Mouse Utopia Experiment – This Experiment Tested Dangerous Behavioral Sink

12-07-21

Episode Transcription

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Hey ma'am: what's up, have you ever heard of the mouse utopia? Experiment I don't want to. I don't even want to mount utopia experience or no. This is that game that we used to play as kids. What is a board game? Oh, what is that yeah master AP Mas Yeah, that's fun cause you have mastero. Now, Oh dude, you had to send a Lang and then, oh sorry, I forgot that my parents were richer than yours e. They weren't we were poor. We made some bad financial decisions and my my parents went into debt over mouse draft dude. My Fares, like my kid wants to mouse. Your parents are wise, you're like wait. You your parents are like you, can either go to college or get mouse tron after my parents are like you can do both buddy yea and they paid the price for it. You know your parents sat down and they were like they're like okay, we're going to the bank. Today they got there and like Hey, can we take it a personal loan and they're like yeah? What's the reason you know that port persons reasons there are er to the bank, why I need the money? Do you have to tell a bank while you need the money Cato a personal, long hell, but sometimes they make conferie they're like so. What's this for my own business? How about that Jerry? I'm laundering money in open a KFC yeah about with two and Dollar Watch me, Jerry, yeah, never say them legally. You have to save mine you're. Listening to this is the most Baga thing about you, Ansai cannibals. There are people at Hetter, he said you're a rap former. Now I was the person in the Mickey suit. He would force me to eat all of the other MASCO things. So the mouse utopia experiment not experience. I say experience wishes, which is actually the new the mouse utopia experience is the new section of Walt Disney world, BUT MOUSE UTOPIA, experiment is, is similar to the Stanford prison experiment actually kind of have. We talked about the same for spiting we have what it is kind of similar. So basically it was this guy. He was an ethologists is a what thologist. If there's an thologist ethnologist, is it thologist and ethologists which ethics no o? It's often confused with ethics is kind of similar, though it's a study of animal behavior, usually with like it's focusing on what how their behavior adapts and Circumcirca certain circumstances, okay, and so he did this. He crashed this experiment. This guy named John B Calhoun in the late and early S, and it began so there's kind of two iterations of the experiment will start with the first one. Well, actually, let's talk about the? Why I watch a Ted TOG about? What's your, why you know who was John B Calhoun's, which I hate, how you said: Calhoun Calhoun, what was this Liao as a come on Calhoun yeah, but you go calhoun. He told me. I jus told me before this I said: Do you think we need to damp in the corners in this room and put like some sand trement on there he's like wow he's like that? Only really matters for base, and I was like well, I lower my voice so that wasn't at yeah. Also, I I don't think pouring water on it's going to help that damp corner right. Alice goes in your next time and we sethos spraying aping the stamping in the room, a really a mess up or outlet less echoes. Oh Yeah. This is bad yeah. Our Electric is we're going to burn up any moment. It's pretty crazy, so hey alex if we ever died, while we're courting an episode, rely lysia the moment before we die yeah. No, no do it like those, never mind so calonnes in the. Why of what you're thinking? So he does experiments it's the s. A couple things are happening yeah over the past fifty years the world has just gone insane, so anybody who's alive. Then they saw two world wars, the Great Depression, the that dust bowl and his name and stuff. That does the only the biggest thing. The biggest thing that relates to this is the the roaring twenties were just Laden in sin. They saw the sin of the century, and so there was this big perception that the world was becoming a much more sinful place, because there's all this like pain and bloodshed and just promiscuity, promiscuity, promiscuo yeah, prop you think, that's where prom got its name, I think is they mean pro? You think they named Prom after a promise duty because they were like. I mean they knew what was going to happen and, like that's call problem. Let's move on from that cow Tsoo from them. I think that's where I came from Pan Penning, so you stress me out o there's this great move of people who were just like the world is going mad and everybody's awful yeah, which I think happens in every generation all the time. So there was this kind of impending feeling of societal collapse. Oh yeah, and coinciding with this was also this feeling of urbanization has reached this fever pitch yeah has never happened before all of a sudden cities are getting overcrowded, and at this time it's still the freeway and the sprawl is still a very new thing for cities, and so it's starting to get to point where set everyone's got cars and stuff. They do have cars, but it's still early enough in that to where there's not the sprawl, so they're running out of space in the cities, because people a lot of people can't commute yet because there's no free way the free ways as Tom still very young and a lot of cities, don't have it yet, and so there's this kind of impending feeling of were running out of space. We have more people than we have room for, and the people on the edge of town are looking at the fields across the street and they're like all that space, they turn around the people in the middle. So I feel it every time I like go through like Wyoming and people like running a space, and I go well. No, you just don't want to live in Wyoming you just don't like the places where they're speaking yeah you don't like the place that there's room for you. You want to be pleased with everybody. What was it he want, like so they're, panicking a little bit so there's kind of these two two big pressures, so I mean you know that London Yeah did you know that London is the is very close to the same square miles as what are you that totally effect, I told you. No, I wat tell you a fact that me and Reagan discovered. I told you this fact on the podcast in the hot tub that London, yes, is go ahead and tell me the fact that you think I'm going to share London is about the same amount of square miles. A spring film Missouri was no, I was gonna