SPEAKER_00 0:00

You probably wouldn't normally think that there was a link between cocaine and hippos.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

No.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Okay. Welcome to another episode of Spells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do. The very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder, what? And why? I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today is a funny and clever slice of humanity who is easy on the ear, and every once in a while we'll get the juices of your amygdala flowing. It's Jamie.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Hi Ross. Hi there.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome to the show and welcome everyone. We're glad you're here. We're excited that you listened to the show and we appreciate it if you share it with others. Now we know, Jamie, that just about everything we humans do has unintended consequences. And these unintended consequences fascinate me. Even little choices we make that seem innocuous can create ripples across the world. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but most of the time we have no idea. We never know. We never know these little things that we do, these little choices we make have significant consequences. I like to fantasize that positive things that I have said or done. I was gonna say something really weird. You just I like to fantasize about a chicken leg and Julia Child in a bathtub filled with squid ink. I was like, no, stick with stick with the program, Ross. We all just want to get through this in one piece. What was the lyric that you were saying? Flip it, scrub it, knock it out. I like to think that little things that I've done or said to people in my life somehow reverberated positively across the universe. In fact, over the years, people have come up to me and said, Oh, you know, that you said that thing to me, or you did that thing for me, and it made such a difference to me. And that's always so heartwarming to think about, wow, I wasn't even thinking I was doing anything. I was just, you know, talking.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Or I was just trying to encourage you or something, and it made a difference in their life. Of course, you know, with each of those positive things, there's probably choices you've made or things you've done that are not so good that have had negative ripples.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Me? Never.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Well, not you. I'm talking about other people. Other people that aren't you. But I was thinking that even negative things that are negative initially can act can turn into a positive thing. Totally. And then I started looking for an example because I couldn't think of any. And I ran across, well, you know, when ships sink during a war, whenever they sink, you know, they're always they're always sinking. Especially those cruise ships. They're always sinking or turning over, right? Sure. Always. Everybody goes running over to the buffet and the whole ship. Just flip. Yeah. I flips it.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

They flip it, they rub it, tickle it.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

They eat it up. So when a ship, it turns out it's not funny when a ship sinks. It's not a laughing matter, people. And let us be the first ones to remind you of that. But when a ship sinks, they found out that it can actually create beneficial reefs, coral reefs. And it's like helps the fish and the plankton, all the jazz that hangs out. I don't mean to be too scientific with you when I use words like jazz and plankton. Oh my god. My first question is have you ever done anything nice for someone and did it ripple?

SPEAKER_02 4:05

A couple of years ago, my significant other was working at a job and he was so miserable at his job. He hated it.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

He every day when he would walk to this job, he would say, I hope I get hit by the streetcar because this is the worst job. I hate it. I hate it. Horrible. Yeah. So he had been talking about maybe switching jobs and getting this um certification and going into tech. Going into tech. But you know, he's never had that job before, right? He doesn't have experience doing it really, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

But he was so miserable at his job. And and I don't know if you've ever had a job that you hate so much that it just starts bleeding into your personal life and your your mood and everything, you know. And so I told him to quit his job. Just quit. Wow. Just quit your job.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

That's bold advice.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Uh, you know, you get this certification, we'll figure out something. Um and he was really nervous to do it. Obviously, he had no backup plan or anything like that, you know. Um and and I just was like, you know what, we'll figure it out. I would rather you be happy than you know, work go somewhere that you hate every day. And and he so it he did it. And now he works for a big tech company and is very successful, and they are like, they are kind of like blown away at how good he is at his job and how smart he is. He keeps getting these, you know, different promotions and all that kind of stuff. He says to this day, he never would have done it. He never would have done it if I hadn't pushed him to do it, and he's so happy that he did it. He's so happy now. That's it. He basically has his dream job now, and it's like it's really great to see. I'm really glad that that happens.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

