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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'

#71

Post by jhou2 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #43

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 evo…

Of course. If in the experiment, they had simulated the effect of predators on the population and routinely culled the population to stay within some range, then probably the mice would have lived happily ever after generation after generation without any overcrowding and stressful effects. That entirely misses the point of the experiment.

Human beings in some societies are reaching the point where disease, fatal accidents, and similar stressful or population-reducing effects are minimized. For example, Silicon Valley. I'm not so sure though whether it is a utopia though. Physical living space, aka real estate, in SV is certainly at a premium.

And I've seen similar cases mirroring the study's "beautiful ones", the drinkers, and rowdy youths. There are parallels and insights to be drawn from these studies of mice and men.

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

#72

Post by woodruffw »

projektir wrote: post #41
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…

The Matrix borrows heavily from Plato's Allegory of the Cave [1], a very famous philosophical thought experiment.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

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

#73

Post by projektir »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #68
projektir wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As Calhoun saw it, the repression they had suffered at the hands of their superiors had resulted in deviant, creative, and thus adaptive behaviour. Could it also be that the group was simply different, and suffered because it was different/non-dominant, but it was not the suffering that made them different to begin with? And getting away from the main group allowed them to do those things? I would posit a utopia wh…

I think there always will be "dominant groups", as long as being in group is more beneficial than not being in one - simply because even an uniform random distribution is not perfectly uniform when you build it point by point.

A dominant group is not one that is merely more beneficial. If there's a rat park somewhere that has happiness level 5, and the other rat park has happiness level 6, that doesn't mean one is dominant over the other. It just means one has more happiness than the other. And in an effort to not cause too many paperclip maximizers, let's define some acceptable margin of difference at which it doesn't really matter who's happier, I don't think the world will explode and the philosophical arguments are seriously not worth it.

Dominance is something else entirely and I staunchly disagree that this strictly evolutionary construct needs to persist forever.

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

#74

Post by projektir »

uremog wrote: post #60
zyxley wrote: post #5

Calling it a "utopia" when there's limited space and nothing to do seems a bit inaccurate.

The initial population seemed to have plenty of space though. Eventually any growing population will run into a space limitation. It just happens sooner the smaller the space is.

Humans seem to breed a lot less in more developed countries, so I think that conclusion is questionable. I don't think it would be all that hard to freeze population growth in developed places.

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

#75

Post by projektir »

woodruffw wrote: post #72
projektir wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Matrix borrows heavily from Plato's Allegory of the Cave [1], a very famous philosophical thought experiment. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

The conclusions about whether or not there is a happy utopia for humans to live in is not part of the Allegory of the Cave.

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

#76

Post by projektir »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #64
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because we don't take social currency as seriously as monetary currency. In a world where financial incentives don't matter, you'll have other incentives. We can see this in video games where people half-kill themselves to get some status or armor or whatever. Or how wealthy people take up charity work or compete on social status points like who holds the better parties or decorates the home better. >if you judg…

I would probably be a NEET (or barely E-human) if it wasn't for SSRIs, despite being a (I think) competent programmer who wrote code since being 13 years old. Medication lets me manage my disdain for what a typical human like me has to do to earn their bread - mostly pointless, mostly useless (or even socially harmful, hello ad world) stuff. I'm in tech, but I know some people who are close to being NEET and are on t…

Indeed, but I think also the mental strength tends to get sapped when the thing you're doing is pointless and/or socially harmful. Some people may delude themselves into thinking that their work is worthwhile even when it isn't. It's generally easier to live life when you think you're doing the right thing and everything makes sense.

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

#78

Post by gluggymug »

throwaway2016b wrote: post #30
projektir wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't paint a picture because a limited and flawed experiment should not be used to make sweeping predictions about society at large. This is precisely why, earlier, I was against calling the setting in this experiment a utopia. It's anything but. But call it that, convince people it's actually good conditions, and then other people will run to make unfounded claims that good conditions are bad. Not to mention t…

Indeed it is a flawed utopia. Give them a planet to explore, problems to solve, predators to avoid, kin to protect, goals that must be met to survive... >NEETs may be caused by poor life prospects, not the presence of food, shelter, and internet. I am intimately familiar with NEETs, having spent years interacting with them. The pattern I have noticed is of above average intelligence, many even brilliant, who would ha…

I think I am a NEET technically: Have worked for a long time and I am over it. Just want to live off my savings.

Not sure why you are telling me to commit slow masturbatory suicide... Can I masturbate faster?

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

#79

Post by woodruffw »

projektir wrote: post #75
woodruffw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Matrix borrows heavily from Plato's Allegory of the Cave [1], a very famous philosophical thought experiment. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

The conclusions about whether or not there is a happy utopia for humans to live in is not part of the Allegory of the Cave.

I don't think I said that it was.

Apart from its rhetorical value, the allegory is interesting because of it raises questions concerning life-as-suffering and painful knowledge/blissful ignorance. The Matrix does a decent job of relaying both of those concepts to a mass audience.

Personally, I'm not certain that humans can create a meaningful utopia. Empirically, we seem to be very bad at personally gauging our absolute welfares[1].

[1]: http://faculty.som.yale.edu/ShaneFrederick/HedonicTreadmill....

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

#80

Post by fierycatnet »

projektir wrote: post #41
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…

It is a work of fiction but it's fairly dense. One of my philosophy classes used the first Matrix to explore some philosophical themes. It's been a while for concrete examples, one of the users pointed out Plato already. And this particular quote "human beings define their reality through suffering and misery." made me think of Dostoevsky's literature for some reason.
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