this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Loss in terms of money or efforts. Could be recent or ancient.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I vaguely remember reading about that when I was younger. I don't know if it's true, but this is what I read.

The peasants and farmers were made to stand in the fields throwing stones at the sparrows, preventing them from landing. The thinking was that the sparrows would die from exhaustion, if they weren't killed by the stones.

What actually happened was that the existing crops were either trampled or broken by the stones, and as the farmers weren't working the fields, nothing grew the following year either.

Like I say, I have no idea whether it's true, or if it was just 80's anti communist propaganda, but it's stuck in my head ever since.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

The "why don't we just..." school of public policy.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd be shocked if they could actually throw that many rocks, but the basic idea is that the policy didn't work as intended, and that's correct.