Some time ago I read about the rat experiment and it was something that surprised me strongly. Today I had the opportunity to read it again and all the chaos created by the experiment that is based on a utopian society reminded me that we have already been through this. Yes, this has already happened, at least in the universe of The Matrix movie.
Led by John B. Calhoun (psychologist and ethologist), a group of researchers started a study that became known as 'Universe 25', which had as its main objective the creation of a utopian world, using rodents, where all needs would be met without that they needed to make effort to do so, the space was temperature-controlled and big enough for a few thousand rodents, there was also a 24-hour food and water supply.
Freed from the "concern" of hunting and survival, the rodents initially procreated a lot, the experiment began with four pairs rodents and the population doubled every 55 days, after reaching 620 rodents there was a delay in population growth, now it took 145 days to double the amount and from then on the first signs of serious problems appeared.
Some males became indifferent, relaxing physically and psychologically, these males isolated themselves in groups in the center of the experiment and even were attacked by other males of the same condition. According to the researchers, men who moved away from their social positions did not respond when attacked, they simply lay there, immobile. Later, they carried out other attacks, on other smaller males.
Some females also withdrew from their social activities, avoiding procreation and moving away from territorial conflicts by spending most of their time fixing their fur, literally, these rats had the most beautiful bristle in the study, another example would be that some mothers simply gave up of taking care of your puppies and this caused that in some parts of the “Mice City” the infant mortality rate rose to 90%.
The chaos began to be noticed by researchers when males considered “alpha” started to show extremely aggressive behavior, attacking other rodents for no specific reason. Some of these attacks even ended in cannibalism, even though there was a sufficient supply of food for everyone.
At that time, rodents were practically abandoning all the behaviors they would normally exhibit in nature. The young rodents that survived their own mothers' attacks during childhood grew up with a personality totally affected by these conditions. As a result of the chaos caused by the city created in the study, the rodents showed no interest in breeding, preferring to spend all their time smoothing their own fur and eating, totally alone.
The maximum study population was 2200 rodents, the city's maximum capacity was 3,000 rats. From this peak, the population began to decline. The rodents that had no interest in breeding isolated themselves in the upper part of the city, and the more active ones formed violent groups on the lower floors, regularly attacking and cannibalizing other groups, in constant warfare. Eventually, the low birth rate, coupled with high infant mortality and violence, resulted in the colony's extinction.
This ending brought me an insight from the first Matrix movie, that the first simulation created by machines to dominate humans was of a heavenly world together with a perfect society, and oddly enough humans at some point couldn't accept such happiness, it's as if there was a feeling of distrust, a characteristic that makes us survivors and that frees us from many situations.
And where a motorcycle fits into all of this. I'll explain to you now, I've been training Jiu Jitsu every day of the week and the distance between the gym and my house is about 4 miles. And honestly, my butt hurts a lot at the end of the day. So I will motivate myself to write more and save money to buy a motorcycle, it would be around 1500 dollars.
This is what I got:
This what I want:
