174. What Do King Solomon and David Lee Roth Have in Common?

hello i'd like you to imagine for a moment that you're a sheep farmer not some fancy 21st century sheep farmer with heritage breeds and heated barns just your standard hard-working sheep farmer living hundreds of years ago in medieval europe okay are you there in your mind now imagine that just down the road from you is a rival sheep farmer two of you have never gotten along and now he's accusing you of stealing some of the sheep you are arrested and sent to court and the court where the officials don't have any real reason to think that the neighbor would make this up but nor is there enough evidence to convict the judge doesn't want to send an innocent man to prison but he also doesn't want to let a criminal go free so he presents two options you can either plead guilty or your case can be turned over to a church court for a trial by ordeal there were two basic types of ordeals in the period in question hot ordeals and cold ordeals that's peter leeson hot ordeals consisted of trials by water in which case what they would do is and by they i mean clerics it's clerics priests who are administering all these ordeals boil a pot of water throw a stone or ring into it ask the defendant to plunge his arm into the water and pluck out the stone ring then they would wrap up the defendant's arm and revisit it three days later and if it was determined by the priest to be what they called foul within the wrapper which is to say showing serious signs of having to burn the idea was that the defendant was guilty of the crime and if there was no signs of injury then he was considered innocent of the crime okay so when we look back from our modern perspective or modern as of today at least and kind of mentally ridicule these things as you know barbaric or at the very least counterproductive um were they counterproductive my argument is that they were not my argument is that the ostensible purpose of ordeals which was to find facts in criminal cases is in fact what ordeals did and they did so quite successfully from wnyc this is freakonomics radio the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything here's your host steven dupner today's program is about well it's about teaching your garden to weed itself which i realize is a phrase that doesn't make any sense to you yet but it will we begin with peter leeson who's a professor of economics and law at george mason university leeson has long been interested in the kind of topics that many economists aren't so interested in anarchy for instance that work led me to some work on pirates who are of course criminals and in consequence can't rely on government to promote social cooperation within their organization but i've also looked at the early modern institution in england of wife selling the human sacrifice of the legal prosecution of insects and rodents and a whole host of i guess things that most people would describe as peculiar anyway among these peculiar topics trial by church ordeal in medieval europe now from a modern perspective a trial by ordeal sounds anything but rational couldn't actually succeed at separating the guilty from the innocent could it or could it to find out leeson went looking for some data one set of church records from 13th century hungary included 208 cases in which a defendant like you the accused sheep farmer was summoned by a priest led into the church and was instructed to grab hold of a smoking hot iron bar so if you were to stop someone on the street peter and say hey here's a historical quiz um 208 people were sentenced to a trial by ordeal some many many centuries ago and they had to grab a piece of hot iron that a priest was overseeing how many of those 208 would you suspect were burned most people would say i assume 208 yes that's what i would think yes okay so tell us in reality the number two-thirds of these cases of the 208 uh involve exoneration which means that the defendant is found innocent because the supposedly red hot iron didn't burn him okay so two-thirds of the more than 200 people who are commanded in a church by a priest to grab onto a piece of red hot iron are not burned that's right okay how can this possibly be how were two-thirds of the defendants not burned by a hot iron bar did god exonerate the innocent and punish the guilty that's not how peter recently sees it he explains this in two words priestly rigging that's right the priests were arranging things so that most defendants who accepted the ordeal wouldn't get burned by the hot iron bar or a cauldron of boiling water now why would that be were the priests simply exercising a bit of human mercy did they maybe take bribes from some defendants not according to peter leeson here's what he thinks was happening most people at the time likely believed in an almighty god who knew whether a defendant was guilty or innocent and accordingly would burn the guilty man but protect the innocent man for a defendant knowing that god knows what you did or didn't do would affect your behavior it changes the incentives the key here is that because the priests know that the innocent person incentive is to undergo the ordeal they also know that on the other side of it the guilty person's incentive is to decline the ordeal the reason for that is exactly the flip form of thinking right so now imagine that you did steal the sheep right now you're thinking well i know that if i undergo the ordeal if i put my arm in the boiling water i'm going to have my arm