“Our brother, Charles Darwin”The purpose of this series is to examine the—potentially causal—role that feminism plays in society’s ills. Part 1 discussed how the birth control pill biochemically alters a woman to act contrary to the evolutionary imperative: to optimally reproduce. Part 2 will introduce the Mouse Utopia experiment and some societal implications.
Darwin’s theory of evolution has led to two main mechanisms: random genetic mutation and natural selection. It’s a matter of established science that mutations occur as a normal course of life and that these are passed to children during reproduction. Natural selection means that those with mostly beneficial mutations survive and pass their genes to their children and those with mostly negative mutations do not. Populations that operate this way are under Darwinian-selection.
In the 1960s and 1970s, researcher John Calhoun performed experiments on mice to find out what would happen to populations where Darwinian-selection mechanisms were removed. He set up utopian environments: spacious with unlimited food and water, clean bedding, and no predation. He seeded the experiment with eight of the best and healthiest stock mice he could acquire. His goal was to test population overcrowding.
Initially everything went great. The mice reproduced as mice do and the population grew exponentially. But then something surprising happened. Long before the colony ran out of space, the population growth slowed, plateaued, and then began to fall as reproduction eventually ceased entirely. This led to complete colony extinction.
During the decline, a number of strange behaviors were noted.
Females became more aggressive and male-like. They kicked their young out of the nest before they learned proper social behaviors. Males became disinterested in having sex. Females had to pressure the males for sex. Some homosexual behavior was witnessed.
Mice in the colony ceased to engage in normal, complex mice behaviors. They started clustering together into large groups in areas designed to hold smaller numbers. They would randomly attack each other. Cannibalism began, despite the unlimited food availability.
The most interesting were male effeminate mice who isolated themselves from the rest of the group and never had sex. They spent their entire day standing with others like them, eating, drinking, sleeping, and grooming themselves and each other. Calhoun described them as autistic creatures capable of only the most basic physiological behaviors. He called these the “Beautiful Ones” as their grooming led to clean, attractive, smooth fur coats.
When the social bonds of the colony ceased to function, Calhoun noted:
“Their spirit has died (the first death). They are no longer capable of executing the more complex behaviors compatible with species survival. The species in such settings die”
At the end of the experiment all that were left were the Beautiful Ones, females not interested in males, and social outcasts who did not perform normal mouse behaviors.
The Mouse Utopia experiments raise interesting questions about human populations. Prior to the industrial revolution, Western child mortality was around 40%, but this is now at 1%. Like Mouse Utopia, human populations have broken free of Darwinian selection. In Does Marriage Keep Society Afloat?, I noted that humanity’s population pyramids are inverting. This is most advanced in Japan:
Japan’s population is falling. Women are not interested in children. Men have lost interest in sex. Many don’t even bother to masturbate. Evolutionary maladaptive behaviors are entrenched. There is no end in sight. Other countries, like China, are following close behind. In America immigrants are replacing the native population, masking the same trends. Across the world fertility rates continue to decline.[1]
What is happening to humanity?
Due to modern innovations in genetics, researchers have been able to identify a genetic mutation for autistic behavior (like the Beautiful Ones) in rodents to NLGN3 (paper 1; paper 2). Researcher Michael Woodley and his colleagues ran an experiment where sufficient numbers of captive-bred NLGN3 knockout mice were mixed with a population of wild mice. As in the Mouse Utopia experiment, the genetically-damaged mice caused social damage to the entire population. However, if the defective ones were removed, then the colony would begin to recover within as little as a week.
