The Death of Humanity: Lessons From the Mice of Universe 25

In the 1960’s, a psychologist in Chicago did an experiment in population density. It was to determine how populations react to increasing density with no material stresses and under ideal living conditions. Famously, within two years, the mice in the study abandoned their young, fought each other regularly, and stopped procreating. Eventually, all of the mice, despite the ideal conditions, died. According to the designer of the experiment, it was an omen of societal collapse for humans if we kept urbanizing and increasing in population. However, that sounds like a view based as much on pop culture stereotypes of urban dereliction rather than actual science at a time when cities were in decay. Having lived through decades of urban renewal with the crime rate generally decreasing, his theory doesn’t hold up. He even predicted the date of societal collapse. Perhaps to add to the cartoonish nature of his alarmism, no…