say all right. I was gonna say it's about the same squires Wichita, Kansas, all right. How about that? You not tell me that I I cant her par. It me, which one of US pays you neither of US okay. So how about you don't listen to either of us. You don't take orders from us all right, London, three thousand three hundred square miles, the Springfield metro includes so that includes probably Mount Vernon Branson so the whole anyway. All that includes Nixa Republic, definitely Ozark, definitely but anyways three thousand square miles. So so fifteen million people crammed there could live in that area. All Right! Listen! If you told me that in that episode, Here's I guarantee here's. What happened then all right, because because Reagan told me that more recently, I think yeah because she probably heard it in that as she heard of that episode and then she's been telling you next, she got from our show and you have a neat. You know what it's pretty interesting. She told me about this. You go on to believe this. She told her this guy that jumped out of a plane once stole all this money right. It was like C bd or something like C. my deeper CB duper. That's what I think all those! That's why everyone's like CBS, you know, isn't that what it is yeah. He started an oil company, big big fuel tycoon yeah anyway, so apparently anyway, I'm saying so they they are solution to the running out of space thing was to go up well kind of. I think London, one of the big things with London is, it's always been here, and so it's been around for much longer, and so they didn't have for much of its history. I lie that is in the same time as Jesus I mean. I think there might have been a talent there. I don't think T it was a big deal that was that was. I thought I had when I was out there in sequoia fuck. You know I just become a nature guy, you know, yeah, you know just become one of those dudes think about getting a super room. Actually was it well. It was settled depending on where you date the birth of Jesus, about twenty to thirty years after Jesus. So pretty close, so it's a really old town, and so they didn't have the opportunity to sprawl becaus. They didn't have cars o Spring Fi Missouri around, as i Jesus time fill, was actually founded. Twenty years before, Jesus Wow, depending on where you put Susie, you put Jesus and actually what's crazy, I er stares was there first labors La Orchas, not there a hundred, yes, Luisa, cork headed out on their adventure, and they were like, if only some one could throw some rolls, that's how it started their throwing rolls into the river to Lisan Clark. They were just bored, throwing their food away for their journey like men. Hopefully this journey doesn't take a long time because we wait lose our co o the food away. I was saying that lamberts was on the banks of the river, throwing Lewis and Clark roles, and you were going with their they're. Just like we're so bored, let's throw our food overboard here, you're on a road trip. You know you get that snack bag right and then you're just trying you like. I Bet I can catch this fun in on the antenna of the car. Next to us. Here we go, and so you just disk toss and Funnin on the iter stay. You ever been that board in time. Mom Has it ever happened to you? So what do they do about the crowding stuff yeah? So everyone's freaking out about this and this Guy John B Calhoun? He was like well I'm going to do an experiment and see what happens if we let this play out and so what he did is he got a bunch of rats? Mice, no rats. Oh later it was nice. Okay started out with rats. Well, first was bats, but they flew out of the enclosure like Oh, they can get away, and so experiment works for Vampires. So he set up this big enclosure that was separated into four sides: charater four sides of it and in between the sides there is a cross in the middle for each of the sides of an electric fence, so four corners electric fence separating all of them. So it's a square, yes with four squares inside yes and then separating them as an electric fence. Okay, on the bottom three, there is a big bridge that goes up over the electric fence, but just one so there's from the top right corner to the bottom right corner to the bottom left corner to the top right. But there's not one or the top when you're saying are you is this. This is laying on it's on this table. Yes, this is the angle you're looking it's not like it's up right, yeah! No, it's not upright yeah in fat, so, okay, but then the top left and top right are not connected by a bridge. So you can only go, only have a you, so you have to go down and around to get to Kay and so what he did as he did minor things to set up. If you will better places to live so there was like, for example, in the top left corner. The nesting space was at the top of this ramp, but the ramp was significantly taller, then all the other ones all of them had ramps. But this one was really really tall Kaya a little inconvenient because you had to go up, get to carry your couch all the way up there right where everybody else could just carry it right in the door. Yeah gotta get helpers yeah, but the bigger impact, the bigger impact, was the food supply. How big is this? I don't know exactly like probably room size. I don't know it's not huge, interesting but big enough to where you could have a few dozen rats in each section, so decent decent. So he s not on top of a table. No Definitely Not Table Top, definitely not table top like room size at least okay, and so, but the bigger impact was in two of the sections. There was feeders that were feeding full size pellets and into the sexier fears that were feeding powder, and so there was a clear difference in food and a clear difference in Nesting Zon Age, or that they had initially, it began to where everything kind of works normal, like the rats, were all going across the bridge and interacting with each other and giving food from the PALLAS getting fruit from the powder over time, though, as more generations of these rats were born into their habitation, how long this experiment last a long time a couple years, oh as more rats got born into it, got more to Adora and they got more population to it. A few really interesting things started happening, so there was what he described as like. The Beta males of the population would wake up really early way before sunrise and they would cross the bridges and they would go to where the pelts were and try to gather as many of the past as they could and bring them back to their side