What if you could set up a society in which everybody’s needs were met, no danger, no disease, no poverty, plenty of everything to go around, and no stress? What if you could really do it?
Well, here’s a scientist who did that for mice, as an experiment; and it went along just fine for a while, but eventually all the mice died out. For those who attribute this to overcrowding, the experimenter found that the mice overcrowded themselves and had plenty of space left that they just weren’t using. They seemed to lose their purpose in life, stopped breeding, stopped interacting, and just dwindled away.
Oh, but they were only mice! A utopia designed by scientists for people, why, that would really work!
As someone who has had a lot of experience with mice, I can say they are intelligent, adaptable–in fact, you’d hardly believe how intelligent they really are–with distinctive individual personalities and abilities: indeed, they’re more like us than some would care to admit.
Having the mouse equivalent of a guaranteed income, social equality, and all the free stuff they could possibly need… simply killed them. Killed ’em dead.
He who has ears, let him hear.