Taxpayers paid $9.6 million for a gender ideologue's puberty-blocker study. She hid it. Now we know why.



A study of puberty blockers has finally seen the light of day, despite the best efforts of the activist physician behind it.

The former medical director of what was long the nation's biggest child sex-rejection clinic suppressed the results of a taxpayer-funded study following 95 children who were given puberty blockers, expressing fear that the results might be used against her craft and ideology.

'Every taxpayer should be furious that this research was encouraged and funded.'

The study, which was obtained by the Oversight Project and published on Thursday by the Daily Signal, is every bit as injurious to the gender ideologue's preferred narrative as she apparently suspected.

Suppression

Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the president of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health, has made no secret of her radicalism.

This former medical director of the gender clinic at Children's Hospital Los Angeles — a clinic that conducted medical procedures on minors and provided confused children with puberty blockers that could affect their future fertility — has, for instance, publicly argued against mandatory psychological assessments prior to sex-rejection mutilations; compared teen girls cutting off their healthy breasts to taking the SATs; and allegedly provided sex-rejection hormones to kids as young as 12 and referred little girls as young as 13 for double mastectomies.

A year prior to her clinic's closure in July 2025 — the result of a crackdown by President Donald Trump and his administration — Olson-Kennedy revealed that she and her team had suppressed the results of the years-long study funded by the National Institutes of Health regarding "long-term outcomes of medical treatment for transgender youth."

When asked why she was refusing to publish the data for which taxpayers paid at least $9.6 million, Olson-Kennedy "said the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court," reported the New York Times.

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"I do not want our work to be weaponized," said Olson-Kennedy. "It has to be exactly on point, clear, and concise. And that takes time."

The reason her findings were politically sensitive is because the study apparently showed that the so-called "gender-affirming care" promoted at the L.A. clinic and elsewhere was not all it was cracked up to be.

Amy Tishelman, a psychologist at Boston College who was one of the study's original researchers, noted at the time, "I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there."

Tishelman acknowledged that the study had found that kids given puberty blockers — drugs that have long been used to chemically castrate sex offenders — did not see psychological improvements but suggested that "no change isn't necessarily a negative finding."

Despite the interest expressed by Tishelman and others in releasing the study, it remained under wraps.

Exposure

According to the newly released report of Olson-Kennedy's study, titled "The Impact of Early Medical Treatment in Transgender Youth," two years of puberty blockers didn't make much of a difference for the mental health of the test subjects, one-quarter of whom went in reportedly having thoughts about suicide and 8% of whom previously attempted to kill themselves.

Activists and so-called experts previously claimed that puberty blockers amount to a "lifesaving option" and that "withholding puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria will very likely have serious adverse effects on the health and well-being of young people." The Mayo Clinic still suggests on its website that puberty blockers might "improve mental well-being."

Rather than "improve" the kids' mental health, the study merely said of puberty blockers:

Over 2 years of medical intervention that started with blockers, mental health remained relatively stable and was on par with the population at large. These youth showed no worsening of their mental or emotional health and suicidality decreased from baseline to 24 months. Mean scores on mental health measures remain stable in a clinically non-significant range over two years.

In a previous progress report, Olson-Kennedy hypothesized to the National Institutes of Health that kids taking puberty blockers for two years would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time," reported the Times.

Neal Cornett, the Oversight Project's director of state litigation, said in a statement to Blaze News, "The final report confirms what anyone sensible would know — treating troubled youth with puberty blockers and hormone treatments does nothing to improve their mental health. What it does do is support a medical-industrial complex that must provide lifelong medical care to those who suffered from its harmful medical interventions. Every taxpayer should be furious that this research was encouraged and funded for the decade the country lost its collective mind."

Cornett added, "Dr. Olson-Kennedy was no doubt concerned that the final report would call into question the rationale behind her research. That isn’t weaponization. It’s justifiable scrutiny of a practice the majority of Americans rightly oppose."

While Olson-Kennedy's study is undoubtedly a gut-punch for gender activists, major studies released in the U.S. and the U.K. have already made clear that puberty blockers are not worth the risk.

