UNIVERSE 25 WAS WILD! Today, we explore John B. Calhoun’s infamous experiment that created a utopian world for mice-abundant resources, no predators, and perfect conditions. But this so-called utopia quickly devolved into a dystopian nightmare marked by social collapse, crime, and a breakdown of community bonds. We’ll cover the experiment’s process and its unsettling outcome, revealing how this nightmare society of mice mirrors troubling parallels to urban human societies struggling with overcrowding, isolation, and rising antisocial behavior. Join us as we review the lasting impact of Universe 25 on science and what it warns us about the fragility of civilization…WELCOME TO CAMP 🏕️!Shoutout to our sponsors: Cymbiotika, Morgan & Morgan and BluechewGo to https://partners.cymbiotika.com/CAMP for 20% off your order + free shipping👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: https://campgoods.co/🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.comTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:22 The Slowest Invasion Ever3:06 The Reason For Creating Universe 257:38 The Layout of Universe 2511:07 The First Experiments of Universe 25 + Incest Mice18:03 Overcrowding In The Universe21:34 Male Mice Become Aggressive + The Beautiful Ones33:54 The Collapse of Universe 25 + Is NYC Just Like Universe 25?49:17 To Goon or Not to Goon52:57 Hikikomori + Modern Construction Using Universe 25’s Ideas55:57 Importance of Having a Community
Chapter 1: What is Universe 25 and why is it significant?
Universe 25, one of the most disturbing, terrifying, and controversial experiments ever conducted, not on human beings, but on mice. What if you put a bunch of mice into an enclosure and give them all the food and water they want, but they're on top of each other in tiny little apartments, much like a city like New York, LA, or Chicago? What happens?
Unfortunately, one researcher discovered that there's societal collapse. Men become aggressive and start to fight each other. Women start to attack their own young, neglect their children, and the birth rate declines. And many researchers over the decades have mapped this to human behavior. Is this where American society is going? Are we entering into an eventual collapse?
Well, all that and more will be explored today on this episode of Camp. We will go through how the experiment was decided, how it was set up, what were the factors that went into it, what do the critics say, why is this not like American or human society, and what can we learn and how can we change our lives in order to create a more just and peaceful place for ourselves to live.
So, sit back, relax, and welcome to Camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to camp. We are not in our beautiful, wonderful tent. Instead, we are here outside of a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. This is take two of this amazing episode we're about to record on Universe 25. Our first take was interrupted.
Yeah, it was invaded by injured Tanzanians in their 80s.
And I'm sure the people at home are like, what do you mean? How does a podcast get invaded by a menagerie of Tanzanians?
By a geriatric Tanzanian just recovering from knee surgery.
Well, here's the clip, and just to give you guys context of what happened. Even if... A little bit more towards you, Mark. Yeah, that's fine. So that's basically what happened. In the middle of our recording, the slowest invasion of all time happened. Yeah, and I didn't like how you treated that guy. What do you mean? What did I do?
You came and you go, hey, you're f***ing up my podcast. No, I didn't do that. You said, hey, old f***. I did not do that. Why don't you waddle into someone else's show?
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Chapter 2: How does overcrowding affect social behavior in Universe 25?
Yeah.
And that's why FanDuel is no.
So this was an experiment for anyone that doesn't know. Created by this guy, John B. Calhoun.
Mm-hmm. He do be Calhoun.
Who we learned is not John C. Calhoun. Calhoun, the vice president under Thomas, no, Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson. That's exactly right. Yeah, I knew that.
John C. Calhoun, he was a behavioral researcher who worked at the National Institute of Mental Health during a time when there was a lot of concerns about population growth and urbanization. Yeah. Basically, you had these cities that were exploding after World War II, and people were just flocking to these urban centers, living in these super densely populated metropolises.
And in the mid-20th century, with all this urban expansion, global populations rising, people were like, how many people are allowed to exist? Yeah. At what point is it too much?
Right. Because if you ever look at a map where you go, if the population was as dense as Paris, it's like we could fit everybody in Louisiana.
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Chapter 3: What were the key findings from the Universe 25 experiment?
Chapter 4: What does the breakdown of social structures in Universe 25 reveal about modern society?
These experiments basically were to illustrate social dysfunction when populations became too dense. And it's not scarcity. You know what I mean? Because obviously if there's scarcity, if you don't have food and water, people are going to start freaking out.
