Don: 0:14

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Uncannery. I'm Don, I'm Ron, I'm Doug and we are here tonight to talk with you all about an interesting topic that I don't know. I think it's interesting. I don't know if you guys will think it's interesting.

Ron: 0:28

We'll be the judge of that, Don.

Don: 0:32

I want to actually start by opening up the scars of your childhood, though, and ask you yeah, of course. Were you ever punished as a child? I guess the implicit question is did you ever do anything wrong as a child? But if you did something wrong, were you ever punished for it?

Ron: 0:45

Yeah, yeah, I can think of a couple of punishments. My mother was famous for having a wooden spoon that she would hit us with and I got across the backside and I probably got only spanked once. I don't really have that many memories of it, but my brother, kyle, was getting spanked all the time and famously one night the spoon broke I was rearing up to ask you because that's a big moment.

Don: 1:11

Yeah, it's because he was chilling on it in the afternoon.

Ron: 1:14

He was purposely weakening it to try to exactly. That's why we called him beaver tooth kyle. That's good aiden, never no. By the time my very youngest siblings were born, she had forsaken her former tyrannical ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah, douglas.

Doug: 1:34

Spankings. Oh yeah, I never had the spoon, but I'll never forget, like hitting the age where my mom finally gave a spanking and I didn't immediately start crying and being sad. I just went ow and turned around and looked at her and I saw the look in her eyes and that's when I knew this was done. She looked at me like all right, I guess I'm not doing this anymore. But I was like what are you doing? Yeah, I definitely got spankings. I'm trying to remember if I got my mouth washed out with soap.

Don: 2:05

I was always a threat, but it never actually happened. I'm not sure if it actually happened to my brother my older brother maybe, but it was always a threat to wash mouth out with soap.

Doug: 2:17

Yeah, I'm thinking that I got that at least once. I did get it once too.

Ron: 2:21

Yeah, I have a memory of that.

Doug: 2:25

Yeah, but I'm once. I did get it once too. Yeah, I have a memory of that. Yeah, but I'm wondering if I tasted soap. That's what I remember, because I'm like she keeps talking about this.

Ron: 2:29

Let's see how bad it is, um my mom has a story where she made us she like executed some punishment I think it was the soap thing and she felt so bad afterwards that she never did it again, she, she was like oh my God, what have I done?

Doug: 2:44

I had all of my toys bagged up too. Oh yeah Like, here comes the garbage bag.

Ron: 2:52

Were our parents listening to the same AM disciplinary show.

Doug: 2:56

Here's what you do.

Ron: 2:58

Yeah, they'd go up in the in the room and then you couldn't where. You couldn't get them Cause they were like up high. It wasn't even in the attic.

Doug: 3:05

attic it was just like in my dad's office, which is scary the image of the trash bag, though, like all of this is garbage.

Don: 3:12

Your favorite things in life are garbage and the psychological damage to the trash die or just bagged up and temporarily?

Doug: 3:18

yeah, it was the. They're going in the trash. You're seeing them put in the trash bag and of course they show up a week later. But I think she should have stayed consistent. Just throw them out at that point like we're gonna reset your life. You're this bad of a kid. I think that's it. I can't really think of anything else. Got yelled at, got all three names, said that was robert brown.

Ron: 3:40

That's when you knew I never, like I never really had detention in school. There was one time and I got like a Sunday school or something or a Saturday school once in high school, but that was because I wouldn't rat on my friends. So I feel, like that's okay.

Doug: 3:55

Yeah, that is okay.

Don: 3:59

Why? Why did we get punished? Why did you get punished? Not what crime you committed? You can keep that to your grave, but from now that you're an adult, looking back on the mind of your parents or whoever it was that was punishing you at school, why the spoon? Why the garbage bag?

Ron: 4:15

We transgressed in some unforgivable way. We were threatening the very fragile fabric of the society. But why the kitchen utensil? Because it hurts, because we were animals. Animals only speak the language of pain.

Doug: 4:32

Even though, literally, like the evidence has come out about the, isn't that true? Like you don't rub your dog's nose in its feces or its urine because it doesn't understand, that's what you're trying to do. It just goes. I won't go over in this area anymore. If you're asking me, you're talking to the wrong person. I don't think punishment works.

Don: 4:54

At all, or for you.

Doug: 4:56

I think that it can potentially get the desired effect that somebody wants, like you, punish somebody for something and they don't engage in it like an activity or something that they do at all anymore, but punishment always was. Do you now feel remorse and have you changed your ways?

Don: 5:18

And in a majority of my life experiences, I don't think it actually does so you didn't make decisions based upon the threat of the trash bags or the threat of a spanking, or yeah you just did what you were going to do and if a punishment happened, it just was an act of god that swooped in and just survived if you're not going to change the behavior, but you might change your execution.

Ron: 5:40

Right like you, you're going to find a way to maybe be sneakier or less.

Doug: 5:44

Seen next time right I feel like that's how it changed me and I agree, I don't think I ever stopped doing things and that's why, when you ask why, I immediately go it's not producing the desired effect. Yeah, like we're just back to. Yeah, you're not engaging in the same way yeah yeah, if you're sneaky now, you're just a sneaky version of that, and that's worse.

Ron: 6:08

That is worse. Yeah, that makes me a worse person. That's way worse.

Doug: 6:12

Like now, I just do criminal activities from 2am to 4am because mom's asleep.

Don: 6:17

That's not good. So you're saying that you would still do what you want to do, that you knew whatever authority figure didn't want you to do. You just would hide it. But did you ever make decisions about what you didn't want to do because of the threat of a punishment?

Doug: 6:32

I had to have. I'm sure I did. I'm sure fear made its way into my little heart as a child.

Ron: 6:39

My first emotion was fear. I remember fear.

Doug: 6:44

I think school right, right, like family punishment.

Don: 6:46

I think it usually seems like it's more about about behavior, but, like at school, there's it's easy to cheat off somebody on a test or something like that, but do you choose not to do it because it's the wrong thing to do, or do you choose not to do it because you might get caught and that would lead to a punishment?

Ron: 7:03

I think I I definitely had a sense of right or wrong and I think like everyone does, but I think it's just like different for everyone. So like I never cheated on tests or anything like that, but I was like a good student, Like I didn't need to but-. I didn't need to cheat. Unlike you, Don, I didn't need to cheat, but obviously a kid in a different no-transcript maintain something.

Doug: 7:55

They were the a students that had to make sure they kept that a, the ones that I knew that cheated. Those are the ones cheating when. This is the one I didn't study for I'm going to cheat.

Ron: 8:09

Yeah, like I had to cut corners last week because there was the biology test and that one, and then there's also the English test and that one doesn't matter. So I'll cheat on that one, yeah, and then my driving test. I guess that to your answer there's always a calculus, right?