The Cass Review, an independent investigation into sex-rejection drugs and procedures that was commissioned by NHS England and published in 2024, concluded that:

  • the quality of previous studies suggesting that puberty blockers are beneficial in reducing mental distress and improving the well-being of gender-dysphoric youth is "poor";
  • the alternatively high-quality "University of York systematic review found no evidence that puberty blockers improve body image or dysphoria";
  • puberty blockers "may reduce psychological functioning";
  • most kids' gender dysphoria appears to be "resolved by puberty"; and
  • "brain maturation may be temporarily or permanently disrupted by the use of puberty blockers."

The Department of Health and Human Services' exhaustive peer-reviewed 2025 report on pediatric treatments for "gender dysphoria" also highlighted numerous physical risks associated with puberty blockers including reduced bone mineral density, compromised skeletal development, infertility, and sexual dysfunction.

Olson-Kennedy could not immediately be reached for comment.

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'Our results shocked us': HHS report confirms your darkest suspicions about trans ideology



Amid ruinous pro-trans policies advanced by Democrat lawmakers around the country and a seemingly interminable string of horrific attacks allegedly plotted and/or executed by trans-identifying radicals, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services commissioned a study on the connection between gender ideology and leftist authoritarian beliefs.

The findings in the study published on Wednesday are damning — but likely won't surprise anyone who has been paying attention.

'Greater political liberalism independently predicted higher justification of political violence as well.'

The new study commissioned by HHS, titled "Where the Clinic Meets the Movement: Does Gender Ideology Arm Left- Wing Authoritarian Psychology?," is the latest addition to the genre of scientific literature confirming what the right already knew.

The research team behind the study included Joel Finkelstein, chief science officer and co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute; Lee Jussim, head of the Social Perception Laboratory at Rutgers University; and Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist who serves as a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Together, they developed a "Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale," measuring endorsement of five positions related to gender ideology.

The five positions derive from official guidance issued by organizations that "represent the official scientific and clinical establishment on care for individuals who identify as transgender," according to the researchers.

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The five consensus positions with which respondents were asked to agree or disagree included:

  • "Failure to affirm a transgender person's gender identity increases the risk of serious psychological distress to the trans person."
  • "People should be supported in expressing their transgender identity."
  • "Using the name a person chooses as part of their gender transition is a necessary form of support."

'Biological-sex classifications and traditional parental or familial authority is seen as structures of harm.'

Using a questionnaire provided to over 1,200 majoritively Democrat-leaning Americans, the researchers tracked whether there was any correlation between endorsement of these organizations' consensus positions in the CGAS and left-wing authoritarianism.

"Our results shocked us," said Colin Wright.

"All correlations were substantial," said the study.

"The relationship was not merely descriptively correlational; endorsement of CGAS was a strong statistical predictor of left-wing authoritarianism."

The study noted that endorsements of both the CGAS and left-wing authoritarianism "were significantly positively correlated with justification for political violence" against President Donald Trump, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, wealthy Americans' property, the police, and two recent victims of assassination — Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, and Brian Thompson, the late CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

"CGAS was a consistent and statistically significant predictor of political violence justification," said the study. "... Political identity was also a significant predictor across all six outcomes, indicating that greater political liberalism independently predicted higher justification of political violence as well."

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Since the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have supported the five positions at some point, the findings of the research "raise a question of scientific responsibility," continued the study.

The researchers cautioned, however, that gender ideology "was not simply standing in for being politically left-wing; it explained additional variation in political violence justification beyond political identity. Thus, its association with political violence cannot be reduced simply to ordinary left-right political identification."

According to the researchers, gender ideology appears to function as a framework through which left-wing authoritarian tendencies can be concentrated.

After all, it not only provides left-wing authoritarians with potential targets to go after — including straights, Republicans, conservative Christians, and law enforcement — but "mandates institutional norm enforcement" by way of compelling speech, crackdowns on parental resistance, and institutional discipline.

This framework also provides left-wing authoritarians with "a third form of ideological fuel: a conventional order to dismantle. As such, biological-sex classifications and traditional parental or familial authority is seen as structures of harm requiring a moralized project of institutional correction."

"This study raises important questions about what happens when ideology is given the authority of medicine," said Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brian Christine. "The association between sex-rejecting clinical beliefs, authoritarian attitudes, and the justification of political violence warrant[s] serious scientific scrutiny."

