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In the early 1970s, animal behaviorist John Calhoun built a "mouse utopia" to see what would happen if he created the perfect world for mice, with unlimited foo

In the early 1970s, animal behaviorist John Calhoun built a "mouse utopia" to see what would happen if he created the perfect world for mice, with unlimited food, starting with four males and four females, that could reach a population of 2500. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM What happened next is absolutely astonishing. When the mice had nothing to do and nothing to work for, their society collapsed upon itself. Females stopped caring for their young. Betas began guarding the elite females, despite them not breeding with anyone. Fights broke out for no reason whatsoever. Mice stopped eating. Their population peaked at 2200, and then died off extremely quickly. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/ It was a big, fat, giant mess. And it's exactly what will happen to us if we don't have something to work and live for. Hell, it's already happening. I don't think humanity survives with basic income as planned. We fall apart when we have nothing to do. We're no better than mice - we are still just animals with a larger hierarchy. I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror. Yet we need to do something as automation grows. Society is in for some serious decisions, and no country currently has the leadership to be able to tackle them.

minsight 10y ago
I'm pretty sure that animal behaviour doesn't necessarily map perfectly onto human behaviour.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  Of course it's not perfect. But when something we're proposing has once resulted in total catastrophe (complete end of civilization), it's worth researching a hell of a lot more. This is why I feel any democracy is eventually doomed to fail. People will vote themselves more and more free stuff, but "free stuff" ultimately defeats the will of the human spirit. It's worth researching more, but everybody just seems to focus on the economic impact and not the social one. If you think this will end crime, then I have a bridge to sell to you.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > But when something we're proposing has once resulted in total catastrophe (complete end of civilization), In order for it to have resulted in a "complete end of civilization", you'd have to have first actually created a mouse civilization. Which would, actually, have been a more interesting result. And in order for it to say anything about UBI, it would have to actually be in some way analogous to what UBI provides. Which, it isn't. Even aside from the fact that mice are not humans (they are occasionally good models for humans biochemically, but basically never good models when it comes to politico-economic behavior.) > If you think this will end crime, then I have a bridge to sell to you. I don't think it will end crime. I don't think it needs to end crime to be a good thing. (OTOH, it can substantially increase the expected marginal disutility of defection from social norms that results in incarceration -- especially when the perpetrator is relatively poor -- which should reduce the rate of economically-motivated crimes committed by relative sane people, which is a significant chunk of crime, but very far from all of it.)
taigeair 10y ago
Good point and interesting study. I do think people are different because of art and education, but I can imagine how it could lead to the feeling of meaninglessness.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Do mice have a concept of leisure? Exploration for its own sake? Cultural enrichment? Scientific endeavour? Also, in that experiment isn't there a complete excess of resources? We certainly don't have that, opulence would still be expensive and out of reach of a BI.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- anonnyj 10y ago
  >Exploration for its own sake? Yes. Lack of ability to explore will stress mice out. Even with their needs taken care of, mice will still explore. Perhaps a major part of the problem with the "utoptia" was that the mice weren't given sufficient ability to explore.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  > a complete excess of resources? We certainly don't have that You seen the obesity rates in America? The people who truly enjoy "Exploration", "Cultural enrichment", and "Scientific endeavor" are not those that I'm worried about in this world. Most of the world does not operate like that, nor do they use (or even understand!) such phrases.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Yes. Obesity is far more complex than that, I'm also looking at the global perspective. Obesity to me is about lack of resources for better nutrition (though companies push junk pretty hard), lack of education, and lack of will power. FWIW I'm substantially overweight despite being poor enough to need to miss meals in the past couple of years. So give people BI and they'll just get blazed/drunk all the time, and make other mischief, is that your assessment?
    - MicroBerto 10y ago
      > So give people BI and they'll just get blazed/drunk all the time, and make other mischief, is that your assessment? Not everyone, but the noisy few will far outweigh those that are "culturally enriching" themselves with "art" and "scientific exploration". Just look at what's happening in the western welfare class already. How does this not become an extension of that? I'm so absolutely unconvinced by this thread. I fear for the future of this species. I have a feeling this is why guys like Elon Musk are in such a hurry too... they see it happening too.
n72 10y ago
"And it's exactly something that will happen to us..." There's nothing in your mouse anecdote which justifes this conclusion. Humans are, as I'm sure you're well aware, quite different from mice.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  Are we? If anything, I'd say we're on-average worse. Of course, anecdotal. So much blind optimism in this thread. I really need to get out, I'm clearly older and more jaded than you kiddoes
  - n72 10y ago
    Mice don't play soccer, compose symphonies, do crosswords, watch TV, etc. In other words, we're considerably better filling our leisure time than they are. (I'm 43. 'Kiddo' is slightly insulting and, dare I say, condescending.)
    - MicroBerto 10y ago
      > Mice don't play soccer, compose symphonies, do crosswords, watch TV, etc. In other words, we're considerably better filling our leisure time than they are. Yup, all those bored teens and violent criminals are going to be playing crossword puzzles and composing symphonies all day now that their rent is paid and bellies are full. I gotta get out of this thread. I may be bitter and pessimistic about humans, but you people are beyond delusional if you think free money solves more social problems than it creates. Edit: Don't forget that all those bored inner-city teens, who no longer have a reason to go to school (they're gonna get a lifetime of free money and free stuff, after all), now have zero education. We can't keep half of them in school today, what's going to make them stop in the free money future? And they're going to breed even dumber kids. A few generations of this and you have caused devolution and lost everything human civilization has worked to achieve. Bad, bad, bad. Collapse-worthy bad.