boiled to rags because i am in fact guilty god's not going to perform the miracle and in the process on top of that i'm going to be convicted of the crime it's better for me to simply either settle with the accuser or to confess the crime and enjoy a somewhat less harsh punishment okay so that explains why if i were guilty i would decline the ordeal and accept my penalty but if i'm innocent i would undergo the ordeal and then what well that's the key thing so the priest now knows that the incentive of the innocent person only is to undergo the ordeal the guilty person is going to decline because the priest knows that conditional on you being willing to undergo the ordeal you reveal if you will this private information that you have about your guilt or instance you reveal the fact that you're innocent to the priest now in order of course to be exonerated the water needs to not boil you and so the priest's job is conditional on knowing that you're innocent to turn down the dial on the stove so to speak to ensure that the water doesn't in fact boil you and exonerate you as you expect if peter leeson is right there's no guarantee of that then the medieval trial by ordeal was rather than a barbaric expression of divine justice a rather brilliant means of sorting the innocent from the guilty in economist speak this is known as breaking down a pooling equilibrium into a separating equilibrium by using game theory in our book think like a freak we give this practice a different name we call it teaching your garden to weed itself and that's what today's show is about let's begin with two men separated by many centuries king solomon built the first temple in jerusalem and was known throughout the land for his wisdom david lee roth fronted the rock band van halen and was known throughout the land for his prima donna excess i'm gonna tell you baby rock and roll is my second favorite thing in the whole world now let me ask you this what could david lee roth and king solomon possibly have in common here are a few possibilities number one they were both jewish number two they both got a lot of girls number three they both wrote the lyrics to a number one pop song and number four they both dabbled in game theory okay let's answer ah trick question all four are true number one king solomon of course was jewish so was david lee roth in fact he said he learned to sing while preparing for number two girls girls girls david lee roth says he quote slept with every pretty girl with two legs in her pants and quote i even slept with an amputee king solomon according to the bible had quote 700 wives princesses and 300 concubines number three the lyrics to a number one pop song yes david lee roth wrote the lyrics for most van halen songs including their only number one hit jump king solomon meanwhile is thought to have written several biblical books including ecclesiastes which the folk singer pete seager used as lyrics to his song turn turn turn which when recorded by the birds in 1965 was another one hit which brings us to number four the game theory the most famous story about king solomon in the bible involves two women who come to him with a baby and a dilemma these two women come to the king and the first one speaks up and said we women we live together just the two of us nobody else in the house no men just the two of us women that's david spurling he's a professor of bible at hebrew union college and we both gave birth more or less around the same time okay so two women two newborn babies in one house one woman was sleeping next to her baby and she crushed him to death she rolled over on him and uh suffocated the kid and in the morning a woman wakes up with that baby on her chest that's joseph kalishkin author of many books including jewish literacy but she claims that that isn't her baby she claims that the baby the other woman is holding is the baby so one woman is saying that it's her baby and the other woman is saying no the life baby is mine this woman accidentally killed her own baby and then took mine it's a case of she said she said how was solomon to decide the case how was solomon supposed to decide this case if only he could create a separating equilibrium so finally a moment of desperation into the shock of everyone in the court he calls for he says to his servant bring your sword he says now we'll cut the baby in half each mother will get half you know what happens next don't you one mother cries out don't do that don't do that you'll kill the baby the second woman says no don't cut the baby up king solomon doesn't actually slice the baby in half he doesn't have to because now he knows who the real mother is how he figured that the second woman one who was cruel enough to go along with his baby carving plan was also cruel enough to steal another woman's child and further he knew that the child's real mother would rather give up the baby than see it die king solomon had set a trap that encouraged the guilty and the innocent to sort themselves out i grew up in an era of like perry mason you know shows where you know you often if you're a smart prosecutor or a smart defense lawyer you're going to ask your questions in a very provocative way to get the person to finally say something that they in the normal order of events you know wouldn't have been willing to say and solomon by coming up with such a surprising question was able to do it it doesn't make sense that king would say bring a sword and cut a baby in half so it introduces such a surprising and peculiar