Mouse Utopia

[WursWaldo]

Interesting implications and observations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM

[Tidus44]

Calhoun was a leader in identifying that the design of human habitat impacted society and social interaction. His experiments were not about doom and gloom, but were inspirational in changing the way any number of human habitats were designed, including cities. He was also a strong advocate of space exploration and colonization.

 

Jonathan Freedman's studies found that in humans there was much less of an impact and did not display the same pathologies. He effectively showed that there was significant difference in human reaction to population density and crowding. An individual may feel "crowded" even though population density is very light whereas others feel quite comfortable in high density locations. Essentially, human response is based on a much more subjective reasoning.

 

Sadly, almost everyone looks at Calhoun's work and sees "proof" of negative impact from urbanization and associates any number of negative aspects with population density. In reality, Calhoun's work was instrumental in identifying the many positive aspects of population density and took into account issues such as poverty, inequality and identified ways to overcome them. Essentially, it is important that a positive social environment exists in a high density area to achieve positive social activity.

[WursWaldo]

There was a similar American study done with Norway rats in the 1940's. In that study the rats were placed in a very large out door enclosure and provided with food and water. Over the course of several years the available food and water did not increase but the rat population did. The results were very different. The rats had a population spike and then it leveled off. Two different 'rat societies' developed centered on how they socialized within their self determined groups. One group swapped mates frequently and the males and females had their own hierarchy. The other group developed a male dominated society with each male having a harem of females. The two groups didn't co-mingle or breed with one another, even though they were in the same enclosure and shared one water source. The rat population remained static, determined by the available living space and food supply. The rats behaved normally, aside from the societies they formed. Left to their own devices and without human intervention the rats stabilized on their own.

 

Years ago a I saw another study with lab rats where they were crammed into a Calhoun style habitat. The results were very different. As the rat population increased the amount of food and water was reduced, and eventually cut off completely. The rats organized themselves into packs and started raging war and engaging in cannibalism. I didn't put much credence in that study. An artificial environment with artificial conditions meant to get a specific result. The rats doing what they did when forced into starvation should have be a foregone conclusion.