies, and like that can be a trigger for kleptomania because there it's actually it's kind of like it's like having control over a certain thing, like I can take that item, like I can be sort of

completely autonomous and get that thing that. Yeah, and it's also like the thrill of it, and it's completely irrespective of class, economic class. It's like rich people will be you know, the most famous of which when not on a writer um back in Beetle Juice Times or a little after Beetle Juice Times. Yeah, there was a whole

I had forgotten about that. There was a whole in between where she was mostly being joked about on LATENTV for which you know, and I when you think about it in retrospect, it's kind of a little crummy, like um, you know, yeah, well yeah, because in particular it's if it's being done by people who have plenty of money, or at least have earned money at something like, Yeah, it must be some kind of compulsion. And again, like I said, I don't like anything very much served me,

Well I'm very lucky. Yeah. Um. But what's interesting is so like there's in evolutionary biology. We don't call it kleptomania. We call it a I say we as if I am. I am evolutionary biology and I direct horror movies. But they call it um clepto clepto parasites, uh, which sounds a lot grosser. Yeah, that's terrifying. It sounds like like an alien parasite that like goes right in your eyeball

or something. Yeah. Well I'm imagining like a shark with a remora on it, and the remora has like a bunch of bags of luten, you know, like I stole your for a one K plan. It's a capital it um corporator pirate capitalism um. So it's it's parasitic behavior where one one party is benefiting at the expense of another party. And uh, and it's so cute. It's the cutest parasite in the animal world. So especially when it's

done by birds. So another bird crime. Here we go this is this is a bird crime heavy episode because there are so many bird crimes. Yeah, they're just well you keep hearing about like, oh, crows. It turns out are brilliant, like they should be writing books or something because they have such brilliant brains and it's like they're using it for evil though you can't trust them anyway.

Go on with these birds. Yeah, well, well there's a bower birds, which, uh, they're really pretty birds that developed these um elaborate bowers, like kind of a grassy area that they've constructed, and then they put little decorations in it, like here's some blue flowers and here's some colorful rocks,

and and they they're like very they're very particular. They pick out certain colors and really bright colors like reds and blues and violets, and like put big chunks of colors in and the hope is that that will attract a female to come to their little little grass grass cave that they made on the ground because they put

a bunch of pretty flowers. And it's kind of great because when they live near civilization, they will steal things like bottle caps and little little pieces of like colored glass, and uh, so they just like have this little junk heep, but it's all color coordinated, so it's really cool looking. Oh yeah, I would. I think I would come across and imagine it was like a weird kid did it right,

right right? You know that's amazing that um. But then they also they also do thief crimes because they're like, you know, instead of just finding their own bottle caps and colored piece of dirt, like, they gotta take someone else's. There's this great uh segment of I think it's It's Either Life or Planet Earth where David Attenborough is narrating and this uh, this uh little barrow bird is like trying to present these colorful objects to this other bird

that he thinks is a female bird. He's like, would you like this? What about this toy? Heart? What about this? And like the bird is like, yeah, it's pretty good, and he like just takes it. And it's a juvenile male, not a female, because the juveniles have coloration similar to females,

they haven't developed their their pretty little crests yet. So like the bird was like trying to it's just like some teenager like oh yeah, sure, bro, and you like just steals it from even the teen birds are untrustworthy. No teens. And then um, chin strap penguins, which their names are already great because it makes me think they're wearing little hats of little chitten straps right on. Keep them on because like their heads are small and it's hard for the hat to stay on, so they gotta

gotta secure it down. You think Pittsburgh penguins they do something very similar where they will steal rocks from each other. Um, and it's really sad because one penguin will be like being honest. So they build these big rock nests too, and then the females are like, hey, is your rock nest the best one? If so, I will mate with you. For more information see the documentary um The Pebble and the Penguin and the Penguin Right, directed by Donald Bluth.

