Very Unfortunate case of Tech Utopia: Rat Experiment.
This article series is divided into three parts for better understanding and the ease of the reader.
Part 1: The Rat Experiment.
Have you ever heard of the term “Behavioral Sink”? This term was brought to light by the ethologist John B. Calhoun in the late 50s or the early 60s. Calhoun demonstrated this fascinating theory with the help of rodents, lab rats to be precise. Calhoun used a bunch of Norwegian rats as the test subject and created a “Utopia.” They named it “Universe 25”. Now a Utopia is a place with all the things one shall have and even more. So say if a human would ever experience a Utopia, there might be a handful of food and water or even other types of beverages. And the deceases might not have existed. Moreover, even their life expectancy might be extended. See, now you get the idea that if there are no diseases and life expectancy is so high, it would be overpopulated. Exactly! That was the exact same point as Calhoun. His initial goal was to prove this theory of overpopulation/overcrowding. Instead, he ended up with some pretty awesome results.
Quoting from John B. Calhoun’s report 1962, February 1st named population density and social pathology in scientific American. He says
“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 remarkable fact here is that the team who administrated this experiment, Involving rats, gave the rats enough food and water and enough space to breed and roam. Furthermore, the rats did not have any threats either. The administration team or the scientists eliminated all the threats. So the rats had the full potential to grow. And frankly, the rat population did grow up to its full potential. The growth curve was huge. They bred in thousands or even millions. And at the climax of the growth curve, it began to decrease little by little. At one point, It completely stopped. They were lazy to breed; they were lazy to eat. And for no apparent reason, They began to become cannibals. They began to eat their own kind even when they had plenty of food and water around.
To find out how this is going to lead to the Tech Utopia, follow me and stay tuned.
