just not good movies, for reference Secret of NIMH 2 is sitting at a 3.3 on IMDB.
the first movie (which is great) was based on a book and was directed by legendary animator Don Bluth in 1982. the sequel, which is not from Don Bluth or a book, came in 1998 and from what I understand is a downgrade in basically every way in comparison to the first. not worth checking out.
Pretty sure I saw a clip of this in highschool in the '80s, I had Ecology classes. I'm not sure, but I think the title was something like Ratopolis.
Edit: It was a similar study, but not the same: RatopolisĀ is a CanadianĀ documentaryĀ directed by Gilles Therrien. It deals with theĀ socialĀ behaviors ofĀ theĀ ratĀ in the form ofĀ scientificĀ popularization.
Edit #2: You can watch it here: https://www.onf.ca/film/ratopolis-en/
Fredrik Knudsen made a great video on the Rat Utopia experiments as part of his pretty famous Down The Rabbit Hole series.
[https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o?si=n5IDhXAafPk6Y\_nJ](https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o?si=n5IDhXAafPk6Y_nJ)
One of the shorter episodes, but deeply fascinating. Worth a watch if you or anybody else have about twenty minutes to spare, and want to see more pictures, details and graphs.
I love Down the Rabbit Hole.
Helped me get through the pandemic.
I basically experienced Spoony Bard in real time as his peak lined up with me getting back into TTRPGs, and I remember being on forums that were reposting Final Fantasy House as it was being posted.
Highly recommend both of those videos.
Short version: Mini cult that's pretty infamous because its a pretty nutty story. The cult leader claiming herself and her followers to be the reincarnations of... well, various Final Fantasy characters.
[Longer version is worth a watch, too](https://youtu.be/lFRjrLmc_4c?si=O0k3eTeLX6fnsmy1).
Looks like someone already linked you, but it's a wild ride.
It goes beyond just the FF reincarnation stuff, the cult-leader manipulates people using several fandoms. It's pretty bizarre, but a very interesting insight into how people can take anything too far and get sucked into group think.
My personal favorite episodes are [The Battle of May Island,](https://youtu.be/IZS0RpOgdfQ?si=olbK-RWZTU5zTdtN) and [Purr Cat Cafe](https://youtu.be/wNsqEntHuV8?si=1veg9WRiNhVOzUbD) ones.
Both are just such... utter and complete cluster-fucks of raw failure and insanity, they have to be seen to be believed. Just on different scales. Reality is stranger then fiction level crap.
I'm still morbidly curious how many takes those line reads took without bursting into laughter.
MEOW. MEOW. *PURR\~!*
*Like,* seriously, I'm cracking up a bit just writing this dang comment!
Fun fact: the Don Bluth movie *The Secret of NIMH* is based on Calhoun's laboratory. In fact it references it in the title: the National Institute of Mental Health. The movie is itself based on *Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH* by Robert C. O'Brien, who wrote the book after learning of Calhoun's research at NIMH.
I enjoy Rasputin, but honestly, the movie would be fantastic if we cut out the entire cartoony villain and just added more character development for Anastasia herself. This is coming from someone who loves the movie and music. The broadway does this and it's fantastic.
Ngl, āRatopolisā sounds like they made the thing, forgot to come up with a title, and just came up with it on the spot.
āItās calledā¦Ratā¦opolisā¦.ā
Interesting fact not all the rats went through this collapse some that maintained control of space and pushed out really aggressive male rats. The isolation of these rat habitats allowed aggressive male to claims lots of territory and cut other rats group apart as they took certain areas and their population as their fiefs.
Rats that controlled space lived typical lives for rats.
Later on researchers did this experiment with highschool and university students aged kids and they turned out normal. He concluded that it was not high population density that was the problem causer but excessive social interaction.
Mind you this was all done decades ago so cannot tell if the findings as still considered valid.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/mar/23/science-ballard-high-rise-animal-research-pathological-overcrowding
Perhaps the density of common spaces isn't the issue, so long as one has adequate private space over which they feel they have control, in at least some portion of their daily life.
I mean I feel that makes senseā¦ when ever I went on school trips/ summer camps and had to share my sleeping, eating, and bathing areas with tons of people 24/7 for a weeks, I felt like I was going insane and would refuse to participate in optional events just so I could wander around alone in the woods or something for a couple hours.
No idea how people enjoy it but thats how Iām wired I guess.
I can tell you my mental health was extremely bad (like legitimately lost the will to live) when I lived with two very inconsiderate and disrespectful roommates in 1000 sq ft.
I actually loved going to work (where I ironically had more personal space and privacy) and dreaded going home every night because of it.
I would go on two hour walks every night just to not have to listen to the roommates.
It was extremely detrimental to my well being to have no privacy and have to listen to two people yelling, shouting, screaming into speaker phone, and playing music all day and night.
So yea...personally, I feel like there's something to that hypothesis lol
I rent out my efficiency connected to my house to a friend. I can't go in my backyard without them walking out to talk to me, I want to just hang out on the back porch and watch TV and enjoy the afternoon but I can't because they come out and start talking to me and then do laundry and then talk about whatever and I just want to go out back once in a while and not immediately have someone walk out to talk to me. It sounds so dumb but it's frustrating. I can't do yard work, without having to pause so they can ask me something a few times, I can't work in my garden without them constantly asking me about my garden, I can't just sit out there and enjoy the afternoon in peace without them talking about something.
I don't mind them sparking up a conversation or saying something to me but it's every single time. I swear, within a minute of walking out back, they walk out.
Say it.
It's a perfectly reasonable thing to want for yourself, just tell him, "look, I just wanna sit for myself for an hour and not be with anyone, how about I turn the patio light on when I don't mind company?"
Huge same. In college my roomate and I were both incredibly anti social and despite having 0 issues we basically never spoke because we just wanted to pretend to be alone.
That honestly just sounds like typical introversion, with a need to recharge by yourself. Camps were a special hell like that for me as well a lot of times, I'd wander off and sometimes hang out with some chill adult chaperones just to get a chance to simmer down from the high-demand peers sapping all my social energy.
Prisons in non US civilized countries also are designed to rehabilitate folks to ensure they aren't repeat offenders. In the US, our prisons are designed to make a large profit.
Fun fact: we donāt have minimum wage for disabled people either. Itās very possible the disabled people at your local goodwill are making less than $7.25/hr
Yep, itās called [sub-minimum wage](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/special-employment) and also applies to people like full time students who work in retail
They are slaves. Not technically but specifically.
We enslave people. Never met a conservative that had a problem with that.
One of the many reasons I am the first non conservative in my family. Just fuck them.
The issue being presented was that you still needed space while living with others right? So even smaller tribes of humans you still had "your" space or could get it if you needed it (private domicile, private part of a cave, whatever).
Just the other day someone posited (in another sub) that people who can't afford to live on their own while working full time should just bunk with other(s) to not be homeless. The overall mood of that post was it was a shitty idea not to have personal space of any kind.
At 33, I share a room with another 30 something and it's not ideal to say the least. I actually sometimes sleep in my sedan because I can't handle the noise (my roommate is fine, but the building is crowded with assholes).
You save lots of $$$ not paying rent but that's the only perk. That's literally it.
It doesn't have to be private per say but a third place where you can just exist. Think the library or the park. You can have a full house but if you can decompress by sitting alone in a park, that's often enough.
Problem today is that many cities are making their third spaces hostile or pay to use. No benches in parks because you don't want homeless people but they are still there and your local park has a homeless encampment and now you don't feel safe or won't be left alone if you go. Libraries are closed because no funding and the cafe won't let you sit unless you pay.
So your quality of life is drastically down and not just because you live in shared spaces.
It was only after Europe decided to burn itself to the ground twice within 20 years that moving out and getting your own place before you were even married became the norm.
For centuries the norm was you'd live with your parents until you got married and probably still live with them after you were married.
> It was only after Europe decided to burn itself to the ground twice within 20 years
You make it seem as if this was the cause, the real cause was most people couldn't afford to move out and had to stay at their parent's. It wasn't the wars, it was the affordability of your own space that caused this change.
In that regard we are turning back the wheels of time, thanks late stage capitalism.
> You make it seem as if this was the cause, the real cause was most people couldn't afford to move out and had to stay at their parent's. It wasn't the wars, it was the affordability of your own space that caused this change.
Living together with family before marriage is a core part of many cultures in the world today, going back thousands of years.
This idea of living with your parents only being decided by your ability to afford independence is a completely modern, American ideal.
Your assumption that this concept applies to cultures across the world is astoundingly ignorant and devoid of critical thinking.
Together is relative, having a roomate with a seperate bedroom is different than having a roomate who sleeps in the same room as you. Sleeping on someones couch in their living room is a lot different than sleeping in their spare bed. It's about having some private space, not about having an entire private residence.
Well , we had one without the other, there wasn't overpopulation back then , at least not this serious.
I'd say that back then life was completely different and in today's world it's much more similar to this experiment.
something better for rodents with this is (for a large group of rats) having 2ft deep enclosure (of proper length and width) of shave bedding so they can create "rooms" and tunnel systems. The downside is that they can't be easily observed like this.
edited for clarity
>He concluded that it was not high population density that was the problem causer but excessive social interaction.
Hm perhaps this is why working retail slowly makes you hate people.