of the bridge. Before everybody else woke up once the Alphas woke up, they would go stand guard on the bridges and not let anybody get past them in real section of the habitation, and so that was why that happened. They all started being like. Well, we got to get up before they do and go get all of our. The same thing happens. Now you see these dudes with like tribal tattoos on their arms standing on bridges around town. You know, don't go to. I said of the bridal like rose out there, another bridge right down the street and they just like got a little boom box and they're blaring old, Joe rogen episodes. You know and they're, just like pretty good Awfur from the fore. It was like pub like Perrouse, like episode, twenty of Joe Rug, an pass saying yeah and it's like really bad audio quality, and it's like. Oh okay, yeah, that's exactly what's happening simultaneously. Do you think Alpha Brose, listen to our show? No Yeah? No, I you're listener to this is the most Bada thing about you. I hate that language. You, I hate all. I hate all those people who do that yeah, I mean to me in my head, like I don't use that language, but the dudes would like tribal tats who do use that language, like they call other people Batemans like that's the most Bata male behavior. You know I'm out like if you got to like tell me how much more powerful you are, the other people I feel like pretty not power, you're a weak little TORP, your weak little O, and I will punch you in the face over some full size, pellets. Okay, I want the full pellets. You know at Tillin we're not just a podcast we're a ministry and our hope is to continue to reach more people with the light and the joy of the Lord, because I remember at the center of all this, the core of who we are. Our main objective is to fiddle off the devil. If you want to help support us in that ministry, please join us on patron. We will get at free episodes, exclusive merchandise, a discord channel or we can discuss everything you want to talk about your dreams, your ideas, your problems, text till in to six six, eight, six! Six! Do you feel that relief anyway? Here's another advertisement, so so like this, so there were larger rats that would then stand guard and make sure that no one could get into their yeah. They started hoarding the food there's a little robin hood rats that were just climbing over the Robin Hood Rats: Oh Gosh, getting shocks for everybody else and throwing it over the fence yeah. No, that did happen. Another interesting. That thing happened, the taller than nesting enclosure, the worst the parenting became because it got harder for them to get up there and take care of their young, and so they found that the the mothers of the the rats that were in the lower enclosures would do everything that they rastell do to rear their children, but in the taller ones it was almost as if they were conserving energy because they didn't have as much food, and so they would come up, and they said that when they would move the rats around, they would often just kind of scatter them. They want t move them all together. They would just kind of toss them around wherever they ended up and they wouldn't feed all of them like they would only partially take care of them and do the bare minimum possible and then like get out of there, which was very, very odd, and so after seeing this result, his preliminary thought was there's something interesting happening here. When the population get got too big to sustain itself, behavior got really really out of whack people got, they broke into smaller groups, and they got really territorial and they also simultaneously started looking out for themselves more than they started. Looking out for the whole, the rents did yeah yeah, so you said people there, a personified, the rats. These were actually people yeah. I just at the end you're going to be like hey this whole time, haven to out rats. The rats were people, the rats there, their people with little the little hats, the little rat years like the. Why would they make them? Do that? Why would they be there rat? Why would that need to be part of the experiment? Timour find out a lot about human er, but I also want to demean them as much as possible eat these pellets Y rat. We head them pellets protein powder, and then we were surprised when they were like foaming at the mouth animalistic we were lighting each other. creer like this is wild. This is definitely because we made the nest too high, not because he doesn't we've been looking at people in these next year. Here's a nest for you yeah. I can't believe these these people, and so he was like he's like okay. He had the all these thoughts about how, as it olly populated things, got crazy yeah, but then he said well, you know what he said. I did kind of influence. This he's like I made some of their living conditions worse and I made it to where there were these kind of these bottle neck points for fights to happen. I mean those those rats were like killing each other on the bridges. Do you find a or e in the electric fence? Yeah, Hey Christine? It's a Italia, Barnet reference that pushing her into lector fans. I was trying to think of a wait a bit Christine merge with rat. I was like what names have rat in it, what what names? rately, Hey Rachel they'll change, their name. Okay, I was so were Adali. I hate that so so Calhoun was like okay. How can I take as much of my influence out of this experiment as possible, so he went and he found this farmer and he told the farmer he said put on these beers you're, a rap farmer now Kay snicker for me, okay, that's weird, but it'll work. Now I went to this farm and he was like Hey. Can I use some of your land for an experiment? I know everyone's freaking about a out about everyone loves in space, but can I use some of your space and the farmer was like sure you can, but an experiment on my land like there's some wooded areas over there to do whatever you need to do. He didn't expect Cahoun to Chot down a bunch of trees and build an ager long like an Acre Square Acre enclosure for mis the guy. The FIR was just like I mean I did tell him. He could do it. I mean, I guess technically. I said Yes to this. Just hear about their three am just hammering stuff jus and the rat farmer's wife is like Hatty than you came to each other. We're got to put. We got to put a little captions underneath these that's him going. I made a commitment we're following through. That's, don't you give me that attitude? I hear the tone in your clicks. She