Christine noted further that "HHS will continue to pursue rigorous research that examines these relationships and gives the American people the evidence they deserve."

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Who’s afraid of the Amish data?



Nothing scares the vaccine establishment more than a meaningful control group. Some vaccine trials do use inert placebos, but most compare a new product with an existing vaccine or another formulation. What we almost never get is long-term randomized evidence comparing children who receive the full schedule with children who receive none of it.

Thanks to ubiquitous mandates, cultural taboos, and pressure from pediatricians, truly unvaccinated children are also increasingly difficult to find in large numbers. That is why the Amish data are so revealing — and why they should be studied rather than waved away.

Why treat a naturally occurring unvaccinated cohort as an inconvenience rather than an opportunity?

Last year, the Supreme Court vacated a shocking Second Circuit decision siding with the state of New York against Amish parents who declined to vaccinate their children. In Miller v. McDonald, the parents argued that forcing the Amish to violate their religious beliefs in their own private schools violates the First Amendment. Yet after the Supreme Court sent the case back for reconsideration in light of its recent religious-liberty precedent, the Second Circuit last month again ruled for New York.

The legal fight continues and so does the coercion.

Putting aside the legal and moral issues at stake, the facts presented during discovery about the health of the unvaccinated Amish should be newsworthy across the world, especially as we debate both the new mRNA flu shot and the discovery that Anthony Fauci was aware of COVID vaccine injuries from the beginning.

Siri & Glimstad LLP, which represents the Amish families, provided the federal district court in New York with sworn expert medical evidence about the health status of 168 students in the three Amish schools targeted by the state for financial penalties.

The doctor’s declaration states: “I am advised that there are 26 families across the three Amish schools at issue, which have a total of 168 unvaccinated children (meaning they have received no vaccines) and that none of them have any health issue that arose after birth.”

The declaration then compares those 168 children with national background rates for allergies, autism, asthma, and ADHD. Using those rates, a random sample of 168 U.S. children would be expected to include several cases of each condition. According to the declaration, however, there were no documented cases of autism, ADHD, asthma, or food allergies among the 168 Amish children.

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No, that does not magically turn 168 Amish children into a randomized clinical trial. The Amish differ from the broader population in diet, lifestyle, environment, genetics, health care use, and countless other ways. But it does make them a rare, naturally occurring cohort of completely unvaccinated children — exactly the kind of population serious researchers should want to examine.

And the court filing does not rely only on the Amish. It also presents records from 99 unvaccinated children who had religious exemptions in four contiguous school districts in Ulster County, New York. Those records were drawn from state school health examination forms completed by physicians. Here is the comparison presented in the filing:

The numbers are striking. The filing reports zero cases of autism and diabetes in the Ulster County group, lower rates of ADHD and allergies, and a much lower asthma rate than the cited background figures.

Those differences do not prove vaccination caused the higher general population rates. They do raise an obvious question: Why not study the difference rigorously?

The court-filed evidence also notes that the expansion of the childhood vaccine schedule has occurred during the same decades in which autoimmune, developmental, and neurological diagnoses have risen sharply. Correlation is not causation, and anyone pretending otherwise is doing bad science. But correlation can be a reason to investigate — especially when government is mandating the products in question.

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These retrospective comparisons do not prove that vaccines cause autism, asthma, allergies, ADHD, or any other condition. They cannot control for all the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. But when government mandates a growing schedule of products for healthy children, shouldn't the burden be on public health authorities to pursue the strongest possible long-term safety evidence?

Why treat a naturally occurring unvaccinated cohort as an inconvenience rather than an opportunity?

That problem remains with the latest mRNA flu vaccine, which is being compared against another flu vaccine rather than an unvaccinated cohort. If officials want to mandate these products, why not demand the strongest possible evidence about their long-term effects? And why did the New York Department of Health decline to engage the data the Amish families placed before the court rather than explain why the comparisons are misleading?

What is self-evident is that vaccine mandates make these questions harder to answer by shrinking the pool of children who remain completely unvaccinated. New York is willing to coerce Amish families in the name of public health? Then public health officials should be willing to confront the data those families have put before them and show their work.

Religious liberty demands no less. Neither does science.