It's great that you did that, and it's great to see it. Um, you get to see the the effect of the intervention, and but sometimes we don't get to see it. Like sure. Oh, we don't get to see it directly sometimes like that. So it's nice when you see it, but I like thinking of all the things that we do like that, and we don't ever get the feedback. We never know. Right. And but it's great that that worked out, and it is a scary thing to do, but the fact that you were there and you were supportive and encouraging, and then so the part of it that you don't know about, which this is what I like thinking about, is okay, so you got to see him go down that road and to reach a successful place and to be happier and all that, but then he's in this job and in other aspects of his life, he has affected other people, so you know somehow this ripple keeps spreading. Yeah. And I was thinking, like, well, how can I illustrate this? I mean, those that's a good example, you know, I think that you gave, but but these unintended consequences, what would be a way a way to illustrate this more clearly? And I realized the best way to illustrate this would be with Pablo Escobar.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Because I feel like whenever you're really trying to look at the law of unintended consequences, you have to start with Pablo Escobar, who was, of course, the Medellin drug kingpin.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Colombian cocaine. Right. You probably wouldn't normally think that there was a link between cocaine and hippos.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Okay. So Pablo Escobar made a lot of dough. You know, his original scam, one of his original scams when before he discovered uh benefits of cocaine.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

He would steal tombstones out of graveyards and then they would grind off the inscription and then resell the tombstones.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

That was one of his initial gigs.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

So, you know, he's everyone's got to start someplace.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

That's right. Then someone really encouraged him to go into Nose Clans.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Exactly. Someone said, you know, you gotta step up. But one of his uh affectations is he had a personal zoo at his place in Columbia. Oh wow. So he had zebras, giraffes, kangaroos. And when he was killed in I think '93, the animals were either sent to zoos or they croaked somehow. Okay. One of his exotic pets did not die. So he had four hippos. He'd bought them in Dallas from a wildlife breeder on one of his, you know, exotic animal buying springes. You know that people do. Yeah, as one does. And the hippos were so once he was killed, the hippos just kind of hung out there at the place. They just hung out. Huh. They just hung out. And they were dubbed the cocaine hippos. Okay. So they slowly uh they enjoyed hanging out there and they slowly began to reproduce, you know, as hippos will do. And so I think around 2009, the government was like, maybe we shouldn't be not having these hippos. They're not really indigenous to South America. Yeah. So it's probably not a good idea to have these hippos reproducing. So some soldiers went out and they killed Pepe. The hippo, one of the original hippos was named Pepe.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

That's a good hippo name.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

It's a great hippo name.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

But then the public went nuts.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

They're like, you're shooting hippo? You're shooting a harambe situation. Yeah, well, who?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Harambe. What's harambe? That gorilla. Who got who shot harambe? Ross, come on. Who shot harambe? And why'd they shoot him? Because he got that kid. That kid fell in the gorilla tank.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Oh, if your kids falling in a gorilla tank, the gorilla's doing it doing a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

People were very upset about Harambe.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Because well, which part? The killing, the kid. The killing.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

No, they killed the monkey.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah, I didn't think it was it's not fair to kill a wild animal if you've got a dumb kid falling into a don't let your kid near the gorilla tank.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Is that a tank?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

A gorilla's in a tank? I don't think they keep them in a tank.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

What do they keep them in?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I think they keep them in a caged area or uh an enclosure. An enclosure. Obviously, it wasn't very well enclosed. I mean, I feel sorry for the family. I know it was a tragedy, but I don't think you should blame wild animals for being wild animals. Right. They're just doing what they do. Yeah. And what was the gorilla really? Was the gorilla really trying to hurt the kid, or was it just a love smother?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, I think he like dragged it around a little bit, but I think the kid was a like a doll. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Like a doll? Yeah, like a girl.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Wait, the kid didn't die? No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Oh why are we killing the kid didn't die?

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Right. He just got dragged around. Yeah, wasn't an eye for an eye type situation. He got a little dirty. He got a little dirty. He got smudged up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Oh, come on. I hope that's not the story.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

I'm pretty sure that's what happened. Well, how can you blame Harambe? On May 28th, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor guerrilla enclosure where he was grabbed and dragged by Harambe. Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe. The incident was recorded on video and received broad international coverage and commentary, including controversy over the choice to use lethal force.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah. Yeah. So the kid didn't die. He got dragged around. Maybe he needed a new onesie. Right. Uh what's he doing crawling under a fence? Yeah, I know. That's not easy to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Your parents were not watching you.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Your parents, they're drinking boozy ciders. So they shot and killed Pepe. There was public outcry, and the government just said, oh, well, no, we'll just stop doing this then, since everybody loves the hippos. And remember, people kind of, there are a lot of people who had affection for Pablo Escobar. They thought he was like a Robin Hood, so they kind of liked it. And also they turned his compound into an amusement park.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