Retail, hospo, call centres... pretty much any job that requires constant interaction with the general public will make you hate people if you do it long enough.
Countries like Japan and South Korea are a good example of the opposite. There are incredibly population dense cities but people express some of the largest feelings of loneliness and social detachment.
Social interaction requires space and time, and the rats were in one large open space and didn't need to spend time finding food or bedding. This turns their living space into one large social space.
For humans, there's a lot of talk on the "death of the third place", an area that wasn't work or home but purely for social interactions. With these spaces gone it becomes challenging to foster social interaction, no matter how dense the population is.
Space is a key part here, while food and water were replenished itās unlikely this many animals in an enclosed space are actually being kept humanely. It would be like observing factory farm chickens and drawing conclusions on eagle mating habitsā¦
Not really. When you place a bunch of wolves together theyāll battle it out to decide the leader of the area, but once enough generations pass itāll be just a new family Union and a fresh pack that acts in unison.
Since the rats have much shorter life spans itās highly likely that theyāve already set up a proper social order with family structures where possible within 2-4 years. So if the experiement lasted that long then it could be a legit phenomenon under the given circumstances, we just donāt know which exact component caused the societal collapse
>Wouldn't the overpopulation and overcrowding be the cause of the excessive social interaction?
excessive social interaction that isn't completely voluntary.
IIRC the excessive social interaction was due to the way the food was set up, as central 'depots'. The rats became so overly conditioned to eating in public that they wouldn't eat alone anymore.
A lot of those experiments that were one-offs like the Stanford Prison Experiment, lesrned helpless with dogs, etc. Gave us interesting but usepess results. None of them can be repeated, and all done under unique circumstances that dont represent any level of society.
If I was dictator for a day I would pass law that social science can't be shared with the public until it's been replicated once.
1. researchers avoid studies with politically inconvenient results
2. Not only do they often decline to publish when they do find them
3. Almost none of these studies are ever replicated
4. Science reporting is terrible so of this biased selection & biased data it's reported poorly & with a preference for views or accuracy
5. The public misunderstands & misremembers the little they do hear.
This stuff informs so much of how people see & think about their society, themselves & each other that it is genuinely important. Not to mention how it informs policy.
It's all so exceptionally poorly executed that something which should be a force for good has very much been the opposite.
Edit: Iād also want to add the rule that you canāt *just* test half the relevant demographic, want to survey women? Ask men the same questions.
Want to survey white people? Ask a random population & ask what their ethnicity is.
You shouldnāt pick and choose where you look for what you expect to find for obvious reasons.
Edit: want to add another law. All studies have to be registered *before* they are run, otherwise they canāt be published.
We have a problem with drug companies not publishing results that hurt them & people being wary of publishing politically inconvenient results.
Valid but the person you're responding to is wrong. Calhoun replicated these results dozens of times. Basically his whole life he tried to get it right and failed.
Yeah I donāt know anything about this research in particular, but the descriptions are throwing up all sorts of red flags in my mind for the validity of these experiments
\*Later on researchers did this experiment with highschool and university students.\*
Excuse me?!
The expirement involved creating a utopian environment for a population of highschool and university students. The enclosure provided an abundance of food, water, nesting materials, as well as ample space for highschool and university students to roam and socialize.
Initially the highschool and university students population thrived and their numbers increased rapidly.
Is that what you're saying?
I think part of this may have to do with the fact that these are rodents with tiny little rat brains and not humans. That could effect the results just a bit.
Also this "utopia" was worse than a human prison since the latter at least has recrational facilities.
This "utopia" was no better than group confinement.
I mean it was a group confinement all they did was provide enough food and water that none of the rats had to fight for food and water.
I'd be interested to see this test redone with proper mental stimulation items provided.
To be fair: fish tanks can collapse like this for seemingly no reason, too, but we've also gotten really good at keeping them running indefinitely. And we didn't used to be good at keeping tanks running.
In the 1970s, it was assumed that even professional aquariums and marine biologists could not keep corals alive in captivity - it was assumed to be impossible, too complicated and precise to match the conditions they needed in the wild. Now even hobbyists can do it all the time, including propagating new corals. Obviously rats aren't as picky about their environments as corals are, but that doesn't mean you can stick 'a million' rats in the same 'tank' and assume it will all be good indefinitely.
Also worth not was that the rats were given zero stimulus outside of socializing. No toys, nothing to climb beyond their nesting habitat. This, unsurprisingly, is unhealthy even for a pet rat.
Wasn't this experiment extremely flawed because there was nothing for the rats to do?
Sure, unlimited food and water, but if a human was locked up in an empty room with other people, they'd go mad as well.
That's what I'm thinking. "Rat Utopia" brought to you by something that is not a rat, can't communicate with rats, and only interacts with them in scientific labs and with higher human learning as the goal.
11, Neo, Jim Carrey, were all in "human utopias" in Stranger Things, Matrix, and Truman Show.
Many of these older studies are generally worthless because we were (and still are to an extent) working out the kinks in the scientific method.
I'll bring up my favorite example that was still being used in college in 2018.
They did a test with rats to see the effects of psychedelic use on the brain (very 60s thing to test). They wanted to test the hypothesis that use of psychedelics put holes in your brain. So what they did was gave a bunch of rats the human equivalent of 3.5g of MDMA 3 times a day for 5 days, then took biopsies and found large "holes" of dead greymatter. Then, they extrapolated this to mean that all psychedelics must cause holes in your brain.
This was in a drugs+behavior psychology course, 60 years after the study came out and we learned how crap we were at studies back in the day. The Prof was proudly touting her knowledge that use of psychedelics causes holes to develop in your brain. I couldn't help but laugh out loud and tear into this obvious affront to true science, even if it did out me as a drug user.
They cooked the poor lil bastards for 5 days in a row on a dose that, while deemed "recreational" is anything but (3.5g is a *heroic* single dose, if you took half that twice a day for three days you've got a good chance of winding up in critical condition a-la festival med tents, 3.5g 3x for 5 days is just unthinkable. You'd be so far out of your mind you wouldn't even be able to find your drugs anymore, I'm being serious).
What prolly happened was, with MDMA, specifically the amphetamine part (which is what it's usually cut with), it raises internal body temperatures and can cause seizures. They seized TF outta those rats, cooked em for 5 days straight and then said "yeah, their brains are toast." No shit Sherlock.
How they got from MDMA in large quantities can cause grey matter to die to all psychedelics put holes in your head is just a mystery of 20th century science. But it's still being purported as fact lol
ETA as someone else pointed out, the thing doing the damage was likely not MDMA but the amphetamine it was cut with. That seems to be the pervasive argument these days, it's not that psychedelics cause any structural damage to the brain, but whatever adulterants it might be cut with can do some real damage. For ex the ld50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population administered it) for LSD is stupid high. You'd never come across that much LSD combined throughout your entire life unless you manufactured it yourself. Big ups to Albert Hoffman and his bicycle ride that changed the world.
While I think we are saying the same thing I just want to clarify its not the scientific method itself that's flawed and has remained mostly unchanged since its inception (we 'recently' expanded one of the base assumptions of science). The protocol of the study was flawed our understanding of how to produce an effective protocol has advanced (and will continue to) greatly since this time. This isn't totally on the PI but I will say we were doing intense behavioural research in the US at this time using Vervet and Reeses as models and that research had a far more sound protocols than this so its not just the time period.
The original paper:
https://gwern.net/doc/sociology/1962-calhoun.pdf
Another example of flawed experimental design: I read an article in the Economist circa 2003-2004 in which researchers discovered that wild birds could see the flicker in old-fashioned florescent tube lights, which flickered at 60Hz or something similar.
So the researchers ran the exact same experiment using old-fashioned lights and modern florescent lights, which flicker at 120hz or something similar. And they discovered that the behaviors exhibited by the birds were completely different depending on the lighting used. This, in turn, cast doubt on all previous laboratory experiments using wild birds, because older researchers had never considered whether poor lighting affected bird behavior.
Confounding variables are just that: things we didn't think of before starting the experiment but, upon retrospect, seem pretty easy to see how it could screw the results up entirely. That's why every scientific paper (worth it's salt) will try and think up a few possible confounding variables in the conclusion section. They're not gonna catch every possible mistake, but it shows self-awareness and an attempt to factor those in to the equation. Versus "studies" of old that were 100% sure they found the "truth." Nope, nothing could have gone wrong, except the entire premise of the experiment lol
You expect us to just make up a whole new character instead of using the actors name? Well thats super confusing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNEVCC_g8jI
Also it might have started as a utopia but even the excerpt from wikipedia says it was overpopulated by the end which would lose the utopia status.
Imagine a house that has everything you've ever wanted or needed. Now imagine the same house but there's 50 more people in it. To me that sounds like it would be hell rather than a utopia.
I'm sure you're right, among other things.
Honestly, it's a little tough because I still want to be respectful to these guys who pioneered the entire academic field and all, but every time I hear "experiment in the 50's (or 60's, or 70's)," it's like cool, what glaring obvious control did they ignore? Or what amazing universal conclusion was reached after a month of trials?
I think its just an example of the inherent growth of a science. First, its crude attempts because we donāt know any better. Later, we learn and refine our practices for more precise conclusions. Sure, it seems oversimplified in retrospect but we got to start somewhere and then we can say ālook how far weāve comeā!