That's not the problem in New York. There's plenty of shit. There's food everywhere. Yeah, there's bodegas on the phone.
There's a half-eaten hot dog in the trash can. There's rats everywhere. You can shoot them with a little pellet gun.
Grill them over an open flame. Find a Puerto Rican and be like, hey, can you toss this on? And they probably will. Dude, I used to live near a lot of Bolivians and South Americans.
I've heard of those.
Yeah. And they used to make guinea pig on the street. Really? They'd be roasting up a guinea pig right in front of the M train. And? Have you tried it? No, I never tried it, but I'm not against eating a guinea pig. I would eat a guinea pig.
Yeah, the problem is like... They sound like that. Yeah, I guess it depends who's guinea pig, right?
But those are just one of those animals that we just happen to have as pets. Yeah, I mean, the difference between that and a rabbit is none.
Yeah, it's literally none.
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Chapter 5: How does Universe 25 compare to urban life today?
I'm leaving money on the table.
Yeah, dude. Guys like you just do it for the love of the game. So this guy, John C. Riley. Yes. No, John Calhoun. B. Calhoun. Starts doing these experiments, giving all these mice all the food and water they need. They have nesting materials. They have a perfect environment. But they just start getting more and more dense. Basically lets them just breed as much as they want.
And they end up getting so dense that the experiments have to be called off because the environments that they were in weren't able to accommodate. Yeah, they outgrew the labs. Yeah, basically. And these are the early experiments. And he discovered this thing called behavioral sync. And this is a phenomenon where overcrowding leads to a breakdown in the normal social behaviors of these mice.
Yeah. So the mice are normally just doing mice shit, but the second it gets overcrowded, things get off the rails. Yeah. So in the early studies, the rats exhibited extreme aggression, neglected their offspring, withdrew from social interactions, and they intrigued this guy, right? The scientist. He's over here being like, okay.
Could these patterns offer an insight to how humans would behave in a city environment as well? And so when he starts doing these early experiments, not only is the scientific community interested, all of a sudden policymakers and the U.S. government as well as global governments also start getting interested. They're like, dude, is this important? Should we take this into account? Yeah.
Like if New York gets to 10 million people, will everything just fall apart? Right. So this is where Universe 25 comes in. This is an experiment born out of the desire to basically take the behavioral collapse hypothesis to the logical end.
And he basically creates a utopia, an environment where there's unlimited food, water, nesting materials, and tries to isolate the effects of overcrowding itself. And it's about obviously studying mice, but also trying to broach the philosophical practice of how societies grow and how they function. Yeah. So he creates this environment. It's like an enclosure. It's worth getting a picture.
We can throw one up on screen. It's massive. Yeah. It's nine feet. Nine square feet. Yeah. And it's divided into four interconnected pins or pens with 16 vertical mesh stairwells leading up to 256 nesting compartments. It can hold thousands of mice. Yeah.
I think the max was, what, 3,000 or something like that?
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the 'beautiful ones' phenomenon in Universe 25?
Chapter 7: What lessons can we learn from Universe 25 about community and isolation?
And he basically creates a utopia, an environment where there's unlimited food, water, nesting materials, and tries to isolate the effects of overcrowding itself. And it's about obviously studying mice, but also trying to broach the philosophical practice of how societies grow and how they function. Yeah. So he creates this environment. It's like an enclosure. It's worth getting a picture.
We can throw one up on screen. It's massive. Yeah. It's nine feet. Nine square feet. Yeah. And it's divided into four interconnected pins or pens with 16 vertical mesh stairwells leading up to 256 nesting compartments. It can hold thousands of mice. Yeah.
I think the max was, what, 3,000 or something like that?
3,000, yeah.
That's its capacity, not... Yeah, it's interesting. Keep going, but it's like where it starts to fall apart isn't even close to 3,000. Way before that. Yeah.
So each compartment can hold up to 15 mice, and the population never even reached the theoretical maximum. These are like your apartments in Williamsburg. Exactly. Unlimited food.
Probably not Williamsburg. Probably more like, you know, maybe Bushwick or maybe an Astoria.
Yes. And there's landlords that come in. There's some scrutineer mice. Yeah, we'll get to the scrutineers. Don't worry. There's unlimited food and water. All the nesting materials they want. Temperature is maintained at like 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
Yeah, it's perfect mice weather.
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