So I mean, there was kind of like an affection for this guy, an inspection for his hippos. So experts estimate that now those four hippos have matriculated into 170 descendants and they're roaming the Columbia countryside. Oh, that's crazy. Which, by the way, is not known for hippos. No. They're kind of destructive. In 10 years, it's estimated if they don't do anything with the hippos, their numbers will grow to a thousand and pose a serious threat to the ecosystem. So they if the government thinks now what they ought to do, since people don't like them being myrtalized. They don't like you know, choking out the hippos. So instead, now they're saying, well, what we'll do is we'll sterilize them. But think about that. How do you do that? Yeah. So a hippo weighs three tons. Right. That's 6,000 pounds of loving.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Yeah. And so you gotta tranquilize them or it's not like a cat or dog.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah. So you gotta trank them and you gotta make sure they don't wake up during the operation.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Because they will mess you up. Yeah. If you're like the vet doing that. Right. So some people say, no, this isn't gonna work. It's it's dangerous and it's also may not work. And it's better just to myrtalize all the hippos. Just knock them out, erase them. They're not supposed to be here, they don't belong here. Then we don't want permanent hippos. All you want to do is Pablo Escobar is just have this little menagerie, this little exotic animal zoo, and just show it to your friends. And it's kind of like a rich person thing, right? Yeah, look, I have my own zoo.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I don't think he talked like that. So now that's unintended. And he's not around to even see that this happened because I'm sure he didn't intend to have a hippo outbreak. He just wanted to have a few hippos. Well. So then I started thinking about what other invasive species are. And of course, we've talked about feral swine. Yeah. Uh where do they come from? That's what I'd like to know about it. Where did they come from? Right now they estimate there's six million of these things roaming the United States. Not only here, it's other places too. How about Burmese pythons? Originally from Southeast Asia. They're extremely destructive. They wipe out native small mammal populations. One killed a two-year-old child who swallowed three deer. Um, holy mackerel, these are a lot of these suckers are in Florida. They can grow up to 20 feet long. They were brought to Florida as part of the exotic pet trade, but many of the owners released them.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Domestic cats, you don't seem surprised.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

I'm not surprised.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Feral cats. They're originally from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and they were brought over here by European settlers as pets, and they kill birds.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

That's fine. I'm not a fan.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, cats. Get rid of the birds. How about European starlings? Those are birds.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Yeah. Sick the cats on them, they'll cancel each other out.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Originate from Europe and Asian Africa, and it was brought here by a Shakespeare fan who a bird, the starling is mentioned in the play Henry the Fourth, and in 1890 he said, Well, let me bring a couple over those to the United States and leave them in Central Park. He he let a hundred birds go in Central Park. And now there are millions of them, millions and millions of starlings. They've spread across the continent. And uh they estimate 200 million. Wow. And they are noxious, they're destructive, they compete with native species, they destroy crops and grains and pitted fruits.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Not the pitted fruits.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yeah. And they can't sing worth a damn. So yeah, and they have other all kinds of diseases. And then the famous new tree, I mean those swamp rats, those bigs. Yeah, those came from uh South America. Yeah, they're all over the place. They're just bad new trees. It's got their teeth. Asian teeth. Yeah, they got the teeth. They look like a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

They like orange, yeah. Yeah, orange, yeah. They're like the rats from Princess Bride. The R O U S. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

And they're just yeah, they're got a bad case of the Uggs. They're no good. They transmit diseases, they burrow everywhere. You know, they're just ugly giant rats, but they're prolific breeders and they like to get down. Then we got Asian carp. Asian carp. We got these this from Asia, of course, and then we have gypsy moths that came from Europe and Asia, on and on and on. And everything is ruining everything. They cause billions of dollars of damage, all these invasive species. And all of them, almost all of them, are the result of unintended consequences. Well, wouldn't it be fun to release some Shakespearean birds in Central Park? No, idiot. Like, what an stupid goon. I know it was the 1890s, but I'm sorry, that's just stupid. Like, how could you not think that this was going to be a problem? Right. Now, when pigs are escaping, I don't know if you can blame anybody for that. Yeah, pigs are smart enough to escape. They're picking locks, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

