Universe 25: Abundance Without Agency Collapses a Mouse Society
Universe 25 placed 64 mice in a large, resource-rich enclosure; once emigration disappeared and social roles became fixed, aggression rose, reproduction declined, and the colony collapsed. The takeaways aren’t simply that abundance destroys society, but that material plenty without agency, privacy, meaningful social bonds, and opportunities for movement can erode social life—design and social interactions shape outcomes far more than resources alone, and the experiment should be read as a caution against universal claims about humans.