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My son’s disease progressed while the FDA waited



Birthdays should mark milestones, offer hope for another year, and remind us to cherish the people we love.

But on the first anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to restrict access to Elevidys, a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, there will be no cake or candles in our home.

The only birthdays Duchenne families want to celebrate are the ones our children are still here to have. The FDA should help us light those candles.

My 14-year-old son, Ryu, is still fighting to reach another birthday.

A year ago, I was exploring Elevidys as a treatment that might help him live a longer, fuller life. Then, almost overnight, that hope disappeared. The FDA first halted use of the therapy entirely before restoring access only for boys who could still walk. Ryu, who already uses a wheelchair, was left behind.

By age 14, more than 82% of Duchenne patients use a wheelchair. After age 15, the share exceeds 90%.

I have spent my life living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare, progressive genetic disease that causes muscles to waste away and almost always leads to premature death. It has shaped every chapter of my family’s story. I watched my brothers, Angelo and Antonio, die from Duchenne in their early 20s.

I began considering Elevidys because I trusted the science and the physician who brought it to my attention. I believed my son deserved the same opportunity other eligible patients were receiving.

Instead, the past year has been heartbreaking.

Ryu’s disease has progressed. His breathing is weaker, and he relies on his BiPAP machine more than he did a year ago. Duchenne families measure time differently. Every lost ability is marked by a clock that never turns back.

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The FDA said it restricted Elevidys after reports of three patient deaths. Those boys died from liver complications, not complications caused by wheelchair use. Families like mine struggle to understand why patients with advanced disease lost access to a treatment because of risks that were not unique to them.

Safety must remain paramount. We are not asking regulators to approve every experimental therapy or ignore serious adverse events. Elevidys had already passed through years of research and clinical trials and had been administered to Duchenne patients before access was narrowed.

We are asking for something more modest and more humane: When a disease is progressive and fatal, families should be allowed to work with their doctors to decide whether the potential benefit justifies the risk for their own children.

The anniversary of the Elevidys restriction also marks the moment I turned 40 years of helplessness into action. I learned what an op-ed was and wrote my first one. I entered the intimidating world of social media.

On my first trip to Washington, D.C., I learned how to call an Uber and met with senators, staff members, other rare-disease mothers, and patients. I did not go because I wanted to become an activist. I went because I am a mother. I had to speak for my son and honor the memory of my brothers, who never lived to see the possibilities available to patients today.

My brother Angelo volunteered for experimental research in the 1990s, when almost no treatment options existed. He wanted future children with Duchenne to benefit from his courage. Years later, one of those children would be his nephew — my son.

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The FDA is entering a period of new leadership. The next commissioner should put patients first, recognize that rare diseases demand urgency, and trust families and physicians to make informed decisions together. Returning to the old approach would cost families the one thing no regulator can restore: time.

Hope has a birthday too. We celebrate it whenever a scientist makes a breakthrough, a doctor refuses to give up, a parent fights for one more chance, or the FDA chooses urgency over bureaucracy.

I pray this dark anniversary is the last time FDA policy leaves Duchenne families behind — and the beginning of a new era in which boys like Ryu have the chance to live as fully and as long as possible.

The only birthdays Duchenne families want to celebrate are the ones our children are still here to have. The FDA should help us light those candles.

Have pop music lyrics made America meaner?



Ask almost anyone why America seems angrier than it did a generation ago, and you'll hear the usual suspects: social media, partisan politics, cable news. But what if another culprit has been hiding in plain sight all along — inside the songs we play every day?

A study recently published in Scientific Reports suggests our playlists may tell us more about the country's moral trajectory than we realize. Researchers analyzed nearly 400,000 songs spanning six decades, tracking how often lyrics invoked virtues such as care, loyalty, and compassion versus themes of cheating, revenge, vice, and harm.

Nobody racks up a billion Spotify streams with a breakup anthem called 'I Respect Your Boundaries and Wish You Well.'

The results were difficult to ignore.

Monetize the misery

Lyrical themes centered on betrayal, cruelty, and moral transgression have surged, while old-fashioned virtues like loyalty, empathy, and basic decency have steadily faded. Grandma's favorite crooner asked for your hand in marriage. Today's streaming superstar wants to key your car, burn down your house, and monetize the misery.