And I don't feel like I would look at a pig and think, this is a problem. This is an invasive species.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

A pig that gets loose, a wild pig that gets loose, you know, and maybe they have a disguise, you know, whatever it is, they sneak out two pigs on each other's shoulders with a trench coat.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Or they, you know, they pretend they're like delivering grain or something. They're dressed up as like farm hands. Uh-huh. So I started thinking about all these invasive species, and then I started thinking, well, wait, you know, what the hell is an invasive species? There's so many things that people say are invasive, and it's like, well, let's think about this, shall we? Okay. So what it only makes sense. Okay, it only makes sense if you were looking at short periods of time, and I'm talking about when you think about geological time, and and our planet is almost five billion years old. Everything's been moving around ever since the beginning of this planet. All kinds of species have come and gone, they moved around, they and it's only invasive if you just have a really narrow perspective and say, Well, these pigs shouldn't be here. Yeah. Well, who's to say? Right. If the pigs take over the world, then it's not going to be an invasive species. Then it's just pig world. That's just what we have. Um, you know, dinos were an invasive species. Sixty-five million years ago, or whatever it was, they would they were all over the place. But they that wasn't theirs. They they showed up. They ex they had no natural predators, they were just these big ass dinosaurs roaming roaming the country, and they ruled. They ruled the planet until they were meteor bombed out of existence. And then that's it. Yeah. No more, no more invasive dinos.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

They had their moment.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Who you know who else is an invasive species? Humans! We're not supposed to be here. Most of the life of this planet, we have not been here. We've only been on this planet for such a small fraction of the ex time that this planet has been around. Out of the five billion years, we've only, I mean, if you want to go back to the knuckle scrape at ancestors, like the real, the real, like hairy looking goony people that stood up on two legs for the first time. So that's a few million years at most. Yeah. We're a freaking blip. And look what we've done. We spread over the entire planet, yeah, and we've ruined everything. And not only have we ruined everything, but we're the ones that have created all these other opportunities for invasive species. How did these rodents and these giant rodents and these starlings and these murdering hippos, how did they get their people did it? We did it. Maybe not intentionally. We thought they were cute, but we did it. Now, people are everywhere, just like the pigs and the hippos and the bed bugs. Bed bugs, by the way, is a big problem in Asia right now. Watch out for bed bugs. Yeah, they're everywhere. I had a a nephew who may listen to this podcast, and he came back from a visit. He was studying in Japan or working there, and he showed up at my place for a couple days, and then he leaves and it was a nice visit. Very pleasant, very pleasant visit. Good to have him as a house guest. And then he sends me an email and says, Uh, I got bed bugs, so you might want to burn your entire house. Yeah. Just move. Yeah, just just yeah. So hey, good luck. Hey, take care. Out of all the species that have ever been alive, 99% have been eradicated, have gone extinct. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_01 21:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

99%? That's not a good, that's not a good long game for us. No. And we haven't been around that long. I think I think people start ought to start having a little more fun in their life because nature's out to get us. Where does this take us, you're saying? I was wondering. Where does this take us? The cocaine hippos, the invasive python. So why where where have I been going with this? It's this whole idea that things that we do can have all these long term. Consequences. So since we know there are there's unintended consequences from everything we do, I'm suggesting that people do more nice things.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

You even if it's just a little thing, like just a nice little thing. Like let's let somebody go ahead of you in the shopping line when they only have a couple things and you have three baskets filled with junk. Let somebody else go. Do something nice. You never know how that will propagate over time. They seem like trivial things, but if enough people are doing them, remember that movie Pay It Forward? Yeah. That was kind of a cute idea. A little fantastical, but kind of cute. Put it out there in the universe and see how it changes the world. You can be the feral hippo in someone's life.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

You can be that person.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

I aspire to be the feral cocaine hippo in someone's life.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

