City Creatures

what about you? Well, I've ventured, uh my wife and I've entured up into the hills of rural Tennessee and I actually visited the farm which is of course the hippie commune there in middle Tennessee, um, famous for its midwifery and and and soy products and tempe and and all this, uh, which which was pretty interesting. But I was also talking to my mom, who's a kindergarten teacher, and she reminded me of of this really cool phenomenon that kind of ties in with today's episode. You know

how it is with classroom sizes. Oh yeah, talk about dense populations. Yeah, you end up throwing in more and more kids, especially at the beginning of the class. So my mom will start off a school year and she'll

have just an exorbitant number of of kindergarteners there. But inevitably what will happen is that one or two of the kindergarteners will develop an extra large jaw with with extra large teeth, and then it will that kindergartener will eat several of the other kindergarteners, thus balancing out the population in the classroom, and then from then on for the rest of the year, everything is a little more normal.

It's one of those things that people don't normally talk about, right, but I mean it's it's pretty standard in public schools in the United States, and it is a good way to sort of weed down the population and make it manageable. So, yes, indeed,

we are talking about population density and its effects on organisms. Um. The the kindergartener thing we just went through there, we will explain a little more detail because because what we really want to talk about here is the comparison that can be made between um various organisms and their ways of dealing with with population density and resource shortage and humanity's own ways of dealing with it. Where we're similar, where we're very different and where even are different approaches

are kind of achieving the same ends. Yeah, and this is where that don't don't part comes in because we've talked about this before and it's coming. Twenty is estimated that we will add another two point five billion people. That's a lot of people. So we're at about seven billion right now, and right now, fifty percent of us live in cities. But by of us excuse me, two thirds of us of us will be living in cities. And what does that spell for us? That's that's going

to be a lot of people, elbow to elbow. Uh, So we want to talk about this a little bit and talk about chicken particular resources that are and aren't available in this scenario, right because we're talking about more and more people that need more and more resources, obviously, and are we gonna be able to meet that need? Are we space wise we're gonna be able to meet

that need? We've we've devoted an entire episode in the past to discussing this and about even even if you started building these vertical cities, even if you you you become smarter and smarter with how how you use available space, can you actually keep up with the with the demand. Well, yeah, we've talked about vertical farming as as a possible um solution to this, but the fact of the matter is is that to feed that many people, food production will

need to grow by seven Yeah, that's huge. And to say nothing of drinking water, which which continues to be this big illusion here, especially in the United States, and and I guess much of the western world where drinking water is considered, this just there's just no end to it, right, it's cheer it's everywhere we poop into it, which continues to just like once once you you really think about that, and lord knows, I spent a lot of my life not thinking about that, but once you really think about

the fact that in the United States we have clean drinking water that we defecate into, whereas on the other side of the world you have people who who don't even have access to that clean drinking water, and certainly not as regular. Yeah, and we could do an entire podcast on it, and in fact we probably that's a topic that we should investigate further. But yes, that's a huge problem on the horizon, certainly for the West end.

It's because this dream scenario is not going to continue for for the for the world, no, no, and UM, just to add a little more information to that whole water scenario, current agriculture practices UM use of the fresh water resources and then it renders a lot of that really unsafe to drink because of pesticides and fertilizers. So there you go with that. UM. Obviously that we're gonna need some more solutions in the future here to fix that problem. And there's another thing that we're not quite

focused on here in the West end that UM. It's the existence of slums. Okay, So when I talked about the fact that fifty percent of us now live in cities and that of us will live in cities, the United Nations and the World Healthcare Organization all say that it's very possible that half of the people who are living at cities at that point will be living in

slum cities. Again, this is not something that particularly in the United States that we that is front and center for us, But in India and other places throughout the world, you know, we've seen this born out. So that's something to think about, UM in terms of resources and how we're all going to get along and what's going to

be available to us. In fact, the u N says in its State of the World Cities Report that we're moving towards mega regions that create miles upon miles of what they call endless cities, capable of holding up to a hundred million people. So, you know, keep this in context. Maybe you live in a city right now that has three thousand people, and that seems quite large. That really is nothing in comparison to you know, forty years out from now, when you have these huge, sprawling cities across

miles and miles of land. So let's turn our attention to the animal world, how to end and take a look at how certain organisms deal with overpopulation, because this is something that has occurred, you know, since time out of mind. You have a successful organism in a given environment, it's gonna keep growing and growing, but it's eventually going to press the envelope. You know, it's going to reach that point where it's it's not sustainable within its own environment.