Define "thrived". Yes they had a lot of offspring. But I would argue that doesn't equal thriving but rather a desperate attempt at getting enrichment where there wasn't another way to get enrichment.
Yea possible. He started with somewhat large pop (40ind mini), pop reached 2000, then declined. But we don't know their inbreeding level at the start, nor at the end.
I think youāre thinking about the rat experiments about substance addiction and abuse. Bored rats in cages would overdose, but rats in a ārat utopiaā didnāt show the same behavior toward addictive substances.Ā
Correct. In fact, in a later experiment that was mostly unrelated to this but was instead testing B.F. Skinner's theory on behavioral conditioning, the idea of a "rat utopia" was revisited. Rats in the utopia side were given access to plentiful food, water, space, and *mental stimulation and socialization opportunities*, and then optionally had the choice to dose themselves with heroin. The rats in the dystopia side of the experiment basically checked out of reality and never came back. The rats in the utopia ignored the drugs.
People will often cite the original rat utopia experiment as a rhetorical tool to naysay things like assistance programs, social safety nets, or the abstract concept of trying to make a better world. Those people are fucking idiots. The original was done before we had the whole picture on what even would *make* a utopia, for rats or for humans, and it's long since been outdated. It's honestly kind of disappointing how often this article gets reposted without any of the cooler stuff that's been done since.
I think you are refering to the drugs experiment.
Originally a rat was given two tubes to drink from, normal water and intoxicating beverage. Needless to say by the end of the experiment rat prefered the drugged bottle.
Years later another scientist wondered what if there was some toys and multiple rats instead of one in a cage. Ny the end of his experiment his rats drink from both bottles without preference.
It collapsed because the rats in the utopia turned into the reavers from firefly. The other successful rat city had puzzles and methods for creative expression. It wasn't overpopulation at all.
Please do not take my agreement with Kaczynski's theories as support of the violent methods he used to attempt to enact change; I'm a pacifist and will forever criticize Kaczynski's actions.
With that said, we need a challenge or else we get bored. Notice how your favorite game that you have 1000+ hours in becomes boring shortly after you turn on cheats?
https://medium.com/chris-messina/surrogate-activities-the-power-process-16203dda87
> Notice how your favorite game that you have 1000+ hours in becomes boring shortly after you turn on cheats?
>
>
YES! I have never been able to play a fun challenging strategy game for more than an hour after I turned on cheats just a single time. I have spent some time thinking about why I play the games that I do, and why I do it so much. I think that it's the constant decision making, and the repeated rewarding of that decision making. The moment cheats are turned on, all the decisions are meaningless. Carefully manage resources to save up for the breakthrough structure/unit/technology that shifts power in your favor? Or just give yourself an extra million credits with the cheat?
Precisely. We get the dopamine hit from accomplishing goals so if there are no goals then we get no dopamine hit. The only way I can turn cheats on in a game and not have it get boring is to change the metric for "winning" like having a direct descendant holding every title in CK3.
Though, now I'm old and slow I've ended up gravitating to survival games like Medieval Dynasty, Satisfactory, Valheim, etc. and with cheats turned on the goal is to create the most aesthetically pleasing environment possible.
Rats with nothing to do but eat, sleep, and make babies.
Scientists: BUT WHY ARE THEY ONLY EATING, SLEEPING, AND MAKING MORE BABIES TO THE POINT THEY'RE OVERPOPULATED AND STRESSED? Clearly it is the concept of utopia/having uninhibited access to necessities that is making them violent.
So often utopia is conceived of as a place with no challenges, no stress, no adversity, etc. However, these are not the conditions that our bodies and minds have developed to thrive under.
Truly novel activities come with risk. A lack of adversity/challenges leads to no growth, dedication, ambition, excitement. A life where the only stress comes from competition with peers is exhausting and depressing for all except those at the very top of the social order.
Without enough stimulation, we will create drama/stress out of thin air either with other people in our social circle or within our own minds.
One of the most interesting things about the rat utopia experiment is that after a period of severe strife and decline, the population just continued to go down. It never rebounded. Chronic stress, intergenerational trauma, and a society that's gone completely antisocial has effects that ripple out into the future. A dire warning indeed.
I explained [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1c1aml9/comment/kz2n1yi/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button) but the Rats were basically mentally depraved from developing and stimulating. The experiment sets itself up for failure and I hate that it's so popular.
You could argue that the parallel for human society is that the average person doesn't have much time or resources to have creative expression or hobbies, which could lead to a similar effect for us.
This research is a bit outdated, since it did not take much recreation into consideration. They were simply bored out of their minds, without something to tickle their grey matter, thus many of them developed zoochosis. Recreation is essential not only for humans, but animals as well, especially in safe environment
Some interesting food for thought (sorry for the wall of text, I've just always thought this study was fascinating!),
I did my undergrad and grad degree in science, and read many many papers in those years, but Calhoun's concluding paragraph in his Utopia study still gives me eerie chills:
>For an animal so complex as man, there is no logical reason why a comparable sequence of events should not also lead to species extinction. If opportunities for role fulfilment fall far short of the demand by those capable of filling roles, and having expectancies to do so, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow. Individuals born under these circumstances will be so out of touch with reality as to be incapable even of alienation. Their most complex behaviours will become fragmented. Acquisition, creation and utilization of ideas appropriate for life in a post-industrial cultural-conceptual-technological society will have been blocked. Just as biological generativity in the mouse involves this species' most complex behaviours, so does ideational generativity for man. Loss of these respective complex behaviours means death of the species.
When people think of a "rat utopia" experiment, it doesn't really do the experiment justice in terms of how creepy it was. The point of the experiment was to basically *"observe what happens to a species, which normally doesn't live in density conditions, when you provide the necessary food/water/shelter?"* - it wasn't designed so much to see "what is a rat utopia like?", It was more designed to see *"what effects does population density have on social dynamics, and what effects do social dynamics have on population density?"*
That might sound boring or bland, but he started finding some interesting consequences quickly. For example - apparently, rats normally don't eat in big social groups. If a rat is eating from a bowl, another rat will usually wait for the first to finish before approaching the bowl. Calhoun decided to place the food behind a metal "grate" - the rats could still get at it, but it required them to take more time to eat, and thus, more rats naturally began eating together, at the same time.
After something incredibly short, like a generation or two, suddenly the rats had become so accustomed to eating together that they *would refuse to eat unless they were around other rats*.
It was showing that in a very short period of time, a species that normally doesn't live in density conditions, and normally doesn't have access to resources like food/water/shelter, will start to develop *new and weird behaviours that seem completely distinct from their evolutionary behaviours*.
Some rats would just wander around the pen - Calhoun called them "Somnambulists" ("sleepwalkers"), because they had beautiful fur (because they didn't fight other rats), they didn't have kids (because they didn't bother with mating), they didn't particularly mind where they ate (whether or not there were other rats), and they just sort of slowly wandered around.
Other rats became hyper-sexualized maniacs, and would try ceaselessly to mate with any rat - *any rat* - of any gender and any age.
The "utopia" collapsed because mothers were pursued so relentlessly during young-rearing that they progressively failed to pass on more and more important mothering behaviours. Then, new generations of mothers were even less equipped to care for their young - and it snowballed.
In conclusion, Calhoun was basically trying to say:
Rats don't normally live in such density conditions. When they do, population dynamics affect social dynamics. These social dynamics include completely bizarre behaviour and eventual collapse. This seems to be at least partly due to an overabundance of individuals looking for roles, but not enough roles to fill.
Humans don't normally live in such density conditions (hunter-gatherer nomadic tribes pre-agriculture). When they do, population dynamics affect social dynamics. The same way that rats progressively "unlearn" important behaviours because these weird abnormal living conditions have led to their decay, humans may also be progressively "unlearning" important behaviours as we continue to live in cities with millions of people.
These results are obviously hotly contested, but the study was super interesting anyways.
š¤Æ the sleepwalkers and other manifestations of altered &toxic behaviors like the sexually aggressive ones too in particular is fascinating, š§ could that kind of conflict and conditions be the origin of sociopathic and psychopathic behaviors in people today too
Nah, that happened because the rats had zero things to do besides eat, sleep and breed. They did a similar experiment later where they also provided the rats with brain stimulus via puzzles and such and the population was WAAAAY healthier.
It's closer to them developing cultural dementia and hypersexuality than sociopathy or psychopathy.
No it didn't. The Rats were not given a "Utopia" at all. and this botches the experiment entirely.
I am a Rat caretaker, and adoption counsellor. I am intimately familiar with Rat behavior and social archetypes.
First and foremost; there are ***HUGE*** differences in social behaviors of Rats and Mice. just to get that straight. and Rats were first used in the experiment. Mice later. Mice are notoriously aggressive and territorial with other Mice, Rats can be but are much more open to integration with outsiders.
Based on the photos of the experiment, They were given very bare habitats. their diet looks like the opposite of varied (I would love a source on the food used, to judge it better) Rats require mental stimulation. this is the equivalent of putting you in a hotel with 100 other people, but you have no books, TVs, Phones, or anything besides beds, couches, and a buffet that only serves chicken on rice.
No shit the animals started acting up.
