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Scientists' Mouse Fight Club
An anonymous reader writes "To study how aggression, fighting, and winning change the brain, scientists set up a tournament of mice fights. They watched as the lab rodents took a break from their hum-drum existence and battled it out (however, the researchers broke the first rule of Fight Club by publishing a paper about their findings [abstract]). They found clear evidence of the 'winner effect,' in which a mouse that has just won a fight maintains elevated levels of testosterone and aggression, and is therefore more likely to win the next bout. Interestingly, the winner effect was strongest in mice that were fighting in their own cages — i.e., those that had home-field advantage."
"How a society channels male aggression is one of the greatest questions as to whether that society will survive. That's why I am not against violence in the media, I am against the glorification of immoral violence."
-- Dennis Prager
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I think so, Brain, but if you ask me that one more time I'm going to kick your ass! NARF!
The second rule of fight club is you DO NOT squeak about fight club. (Ugh...)
I mean, surely if cockfighting or dogfighting is illegal...
I think it would do society some good to take the blinders off and have a look at female aggression and it's consequences...
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
I could totally take a bunch of mice. Can't wait to get ripped from all the extra testosterone.
Similes are like metaphors
I wonder what the difference in this "winner effect" is when the defend-my-own-home motivation is absent?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Is this the precursor to the rage virus?
I think it would do society some good to take the blinders off and have a look at female aggression and it's consequences...
Cat Fight!!!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I know I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I once saw Mickey take on Mighty. Now, I put my money on Mighty. But, the bout was at Disney World. Mickey won in less than a minute. Then, all hopped up on testosterone, he basically took Jerry's head off in the next match.
I have seen stuff man. I was there. I have memories. Bad, bad memories.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
The article states the the effect is MOST pronounced when a mouse is defending its home territory. This means that they also had to study the effect when that motivation was absent. If you read the full text paper, and it will tell you more. It's behind a sign in page.
Female aggression only happens when women are empowered. I guess we should disenfranchise them again. (That's a joke, son.)
But more seriously, when people are given the latitude to be aggressive, you'll see a spectrum of responses. Some people can handle power responsibly, others get drunk with it and start thumping people with little provocation or cause. Systems are supposed to be designed such that abusers are culled, but it seems that just as frequently a given system of authority closes ranks and defends 'it's own' against outside accusations however well-founded.
However there's no cause to single out genders/races/ages/etc. because such categories only go so far in explaining what are ultimately individual motivations. People may draw from various behavior archetypes, may respond to various experiences in ways that can be predicted or categorized, but there are always factors that introduce variances such that you can't view people as simple equations of A + B = C every time.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
the romans did this with prisoners / gladiators so why do we need to do this now with Mouses?
I fully support this. Especially if mud is involved.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The results of this seem a little confounded to me. They "paired favored mice with the weaker...". Didn't they just introduce a bias?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Because the Romans weren't conducting a controlled scientific experiment? Because the Romans didn't write down their findings, nor were they attempting to answer a scientific question to begin with? Because what we know about gladiator fights is limited and uncertain?
I can't think of an analogy for how stupid this is; that's how stupid it is.
Since women appear to manifest aggression in very different ways than men (although increasingly exactly like men as an additional mode) it seems like a very worthwhile to single out the genders. For one thing female aggression largely goes unnoticed (or just plain denied) by society and consequently their victims are usually unnoticed as well.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
How did they get them to fight?
The tricky part was getting the little gloves and silk shorts on them.
Because Christianity castrated Western Civilization to the point where people are now afraid that losing might hurt somebody's self esteem. Used to be we could stomach where losing meant disembowelment (stomach! that's a pun!). There are gains to this attitude, such as the end of slavery and the enfranchisement of women, but the pendulum has swung so far we teach our kids to be afraid of their own shadows and every little pin-prick is treated like somebody just lost a limb.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
So, these mice basically got a false sense of confidence that might have gotten themselves a boost, and managed to avoid better fighters in the process.
But, if the fights hadn't been fixed, they would have lost handily to the, er, undermouse.
Definitely sounds like real boxing to me. :-P Wake me up when one mouse wins by tap-out.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No kidding. In general when a man gets pissed at you, he lets you know, and maybe hits you or yells at you, but in the end you work it out. On the other hand when a typical woman gets pissed at you, you had better watch out. She probably won't tell you, and instead will use psychological methods to tear you apart from the inside in an attempt to completely ruin you and leave you a quivering shell of a man. Women are vicious. Men are so much easier to deal with because they bring problems out in the open. Most girls I have dated have said proudly that they think like guys, and don't act the way most women do (as I explained earlier). But guess what? They still do it, just not as often.
In all seriousness, why is this modded as funny? Twenty percent of reported domestic abusers are female, despite the fact that a man is less likely to turn in his wife and that the police are less likely to take the case seriously due to cultural effects. Some studies have even shown that female on male spousal abuse is the more common form, though it is less physically damaging. Mothers abuse children more frequently than fathers, physical confrontations in schools are becoming increasingly perpetrated by females, and all of that says nothing to the more traditional forms of psychological and emotional aggressiveness practiced by many women.
