terrycolon.com presents
Unhiding the Decline
Beyond the Pale
“9-1-1. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“I’ve just gone into labor and I need an ambulance before it’s too late.”
“OK. Which hospital did you need to be rushed to?”
“No hospital. This is Michigan, I need to get to the abortion clinic, fast.”
Found Art (or Unintentional Parody)
“I have seen the future, and it twerks.” *
Forget the Magic 8 Ball, the Barbie stylists over at Mattel have already divined the future.
* With no apologies to Will Durrant, or anyone else living or dead at the New York Times.
Filed 9/13/24
Two Tears for Britain!
Hail, Britannia, Britannia by the sea
Britons never hereafter shall be free
This musical interlude brought to you by the Labour Party
In the News
Tyson Foods Group announced plans for (I’m not making this up) new insect protein based products. Consumers need no longer worry about bugs and insect parts in their Jimmy Dean™ sausage or Ballpark™ brand franks because coming soon they will not be lacking in either. Tastes like chicken? No, tastes like Tyson. Bon appétit.
Filed 3/25/24
What’s Mouse Utopia?
Too Much of a Good Thing or Nothing Fails Like Success
In 1968 John B. Calhoun created what he called Mouse Utopia for four breeding pairs of wild mice. Mouse Utopia had ample food and water; no predators; no disease; comfortable temperature, conditions and space. Here’s what happened:
Stage One: Mice introduced, first litters born.
Stage Two: Population growth, doubling every 55 days.
Stage Three: Population growth slows to doubling in 145 days.
Stage Four: Population stagnates, births and deaths equal.
Terminal Stage: Last conception about day 920, all females become menopausal, the colony ages and all eventually die.
In the latter stages mice exhibited pathological behaviours and a loss of the will to procreate. It’s interesting the colony didn’t return to health with population decline, it died out entirely in less than three years. (There are different speculations as to why, but we’ll not go into that. Instead we’ll just look at some eerie parallels.)
The industrial/agricultural revolution kicked off a sort-of Mouse Utopia for people. Starvation, malnutrition and epidemics became ever rarer. Childhood mortality fell from near 50% to 1%. Everyone survived to reproduce, population exploded. (Stage Two?)
Today in long industrialized countries the birth rate is slipping below replacement levels. (Well into Phase Four?) Childless lifestyles and abortion are commonplace. (Loss of will to procreate?) Family disintegration and illegitimacy soar. The anti-hero, the dark, and the bizarre are celebrated. People don’t even know what sex or species they are anymore. Morality is reduced to personal feelings. (Pathological behavior?) Is the Terminal Stage waiting in the wings?
The human reproductive cycle is much longer than that of mice, generations are measured in decades instead of months. Any such Human Utopia collapse would take a few centuries instead of years. One wonders, is the clock ticking?
Mouse Utopia died out, not from deprivation, but by getting everything without cost. Or so it seemed, the ultimate price paid was very steep. Will humanity go the way of Mouse Utopia? As the poet Burns had it, “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.”
Bruce Charlton: Mouse Utopia and Dysfunction