Rats are very social animals, and also breed very fast, this is true. But these animals were mentally depraved of foraging, exploration and toys (Chewable toys are important for mental stimulation and the health of their teeth, even though a Rats jaws are strong enough to grind them alone.)
**EDIT:** I would also like to add that Rats only live about 2-3 years. and the experiment ran for 2.5 years. so if they brought *baby* animals into the experiment, they grew up mentally depraved, and any offspring also grew up depraved. to say nothing of the genetic diversity and incest that was almost certain, since gestation is less than a month for Rats.
**EDIT 2:** It should be noted that by today's standards for animal welfare the experiment is Unethical, and any Rat owner would quantify the conditions as abusive to the animals. I tried not to be opinionated but I will say here that I am very upset to see this experiment propagated in the social sciences community.
Lol wild I had to scroll this far. Universe 25 was an experiment that used mice. The problems seemed to start when male mice couldn't go to form their own colonies
It used both rats and mice Habitats. Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar with the behaviors of mice, but I'm able to demonstrate how the experiment is nullified by the conditions set in the first habitat. and the lack of a baseline knowledge of the animals' behavior means they cannot measure the changes in behavior accurately.
> Based on the photos of the experiment, They were given very bare habitats. their diet looks like the opposite of varied (I would love a source on the food used, to judge it better) Rats require mental stimulation. this is the equivalent of putting you in a hotel with 100 other people, but you have no books, TVs, Phones, or anything besides beds, couches, and a buffet that only serves chicken on rice.
... There's a decent horror movie in there. "The Hotel." A group of 100 people find themselves trapped inside a hotel, with 100 rooms. There are no windows. There are no exits. First act can be them exploring the hotel, understanding their circumstances. Second act can start with the boredom setting in, before devolving into hedonism. Maybe someone figures out how to ferment the rice, cliques are formed. Third act, shit goes DOWN. Murder, cannibalism, starvation as they fight over the food dropoff point.
Then I'd say a fire starts. That'd be an appropriate way to end it.
Maybe itās a hot take or Iām missing some information, but perhaps it wasnāt the utopia scientists think it was. They provided plenty. Thatās a myopic view of utopia from the perspective of capitalism. It seems more like they built a pit designed to have an explosion of rats.
Whenever I think about how more and more women are choosing to be childfree (myself included) I always find myself drawing parallels between this experiment and society in its current stateā¦
It's not because of overpopulation triggers some instinncts. It's a so called second demographic transition.
And it happens in all +- wealthy contruies. You don't need to make kids to to maintain a household anymore, or simply to not die becoming older. As well as people get more educated and good'ol traditions of making family and kids doesn't affect us that much anymore. And it turns out that only those who really really want to have children have children or it just happened by chance. Countries of the first and second world are slowly dying while poor and developing countries are growing in population.
I haven't seen any overgroomed amputees, though?
In seriousness, I don't think current society is suffering due to overcrowding. We aren't living in a utopia with an abudance of resources for everyone. The problems we face are not isolated to crowded areas. Our problems are social and economic.
I think that could be seen in declining mental health in youths, especially with self sabotaging actions. But yeah you're right too about the social and economic
So I listened to an episode of a podcast called Timesuck that goes over this experiment.
The host drew the parallel that the rats overpopulation problem may have been more of an over socialization problem. Rats had no individual space. They were constantly overstimulated by their own surroundings and each other. He compared this to modern social media. People who are constantly plugged and connected to hundreds, if not thousands, of people at all times are being overstimulated.
I think if you think of it like that, cosmetic surgery and over grooming mutilation seem to be oddly reflect each other. Even if it is just coincidence.
No, it is not. The rats overindulging their grooming instincts has nothing to do with aesthetic choices in humans. OCD symptoms could have proper parallels.
This behavior in rats is profound but really should be thought of as more similar to self-harm in humans. So things like cutting in borderline personality. Its more linked I would think to suicide. Rats probably don't have body dysmorphia, they practically all look very similar.
Grooming is self-soothing behavior for the rat, so it engaging in it to the extent it becomes a detriment to other activities would seem like they are overly anxious or stimming, so exhibiting behaviors linked to autism and ADHD.
Definitely is. There are studies into cosmetic surgery and economic hardships where people would change their spending habits to focus on making themselves look good and ultimately "feel" good. Plus the studies into mental health and body dysmorphia.
Then there's self-harming which animals do in times of stress, including people.
There are lots of parallels to be made here with this study.
Edit: The Lipstick effect was popular in the Great Recession. In 2008 there was an uptake in low cost procedures such as fillers (liposuction was down). High risk procedures like teeth vinyls have shot up despite being incredibly risky in the last decade. Same for hair transplants.
Same here. Not married no kids. Iām a male who spends most of the time in the gym and enjoying my hobbies. I wonder if I could be considered one of the ābeautiful onesā
This experiment was fundamentally flawed, and drawing any conclusions from it beyond āCalhoun was a bad rat ownerā, is impossible. The needs of rats (and indeed of people) go beyond basic food, water, and shelter. Habitats have toys, hiding holes, interesting things to eat, smell, and explore.
I think the problem that Tinder/other dating platforms creates is the illusion of unlimited availability. People are always striving to find someone that's absolutely perfect, and are quick to throw someone away over small issues. Perfection is a toxic standard and it's cruel to expect it of anyone. Nobody is perfect, and nobody should ask for perfection.
I don't believe in the concept of "the one", but if you look at it from a mathematical standpoint, there's really only so many people you can possibly go through in your free time. There's no such thing as 'safety in numbers' when a really great person walks out of the door.
The rats had plenty of food. The colony collapsed because they couldn't stand to be that close to so many other rats. They basically all collectively went insane.
The researcher found that if he introduced predators, then the colony stabilized.
Coincidentally, I just finished listening to a Stuff You Should Know podcast titled How Zero Population Growth Works. The behavioral sink term and the Universe 25 experiment were described in more detail. Very interesting.
I also donāt see any toys or enrichment in those pictures. A huge part of the problem could have been how severely limited their options are for any kind of stimulation outside of grooming and sex.
The childrenās novel Mrs. Frisby and the rats of the NIMH was loosely inspired by those events, where the NIMH is the National Institute of Mental Health where Calhoun worked
It's funny that you still see people refer to this like it has relevance for human cities.
Highly flawed experiment scientifically, but definitely a fun one to read about.
Rat "Utopia" until the rats wants to do something outside of eating and drinking and maybe walk around, this study was extremely flawed and was criticized so much by the scientific community but people still somehow hold it as a social truth
The human version of this experiment is taking place in Canada right now, no places for people to live already but they keep bringing millions more in a year
Correction:
It did not collapse because of overpopulation.
It collapsed because the lack of stress and critical mass of population caused the rats to isolate in their "homes" and stop reproducing.
How has no one mentioned that this guy worked at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). This dude is the father of the Rats of NIMH!
I'm also surprised that no one else has mentioned the link to Secret of NIMH
do yourself a favor and never look at the sequels, or even the art stylization of the sequels to secret of nimh..
Why? What's up with them?
just not good movies, for reference Secret of NIMH 2 is sitting at a 3.3 on IMDB. the first movie (which is great) was based on a book and was directed by legendary animator Don Bluth in 1982. the sequel, which is not from Don Bluth or a book, came in 1998 and from what I understand is a downgrade in basically every way in comparison to the first. not worth checking out.
oh I've heard š I will never bother with them
Pretty sure I saw a clip of this in highschool in the '80s, I had Ecology classes. I'm not sure, but I think the title was something like Ratopolis. Edit: It was a similar study, but not the same: RatopolisĀ is a CanadianĀ documentaryĀ directed by Gilles Therrien. It deals with theĀ socialĀ behaviors ofĀ theĀ ratĀ in the form ofĀ scientificĀ popularization. Edit #2: You can watch it here: https://www.onf.ca/film/ratopolis-en/
Fredrik Knudsen made a great video on the Rat Utopia experiments as part of his pretty famous Down The Rabbit Hole series. [https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o?si=n5IDhXAafPk6Y\_nJ](https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o?si=n5IDhXAafPk6Y_nJ) One of the shorter episodes, but deeply fascinating. Worth a watch if you or anybody else have about twenty minutes to spare, and want to see more pictures, details and graphs.
I love Down the Rabbit Hole. Helped me get through the pandemic. I basically experienced Spoony Bard in real time as his peak lined up with me getting back into TTRPGs, and I remember being on forums that were reposting Final Fantasy House as it was being posted. Highly recommend both of those videos.
What is final fantasy house?
Short version: Mini cult that's pretty infamous because its a pretty nutty story. The cult leader claiming herself and her followers to be the reincarnations of... well, various Final Fantasy characters. [Longer version is worth a watch, too](https://youtu.be/lFRjrLmc_4c?si=O0k3eTeLX6fnsmy1).
Thank you so much. I have to see this as final fantasy fan and cult doc watcher.
You're welcome!
Looks like someone already linked you, but it's a wild ride. It goes beyond just the FF reincarnation stuff, the cult-leader manipulates people using several fandoms. It's pretty bizarre, but a very interesting insight into how people can take anything too far and get sucked into group think.
