- Abundant, near-infinite food. Absence of predators.
- Males lose their purpose in society, become super passive and pessimistic. They "check out" (gen x).
- Females lose maternal instinct and interest in mating; they become super aggressive, territorial (modern career women, feminists). Many of them start murdering their young (abortion).
- A handful of alphas take over the society and beat everyone else up for no real purpose, since their material needs are already met (bankers, CEOs, politicians).
- The young which do survive in this twisted society never learn how to socialize properly. They just sit around eating and preening themselves (soy boys).
- Eventually the society collapses and population falls to zero.
The Wikipedia version of this experiment is hilarious: I don't want to directly link them traffic, but it white washes all modern sociological parallels, and condenses the whole thing down to "a study about overpopulation." Hah!
Instead, let's turn to Calhoun's own conclusions, bold emphasis is mine:
"For an animal so simple as a mouse, the most complex behaviors involve the interrelated set of courtship, maternal care, territorial defence and hierarchical intragroup and intergroup social organization. When behaviors related to these functions fail to mature, there is no development of social organization and no reproduction.
As in the case of my study reported above, all members of the population will age and eventually die. The species will die out.
For an animal so complex as man, there is no logical reason why a comparable sequence of events should not also lead to species extinction. If opportunities for role fulfilment fall far short of the demand by those capable of filling roles, and having expectancies to do so, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow."
As in the case of my study reported above, all members of the population will age and eventually die. The species will die out.
For an animal so complex as man, there is no logical reason why a comparable sequence of events should not also lead to species extinction. If opportunities for role fulfilment fall far short of the demand by those capable of filling roles, and having expectancies to do so, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow."
Not to make this about me, but I fit into the model via this observation from Calhoun's notes: "The excess that find no social niches emigrate." Remember: I just relocated my family full-time to the bug out house just this year. As an adult I have never felt like I have a social niche, a sentiment I've repeated to my wife and also my mother many times over the years.
I disagree with Calhoun on one minor point: he gives his hard conclusions a cop-out escape hatch with his "...and having expectancies to do so..." words-- which even he surely knew was nonsense as he said them. Social roles aren't arbitrary constructs: they are hard-wired via millions of years of evolution. He was just trying to pour some sugar on the experiment's outcome to make it go down a little easier (see? there is hope!).