You can be the cocaine hippo in someone's life. Um, it can have major consequences like you had for that person in your life. It can be something minor. But I think that we part of the problem, you know, living in a the complex world that we live in with so many, which is so easy to find so many things that are wrong. So many problems in the world, so many people suffering, unnecessarily in most cases, it's easy to feel like we have no power, we have no control, there's nothing we can do at any level. Certainly not at an international level, certainly not at a national level. Some of us feel like we don't have any impact in our communities or even in our neighborhoods. We don't have any power to change anything. But I think it these doing these simple things, simple positive things, simple pro-social behavior, simple anonymous good deeds actually is the way for us to make the change, to make an impact, and we just have to be okay with not seeing the cause and effect, because we probably will never see it. If we help an old lady across the street, do people still do that?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

You grab it, you grab an old person on a corner, force them across the street, you just drag them like uh Harambe dragging a kid, you just ragdoll them across the street, and then you throw them down like a sack of potatoes and say Good deed done. At least once a day, just do one nice thing, even if it's the most incidental, trivial thing. That is a way for us to exert control over our world because in a lot of times, a lot of times, that will propagate. It'll ripple forward because something somebody does something nice for you. Doesn't that put you in a little better mood? Like unexpected.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah. This is a side note, but my my employee yesterday told me that she was waiting in line at the pharmacy, and the guy in front of her was like, Oh, you can go in, you can go in front of me. And she was like, Oh, thank you so much. She was in a hurry. And he was like, Well, I'm not doing it for you. I just didn't want you to hear the question that I'm gonna ask the pharmacist.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Oh, that's too bad.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

So it's I thought it was gonna be a nice thing, but now I really want to know what he was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah, you know, I think there ought to be a cone of silence that you get in with the pharmacist. Because everybody's you you always have you always got a goob hanging on your words, like you're kind of leaning in. Yeah, what's this guy got? What kind of rash is that? That can't, that that guy's been up to no good. And he's got something gross that I wanna. I'm glad I don't have it. I want to I want to feel superior. Whatever I got's gotta be better than what he's got. Yeah, I actually don't want to hear those conversations. I'm like la la la la la, don't want to hear.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

I feel like I always get stuck behind the person that has a thousand questions. Yeah, with the questions at the pharmacist where they're mad at the pharmacist for something that's beyond their control.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, yeah. I don't like the feel of ointment. Yeah. What can they do about it?

SPEAKER_02 26:08

We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Come on, they're just counting pills back there. So as soon as somebody starts asking more than one question that's not easy to answer, trapdoor opens up. Yes, there they go. I love that. And what's down in there? Feral hippos, feral hippos, feral pigs, a couple of harambes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

And then let nature work its course. Yeah, this is this is a ripple effect I can get behind. It's a different rippling.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

There's definitely a rippling. You can be the feral hippo in somebody's life, you can be the cocaine hippo, and you can make a difference. That's a noble goal for any of us to have who are just regular people who don't have any real power over anything, is to offer somebody a seat on the subway or the bus, or if you see somebody struggling, help them out, or if you know somebody in your life who's suffering, you know, encourage them, or just be there to listen to them. Get them a hoagie or something.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Love a hoagie.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Have how have you changed your thinking now as a result of being part of this?

SPEAKER_02 27:14

I was just trying to decide what nice thing I'm gonna do when I get home.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah. And how are you gonna be a feral hippo in your in your communities?

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Perhaps I should deal with all the soggy leaves that you saw in front of mine and my neighbor's house. I wasn't. Maybe I'll get them for the neighbors.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

There was no place to pull up where you wouldn't have to wade through ten feet of leaves. Yeah, there's a lot of leaves out there. It's fun to do anonymous good deeds too. Just put it out there in the world and see what happens. And you hope that the ripple effect is positive. Well, thank you for being here, Jamie. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for this episode. If you like what we're doing, please share the show. That really helps us. It helps us grow our little community into a bigger little community, and we enjoy that you spend time with us. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You can reach out to us on Instagram and you can send us an email. The email is in the show notes, and we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are just contemplating all the jazz on a coral reef or just someone dragging a toddler around in a gorilla tank, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Flip it, smack it, punch it, tickle it, put it in a box.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Get it away from me.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Smell it, crank it, snap it.