If it sounds too good to be true, it's not: John B. Calhoun actually built it, all the way back in 1972. The results? In just under two years, despite having every possible amenity provided for happy living, the occupants of Universe 25 turned on each other. The collapse was apocalyptic: There was rampant cannibalism and sexual deviancy, savage violence became the norm and, most damning of all, a killer apathy took root like a plague. The few occupants of Universe 25 who were not murderballing each other to death simply stopped caring about anything -- survival, life, morality -- they all but laid down and died.
But it wasn't that big a deal; they were just a bunch of stupid mice, after all.
Cabinet Magazine
"And lo, God said, 'Thou shalt devour thy brothers as a lion does the gentle doe,' and the people despaired, gazed to the skies and proclaimed, 'Squeak?'"
Universe 25 was a 101-square-inch tank, carefully engineered to safely and comfortably hold over 1,000 mice. Everything was provided for a little mouse heaven, but it's like Rodent Sartre said: Hell is other mice.
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