feels this much much larger and close yeah for mice which are smaller Ehan. He got nice this time he's. I can fit more of these in here and he put a few dozen groups together and he didn't do anything different like He. Just it e ad, a bunch of random foods for were the same and well, there wasn't for a separate sections, so it was one massive, open computer and then he put a few food like. What do you call those things where it's like? He put the food of Es Yeah feeders, you put a few feeders all the same food. There was nothing in it. That was like okay, there's room for inequality here, basically, and he built a bunch of like nesting zones that were like same high. You know whatever, so there's no room for any of them to get stuck with. Is it enclosed over top? I don't know, actually are there like what the Dome with a fake sky on it? Just now, I'm saying like we're on the boys. Some other lives are standing on the street and they're like flat, dog or flat COS ICOS Ere Earth. So, like I was like no, this is a globe. The Sky is not real, like the like. I've been to the end of the closure, there's a wall so anyway, it's the true mice show, and so, but I'm saying like, were there predators in there at all? No, no, no, no so it's just the nice they're, the only ones in there. Okay, so I would imagine, probably in close as it's just an acre on this farmer's land yeah, how ye going to keep like hawks and stuff like that, so it must be, must be enclosed, but there's no there's no like pictures or videos of this experiment anywhere. He can refer. He Walt that's what he prove he did his experience. Well, I don't know: ask the RAT farmersyeah. The rat farmer has a pretty good eh and former skip town. So so so he puts all these these mice. In there and over the first about year, every hundred days, or so they would double in population, but they stayed pretty gripped up into almost families, so groups of rats that were reproducing together stay stuck together and they kind of stayed on their own thing and got food from the same place, nested in the same place and kind of were separate from each other sure. But after about a year there multicast doubled. So every fifty days they were doubling the the whole population was doubling. And when that happened, some interesting things started to happen. One the Beta mail started to arise again, and so there was this, this structure of Alphas and Abatis, and the bat is what the man is did. Is They for some reason, just all packed together in the center of this Acre white enclosure and they just kind of stuck together in the middle there and never really went out every once in a while all the altas for no clear reason. We just come bite them and then just leave, and so they had this little spot where the rest of deserve Niti just O. observing all this. I mean he just he's watching from the the wall, with a little like a like. Just like hen takes notes, it's just like Bata Bat, weak little bathos, yeah althaemenes drove their large trucks over to the center of the like Alpha males, open, a Ford plant and so and what was what was interesting? is they just kind of lived in the state of constant fear? They seemed very jumpy, very skittish, the better the Badami yeah in the center in that center, and they just stayed in that center, so afraid to the point that on occasion they would something would happen and they would freak out on each other, and so they would just kind of brawl each other and often times it would kind of be this everyone against one mentality, so one person would make a setten movement and everyone would just kind of mob them and that one would just kind of lay down and just take the beating until it was over, and then they would just kind of chill together again like they would just that was their. That one was just like okay. This is this. Is My life now? What were the Alpha males do when they were just like watching them, yeah, so the offis kind of Split, but were they bade him as killing each other in the middle? No, they were just beating the tar out of each other on a great occasion just because they got spooked like they weren't. They weren't like like malicious toward each other. But like someone, woe like a sad of moving everyone be, like God, a lot and then the bee. Oh that's Tom! Sorry, then, and it's like it's okay, I just I be eventually. I thought you were one of the Os other ones. The ouse go back to being a herd in the middle. The Alpha split into these different groups as well, and they are very there's, like gangs, yeah they're, a very odd selection of out this. You know so there was: let's just go down the line. There was a group of cannibals that there was no reason for them to there's plenty of food, but for some reason they would just go eat other mice like they would find them and they would kill them and they would eat them and there was no reason for it whatsoever. He was very perplexed by that behavior. They were kind of the most feared people in the in the whole place no way so. There's just there's a group of Cannibals Group of Cannibal, there's a so there's a group of sexual deviance, and so these were people who they started. You got quit saying people dude you gotta clarify that these are mice. Okay, you CUSA. These are people who just win at each other, like you're, giving too much personality to these mice. So there was this group of mice that initially legally you have to say mice. So there's these group of mice that for some reason they stopped mating for reproduction yeah. They just constantly wanted to mate and they had no preference of who their partner was and male female adult it didn't matter. They were just going around and finding people to just do their sexual deviation with my Finin wine for finding the reseeking. You look down this little mouse on your doe you're, like a theory V. So there's that group yeah and then there's the cannibals in response. There is the recluses and so a bunch of them. There, reclusive recluses, reclusive recluses Calhoun's got recluses, so they built so they had the the the nesting yealing. But these guys they built they dug tunnels and they lived in these tunnels and they would only come out. I guess they could a ink. They could have dug underneath the fence they got out. Did it on e Ground Dome as well? That was what that was why some of them thought it was around Earth. Okay, they reached the the underground dome, so some of them dug and they would only come out to eat or drink, and then they would go hide in their