Don: 8:46

And sometimes, yeah, obviously the punishment must factor in frequently, like you mentioned it right, like there's physical punishment when you were younger and I the same. Like I, I actually only have one. I know I was banked as a kid, but I only have a memory really of one event in the second grade, for some reason.

Don: 9:00

But which was I didn't do my homework and oh and mom and dad were out and mom came home and I did my homework after that. But when you're figuring like, okay, can I get away with this, if the punishment is just, mom will be mad and will yell at me like I can endure that. If the punishment is, she's going to rip off my left arm, like maybe I'll need that someday. So then I'll change my decision. What the punishment actually was. Did that ever affect your decision to do or not do whatever crime it was you were playing?

Doug: 9:33

See, even in the example you just gave, you're going to change your home environment. Mom's going to rip off my arm. I don't live there anymore.

Don: 9:41

The desired effect has happened.

Doug: 9:43

You're not going to repeat that behavior. You're also gone. That's what's going on right there.

Ron: 9:48

There were like gradations of offense, right, the spoon wasn't for everything, right, there were certain I can't even remember what they were, honestly, what even any of us were doing to merit the spoon, but I know that wasn't the answer to every problem. I'm assuming that tells me that there, that it had some sort of effect. Right, the gravity of the punishment did influence us to some degree.

Don: 10:13

And they were teachers for me, like there were teachers that would give you, just give you the look and tell you not to do that. And there were teachers that like, if you were caught cheating or if, if you misbehaved, like they were writing you up and it was sent to the office and it was going to be a bigger deal.

Don: 10:27

And so the behavior in that friends and others in class would exhibit did depend absolutely on what the threat of the punishment was. So it was. But so we've been talking about our families and and how our families have raised us and tried to shape us. But, doug, you said interesting a little while ago that that you didn't think that punishment ever worked and we have a whole industry around this. We have a criminal justice system that that people transgress against laws and and the whole industry's job is just to affect that punishment.

Don: 11:01

And so that doesn't work. You think, or is you talking only about within the family? It doesn't work.

Doug: 11:08

Even that right, like you're talking about punishment. But then I just realized I wasn't speaking direct. Let me try that again.

Doug: 11:19

You're talking about punishment, but even the way that those places are described now as they are rehabilitation centers, and even in the way that they are being rebranded, I think the idea is that you're building something versus cutting something down it again. This is my, gets into my bias of those three people that I know, but one of them, very close, I think it hasn't been his, the person that I know. It hasn't been his time in prison. That's that, okay, this is my punishment. Now I act this different way. It's been his reflections about what life is about that has changed him fundamentally as a human being. And then it becomes what? Do you have had that opportunity? Because he's in this rehabilitation center, or is it because he? He, yeah, he would have come to that conclusion himself.

Don: 12:15

In that case the punishment if you're sent to jail, the punishment is just confinement of your freedom. So you're saying that he's just readjusted his outlook, but isn't that just sort of the same, as it's the fear of that confinement and that loss of freedom then. So it's still. The punishment then is deterring the future behavior.

Doug: 12:35

Perhaps it is, perhaps it is, yeah, perhaps it is. But then don't they have to be sustained in that environment forever, in this punishing?

Don: 12:43

environment, or the environment has to always exist as the threat. It doesn't have to actually so then, maybe it's not there. I don't know. Let's consult Orwell.

Doug: 12:55

I'll be okay with that.

Don: 12:56

Because the reason that I bring that up is because we're really limited in our modern society on the types of punishment that we legally met out to criminals. So we've got loss of freedom, which is confinement in jail. We've got fines right, which is loss of material well, their death penalty for extreme cases but that's like in the united states, like those are your options, right. Is there another, like a community? But that's like in the United.

Ron: 13:18

States Like.

Don: 13:18

those are your options, right Is there another like a community service, which that's loss of time and paying back the community that you've.

Ron: 13:23

There's like public ostracization, but that's not really a justice department. What'd you call it? What's the fancy word? Justice League? Yeah, justice League, a judicial punishment.

Doug: 13:35

Batman shows up.

Don: 13:41

Just your friends would say, oh, you're not, not somebody I want to hang around with. But judicially it's just those three sort of options in the past that we've had. There were more options available. There was this whole smorgasbord of like humiliation would be one. Right, just right, and I'm thinking about that. To me that connects back with my childhood. Right because the idea of being spanked yes, it hurt, but I don't. I think I was more ashamed of it. Right, it was the humiliation of it more than the pain of it. But there used to be punishments like that, just designed to embarrass you, humiliate you put you in the center of town tied up and people could yell names at you and talk at you and or put funny hats on right the branks that they would put on gossiping women or things like that. Or even just designed to apply pain.

Doug: 14:21

Yeah, I just remembered another punishment I received in a classroom. I remember in third grade I was trying to make my friend laughed in class who was across the room I think I had a crush on her at the time and I heard my teacher say everyone go ahead and turn your heads and look at Doug, Because Doug would like attention right now. So we're going to stop everything we're doing and give it to him, Doug. Is that enough attention for you? Thank you, let's move on and I remember, wow, that teacher's an evil genius.

Doug: 14:56

Yeah, it was brilliant, because I remember the second. And then, oh my god, the complicit little insert expletive here children that go, I can't wait. And they like turn and look at you. Who are you? Why do you like this? Because they did. I saw it in all their faces, like we're all doing this.

Ron: 15:17

They see in that moment their opportunity, power, social escalation yeah, that's good, I'm with her now.

Doug: 15:24

Yeah, okay, you go be with her. I'll change my brown shirts. Is this how it?

Don: 15:30

begins, which is exactly what you're describing, is exactly the experience of being locked in the stocks of the pillory, like that right.

Don: 15:36

Whole point of that is to confine you to a spot of humiliation and everyone to focus their attention on whatever you did, because it wouldn't just be the fact that you're standing there, it would also be the fact that the public had knowledge of what you did in order to warrant your being placed in that situation In terms of applying pain or humiliation. Even they could cut off your nose. They could cut off your nose, they could cut off your hand, they could cut off your ear when it's pain and humiliation, right Lashing with whips and all kinds of things, the creativity that Branding, tattoo Branding, for sure, and sometimes the branding was actually like, incidentally, the punishment, it was just a way to mark you as the criminal. So that way everyone knew. But of course it hurt. But it was more about the future, where everyone's going to know that you are a robber or something like that I want to I want to take us back a little bit in history.

Don: 16:25

We're going to talk about an example of a unique punishment and how it came about and what the purpose of it was, and how it might might, I don't know guide us. Today. We're going to go back about 400 years, to Tudor England. All right, yeah, all the way back to 1504.

Ron: 16:41

Big Tudor people Doug you a Tudor guy.

