WEBVTT - Escape from Universe 25 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.160 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.720 My name is Robert Lamb. My name is Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:19.920 you have an announcement you want to make for everybody. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:24.080 It is so hot in Atlanta. It really, oh my gosh, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:28.520 nine degrees today. It's brutal. It is brutal. That's yeah, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.360 that's not really what I was gonna say, though, Well, 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:33.320 I mean everyone needs to be up on the weather 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.640 that we are experiencing. I know it's a diversionary tactic 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.640 for really, because this is my last episode on Stuff 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.519 to Blow Your Mind, and I am leaving the podcast 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.479 work on a couple of projects for How Stuff Works. 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.400 So I just wanted to let you guys know, not 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.840 going very far, but in the meantime, I am leaving 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.120 you guys in the very capable hands of Christian Seger 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.280 and Joe McCormick, who have been filling in for me 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.720 over the last month, and they have been turning in 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.960 some really fine work. And I'm sure you guys have 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:05.440 all had a chance to meet them by now. They 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.080 are great guys. So yeah, indeed, for those who have 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.080 been asking, you know, what's what's going on there? You 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.200 have it and again, Julie's uh still very much part 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.320 of the house stuff works team is gonna You're gonna 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.840 see a lot of exciting stuff coming out. And uh 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.520 and indeed, thank you for sharing the journey with me 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.039 thus far and helping to to develop stuff to blow 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.119 your mind as we know it today. Yeah. Thanks thanks 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.520 for making it so much fun. I can't believe that 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.840 it's been three years I think now three and a 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.039 half years or so that we first sat down with 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.160 a spreadsheet and we tried to figure out all these 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.840 different topics that we wanted to cover. Um, so it's 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.760 been an absolute pleasure. And um uh you know, I 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:47.920 can't say we'll always have Paris, but we will always 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.800 have Cloeca. I mean, if you want. I mean that 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.720 sounds weird, We will always have Cloeka. You will, all right, Uh, 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.720 enough of this stuff here, let's get to the topic 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:03.880 at hand today. Yes, we're telling talking about Utopia. But 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.160 as as as with any discussion of Utopia, we're gonna 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.320 get into some pretty dark territory, right, I mean, because 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.280 this is just the beauty of this You cannot have 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.320 utopia without dystopia, right, you wouldn't even know what it 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:22.359 was without the negative side of that coin. And we're 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.120 just gonna take you bits into a time capsule here. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.960 So just imagine that it's the sixties. You're scientists with 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:33.799 just cads, a very fine rodents at your disposal, yes, 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.440 top shelf, the best you can kind of rodents, and 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.600 you have this desire to play out the drama of overpopulation. 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.520 In fact, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.480 Medicine in nineteen seventy three, you describe the outset of 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:55.320 your quest thusly quote, I shall largely speak of mice, 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.520 but my thoughts are on man, on healing, on life 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.840 and evolution. And then you go on to name check 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.560 the four horsemen of the apocalypse before you get onto 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:13.320 the details of your overpopulation experiment. You are John B. Calhoun, Yes, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:19.000 who's a very very interesting individual. Um born in nineteen 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:24.239 seventeen died in the American Animal Behaviorist. And he was 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.640 actually born in Tennessee, specifically Elkton, Tennessee, just the next 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.639 county over uh from Lincoln County where I went to 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.400 high school. Uh. He went to high school and Nashville. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.240 He went on to earn his undergraduate degree at the 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.480 University of Virginia and earned a doctorate in zoology from 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:44.000 Northwestern University in nineteen forty three, and from there he 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.440 embarked on a forty year career mostly at the National 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.200 Institute of Mental Health or NIM, where he organized the 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.960 Unit for Research on Behavioral Systems at the Laboratory of Brain, 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.520 Evolution and Behavior. Now he's best remembered for work that 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.800 focused on the troubling effects of overpopulation on rats and mice, 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.280 effects that miss might just paint a very bleak picture 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.080 of humanity's future in an overcrowded world, right, and he 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.400 goes on to create something called Universe twenty five, which 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.880 we'll talk about, but at about the same time that 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.400 his paper is published as a paper is called death squared, 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.120 the explosive growth into mind of a mouse population. There's 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.880 a bunch of stuff going on in society. In fact, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:31.479 there's a kind of a zite iced about overpopulation playing out. Yeah, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.800 this is the post war period where everything is just 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.839 getting built up. The populations coming back, people are are 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.360 are booming, technology is booming, the cities are growing, swelling 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.400 even and there are some growing pains associated with that. Yeah, 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.320 And you even have bits of media that are being 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:54.000 consumed fictional that are reflecting this. For instance, something called 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.760 Soilent Green, which was this movie that depicted a future 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.359 of an overcrowded world where the pulation could only survive 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.640 on soyland Green, a food handout from the government which 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.720 turns out to be made from human corpses. Yes, or 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.320 you know, pretty good supply. That was fueling people's imaginations 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.279 and their fears. Yeah, and a lot of those fears 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.680 were related to resources. Right, there are this many people 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:19.920 and we keep reading how are we going to feed everybody? 