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An occasional The Exposé reader writes to highlight that while Dr. Calhoun’s Universe 25 experiment demonstrated the collapse of mouse society – when mice experienced what Dr. Calhoun termed a “first death,” the death of the “animal’s spirit”- further experiments showed that when mice, before getting to the stage of this “first death,” were placed in a new environment with limited food supply – the mice were forced to cooperate and the mouse society did not collapse.

Our reader links this idea with universal basic income and that whether it is unconditional or conditional makes a difference to the outcome.

Note of explanation: When he used the term the “death of the animal’s spirit,” Dr. Calhoun was referring to the death of what makes a mouse a mouse – a particular way of thinking, feeling, or behaving. Dr. Calhoun noted that the “first death” was characterised by a loss of focus, sense of purpose and identity.  The mice had no desire to mate, raise young or establish a role within society. They merely “existed.” The first death, or the death of the animal’s “spirit” or “social death” came before the “second death” or physical death of the body.

To the Exposé,

Universal Basic Income – Unconditional or conditional liveable income?

I am your occasional reader and your work is excellent.

I have read the post now about basic unconditional income; however, it is not unconditional income if it is tied to anything. The basic difference in understanding is conditional and unconditional.

Refer to The Exposé article: Universal Basic Income Will Be Linked to Your Digital ID Which Will Be Linked to Your Social Credit Score – So Who’s Pushing For it?

At the same time, I admire Dr. Calhoun’s work.

Refer to The Exposé article: NIH Studies Conducted 50 Years Ago Showed Societal Collapse Brought About Extinction

The students of Dr. John B. Calhoun repeated the same experiment with mice several times, with the same result.

However, an interesting experiment took place when they took a group of mice at a time when they had not yet experienced the death of the spirit (social death) and placed them in a new environment, with the difference that not only the space was limited, but the supply was also limited.  Collective cooperation was activated in the mouse, they were forced to cooperate.  For example, when one mouse wanted to drink, another had to go to another place to break the dropper and the first mouse could drink etc.  The collapse of mouse society did not happen.

Basic unconditional income is not the distribution of money so that the population can live above the average, but a basic security that ensures basic human dignity.  This involves the redistribution of public finances and the cancellation of other social benefits that are unclear.  After accepting a basic unconditional income, a person will have to work if he wants to enjoy things that are in the above-standard category (coffee in a cafeteria or a drink with friends, better housing etc.) In the future, with the new coming pressure of robotisation, it will be difficult to look for a job.  It can also be solved with the concept of social COOPERATION, which should also be taken into account with regard to the work of Dr. Calhoun.

Our reflection called GROWTH explains it better, but I don’t have an English version of it, but my friend translated the reflection LOCAL RESET, which describes the problems of the current world and also talks about the mentioned understanding of basic conditional income and basic unconditional income.  In case you are interested, I attach the work to the file.

Finally, I apologise for using a machine translation, so if something is incomprehensible, Sorry :-).  

I wish you nice days,

Rostislav Čuba

Note from Rhoda Wilson:  I apologise to Rostislav for the inexcusable delay in publishing his letter.  He emailed his letter to The Exposé on 24 September.  It was promptly forwarded to me but it got buried amongst a mountain of emails that I receive daily.

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