Doug: 16:44

I love a good Tudor. I love a good teacher as well, yeah.

Ron: 16:53

This one's for the teachers and the Tudors. A little British lit pun there from Doug.

Don: 16:58

That's good, whoopsie. We're going to go back to 1504 and the very first Tudor king, henry VII. So Henry VII takes over from Richard III about 20 years before that, but 1504, the important thing is that Henry VII has a friend named John Fisher, who Henry VII makes the Bishop of Rochester. So he's a priest and he elevates him to this important position. Rochester is basically the entire bottom right-hand corner of England, so from London all the way east, southeast, towards.

Don: 17:28

Canterbury and all that, canterbury and all that. So Kent and Canterbury would all be included there. It's a big land, it's a major appointment, it's a very important position and that happens in 1504 and 1509. Henry VII and his wife both die and John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, actually performs their funerals. Henry VIII takes over as the next king. Henry VIII is probably the most famous king. If someone were to come up to you on the street and say, hey, name a king of England, who are you going to name?

Ron: 17:56

The new one Whose name I can't think of. See, that's not the right answer. Nobody knows.

Don: 18:00

Henry VIII is going to be the name.

Ron: 18:01

He's the rock star king, is that?

Doug: 18:04

what we'd call him yeah.

Ron: 18:08

He's the Jimmy.

Doug: 18:09

Buffett of I don't know, Wasted away again and where's my kids?

Don: 18:16

copyright whoops now, what sort of things do you know about Henry VIII? What's Henry VIII famous for having given no warning that I was going to ask you a quiz question today. What do you know about him?

Doug: 18:29

having a complex he's.

Ron: 18:31

He split the from the church, from the Roman Catholic Church, and created the Church of England. He did, and for what? Really good? So he could kill his wives or, sorry, divorce but basically it was so he could have another wife.

Don: 18:45

But yeah, he didn't start killing them till after that. But you're right, that's, that's casually gloss over that the that's one of the things he's very famous for is that he has multiple wives. But in order to have those multiple wives, he had to break from the church, because in the church, how many times do they usually let you get married?

Ron: 19:00

I think, seven. No, that's what.

Doug: 19:04

I'm trying.

Don: 19:07

Ron's got a harem.

Ron: 19:08

He's starting If you go to a different church each time how would they know? Yeah, Depends on how far away.

Doug: 19:15

The church is. I got 10 fingers.

Don: 19:16

That's right. Put a ring on each one, you never asked about these ducks. Yeah, ron has always sported, I always thought that they were football rings, all those championships.

Ron: 19:30

So yeah.

Don: 19:30

Henry needed to break from the church because he asked very kindly, hey, can I get a divorce from my first wife, catherine of Aragon? And the answer was no. Every time he asked his local archbishop of Canterbury they went to Rome. The answer was no. They had a little trial. The answer was no. Every time he turned around, the answer was no. So his solution was yeah, let's break from the church and we'll make our own. That's what he's famous for.

Don: 19:59

The thing that people forget is, prior to doing that, he was actually a very staunch Catholic. He actually was given an award, for Pope Leo X gave him the title Defender of the Faith for writing a book against Lutheranism and about that book. Like, henry was a Renaissance man, doug, as you pointed out. He was athletic, he was handy with the ladies, he was a musician, he wasn't a theologian. Like, how did he write a book about Lutheranism? We think that John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, actually was one of several people who maybe helped him with ghostwriting some of this book that he got the award for. Cool, yeah, that's how you do it. Yeah, get somebody else to do it.

Ron: 20:31

Just take credit for it being a king, you got a lot to do.

Don: 20:33

You got to delegate John Fisher and Henry. The point is that they had a lot of association and religious association, so they have this support network in terms of their Catholic faith. But then we get to 1527, and this is when Henry starts to make this decision that he's got to ditch his first wife, Catherine, Because he needs in Henry's mind, he's really looking for an heir. That's the whole point. He needs a male heir, Catherine of Aragon. His wife has had several miscarriages. They doesn't seem to be able to carry a pregnancy to term. They did have one child who lived, Of course, that's Mary.

Ron: 21:10

The boy who lived.

Don: 21:11

Not the boy who lived, she had the girl who lived.

Doug: 21:16

They don't tell that story. Actually they do.

Don: 21:20

So he decides he's going to try to marry Anne Boleyn, of course, and first we got to get rid of Catherine, and in order to do this they appealed to the Pope. Finally, and the Pope agrees to let them have basically a trial, the trial of the marriage in England, because Henry has proposed that his wife might not have been a virgin when they got married.

Don: 21:43

Oldest trick in the book, right, because? Interesting fact again, and another part of the story that people sometimes don't know is that Catherine was actually not originally engaged to Henry. Oh yeah, catherine was first sent over from Spain to marry Henry's older brother, arthur.

Doug: 22:01

Oh, well, Arthur didn't have that.

Don: 22:03

Arthur was cool, though. See, arthur was supposed to have the crown. He's the older brother, and that was why princess Aragon was was sent over to marry him and did actually marry him, but he died very shortly after the marriage, and part of this treaty with Spain, of course, was hey, we're expecting our daughter to become the queen of England and your son died. So what are we going to do about this? So Henry is like second choice, but he's now going to be the king. But everything was supposed to be okay, because Catherine of Aragon pinky swears that they didn't consummate the marriage with Arthur. So if it's not consummated, it's not a legal marriage. So she said that she was still free to marry Arthur's brother, basically. So he's marrying his brother's widow. In 1527, 18 years later, henry decides that is the reason that his wife can't have a child. Of course, she must not have been telling the truth about what happened with Arthur. So the Pope decides to have this trial and they send an emissary from Rome.

Don: 23:04

He drags his feet getting there. Cardinal Wolsey, who is Henry's chancellor, is going to be the second judge, so there's going to be two judges in this whole case. But because the emissary from Rome is dragging his feet, the whole trial gets delayed a little bit. One of the witnesses is John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. So this guy that was a helper of Henry in earning his Defender of the Faith title and he testifies that the marriage is legal. He's a supporter of Catherine. He doesn't want to see her divorced, doesn't want to see her kicked out, and that makes Henry really mad. He doesn't like it when people oppose him anyways. Does this end in punishment?

Ron: 23:43

uh, it does actually what does this have to do with me being spanked?

Doug: 23:51

henry the eighth, like the spanking it just it just takes.