You're very right - the fact that it gets modded funny is tellingly symptomatic of the problem. Let's end the denial and take the blinders off for the sake of all. We could start by asking why the media (or the audience) considers it "funny" for a woman to kick a man in the genitals? Or just haul of and slap/punch him - with complete impunity. Even when it is clearly painful for the recipient it is somehow supposed to be funny. It's ok for women to lose control and hit - right? Because that is the message and very few people seem to see a problem with that.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Scientists should have simply walked to the nearest stadium.
you're simply looking at the momentum from a social adaptation that was natural for women in a patriarchal society.
Sometimes that bitch from down the street is just a bitch.
Well, that just sounds like sour dough to me. I don't see any way they could have performed this experiment any more ethically. I mean I don't want to seem rye, but understanding how mice brains work, which gives us a little knowledge of how our own brains work, is hugely valuable to humans and is worth a little cruelty (as little as necessary mind you).
P.S. Have you tried it with falafel?
Doesn't that simply show a superior intellect outwitting superior physical strength?
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
The distinction is an important one, because unlike rhubarb patches, violence can be for moral or immoral purposes.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I was talking about effective physical aggression. A woman who fights 'like a girl' stereotypically (slapping, hair-pulling, etc.) is not going to be as effective as the masculine approach of attacking with powerful blows, blocking, feigning, etc. There's a reason why women take self-defense courses to learn how to handle themselves in a fight, it does not come naturally to most of them. Don't misread that, I'm not saying that fighting doesn't come naturally, I'm saying that fighting effectively does not come naturally, and men are the gatekeepers of that experience.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Well first, you have to pour each of them over a half dozen tiny mouse beers ...
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I will take exception to one of your conclusions. The "Feminist movement" actually does want equality. You forget that not all women are feminists. There are those (I met a few recently who openly admitted this in their own case) who despise feminism because it meant they couldn't be 'pretty little girls' all their lives and had to step up and fend for themselves. These are the women who actively opposed the feminist movement when it first gained steam.
In fact, many modern feminists would agree with your essential points (that feminism is being distorted and that the principle of gender equality has gone down the crapper). There two provocative books on the subject by Christina Hoff Sommers Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women and The WAR AGAINST BOYS: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men. I heard about the latter in a radio interview and the examples she raised then were about male portrayal in the media today. Essentially, her view is that revenge for past female oppression is not a worthy goal for feminists and it doesn't help the cause either.
Considering they will tear each other apart I really see nothing funny about it. You probably should seek mental help, many serial killers started out torturing animals for amusement.
I don't tend to have the same view exactly, but, I have had a small amount of martial arts training (couple of years in a couple of styles, nothing too serious), and so, I have been exposed to women trained to fight, and they are every bit a mans equal when trained (making allowances for size and strength, but those advantages can be somewhat nullified with speed, training, and experience)
That said, I heard a very interesting talk by an old martial arts master (I forget which, one of the japanese schools) in a documentary. His insight on schoolyard violene was interesting... he said its good for boys to fight when they are young because they learn their own strength, they get hurt, and they learn how much damage they can do to others and themselves.
His claim was that the danger of trying to eliminate this sort of fighting was young adults growing up not knowing their own strength and not being as aware of how much they can hurt each other, and so fights between them, when they do arise, are more deadly.
Overall, I believe it. Look at someone whose been a martial artist for years. The control that they can exhibit is amazing. The ability to throw a "lightning fast" punch, yet connect with so little force that you might not know it, or how and where to give you a good solid hit to bruise your ego without damaging your bones or flesh. Hell, one of my instructors had so much control, that I didn't realize that he was demonstrating a sneaky groin kick until I felt his toes caressing my balls. Quite unsettling how fast it happened but... he still had enough control to not even cause pain.
Now schoolyard fights wont give you that sort of control but... try sparring with some new students who just recently learned how to throw a kick and its just all unfocused power with no control.... so I can definitely see it.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Doesn't that simply show a superior intellect outwitting superior physical strength?
If the situation truly warranted absolute annihilation of the opponent, sure. But even my wife admits that women can be cruel over petty squabbles. Women seem to have a harder time working out problems (even if men only work them out after a little fighting) and seem to hold grudges for longer. A superior intellect would probably know a little something about picking your battles and the good of social harmony.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Then that would imply that the feminist movement is as interested in those cases where men are "less equal" than woman as it is in those cases where women are "less equal" than men. Can you give a few examples showing that mainstream feminism actively concerns itself with the former? I mean more than just the occasional book by women like Sommers who, brave though she is for publishing, was then shunned by mainstream feminism?
And IIRC Sommers does quite a good job of showing that mainstream feminism is not about equality anymore, if it ever was.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
You should seek mental health. Many people who lived to be miserable and grumpy started out by not having a sense of humor.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Oh and also women who do that are typically very bad at conflict resolution. And I mean actual conflict resolution, not "let it fester under the surface for a while then let it explode out when I'm in attack mode".