Resources are gonna dwindle and something's gonna have to give, right So, one of the more remarkable examples of this we see with the tiger salamander, which you find in North America ranges from Florida to northern Mexico southern Canada rocky mountains. It hibernates during the winter and during the summer rains, it migrates in larger numbers to breeding ponds.

That this is where the males compete for females, and after mating, a female lays one or more eggs, egg masses that have fifty eggs each, depending upon the particular subspecies of the salamander. All Right, the eggs hatch and approximately four weeks into larva, and these larva fies with like feathery gills. You've probably seen photographs. They're they're they're cute and weird and and wonderfully beautiful in their own

subterranean way, slightly prehistoric. Yeah, And so these larva feed on aquatic insects, small invertebrates and and even some small fish. And the larva remain in these ponds an whole late early August, uh well, late July early August, and then transformed into air breathing subadults, which are four to five inches in rank length. But this is where it gets really interesting. Um. The tigers alamander is particularly unique because the eggs can develop into two types of larva and

ultimately three types of adults. Now, but those two types of larva, that's where it gets interesting, and this is where I got the the deal. For the kindergarten example earlier. The two types of larva that are produced are normal tiger salamander larva plant and eating. Yeah, and then there

are the cannibal morphs. The cannibal morphs. Uh, these larva have larger heads, bigger mouths, more well developed teeth, and when ponds start to dry up and other food sources become scarce, the cannibal more larva then turn on the other salam mander larva in the pool with them and start eating them, gobbling them up and growing faster. Their maturing at a faster rate, and they're achieving adulthood at

a faster rate while eating the competing larva. Now it's worth noting that they they they do not eat kin larva. I'm less resources are particularly unless they're in dire straits. Then let's meet the brother or sisters. Yeah, So if it's a kindergarten classroom, just know that a brother and sister in the same room and one of them developed that extra large cannibal jaw. It's not gonna eat it's sibling. And this is called genetic polyphenism, and I think it's

fascinating because it is a response directly to the environment. Right, So if they began to run into each other with her feeling, you know, if the larva are detecting that the environment and the resources are shrinking, then they will respond in one of two ways. Yeah. It's kind of like how Iron Man has different armors for different things, Like if he's battling Hulk, he has like a Hulkbuster armor,

and he's battling thori as a thorbuster armor. Um, and it and the the environmental stimuli depends dictates which armor Tony Stark is gonna put on. It's kind of like that sept on a on a genetic level, and in response to environmental stimuli which form this salama, it will take all right. Um, So let's look at another example

of a high density population with creatures. This is also an example of genetic polyphenism, except a little less um grizzly in a way, because the two types that you see, there's a gregarious morph and a solitary morph, and the gregarious morph or is the one that arises as response to population density, and it's more adept at flying, so it can get the heck out of dodge and it can find other patches grass or other resources. Yes, so

this would be in a kindergarten classroom environment. This would be the child that instead of developing giant jaws to gobble down its classmates, it would sprout beautiful wings and then fly populated classrooms. That the kid who would pull the fire alarm or just to get out of dodges and say yeah. Um. And then there are swarm crickets, which I think are really interesting. Um, these are Mormon crickets. That is a good example there. They themselves are a

good sport of protein, okay and salt. So they're just naturally going to be delicious to one another. Little beef turkey exactly exactly like think of like, for instance, if if uh us humans were covered in bacon and resources were low and straight up like fried bacon skin, bacon skin. Yeah, and we're just cruising around there's not much to eat. We might might turn to one another and say, you look delicious. That's one thing to think you always keep

in mind about cannibalism and humans is that. Um, humans tend to go for cooked food with with a few rare exceptions, but but certainly when it comes to eating other mammals, we tend to like it cooked. And uh, and we're not that so much into just eating it living off the bone. But if but if we were, would that change the same? Would we just peel off

a limb right now? And I just like pull off one of your digits there, Like if everybody's skin was like already like tan doorid and cooked and seasoned and all, I mean it would it would be a different proposition. Is it wrong that I'm salivating a little bit and I'm a vegetarian? But no, these It's true. These guys are their chock full of protein. They are in the right circumstance, delicious to one another, these these Mormon crickets,

and they actually create these migratory formations. Okay, so um, this actually creates an order, this march that they conduct. And the reason why it creates this order is because they're they're marching in mass, and they're moving like each cricket is moving away from the one behind it towards the one in front of it, and it puts them in a in a very strange position in which they are both the prey and the predator. So they're they're marching.

Each one is marching towards a cannibalistic feast in a way from a cannibalistic death. Yes, and again this is in in the case where the population gets very high, resources are dwindling. But to me, this is the more psychological example or a terror actually than the salamander, because those guys they just come at you with with big jaws and you know, what's the end. But yeah, and it's kind of like, it's not nothing personal, it's business. Now.