Don: 23:54

It's a slow burn, so we'll, we'll get there. But what winds up happening, of course, is Catherine is. The marriage is annulled, catherine and Mary are sent out to the country and Henry marries Anne Boleyn. So that's just the background politics of what's going on. So the next thing we need to do is we need to fast forward a little bit, to 1531, february of 1531, as a matter of fact, and John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, is living in London. He's got a house in a place called Lambeth Marsh. It's actually still there. You can go visit the Archbishop's house in a nice park there. It's on the South Bank. It's just next to the South Bank, across from the Palace of Westminster. If you were on the London Eye and threw a baseball, you would hit the Bishop's house. It's like right there. And 1531, february 18th, I think, the bishop is holding a dinner at his house.

Don: 24:43

He's got 17 guests coming over and his cook, a guy named Richard Roos, is preparing the meal, and one of the things that he prepares is. Sources are different on this, so I'm going to give you two words. One is porridge, so oats and milk boiled together and makes like a oatmeal. Some sources say pottage, which would be like a stew, porridge or pottage. I'd pick pottage. I hope it's pottage. Yeah, I don't know what it is, but he made it and he served it to the dinner guests. Now, one of the things you should know about John Fisher, the Archbishop of Rochester I'm sorry, things you should know about John Fisher, the Archbishop of Rochester I'm sorry, not Archbishop, bishop of Rochester is he also would grant alms at his door. People would come and line up at the Archbishop's kitchen for food, and some of this porridge or pottage was also served to people who came up to the streets. And the bishop had a tradition in his house as well that he personally would not eat until those people who had come to his door in the kitchen were fed.

Ron: 25:43

So cool guy.

Don: 25:43

Yeah, johnny Fish Throw him on a ticket. His 17 guests eat this, whatever it is, and 17 of them fall sick. Oh yeah, how could that be?

Doug: 26:00

What could have happened? He wanted to punish some stomachs.

Ron: 26:05

He got out there. He woke up that morning. Yeah, he said, I've had enough. I've got one thing to do to stomachs today. I know what will get rid of these freaks. Something went wrong. Yeah, spoiled produce.

Don: 26:15

Could be. Yeah it could be.

Doug: 26:23

Just food. Something went wrong, yeah.

Don: 26:24

Spoiled produce. It could be yeah, it could be just food poisoning is a reasonable One of these 17 house guests dies. Oh, that's different. Now we're in a world of pain. It's pretty bad. And one of these people who came to his door, a lady named Alice, actually dies too. So we have somebody in the household who dies, somebody who's just on the street who died from this, this porridge. The archbishop's brother, I think, who was the butler for the house, says that it must be Richard Roos and has him arrested for poisoning the food. How are we going to find out? Back in Tudor CSI, what would be the best policing technique you could think of to get the truth from Richard Roos?

Ron: 26:57

What if we hear me out? What if we took his ankles? And put them inside of the mouth of a shark? Would that make him talk?

Doug: 27:09

I think he'd talk, I think he'd say anything you want?

Ron: 27:13

what if we made him eat eels?

Doug: 27:16

Electric.

Ron: 27:18

No, they like it over there they do. Yeah, they eat that all the time. He'd be just like yum.

Don: 27:23

Oh no, we fed the prisoner, but you're on the right track. So torture is what they do. They put him on the rack, and on the rack he says that he admits to poisoning. Oh no, Whatever it is the porridge, the pottage?

Doug: 27:36

Oh no, Whatever it is the porridge, the pottage, he claims, but go no, no, it's just. I'm sorry, I get conspiratorial immediately.

Don: 27:44

It's of course he's going to say that it had to be pizza.

Doug: 27:50

Couldn't have been. The sausage supreme was too much. It's just, in whatever form of torture you're about to say, he's gonna say anything. He's gonna say anything because he's under direct oh I'm on doug's side here.

Ron: 28:05

I feel like torture doesn't I think even people who torture people say this right I feel like that's doctrine now is that like torture doesn't actually give you like correct intelligence. It just gives you the intelligence you are telling them to tell you right, Like it's giving you the information you want.

Don: 28:22

Yeah, Torture has been an an activity for thousands of years, literally thousands of years. And how could it not work?

Doug: 28:30

This is because of human beings. Human beings like it, and that's why it's still there, and I it's ugly In ancient Greece.

Don: 28:39

It, and that's why it's still there, and I it's ugly. In ancient greece, testimony given by a slave was not valid in court unless tortured it was given under torture.

Doug: 28:44

See, they just like it.

Don: 28:46

Oh wait, let's see if it's still the same when I burn your toes let's see if you sing the same song.

Ron: 28:55

now, it is interesting how they arrive at that, though. What is I'm actually? I don't actually understand the sort of the flow of logic that brings you to that conclusion that nothing is true until someone who is in pain says it.

Don: 29:12

I don't know. I wasn't there. I've surmised about this cause. I've had the similar question and what I'm wondering is if there's enough pain like if you're trying to create a subterfuge, you're trying to hide a fact, you're trying to shape an event. If you apply pain to that person, their ability to act in ways that is are deceitful might diminish sure I don, I don't know, that's the only thing I can think of. Richard Roos is tortured on the rack. So arms and legs are the stretchy one.

Don: 29:43

That's the stretchy one, yeah, and I don't know how long he was tortured or how severe it is. The rack can cause super severe damage to you. But what he tells them is that he was given this powder by a mysterious person that he can't identify and he was told so again, you're telling me that, doug, you're saying that it's hard to believe anything he might say. But so here's all the details that he gives them. I was given this powder by a mysterious stranger I can't identify. I was told that it was a laxative, so I just thought this would be a funny joke. We're going to give laxative, so I just thought this would be a funny joke. We're gonna give laxative oatmeal to all the bishop's guests and we'll just watch them have intestinal discomfort there are people in london yeah, there I was in the kitchen again and the mysterious stranger said put the laxative in.

Doug: 30:33

And I thought what a funny joke it would be this guy. This is clearly done by torture.

Don: 30:38

This is, yeah, this guy trying out for black adder in 1531, absolutely so that's the story, all right, and and we've got to figure out what's going on. My first question is what's the likelihood that richard made up that story and just wanted to poison his boss?

Ron: 30:55

that's a real story. The very first thing I'm telling them was it was johnny. It was johnny black powder who brought me the poison.

Don: 31:04

Why not name a name like why say I can't name him if it's?

Doug: 31:07

maybe he's just good, like he might just be a good person protecting his friends protecting a guy like you.

Don: 31:13

You knew your three friends that cheat, that you would tell on them that he's like protecting Steve-O right now. I don't think that's enough.

Ron: 31:24

So specific. I love it. I'm with you, don. I think this is very highly suspect.

Don: 31:28

Yeah, because we're talking about poisoning in John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester's house, the person who opposed the King just a couple of years prior about his current marriage and continued to. Actually, so John of Rochester, um uh, was part of the uh uh, did swear an oath of supremacy to Henry, of sorts. Um, the oath was acknowledging that Henry is the head of the church of England, but before John Rochester, john Rochester, john Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, would swear to it. He made them a fix, something like as far as God's law allows, or something like that. So some little get out of jail free, tag on it. So, even though this has happened and he's still the Bishop of Rochester, he's not really a supporter of Henry. So there's some rumors that maybe Henry wanted to get rid of the Bishop of Rochester as a pain in his side. Not Johnny Fish, yeah.

