Hey guys it micro, and this is the way I heard it. The only podcast for the curious mind with a short attention span, this episode, number one hundred seventy, and I call it they were all at risk. They were all at risk. What I call it that well, because they were risk, it is the I I think risk would be the official for letter word of twenty twenty, seems to be everywhere. We open up the newspapers, turn on the tv gallic anywhere. It seems without being confronted with proof positive that we do in fact inhabit a risky world. I'm sitting here right now in my office, gazing out my window. The question is not

What do I see? The question is, what don't I see? I do not see the distinctive orange hues of the Golden Gate bridge. Nor do I see the Emerald Hills of the marine headlines were the sparkling blue of the San Francisco Bay or the majestic oak trees that normally

dot the horizon here now I don't see any of that. All I see smoke. The entire area is enveloped, as it has been for the last few days in just a thick plume of smoke. The wildfires out here in California are no joke. They're burning out of control in many areas, and well it's a risky time now. Risk of courses relative. We all know that looking out at smoke is very different than looking out of flames. So I should count my blessings. I reckon like the folks in Cedar Rapids, who made it through that they call it a d Rachel that windstorm that level as to the city, horrifying thing came out of nowhere in inland hurricane essentially, and of course, traditional hurricanes are still with us, Laura just blew through the gulf leaving havoc in her wake

add, so yeah risk its real and I've been writing about it for a long time. Some of you have asked me to way and again on the whole safety third mantra. That was the name of a special I did for discovery years ago, when I looked at the unintended consequences of valuing safety. Above all things. What happens when we do that? What happens to an individual Who cares more about safety than anything else? What happens to a town or city, a country, a nation? Those are the key, questions that are on my mind and The story you're about to hear, I think, reflects a certain preoccupation with the nature of risk. I hope you like it. I just finished writing it, I'm going to read it momentarily, but not until I tell you about my dear friend who I've never met named,

Lee Abu he Ameer Ali Abu Hermia, aside from having a terrific moniker, is the c o of a company called walls need love. This, incidentally, is a pretty cool company to if Europe there they're bringing wallpaper back, it looks like I went to their site and its a whole new approach to wallpaper anyway, Ali Abu Hermia was looking to fill a position, and so he did what he always does. He went to zip recruiter duck slash row and when I say always, I mean well that's where he went when he was looking for the three key people in his company. Specifically a head of marketing is sales director and his lead graphic designer will now he was lookin free of it. Just calls at a multi faceted role. I'm not sure exactly what, Needed, but I can tell you what he found he found Savannah Ray and Ali Abruzzi EMU is thrilled as he always is. It says so here in my notes, he's not alone,

our Brahimi, a ghost zip recruiter. For the same reason, thousands of other employers do four out of five employers who post they're, gonna quality candidate within the first day. Four out of five bet, you'll be among them, see for yourself. Hauser recruiter works, see how they make hiring faster and easier. Try it for free, that's right for free, you might say no risk at their protruded outcome. Slash row poster job for free zipper. Bitter dotcom, Slash r, o w e and see why they really are the smartest wait, a higher, be like Savannah Ray be like Ali Abu here, this is the way I heard and make no mistake about it. They were all at risk, No one knows for sure where the epidemic, originated somebody

it started in a wet market where animals were butchered insult to the public. Others maintain it was developed in a medical facility Regardless of its origins. The epidemic officially began, as all epidemics do, with patient zero. In this case, patient zero was a forty three year old mother, five with a pre exist the condition according to medical records. She was out for an evening stroll when she Sperience, a sudden shortness of breath, followed I and inability to swallow or speak in moments her. Breathing became labored, her heart rate skyrocketed at her blood pressure dropped. Ironically, she collapsed a hundred yards from the hospital just a few steps from where her life might have been saved. The experts were baffled by patient zeros. Sudden demise baffled

but not worried. A single unexplained fatality was no reason to assume an epidemic. Was the horizon, especially, the victim was already at risk, but then are we later patient zero was followed, as patients zeros always are by patient number. Two Another individual who died in the exam, same way. A sudden shortness of breath followed by an inability to swallow or speak to patients. Each from the same neighborhood each at risk with the same pre existing condition, each dead of the same cause. Technically, it might the inaccurate to call them patients, since both victims died before the doctors had a chance to treat them but they were certainly patience during their autopsies at once. Those were completed

while the mystery surrounding their deaths only deepened. This was not the flu. This was something altogether different. The next mornings headlines People talking to mysterious deaths, not a single clue on the positive side if this was the beginning of an outbreak. The spread was I slow in fact three weeks Your patient zero succumbed. There were he'll just two cases, which meant that containment should have been easy. Unfortunately, the experts its couldn't agree on how to handle the situation instead of locking die the epicenter they dithered and dallied and hope the problem would simply go away on its own, but then a third victim was carried off to the morgue, followed by a

force? Barely an hour later now the experts were worried. Something deadly was on the move, something novel but posed a unique threat. At risk individuals with a pre existing condition. It had no official name, so the press dubbed it the visible killer and turn entire attention to covering each new case an exhaustive detail every day. There was a new headline that positively dripped with dread death star the city, who will be the next to perish, no one, leaf from invisible killer for the media. Bad news was good and nothing sold newspapers like an invisible killer, slowly weeding out society's most vulnerable over time, though all the fearmongering took a toll as food

Draymond always does with no spurt consensus, no political leadership and no context or perspective and the constant reporting the people didn't What to believe soon every new fatality was blame On this invisible killer, including many deaths there were completely unrelated. It was then that the people's uncertainty turn to fear and their fear to panic, stay safe. The experts said stay home, and so the people did, they locked themselves down even healthy people who were not at risk. People with no prig listing condition they hold themselves away, convinced that the invisible killer was coming for them. Those who dared to venture outside, were careful to keep their distance from strangers and those whom

the gaze of passers by did so with a deep approach. Found suspicion. So terrifying was the prospect of dying. That. Many of the people remained locked down for months. Even when the cases began to decline. Their fear remained even worse the fatalities dropped zero? There panic persisted a moral panic inspired by an invisible killer that posed no danger to ninety nine nine, nine, nine, nine nine per cent of the population to imagine such a thing happening today, but once upon a time, epidemics like these were common. This one started with the mysterious death of an at risk forty three year old mother of five, named Marianne Nickels and concluded with the demise of men

Jane Kelly, another woman who saw third from the same pre existing condition her down, like all the others made the front page along with a detailed description of her corpse quote the victims left arm was entirely severed. Her abdomen expertly dissected her live, surgically removed and carefully placed between her feet, her forehead, skin. From her skull, like the height of an animal and the tender flesh from her thighs stripped away and placed on the bed side too, bull along with her nose and breast. Such was the handy work of the unknown assailant, whom five at risk. Women, five prostitutes, whose vocation

turned out to be the pre existing condition that put them at risk. In the first place, and whose grisly deaths spawned an epidemic, an epidemic of fear the paralyzed, an entire city fuelled by Craven media, determined to sell newspapers and the killer. They wrote about every single day for months on end the invisible killer, who some believed worked as a butcher in a wet market but who experts now say was in fact a doctor, a demented doctor. Whose skill with scalpel was likely developed in the hospital. Barely a red yards from the spot, where his first victim was over. Come by a sudden shortness of breath moment after a blade, was ripped across her neck.

And her mutilated body left to bleed out on the merry old streets of London, a bloody beginning for the novel, psychopath. We remember as the first modern day serial killer jack, the ripper anyway? That's the way I heard.