![]() It mentions in the utopia video that weaker or less-social mice had no way of escaping the colony. (Episode 3 that covers the rise and fall of the Roman Empire–particularly the fall–is eerily similar to what we’re seeing today: sexual promiscuity, a failure to discipline children, a lower birthrate, and a pursuit of luxury and leisure over hard work.) (This explains why, for instance, you cannot bring democracy into certain cultures voting for a leader may be tried a few times, but a dictator will inevitably rise because that’s what the people are programmed to respond to due to their upbringing.) This theory is known as “biohistory.” ![]() wars) happen every few generations, but there’s also a new theory that there are actual biological cycles that drive human expansion and contraction, and that how children are raised will dictate the overall direction of a society when those children become adults. There is the idea of a “Fourth Turning,” in that major cycles of up and down in things like the economy and social aggression (i.e. He argues that because there is no real challenge, like searching for food or avoiding predators, the mice become so bored and unchallenged that they pick pointless fights, stress themselves out, or become totally self-absorbed just to have something to do.Īnd while Bill is the first person I have seen draw a parallel between Mouse Utopia and our own crumbling society, the idea that civilizations have a cyclical rise and fall is not new. His idea is that the utopia part is the problem, not the space or lack of social distancing. The mice ended up dying off completely from a lack of desire to breed and raise offspring–even after social pressures were removed by a reduction in the population.īill Whittle has a theory about the true source of the problem. You would expect to see a population cycle of ups and downs where they get too big, trouble arises, then the population reduces and starts again (the way human civilizations inevitably seem to work), or perhaps the population would become steady and maintain at a level that’s physiologically safe for everyone.īut that’s not what happened. ![]() Once the mice started having fewer offspring and/or many of those offspring did not live to maturity, the population should have reduced to the point that they were no longer socially crowded and the stress reduced and the mice returned to normal behavior. They seem to intuitively know (or have figured out by living it) that people need privacy more than space.)īut there’s one problem with this idea. A number of people who live in tiny houses with a spouse and/or children mention making an area, even if only separated by a curtain, where people can be alone and have some privacy. (Something to consider if you want to build a tiny house. A later theory developed from this is that there is a need for physical space and a separate need for social space, and it’s actually more important to get away from others than it is to have a lot of space to live in. It’s quite a famous experiment:Īs you will note in the video, the assumption about what went wrong with the rat and mouse cities is that a critical mass of individuals was hit before actual space (much less other resources) ran out. ![]() If you are not familiar with the Mouse Utopia Experiment, here’s a video about it. ![]() The other day, Bill Whittle had a YouTube video about the Mouse Utopia experiment and how it applies to modern Americans (and Europeans, for that matter). ![]()
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