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:21.880 How are are we going to have enough to maintain? 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.000 So in the meantime, you've got John Calhoun who has 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.120 been working with rodents for a number of years and 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.920 has been preoccupied with this question of overpopulation, and he 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.880 does turn to these rats because they're easy to observe, right, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:43.240 They quickly have successive generations, and there are similarities to humans. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.360 They're they're clever little beings, and they're highly social. Yeah. 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.400 As we discussed in our recent episode on on rats specifically, 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:55.720 um rodents searches say a very handy reference point for 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.280 any kind of scientific exploration of human psychology or human anatomy. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:05.120 So Calhoun, who first becomes obsessed with this idea, creates 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.960 something called rat City on a quarter acre of land 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:13.119 adjacent to his home in Tows in Maryland in ninety seven, 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.800 and he sees that the population in this pen peaks 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.400 at two hundred and he's kind of confused by it 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.159 because he knows that they could far exceed that, and 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.680 in fact he begins to see the delectarious effects of 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:32.680 overpopulation at just eighty. So for three decades he at 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.760 the National Institute of Mental Health, he creates iterations of this, 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.560 and in fact, you could say these are twenty four 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:47.200 iterations of what is now known as universe. Yes, so 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.640 I will I'll describe Universe twenty five for you, and 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:51.880 this will give you a good idea of the various 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.240 iterations that came before as well. So essentially you're talking 0:06:55.240 --> 0:07:00.040 about a large, industrial looking square tank. Uh, imagine in 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.800 a miniature building designed by hr Gear for some set designs. 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.039 You know, it looks kind of like a medieval fortress too. Yeah, 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.400 it doesn't not Yeah, it doesn't look cozy at all. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.880 It's it's it's quite intimidating, especially in some of the 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.400 pictures we're looking at that are a little little grainy, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.880 a little dark, right. Um, the square tank was a 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.840 hundred and one inches square or two point six meter square, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.360 enclosed by fifty four inch high or one point four 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.640 meter high walls. Now, the first thirty seven inches of 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.680 that that wall, from from bottom towards the top, those 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.560 are designed so that the mice can scale it willy nilly. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.880 But above this the remaining seventeen inches or bare wall 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.000 that they can't scramble up. Um. So you can think 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.520 of it as a walled city again, but with no 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.680 access to the battlements. I mean, it's essentially more like 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.960 a prison, I guess. Um. In addition, you have sixteen 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.239 vertical mesh tunnels or stairwells that are soldered to each wall. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.880 Four horizontal corridors lead off of each stairwell, and each 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.000 of these lead to four nesting boxes. And in total, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.119 we're looking at two hundred and fifty six boxes, each 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:08.040 sizeable enough for about fifteen rodents to live inside. And 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.800 that's one of the things that Calhoun found out quickly 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.720 when he did this other iterations, is that that the 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.400 mice would typically not go over twelve within each group. 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.160 So he did create an apartment to house up to 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.000 fifteen mice because he knew that was part of their behavior, 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.040 so he did try to mirror some of the things 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:31.920 that he saw in those uh, those different versions. Now this, uh, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.199 this universe does uh does have quite a few amenities. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.120 There is no infinity pool, um, but there's a lot 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.400 of abundant clean food and water and nesting materials which 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.920 would be really important. The universe was cleaned every four 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.880 to eight weeks, and of course there were no predators, 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:53.920 and the temperature was kept at a steady sixty eight 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.240 degrees fahrenheit. So all in all, if you had to 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.560 create a utopia for rodents, this might be what it 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.480 looks like without really knowing intimately what rodents want. Yeah, 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:10.360 seemingly it provides the necessary space, the necessary resources to 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.240 both feed yourself and to carry out your basic genetic mission. Right, yes, 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:19.960 sounds good, right Alright, So moving day arrives. Uh. He 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.920 kicks off with just four breeding pairs of mice uh, 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:25.520 and they are moved in on day one, and these 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.360 again are disease free, top shelf just elegant mice. So 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.640 eate mice total, and these are the individuals that are 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.600 going to reproduce and populate this little city, this little 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.840 universe with all their furry offspring. And this is ideal. 