Hello, dear readers of the site! What do you think will happen to humanity if we create ideal conditions for it to live?
Who did not dream in childhood, and maybe in adulthood, to have everything that you want? So that there is always food, water, a roof over your head and, most importantly, that you do not have to make any effort for this.
Here is such a paradise on earth that John Calhoun created for rodents, in order to find out what the ever-present comfort will lead to, how it will affect the mouse colony.
The experiment is called universe 25 because there were 25 attempts to do it. And, by the way, each ended the same way. Here’s how, you’ll find out later.
History of creation
John Calhoun studied rodent behavior for about 40 years. From 1947 to 1949 he observed them in their natural habitat.
For this, about 930 square meters of territory were fenced in the open air, where rats could breed and organize colonies.
The corral could easily accommodate about 5 animals if they reproduced completely uncontrollably. But for some reason, the population size was consistently around 150-200 rodents. They organized themselves into groups, the number of which did not exceed 12, and lived quite calmly.
This number turned out to be the most optimal for existence, since with an increase by literally a few individuals, the stress that subsequently arises led to the collapse of the colony, or even death altogether.
From about 1958 to 1962, John began to conduct his research in an artificial environment. He built a landfill of 12 square meters with 4 compartments, two of which were interconnected. Each was inhabited by 12 rats, in total they turned out to be 28.
Food and water were supplied in unlimited quantities, animals were protected from adverse weather conditions, predator attacks and extermination by humans. That is, they really organized paradise.
The researchers who took part with John, in order to avoid overpopulation, removed young rats from the landfill, which had just ceased to be considered babies.
According to the results of each experiment, it turned out that strong individuals occupied separate compartments and lived, as if in a harem, allowing only females.
The rest had to huddle in the central compartment, which led to fights and other deviant forms of behavior.
Universe 25
Calhoun began the Universe 25 experiment on July 9, 1968. To do this, he had to build a tank, which contained 256 boxes, they played the role of nests, and each of them contained about 15 individuals.
This tank was equipped in such a way that at the same time 6144 mice could drink water, and 9500 eat food, which was also in excess and freely available.
The researchers once a week cleaned, checked the subjects for infections and various diseases. In general, they did everything for a comfortable and carefree life of their wards.
To begin with, only 4 pairs of mice were sent to an artificially created paradise in order for them to get used to and begin to breed, believing that they were in a completely safe environment in order to continue their kind. John called this initial stage «period A» to build on from there when checking population growth rates.
The next stage, when the subjects gave birth to the first offspring, was called «period B». In the future, once every 55 days, their number increased, this happened until about 315 days from the start of the study.
At 316, it has already become noticeable that the test subjects are not breeding so actively, newborns have already appeared once every 145 days.
This moment became the reference point of the «period C», the total number of mice was 600 individuals. Places decreased, respectively, it was possible to observe how they distributed social roles and occupied certain places in the hierarchy.
Social roles
So, let’s take a closer look at which groups the subjects were divided into when there was a shortage of territory due to population growth.
The lowest position was occupied by the category of «outcast» mice. Expelling from the most comfortable environment, strong relatives inflicted injuries on them, pulled out their hair, bit their tails.
This group included mostly young males. The fact is that due to favorable living conditions, representatives of the older generation lived to old age, respectively, taking the places that the young people usually get, which comes to replace them.
Therefore, as soon as new individuals were born, they were immediately perceived as competitors, who, having gained strength, could try to drive them out of such a comfortable place. So the elders had no choice but to try to intimidate, suppress and subjugate them.
Naturally, this broke the spirit of the rodents that did not find themselves, they gradually became more driven, humble, stopped protecting their females and taking care of their offspring. Occasionally, they would lose control of themselves and could engage in a fight with other outcasts, receiving even more injuries.
Females, due to the lack of protection from their partners, tried to protect their offspring on their own. This gradually led to the fact that they began to give birth less often and acquired masculine features. Namely, aggressiveness, activity and cruelty.
It got to the point that, having dealt with the newborns on their own, they climbed as high as possible and chose a hermitic lifestyle, categorically refusing to breed.
A little later, a new group of rodents appeared, which showed a complete lack of interest in others, devoting all their free time to narcissism.
They did not want to fight for females, conquer territories and reach a certain position in the existing hierarchy. The only thing that worried them was how clean and beautifully laid their hair.
These daffodils also did not want to continue their race and chose loneliness. The researchers called them the beautiful caste.
Phase D
At this stage, the mouse paradise has ceased to be such, more like hell on earth. Calhoun labeled this period the death phase. Since there were very few pregnancies, and the death rate of newborns was 100 percent. After all, if other rodents did not kill babies, mothers themselves did it.
The lack of growth and actively promoted hermitism led to deviance in behavior, and at times to perverse deviations.
For example, despite the abundance of food and water, mice ate their relatives, engaging in cannibalism. They also became homosexual and overly aggressive without having to defend themselves or fight for anything.
Naturally, this way of life led to the fact that the rodents died of old age, and rapidly, which is why on the 1780th day of the experiment, not a single inhabitant remained in the tank.
New experience
Realizing that the project was ending at the extinction stage, John decided to conduct another study.
He removed from the mouse paradise several individuals from different groups, that is, both «beautiful», and «hermits» and strong independent females, after which he moved them to a new artificially created environment, no worse than the previous one.
They had a lot of free territory, again, food and water, but not a single mouse showed interest in reproduction, the creation of a new hierarchy, a social structure. They simply continued to live as before, leaving this world with their death.
Calhoun shared his vision of the results. The fact is that even in the first tank, the spirit of young rodents was broken, which led to a lack of motivation to reach the top, improve their social position and develop in principle.
And, as you yourself understand, after the death of a spiritual animal, it will not fight for a “place under the sun”, striving to prolong its existence. Accordingly, biological death in this case occurs more rapidly.
Completion
Our civilization is arranged a little differently. The lower the conditions for life, the more people are born. The planet currently holds about 8 billion people, although literally in 1960 the population was about 3 billion.
And this is taking into account wars, famine, poverty and other cataclysms that destroy entire cities.
Finally, we want to recommend reading about the Stanford prison experiment, which is rightfully considered one of the most cruel. Only it was carried out already on people and led to disastrous results. A full description can be found by clicking on this link.
Take care of yourself and be happy!
The material was prepared by a psychologist, Gestalt therapist, Zhuravina Alina