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The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

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Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#41

Post by projektir »

rglovejoy wrote: post #29

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that…

Friendly reminder that this is a quote from a work of fiction. One that doesn't exactly have a lot of rigor in terms of the science/philosophy involved, really.

> But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.

Actually, nature had a patent on that one long before humans showed up. It's the author of that "primitive cerebrum", too. We've been spending the past however many thousands of years to try undo this reality. But we're really new to this party.

These AI's also sound awfully like humans. And they're motivated to create lots of humans (regardless of happiness of thereof) and collect them as batteries. Surely we should trust these ones to create a best world for us, and they have no reason to lie to us. I'm sure people resisted this in the Matrix because they disliked happy worlds. Not, you know, because having your entire reality be controlled by some other entity is worrying.

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#42

Post by johnfjacobi »

M_Grey wrote: post #33
throwaway2016b wrote: post #15

This paints a dark picture, not only for urban life, but for basic income. What wondrous creativity will be unlocked when we no longer need to work to survive? A negative amount, if you judge by the NEETs of today. Give a man food, shelter, and internet, and he'll kill himself for you.

"...The blind forces of urbanization, flowing along the lines of least resistance, show no aptitude for creating an urban and industrial pattern that will be stable, self-sustaining, and self-renewing. On the contrary, as congestion thickens and expansion widens, both the urban and the rural landscape undergo defacement and degradation, while the unprofitable investments in the remedies…serve only to promote more of…

This article reminded me a lot of stuff written by Mumford, Jacques Ellul, and even Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber). Their stuff is worth reading.

Industrial Society and Its Future http://wildism.org/rca/items/show/13

Also Ellul's The Technological Society

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#43

Post by sandworm101 »

These studies are naive in that they treat a species, mice, as a self-regulating unit. They aren't. No species exists absent other species. Mice have evolved alongside predators. Without predators, the external stimuli that has defined mice evolution, mice culture isn't sustainable.

This has direct application not only in dense populations but in our relationship with other species. Our bodies and our culture has evolved in the presence of rats, insects, dogs, cats and billions of bacterial and viruses. Isolation from these other species will doom us as it did these mice.

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#44

Post by johnfjacobi »

jds375 wrote: post #19
Mendenhall wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point but In its natural environment they do so much more. Search for the food, avoid weather, avoid predators etc. I think perhaps when those stresses are taken away it goes counter to their instincts and "wiring" causing problems.

I wonder what that could mean for us as humans. Is some degree of "strife" necessary in society for people to be happier? Perhaps our work to eliminate many of the more primal issues that affect us (the need to hunt, survive in the wild, etc) are only making us worse off? It would be interesting to hear more about this, as well as what the potential "cures" may be, as alluded to at the end of the article.

You'd probably be interested in the Unabomber manifesto. Most people think he was crazy, but he talked a lot about this stuff, especially his sections on "the power process," which is basically what you just described.

http://wildism.org/rca/items/show/13

James Q Wilson, the guy who came up with "broken windows theory," said the manifesto was "a carefully reasoned, artfully written paper… If it is the work of a madman, then the writings of many political philosophers — Jean Jacques Rousseau, Tom Paine, Karl Marx — are scarcely more sane."

I wrote an article about the man a while back, so I'm always interested when ideas like this pop up. Here's the article: http://dark-mountain.net/blog/ted-kaczynski-and-why-he-matte...

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#45

Post by jeffdavis »

saulrh wrote: post #39

Malthusian catastrophes are one of the things that happen to communities that aren't smart and coordinated enough to banish Moloch. Whoop-de-doo. ( http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ )

Does this count as a Malthusian catastrophe even though the food was ample?

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#47

Post by logfromblammo »

rglovejoy wrote: post #29

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that…

Did you know that in the original version of the Matrix motion picture, humans were grown and plugged into the Matrix so that the AIs could use their brains for complex computation? I'm not sure why they changed the script to turn the people into rechargeable batteries instead of CPUs, but it was a really bad idea to do so.

So now I am imagining row after row of mice in little mouse chairs, wearing tiny VR helmets, organizing for a raid on the MegaMechaCat boss in the Mousecraft MMORPG.

It would be interesting to see if escapist recreation is necessary for a healthy high-density society. Purely for self-rationalization of my own gaming activity, you understand. Any scientific benefits would be purely accidental.

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#48

Post by projektir »

logfromblammo wrote: post #47
rglovejoy wrote: post #29

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that…

Did you know that in the original version of the Matrix motion picture, humans were grown and plugged into the Matrix so that the AIs could use their brains for complex computation? I'm not sure why they changed the script to turn the people into rechargeable batteries instead of CPUs, but it was a really bad idea to do so. So now I am imagining row after row of mice in little mouse chairs, wearing tiny VR helmets, o…

> Did you know that in the original version of the Matrix motion picture, humans were grown and plugged into the Matrix so that the AIs could use their brains for complex computation?

That's really nifty, and there are a lot of interesting directions that could have gone it. But it would have driven it closer to more hard sci-fi, and I don't know how well that sells.

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

logfromblammo wrote: post #47
rglovejoy wrote: post #29

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that…

Did you know that in the original version of the Matrix motion picture, humans were grown and plugged into the Matrix so that the AIs could use their brains for complex computation? I'm not sure why they changed the script to turn the people into rechargeable batteries instead of CPUs, but it was a really bad idea to do so. So now I am imagining row after row of mice in little mouse chairs, wearing tiny VR helmets, o…

> Did you know that in the original version of the Matrix motion picture, humans were grown and plugged into the Matrix so that the AIs could use their brains for complex computation? I'm not sure why they changed the script to turn the people into rechargeable batteries instead of CPUs, but it was a really bad idea to do so.

They probably did it because test audiences (or maybe studio execs) didn't get the computation thing. If you watch the films, they really only changed it superficially to account for that, and lots of it only makes sense with the computation explanation, which even before I knew it was the original concept I assumed was the real thing going on, and that "batteries" was a faulty conclusion reached by the free humans.

Re: The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the 'Rats of NIMH'

#50

Post by saulrh »

jeffdavis wrote: post #45
saulrh wrote: post #39

Malthusian catastrophes are one of the things that happen to communities that aren't smart and coordinated enough to banish Moloch. Whoop-de-doo. ( http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ )

Does this count as a Malthusian catastrophe even though the food was ample?

I suppose? Running out of physical space is almost as bad as running out of food, physically and psychologically speaking, unless you're very heavily adapted for it.
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