      - n72 10y ago
        And now we get the racism. I knew it was lurking in there somewhere.
your_ai_manager 10y ago
Extrapolation works until it doesn’t.
tehrei 10y ago
Basic Income is very, VERY far away from the Utopia in that experiment. It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. For anything more, you still have to study, work, etc. Also, it's one experiment, that I haven't seen replicated, done in an age when you had to show up those darn commies, that Capitalism is the best.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  > It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice. The fact that it hasn't been replicated is extremely concerning, and makes me wonder why.
  - zyxley 10y ago
    > Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice. Yes, without any opportunity to get involved in anything more than that. "Here, live in this box forever, you get all the food pellets and water you want, but you can never leave and don't get anything entertaining to do" would drive any animal insane. Take a look at animals behaving pathologically in boring zoo enclosures, for example. A study actually analogous to basic income would have, for example, unlimited generic mouse food and a comfortable home environment, but also have a large exterior environment available to explore, wheels and toys, and a steady supply of puzzles/mazes/etc fitted with tastier treats that the mice could engage with or avoid as they wish.
    - marknutter 10y ago
      Wait, so the government is going to provide us with a the equivalent of a steady supply of wheels, toys, puzzles, mazes, tastier treats, etc?
      - zyxley 10y ago
        What do you think a job is, in this analogy?
contravariant 10y ago
>I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror. I'd rather people get paid to do nothing than people getting paid to do pointless tasks. I've seen some amazing things people made in their spare time, but I can't imagine anyone making something worthwhile digging and re-filling holes.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  Again, the people building "amazing things in their spare time" are not the people to be concerned about!! The usefulness we'd get out of the creative top 1-5% of the population is far outweighed by the chaos that'd be caused by the bottom/criminal 10% of the population.
  - contravariant 10y ago
    If I have to choose between a society where 11% of the population does some pointless work (and anything that doesn't pay at least what could be consider a 'basic income' is pretty much pointless) or one where 1% does amazing stuff in their spare time, and 10% does nothing. I'd prefer the latter. Don't see how criminality would increase with basic income, if anything I'd expect a decrease (fewer people in hopeless situations = less crime).
  - JDiculous 10y ago
    Part of the benefit of a UBI is that it permits us to give harsher penalties to criminals because they can no longer use poverty as an excuse. I'm all in favor of cutting off UBI for criminals (temporarily or permanently depending on the severity of the crime).
- marknutter 10y ago
  Come on now.. anyone from 100 years ago would look at half the jobs people have now and categorize them as "pointless tasks"
whiskers08xmt 10y ago
Luckily, there are other pursuits in life than those who generate wealth. I don't think it's reasonable to think, that if humans didn't have to work, they'd all spend their time idly in front of the television.
undersuit 10y ago
You're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink which has not been reproduced in humans.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  It has not been reproduced because society collapses every last time we attempt to get anywhere near it. See socialism. Chavez made all these same promises for free stuff, etc. It didn't work. It never works. Venezuela is now beyond doomed and are weeks if not days from total devastation. Reproducing the 1972 study in a field environment on humans would take too long, but I'm confident that if you had a similar utopian tribe of 60 men and 60 women, the experiment would have to be terminated in less than a year due to whatever mularkey broke out. Scale that up and you have pure Venezuelan chaos on your hands.
  - undersuit 10y ago
    >It has not been reproduced because society collapses every last time we attempt to get anywhere near it. We've had societies that had infinite food and water provided to them in a limited space? >pure Venezuelan chaos Pure hyperbolic nonsense.
zyxley 10y ago
If you apply that "mouse utopia" to humans, what you get isn't a "utopia"... it's a refugee camp or low-security prison, where food and shelter is available but nobody can leave and there's nothing to do but walk around and talk to people. That's nothing like the basic income concept.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> And it's exactly what will happen to us if we don't have something to work and live for. Accepting for the sake of argument that this is true (which, a single, non-replicated experiment on mice is far from sufficient to establish), it has nothing to do with Unconditional Basic Income, which does not provide unlimited quantities of anything, or otherwise make it so that humans don't have "something to live and work for".
jotux 10y ago
The problem with your argument is that basic income isn't anything like a utopia or perfect world -- it's just enough to pay rent and buy food. Basic income for people is much closer to the treatment pet owners are expected to provide for their pets.
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  And as I mentioned elsewhere, "free rent and free food" was basically exactly what the rats were given in their utopia. All I'm saying is this: Before we start throwing free money around everywhere, maybe we should do some legitimate research on the human condition. I'm obviously confident that you won't like what you find, but at least you'll find out before it's too late.
  - jotux 10y ago
    >And as I mentioned elsewhere, "free rent and free food" was basically exactly what the rats were given in their utopia. You mentioned it and it's still inaccurate. The study gave mice everything they could ever want, in excess. This was food, space, and mates. The needs of mice are not complex. Basic income is just enough to let you sleep indoors and eat. If you were to create a utopia for people it would be fine food, entertainment, extravagant living arrangements, a complex and fulfilling social scene, opportunities for academic engagement, etc. Free food and rent is not a utopia for people by a long shot.