I've got a giant job with which to eat you exactly, and I developed that just for this purpose. But this other one, it's like, you know, it's either be eaten. Yeah. And and the important thing is that the cannibal morph is sort of like, all right, we gotta roll out the cannibal model to deal with this market. Whereas the crickets are everyone is already on board with cannibalism. It's yeah,

they're ready to go. Um. Now, primates. We have seen instances of cannibalism before primates, but generally this is not something that is um is the norm Yeah, as we just gotted. We had an episode called Finding on Cannibals, I believe, which I we found out after we released it that I think some people skipped over it because they thought it was going to be about human cannibals, which can be is a fascinating topic, but can be the more disturbing topic that some listeners want to hear about.

That episode is entirely about animal cannibals. Cannibalism as an economic factor, uh, in various organisms, and and and as we highlighted in that episode, cannibalism on an economic level, remove all the moral um you know what have you

on a on a biological economic level. It can be a very good proposition, but it but while it drives really well with some animals like these, like the crickets, the Mormon crickets, it doesn't necessarily work so well with other modes of life well, and like primates are a good example because they're highly social, just like we are. So um, it's sort of bad form to go around eating one another. Um. So that generally doesn't happen in a primate uh community, and I wanted to so we do.

This is why we don't see cannibal morphs among primates, and certainly not in actual kindergarten classrooms outside of my imagination. No, no, but if we did, could you imagine like the giant jaws on Great eight canture, the like the classroom page in the yearbook, and you being able to pick out the cannibal morphs like look at the mouth on that one that way, whoa whoa, Yeah, Jimmy, you're gonna have to watch out for that one next year. Well, they

get they become buyers at that age too. Not defeed, this absurd notion any I see what you're saying. You're trying to make us all feel like there's the undercurrent of of possible canibalism in the elementary set. Um, I am going to pull this information or just actually, um, just highlight this information from a paper called Sociality in the City, using biological principle pools to explore the relationship

between high population in density and social behavior. Yes, by Daniel O'Brien and uh and we'll link to this in the blog post that accompanies this episode, but the entire paper is available in PDF form on lines and it's the fascinating, fascinating read. Yeah, he says that Maccaux and high density populations, do you see an increase in intra sexual aggressive behavior for females when when the population becomes

much larger, resources dwindle um. But he also says that this is a companied by an increase in intra sexual grooming um. Presumably this is the reaction to kind of try to calm everybody down once there have been aggressive acts. So it'd be like everyone's a little stressed out by the overpopulation, but instead of digging nails and claws into each other, everyone just goes and gets there their hair done, I think, so it's sort of like, sorry about that, I didn't mean to do that. Let me gram you

a little bit. Um. But when there is a chimp population that is artificially elevated, by the way artificially artificially elevated is important because this is how they're they're testing this. It was found that aggression actually decreased, but self scratching, which is an indicator of anxiety, increased, and it's thought that this is a form of self control, and this is a deliberate um act that they're doing in order to avoid any sort of unnecessary conflict. So on one account,

we see pro social actions counteracting stress hormones. Instead of tearing it up, We're gonna just comb each other's hair and meet each other's parasites. And we see anxiety and conflict of avoidant self control. So instead of just completely freaking out and murdering my my fellow chimps, I'm just gonna maybe stress a bit and uh stare at the

wall and scratch myself. Yea. And if you look at all these models, this is actually good news for us, right, because we're a lot closer to tom a primate than say a cricket. Um. So when you take this model and you say, okay, there's going to be an increase in population, there's going to be a dwindling of resources for humans. Um, what is this going to look like

for us? How are we gonna act? And we should probably take a break, But when we get back, let's talk about how we may all turn into a loose urbans. All right, we're back, And yes, we've talked about what happens when salamander's encounter population density and dwindling resources. We've talked about locusts, we've talked about primates, but really the big question is what does it mean for humans? Cities

are not the exclusive domain of cannibalistic hordes. Um, obviously as far as we know, as far as we know, I mean there might be some underground sex. Yeah, I mean even when you look in fiction, um, you see there are just as many cannibalistic hillbilly families as there are cannibalistic underground dwellers. It kind of balances out. So so even in the world of the of imagination, we

don't see the tendency towards cannibalism in large cities. But but undeniably, cities are places where people are just stacked on top of each other. Resources various, uh you know, definitions of resources are harder to come by, be it be it just you know, simply food, water, um, a livelihood or socialization. There's sometimes there's just less of it