element that people get shocked and in their shock they reveal you know the expression their true colors they reveal who they really are so king solomon was pretty clever is it possible that david lee roth was even cleverer by the early 1980s van halen had become one of the biggest rock bands in history at these extravagant live shows with a huge stage set booming audio spectacular lighting effects their contract carried a 53 page rider that laid out the technical requirements for all this as well as other demands you know it lists all kinds of um food that they want mike peden worked for a concert promoter in syracuse new york uh let's see uh some of the strange ones you know various donuts a dozen hard-boiled eggs they want fruit loops and raisin bran um they want uh real knives and forks they don't want plastic ones patrick whitley was van halen's production manager at the time which means he was responsible for that contract writer and i think i actually typed that that sheet so uh it looks like an ibm selectric maybe yeah it probably was okay and then uh i really love that you uh you made sure you got your vegetables you made sure that somebody got your vegetables even days there were brussels sprouts broccoli cauliflower mushroom spinach and then odd days peas green beans corn carrots and tomatoes and on it goes um you needed some whiskey and beer and wine i gather yes of course um some ky jelly um what's that for for fun it was also a section for munchies here's mike again potato chips with assorted dips nuts pretzels and in the middle of the munchies section m&ms and then in capital letters and underlined and in parentheses it says warning absolutely no brown ones and then it just goes down and says 12 reese's peanut butter cups and 12 assorted danin yogurt on ice so if you're reading through there you could easily if you're not paying attention skip that mike peden's sister donna worked as a caterer on the 1982 van halen concert in syracuse so my sister went out and bought i think three or four bags of m&ms and she sat there and with rubber gloves on removed all of the brown ones and not happy about it either she actually hates m&ms and will not eat any to this day because of that so why did mike peden think that van halen demanded all the brown m&ms be removed well we thought that it was just extravagance that it was just you know david lee roth and van halen being david lee roth and van halen coming up on freaking news radio was it really just extravagance david lee roth gives his version of the m&m story this was touted wildly and widely as simple rock star a misdemeanor excess and being abusive of others simply because we couldn't who am i to get in the way of a good rumor and you'll hear steve levitt describe our attempt to teach the garden to weed itself terrorists yeah that was one of my favorite things of all time um but we didn't tell the whole story did we no we didn't we lied no so we're so fun about it one more thing if you are not already a subscriber to freaking on the radio you should be just sign up for free at itunes and you'll get the next episode in your sleep from wnyc this is reekonomics radio here's your host steven gubner so why did van halen require that the brown m&ms dark brown and light brown be removed from the m&m bowl and their backstage munchies was it nothing more than rock star excess or perhaps a clever way of finding out some information that would otherwise be hard to find remember at the time van halen put on the most ambitious live rock shows of anyone there were two names that you as a house guy didn't want to hear were really coming steve lemon was a rigger on the van halen production crew suspending the lights and sound equipment above the stage one was of course kiss and the other one was van halen because these guys always brought uh the biggest shows they were going to challenge you uh and your local team we would have a thousand lights which was this magic sort of amazing number that nobody'd ever had we'd have more trucks patrick whitley again the production manager towards the 84 period we'd be touring with a rolling stage and a grid to suspend the lights from because the lighting system would move so we sort of considered ourselves the innovators and the uh inventors of a lot of the standard practices of how people tour nowadays the upside of this innovation was obvious but there's a downside too could be dangerous didn't want a light tower falling on you or the stage collapsing under the weight of all that gear to that end the van had to trust that the local promoter in each city took seriously the contract rider that listed all the technical requirements for this massive stage show promoters frequently didn't read the contract rider and we would have structural fiscal issues because hey there wasn't the proper electricity load bearing stress etc to david lee roth as he explains in a 2012 video claims that he came up with a trick kind of a king solomon's trick to figure out if a promoter had read the rider carefully if i came backstage having been one of the architects of this lighting and staging design and i saw brown m&ms on the catering table then guaranteed the promoter had not read the contract rider and we had to do a serious line check because frequently we had danger issues so the brown m&m clause according to davely roth at least wasn't just a prima donna move it was a clever way to teach the garden to weed itself to let a bad concert promoter reveal himself as bad when of course