Ron: 32:25

Johnny Fish has drunk his last, he said.

Don: 32:28

Yep, or we've got the Boleyn family. The Boleyn family had a house just across the river, over nearby what today would be Charing Cross, and the Boleyns, of course, wanted their daughter to be the new queen. There's a possibility that her dad or her brother could have been involved trying to eliminate the good old bishop. Wait, I'm sorry.

Ron: 32:49

I got my timeline mixed up. This dinner occurs during the trial.

Don: 32:57

After. So there's actually two trials. So, there's the one that John Fisher testified at was a 1527 trial. It's the one that gets Cardinal Wolsey in trouble. So it happens, but the Rome, the emissary from Rome, actually doesn't arrive, and so it's delayed. And that's where Wolsey gets accused of treason, because Wolsey wasn't able to provide the divorce that the king wanted. Okay, he's going to marry anne boleyn in 1533.

Ron: 33:22

We are in 1531 so we're in that period in between. So she would, her family would have a strong motive here absolutely to eliminate any resistance.

Don: 33:32

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking and, as a matter of fact, a little bit later, a a couple months later, the John Fisher Bishop of Rochester is working in his study in his house and a cannonball gets fired through the wall of his study. The direction of the cannonball seems to come from the Boleyn's house across the river, about a mile away.

Ron: 33:56

That's bad form. You can't yeah. Why didn't they start with that? Did it work? Did he get?

Don: 34:03

hit. He didn't. No, he was fine, but his house had a big old hole in it.

Ron: 34:08

So, yeah, these people are bad at this really are, yeah, so did. Nothing came of that ever nothing came of that.

Don: 34:15

Just a mysterious came of that, ever. Just a mysterious like how do you trace a cannonball? You?

Ron: 34:18

go and look for cannons. Does everyone have a cannon in their house in 1531?

Don: 34:24

Great question. It would be a good question. That would be the first thing that we need to find out.

Ron: 34:28

We're going to cold case that one on the next episode.

Doug: 34:30

We'll have to look. And balloons cannon.

Don: 34:35

So this canon, so this the poisoning happened in february 15, the canon a few months later. Richard roose is in prison this whole time, in february 1532. I don't know why this took a whole year, but in february 1532, um henry goes to parliament and actually speaks for over an hour and a half to parliament about the dangers of poisoning and how terrible it is, of course he does. He actually had apparently a severe paranoia about poisoning. Why do you think it's terrible? No, what's terrible.

Ron: 35:10

No, it is, it is dangerous.

Don: 35:13

He's right. It's not good for you, that's true.

Ron: 35:16

It's not. Is this a common paranoia to have in the middle ages? Is poisoning like a very is a common way to kill people?

Don: 35:23

or it's not, and I think that's part of what's going on. So poisoning was not very prevalent at all and I think one of the reasons that Henry had such and this is speculation, but one of the reasons that that Henry and the upper classes had so much fear of it was because it was such an easy way to slip something in. If you're going to hand-to-hand combat, stab somebody, you have to have a certain amount of strength, you have to have a certain amount of skill stealth but poisoning gosh, anybody could do that. This was a big deal. No, it was not a very prevalent way to. It was actually thought of as a coward's way of killing someone.

Don: 35:58

And it was not, not very prevalent, and the reason Henry was was arguing for, or to Congress, to Parliament.

Doug: 36:06

We've got a new world order here, people.

Don: 36:09

Was because he was arguing for them to pass a bill of attainder against Richard Roos. Of course, what's a bill?

Ron: 36:16

of attainder?

Don: 36:16

I don't is that it sounds like I want him. It is. It's just a law that says you're guilty of something.

Doug: 36:25

It the tainter actually deprives you of all of your civil rights. Yeah, because if he has admitted to the guilt first and of course he wants this because he's the one who's messed with this- but there's a couple of things that are going on.

Don: 36:35

What crime is he committed?

Doug: 36:38

taking powder from someone from the stranger. There's no, there's no law against taking powder I definitely agree with that and it's pure sarcasm right now.

Ron: 36:48

But but the powder man, he's out there get that powder man no, so you're saying there is no law. He's broken. So he is asking no, there is. I'm asking you like.

Don: 37:01

So he made porridge. Two people died. What crime did he commit?

Ron: 37:04

oh he remember third degree murder. I don't know my degrees of murder because I don't murder.

Doug: 37:10

It's not the same as burns ron.

Don: 37:14

Yeah one is burns, one is murder. Good news for you under english common law there's no degrees of murder. That's a statutory. It's a statutory us thing that we invented, that other people copy. But that's a statutory thing, common law.

Doug: 37:25

There's just murder, okay so he made murder he indeed malpractice is something I associate with doctors, but would you call it malpractice like the? Idea of the profession yeah, Because you were supposed to be a good cook and here you are.

Don: 37:42

And other people's health is entrusted to you. As a cook, there's a level of responsibility that goes along with that for sure Punishment for murder back in 1531. Probably murder, I haven't asked. I was hanging Yep Punishment for murder is hanging.

Don: 37:54

I haven't asked, I was hanging. Yep Punisher for murder is hanging. He probably would not be charged with murder, though Common law has another special term for it, because he was trying to kill, it seems, john Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, his boss, and again, class system. So we have this special category of murder If you try to kill somebody who is in the class above you.

Doug: 38:20

That's not murder, super murder.

Don: 38:25

It's called petty treason. Oh, so you're betraying the social order ugly and you can be charged with petty treason. Even if a wife murdered a husband, that would be petty treason.

Ron: 38:35

So it's a dog murdered a cat Be careful what you say.

Don: 38:41

Some of us like the punishment for petty treason is being drawn to the place of execution, and then, hanged.

Don: 38:49

So being drawn mean like tied to hurdle and dragged behind a horse adds to humiliation, adds to the public spectacle right, draws people to your execution. But here's what's going on is henry is arguing to parliament one to pass this bill of attainder, saying that richard ruse is guilty of this crime and he wants to change the crime to high treason. Why high treason? High treason normally under common law means that you have threatened the life of the king or of the king's family, or of a very small group of close advisors to the king. John fisher, the guy that is opposing the king, wouldn't be counted like he's not part of the king's group of advisors, so you would be outside that group. But why would Henry want poisoning to be high treason?

Ron: 39:37

Because he's afraid of it. Yeah, that's a possibility.