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.239 As we mentioned, mice or small short generation time accelerated 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.280 lifespan that we can study. One mouse year equals about 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.520 thirty human years. Each mouse lives about two to five years. 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.480 The gestation period and female mice is less than a month, 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:55.760 and the female mouse has an average litter size of 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:00.880 about six baby mice and breeding onset is about fifty days. 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.440 So yeah, now imagine these four breeding pair um the 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.840 top shelf, as you say, entering this enclosure, and what 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.280 do they do. Well, if you've ever moved into a 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.160 new house as a little kid, then you know probably 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.000 what this looks like. They would go into that enclosure 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:18.599 and go into the apartments and they were trying to 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.520 find every single food source and really just get a 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.480 feel for that environment, right, which would make sense. They 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.920 didn't care about breeding or eating mainly at first because 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:29.120 they just want to get the lay of the land. 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.640 And individual mice were kept track of with color markings 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:37.040 and therefore, which was true of successive generations as well. Yeah. 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.880 So this first phase is the strive phase. That's the 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.480 term Calhoun used for it. Um first a hundred and 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:46.640 four days, where the mice are just getting accustomed to 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:51.600 the new environment. They're establishing their territories, they're creating their nests, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.800 just moving in business as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.560 It's it's kind of it's kind of like the utopia 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.079 set up in any film, and like having a Utopia 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.560 in your your fiction. It's kind of like bringing a 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:05.439 cannon on the stage, Right, you bring a cannon on 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.920 the stage, you have to fire it. You introduce Utopia 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.960 into your fiction. That Utopia has to fall into chaos 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.200 and madness. This is the period in which you just 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.440 have Utopia business as usual, with no concerns about the 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.000 resources or predators. Yeah, I'm just imagining the kind of whimsical, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.160 flowing music that usually accompanies these scenes of utopia. Really, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.760 any scene that's being set up is like, oh, this 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.080 is wonderful, life is great. And then you hear the 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.040 minor piano key like bearer, and that would be the 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.600 exploit phase kicking in. Now. This phase lasted about two 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.680 hundred and fifty days in the population of the mice 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:45.240 doubled every sixty days. And even though there was identical 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.360 allotments of food and space throughout universe, twenty five, food 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.600 was being consumed more in certain areas. That's because the 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.959 mice began to associate eating and drinking with being with others, 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.320 and the population started to gravitate towards certain compartments where 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.480 all of the eating took place. And this made some 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:08.319 apartments and compartments crowded well beyond their capacity, while other 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:13.120 apartments remained completely empty. And now you can hear those 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.200 other minor chords coming into play, right, Yeah, things are 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.400 starting to seem a little bit, a little bit weird. 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.160 But but then we enter a phase the Calhoun called 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.400 the equilibrium phase, which sounds great, right, things are going 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:31.080 to even out. Things are, But the equilibrium in question 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:35.240 here is that the population number, which means that the 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.720 the population is evening out. Uh. And he also referred 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:43.319 to this as the stagnation phase. Um, why is population 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.360 evening out? Because there's less reproduction going on. There's less 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.560 successful reproduction going on, and there is a lot of 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.480 violence that flares up. And we're gonna get into the 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.160 details of that violence. Uh. Here in a bit but 0:12:55.360 --> 0:13:00.160 essentially you see a divide between the sexes and you 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.959 see some rather graphic displays of violence on both sides. Yeah, 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.240 pretty spectacular displays of it, particularly when you get into 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.440 the next phase, which is the die phase, and the 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:17.640 population begins to decline at hundred, even though universe could 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.800 accommodate up to three thousand mice, and Calhoun notices that 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.080 animals become a lot less aware of each other, even 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.640 though they're enclosure contact than before, I mean their side 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.320 by side, stacked in with each other. And by day 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:36.560 five sixty, the population increase plunges next to nothing, and 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.079 a few mice survived passed winning until day six hundred. 