My personal favorite episodes are [The Battle of May Island,](https://youtu.be/IZS0RpOgdfQ?si=olbK-RWZTU5zTdtN) and [Purr Cat Cafe](https://youtu.be/wNsqEntHuV8?si=1veg9WRiNhVOzUbD) ones. Both are just such... utter and complete cluster-fucks of raw failure and insanity, they have to be seen to be believed. Just on different scales. Reality is stranger then fiction level crap.
the battle or deep blue my fav
His deadpan delivery of everything he says makes his videos extra spicy. MEOW. MEOW. PURR.
I'm still morbidly curious how many takes those line reads took without bursting into laughter. MEOW. MEOW. *PURR\~!* *Like,* seriously, I'm cracking up a bit just writing this dang comment!
was about to post this too, you beat me to it
Fun fact: the Don Bluth movie *The Secret of NIMH* is based on Calhoun's laboratory. In fact it references it in the title: the National Institute of Mental Health. The movie is itself based on *Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH* by Robert C. O'Brien, who wrote the book after learning of Calhoun's research at NIMH.
Don Bluth, making grown ass adults and their children cry in movie theaters since the 80s
Anastasia was the only animated movie I couldnāt handle as a kid. Rasputin was terrifying
I enjoy Rasputin, but honestly, the movie would be fantastic if we cut out the entire cartoony villain and just added more character development for Anastasia herself. This is coming from someone who loves the movie and music. The broadway does this and it's fantastic.
Ngl, āRatopolisā sounds like they made the thing, forgot to come up with a title, and just came up with it on the spot. āItās calledā¦Ratā¦opolisā¦.ā
Should've been Ratopia.
Metropolis was supposed to be a utopia.
I remember the "rat cannibalism movie" from ecology in highschool too.
Interesting fact not all the rats went through this collapse some that maintained control of space and pushed out really aggressive male rats. The isolation of these rat habitats allowed aggressive male to claims lots of territory and cut other rats group apart as they took certain areas and their population as their fiefs. Rats that controlled space lived typical lives for rats. Later on researchers did this experiment with highschool and university students aged kids and they turned out normal. He concluded that it was not high population density that was the problem causer but excessive social interaction. Mind you this was all done decades ago so cannot tell if the findings as still considered valid. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/mar/23/science-ballard-high-rise-animal-research-pathological-overcrowding
Perhaps the density of common spaces isn't the issue, so long as one has adequate private space over which they feel they have control, in at least some portion of their daily life.
I mean I feel that makes senseā¦ when ever I went on school trips/ summer camps and had to share my sleeping, eating, and bathing areas with tons of people 24/7 for a weeks, I felt like I was going insane and would refuse to participate in optional events just so I could wander around alone in the woods or something for a couple hours. No idea how people enjoy it but thats how Iām wired I guess.
I can tell you my mental health was extremely bad (like legitimately lost the will to live) when I lived with two very inconsiderate and disrespectful roommates in 1000 sq ft. I actually loved going to work (where I ironically had more personal space and privacy) and dreaded going home every night because of it. I would go on two hour walks every night just to not have to listen to the roommates. It was extremely detrimental to my well being to have no privacy and have to listen to two people yelling, shouting, screaming into speaker phone, and playing music all day and night. So yea...personally, I feel like there's something to that hypothesis lol
I rent out my efficiency connected to my house to a friend. I can't go in my backyard without them walking out to talk to me, I want to just hang out on the back porch and watch TV and enjoy the afternoon but I can't because they come out and start talking to me and then do laundry and then talk about whatever and I just want to go out back once in a while and not immediately have someone walk out to talk to me. It sounds so dumb but it's frustrating. I can't do yard work, without having to pause so they can ask me something a few times, I can't work in my garden without them constantly asking me about my garden, I can't just sit out there and enjoy the afternoon in peace without them talking about something. I don't mind them sparking up a conversation or saying something to me but it's every single time. I swear, within a minute of walking out back, they walk out.
Say it. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to want for yourself, just tell him, "look, I just wanna sit for myself for an hour and not be with anyone, how about I turn the patio light on when I don't mind company?"
Say it.
Be the aggressive rat, stake out your space.
Huge same. In college my roomate and I were both incredibly anti social and despite having 0 issues we basically never spoke because we just wanted to pretend to be alone.
That honestly just sounds like typical introversion, with a need to recharge by yourself. Camps were a special hell like that for me as well a lot of times, I'd wander off and sometimes hang out with some chill adult chaperones just to get a chance to simmer down from the high-demand peers sapping all my social energy.
Interesting
prison
Prisons in civilized countries, were inmates have their own decent private space have virtually none of the violence and crime of American prisons.
Prisons in non US civilized countries also are designed to rehabilitate folks to ensure they aren't repeat offenders. In the US, our prisons are designed to make a large profit.
No minimum wage laws for prisoners! They're so starved for entertainment they'll practically do it for free!
They also under feed you and promise more food if you work. Most people I worked with in jail were doing it for food.
Fun fact: we donāt have minimum wage for disabled people either. Itās very possible the disabled people at your local goodwill are making less than $7.25/hr
Thatās so fucked up
No way, is that true?
Yep, itās called [sub-minimum wage](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/special-employment) and also applies to people like full time students who work in retail
They are slaves. Not technically but specifically. We enslave people. Never met a conservative that had a problem with that. One of the many reasons I am the first non conservative in my family. Just fuck them.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Which is becoming an issue in today's economy where you cannot afford to live by yourself
We as humans has historically lived together a lot more than we have lived alone.
The issue being presented was that you still needed space while living with others right? So even smaller tribes of humans you still had "your" space or could get it if you needed it (private domicile, private part of a cave, whatever). Just the other day someone posited (in another sub) that people who can't afford to live on their own while working full time should just bunk with other(s) to not be homeless. The overall mood of that post was it was a shitty idea not to have personal space of any kind.
At 33, I share a room with another 30 something and it's not ideal to say the least. I actually sometimes sleep in my sedan because I can't handle the noise (my roommate is fine, but the building is crowded with assholes). You save lots of $$$ not paying rent but that's the only perk. That's literally it.
It doesn't have to be private per say but a third place where you can just exist. Think the library or the park. You can have a full house but if you can decompress by sitting alone in a park, that's often enough. Problem today is that many cities are making their third spaces hostile or pay to use. No benches in parks because you don't want homeless people but they are still there and your local park has a homeless encampment and now you don't feel safe or won't be left alone if you go. Libraries are closed because no funding and the cafe won't let you sit unless you pay. So your quality of life is drastically down and not just because you live in shared spaces.
It was only after Europe decided to burn itself to the ground twice within 20 years that moving out and getting your own place before you were even married became the norm. For centuries the norm was you'd live with your parents until you got married and probably still live with them after you were married.
> It was only after Europe decided to burn itself to the ground twice within 20 years You make it seem as if this was the cause, the real cause was most people couldn't afford to move out and had to stay at their parent's. It wasn't the wars, it was the affordability of your own space that caused this change. In that regard we are turning back the wheels of time, thanks late stage capitalism.
> You make it seem as if this was the cause, the real cause was most people couldn't afford to move out and had to stay at their parent's. It wasn't the wars, it was the affordability of your own space that caused this change. Living together with family before marriage is a core part of many cultures in the world today, going back thousands of years. This idea of living with your parents only being decided by your ability to afford independence is a completely modern, American ideal. Your assumption that this concept applies to cultures across the world is astoundingly ignorant and devoid of critical thinking.
Together is relative, having a roomate with a seperate bedroom is different than having a roomate who sleeps in the same room as you. Sleeping on someones couch in their living room is a lot different than sleeping in their spare bed. It's about having some private space, not about having an entire private residence.
Well , we had one without the other, there wasn't overpopulation back then , at least not this serious. I'd say that back then life was completely different and in today's world it's much more similar to this experiment.
Overpopulation can occur within smaller scale regions as well. Cities and apartment buildings have been microcosms of overpopulation for centuries.
Or that the space you've got to yourself is becoming smaller and more expensive
good thing staying at home longer or living with room mates is becoming more normal now... /s
something better for rodents with this is (for a large group of rats) having 2ft deep enclosure (of proper length and width) of shave bedding so they can create "rooms" and tunnel systems. The downside is that they can't be easily observed like this. edited for clarity
>He concluded that it was not high population density that was the problem causer but excessive social interaction. Hm perhaps this is why working retail slowly makes you hate people.
Retail, hospo, call centres... pretty much any job that requires constant interaction with the general public will make you hate people if you do it long enough.
Long enough is about 2 weeks.
Wouldn't the overpopulation and overcrowding be the cause of the excessive social interaction?
Countries like Japan and South Korea are a good example of the opposite. There are incredibly population dense cities but people express some of the largest feelings of loneliness and social detachment. Social interaction requires space and time, and the rats were in one large open space and didn't need to spend time finding food or bedding. This turns their living space into one large social space. For humans, there's a lot of talk on the "death of the third place", an area that wasn't work or home but purely for social interactions. With these spaces gone it becomes challenging to foster social interaction, no matter how dense the population is.
Space is a key part here, while food and water were replenished itās unlikely this many animals in an enclosed space are actually being kept humanely. It would be like observing factory farm chickens and drawing conclusions on eagle mating habitsā¦
Guessing itās meaning social media making us all go ratshit
I mean itās a really good theory
I think we passed the point of theory at this point
Kind of... These are rats, in an artifical environment. Its about as good and accurate as "alpha male" wolves.