The statistics read like a rap sheet for the Billboard charts. References to cheating and betrayal rose by more than 70%. Themes of degradation climbed by over 60%. Meanwhile, expressions of genuine care steadily declined. The charts increasingly reward revenge, resentment, and contempt while rewarding compassion far less than they once did. We have moved a long way from "We Can Work It Out" to "I hope you choke on your lies."

Naturally, the researchers include the obligatory academic disclaimer: Correlation does not equal causation. Fair enough.

The real question isn't whether every listener imitates every lyric. It's whether hundreds of millions of people, absorbing the same emotional scripts year after year, gradually reshape the emotional climate of a culture.

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Despair in D

Music has never been mere background noise. It reinforces emotional habits. Songs teach us which reactions deserve applause, which resentments should be nurtured, and which kinds of people become heroes or villains. They don't dictate behavior, but they help define what feels normal.

For anyone who still insists lyrics are just harmless poetry, consider the grunge explosion of the early 1990s. That era produced extraordinary music, but it also made alienation, despair, and emotional detachment strangely glamorous. Grunge didn't invent teenage angst, but it undeniably gave it a soundtrack and, for many young listeners, an identity.

If a generation could absorb that emotional atmosphere through music, it isn't unreasonable to wonder what six uninterrupted decades of increasingly cynical and vengeful lyrics might accomplish.

Betrayal with a beat

Of course, the counter-argument deserves serious consideration. Perhaps musicians are simply cultural weather vanes rather than cultural architects. When public trust collapses, institutions weaken, and family life frays, songwriters naturally gravitate toward darker material. Popular music may simply be documenting a society already in decline. The songs are less the explosion than the soundtrack playing while the building burns.

Even if that's true, it still leaves us with an uncomfortable feedback loop. Society grows harsher. Music reflects that harshness. The music then normalizes it for the next generation, making cruelty ordinary and contempt emotionally familiar.

We also can't ignore the incentives of the modern attention economy. One doesn't have to become a card-carrying Marxist to recognize that outrage is profitable. Streaming platforms, much like social media, reward intensity over restraint. Nobody racks up a billion Spotify streams with a breakup anthem called "I Respect Your Boundaries and Wish You Well." Audiences crave betrayal, public humiliation, vengeance, and emotional spectacle because those emotions command attention.

Did pop music single-handedly make America meaner? Probably not.

But for more than half a century, our most popular songs have steadily sung less about forgiveness, loyalty, sacrifice, and reconciliation and more about revenge, narcissism, betrayal, and score-settling.

Culture is an ongoing conversation. If, decade after decade, the soundtrack of everyday life increasingly celebrates contempt over compassion, we shouldn't be surprised when public life begins to sound the same way.

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Mental illness has become a political identity — and SURPRISE, it's on the left: Study



There have been numerous studies in recent years highlighting correlations between political affiliation and mental health.

A 2021 study published in the journal SSM-Mental Health, for instance, concluded — on the basis of an analysis of depressive attitudes among conservative and liberal 12th graders from 2005 to 2018 — that "conservatives reported lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups."

'These findings have far-reaching consequences.'

A 2023 study conducted by Gallup on behalf of the Institute for Family Studies found that adolescents with "very conservative parents are 16 to 17 percentage points more likely to be in good or excellent mental health compared to their peers with very liberal parents."

A 2025 study published in the journal PLOS One found that "even after accounting for a variety of other factors, there is a clear propensity of conservatives to provide more positive assessments of their mental health in comparison to liberals" — although the researchers ultimately attempted to credit this tendency to stigma or survey terminology.

The American left's mental health issues show no signs of clearing up. In fact, while conservatives continue to enjoy relatively superior mental health, the sickness on the other side appears to be attracting sufferers into a political identity all its own.

In a study strongly recommending "replication and further exploration" that was recently published in the journal Political Behavior, Lauren Van De Hey of Utah State University found that "mental health identity has begun to function as a political identity for some individuals," particularly among "younger (Gen Z) and more liberal Americans."

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Utilizing data from the national Cooperative Election Study administered by YouGov in 2022, the Utah researcher determined that a great many people now "categorize themselves as having had a mental illness, the vast majority of whom view mental illness identity and mental illness alienation as important to their sense of self."