To explain these results, Michael Woodley formulated a general theory of Social Epistasis Amplification. The notion is that genetic mutations of a few can still have deleterious effect on the population of social species as a whole through genetic interactions at the social level (i.e. ‘interorganismal gene-gene interactions’).[2]
Human populations are experiencing the effects of social epistasis. Feminism is one example. Feminists, who often have high mutational load, routinely promote genetically maladaptive behaviors (e.g. the birth control pill; forced assent of homosexuality and transgenderism; delayed marriage) on those with low mutational load. Doing what they suggests literally harms society. Nearly every article on this site serves to highlight these points. Moreover, it is not sufficient to reject feminism: nearly everyone is influenced. MGTOW is one example of resulting maladaptive behavior.[3]
Future parts of this series will explore how we got to this point and expand upon these concepts in greater detail.
[1] And, unlike the mice, humans do not have unlimited resources.
[2] This bears similarity to the social contagion concept.
[3] The “Beautiful Ones” were the mice analog of MGTOW: socially isolated and asexual. In Mouse Utopia, mice going their own way ended up destroying the colony.
Ah! Another twisted view of Mousetopia that now blames MGTOW for the collapse of society and the world! Most MGTOWs are not the “beautiful ones” most are classified as the “losers” in society by women and their fellow men. Mostly by their fellow men.
I find it funny, hilarious actually that a man like myself who wields no power. No Alpha traits. No Alpha looks. No Alpha influence suddenly is now “responsible” for things being “terrible” today in the affairs of culture and society.
“Just go ask out women! Shower, brush your teeth, learn some jokes and you’re gonna be okay!”
You supposed “leaders” of men in intelligence, looks, status, money, culture, personality were the ones who caved to feminism originally thinking you would get yourselves in the top 20% thing that “doesn’t exist” but does (depending on your argument).
You guys were taking all the future MGTOWs back in jr high and flushing their heads down toilets. Don’t you dare blame MGTOW for the “state” of marriage today. It was your own doing….and just like always, you “leaders of men” and I use that term VERY loosely now…..brought this upon society, and now blame the men who are indeed the bottom of the heap of “somehow” being responsible for this. Look in the mirror.
@lastmod
It was part-joke, part-troll, part-truth. Mice MGTOW were responsible for the colony’s extinction, but obviously human MGTOW are not going to be the cause of societal collapse. That said, MGTOW behavior (NOT incels!) is maladaptive and contributes in a small way to the collapse of society. The traits shared between mice MGTOW and human MGTOW point to this. This isn’t the first time I have made this argument. FWIW, normal heterosexual religious high-earning married couples who choose not to have children are also engaging in maladaptive behavior.
I’m not blaming you for anything. Indeed, incels like you and earl are among the very few that bear little to no responsibility for this mess.
Are these experiments reproducible? I no longer automatically trust these accounts to be true.
@He-man
I’m someone who scorns the peer review process as being unscientific and a scientific community that shuns science in favor of political correctness, so I’m right there with you. As far as I can tell the experiments (which took about 2 years) were never repeated, except by John Calhoun himself.
1) The experiments were funded by NIMH and included video evidence. There is a video documentary on YouTube.
2) His work took place from the 50s to 70s in multiple studies.
3) At the time human overpopulation was a political issue. He set up the experiments to study overcrowding. His results were unexpected. He basically dedicated his research to something that somewhat disproved his own biases.
4) Various other research (mentioned here) seems to confirm the findings through other means.
5) As far as I can tell all the controversy was over the implications of Mouse Utopia, not its methodology or results.
Thank you for your feedback. I believe I got a few details wrong that I had not noticed before. I am going to make a few edits.
“Are these experiments reproducible?”
This statement by He-Man gets thanks, and now a “I believe I got a few details wrong”
I wish when I have used that statement over my life that would have happen to me.
This is what science has become. Toppled by a question.Four word sentence. Amazing
I’m not an incel or MGTOW.
@lastmod
I don’t understand your comment. What science was toppled?
@earl
I was under the impression that you wish to marry and have sex but have been unable to find an appropriate wife. I stand corrected.