Don: 39:41

So you've got to try to again. It has to go back with deterrence. That was the whole we started the conversation with. Does punishment create deterrence? That was the question. Part of what Henry's argument to Parliament was is that we do have to extinguish this desire to poison, and we can do that by elevating the level of crime, by making it high treason. He also limits access to a privilege called the privilege of benefit of clergy. You guys know the benefit of clergy.

Ron: 40:11

Is that your immortal soul will be saved because you get the last rites before you're dead? No, but it's what it sounds like.

Don: 40:19

Yeah, Wrong If you put the words together. That's what it should mean.

Ron: 40:22

Yeah.

Don: 40:23

Benefit of clergy means that if you are convicted of a crime underneath the civil court, that if you are a member of the clergy you can appeal to the ecclesiastical court and the church courts tended to be more lenient, especially with members of clergy right so if you were a priest and committed a crime, even if the punishment was, say, death by hanging the ecclesiastical court, you might sign a different crime for it.

Don: 40:49

Ben Johnson, the chair and associate of Shakespeare, actually was accused of murder and avoided being hanged by benefit of clergy. Benefit of clergy started, of course, with clergy, and then it turned into you can prove your clergy if you can read, and then it turned into anybody who can read gets benefit of clergy, so reading was an important skill. So kids stay in school or you might be murdered. So thinking, though, about this is just a. This is a cook in a guy's house that you don't like, right? And Henry goes to parliament and says hey, we need to pass a law that makes what he has already done more illegal than it was when he did it.

Don: 41:26

The bill of attainder deprives him of civil rights, means that he doesn't have the right to to any of his property, so even if he had anything, he couldn't pass it down to his children. It's going to sentence him to death. We're going to talk about that next. And, because this is not a trial, this is parliament passing a bill. He does not get to defend himself. Richard Bruce never has a trial. He's never found guilty.

Ron: 41:47

Parliament just says he is is this the most screwed an englishman has ever been.

Don: 41:55

No, we've got other stories we can get to someday, but it does set a precedent, and it's an interesting precedent because this sort of starts a a series of attaininders that Henry is going to enact over the next decade and that's a different story for another day. But Richard Roos is actually the first one that Henry passes. So this first time that Henry uses his power as king to get Parliament to pass a bill that says you are illegal, basically, the law just made Richard Roos' existence illegal, ruse existence illegal. So henry's trying to. So is henry trying to just dissuade future poisoners from poisoning? Is that the the point of all this? Do you think, or do you think he's trying to distract the public from the fact that he still wants to marry anne boleyn and he already has a valid marriage to, uh, katherine american?

Ron: 42:45

it does seem like it's a little bit of a like a jack ruby element here where it's oh, we got to kill the guy who could boil our whole plot, but it is going a bit far to have to make the whole government be like. We definitely need to kill the guy who I may be utilized to assassinate a rival, but maybe that's like part of the theater of it, right, like I don't, maybe you know better than I, but how seriously or how much motivation should we ascribe to any sort of ethics that that henry the eighth has? Or would he treated a potential foe with the utmost cruelty, because my hunch says, yeah, this is the guy who I think so too kills his wives not all of, but yeah, he does kill more than one.

Don: 43:30

That's true. The way you said that was like an apologetic.

Doug: 43:33

you know not all of them, that was like us talking about Norwegian black metal.

Don: 43:39

The bill of attainder, by taking away his right to the benefit of clergy, means that the death sentence that they're going to pass on him there's no escape from, that they're going to pass on him there's no escape from. And then Henry has Parliament add to this bill, so the Bill of Attainter, that the punishment for poisoning that Richard Roos will experience, as well as all future poisoners will be boiling to death Cool.

Ron: 44:06

Wait, did that happen before? Has it? Ever happened this is a thing they used to do, and he's just like, hey, let's pull this one out of the book.

Don: 44:13

So England doesn't have a long history of it, but the world does.

Doug: 44:17

Yeah.

Don: 44:18

Okay.

Doug: 44:21

For any listeners at home. The show Shogun was just released. Please skip ahead 15 seconds if you don't want any spoilers from the first episode, but they do show a person who is boiled alive. Is that ishikawa no I?

Don: 44:37

don't. I don't think the famous. He's a very famous japanese person, who was who holds his son over his head?

Doug: 44:42

no, no, this is somebody who's on their ship that's being tortured. I think that is wel Welsh, I believe. And the guy, it's just so vicious. He bashes his head against the side of the boiling pot to end his life because he's in so much pain and they show it. It's so vicious. I was like, okay, we got a new Game of Thrones here.

Don: 45:02

This is it, and you told people to jump ahead 15 seconds. I think you gave that spoiler right at the 15 second mark.

Ron: 45:11

So, hey, everybody, thank you for your patronage.

Doug: 45:13

I know this is going to be your last episode, yeah.

Don: 45:17

In Deventer in Holland they actually have the pot hanging on city hall that they used in the past. So, especially in the continent of Europe, it has always been the punishment for forgers.

Ron: 45:28

Forgers, yeah why.

Don: 45:29

Forgers, yeah, why forger, because forging is it's high treason. So high treason is a threat against the king, threat against king's family or threat against the coinage, because it's what the whole economy relies on. Right, so you can't. So actually, yeah, they have the pot out there. The pot has holes in the bottom of it because the rumors napoleon's army shot at it to make funny sounds as they walked by Old jokester, that guy.

Don: 45:50

So boiling is a thing and it's mentioned in ancient texts and unfortunately, there's even reports that, like in Uzbekistan and Pakistan, there were warlords recently who have boiled people.

Doug: 46:05

So we like torture.

Don: 46:07

Yeah, but that's my question is why are we doing this to Richard Ruse? Like the normal punishment for murder is hanging, so we, like torture, are weakened at the site and then there's some disemboweling and nastiness. But the point is that it's relatively quick compared to the idea of boiling someone alive, like it's miserable. It was designed to be the worst execution they could think of. It's not something that I would wish on anybody. It's only a few minutes until it's over. Why are we deciding to boil Richard Ruse alive?

Doug: 46:50

The follow--up question is this a public execution?

Don: 46:52

all executions are public yeah it's more fear.

Doug: 46:57

That's not true that all execution most executions are public, okay, um, then it creates more fear. Did you just see this man boiled alive in front of everyone else? You better not do.

Ron: 47:07

You better not talk to any powder men that show up you better watch out, you better not cry. Powder men's coming and he's better turn them away. Don't take the powder that the powder man gives you.

Doug: 47:20

And, by the way, it's March right now, so we couldn't be further from Christmas.

Ron: 47:27

But just cause I think my mind keeps going back to the the. This really speaks a lot to that paranoia of being poisoned like you said, it makes a lot of sense that this is the, the classes below the ruling class that have acts, who they rely upon. A couple of these guys get a funny idea oh, I can kill anyone. I don't like I can see where he would take that threat and run with it.

