324 - The Mouse Utopia Experiments

Timesuck with Dan Cummins

Dan Cummins

True Crime, Society & Culture, Religion, Conspiracies, History, Biographies, Education, Adult Humor, Comedy, Dark Humor, Conspiracy, Cults

4.7 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2022

⏱️ 153 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Strange and thought provoking episode today! In the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s, animal behavior researcher John B Calhoun ran a number of experiments on rodents, and concluded that increased urbanization spells doom for a species. He warned that over population and urbanization would bring an end to humanity. Was he right?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I look at Gotham my friends and what do I see?
0:02.5	Gangs roam the streets attacking it will.
0:05.2	Stress-related illness, crime, murder.
0:08.0	Their society is collapsing around them just like Universe 133.
0:12.5	These words spoken by the supervillain, the rat catcher,
0:15.5	to an audience of rats in a 1995 Batman comic
0:18.5	embody a popular suspicion of the metropolis.
0:21.6	Of the city gone bad, riddled with crime,
0:23.9	overpopulation and interpersonal violence.
0:26.8	They also reflect the influence of one John B. Calhoun,
0:30.3	an animal ecologist who studied the effects of crowding on social animals,
0:34.2	specifically rats and mice, at the National Institute of Mental Health.
0:38.0	Calhoun's early research was published in 1962
0:40.7	and went on to become some of the most widely referenced in psychology for a time.
0:44.9	But odds are like me, you've likely never heard of Calhoun in his weird experiments.
0:49.3	The Universe 133 mentioned in the Batman comic is a direct reference
0:52.7	to one of Calhoun's specifically constructed rodent universes.
0:56.6	Inclosures, where the animals were provided with plenty of food,
0:59.9	bedding, and shelter and allowed to breed.
1:02.1	The enclosure was designed to be a veritable rat or mouse,
1:05.0	Calhoun ran experiments on both rodents, paradise.
1:08.4	All their needs were taken care of.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dan Cummins, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dan Cummins and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.