The Mouse Utopia Experiments | Down the Rabbit Hole

As the world recovers from World War II and fears of overpopulation swell in America, one researcher begins constructing horrifying experiments to model it.

[noahalien]

Basically near the end young having gone through extreme child abuse (neglect and physical) don’t want to have kids, and when they do have kids have no idea what they’re doing.

[frankdupreez]

There was a rat in New York that trained turtles to fight crime, saw a documentary on it when i was a kid.

[NorthwestNicholas]

Think makes me think of corporate offices and their “open work environment” mentality. I always felt like a mouse packed into a over populated cage. They say open work environments aid communication between teams, but spending 9+ hours a day packed into a corporate office stressed me out more than I ever imagined.

[Exitof]

I had just over 50 rats at one time, thanks to a friend mixing up and putting two girls in the boys home. I had 10, 6 boys and 4 girls, and a couple weeks later there was over 30. I don't remember how the third pregnancy occurred.

I had built a large cube in the living room with two plexiglass wall for the boys, which outnumbered the girls. Everyone was happy and healthy and no fights.

The most incredible moment I saw was when one boy was taking the dry spaghetti from me and placing them equally next to his brothers/cousins. He literally would eye how many they had and once they had enough, he'd finally take some for himself.

[alicequinones]

He forgot to mention but a lot of the outcast males got into swords and anime

[StarryNightxx]

That awkward moment when the dominant male rat bullies you but then he lookin kinda cute

[moatddtutorials]

Social media also strikes me as a sort of rat utopia as well. Inescapable, overpopulated and full of behavioural sinks.

[mariobroseins]

I think there were 2 key problems: lack of challenges and lack of activity. Too much challenge could led to stress, hopelessness and similar; similar with having no rest has bad effects too. However also the opposite too little or none leads to results like in the rat experiment. So fora healthy live, activity and challenges are needed. Like when people retire, they need hobbies, social life, physical activity and so on. Sitting only on a coach watching TV and snacking, even if it feels like I am so free, will surely end badly.

[joebob]

That awkward moment when you make a rat utopia but forget to add the utopia so you just add more rat

[RockyGems]

Oh sure, when he does it, he's "fascinating, " but when I do it I'm "no longer welcome at Petsmart."

[paulsmith]

The newest mouse utopia was on "horders" tv show. This guy loved rats so much he just let them take over the house. He slept in the shed in the backyard so they wouldn't lick his eyes for moisture while he slept.

[TheReubenShow]

I connected four fish tanks with 8 foot clear plastic pipes, they had been four separate worlds, two for goldfish, one for tetras, and one tank for a 12 inch pleco. The water is circulated between tanks and the whole system has one filter.

The behavior stuff has been the most interesting. Two of the tanks are always crowded and two are underpopulated. Two goldfish readily take the tunnels, two stumble into them occasionally, and two won't go in. One goldfish likes living by herself with a hundred tetras and minnows, another alternates between a crowded tank and the ghost town next door.

The giant pleco travels the 30 foot length to see a pleco in the far tank. The book says never put them together, but I guess it means never trap them together.

Only one fish acted worse, a pink shark catfish. When the worlds came together, he realized what happened and went from tank to tank, beating up the goldfish.

[guytorie]

Calhoun sounds like a man who had a deep psychological need for The Sims. But unfortunately for him and those animals, The Sims didn't exist yet.

[jonbainmusicvideos]

Must have been 1 rodent going: "I think there is a conspiracy here, we're living in a matrix."
But the others reckoned him a conspiracy theorist and bit his ears off.

[owjbwgu]

To be fair, Calhoun never called any of his experiments a "Utopia", nor did he set out to design one. The term utopia was used by someone outside the experiment and it stuck. What Calhoun designed was a city, then he put that city on the Welfare system, and then he set back and recorded what happened. He did more experiments after universe 25, but he actually added more enriching activities for the mice (toys, puzzles, etc.) and he had more positive results, so his long term experiments actually proved a utopia WAS POSSIBLE, but certain conditions had to be met, like plenty of mental enrichment being a big factor.

[Mysterysciencepiratedtheatre]

It’s really nice to see content that is not the same old regurgitated top 10 lists found on countless other channels. This is both interesting and well done.

[sheimy]

Male rats: *bullies *
other male rats: stfu before I kiss you

[jadekaay]

Maan..


Stuart Little 2 looks *intense*

[knightsoftheroundbagel]

This proves that when locked in a room with rats, the rats do, in fact, make you crazy.

[devenp.]

As someone who grew up in the country and moved to the city I’ve found it extremely uncomfortable having so many people so close to me.