Universe 25: The Parable of Rodent Utopias and Behavioral Sinks
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 10.7K Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2024
⏱️ 71 minutes
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Summary
What would happen if you built an almost-perfect world, limited in terms only of space? How would people react -- could you create a utopian society? These are the questions John Bumpass Calhoun asked himself during his career as an ethologist, which led him to create tiny 'universes' for rodents... only to find that, time and time again, these perfect civilizations collapsed. Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they delve into the parable of Universe 25 and behavioral sinks.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies history is riddled with unexplained events. |
| 0:07.0 | You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. |
| 0:12.0 | A production of I-Heart Radio. |
| 0:17.0 | Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. My name is Noll. They call me |
| 0:28.5 | Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission Control |
| 0:32.4 | Decid. Most importantly you are you you are here that makes this |
| 0:37.1 | the stuff they don't want you to know coming to you live from a universe of our own straight to yours. |
| 0:44.0 | What if we could build a perfect society? |
| 0:47.0 | Guys, what if we figure it out today? |
| 0:49.0 | A Utopia? |
| 0:50.0 | Yeah, like where scientists have full unregulated control? |
| 0:55.0 | A technocracy, I'm so in. |
| 0:57.0 | Yeah, like, it's weird, right? |
| 1:00.0 | Because that's something pretty much all civilizations have aspire to. |
| 1:04.6 | Nobody seems to get the concept of utopia right so far. |
| 1:08.3 | And we'll also along the way tonight figure out why utopia is kind of a mean joke. |
| 1:12.6 | Right, like isn't you know, I almost think Utopia and |
| 1:15.7 | Distopia are synonymous in a weird way, you know? |
| 1:18.9 | You know, it's like a lot of things that are in theory utopian do end up being |
| 1:23.7 | dystopian in practice and that's so much film and fiction right they're essentially |
| 1:29.5 | parables about how trying to make a perfect society goes terribly wrong shout out soiling |
| 1:35.8 | green clockwork orange communism I mean come on know. Communism sounds great in theory, |
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