tunnels again, and so because they were like society. It can't be a part of this society, anymore, yeah, people, mice, are crazy out there and then a lot of the women in the society female mice, a lot of the female mice in the society, Women Yeah I wim ice, but okay, they stopped journeying down out of the nest. They stayed in the nes twenty or seven they cramped out and as literally the way, the researcher states it is. He said they can't out in their apartments, and so they stayed up in the apartments. Now there was house mice yeah. If they were lucky, they had one of those males that would bring them food most of them didn't so the majority of the litters started dying out because they didn't have because they an't lition yeah, because the mothers wouldn't leave because it was too dangerous, they would leave, and there was they had to worry about the canibals, the deviants and the Betas, who, if you spook them, they just mouse, yeah, yeah and so society for these rats got really really crazy for a while, and it didn't happen until the population got really really big. There was still plenty of food, there are still a good amount of space, but for some reason, once the population hit a certain point, behaviors hit a fever pitch and- and so his theory was that if there is too much population that in event that he a term behavior sink occurs where animals and his theory is, maybe people would then begin to deviate their behavior. So you would have things like the sexual deviants right have things, cannibalism and then poor, parenting, reclusion and then huddling into groups like yours and then fighting each other win and in fighting as a response to this dangerous world around you, I guess and so behavioral sink became his kind of post. Her child phrase that people in that culture were using because yeah they looked the same thing as my mentality, yeah yeah kind of, and so they just looked to the world around them and they said Hey. These cities are getting bigger and bigger, and the lifestyles and those cities are getting worse and worse, and so they started a lot of people start to believe that behavior sink was a real phenomena that was happening in human in human people, start think that behavior sink happen in human. There was this podcast that one of the Nice started in their society and the guy was like. You got to stop calling the mice you need to call them humans. I come on man, kind of call them human, and so the expectation was when you overpopulate, you affect behavior yeah, and then people begin to do things and the only solution so nervous. What is the solution to him? So he's the thing he's like well, he solution is to kill half of these minds. Calhoun, never provided a solution. Interesting! Okay! He only provided here is the research is research. Okay. What he did say is he said when, over time as new generations couldn't survive, only a couple of the letters were surviving and then everyone's getting cannibalized and killed by each other out in the streets. Eventually, population started to decline and he said after declined. After about a year of this declinante at normalized behavior started to become a little bit more regular. Hey you ever heard of dylan merchandise. That's right! We've got a full store of branded teas mugs hoodies stickers, a lot more all of its available online. If you just text tillin to six six, eight six, six we'll send you a link for all of that and we put out new designs with every episode, but those are only available for a limited time, so get them while they're hot, so things level out. If it is leveled out. Eventually, our population is decreasing. Is it okay? It's pretty pretty well increasing, still, oh really guys having as kids quit it quit it. You you're going to make canace on my voice. Yeah, your kids are either going to be cannibals or be cannibalized. This is where they're going to live in a whole facts. Don't care about your feelings? Okay! This is real! No, I feel like there's too many anxious people who listen to our show. That's not going to happen! YOU'RE, fine! So in the seventh. As long as you don't need, people, so least, don't need people, so this was why they accepted as as hey. If we have too many people, people are going to go crazy, yeah and the I. There are people in small towns who still think that about cities yeah, because it is true, like you get that many people together like there are deviens in any society, but you get a big enough place where you get em enough of them together, they are going to be a lot of people who are have devi and behavior and do crazy stuff. Yeah. There's a lot there's a lot more cannibals in the city than there are in a small town just because of park capita. These no anse city cannibals, a hundred percent. There are people in the city that each other guaranteed guaranteed. Stop It. I don't doubt it. I don't. There's people soapless, there's nobody here de Moyne, now there's nobody here who eats anybody c Cleveland Clava has a lot of canibals is in the sea. You know they're trying to to see names at Ohio, a lot of cannibals Hannibal Missouri a can he. I kiote guys like S, we're not going to get any new produce that moves in we're not going to get any at an age that like Channibal, I hate everything about you. Okay, so in the S, deviance is at an all time, high you're having things like wood stock and fire fast and okay, and- and I was that one that we talked about me- want to know that I cum social yeah, there's just debauchery the butchers everywhere, and so everyone thinking it's curing the roaring s o Ron, everyone's thinking how man, the psychologist was right, but in the s but a psychologist, Jonathan Friedman said I don't think so. I think there was something else going on there. So he said I'm going to update any. He said I'm going to get a bunch of high schoolers, I'm going to put rattier on their head, I'm not going to put them in enclosure for a couple years, see what happens now. So he got a bunch of high school students and Oh, he really did get high school th high school students and university students and then went to that same farmer said. Do you still have that enclosure? A Hey? Can I use a little bit of space in l and he built a high school. Far was talking to his wife. He was like he was like he's think about all the food in the lunch rooms. We won't the farm anymore. We can just take it for the lives like we can get the government pellets, those public school pellets, and so he set up a situation where he was just monitoring them at school. So they went to school. High School is an university students and he monitored the Haus Walker on the hallways, like hiding and lockers and stuff like he just aint, a walker, take a nose, hole, cock people are doing the little combinations and right next to it, he's sitting there. It's someone to other combination that can't get it and he's like Sthir two. Yes, that was the moment that that guy became a Christian yeah. The Guy met God. He told me some more over my locker up. That's my testimony. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be at that Loeta yeah, I wouldn't have he just high he's he's dressing up as a Ganger. It's got a fake mustache walking around. You know, sweepin stuff, a kid throws up the ground and he's just like with a broom, not even mopping it just with a broom just like, as he doesn't know how to janitor. You know he doesn't know how to he isn't at a a janitorial thing like on is school, not caninis. He would yeah janitor junior college, that's exactly what it is yeah and he's just over there. The kids are walking by a he's, just yeah yeah. How long did it take for cannibals to show over the high school only a couple months, so he measured their stress through discomfort, how competitive they became and how unpleasant they were. He said to be like interviews with him. How was he, how was he measuring those things? I don't know he was monitoring the behavior as what okay it. As so. I don't know what that means. Yeah. I think you might be closer to reality and then, after they probably knew he was doing it. I don't really think he was hiding in like was watching him for a distance like, I think I think she can. He was probably asking you know some questions, and so after he studied, and so what he did is he studied smaller schools in bigger schools to see the difference in the size of the population in the school and how it affected their behavior of the students and he didn't find any connection in the size of the school and so what he said. After the after his research concluded, he said: CAHOON's work was not simply about density and a physical sense as a number of individuals per like square unit of whatever surface yeah. He said, but it was about degrees of social interaction, and so he says he thinks what was happening was in the in his mice experiment. He said there was, as the population grew, there was more deviance in that society and those devions began to take over. It was not as much of a because population grew. Everybody started to deviate. He said that, because Papato grew, there was more of an opportunity for deviens and then those devions crewed together and unfortunately, there was no sort of ruling group that could quell the deviance the devas just kind of took over. They were like barbarians invading the town and yeah doing whatever they wanted with it. When the high schools, he said that there was no there's, no connection to that. You had the same per capita rate of people behaving or use had an ever ster whatever, but there was a group that could control them that helped limit that yeah. So he was like we a principal yeah, we mean. Would you believe it is a giant rat right? The only way to control the humans as to have a giant rat run around the highschool. Tell you what I I it like an animal anamorphic rat. It is. This: Is Ours six feet tall giant ran on it through the hall on me right now, would you respect a pale white guy in his s? All right, who used to be a history teacher won his way through the ranks that small school hasn't quite reach. The end of us all the way he's got blueberry muffin crumbs in it. You know you respect that guy or do you respect a giant rat yeah man? Mr Mouse came the class room the other day and Danny was smoking a joint and he ate him. So don't cross ter mouse, don't the rat do it, but he goes by Mr Mouse, and I don't know if he goes by that, because all he does is go and then we don't actually know his name. We gave him that name. That's probably. Why is eating this? You know I'm a hat he's actually the headline speaker at the Teachers Association, because the act scores have skyrocketed. I mean, like kids, o what rate yeah yeah. You should see him in his suit. He got yeah because he goes and they're like wow dude Kaye get below a thirty three on this he's literally going to eat our entire family set. So I'm goin to eat us all yeah, but he drives a really cool like Mercedes. You know rives at home, exactly he's got vertiges in his tail goes up and out the opposite, and I asks opping he's got that window rolled out, but it's just like pinched in the door. I think he cares a brief case to demand respect. You know, there's not a la cheese. The brief case is full of normal size rack. He goes home to his nest. You know in the farm yeah talk about Alpha, males, I'll, tell you what he's he's up there so yeah. So calhoun's conclusions were basically. If we let population get too big we're going to have a lot of bad people, Yeah Freeman's conclusions. We conclusions were there: Will there is just a percentage yeah, the higher population you have now I, if those can band together, that's when it's dangerous and he's as great and the there's Facebo groups full of them true. But his point was more Freeman's point was more: You have to have people who will stand up to them. Yeah you got to have everybody just hides in their circle in the send of the group, goes up in their apartments or dicks holes and hides in the holes. Then the deviance will rule society, but that is why, like that's where I think I think we have institutions that do that whole people accountable right, but as the trust and institutions crumbles yeah, which is, is yeah. You know the people, don't trust the justice system to deliver justice. You know- and I think the issue with that is in a lot of those situations, Devi and start working. The way into those organizations that are supposed to be holding people account yeah, yeah, right right, and so as that accountability and that trust is gone and also there's social media. This is where I make the show all the time of the you know your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving used to be just your crazy uncle with his weird ideas: yeah, but now he's in a facebook group with ten thousand other crazy uncles and they're just reinforcing each other's ideas. Exactly they're like we, we should go out and eat people. You know that that was that's kind of where Freeman takes its for you, like yeah. you see that the