You’re damn right I bear no responsibility on this. I made a mess of my own life. Thank you. I didn’t blame my parents, or society. What I will never accept is men, especially of the married and christian variety suddenly “turning” all these problems we have in the culture / society in these stated and discussed matters / the future of the USA on men like myself. Alpha men invented the Pill. Alpha men pushed through the amendments, rules, and laws. These were not the weak soy boys, and betas leading the charge during the Progressive Era, nor during “Great Society” or even in the “brotherly nineties”
It was the men that women wanted to follow……but it is looking “clearer” to me that these “leaders” and men who have all the traits women “want in a man” were actually doing the leading. Thirsty one track thinkers that most Alpha men are….did their bidding. Throughout history.
Every MGTOW is characterized as some time bomb that hates women, every incel wants to murder………let me remind you, the amount of carnage caused in / by this country in the 20th century…be it fighting in foreign wars to “protect freedom, I mean women” or “national interests” these decisions were made by Alpha men……and plenty of rank and file Betas died for the cause. Mostly rank and file Betas paid the price. Who paid for downsizing and the mass deindustrialization of this country from the mid 1970’s onward? It wasn’t the CEO. It wasn’t the ‘board’ nor the higher level decision maker Alpha-Chad types. It was Joe-six pack, yet he gets the blame for “not staying competitive” in a world where the rules change immediately by the Alpha…….but is expected to just suck it up like the CEO who btw can live a year without a job.
Many bemoan the Beta in this sphere and scene…and he can’t defend himself. Why? For the most part…he’s too busy working. Too busy *trying* to be this guy everyone says he can be (Alpha) and too busy actually doing right for his wife and children….or giving it his all in his job, because that is all many of these men only have. A job. And many know the (cough) leader won’t have one problem of laying him off if it came to that.
Impossible standards set, yet talked down to and bemoaned when he strives and can’t keep up. Shut out of the reproductive market since hitting puberty, but just told to “gain some confidence” and at the same time told “all women are sluts, notta good one left” (because you Alphas f*cked them all, got all holy / self righteous) and then had the audacity to think most wanted to be like you
This Mousetopia is bunk because for the fact I am not a mouse. Not a rodent. I am a human being, and I will not let “science” compare me to some animal behavior of a totally different species than myself. “Beautiful ones” my ass.
I’ll be making the case that it is actually those dysfunctional people with high genetic mutational load that have taken over rulership of society. These are those who.many centuries ago.would have more likely died out naturally or who, say, Catholicism would have burned at the stake for heresy or murdered in a crusade.
I will, of course, be forced to consider your view as a competing view and I welcome your comments along the way.
I don’t think there is any way, under Darwinian-selection, that I would be considered an alpha. This is not a directly testable as a hypothesis, so as I said earlier, the alpha/beta distinction in today’s society has little practical value.
Derek…with all respect here.
Even if you are correct, and may very well be that “the Alpha / Beta distinction in todays society has little practical value”
I would so hope that were true. The Reality? Go on to just about all YouTube channels for men dealing with / trying to date / chasing / courting / advice about women. Young and old. In the video itself and most assuredly in the comments…..tons of comments about “real men Alphas / simps, chumps, losers and any man that ever did anything for a woman is a Beta”
We don’t have to bring up the man-o-sphere, in blogs and webpages……we know its an established fact that these terms have been amplified, double-down on, and used even more frequently than they were several years ago. The sad fact (reality) is that men use them more than women. Way more.
I don’t like it either. You will learn in this aspect of discussing men and they issues they face in blogland…secular or sacred….you must accept Rollo as your god and expert on everything. You must accept all aspects of “game” be them imaginary or not, and you must behave at all times like a real man (according to them) or you will not be allowed in the club and as usual they define what it means for the moment…..all subjective and interchangeable to fit their argument or what is making them have a PMS fit at the moment (usually over what another man said or thinks). If this isn’t classic teenage girl behavior…..I really don’t know what is. It also fits Mao’s “little red book”platform perfectly. All comments, laws, rules, insights by these men are setup in ways so despite their major contradictions…….they do not show in snarky one lined replies.