Doug: 47:50

Yeah it's just. I think doing it publicly sends a message. It seems like that would be.

Don: 47:58

That's the only thing I can think of and that's and I want to circle back to what you said when we started tonight was that punishment doesn't work. So making it the the public punishment right, the idea that if it's terrible then it's a deterrent to future poison Is that going to work? Being spanked by our parents didn't seem to deter us from whatever it was that we were doing, but if the threat was I will boil you alive. Is that going to make you think twice about? I think it would.

Ron: 48:29

Because I didn't even. Okay, let's just say richard roose did purposely set out to to kill the bishop right it didn't even work right. He didn't even. He didn't even get what he wanted.

Don: 48:41

The bishop was fasting that day yes, the bishop didn't even eat anything that day.

Ron: 48:46

So yeah, I would be. If I'm a guy who doesn't like the government, I'm probably not. I'm going like, oh god, go back to the sketchbook. Poisoning ain't. It should try canon through a window.

Don: 49:01

Yeah, how did? How did richard ruse attempt to commit the crime that he's? Accused of feeding the guests and in order to feed somebody, hot aged oh, are we creative?

Doug: 49:16

is that's where we're going with this?

Ron: 49:18

oh, there's, a poetry.

Doug: 49:19

In the same way that you cook this for me, I cook you, yep so ugly.

Don: 49:24

There's a, there's a, I don't know there's a, I don't know there's an association between the method of poisoning with the method of execution, which is pointed out in Henry's Bill of Tender as well as in the ceremony of the execution.

Don: 49:41

Richard Roos was brought to Smithfield, which is where a lot of the public executions took place back then. Smithfield is still there today, big open space next to the market. We don't have a lot of information about what happened that day. To my knowledge, there was only one other boiling that took place in England about four years later, but it didn't take place in London. So it still was not a common thing, and this law that made poisoning punishable by boiling was rescinded by Henry's son in 1547. So it was only the law for about 16 years. Don't know a lot about what happened. We've got one account that was written a few years after it happened and we have a chronicle of a group of friars that was present in London. It has one paragraph on it and it says that he was wrapped up in chains and hung from a gibbet so some kind of a crane type device, and that he was lured into the water at least three times and that it took about two hours for his death to happen.

Don: 50:41

No, so trying to piece all of those together and trying to figure out, like, what would that actually look like? Because they're the talking about boiling in other places. Right, there's a couple of options. We're talking. We're going to be creative, right, how are we going to boil someone alive?

Don: 50:56

You can do the frog in the pot version right when you put the cold water in, you put the person in and then you just let the fire go. It seems like that's not what what Richard Ruse experienced that he had a boiling pot to start with, but the dipping in and out of the water at least three times because they had them gibbeted seems to be what extends the the event for at least two hours. So that's fun. Yeah, have you ever burnt yourself with hot?

Ron: 51:23

water.

Doug: 51:24

Yeah.

Ron: 51:25

They just turned up the water temperature in my apartment and now, if you turn up the heat a little bit, I've scalded myself seven times this week, so I know where he's coming from.

Doug: 51:38

I took a hot shower. This guy knows yeah.

Ron: 51:44

How long does it take someone to die of being very hot in water?

Don: 51:52

It takes a little time and we actually it's odd that we know a little bit about this Like why do we know this?

Doug: 52:01

We shouldn't.

Don: 52:03

Why shouldn't we?

Ron: 52:05

Let me think there's got to be it's ugly.

Don: 52:06

You're setting us up.

Ron: 52:07

I am.

Don: 52:08

It's actually a very reasonable thing, like it's not, you know, nazi experiments or something like that. There's actually a very reasonable reason that we have pretty good information about what happens to Astronauts, not astronauts. Space is pretty cold.

Ron: 52:25

Yeah.

Don: 52:26

Other thoughts. Where do people get hot? Where do people get?

Ron: 52:28

boiled, boiled. Yeah other thoughts. Where do people get?

Don: 52:33

boiled sauna, the fins we're back to the norwegians the death metal I'll tell you, I'll give you a hint. The place that happens most frequently happens because people are trying to save their pets hot springs, that's it. Yeah, okay, yeah, most of them happen in yellowstone People. They'll bring their pets with them to the national park. Their pets are outdoor pets. They like excited. They see a pool. It looks all pretty and blue. The pet runs out the door, jumps in the 200 degree boiling water and the human goes in after them and basically you're screwed and basically you're screwed because once hot water hits your eyes, they probably just boil immediately yeah, you can cook some exactly.

Don: 53:19

Yeah, your fat will start to to melt underneath your skin, so you get all gloopy um.

Doug: 53:23

Folks, I'm not laughing because this is funny.

Don: 53:25

It's just so scientific the way he's describing it when people have been recovered from from these accidents. They can't, they can't take off their clothing, like they have trouble accessing the person because of their clothing, because it just, it literally melts together not the clothing has melted, but that the flesh underneath it has become so soupy and goopy.

Doug: 53:46

If you take off someone's shoe, you take off their foot with it, it just unglubs and slips out Instantly, thinking of Dante's Peak like the grandma Another spoiler, but that one is a little bit. It's been 30 years, so I think we're okay.

Don: 54:01

The other thing that researchers or writers about these accidents point out is that the likelihood that you remain conscious the whole time is actually pretty high. You think about great shock to your body and obviously temperature is going to be a huge shock. Your body's going to try to regulate that temperature difference and things are going to swell and things are going to turn red and you're going to. But when people have been rescued from these situations, they are aware of what happened. They are aware enough to say, like, how bad is it the?

Don: 54:32

what they're concluding from that is that there's no shock amnesia that sort of blocks out what's happening to you and yeah, you might smell yourself because literally what's happening to you is that you are cooking and apparently the the smell of cooking flesh human flesh is either sweet or musky.

Doug: 54:55

You'll find out which category you fall into ron, you've been in the shower a few times this week. What have you found?

Don: 55:00

I'm definitely a musky guy so this, this happened to richard ruse and and that was so. My question is we started with. Punishment didn't seem to be effective when we were kids. But we're ending with this conversation and, yeah, if boiling me alive was on the table, I might have some questions about my behavior. That's different than just a fine or something like that. So is do we need to have harsher punishments? Bring them back, start boiling people alive and that'll deter crime.

Ron: 55:40

Don you do it to me every time.

Doug: 55:43

Yes, no, no no, I think the dichotomy that's been set up is different. We started with punishments. Here's my mom with a wooden spoon. Here's punishable death, where we're gonna cook your eyes. I think there's such extreme differences because, like you're now weighing the difference between temporary physical pain and humiliation versus death, like and it's so the choices that you're making is this worth death? That would change things significantly, but it's still the same general idea which is like you don't want to.