the camel group got really big because they ate everybody else and they had all the power the that Beta grin O at. Maybe I should a eating people keep it in with the people who are eating people exactly like those behaviors became. If you wanted to succeed in that society that birth inside Calhoun's experiment was, you had to start eating other mice or you had to become a sexual devant or you just had to hide out those were kind of your options, and so it became a matter of survival of well. What am I going to be you can? Who Am I real? Who Am? I am I cannibal, and my sexual dva E'RE NOT gonna hide in a hole which one would you do I mean I'll say when I was in high school. I wanted a bunker, so bad yeah. I know that's what I was saying. I know you're a bunker guy this one of the rows fast yeah. So how long was the high school observations? I don't know? I think a couple O years. I think he watched them through so then, what conclusions can we walk away with it? Is there any like, because I mean I feel like they're, both just like yeah, the person was kind of wrong. Well Yeah. I think I think the bigger thing vans exist. There's no hope there yeah. I think I think, with Freedon and I think free mins. The conclusion you have to take because I think it I think cahen experiment was interesting to watch that yeah the devens kind of took over there, but he is right. There is no power structure, there's no systems yeah that can exist. That is a difference between humans and animals, as well as our ability to make systems yeah and our ability to override our desires. Yeah Yep Yep Yep, because you have a desire to punch someone in the face, but you can go. No, that's not productive. You know that doesn't help anything yeah yeah. So I think I think you have to look at Freeman's results, because one I mean he did actually study people, not mice, people, not people dressed his mind yeah, who were who were belittled every day into thinking, yeah, announce you're, a mouse and you're a DVAR mouse to like you're, not even a good mouse dv Mouse. I just need some want to tell me I'm a good mouse. You know dva mouse. He s sounds like a two Usan blog yeah toad and for em dvosh sounds like a disgruntled ex Disney employee who then goes online and starts a whole forum for people who are trying to take down Disney. You know it's like share your horror stories of working for Disney. I have this Devatas, it's a whole form of people who are like. Oh my gosh man I had to. I was the person in the Mickey suit. They would force me to eat all the other mascots e Goofy, fro Epcot was super weird. When they first started it have we have we done it up. We haven't done an episode about Eco, haven't I'm sure about it. Yeah there was actually also a canibal mouse group that was run by the shift managers. That was not a real cannibalism yeah there were Trito, get people fired yeah, but you know so I think I think yeah. I E O et Freedman, though, because Freeman, actually, you keep saying Freedman it's Freedman, there's a d: okay, Yeah Free O, you keys switchin between Freeman and Freedman, not just sometimes the DIS, a little less pronounced. Okay, okay, all right everything go ahead, because because one of the stud humans, not mice, but two, he noted that hey. There was no real connection in the size of the group okaybut. It was he his theory. Is that it's more of the social structures outside the DEVAN groups to control the deviens yeah exactly so. If there's a if there's a structure, if society allows DP behavior, then it will contain it well. But as long as society says this is this is not okay yeah. So you point to things like Las Vegas right, there's a place where DV and behaviors allowed and Devin an behavior is encouraged a lot yeah, but you go to places like I. Don't know Ol Iowa, yeah, small town, you say you say the sword which to them is shut up. You say that you're right get it. You know I'm telling you yeah yeah, so it's the social structure that controls the deviens, not the size of the sure, the Suchan mice didn't don't have social structure. No, no, so they just either were killed or be killed. Basically, no as their society grew too big, but to leave it Calhoun's one big conclusion: he said that he thinks that the fate of population, as it goes too big, is that of revelation to eleven, where, where it talks about how there is a second death and so the first, the social breakdown of society is the spiritual death and this tares death and that's what we saw happen in the mouse. The second death is the bodily death of the people, and he says our society has already experienced it's first death because of the collapse of. Are you joking ers is what he said. This is, I said: okay, I thought you're doing A. I thought, because your tone of voice shifted to now. He was serious. I just didn't: take it serious, okay, okay, so he says that we're headed toward a second death. Well, I mean everybody's always headed towards dying yeah working. This is a hopeful episode. I love this well now. The Hope I love that someone can listen to this and they can get into this episode and they go man. Here's the hunters break. Here's the help when your friends do bad stuff call him out on it. That was Freeman's point and if you have people around you who suck tell them to stop it, that's what keeps people from Secchi people from taking over okay. I stand up to it. So yeah, there's a there's, the moral, the story cool if you're ever in, I don't know lost Angeles Amen. is a man running down the street with being chased by a giant rat? You step is one of that around and you go no! No! You Go. You be really useful. Thou be really Carlo because you gotta go your bite. Your fingers up because is eat me. What is no is eat me, so be very listen to the difference. Eat Me. No E, the fair careful. No, I hear it yeah you're right, you're, right, you're, right, you're, right, there's a different yeah! Also you could also instead of know. You know I would be right, but if you did, if you added a third at the that's fiddle off question things are, then that night is a production of space. Tim Media produced by Christian Taylor, audio by as Garnett video by Coner, bets or graphics, and our logo by Kaleb Goldberg and our social media is one by Kelaba. Our host are JERN myres and Tim Stone falls on your favorite social media platform at Tillin. PODCAST is till and podcast remember to tell all your friends about us and we'll see you next Tuesday for another episode of things I have on last night. I