I believe it's a it's a cartoon. Remember what you asked if I was gullible before I watched a lot of non Disney movies like Troll and Central Park and The Pebble and the Penguin and oh, I don't know anything. I think I saw like no down Kid. Yeah, but

it's a it's a movie. It slightly misunderstands the real penguin behavior the rock economy, because they have they're like finding pretty rocks or nice stones for the females, like just one of them, which is like, I guess you know how much of the animal king to do you think has some kind of capitalism because apparently the sea does, and penguins do, and these weird bower birds do, and like, I don't know, maybe capitalism is like throughout animal species

and we just think we're the only ones. I think there's a strong possibility except for like you have bees which are which are communists down COMI bees they should go extinct. Wait don't no, no, I take it back. There's no more earth. Um. So, so the while the kind of hard working penguins are going like I'm going out to collect my rocks, like the evil penguins going on just putting in a solid in the rock mines, I'm going to steal like the Seven Dwarves and Disney

you know, just you mind it, you bring it back. Yeah. There's a lot of really interesting science felt like, well, how how can you have like a cheater and not have society collapse? Um? Because you would think like like as soon as penguins would catch on like oh there's someone stealing. Then they would just be like, well I'm gonna steal too, um right, But there there are certain forces that seem to like you know, there's definitely like

with the cleaner rounds. That's really interesting because in that case you have direct punishment for stealing. And certainly when penguins catch another penguin stealing, like honk at him and like the wise guy, that's penguin kelpielpa is just hunky. It's just making noises like the batman villa in the penguin like one win out of five wint um so and then another bird crime, just a real brief one quick, almost too many to count. Don't trust Seagulls will steal

fish right out of pelicans beaks in broad daylight. Oh man, for real? Well are you really surprised, Like do you feel like open? Well, man, I don't think they can do much prying, but like I think they just slip in there while the doors ajar. It looks like a loose set up right right, He's kind of like they just like get right in there. Well, did you did you see this story? Like just hit Facebook and on

the wider media. This Canadian guy who he stayed at a hotel in like British Columbia about twenty years ago, and it's based on this crazy, insane, elaborate story of him trying to bring pounds and pounds of pepperoni to his navy friends already nuts, and then he was in a hotel room where like there wasn't a place to keep it cool, and so he left it in an open window and basically he came back to his room and it was a sea of seagulls eating the pepperoni

and like violently pooping the pepper And then he got a lifetime band from the hotel, but then appealed it recently and they were like, this is such a funny story. You can come back. The seagulls have gone the band. You know, you would think yeah, but he it was like such a freakas the room was demolished, like there was no it was just covered in because also apparently it was like a spicy pepperoni that seagulls can't digest very well, so they weren't harmed, but they were just

like really cool pooping caustic poops. Yes, yeah, yeah. And then he like tried to throw a shoe at one and both the shoe and gull went out of the window down into a crowd that was meeting for like high tea or hit them. And then yeah, it was just like dignitaries from several countries where we have tenuous diplomatic relations with. Yeah, right right, like that's how a war happened yet, But yeah, it's like seagulls apparently just go for it. Yeah, like shoot or shoot, you know,

they just they want it. Yeah. Yeah, they will like grab the food out of your hands if they think they can get away with it. Yeah, which is not really that's not usually the style, Like like usually animals are in people are a little more like subtle about it, Like you kind of You're like, I realize you can't see me, So I'm gonna sneakily take your pizza, not

just like we're coming in. We're gonna eat this pizza, poop all the floor and charge you like seven dar Worth movies eat everything in a mini fridge and the little little balls of water are like twenty dollars each. But like do you remember, Like I don't know. Actually I wonder if like you were the perfect child, But like when you were a kid, did you ever try to get away with stuff? And like, do you remember that realization where it's like, if I'm not being watched,