to go around. I have to say, when I was reading the part about the chimpanzees beginning to scratch themselves, um and then anxiety, I couldn't help but think of Woody Allen immediately, who is it? Uh No, I just kind of was imagining him as as a chimpanzee because the typical neurotic city dweller exactly, exactly, someone who has been shaped by his experiences in the city and high density. UM. So let's talk a little bit about what we do know when it comes to that sort of situation. We

have talked about the bystander effect before. UM again, this is I guess you could look at it as a social norm from not really helping people. And this is evolved from our continual exposure to these instances that we just kind of get UM hardened too, I guess you. Yeah. And this this reminds me of another sort of sort of in a way, I feel like kind of an emerging modern Woody Allen Um in some senses we've mentioned before. Louis c K I believe it's the third episode of

the first season of the show. Louis on fx UM. He's talking about coming to going to New York Port Authority picking up a cousin from the country, and they see a homeless man just lying there against the wall in dreadful shape, just like madded hair, you know, looks like he's on death's doorstep. And and the cousin from the Country's like, oh, whoa, what is he supposed to be here? What's what should we do should we help him?

Does he need our help? And uh? And and Louie who has this very very dark at times goofy but but at times very dark and um and reflective philosophically, they're very philosophical at times. Um he he he says, well, well, yeah, he needs your help. He needs your help more than anything in the world. But but we don't do that here and don't don't touch him, just keep moving. And that in essence is the bystander effect. Um. There are

basically four key components. And we discussed bystander effect before, but but just to refresh their four key components um self awareness, to perceived the presence of an audience to his or her action inhibits the individual from acting. He or she does not want to appear foolish or inappropriate in front of others. So Louie is in front of

other New Yorkers. He doesn't want There's a there's a certain sense of being a city person, you know, like just us, you know, walking around Atlanta, you know not to gaze up and stare at our few skyscrapers. If we go to New York, we're conscious of the fact that we are supposed to be some sort of a city person, even in this much larger city. So we

don't stare up at the skyscrapers. You're not supposed to stand around and look lost, because you'll look out of step, you'll look like an outsider, and I don't know, you'll be eaten or something. Well, but yeah by the underground cannibals. Yeah, you don't want to violate the social norms and the and these and the social rules that are in place, which say when it is appropriate to do something when

it is not well. And then we've talked about before too that that there's the psychological component of it, where you say someone else will deal with that. The more people that are witnessed to something, the more or the less likely that person will receive help. Because everybody's sort of saying that person will help for that personal help. Eventually that person will the homeless person will go to

a shelter and receive help. Right, I mean this gets into a diffuse responsibility, which is another aspect of the bystander effect, which says, then in a situation where only a small percentage of the bystanders can take action, responsibilities diffused. So this that say a hundred people are standing by and there's a guy that it's you know, clearly he needs help. He's laying there right there on on the

floor of the port authority. We can't all help him, no, I mean, we can't all go and pick him up. Only like how many people can pick up a human being at a time, how many can reasonably take him to the shelter or to a hospital. And since we can't all help him, there's this sense that that each

of us has less of a responsibility for helping. Well, it's a matter of resources too, because if you were to help every single person, then would you spend your entire day and your material wealth actually helping that person? So that is an extreme proposition right there. But but you know if you were to stop and help in the high density population like New York City, because spend your entire day doing that, and some people actually do.

I did want to mention bring okay, just real quick self awareness and this is just you look to see what everyone else is doing. No one else is helping this guy, so maybe I shouldn't either. Um, And then there's blocking, and this is where there's a perception that if you take action, uh, you could actually make matters worse because you're getting the way of somebody else who

can actually do better with this situation. So it's like I could try and help this guy, but surely, out of all the hundreds of people walking by, someone else here is better suited, Like some one of these people is an actual care worker or they have some sort of health training. I do not. I am not the

person for this job. And there are a ton of studies that corroborate this um and in fact, in in Socuality in the City, the author talks about how a meta analysis of studies dealing with pro social behavior and degrees of helping behavior found that population is greater than three hundred thousand have lower helping behaviors and lower pro social behaviors. Can you think of a specific example where you've you've found yourself wrapped up in the bystander effect?