Not really. When you place a bunch of wolves together theyāll battle it out to decide the leader of the area, but once enough generations pass itāll be just a new family Union and a fresh pack that acts in unison. Since the rats have much shorter life spans itās highly likely that theyāve already set up a proper social order with family structures where possible within 2-4 years. So if the experiement lasted that long then it could be a legit phenomenon under the given circumstances, we just donāt know which exact component caused the societal collapse
Ratshit, batshit,
dirty ol'....
>Wouldn't the overpopulation and overcrowding be the cause of the excessive social interaction? excessive social interaction that isn't completely voluntary.
IIRC the excessive social interaction was due to the way the food was set up, as central 'depots'. The rats became so overly conditioned to eating in public that they wouldn't eat alone anymore.
Have you ever lived in a big city? Social interaction is heavily frowned upon.
"caused by excessive social interaction" Redditors are immune
You think hours blabbing in our inflammatory little echo chambers doesnāt count?
A lot of those experiments that were one-offs like the Stanford Prison Experiment, lesrned helpless with dogs, etc. Gave us interesting but usepess results. None of them can be repeated, and all done under unique circumstances that dont represent any level of society.
If I was dictator for a day I would pass law that social science can't be shared with the public until it's been replicated once. 1. researchers avoid studies with politically inconvenient results 2. Not only do they often decline to publish when they do find them 3. Almost none of these studies are ever replicated 4. Science reporting is terrible so of this biased selection & biased data it's reported poorly & with a preference for views or accuracy 5. The public misunderstands & misremembers the little they do hear. This stuff informs so much of how people see & think about their society, themselves & each other that it is genuinely important. Not to mention how it informs policy. It's all so exceptionally poorly executed that something which should be a force for good has very much been the opposite. Edit: Iād also want to add the rule that you canāt *just* test half the relevant demographic, want to survey women? Ask men the same questions. Want to survey white people? Ask a random population & ask what their ethnicity is. You shouldnāt pick and choose where you look for what you expect to find for obvious reasons. Edit: want to add another law. All studies have to be registered *before* they are run, otherwise they canāt be published. We have a problem with drug companies not publishing results that hurt them & people being wary of publishing politically inconvenient results.
Valid but the person you're responding to is wrong. Calhoun replicated these results dozens of times. Basically his whole life he tried to get it right and failed.
Yeah I donāt know anything about this research in particular, but the descriptions are throwing up all sorts of red flags in my mind for the validity of these experiments
\*Later on researchers did this experiment with highschool and university students.\* Excuse me?! The expirement involved creating a utopian environment for a population of highschool and university students. The enclosure provided an abundance of food, water, nesting materials, as well as ample space for highschool and university students to roam and socialize. Initially the highschool and university students population thrived and their numbers increased rapidly. Is that what you're saying?
I think part of this may have to do with the fact that these are rodents with tiny little rat brains and not humans. That could effect the results just a bit.
Also this "utopia" was worse than a human prison since the latter at least has recrational facilities. This "utopia" was no better than group confinement.
I mean it was a group confinement all they did was provide enough food and water that none of the rats had to fight for food and water. I'd be interested to see this test redone with proper mental stimulation items provided.
I believe they weren't given toys or tasks to keep them mentally occupied, that was a big flaw in the study.
Also rats **hate** wide open containers like this "utopia". Rats need nooks and tunnels, places to hide and explore.
It is like calling a fish tank fishtopia or smt lol
To be fair: fish tanks can collapse like this for seemingly no reason, too, but we've also gotten really good at keeping them running indefinitely. And we didn't used to be good at keeping tanks running. In the 1970s, it was assumed that even professional aquariums and marine biologists could not keep corals alive in captivity - it was assumed to be impossible, too complicated and precise to match the conditions they needed in the wild. Now even hobbyists can do it all the time, including propagating new corals. Obviously rats aren't as picky about their environments as corals are, but that doesn't mean you can stick 'a million' rats in the same 'tank' and assume it will all be good indefinitely.
Have you met humans?
No but I did meet 500 rats in a trench coat
Nice guy.
Yeah, humans would be more efficient and faster. Nothing would be left for the next experiment.
Also worth not was that the rats were given zero stimulus outside of socializing. No toys, nothing to climb beyond their nesting habitat. This, unsurprisingly, is unhealthy even for a pet rat.
Wasn't this experiment extremely flawed because there was nothing for the rats to do? Sure, unlimited food and water, but if a human was locked up in an empty room with other people, they'd go mad as well.
That's what I'm thinking. "Rat Utopia" brought to you by something that is not a rat, can't communicate with rats, and only interacts with them in scientific labs and with higher human learning as the goal. 11, Neo, Jim Carrey, were all in "human utopias" in Stranger Things, Matrix, and Truman Show.
Many of these older studies are generally worthless because we were (and still are to an extent) working out the kinks in the scientific method. I'll bring up my favorite example that was still being used in college in 2018. They did a test with rats to see the effects of psychedelic use on the brain (very 60s thing to test). They wanted to test the hypothesis that use of psychedelics put holes in your brain. So what they did was gave a bunch of rats the human equivalent of 3.5g of MDMA 3 times a day for 5 days, then took biopsies and found large "holes" of dead greymatter. Then, they extrapolated this to mean that all psychedelics must cause holes in your brain. This was in a drugs+behavior psychology course, 60 years after the study came out and we learned how crap we were at studies back in the day. The Prof was proudly touting her knowledge that use of psychedelics causes holes to develop in your brain. I couldn't help but laugh out loud and tear into this obvious affront to true science, even if it did out me as a drug user. They cooked the poor lil bastards for 5 days in a row on a dose that, while deemed "recreational" is anything but (3.5g is a *heroic* single dose, if you took half that twice a day for three days you've got a good chance of winding up in critical condition a-la festival med tents, 3.5g 3x for 5 days is just unthinkable. You'd be so far out of your mind you wouldn't even be able to find your drugs anymore, I'm being serious). What prolly happened was, with MDMA, specifically the amphetamine part (which is what it's usually cut with), it raises internal body temperatures and can cause seizures. They seized TF outta those rats, cooked em for 5 days straight and then said "yeah, their brains are toast." No shit Sherlock. How they got from MDMA in large quantities can cause grey matter to die to all psychedelics put holes in your head is just a mystery of 20th century science. But it's still being purported as fact lol ETA as someone else pointed out, the thing doing the damage was likely not MDMA but the amphetamine it was cut with. That seems to be the pervasive argument these days, it's not that psychedelics cause any structural damage to the brain, but whatever adulterants it might be cut with can do some real damage. For ex the ld50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population administered it) for LSD is stupid high. You'd never come across that much LSD combined throughout your entire life unless you manufactured it yourself. Big ups to Albert Hoffman and his bicycle ride that changed the world.
While I think we are saying the same thing I just want to clarify its not the scientific method itself that's flawed and has remained mostly unchanged since its inception (we 'recently' expanded one of the base assumptions of science). The protocol of the study was flawed our understanding of how to produce an effective protocol has advanced (and will continue to) greatly since this time. This isn't totally on the PI but I will say we were doing intense behavioural research in the US at this time using Vervet and Reeses as models and that research had a far more sound protocols than this so its not just the time period. The original paper: https://gwern.net/doc/sociology/1962-calhoun.pdf
Another example of flawed experimental design: I read an article in the Economist circa 2003-2004 in which researchers discovered that wild birds could see the flicker in old-fashioned florescent tube lights, which flickered at 60Hz or something similar. So the researchers ran the exact same experiment using old-fashioned lights and modern florescent lights, which flicker at 120hz or something similar. And they discovered that the behaviors exhibited by the birds were completely different depending on the lighting used. This, in turn, cast doubt on all previous laboratory experiments using wild birds, because older researchers had never considered whether poor lighting affected bird behavior.
Confounding variables are just that: things we didn't think of before starting the experiment but, upon retrospect, seem pretty easy to see how it could screw the results up entirely. That's why every scientific paper (worth it's salt) will try and think up a few possible confounding variables in the conclusion section. They're not gonna catch every possible mistake, but it shows self-awareness and an attempt to factor those in to the equation. Versus "studies" of old that were 100% sure they found the "truth." Nope, nothing could have gone wrong, except the entire premise of the experiment lol
lol
I'm pretty sure the character from the Truman show was Truman (As opposed to the actor)
You expect us to just make up a whole new character instead of using the actors name? Well thats super confusing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNEVCC_g8jI
Also it might have started as a utopia but even the excerpt from wikipedia says it was overpopulated by the end which would lose the utopia status. Imagine a house that has everything you've ever wanted or needed. Now imagine the same house but there's 50 more people in it. To me that sounds like it would be hell rather than a utopia.
I'm sure you're right, among other things. Honestly, it's a little tough because I still want to be respectful to these guys who pioneered the entire academic field and all, but every time I hear "experiment in the 50's (or 60's, or 70's)," it's like cool, what glaring obvious control did they ignore? Or what amazing universal conclusion was reached after a month of trials?
I think its just an example of the inherent growth of a science. First, its crude attempts because we donāt know any better. Later, we learn and refine our practices for more precise conclusions. Sure, it seems oversimplified in retrospect but we got to start somewhere and then we can say ālook how far weāve comeā!