I can do a thing. I can do bad things and not get in trouble. I Yeah, I don't remember like a mental transition, but that certainly becomes a thing pretty pretty early. Yeah, of like there are times when I'm being watched, there's times when I'm not. Also there's heaven and hell and my Catholic upbringing, but we're going

to figure it out. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like children do actually kind of go through this learning of It's it's like this theory of mind where they understand other people have a different perspective of the world than they do. They have their own distinct mind, their own distinct sort

of perception. And so there's this really mean child study where it's like they have, um, they present these children with stickers, and they have three really like lame stickers and one like awesome race car sticker, like the other ones are like bland flowers, are creepy porcelain dolls dolls, and like ones like like Lightning the Queen, and like the kids are like, oh, man, I want that one. But the rules of the game are when the kid points out, and the rules aren't explained, I don't think

very much. The kids kind of have to figure it out where whenever they pick a sticker, mean monkey, this little toy will steal that sticker from them because mean monkey gets to pick first, and then they get to pick, and mean monkey always picks the sticker that they want, the race car one that that they wanted, and so they're really sad. And that's around age, you know, like like a little bit older than toddler, and then like I was hoping if only teenagers were so easy to

fool stickers. But then when they get a little older, just like about a year older, like once they reach about four years old, they're like they figure out how to like kind of be deceitful, and they they like when they're like, okay, now, cheese a sticker, they pick one that they don't want, one of the non race car ones, and the expressions on their little faces are so funny because they're like grinning from ear to ear, like knowing what they're getting away from away with, but

like they realized that okay, he's can see me doing this thing, and so I'm going to trick him. Uh. I Also I want a child veloment study on when poker face because because like, yeah, they're probably they probably learned it, but they I imagine like it's when a parents says like it's like did you do this and

they're like no. Um. But like I remember when I was I was in uh the first grade, I was like startled at my own intelligence because I was like I found the secret system, Like if I want to play with toys and us, I just do it out of the desk and the teacher can't see. I was like, this is incredible. It's like it's like discovering the alchemist Stone of misbehavior. It's like, oh my god, I can

turn boring time into gold. Um. And then when I got caught, I was like stunned because it was like, well, she can't she can't see my hands, Like what how is that even possible? She has X ray vision? My teacher is a mutant. Yeah, but she actually saw like your shoulders moving or like you going right doing a little voices like I'm Mrs Planchet, I'm really really stupid.

Well it's super cute, is that dogs and Chimps also have this understanding and it's really cute, like so they know that when they're being watched by an authority figure and they know that there are consequences to something like stealing food, uh, and and they wait until they're not

being watched. So in chimps, they test it with like a dominant chimp versus a subordinate, and the subordinate like it's shown like where some food is hidden and it's shown that the dominant like can't see it, and they go in the like run up really quickly, like grab it and then run. Really, so somebody's just studying like chimp schemes. Yeah, chimp schemes. The chimp going um, like chimps ten of them in a room like this is how we get to the It's like five feet away

and they're like here's the plan. Um. But like, animal behavior experts are starting to study dogs more because the realizations dogs have this really good social intelligence and it's really funny because they uh in dog's case, like the authority figures the human and they'll put like a piece of food on the floor and the dogs like looking at it like oh my god, and then the humans like like no, you can't have that, and the dog looks devastated and it's like no, and then the researcher

either sits like in a chair and faces the dog or faces away from the dog, or like these are the different experiment conditions, Like there's one where they kind of look a little distracted in one where they just

completely leave the room. When they leave the room, almost the time, the dogs just immediately take the take the food and eat it um when they're still in the room, but like, uh, facing or facing away from the dog, they'll still try to steal it once in a while because they're like, you can't see me, you can't see

the food. You know mine as well, And when the person is facing the dog much less often do they try to steal it, but sometimes they do, and it's really funny when they do, because like one of them walked like there's the food in the researcher in the chair, and then the dog walked around in a big circle behind the researcher, went under the chair and then like took the food as if like somehow he's like, you weren't expecting me to come from this direction. I hope