Throughout history, generations watched as the younger generation took the helm. With each transition of power, the older generation has often disapproved of the behavior and decisions of the younger. This was particularly evident in the early 20th century. Events like the roaring ’20s, the world wars, and the great depression left people wondering if the world was ending. Some people in that era believed that the overpopulation of cities was leading to adverse changes in human behavior. Researcher John Calhoun set out to discover if the behavioral sink was a reality. For some, Calhoun proved the phenomena. For others, he only showed the importance of accountability structures in the world. The story of the mouse utopia experiment might make you lose hope in humanity or maybe make you more hopeful.

The First Mouse Utopia Experiment

John Calhoun built an experiment to study moral decay in society. He built an enclosure for rats separated into four equal parts in his experiment. Each section was separated by electric fences and connected by a small bridge over the wall. There were a few twists in this experiment, though.

The bridges connecting the sections were only combined three of the areas. Second, certain areas had better food and nesting locations than the others. The rats were required to go through the other sections to get to the unit with the best food.

Behavioral Sink

The layout of the rat enclosure led to a severe moral decay within the colony. Early in the morning, the beta males would rise and travel across the bridges together the excellent food and bring it back to their ‘neighborhood.’ The reason for the early morning migration was because the alpha males would guard the bridges once they awoke. The alphas were known to attack any intruders.

Another change in behavior was a result of the nesting setup. Some of the units had taller nests with a series of ramps leading to the nest while others had nested on the ground level. Those with the higher nests saw a decrease in the quality of child-rearing. It was as if the inconvenience of climbing to the nest made the mothers only climb when it was absolutely necessary.

John B Calhoun with his Mouse Utopia Experiment
John B Calhoun with his Mouse Utopia Experiment
The Second Mouse Utopia Experiment

After seeing the results of the first experiment John Calhoun realized that his modifications to the enclosure played too much of a role in the changes of behavior. So, he decided to try the experiment again. For his second experiment, he made a much larger enclosure that was wide open. He made no modifications that would provide a different ‘quality of life for any of the mice in this experiment. Also, this time he used mice.

This time around it took longer to see any changes, but the behavioral changes still occurred. Various groups arose within the colony including recluses, solitary house mice, sexual deviants, and even cannibals. Each group showed different deviant behavior that unhinged on the safety of the others.

Conclusion

Calhoun came to the conclusion that population increases correlate to behavioral degradation in a community. Many after him refuted his claims. The largest rebuttal stated that all communities show some level of moral deviation, the reason it was prevalent in Calhoun’s experiments was that there were no social structures to prevent dangerous behavior.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning, and laughing a whole lot while you do, then you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

Mouse Utopia Experiment – IFL Science

Behavioral Sink – Wikipedia

Mouse Utopias – Smithsonian


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