I mean, I probably, especially if you take public transportation there and dur encounters like this every day. But I know I have I can't, like I'm the top from the top of my head, I can't, But I know that there have been times before I vacillated and and have finally said, like, could you need help or you know what I'm saying, you kind of stand there and try to assess the situation. Yeah, the I guess the two times that come to mind that we're particularly kind

of interesting for me. Once I was I was walking This was near Crag Tunnel in in Atlanta. I forgot that is a great graffiti to great graffiti free zone. And then what's the name of the of the restaurant,

Historia Historia? Yeah, I was leaving there with with my wife and our friend j T. And we're walking down the street there and uh, and we were just talking about something and we pass a girl that's like passed out in the gutter there by the We're not really the gutter, but but the sort of shadowy side of the road by this restaurant. And we all three passed by. And then after we've passed by, you know, one of us pipes up and says, hey, did you guys see

that back there? Should we we should do something? And then we turned back around and and the three of us sort of as a combined effort, went back and checked on her, and she popped up and ran away. But I see, isn't it interesting that one of you it took like, you know, the three of you guys were thinking about it, but it took one person to say, well, hey, you guys before yes, because before that we were all it was kind of like we were seeing what is the social norm here? Do we are? Do we as

Atlanta residents, as city dwellers, as modern humans? Do we let that go? You know? Do we? Or if we? Does she know what she's doing? Maybe that's her thing, you know, And there are all these different levels at which you can sort of rationalize passing it by until you actually on the question on yourself and say, no, seriously, why did you just pass that? Yeah? I think she was just really drunk, because, you know, because that's a it's a bar there, and she she seemed fine. She

was not injured or bleeding around. I know that ditch she I've done that too. You just need to rest sometimes. The only other time that it comes to mind is when I saw an unintended package or what I thought was an unattended package on Marta. And this was this wasn't like immediately after a terrorist thing, but it was still you get piped in your head. You see an unintended package, you need to tell somebody, Well, and that's our train system, right, so you don't necessarily want to

mess with that. Yeah, And so there was this pack and like I spent like a whole like if it was gonna blow up, it had plenty of time to blow up with me on that train because I'm sitting there and I'm like, all right, is is that nobody's And I'm like seeing nobody sitting next to it? And so I finally ring the bell and then some guy says, hey, that's my package, And I'm like, well, do why were you sending halfway across the train from it if it

wasn't filled with bombs? But anyway, I'm sure everyone has at least a dozen stories of this nature. But I just thought I mentioned to come yeah, and I'd love to here um from our listeners to if they have any stark examples of this um collective efficacy. This is interesting.

This is predicated on humans defending their territory by forging bonds with neighbors and and displaying an unspoken rule of order through the way that their own properties look, which is I think about this less an urban setting, but this is what the paper um Sociality and the City is applying it to But I do understand that because what they're saying, or rather the author Daniel O'Brien is

saying that this is a quote. When collective efficacy is weak, undesirable behaviors like disorderly conduct and public drunkenness go unpunished and are likely to rise. Because I guess the point is is that if you turn a corner in the neighborhood begins to look like it's in disrepair and nobody necessarily cares, the idea is that you could get away with um, some illicit behavior because nobody's necessarily watching or

governing this. So this is this one's kind of interesting, And then it kind of falls back on sort of ideas of of of like a Mayberry kind of situation where everyone knows everybody and everything's harmonious for that versus a city model where you don't know the person in the apartment across the hall from you, and it creates this high sense of isolation and also a less of a sense that I need to actually do what I should because I'm I'm held in a social contract with

those around me. Well, the idea is that then if you're not connected to your neighbors. Then you feel anonymous and you feel like you're not as empowered. And if you're the person who is is mischief making, then you feel like you have a greater degree of freedom or power because you are anonymous and other people are taking on the same roles, so you don't have this informal governance in check. And when we talk about me berry um, this informal governance is a is a really good thing

to think about. Think about gossip, think about trying to maintain one's reputation, think about being socially shunned. Think about setting on your front porch with a jug band as

the sun goes down, which is actually just think about that. Yeah, but but actually I say that jokingly as as a may ory reference, but but actually you do see theories where people say that that that is when everyone got air conditioning, that that had a huge intrimental effect on um on neighborhoods because before that you did set on the front front porch, you did sort of hang it. That was the only place during the hot summer months

that you could actually feel comfortable. If you're inside, you're sweltering, and if you're out on the front porch, or within side of other front porches, people make the rounds, people say hi to each other. It's not an airtight theory necessarily, but it's but it's an interesting way of looking at things. Then we get air conditionings, so instead of setting on the front porch, we're back inside. In many cases we actually wall up that front porch and make it into

a part of our our castle. Yeah, and it's interesting that, you know, even if you were um to try to organize and know as many neighbors as POSSI will and try to put an effort into this into two you know, really crowded areas, the fact of the matter is the more people that you add, the more fragmented it gets.