he did. Like the tap the opposite shoulder. To people,

he's the pen and teller of dogs. What did the dog do when the scientist leaves the room and then watches them from through the eye holes of like an old timey painting to the dogs suspect it's haunted dogs kind of like walk through a background that keeps looping and like like what it's like because like my dog, like I can see it a little bit in my dog, Like she knows she's not supposed to go in the bathroom because she always reads the trash and like if

if she can tell him like watching her, she won't go in because she knows, I'll just close the door. But other crimes she'll just do right in front of me, Like she she sees me looking at her, and she very slowly like reaches over and then grabs my glasses and then runs away. And it's like yeah, like I know dogs can't laugh, but it seems like she's laughing because she's like um and she's she's using it as like a hostage because and she wants me to uh

give her treats in exchange. Because I thought I may be a bad dog trainer, because I thought like okay, like you teach your dog to drop it, and then you reward them. I've just rewarded her for finding items that I don't want her to have and then dropping it. Like actually, just last night I dropped like I was doing some chopping in the kitchen and I dropped a knife and all the time, all the time with the just chopped broccoli up into little pieces and threw it

right in the trash um. And I dropped the knife on the floor and like she like started, she like tries to grab it and has it. Was just like so funny, Like I mean, she didn't, she didn't get it. We we got it away from her, but just like she she was so close to like becoming armed and being like that primate in two thousand one Space Odyssey where he's like, oh this bone can kill right from now?

What I am knife dog? I only respond to knife duck. Um. Well, I think on knife dog, I think we are going to Even though it turns out all dogs aren't going to Heaven, do they at least feel guilty about their shenanigans. Dog owners are probably familiar with that sheepish look on your pet's expression after a naughty incident. The eyes look up the head, lowers tail, me even go between the legs.

So is this a form of doggie conscience? Researchers think that regardless of those big puppy eyes, your dog doesn't have an ounce of remorse. Dog owners were asked to leave the room while their dog was presented a biscuit, but told not to take it. The owners returned unaware of whether their dog was naughty and took the biscuit or was obedient. Asked to rank their dogs and how

guilty their expressions were, the owners were completely hopeless. They couldn't tell which dogs were bolonious and which were innocent. So this research suggests that the look of guilt and a dog's expression may merely be a reaction to her visible anger at them. They may not know why you're mad, but they know they're in the doghouse, and they'll make sure to look pathetic until it all blows over. In fact, dogs may have us figured out more than you would give.

According to studies, we express emotion more strongly on the right half of our faces. What's really interesting is that dogs have a preference for gazing towards the right more strongly. A motive half of the human space, even though they show no such preference towards any other animal. This means that dogs may have an ability to walk onto the most expressive part of our faces to better judge what emotional state we're in. In fact, they may be better

at it than humans. Unlike people, dogs will still walk onto the right half the human face even when it's upside down. So if you ever find yourself dangling upside down from an inconveniently placed rope trap, your dog will be able to make the astute observation that you are upset. Truly man's best friend. So, Alex, do you have anything else to plug up? Even your new movie Knife Dog? Um yeah, I mean just people see that in theaters. Get take a certain dango, put that like and subscribe

like and subscribe to Knife Dog. Um no, yeah, I'm so glad to be on the show. Thank you for having. My Twitter account is at Alex trimitty. And then on Cracked, it's environment not on Crack. Drugs are a problem. Drugs don't do them. Don't do them. Drugs don't do them. Um, so you can find dog is tough on drugs. Dog, I'll cut you if you do drugs like a criminal McGrath the crime Doug. Yeah, like I will. I will

hurt you if you try to do jobs. So you can find me on Twitter at pro bird writes my Twitter for birds, but not only for birds, for people who are it's the best, like birds too, in politics and birds, birds and politics. If people are still sleeping on that account, get on it, uh. And also at Katie Golden. Same for that account where there's some pictures of a muscular Garfield on it. I don't want you to be alarmed, just giving your heads up. They'll like it.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you join us next Wednesday on Creature Feature m