Mouse Utopia Experiment – IOTW Report

Mouse Utopia Experiment

Friday, 9 August 2019, 11:00 BFH Uncategorized 19

Dr. John Bumpass Calhoun spent the ’60s and ’70s playing god to thousands of rodents.

This is fascinating, and applies to humanity.

atlas obscura –

Universe 25, about the size of a small storage unit. The mice themselves were bright and healthy, hand-picked from the institute’s breeding stock. They were given the run of the place, which had everything they might need: food, water, climate control, hundreds of nesting boxes to choose from, and a lush floor of shredded paper and ground corn cob.

This is a far cry from a wild mouse’s life—no cats, no traps, no long winters. It’s even better than your average lab mouse’s, which is constantly interrupted by white-coated humans with scalpels or syringes. The residents of Universe 25 were mostly left alone, save for one man who would peer at them from above, and his team of similarly interested assistants. They must have thought they were the luckiest mice in the world. They couldn’t have known the truth: that within a few years, they and their descendants would all be dead.

ht/ sturge

19 Comments on Mouse Utopia Experiment

  4. Rats exhibiting the same behavior as people, The aloof and stupid{democrats} keeping themselves isolated from others and preening. Others seeking what others have tho they have every opportunity available to have the same thing.
    Violence becomes acute in crowded conditions like our cities.
    Kind of a grim look into the future.

    8

  5. So they’re making a case for central planning? Who knew all that rodents and humans need is communism? Never mind that they’re in an enclosed environment with artificial conditions.

    7

  9. I can’t help but think that social media, with its inherent psychological overcrowding, is analogous to these rodent utopias with physical overcrowding.

    Some people seem to have developed asocial aggressiveness just as the mice and rats did.

    7

  11. The interpretations of these experiments do not take into account the difference between humans and the rest of the animal world. Humans have something that no other animal has – we were created in the image of God. That means that we have more than just instinct. We have a moral center that would be a contributing factor that mice or rats don’t have. It’s a sense of right and wrong, not just what is expedient for our enjoyment or survival.

    I know that what we are seeing in this society now are people who have no morals, or at least, their morals are all screwed up. We could discuss why that is, but for this experiment, let’s assume that we start with ‘normal’ people. After all, the scientist started out with ‘normal’ rodents.

    I don’t think our result would be the same as the rodents. Not that there wouldn’t be aberrant changes in some people, but I think having a moral grounding would mean we could avoid the problems they saw with the rodent’s reactions to the controlled environment of ease. Something within most of us is the desire to do something productive. A life of ease is not in our nature; we want a purpose – more than just enjoyment and survival. The need to help others is also something in our nature, more than the instinct to protect our children.

    Also, I had a feeling, as I was watching this, as I did during a class I had in college. We had to read “The Population Bomb”. This experiment’s conclusions were as faulty and contrived as that book was.

    One more item – some of you have already stated the obvious. Introduce the conditions of the real world and see what happens to your experiment. You just might learn something, scientists.

    9

  12. If Dr. Calhoun were to replicate this experiment to better reflect conditions in 21st century American cities, he would wait until the maximum state of chaos, and then dump a couple hundred new Mexican mice into the already over-crowded mouse city. That should work out real well.

    3

  13. The same rat culture has existed for over 100 years at Karni Mata Temple, aka The Rat Temple, in India, with its estimated 25,000 black rats. Watch a video an you’ll see many rats look unhealthy, and have wounded tails. The people that worship them often are ecstatic to eat food nibbled by a rat, are just nuts.

    (I thought their wounded tails had been stepped on by rat worshipers, but now I know the wounds are probably from over population causing the rats to bite the tails of their temple mates)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViANqzGd6qU .

    3

  19. Still speaking of mice
    IMDB:
    Willard (1971) A social misfit uses his only friends, his pet rats, to exact revenge on his tormentors.
    the classic
    IMDB:
    Harold and Maude (1971) Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.
    Night all, be well

    2

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