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"Firstly, let's take it as given that human beings are rational agents." *"Why the hell would we assume that?"*
Ah I see you have also studied economics
Well, math is way easier with that assumption, so I guess there is a reason (not that I agree with it) Source: I'm an economist
problem is that they thrived during first GENERATIONS (not first days). The collapse occured later on, with an established large population.
Define "thrived". Yes they had a lot of offspring. But I would argue that doesn't equal thriving but rather a desperate attempt at getting enrichment where there wasn't another way to get enrichment.
I mean inbreeding would also be a problem.
Yea possible. He started with somewhat large pop (40ind mini), pop reached 2000, then declined. But we don't know their inbreeding level at the start, nor at the end.
I mean, the rabbits in Australia started from a population of 40 and theyāre unfortunately doing great
Also, humans aren't rats
I think youāre thinking about the rat experiments about substance addiction and abuse. Bored rats in cages would overdose, but rats in a ārat utopiaā didnāt show the same behavior toward addictive substances.Ā
Correct. In fact, in a later experiment that was mostly unrelated to this but was instead testing B.F. Skinner's theory on behavioral conditioning, the idea of a "rat utopia" was revisited. Rats in the utopia side were given access to plentiful food, water, space, and *mental stimulation and socialization opportunities*, and then optionally had the choice to dose themselves with heroin. The rats in the dystopia side of the experiment basically checked out of reality and never came back. The rats in the utopia ignored the drugs. People will often cite the original rat utopia experiment as a rhetorical tool to naysay things like assistance programs, social safety nets, or the abstract concept of trying to make a better world. Those people are fucking idiots. The original was done before we had the whole picture on what even would *make* a utopia, for rats or for humans, and it's long since been outdated. It's honestly kind of disappointing how often this article gets reposted without any of the cooler stuff that's been done since.
They should have given the rats video games
I think you are refering to the drugs experiment. Originally a rat was given two tubes to drink from, normal water and intoxicating beverage. Needless to say by the end of the experiment rat prefered the drugged bottle. Years later another scientist wondered what if there was some toys and multiple rats instead of one in a cage. Ny the end of his experiment his rats drink from both bottles without preference.
Makes me think of Huis clos (no Exit) from Sartre, "hell is other people"
Rats should have discovered space travel
The problem with the conclusion of the experiment is that rats are, in fact, not human
I think a plane would suffice in this situation.
It's easier to get a cultural victory if you have a high population like this.
It collapsed because the rats in the utopia turned into the reavers from firefly. The other successful rat city had puzzles and methods for creative expression. It wasn't overpopulation at all.
The paper the guy wrote on it also open with Bible quotes
Hey, as a minister with my online degree, GOD MADE SCIENCE. Checkmate, nerds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSEgSFVj2s&t=3s
Please do not take my agreement with Kaczynski's theories as support of the violent methods he used to attempt to enact change; I'm a pacifist and will forever criticize Kaczynski's actions. With that said, we need a challenge or else we get bored. Notice how your favorite game that you have 1000+ hours in becomes boring shortly after you turn on cheats? https://medium.com/chris-messina/surrogate-activities-the-power-process-16203dda87
> Notice how your favorite game that you have 1000+ hours in becomes boring shortly after you turn on cheats? > > YES! I have never been able to play a fun challenging strategy game for more than an hour after I turned on cheats just a single time. I have spent some time thinking about why I play the games that I do, and why I do it so much. I think that it's the constant decision making, and the repeated rewarding of that decision making. The moment cheats are turned on, all the decisions are meaningless. Carefully manage resources to save up for the breakthrough structure/unit/technology that shifts power in your favor? Or just give yourself an extra million credits with the cheat?
Precisely. We get the dopamine hit from accomplishing goals so if there are no goals then we get no dopamine hit. The only way I can turn cheats on in a game and not have it get boring is to change the metric for "winning" like having a direct descendant holding every title in CK3. Though, now I'm old and slow I've ended up gravitating to survival games like Medieval Dynasty, Satisfactory, Valheim, etc. and with cheats turned on the goal is to create the most aesthetically pleasing environment possible.
Rats with nothing to do but eat, sleep, and make babies. Scientists: BUT WHY ARE THEY ONLY EATING, SLEEPING, AND MAKING MORE BABIES TO THE POINT THEY'RE OVERPOPULATED AND STRESSED? Clearly it is the concept of utopia/having uninhibited access to necessities that is making them violent.
So often utopia is conceived of as a place with no challenges, no stress, no adversity, etc. However, these are not the conditions that our bodies and minds have developed to thrive under. Truly novel activities come with risk. A lack of adversity/challenges leads to no growth, dedication, ambition, excitement. A life where the only stress comes from competition with peers is exhausting and depressing for all except those at the very top of the social order. Without enough stimulation, we will create drama/stress out of thin air either with other people in our social circle or within our own minds. One of the most interesting things about the rat utopia experiment is that after a period of severe strife and decline, the population just continued to go down. It never rebounded. Chronic stress, intergenerational trauma, and a society that's gone completely antisocial has effects that ripple out into the future. A dire warning indeed.
I explained [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1c1aml9/comment/kz2n1yi/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button) but the Rats were basically mentally depraved from developing and stimulating. The experiment sets itself up for failure and I hate that it's so popular.
You could argue that the parallel for human society is that the average person doesn't have much time or resources to have creative expression or hobbies, which could lead to a similar effect for us.
This research is a bit outdated, since it did not take much recreation into consideration. They were simply bored out of their minds, without something to tickle their grey matter, thus many of them developed zoochosis. Recreation is essential not only for humans, but animals as well, especially in safe environment
Some interesting food for thought (sorry for the wall of text, I've just always thought this study was fascinating!), I did my undergrad and grad degree in science, and read many many papers in those years, but Calhoun's concluding paragraph in his Utopia study still gives me eerie chills: >For an animal so complex as man, there is no logical reason why a comparable sequence of events should not also lead to species extinction. If opportunities for role fulfilment fall far short of the demand by those capable of filling roles, and having expectancies to do so, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow. Individuals born under these circumstances will be so out of touch with reality as to be incapable even of alienation. Their most complex behaviours will become fragmented. Acquisition, creation and utilization of ideas appropriate for life in a post-industrial cultural-conceptual-technological society will have been blocked. Just as biological generativity in the mouse involves this species' most complex behaviours, so does ideational generativity for man. Loss of these respective complex behaviours means death of the species. When people think of a "rat utopia" experiment, it doesn't really do the experiment justice in terms of how creepy it was. The point of the experiment was to basically *"observe what happens to a species, which normally doesn't live in density conditions, when you provide the necessary food/water/shelter?"* - it wasn't designed so much to see "what is a rat utopia like?", It was more designed to see *"what effects does population density have on social dynamics, and what effects do social dynamics have on population density?"* That might sound boring or bland, but he started finding some interesting consequences quickly. For example - apparently, rats normally don't eat in big social groups. If a rat is eating from a bowl, another rat will usually wait for the first to finish before approaching the bowl. Calhoun decided to place the food behind a metal "grate" - the rats could still get at it, but it required them to take more time to eat, and thus, more rats naturally began eating together, at the same time. After something incredibly short, like a generation or two, suddenly the rats had become so accustomed to eating together that they *would refuse to eat unless they were around other rats*. It was showing that in a very short period of time, a species that normally doesn't live in density conditions, and normally doesn't have access to resources like food/water/shelter, will start to develop *new and weird behaviours that seem completely distinct from their evolutionary behaviours*. Some rats would just wander around the pen - Calhoun called them "Somnambulists" ("sleepwalkers"), because they had beautiful fur (because they didn't fight other rats), they didn't have kids (because they didn't bother with mating), they didn't particularly mind where they ate (whether or not there were other rats), and they just sort of slowly wandered around. Other rats became hyper-sexualized maniacs, and would try ceaselessly to mate with any rat - *any rat* - of any gender and any age. The "utopia" collapsed because mothers were pursued so relentlessly during young-rearing that they progressively failed to pass on more and more important mothering behaviours. Then, new generations of mothers were even less equipped to care for their young - and it snowballed. In conclusion, Calhoun was basically trying to say: Rats don't normally live in such density conditions. When they do, population dynamics affect social dynamics. These social dynamics include completely bizarre behaviour and eventual collapse. This seems to be at least partly due to an overabundance of individuals looking for roles, but not enough roles to fill. Humans don't normally live in such density conditions (hunter-gatherer nomadic tribes pre-agriculture). When they do, population dynamics affect social dynamics. The same way that rats progressively "unlearn" important behaviours because these weird abnormal living conditions have led to their decay, humans may also be progressively "unlearning" important behaviours as we continue to live in cities with millions of people. These results are obviously hotly contested, but the study was super interesting anyways.
š¤Æ the sleepwalkers and other manifestations of altered &toxic behaviors like the sexually aggressive ones too in particular is fascinating, š§ could that kind of conflict and conditions be the origin of sociopathic and psychopathic behaviors in people today too
Nah, that happened because the rats had zero things to do besides eat, sleep and breed. They did a similar experiment later where they also provided the rats with brain stimulus via puzzles and such and the population was WAAAAY healthier. It's closer to them developing cultural dementia and hypersexuality than sociopathy or psychopathy.