So it's a difficult thing to organize. But um, Daniel O'Brien, the author of Sociality in the City did say, when when you look at these locustwarms, so there's a silver lining, because he says that recall that, well, not just the

glimmering wings. No, no, a real silver lining. It's it's just you know, it's funny that he's pumping up like this, because I'll tell you what that silver lining is, and then you decide if it's silver lining um that while members of the swarm were inclined towards cannibalism, their marching formation was an emergent adaptation for for avoiding this threat and others. So I think what he's saying is that to some degree, we're pretty self organizing and we're going

to prevent as much violence as we can. Um, you know, like you saw in the primate population, perhaps turned to scratching ourselves or whatnot to try not to express, um

some of the frustration and anxiety on onto others. In In his paper, Daniel O'Brien also mentions a Stanley Milgram system overload theory which was pretty interesting, and this basically saying population density acts on adaptive psychology in a number of key ways, one of which is the bystander effect, which we've covered, but he also says that it creates an enhanced feeling of vulnerability, which which having just spent the weekend out in the middle of nowhere in the

country and then return to the city, I mean, I can I can definitely vouch for that if you're surrounded by nobody and you're not superstitious or afraid of cryptid animals and bigfoot attacks, or or the stray bullet of a hunter who mistakes you for a deer. Then then you you feel pretty safe out in the middle of nowhere, out in that splendid isolation. You move into the city and you're the city is teeming with people you don't know, people you on site don't trust, and who knows what's

out there? Right, There's just so many people and you know that this percentage wise, a large proportion of them are no good. Do you think, yeah, of course, I don't know. Well, you know, it's like it's like in a sense there, you know, they're accountable morphs out there, just show you that they're they're a cannibalistic crickets out there. Not maybe not they're not actually going to eat you,

but they will definitely take from you. And I'm not just saying, oh, they're gonna still my law on its but but you know that there are a lot of forces out there that if you come into contact with them, um, it could have a negative effect on you. That being said, that feeling also plays into this whole loss of connection

with neighborhood. We just trust everyone, and therefore we're less likely to forge these these neighborhood bonds that can actually have a beneficial effect on our society, which and this is something I encounter as a as a homeowner in in the Atlanta you know, it's like you, and as also being the kind of person who's not the most social animal on the planet, I find myself thinking, Oh, I should I should go meet that new neighbor, you know, that would be the nice thing to do. But then

I should bring a pie to that. I should bring a pie to them and tell them about the neighborhood association and tell them about the dude I know it was down the street. But then I don't because that's talking to a new person, and that's that person could be all sorts of the stripes of nuttiness. Well, no, it's not so much that it's just like talking to a new person that's stressful. They could just be normal, and that's stressful enough for someone like me. Okay, all

right now I'm thinking about all of this. I'm just taking it in because I take the opposite tact where if I'm out in the middle of nowhere, then I'm more frightened than when I'm surrounded by people. I feel more comforted by being around people. Well, well, of course, real quick, I should also point out that high levels of distrust and avoidance of strangers, that's also part of

the system overload theory. But to your point, feelings of distrust in the in the country versus the city, Like I said, in our fiction, we see just as many cannibalistic hillbowy families as we see cannibalistic livers and dwellers in the subway. And I have to say that, um, looking at times that I have walked up to a stranger's door or pulled into a stranger's driveway while lost, only once have I had a gun pulled on me.

And it was up in the mountains of only once, and it was like the mountains of Kennasa or someone. I'm not as good about the geography of the vast hills surrounding Atlanta. But we were up there for a wedding or something, and um, no, not worth something. It was a wedding, Uh should I helped my wife shoot

a wedding for a friend. We attended it, and then afterwards we were trying to find a bed and breakfast that we had arranged to stay out and we're trying to use GPS out there and it can't get a signal where we're According to it, we're driving on imaginary roads to nowhere. And then since we were, because we ended up pulling, like going down this really steep gravel driveway and some dude like walks out on his front

porch and he's just astounded that we're on this driveway. Yeah, for twenty years and no one has shown up, and here you guys are. And so I'm busy trying to get the car to go back up the gravel road because it's not really going and I'm having to carefully figure out how traction works on the steep grade. And meanwhile my and my wife sees this and she doesn't tell me till till afterwards, but the guy had had

grabbed a shotgun. She's like, you know, just let you focus on just trying to get the car out of there. I understand that. So so yeah, just from my own personal experience, you know, knock on wood, but that's the that's the only time that I've had a gun pulled on me when I was lost and just needed some direction, and that was in the country. So which makes me wonder if you can still have an isolationist mentality among a great number of people. Yeah, because that's what we

