44. From Mice to Humans
In Universe 25, John Calhoun attempted to create a “Mouse Utopia.” He placed eight albino mice (four males and four females) into a nine-square-foot enclosure, which contained four pens. Each pen had four food hoppers and water distributors. The experiment was designed to create an environment free of predators, with plenty of food and water. The experiment began in July 1968, and the mouse population peaked at 2,200 rodents 560 days later, eventually dwindling to zero by May 23, 1973. Over four years and ten months, the population grew from eight to 2,200 and then fell back to zero, all in an environment where food and water were plentiful. After reaching a population of about 500-600 mice, their behaviors began to change.
Aggression, among all animals, is an innate response to stress. Without stress, there is no life. In humans, stress can be internalized, leading to depression, or externalized through aggression, either productively or destructively. The economic and social aspects of human life require productive outlets for aggression to acquire food, water, and shelter. Open economic systems provide opportunities for productive aggression and foster hope. Conversely, closed economic systems often inhibit opportunities, making them more fragile and susceptible to social and economic breakdowns. These impediments frequently frustrate efforts to acquire food, water, and shelter, leading to increased destructive aggression. In Mouse Utopia, survival needs were met, with food and water provided. Yet the innate stress, from a single molecule to an entire organism, still sought expression. The fact that the mice’s aggression became destructive reflects the space restrictions and the lack of outlets for productive aggression.
Today, bureaucracy has extended its powers through debt issuance and additional regulations to fund welfare benefits and achieve its vision of Utopia. The bureaucratic distortion of currency through debasement and selective restrictions on the traditional economic and social processes that built the country directly attacks the rural cohort’s values and limits their opportunities. Supported by the urban educated, the bureaucracy has created a dystopian nightmare for the rural cohort. To temporarily extend their material advantage, the urban educated are either tolerating or, in some cases, forcing the destruction of traditional rural values on which the less educated population has built family structures, such as In Loco Parentis, marriage, and child-rearing. Is this similar to the early signs of destruction in ‘Mouse Utopia’?
The bureaucracy, through debt debasement, has accumulated over $104,000 of debt per person in the U.S. and over $267,000 of debt per taxpayer. This ever-increasing federal debt, supported by the urban educated, has restricted and reduced hope and opportunity for the rural population, tragically increasing the wealth gap. More than half of American families do not have $1,000 for an emergency. The bureaucracy is imposing this ‘altered reality’ using outdated tools of debasement, borrowing, and printing. This has led to an increase in debt-funded, welfare-dependent minorities entering the U.S., some of whom serve the urban elites while many exist solely on welfare, creating a bourgeoisie equivalent of ‘Mouse Utopia,’ with 30% of the population in poverty, welfare-dependent, and raising 35% of the children in poverty with inadequate parental guidance. With only debt financing and money printing, the urban elites will find it increasingly difficult to sustain the economic bubble. By widening the wealth gap for the lower 50% of earners, the bureaucracy has eroded the traditional political and economic power of the family, replacing it with increasing dependence on the bankrupt bureaucracy. What if, by the second quarter of 2025, a shortage of job seekers turns into a huge surplus of jobs? Tragically, this would underscore the abject failure of the urban elite’s vision. The key takeaway is that people must understand the true causes of the decline of our middle class (the wealth gap) and assign blame to each party proportionately if we are to have hope for a solution.
Since 1940, the global population has grown from 2 billion to 8.2 billion, a 400% increase. In the short term, the urban bureaucracy has inflated the system with printed money and government debt, creating the illusion of “full employment” through government-controlled misinvestment. As massive government stimulus programs wane, workers who were merely pretending to work will find themselves unemployed. The reality is that the extensive printing and deficit spending by the bureaucracy have widened the wealth gap, giving rise to two populist movements that oppose each other but are both equally responsible for the gap. Each group comprises about 35% of the population: the blues (the urban democratic left) and the reds (the rural populist right, led by a charismatic leader promising to rebuild the middle class), with seven percent of the blues controlling the bureaucracy. Incidentally, although the left has been responsible for 70% of the debasement this century (Obama & Biden), both parties share responsibility for the debt amassing through printing and debasement, leading to the erosion of the middle class.
The urban left seeks to replace morality and religion with utopian kindness. For the left, there is no pressure to confront unpleasant truths. Today, the majority of Americans cannot cover a $1,000 emergency. The left views traditional moral rationality as mere rationalization.
Currently, the government is unable to prioritize and simply spends according to its ill-defined perception of need. The populace feels entitled, so neither political extreme can speak the truth and still be elected. We are politically fragmented, with everyone wanting more, confusing wants with needs. Meanwhile, the debt-funded bureaucracy unsustainably expands the wealth gap and blames the wealthy.
Today's political landscape is polarized with 35% Republican red, 35% Democrat blue, and 30% indifferent, with 7%+ of mostly blues controlling the bureaucracy. The entrenched bureaucracy relies on sanctions, trade wars, capital wars, and excessive spending while debasing the currency to retain power and avoid a shooting war. Clausewitz, a German Prussian military commander, said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” Countries unwilling to face the threat of sanctions are abandoning the dollar. Consequently, the debt-driven bureaucracy is causing sanctions to become less effective. Weaponizing the dollar is making people reluctant to hold it, with many beginning to flee from it, promising a weaker dollar just around the corner.
The left rationalizes the expansion of bureaucracies based on a false utopian goal similar to ‘Mouse Utopia,’ which is already beginning to create a dystopia. The left seizes on issues that can never be fully resolved—charity to Africa, closing the education gap, addressing inner-city poverty—as opportunities to inject more debt into the bureaucracy. These issues remain unsolved for generations, serving as fodder for the next political cycle. The left controls most of the press, yet both parties deflect blame for their failures onto each other.
In recent decades, the bureaucracy has enabled toxic femininity and passive masculinity, following the destruction of traditional maternal roles and the dethroning of the male provider role by women. This has led to the rise of charismatic leaders claiming they will rebuild the middle class. Developed countries reliant on debt-financed bureaucracies have fostered toxic femininity and are experiencing demographic collapse, leading to an influx of asylum seekers overwhelming their borders. The bureaucracy, with promises of gifts, has taken power away from the traditional family unit. Masculine biological males, driven to please feminine women, were the drivers of family units. Driven by hope and opportunity, they were highly self-reliant. They constituted the most powerful political unit: the family. Today, the debt-financed bureaucracy has absorbed the powers of the family unit, causing demographic collapse in many industrialized countries. In America, 33% of all children are raised by single mothers, most of whom are in poverty and reliant on welfare from the debt-burdened bureaucracy. Masculine males have become passive, and feminine females have become toxic, engaging in gossip, shaming, rallying, and ridicule. Religion, shared values, marriage, and child-rearing are viewed as antiquated rationalizations by the left. Both parties' reliance on a bankrupt bureaucracy guarantees failure.
‘Mouse Utopia’ devolved into dystopia and ultimately extinction, despite never running short of food or water. So, I must ask:
In ‘Mouse Utopia,’ mothers began killing their young, which eventually devolved into maternal cannibalism. Is today’s societal obsession with fetal death rights a symptom of the destruction of the family, leading to a demographic collapse of procreation?
In ‘Mouse Utopia,’ destruction to extinction occurred over generations, from docile males whose tails were chewed on, to aggressive alpha males, to withdrawn females, and ultimately to cannibalistic mothers. Are our cities, largely welfare-dependent, showing signs of these destructive behaviors? If so, how can we rechannel destructive aggression?
Have a blessed week!
Sunshine and Transparency,
Tony Christ