Conditioning
Conditioning
Every few hours, subwoofer plays throbbing bass for 10 seconds... [With arrow pointing to subwoofer.] ...then bread crumbs are dispensed into box [With arrow pointing to bread feeder machine.] Opening [With arrow pointing to feeder opening shaped like a driver side car window.] Local wildlife [With arrows pointing to birds and a squirrel.] Protip: Leave this device in your yard for a week, then watch as the problem of loud music from passing cars solves itself.

Herein, the author devises a method of addressing the issue of drivers who turn up their music to irritating levels which usually results in a lot of bass coming from the car — the low frequencies being the ones that most easily penetrate the car and travel farther, thus being more audible to those around the car.
As the title suggests, the idea is to condition animals to respond to a thumping bass. The machine is described as working as follows: every few hours, the bass would turn on, and the box would dispense food behind an opening designed to look like an open car window. Over time, local wildlife would flock to the box to get the food from inside, and would become trained that the sound of a subwoofer means that they can get food by flying through a car window.. Eventually, the animals would respond to any low music, including that played by cars.
The end result would be that the local wildlife would approach, and presumably attempt to enter, any car that has that same thumping bass. Drivers, in turn, would cease to turn up their music in order to prevent the groups of animals from chasing after their cars, thus solving the problem of annoyingly loud bass. This behavior modification can itself be seen as a somewhat different form of conditioning .
Although this plan may seem far-fetched, a similar scheme was seriously proposed in the United Kingdom during World War I to condition seagulls to associate a submarine's periscope with food, which would give away the locations of enemy submarines as the gulls flocked to their periscopes being raised.
The title text is a dialogue about using a similar method of conditioning to send animals after a visiting Pope . Why someone would want that to happen is left to the reader's imagination, although papal visitations usually disrupt the local communities with onerous traffic and special and ostentatious ceremonies, and do attract huge crowds of dignitaries, celebrities, the faithful, the curious, and attending purveyors of foodstuffs and trinkets. Not to mention the impact to the local AirBnB market. Or it could just be Black Hat, who would not need any particular reason for this sort of behavior, and might choose the Pope because of his highly recognizable outfit.
Every few hours, subwoofer plays throbbing bass for 10 seconds... [With arrow pointing to subwoofer.] ...then bread crumbs are dispensed into box [With arrow pointing to bread feeder machine.] Opening [With arrow pointing to feeder opening shaped like a driver side car window.] Local wildlife [With arrows pointing to birds and a squirrel.] Protip: Leave this device in your yard for a week, then watch as the problem of loud music from passing cars solves itself.