I have said it before…..when the “revolution comes” and all these real men become in charge, they will not denounce feminism. They will not “fix” the culture. No, no, no….they would find me in Santa Rosa, haul me in front of their tribunal and publicly denounce me…….I would not doubt violence from any of them mind you……and sentence me to a work camp, or put me away forever. My crime? Disagreeing with them…..and their hatred of fellow men shows frequently in their chats, on their comments sections. Most of these men would be pretty brutal dictators if they indeed were in charge.
But they found the unicorn (their wife). They bedded tons of women. They have women always throwing themselves at them. They found jesus and are now “better” then you. It’s a contest of “who is on the faster roll to heaven and who has more favor with god”
Alpha and Beta, and Omega, and all the colors of the pills thrown in as well. They love this, want this world and have zero faith in or the potentials of their fellow men.
“Are these experiments reproducible?”
No because of professional ethics. Animal cruelty laws have tightened up.
I don’t see the Mouse Utopia experiment as demonstrating the effects of overcrowding. I see it as an experiment in what happens when social behavior is deliberately sabotaged. Even as a mere thought experiment, it makes sense that if the ability to socialize normally is thwarted by an outside force, there will be the ones who seek normal socializing desperately, the ones whose normal behavior becomes abnormal and the ones who give up on socializing entirely.
We are being prevented from healthy socializing by our leaders and culture. That’s why the Mouse Utopia experiment is relevant. It’s not because we spend too much time online, it’s because online is the hardest forum for our leaders to micromanage. Our identities aren’t automatically associated with our statements here, you see, which makes punishing badthink expensive.
There’s no Darwinism in Calhoun’s work. But women refusing to leave men alone… forcing their way into our social circles and then twisting our institutions against our nature… does have parallels.
…
“It.s a matter of established science that mutations occur as a normal course of life and that these are passed to children during reproduction.”
No, and the term “matter of established science” is the giveaway. Any science that is not permitted to be questioned can be safely presumed faulty. You know… you have to know, if you are trying to straddle creation and evolution simultaneously… that the science of evolution is not settled at all.
Incremental mutation is completely incapable of changing one species into another. Entire organs and systems need to be created or removed, which do not function when half-built. There is no way to do that in a stepwise fashion… certainly not that produces a notably more fertile organism at every step.
“Feminists, who often have high mutational load, routinely promote genetically maladaptive behaviors… Nearly every article on this site serves to highlight these points.”
Women were genetically healthy until monogamy was outlawed and they were taught bad mutations at college?
“MGTOW is one example of resulting maladaptive behavior.”
How long until “science” discovers I’m genetically defective and a waste of limited resources? Do I get a head start before being rounded up and put to death in the Coliseum?
@Gunner Q
When I say “matter of established science” I mean “earth is round” level of established. I’m not talking about the “Everyone agrees with us!! No, don’t look over there! [points gun at your head]” level of established. If you deny that mutations occur and are passed on to children, that’s “earth is flat” level of denial. We can read the digital DNA data out of cells and compare it to measure the mutations directly. For example:
Amazingly, we have ultra advanced computer technology to compare two texts and find the differences!!!1! Now, you can presume this claim faulty all you want, but you’ll get treated the same as one of those mindless climate zombies if you do.
Of course I know. I’m a proponent of intelligent design and have written a number of articles on the topic. I appreciate your take on it on your blog as well. You won’t see me arguing for evolution at the very macro levels. It is often useful to accept it for sake of argument.
This is the topic of the next planned article in the series.
This will be covered in the 6th planned article in the series.
@lastmod
True.
Look forward to the next articles in the series.
@He-man
Thanks. I’m trying to finish it up tonight, but this one is more serious and detailed than the last two. It’s taking quite a while to research and write.
That’s true. But that doesn’t make me an incel or MGTOW. It just makes me a rejector of feminists.
It’s not like I wasn’t offered the opportunity for sex in my 20s…I just rejected it.