he'd never come forward and admit to being bad inspired by stories like these and the bright minds of davely roth and king solomon even the medieval priests who may have rigged the ordeals steve levitt and i thought maybe we could entice some bad guys to reveal themselves hey levitt yes you remember that story we wrote in super freakonomics about why terrorists should buy life insurance yeah that was one of my favorite things of all time um but we didn't tell the whole story did we no we didn't we lied no so what's so fun about it lying we should say in the service of a greater good steve levitt my freakonomics friend and co-author had identified many bad guys in the past cheating school teachers collusive sumo wrestlers by finding patterns in the data the bad guys i caught it in the past was so easy it was like shooting ducks in a barrel to catch sumo wrestlers i mean the data right there you can understand the incentives it's a really really simple problem and although you know that i don't actually think terrorism is a very big problem and i feel that way too much time and effort and manpower and economic distortions happen because of terrorism just from a purely intellectual perspective for me the idea of catching terrorists was really fun because it was such an incredibly hard problem now you had tried you'd met with people like the cia for instance in this country before and that didn't work out yeah no i didn't really make much headway i was invited and it was nice to see i had me out for a day we had a fun time but i couldn't convince folks there or at any of the american banks to to work with me on my pet idea about catching terrorists using retail banking data until we stumbled onto a british bank that amazingly was willing to give it a run so in super freak we described this algorithm that was loaded into the computers of a big bank and which was able to sift through billions of data points and identify a relatively teeny handful of potentially deadly terrorists that's true and there was one variable that we about in super freakonomics that we i would say highlighted above all other variables and that was whether or not a given bank customer had bought life insurance from that bank can you explain that variable and why we presented it in the book as we did so we even as you say not just highlighted we put it in the um subtitle to the book was why suicide bombers should buy life insurance and here's the logic in general you wouldn't think buying life insurance would be a great idea for a terrorist because number one they tend not to have strong attachments to other people and number two even if you did kill yourself you know detonating a bomb in the tube in london the chances that the life insurance company would actually pay you off in that setting is probably low so it seems silly to have life insurance if you're a terrorist okay which is exactly the reason we argue that you should have life insurance because you have data snoops like us going through the data and if we see a young man who might pretend to be a terrorist but he has life insurance well it's not likely he's really a terrorist because it doesn't make sense for a terrorist to have life insurance okay so it's a reverse logic of throwing us off the trail and that is the sort of logic we threw out in the book now i have to say it was a little bit uncomfortable at times because as many astute readers said to us i said wait that doesn't make all that much sense to me because most insurance life insurance policies actually if you do commit suicide as long as it's been a year or two since you watch your policy it's still covered by the policy and you will get paid so i don't really understand what you guys are talking about and so it was a little embarrassing that we had to write back and say well you're right that is the way these policies work but maybe it will make sense to you down the road and that wasn't the only kind of challenging part of that because when we went on book tour the uk in i guess 2009 or 2010 you had a lot of people saying to us in interviews on tv and newspapers and so on what fresh kind of idiots are you that you would go to the trouble to work for years on an algorithm that would find terrorists and then in the book tell these same people exactly how to evade it which is to say they should go down to the bank and buy some life insurance i know i mean what kind of horrible base traders were we dumb that we worked so hard and we put together this algorithm and then to just give it away because we wanted to make money selling a book really incredibly damning criticism i mean how could a person possibly respond to that we would just kind of hang our head and say you know well you know him and ha and what could you say it was it was true we were horrible horrible people but it was a bigger truth there was this was actually i've hatched many plans in my life but very few as ambitious and exciting as this one and it must have been i don't know now seven or eight years ago that i first had the idea that if you wanted to catch terrorists it would be very difficult to deal with data you really needed the terrorists to raise their hand in the air and announce that they themselves were the terrorists okay but not easy to do that why would terrorists come forward and say they're terrorists so what it required was a trick okay and this whole thing in the super free economics book about life insurance was just a complete and total lie it was made up from beginning and nobody