Ron: 56:23

You don't want to behave this way because the the punishment will be so uh severe, yeah severe, that it's not worth it. But I feel like if I was a guy inclined to poison people in 1531, after I see this public execution, like I said earlier, I'm just going to be sneakier about it. The motivations I have to carry out a crime like that probably haven't changed, right. This just becomes another, like, like we said, element of the calculus. Okay, how do I do it better than that guy, right? Yep, but it is worth saying the proof is in the pottage. Are there any other famous poisonings in england up and after this or up until the time when it's eventually the laws rescinded by?

Don: 57:10

gary's son, because I'm aware of only one, and I believe it was a woman who poisoned her husband, which would have been petty treason. So she would have been. She would have been burned at the stake, because only guys are hanged. Women get burned at the stake, but instead of being burned at the stake, she gets boiled alive because of this law?

Ron: 57:25

do they use the same pot? Do they have one boiling people pot?

Don: 57:30

I don't know, and I would I like the amount of energy that it would take to to raise that much water by. I wonder if it was really boiling or was it just like hot water? Is it wrong shower?

Doug: 57:42

are we talking?

Don: 57:45

guys, it's really hot but is the so categorizing the punishments that we talked about earlier? Right, we talked about loss of something, loss of material wealth, loss of freedom. In this case it's loss of life. But on top of the loss of life, we've got a pain associated with it. I don't think Richard Roos, after he was done, was ever going to poison someone again, so this wasn't about changing his mind about what was going to happen, right, but does the is it is loss of life enough of a deterrent to dissuade people from poisoning others in the future? Or was it an important component that? Or are we just trying to get retribution? So that's my question Is it about actually stopping future crime because it didn't People still are poisoned today versus is it just about retribution? He did wrong, so he must be punished.

Ron: 58:38

Yeah, I feel like the retribution thing is a part of it and I think there's also. I've always felt like punishment has an element of theater.

Ron: 58:45

that's very important right the state or whoever the authority is, whether that's very important, right, like the, the state or whoever the, whoever the authority is, whether that's your teacher in the classroom or the actual uh, government has been challenged and it needs to usually address that challenge in a way that reasserts its dominance, right? So, like, the teacher has to make doug feel embarrassed, so that doug realizes he's in a space where he is not in control, right, yeah, why are they public? Because everyone needs to know, not so much, hey, don't go poison people, just, hey, remember we are the government and we still have complete authority over all of you.

Ron: 59:26

Right, I feel like that's still a part of it too, because people are still going to commit crimes, because people who are in positions to commit crimes. Those motivations are usually stronger than any kind of punishment, right, I don't think you could invent a punishment that's going to stop people from, say, committing murder ever right, we have capital punishment in this country, but murders still occur for the same reasons that murders have occurred since the dawn of time, right Since good old Cain took that bone to his brother whatever it was.

Ron: 59:58

But, right, I don't think it's actually deterring crime and anyone who would be, anyone who's oh, I was thinking of poisoning, but now I'm not that person's more screwed up, I think, because there's also the element of personal ethics, right, and I think that's why we look at this and say this is really a messed up situation because, okay, maybe you do, maybe richard roost did poison people, just kill him humanely, right. Why does it have to be this drawn out torturous thing?

Don: 1:00:28

because if it's easy, then then there's no deterrent. That's the argument against. Even today, people argue against the humane, the quote-unquote humane capital punishments, that right, we experiment with in the united states. That that it's too easy, right, like what he did to my family member was not that easy. So why should the punishment that he gets yes, his, he's losing his life, or, but it's easier than the loss of life that he caused. But there's alternatives here too, and there's things that if we can't deter crime, how can we? Is there a way that we can steer people away from it, rather than just saying, if you do it, because punishment is always retroactive right, you did something wrong, so now we're going to do something else.

Don: 1:01:06

Is there a way that we can steer people away from that? So now we're going to do something else? Is there a way that we can steer?

Ron: 1:01:10

people away from that. Yeah, those are preventative measures right, yeah. Address the actual root causes of crime, right? I'm assuming this is a very middle ages way of viewing the world. Right, People are actors and they are wicked and they do wicked things because they are born into wickedness or something. But that doesn't obviously, I think, match with most people's modern perception of what drives human behavior. Right, we understand that environment and upbringing and things that we don't even sometimes consider drive people into situations where they have to commit crimes.

Doug: 1:01:42

So yeah, I recently I've been going through Romeo and Juliet with a group of students and Romeo in the beginning the famous quote of oh brawling love, oh loving hate. He's like kind of talking about his emotions towards love, but he looks at like the initial fight that's set out, and I was talking to the students about this idea of how he says that the fight has much more to do with love than it does hate. I asked him what that meant. The conclusion that we ultimately came to is you usually don't start and I'm going to relate this back to committing a crime like a crime of passion in some way.

Doug: 1:02:23

You usually don't commit a crime exclusively out of hate. It's actually for loving something so much that you're willing to do something hateful If you're defending somebody else. This person wronged somebody I loved. I'm willing to take their life now, even knowing the punishment. This has happened. I've been wronged this many times and my ego that I love so much has been injured so that I'm willing to do this, has been injured so that I'm willing to do this, and so if we're thinking about this in terms of preventative measures, yeah, it's more of a perception thing of like we we shouldn't have to be beings that have to experience the slap on the hand, metaphorically or literally, in order to do those things, but I think that we do because we get caught up in these things that we are more attached to and the consequences of what our actions are.

Don: 1:03:10

And that idea of defending against something like that even comes into play when we think about who responds to these situations. Right, if there's a domestic abuse thing happening or a disagreement happened between a husband and wife, and cops show up and they've got guns and they've got flashing lights, none of de-escalates the situation. It provides an environment where more violence is likely to occur, so that's correct all right there we go. I'm glad we solved that yeah, check that box.

Ron: 1:03:38

Yeah, if we could figure it out, I'm sure all of our, the leaders around the world, will also.

Don: 1:03:43

Yeah, I'd like to represent they'll get right on that right after they pass the tiktok ban.

Doug: 1:03:48

That's right and that being said if we got any good plumbers out there. Obviously I've been shouting out ron shower a lot, so just let us know.

Ron: 1:03:57

If you're in the area. Please send me an email. What centigrade should my shower water be at?

Doug: 1:04:01

we want pressure it's starting to undo health effects all right.

Don: 1:04:07

Thank you everybody for joining us at the uncannery. We will see you next time.

Ron: 1:04:11

Thank you so much, Don. Hey, that was interesting, Don.

Don: 1:04:13

You did good, well, thanks.

Ron: 1:04:15

I appreciate that.

Doug: 1:04:23

Thank you.