see a lot a lot of times politically. So that's just a sort of fought experiment. Let's revisit really quickly because we have some thoughts about this. We we've talked about the population increase, the explosion. I wanted to also mention something called the youth bulge according to Kenneth Wise, which sounds like a band, but it's u it does. It sounds one that you could kind of snicker a

little bit at the title, but it is not. According to Kenneth Wise, of the l a times of the two billion or more people who will be added to the planet by nine, seven percent of the two billion are expected to be born in Africa, Asia and Latin America. UM, he says, led by the poor, smoot, volatile countries. Yeah, and this is worth pointing out to and this is

from the same article. All right, So in many developing countries, runaway population growth creates hoards of restless young men, and in about eight percent of the world civil conflicts since the nineteen seventies UM. They have occurred in countries with young, fast growing populations. Again, the youth bulges and that's according

the Population Action International nonprofit. So even if you look back before nineteen seventy, a youth boom contributed the rise in the Nazis in the nineteen thirties Germany and to Japan's military ambitions in the Pacific uh and even more recently you look just you also look to stuff like Tianamen Square UM protests in China. You see UM, you see young activists UM. And also in the US, look at the nineteen sixties, look at the seventies, look at

the Wall Street Occupy Wall Street movement. You're seeing large numbers of young people engaged in these these activities. Yea, And I wanted to point out to that. You know, there are certain parts of which will stabilize in population. China, for example, right now it has like fifty of the world's population. By fifty they will add only one percent more. So really you are seeing the greater growth in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And Whist does talk about Afghanistan

in his article as an example of this. He says that since the US lead Envision in two thousand and one, the population has swelled from twenty three million to thirty three million, and that nearly three fourths of Afghans are under the age of thirty, the median age of sixteen

compared to thirty seven in the United States. So he's saying this is a real problem because if you have a sluggish, a grarian economy like they do, and you have men, young men who can't find legitimate employment, and UM, you also have young men who want to get married but they require a dowry, then they're going to go probably toward um illicit activities or towards the Taliban to get some source of money or food to sustain themselves.

So they're saying like, even if they're not too interested in the Taliban's politics or agenda, then they're probably gonna go toward that route anyway because they don't have a lot of options to choose from. The other huge problem here is that UM, and again Afghanistan as the model here, women truly are considered second class citizens and they don't have many rights, and they don't have access to birth control.

And you will see time and time again that UH, young girls who are educated who have access to birth control will delay marriage, they will delay having children, and will have less of them. UM. And you know, I bring this up only because when when you're in that situation Afghanistan in the average amount of children a female has is seven seven babies. That's that's astounding, UM for

the lack of resources available to those children. Yeah, so there's there is there's a comparison to be made there. I mean, you could think of these uh, these angry young men is larval salamanders in a pool of it's it's quickly filling up that whether resources are not optimal and what are they going to do to deal with

that situation. So we've talked about this this problem before and it's not just a question and and solution of urban design that certainly helps UM and rethinking agriculture to meet our needs that helps too, but it really is like, what is this lookli and how can you help people best um, particularly this youth bulge, And how can you help society not just a self governed but to organize itself to to really accommodate all the very his problems

that could arise. So there you go. If you live in the city, I hope you'll think about all of this as you walk the streets today or tomorrow. And uh, information looking behind information, running from the cannibal behind you and chasing after that tasty looking stranger in front of you. And if you live in the in the country, I I you know, think about all these things when you plan your next trip to the city or Robert shows up. Yeah,

you've got to protect that mental app I guess. But that's the only thing I could figure it is, like, dude, dude, is that crazy about someone showing up? You must have something to hide or captives in the in the cellar that I almost that I almost joined. UM, So let's call over the robit uh and get a few listener mails from him. And while he's doing that, I wanted to mention that we had uh an email from Linda and she wrote into correct me about the f m

l A Act, and I'm very glad that she did. Um. I had stated that this is the yeah, this is from the milk episode. I've stated that women get six weeks of unpaid leave office in fact, twelve weeks. UM,

So I'm glad that she pointed that out. And when we talk about fm l A, we're talking about the Family Medical Leave Act and that's not just for for children, but also for taking care of other members of your family, and it is available to people who have worked at their job for a year and two companies they have to uh, they have to actually offer it if they have more than fifty employees. Okay, there we go. Cool.