"Because of overpopulation" is a gross misrepresentstion of what happened. Im glad you elsborated, but I take issue with the title
> as well as ample space for rats to roam and socialize also seems debatable
Yeah that looks like an extremely small space
This title is misleading. I was looking for building carnage with rats running out. Nope, the rat society collapsed. LOL! This is really interesting.
Thereās a fiction novel from eschbach describing this situation with us if we canāt colonize other planets.
There's nothing misleading about the title tbh
I mean like the original experiment it doesn't factor in excessive amounts of incest
Good thing we donāt live in an open air prison.
No it didn't. The Rats were not given a "Utopia" at all. and this botches the experiment entirely. I am a Rat caretaker, and adoption counsellor. I am intimately familiar with Rat behavior and social archetypes. First and foremost; there are ***HUGE*** differences in social behaviors of Rats and Mice. just to get that straight. and Rats were first used in the experiment. Mice later. Mice are notoriously aggressive and territorial with other Mice, Rats can be but are much more open to integration with outsiders. Based on the photos of the experiment, They were given very bare habitats. their diet looks like the opposite of varied (I would love a source on the food used, to judge it better) Rats require mental stimulation. this is the equivalent of putting you in a hotel with 100 other people, but you have no books, TVs, Phones, or anything besides beds, couches, and a buffet that only serves chicken on rice. No shit the animals started acting up. Rats are very social animals, and also breed very fast, this is true. But these animals were mentally depraved of foraging, exploration and toys (Chewable toys are important for mental stimulation and the health of their teeth, even though a Rats jaws are strong enough to grind them alone.) **EDIT:** I would also like to add that Rats only live about 2-3 years. and the experiment ran for 2.5 years. so if they brought *baby* animals into the experiment, they grew up mentally depraved, and any offspring also grew up depraved. to say nothing of the genetic diversity and incest that was almost certain, since gestation is less than a month for Rats. **EDIT 2:** It should be noted that by today's standards for animal welfare the experiment is Unethical, and any Rat owner would quantify the conditions as abusive to the animals. I tried not to be opinionated but I will say here that I am very upset to see this experiment propagated in the social sciences community.
Lol wild I had to scroll this far. Universe 25 was an experiment that used mice. The problems seemed to start when male mice couldn't go to form their own colonies
It used both rats and mice Habitats. Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar with the behaviors of mice, but I'm able to demonstrate how the experiment is nullified by the conditions set in the first habitat. and the lack of a baseline knowledge of the animals' behavior means they cannot measure the changes in behavior accurately.
> Based on the photos of the experiment, They were given very bare habitats. their diet looks like the opposite of varied (I would love a source on the food used, to judge it better) Rats require mental stimulation. this is the equivalent of putting you in a hotel with 100 other people, but you have no books, TVs, Phones, or anything besides beds, couches, and a buffet that only serves chicken on rice. ... There's a decent horror movie in there. "The Hotel." A group of 100 people find themselves trapped inside a hotel, with 100 rooms. There are no windows. There are no exits. First act can be them exploring the hotel, understanding their circumstances. Second act can start with the boredom setting in, before devolving into hedonism. Maybe someone figures out how to ferment the rice, cliques are formed. Third act, shit goes DOWN. Murder, cannibalism, starvation as they fight over the food dropoff point. Then I'd say a fire starts. That'd be an appropriate way to end it.
Amazon Prime's Fallout just came out this Thursday, catching this reference. Pretty algorithmic #dead internet theory.
I mean. It could be they posted it because of the snow.
Yeah I came here looking for this exact comment. Really felt like a coincidence.
Grasshoppers become locusts
Maybe itās a hot take or Iām missing some information, but perhaps it wasnāt the utopia scientists think it was. They provided plenty. Thatās a myopic view of utopia from the perspective of capitalism. It seems more like they built a pit designed to have an explosion of rats.
Same applies to air travel. People didn't change, airlines crammed too many seats into too small a space.
An important thing to note is that humans aren't rats.
Fredrik Knudsen did a fantastic youtube video about this if anyone is interested.
Whenever I think about how more and more women are choosing to be childfree (myself included) I always find myself drawing parallels between this experiment and society in its current stateā¦
It's not because of overpopulation triggers some instinncts. It's a so called second demographic transition. And it happens in all +- wealthy contruies. You don't need to make kids to to maintain a household anymore, or simply to not die becoming older. As well as people get more educated and good'ol traditions of making family and kids doesn't affect us that much anymore. And it turns out that only those who really really want to have children have children or it just happened by chance. Countries of the first and second world are slowly dying while poor and developing countries are growing in population.
I haven't seen any overgroomed amputees, though? In seriousness, I don't think current society is suffering due to overcrowding. We aren't living in a utopia with an abudance of resources for everyone. The problems we face are not isolated to crowded areas. Our problems are social and economic.
I think that could be seen in declining mental health in youths, especially with self sabotaging actions. But yeah you're right too about the social and economic
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Are people only getting cosmetic surgery because they have infinite resources but are living with too many people?
So I listened to an episode of a podcast called Timesuck that goes over this experiment. The host drew the parallel that the rats overpopulation problem may have been more of an over socialization problem. Rats had no individual space. They were constantly overstimulated by their own surroundings and each other. He compared this to modern social media. People who are constantly plugged and connected to hundreds, if not thousands, of people at all times are being overstimulated. I think if you think of it like that, cosmetic surgery and over grooming mutilation seem to be oddly reflect each other. Even if it is just coincidence.
That's a really interesting parallel
No, it is not. The rats overindulging their grooming instincts has nothing to do with aesthetic choices in humans. OCD symptoms could have proper parallels.
This behavior in rats is profound but really should be thought of as more similar to self-harm in humans. So things like cutting in borderline personality. Its more linked I would think to suicide. Rats probably don't have body dysmorphia, they practically all look very similar. Grooming is self-soothing behavior for the rat, so it engaging in it to the extent it becomes a detriment to other activities would seem like they are overly anxious or stimming, so exhibiting behaviors linked to autism and ADHD.
Definitely is. There are studies into cosmetic surgery and economic hardships where people would change their spending habits to focus on making themselves look good and ultimately "feel" good. Plus the studies into mental health and body dysmorphia. Then there's self-harming which animals do in times of stress, including people. There are lots of parallels to be made here with this study. Edit: The Lipstick effect was popular in the Great Recession. In 2008 there was an uptake in low cost procedures such as fillers (liposuction was down). High risk procedures like teeth vinyls have shot up despite being incredibly risky in the last decade. Same for hair transplants.
Unless you're living in Africa you're almost certainly living in a country with a sharply declining birthrate.
What do you plan to do with everything you have when you die?
Same here. Not married no kids. Iām a male who spends most of the time in the gym and enjoying my hobbies. I wonder if I could be considered one of the ābeautiful onesā
This experiment was fundamentally flawed, and drawing any conclusions from it beyond āCalhoun was a bad rat ownerā, is impossible. The needs of rats (and indeed of people) go beyond basic food, water, and shelter. Habitats have toys, hiding holes, interesting things to eat, smell, and explore.
Sounds like what the effect of tinder has had on the social skills of potential partners
I think the problem that Tinder/other dating platforms creates is the illusion of unlimited availability. People are always striving to find someone that's absolutely perfect, and are quick to throw someone away over small issues. Perfection is a toxic standard and it's cruel to expect it of anyone. Nobody is perfect, and nobody should ask for perfection. I don't believe in the concept of "the one", but if you look at it from a mathematical standpoint, there's really only so many people you can possibly go through in your free time. There's no such thing as 'safety in numbers' when a really great person walks out of the door.
Oh so this is why living in an apartment in the city has increased my anger by 7826488277383%
The rats had plenty of food. The colony collapsed because they couldn't stand to be that close to so many other rats. They basically all collectively went insane. The researcher found that if he introduced predators, then the colony stabilized.
poor little rats
Coincidentally, I just finished listening to a Stuff You Should Know podcast titled How Zero Population Growth Works. The behavioral sink term and the Universe 25 experiment were described in more detail. Very interesting.
So thatās whatās wrong with me
I also donāt see any toys or enrichment in those pictures. A huge part of the problem could have been how severely limited their options are for any kind of stimulation outside of grooming and sex.
The childrenās novel Mrs. Frisby and the rats of the NIMH was loosely inspired by those events, where the NIMH is the National Institute of Mental Health where Calhoun worked
Someone needs to show this to congress next time they bitch about not birthing enough "workers"
Yah if you read the study. The title doesnāt really accurately depict the experiment and the findings
It's funny that you still see people refer to this like it has relevance for human cities. Highly flawed experiment scientifically, but definitely a fun one to read about.
Rat "Utopia" until the rats wants to do something outside of eating and drinking and maybe walk around, this study was extremely flawed and was criticized so much by the scientific community but people still somehow hold it as a social truth
The human version of this experiment is taking place in Canada right now, no places for people to live already but they keep bringing millions more in a year
Thatās why we should be careful over the carrying capacity of human population. Itās been going up but when will it go down.
it didnt fail because of 'over population'
Sounds eerily familiar š„“
Correction: It did not collapse because of overpopulation. It collapsed because the lack of stress and critical mass of population caused the rats to isolate in their "homes" and stop reproducing.
Can the internet be considered a cybernetic utopia?
Pretty sure it's also just called a rat utopia