"People who have experienced mental illness feel close to others who have experienced mental illness," wrote Van De Hey. "They are also likely to self-categorize as having or having had a mental illness, share a sense of group consciousness with others who have or had mental illness, and recognize the need to work together to change laws that are unfair to people with mental illness."

This obviously has political implications, explained the researcher, as it correlates with "support for increased state spending on health care, education, and welfare."

The study cited Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) as an example of a political elite for whom mental health appears to have become a "politicized identity."

Smith has on numerous occasions discussed her past experiences with depression, grouped herself with sufferers, and identified "mental health parity" as a legislative priority.

"Those more likely to categorize as having a mental illness are more likely to have a college degree; be a Democrat, liberal, and white; and have slightly lower family income," said the study. "For both the [Mental Illness] Identity and [Mental Illness] Alienation scales, the only consequential variable is ideology: Those with higher MI identification or MI Alienation are more likely to be liberal."

Van De Hey concluded, "These findings have far-reaching consequences for mental health advocacy and the role mental health identity will play in the political sphere — especially as Gen Z matures as a cohort."

Dealing with a sample of 860 respondents, Van De Hey found that 26% categorized themselves as having had a mental illness in their lifetime, 22% categorized themselves as having had a physical disability, and 168 categorized themselves as having had a serious chronic physical illness.

Of the 220 respondents who said they had mental illness in their lifetime, 70% identified as "liberal" or "very liberal," 24% identified as "moderate," and 32% identified as "conservative" or "very conservative."

Of the same 220 respondents, about half stated that their identity as a person with a mental health illness was "important" or "very important to them."

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The utopia trap: Glenn Beck warns America is living this disturbing experiment that ENDS in extinction



What happens when every problem disappears? In one of the most unsettling social experiments ever conducted, scientist John Calhoun created a perfect paradise for mice — complete with unlimited food, safety, and comfort.

“1968, a scientist comes out, and he’s decided he’s going to make utopia, not for people, but for mice and rats. OK? His name was John Calhoun. He worked at the National Institute of Mental Health, and he wanted to answer the question that I think should interest all of us,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck explains.

That question is, “What happens with a society when every problem is removed?”

“So he builds this paradise. It’s a mouse world. Unlimited food, water that never runs out, no predators, no disease, perfect temperature, endless nesting material. Every danger, every want, every stressor that a mouse has ever faced in the history of mice — completely gone. The only thing he gives them, besides protection, was each other and time,” Glenn says.


Calhoun put four male and four female mice into the experiment, and “at first, it’s mouse heaven.”

“They breed. The population doubled about every 55 days,” Glenn explains. “And he called this the strive period. It was heaven, and it was working exactly as designed. But by day 300 or 315, something like that, there were more than 600 mice thriving in a space that he had built to hold nearly 4,000.”

“That’s the peak. Something starts to go horribly wrong. Growth slows for no physical reason. They can’t figure it out. All of a sudden. And in all 25 experiments, exactly the same thing,” he says.

“There’s no role left for a mouse to fill. And a creature with no role, no struggle, no purpose, starts to come apart. The males who had nothing to fight for either turned violent or vanished into apathy,” he continues. “Let me ask you something. What’s happening in our society right now?”

Glenn points to the young men growing up who have nothing to fight for, explaining that they’ve also turned violent and apathetic.

“Then you have the moms. The mothers stopped mothering. They abandoned their young. They began attacking their young. They forgot about their children. The whole intricate social order that made a mouse a mouse completely dissolved in 25 identical experiments 25 times,” he explains.

“Then came the most haunting part of the experiment, I think. There’s a new kind of mouse that appears. This mouse didn’t fight. They didn’t court. They didn’t mate. They didn’t compete. They wouldn’t engage with others at all,” he says.

These mice were called “the beautiful ones” because they spent all their time grooming themselves instead of foraging or fighting.

And with their emergence, the population began to decline.

“On day 600, in a world still overflowing with food, the last baby is born,” Glenn says. “Day 600. After that, nothing. Not one mouse, not ever. And on day 920, the last mice, the last of the mice dies in paradise.”

“And Universe 25 becomes the 25th tomb,” he adds.

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