minsight 10y ago

I'm pretty sure that animal behaviour doesn't necessarily map perfectly onto human behaviour.

MicroBerto 10y ago
Of course it's not perfect. But when something we're proposing has once resulted in total catastrophe (complete end of civilization), it's worth researching a hell of a lot more. This is why I feel any democracy is eventually doomed to fail. People will vote themselves more and more free stuff, but "free stuff" ultimately defeats the will of the human spirit. It's worth researching more, but everybody just seems to focus on the economic impact and not the social one. If you think this will end crime, then I have a bridge to sell to you.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > But when something we're proposing has once resulted in total catastrophe (complete end of civilization), In order for it to have resulted in a "complete end of civilization", you'd have to have first actually created a mouse civilization. Which would, actually, have been a more interesting result. And in order for it to say anything about UBI, it would have to actually be in some way analogous to what UBI provides. Which, it isn't. Even aside from the fact that mice are not humans (they are occasionally good models for humans biochemically, but basically never good models when it comes to politico-economic behavior.) > If you think this will end crime, then I have a bridge to sell to you. I don't think it will end crime. I don't think it needs to end crime to be a good thing. (OTOH, it can substantially increase the expected marginal disutility of defection from social norms that results in incarceration -- especially when the perpetrator is relatively poor -- which should reduce the rate of economically-motivated crimes committed by relative sane people, which is a significant chunk of crime, but very far from all of it.)

taigeair 10y ago

Good point and interesting study. I do think people are different because of art and education, but I can imagine how it could lead to the feeling of meaninglessness.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

