In the 1962 study, Calhoun described the behavior this way:
Many [female rats] were unable to carry pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep. The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption. …
The common source of these disturbances became most dramatically apparent in the populations of our first series of three experiments, in which we observed the development of what we called a behavioral sink. The animals would crowd together in greatest number in one of the four interconnecting pens in which the colony was maintained. As many as 60 of the 80 rats in each experimental population would assemble in one pen during periods of feeding. Individual rats would rarely eat except in the company of other rats. As a result extreme population densities developed in the pen adopted for eating, leaving the others with sparse populations.
… In the experiments in which the behavioral sink developed, infant mortality ran as high as 96 percent among the most disoriented groups in the population.
This experiment has been talked about as a function of overpopulation, but the mouse population never reached the limits of the habitat.
The issue is what happens to a society when there is an overabundance of wealth and a dearth if challenges.
Does the description of the video seem relevant?
Mass shootings, gender confusion, young women becoming overly promiscuous while young men have less sex and turn to video games and pornography, idle young men not wanting to marry or move out on their own, high rates of abortion, spiking violent crime, people packing into urban areas, and the general craziness found in urban areas.
Our society has too much wealth and too few real challenges. Too many people living without a purpose.
There is a reason the most insane Leftists seem to all be upper middle-class white kids from expensive colleges.
Our behaviors are going aberrant as society collapses, not from it being too hard but too easy.
Spot on.
The “easy” is collapsing around us, the “hard” will soon be the norm. “Easy” people act like animals because “hard” men fought and died for that right. Soon, the “hard folks” will teach the “easy clowns” about how hard life can be. If they survive the “lesson.”
Some are soft because they’re young and stupid. Which is a problem with prosperous societies- youth tends to be idealized, so people try to cling to it while eschewing maturity and adult responsibility.
I know this tune: Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Rat In a Cage’.
That track is called “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”.
But I get what you’re saying. 🙂
hard times create hard men, hard men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.
Not universally true in places where there’s little to no concept of moral behaviour but…..
Interesting!
More from The History Guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kqti3tDz-M
Sounds like City Mouse behavior is a thing: they herd themselves into crowds, even when there’s space available elsewhere, and develop all manner of dysfunctional behaviors.
There was even a caste of Cloud Minders. Cloud Mouses. Whatever.
And… it seems that a lot of the dysfunction wasn’t related to crowding so much as the welfare state. All their needs and wants, at least the physical ones, were met by the benevolent overlords with no effort on their own part required.
I wonder if epigenetic adaptations are involved here.
Wow. This experiment pulls together a lot of seemingly non-associated observations of mine. It pulls it together quite nicely.
Although humans are not mice,, we are mammals. And the theory seems to say, ” we need to be challenged, with regularity, or we lose our focus and direction. Adversity builds strength, to the most adaptable humans among us. Look at the “greatest generation” survivors of WW2,, both survivors of the fighting. And the workers and tradesmen who put up with shortages and other adversities in the “home front.”
Our intellectual minds and our souls, as a nation, fostered new inventions and new techniques, as exemplified by such accomplishments as the space race, and the emergence of high tech. In the 1960’s, lasers and microchips were new and amazong; now they are ubiquitous. Light emitting diodes, or LEDs, have given us tremendously perfect TVs, at rock bottom prices, as adjusted for inflation.
So now, with all of these (and more) inventions, rather than a wondrous and happy society, we have angst and ennui in spades.
What to do? I can’t predict what is to come, but this experiment bodes no good, if we can compare mice to human mammals….
So the leftards really are rats! Knew it!!
Elon Musk and his space flight program may be the savior of the civilized world.
Huge Challenges.
Maybe we need more programs like that?
Sea Research?
God Forbid we start more wars.
A World War with our current capabilities would probably wipe out the human race. Imagine a losing leader like Hitler or Tojo with Nuclear, Chemical and Bio Weapons? Tojo was willing to fight to the last Japanese peasant. Hitler was daming the German People for failing him as he suicided in his bunker. Heck, what would Putin, Xi, or the Mullah do?
Space X delivers again. I wish NASA was half as Good.
https://www.space.com/spacex-dragon-crs-22-nasa-cargo-launch-success
The muslimes WANT a world war, to bring in the Antichrist, their 5th mahdi.
Back to the mouse apocalypse.
Could the mouse colony collapse be due to inbreeding? There were only four breeding pairs. Repeated Interbreeding isn’t a good idea.
Speaking of a mice population boom, NSW Australia right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t8tBZegawU
Where is the Pied Piper when you need him? Imagine this happening to your peasant forebears? They didn’t have Tupperware and sealed bins. Heck, they couldn’t even keep them out of their houses and their own beds if they tried.
Speaking of inbreeding, we’re back posting about muslimes.