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.640 After that, there's a few pregnancies that don't come to 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:48.880 fruition and there are no surviving young, which seems odd 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.400 because you would think that as the population decreases and 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.040 territories are regained, that there would be some sort of 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.640 stasis enacted, right, Like there would be some sort of 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.840 return to normal activity. He's like mating, Yeah, yeah, I 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.880 mean you'd think that after this equilibrium period where all 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.840 this bad stuff goes on, and you see the birthrate 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.640 plummeting and infant mortality rates reaching in some areas that 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.280 some reason would restore it. So if it's kind of 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.160 like we you know, we see in the various ups 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.800 and downs throughout history, things get bad but then things 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.560 even out, but not so in the universe, right, and 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.480 this becomes something known as the behavioral sink. All Right, 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.280 we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.800 we will define behavioral sink. We will talk about the 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:35.040 details of the violent downfall of universe, and not to 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:48.520 mention the beautiful ones. All right, we're back. So behavioral 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.760 sink this is Calhoun's name for the point past which 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:57.800 the slide into breakdown becomes irreversible. Uh referred to it 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.200 as a para pathology of shared business. And I like 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.440 to think of it in terms of of a black hole. Right, 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.080 It's a black hole of pathological behavior. It forms out 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.320 of the collapsing mass of an overpopulated society. It's the 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:14.560 it's the event horizon. You know that once you you 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.480 pass that event horizon, there's no escaping the mass of 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.160 the black hole. And this is the point of no 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.440 return for civilizational downfall, at least with the rodents, if 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.120 not with humans. Yeah, and John Calhoun called it the 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.880 first death. UM. He said, that's it's sort of akin 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.800 to like the death of the mind in the soul 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.920 of the creature, not really implying that they have a soul, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.360 but basically saying there are two types of death here. 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.960 There's a body death which eventually happens, but the sort 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:46.520 of like non striving, not not living for anything, not mating, 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:51.880 not really caring about your environment. And so you can 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:56.880 see how this behavioral sank and this um the second 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.840 death and first death, all these terms are being thrown around, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:01.640 and you could see how they would have a really 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:07.240 big impact with people who are cluing in on his paper. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.520 I mean we're talking about the existential apocalypse u A, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:16.800 theeleological apocalypse. So that kind of leads to this whole 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.160 other aspect of Universe twenty five that really came to 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.520 define what happened and why it happened, and that is 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.520 this aggression that came out of it. And this was 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.640 largely because of the overcrowding and certain areas, particularly the 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:37.000 feeding areas. It meant that the newer generations born into universe, 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.680 the chaotic version, they didn't have the kind of social 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:45.040 conditioning that would allow them to form bonds. Uh. So, 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.840 in addition, you have the constant stimulation, the screring for 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.320 food and space, and this means that some of the 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:57.760 rodents became exceedingly aggressive, and this spiraled off into different 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:02.960 factions of behavior for other rodents. So the reaction to 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.159 that sort of aggression is that you had some rats 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.919 who are excuse me, mice who retreated, and then you 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.239 had those who try to retreat, but then they were 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.760 sought after to actually be attacked over and over again. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.320 And then those who were attacked a lot then became attackers, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.680 and then you had what I call the super bullies. Yes, 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.880 the outcast, Yes, the the outcasts. Uh. This and this 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.520 is very much in line with with any any kind 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.359 of like Mad Max post apocalyptic scenario where you have 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.520 these warlords that rise out of the disorder and they're 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.040 they're just the most awful, heinous people possible that just 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.879 ruled by sheer brutality. And that's what we see popping 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.360 up in the universe five. After about day three fifteen, 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.320 male mice without social roles stop trying to defend territory, 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.240 or they stopped trying to breed. Instead, they just end 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.280 up wandering congregating in the middle of the universe with 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.880 other loaners. And it's here that you see particularly dominant, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.359 paricularly aggressive males rising to the top through just sheer 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:09.920 brutality attacking their fellow mice. Uh, just roaming around, assaulting, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:15.040 raping other members of the universe and asserting their dominance. Yeah. 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.360 And I love this mad Max analogy that you make 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:22.040 because it really helps you to understand why the breeding stopped, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.840 because within this environment, you don't have a couples saying, oh, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.399 let's mate, let's do this, let's let's um, let's really 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.760 spend an ordent amount of time caring for young. You 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.080 don't have those kind of resources available if you're worried 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.040 that you can't survive. Right. So that's what you're seeing 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.879 in terms of the kind of reaction or fallout from 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:50.240 from the outcasts as Calhoun talks about them. But you're 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:57.320 also seeing another subset emerged from this, and the die 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.360 phase sees this new subset at a new generation of 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.200 mice emerge that had never been subjected again to any 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.440 sort of normal conditioning, and they showed absolutely no interest 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.240 in fighting, courtship, mating, raising young, or really anything that 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.880 had to do with one another. Um, they did all 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.840 group together, and one of the things that they did 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:26.280 the most was groom, So they were constantly preening themselves 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.479 and eating. Just just imagine these sort of you know, 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:35.440 fat mice with these beautiful coats, and as Kyle Hun describes, 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:40.359 some alert eyes in their ivory towers, the chaos and 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:45.439 apocalyptic warfare going on. Yes, that's that's beautifully described. That 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:50.919 is what he termed the beautiful ones who occupied this 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.560 ivory tower of space. And while they were together, none 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.520 of them would actually interact with one another. And of 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.400 course they had no interest in MA And so Calhoun 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.359 and the researchers thought, well, what if we were removed 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.080 them from universe and we put them in an enclosure 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.399 that has all of the benefits of universe twenty five. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.720 In other words, um, you know, all the food that 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.840 they wanted, Um, you know, cages that were cleaned, so 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.520 on and so forth. They would probably return to normal, Right, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:24.120 that was the idea with these alert eyed mice. They 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.679 did that, and of course the beautiful ones just continued 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.080 to groom themselves and eat and had absolutely no interest. 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.399 And that was very surprising for the researchers, and it 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.879 further underscored that there was a kind of behavioral sink 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.679 that happened. Is that that first death right. So they 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:46.280 were already just existentially dead inside, right, It didn't matter 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.920 that they had changed geography. They were who they were now. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.800 And so of course all of this taken together, you 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:56.720 can see how the public would take the details of 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.040 this is sort of like pan sexualism, this cannibal of 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.800 him that it would occur, um this extreme violence, and 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.760 then began to try to make these apples to apples 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.920 comparisons with human populations. Yeah, I mean, well, we we 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.240 couldn't help. Even as we were going over notes before 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.720 the episode, I've mentioned that I couldn't help, but think 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.119 of wells, the time machine and the more Locks, the 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.480 horrible Morelocks had had lived underground and in the beautiful 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.920 surface dwellers who just kind of wandered around and it 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.160 drugged out haze on the surface. And then of course 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:34.640 you brought up Kardashians. I did, I said, Unfortunately, when 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:36.720 when I read about the beautiful ones, I thought, oh, 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:41.639 there's the Kardashians. I get it, with their beautifully quaffed hair. Um, 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.399 maybe you took them out of their environment and you 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.719 put them on a desert island. What would happen? They 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.480 would continue to groom themselves. I'm pretty sure of it. 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.320 Perhaps that's an unfair assessment however, Um, But one of 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.760 the things that I think is really striking about this experiment, 0:21:57.960 --> 0:21:59.960 and we kind of touched on it at the beginning, 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.720 is the way that Calhoun paints the picture for his 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:08.280 reading audience. Yeah. So often with scientific papers and studies, 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.359 you uh, and anyone who's ever read through one of 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:14.040 these can can certainly certainly know what I'm talking about, 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:17.320 is that, you know, oftentimes everything is very clinical and straightforward, 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.600 and it's not un till the the conclusions at the 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.000 end and the or maybe the suggestions where they start 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.879 making comparisons to humans and start looking into the future 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:30.359 for for our own development and in our own progress. 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:33.000 But with with Calhoun's work, it's there from from the 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.440 get go. It's in the very fabric of the paper. Uh, 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:38.240 He's just right off the bat. He's referring to the 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.280 dwelling places as tower blocks and walk up apartments. Easy again, 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:44.480 he's talking about the beautiful ones, the juvenile to link 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:49.840 what's the dropout? So everything's very just heavily anthropomorphic. Um 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:53.240 and uh. And it's in all this language meshes perfectly 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:55.800 as we discussed with the cultural fears that are out 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.080 there in the six season and the seventies to follow, 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.800 you know, full of fictionalman propolises and degenerate societies, the 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:07.800 world of solid green, of clockwork, orange, um taxi driver 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:09.960 air in New York City, you know where we just 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:14.320 see the modern city is just this. Ah, this is 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:18.720 uh the sewer of of of the link win activity. Yeah. 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:20.560 And you have a lot of authors at that time 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.320 who are specifically looking at New York City and looking down, 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:27.439 you know, from the heights of their building from you know, 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:32.240 the people below and um, and describing them like rats. 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:37.560 Right Like there's that's not a coincidence. A lot of um, 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.119 what Calhoun is looking at is starting to really steep 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:46.920 out into popular culture. Now. Post Calhoun, of course, people 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:48.800 kind of sort of straighten themselves up a little bit 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:53.040 and look at it a little bit more dispassionately, and 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:55.480 they began to say, Okay, this is not an apple 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:58.280 to apple situation. Um, you can't say that the humans 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.919 in New York City are rats in the enclosure of universe, 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.960 because first of all, humans have agency, meaning that we don't, 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:08.760 as far as we know, have this giant hand who 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.520