Do mice have a concept of leisure? Exploration for its own sake? Cultural enrichment? Scientific endeavour? Also, in that experiment isn't there a complete excess of resources? We certainly don't have that, opulence would still be expensive and out of reach of a BI.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
anonnyj 10y ago
>Exploration for its own sake? Yes. Lack of ability to explore will stress mice out. Even with their needs taken care of, mice will still explore. Perhaps a major part of the problem with the "utoptia" was that the mice weren't given sufficient ability to explore.
MicroBerto 10y ago
> a complete excess of resources? We certainly don't have that You seen the obesity rates in America? The people who truly enjoy "Exploration", "Cultural enrichment", and "Scientific endeavor" are not those that I'm worried about in this world. Most of the world does not operate like that, nor do they use (or even understand!) such phrases.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Yes. Obesity is far more complex than that, I'm also looking at the global perspective. Obesity to me is about lack of resources for better nutrition (though companies push junk pretty hard), lack of education, and lack of will power. FWIW I'm substantially overweight despite being poor enough to need to miss meals in the past couple of years. So give people BI and they'll just get blazed/drunk all the time, and make other mischief, is that your assessment?
  - MicroBerto 10y ago
    > So give people BI and they'll just get blazed/drunk all the time, and make other mischief, is that your assessment? Not everyone, but the noisy few will far outweigh those that are "culturally enriching" themselves with "art" and "scientific exploration". Just look at what's happening in the western welfare class already. How does this not become an extension of that? I'm so absolutely unconvinced by this thread. I fear for the future of this species. I have a feeling this is why guys like Elon Musk are in such a hurry too... they see it happening too.

n72 10y ago

"And it's exactly something that will happen to us..." There's nothing in your mouse anecdote which justifes this conclusion. Humans are, as I'm sure you're well aware, quite different from mice.

MicroBerto 10y ago
Are we? If anything, I'd say we're on-average worse. Of course, anecdotal. So much blind optimism in this thread. I really need to get out, I'm clearly older and more jaded than you kiddoes
- n72 10y ago
  Mice don't play soccer, compose symphonies, do crosswords, watch TV, etc. In other words, we're considerably better filling our leisure time than they are. (I'm 43. 'Kiddo' is slightly insulting and, dare I say, condescending.)
  - MicroBerto 10y ago
    > Mice don't play soccer, compose symphonies, do crosswords, watch TV, etc. In other words, we're considerably better filling our leisure time than they are. Yup, all those bored teens and violent criminals are going to be playing crossword puzzles and composing symphonies all day now that their rent is paid and bellies are full. I gotta get out of this thread. I may be bitter and pessimistic about humans, but you people are beyond delusional if you think free money solves more social problems than it creates. Edit: Don't forget that all those bored inner-city teens, who no longer have a reason to go to school (they're gonna get a lifetime of free money and free stuff, after all), now have zero education. We can't keep half of them in school today, what's going to make them stop in the free money future? And they're going to breed even dumber kids. A few generations of this and you have caused devolution and lost everything human civilization has worked to achieve. Bad, bad, bad. Collapse-worthy bad.
    - n72 10y ago
      And now we get the racism. I knew it was lurking in there somewhere.

your_ai_manager 10y ago

Extrapolation works until it doesn’t.

tehrei 10y ago

Basic Income is very, VERY far away from the Utopia in that experiment. It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. For anything more, you still have to study, work, etc. Also, it's one experiment, that I haven't seen replicated, done in an age when you had to show up those darn commies, that Capitalism is the best.

MicroBerto 10y ago
> It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice. The fact that it hasn't been replicated is extremely concerning, and makes me wonder why.
- zyxley 10y ago
  > Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice. Yes, without any opportunity to get involved in anything more than that. "Here, live in this box forever, you get all the food pellets and water you want, but you can never leave and don't get anything entertaining to do" would drive any animal insane. Take a look at animals behaving pathologically in boring zoo enclosures, for example. A study actually analogous to basic income would have, for example, unlimited generic mouse food and a comfortable home environment, but also have a large exterior environment available to explore, wheels and toys, and a steady supply of puzzles/mazes/etc fitted with tastier treats that the mice could engage with or avoid as they wish.
  - marknutter 10y ago
    Wait, so the government is going to provide us with a the equivalent of a steady supply of wheels, toys, puzzles, mazes, tastier treats, etc?
    - zyxley 10y ago
      What do you think a job is, in this analogy?

contravariant 10y ago

>I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror. I'd rather people get paid to do nothing than people getting paid to do pointless tasks. I've seen some amazing things people made in their spare time, but I can't imagine anyone making something worthwhile digging and re-filling holes.