And I should also note uh that I corrected this on Facebook and Twitter, but for those of you who don't follow those, I also in the milk episode, uh, and without thinking, I mentioned Romulus and Remus, and I think I either said or implied that they breastfed from a cow, and of course they breastfed from a she wolf in the Roman mythology. So my apat a duies to Romulus, my apologies to Remus, and of course my apologies to the sheet will Well, and I like how

you call the Rami and Remi and Remi. Yeah, well that was those for their kids names. They're embarrassed when you call them that now, but at the time. So hey, let's let's read a couple of these mails. These are some quick ones. Uh. We we get more mail than we have space to to read on on air these days, but and certainly this is a longer episode, so I'll just read a couple of short ones, uh Andy writes, and this is dear Julian, Robert just wanted to thank

you for putting out your science podcast. I really love that you add a lot of philosophical ruminations to the information you impart It's a great extra element that keeps me coming back for more. Thanks again, sincerely, Andy. And Yeah, that's what I mean. That's one of the things we

love about it is UH. It's not only talking about these these very scientific topics or even kind of out there topics, but ultimately bringing it all back to the human condition and in our perception of the cosmos, in our place in it, and how does it potentially shift or outright change that proposition. And a lot of the feedback that we it from you guys really helps to feel that as well. We've gotten some incredible thoughts from

you all. All right, and here's one from Jerich Jerk writes in UH in response to our Seven Deadly Sins series, which which was a real popular one with with you guys. Send gals, He writes in and says, Hi, Robert and Julie, I'm a new listener to the show, and I just finished listening to the Seven Deadly Sin series. I was wondering if anyone brought up the correlation between the seven deadly sins and many of America's major holidays. The thought first hit me several years ago after I had just

stuffed myself with turkey on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for gluttony, eat two, you can't move and take a nap, Valenstein's Valentine's Day for lust, a whole day dedicated to luthern Wace, Labor Day for sloth, have a day off you deserve it. Christmas for greed, presence presence, Fourth of July for wrath, celebrate your country's independence by blowing up a small portion of it um and Veterans Day for pride. I don't

have any commentary for this one yet. I don't have a holiday for envy, but I would love to hear if you have an idea for for one. I also realized that you may need need a somewhat cynical point of view for the holidays, but I submit that a decent argument could be made for each of the sins. I really enjoyed your podcast. Please keep up the great work. Jarek Um. Yeah, all those comparisons I think are pretty apt. But indeed, is there one for envy? This could be

for envy as well. Could do you do Old Judy in the Yeah, I mean indeed, because you know, we talked about the interconnectedness of some of these and indeed, coming down to at heart, it's about grasping for something that you don't have on a certain level, So you could you could see Christmas is that you're you're grasping

for something. You you see things you want and you desire them, So you could make an argument there, I think more so than you could for like say Patty's Day, which is probably just another that's that's cluttony as well. Yeah um oh. And then Jarek also adds while writing this, I was listening to the Way of the Sword podcast and feel it should be noted that watching a real sword fight is not nearly as entertaining as watching the

movie fights. I have fence for several years in college, and when friends and family would come to watch competitions, most would get bored before too long. While the added blood effects of a real fight would be exciting, I doubt it would be overly enjoyable to witness an extremely painful death. So that's interesting that he brings that up, because you know, I think I thinking to sword fights that have been most entertaining in in films like that. I guess that you have to you have to walk

that line between believability and enjoyability. I'm just imagining now that that fencers should start to smuggle in blood capsules right and employ them at the right moment. I really feel like you guys would get huge sponsorship dollars if you did this, or if they incorporated more of the the old swash buffling, like you know, you run up a chair and then you sort of like tip forward with it. Things like that roll over the back of

the table, so more. If they just held Olympic fencing events in side crowded pubs, that might that might help. Although somehow I just doesn't seem like the right fit, does it. Fencing I think is always going to be just sort of a white glove thing and beautiful and and a wonderful art. But blood capsules, pubs, crazy costumes, you know, paint those suits up. I don't know. I mean,

of course, this is me talking. I've yeah, I tend to gravitate towards the gravitate towards the professional wrestling because I find that it is, uh, it is just fake enough, um, whereas I find real fighting is either boring or disturbing. But if you if it's if it's fake enough, it's theatrical enough that I can get behind it. And I guess I'm kind of the same way with sword fights.

I don't want to see a clinical exhibition of someone's fencing prowess, but I also don't want to see a like a plotless just you know, flashing images of laser swords hitting each other and needs to tell a story. So what you guys are hearing, I think are the

seeds of a science of wrestling podcasts to come to see. Anyway, I've rambled enough, uh and now once you're turning to ramble, So if you have something you would like to share with us, If you have some interesting notes of by standard effect in your life, um, if you have thoughts about cannibal morphs and uh and and just anything regarding h uh stuff that we've talked about in this episode or other episodes, let us know about it. You can find us on Facebook, where we are stuff to blow

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