buys life insurance from their bank i mean there was some products that people could buy but nobody purchased it i mean i'm guessing that a handful of most of all of our listeners on this podcast have ever bought life insurance from the bank okay so what in the world why would we make this up what were we talking about well here's the idea if nobody buys life insurance from the bank but we managed to get the tabloids in the uk and the tv stations to say look these guys are looking for terrorists and they say if you're a terrorist and you buy life insurance then you'll be off their radar screen i mean if i'm not a terrorist i don't pay any attention to it if i'm a terrorist i think twice i say hmm maybe if i buy life insurance that will get me off their radar screen and if you are a really really dumb terrorist hopefully what you do is you go to the bank and you purchase life insurance okay because of course it's a trick and we're watching to see who after super freaking comes out and the tabloids right about it shows up at the bank and buys life insurance and our guess is that the kind of person who buys life insurance when they think it gets you off the hook as a terrorist is much more likely to be a terrorist than a regular person in other words by pulling off this scam we managed to get some set of terrorists the really really dumb ones to go to the bank and essentially announce i am a terrorist let me ask you this so this example of teaching your garden to weed itself with planting this action in the minds of guilty people that only guilty people would respond to um is easily the most outlandish and intricate of all the examples we've given compared to david lee roth and king solomon even compared to the medieval ordeals this is easily the most intricate and it seems way beyond anything that the average person would ever need to really think about but i'm curious could you distill the lessons that you learned from this trick to give listeners a way to think about a way in which they might someday need or be able to teach some kind of garden to weed itself yeah the teaching the garden to weed itself is the ultimate expression of using incentives and the basics it comes down to is thinking about a way in which you get people who don't want to tell you something to tell you something by accident and their examples certainly what we're doing is not completely original police will often keep secret mini details of the crime scene in the hope that they can get the potential suspects to start to mention details that they couldn't possibly know if they hadn't been there's a great example you know the same idea of how you get people to reveal themselves i wouldn't say it's easy i wouldn't say these situations come up often but it's a tool it's a tool in the toolkit which says if it's too hard to figure out who the bad guys are just by snooping around i need the bad guys to tell me who they are and again in every setting it will be different how you do it but it's simply the knowledge that that's your last gasp when you can't get people to do it otherwise you actually have to get them to tell you it at least is the first step on the path of figuring out a way to get the bad guys to come forward and tell you who they are so it's a good way to get the bad guys to come forward and tell you who they are fair enough but let's not be naive here bad guys can teach their garden to weed itself too you know the nigerian email scam of course you do it's famous you get an email from some deposed nigerian government minister who says he has millions of dollars locked up in some bank and just needs a little help getting it out help from you for which you will of course be handsomely rewarded so here's a question if the nigerian email scam is so famous why would a nigerian scammer say he's from nigeria that's what a microsoft researcher named cormac hurley wanted to know so he investigated his conclusion these scammers are actually quite clever when they send out all those bait emails what are they actually searching for they're looking for someone who is so gullible that that person will end up sending thousands of dollars to a faraway stranger based on some kooky email about a fictional fortune but how are the scammers supposed to sift the truly gullible from everyone else by sending out such a kooky email that only a gullible person would take it seriously an email that anyone with an ounce of sense or experience would immediately trash so think about that the next time you get one of those nigerian scam emails your first instinct may have been to think how stupid the scammer is but now you'll know better now you'll know that this is exactly the kind of stupid which it all aspired me hey podcast listeners on the next week on radio let's say you want to get your kids to eat something that they are not interested in eating maybe you should just bribe them we were in the bahamas about six months ago and i thought of an incentive scheme for my kids that included a large sum of money if they would eat fish for seven consecutive days but does bribing actually work to change eating habits you'll find out on the next week on radio freakonomics radio is produced by wnyc and duffner productions our staff includes david herman greg rozowski gretta cone baray lamb trucey pinnam and amy suzy lechtenberg and chris bannon if you want more freakonomics radio you can subscribe to our podcast on itunes or go to freakonomics.com where you'll find lots of radio a blog the books and more