MicroBerto 10y ago
Again, the people building "amazing things in their spare time" are not the people to be concerned about!! The usefulness we'd get out of the creative top 1-5% of the population is far outweighed by the chaos that'd be caused by the bottom/criminal 10% of the population.
- contravariant 10y ago
  If I have to choose between a society where 11% of the population does some pointless work (and anything that doesn't pay at least what could be consider a 'basic income' is pretty much pointless) or one where 1% does amazing stuff in their spare time, and 10% does nothing. I'd prefer the latter. Don't see how criminality would increase with basic income, if anything I'd expect a decrease (fewer people in hopeless situations = less crime).
- JDiculous 10y ago
  Part of the benefit of a UBI is that it permits us to give harsher penalties to criminals because they can no longer use poverty as an excuse. I'm all in favor of cutting off UBI for criminals (temporarily or permanently depending on the severity of the crime).
marknutter 10y ago
Come on now.. anyone from 100 years ago would look at half the jobs people have now and categorize them as "pointless tasks"

whiskers08xmt 10y ago

Luckily, there are other pursuits in life than those who generate wealth. I don't think it's reasonable to think, that if humans didn't have to work, they'd all spend their time idly in front of the television.

undersuit 10y ago

You're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink which has not been reproduced in humans.

MicroBerto 10y ago
It has not been reproduced because society collapses every last time we attempt to get anywhere near it. See socialism. Chavez made all these same promises for free stuff, etc. It didn't work. It never works. Venezuela is now beyond doomed and are weeks if not days from total devastation. Reproducing the 1972 study in a field environment on humans would take too long, but I'm confident that if you had a similar utopian tribe of 60 men and 60 women, the experiment would have to be terminated in less than a year due to whatever mularkey broke out. Scale that up and you have pure Venezuelan chaos on your hands.
- undersuit 10y ago
  >It has not been reproduced because society collapses every last time we attempt to get anywhere near it. We've had societies that had infinite food and water provided to them in a limited space? >pure Venezuelan chaos Pure hyperbolic nonsense.

zyxley 10y ago

If you apply that "mouse utopia" to humans, what you get isn't a "utopia"... it's a refugee camp or low-security prison, where food and shelter is available but nobody can leave and there's nothing to do but walk around and talk to people. That's nothing like the basic income concept.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> And it's exactly what will happen to us if we don't have something to work and live for. Accepting for the sake of argument that this is true (which, a single, non-replicated experiment on mice is far from sufficient to establish), it has nothing to do with Unconditional Basic Income, which does not provide unlimited quantities of anything, or otherwise make it so that humans don't have "something to live and work for".

jotux 10y ago

The problem with your argument is that basic income isn't anything like a utopia or perfect world -- it's just enough to pay rent and buy food. Basic income for people is much closer to the treatment pet owners are expected to provide for their pets.

MicroBerto 10y ago
And as I mentioned elsewhere, "free rent and free food" was basically exactly what the rats were given in their utopia. All I'm saying is this: Before we start throwing free money around everywhere, maybe we should do some legitimate research on the human condition. I'm obviously confident that you won't like what you find, but at least you'll find out before it's too late.
- jotux 10y ago
  >And as I mentioned elsewhere, "free rent and free food" was basically exactly what the rats were given in their utopia. You mentioned it and it's still inaccurate. The study gave mice everything they could ever want, in excess. This was food, space, and mates. The needs of mice are not complex. Basic income is just enough to let you sleep indoors and eat. If you were to create a utopia for people it would be fine food, entertainment, extravagant living arrangements, a complex and fulfilling social scene, opportunities for academic engagement, etc. Free food and rent is not a utopia for people by a long shot.