satstacker on Nostr: The famous flea jar experiment teaches us about the effects of conditioning on ...

The famous flea jar experiment teaches us about the effects of conditioning on behavior. If you put fleas in a glass jar with a lid and they hit their heads on the lid when jumping, they will eventually stop jumping as high as they can and only jump just below the lid. This conditioning becomes so ingrained that even if the lid is removed, they won't jump higher. Interestingly, fleas born outside of this environment can jump much higher. This experiment reminds us of how we may be conditioned to believe certain limitations about ourselves, based on past experiences.


A similar experiment is the fiat experiment, which began in 1971 when President Nixon suspended the convertibility of US dollars to gold. This created the paper money system we have today, which may work differently for different people, depending on their proximity to the money printer. The fiat experiment is like a modified version of the flea experiment, as we are all participants in the system, much like fleas in a jar.

The only difference is that, in the fiat experiment, the "height" of the jar gets lower every time the monetary supply is increased without a corresponding increase in productivity in the economy. This causes us to adjust our behavior and numb the pain of inflation by accepting a lower potential. Instead, we could aim to modify the experiment in the opposite way, by increasing the height of the jar, allowing generations of fleas to jump higher and reach greater potential levels than their parents.

However, history has shown us that those in power may not always act in the best interests of those below them. This creates a systemic oppression and theft of time and potential for future generations, resulting in the height of the glass jar being equal to the height of the flea, and thus the fleas' net potential becoming zero. This learned helplessness spilled over generation to generation could create the perfect recipe for a full-blown dystopia, where individuals feel powerless to change their circumstances.

Perhaps this is why we hear elderly people talk about how things were better in the past. It's a reminder of how our potential is limited by the conditioning of the environment we're in. By recognizing this, we can work to change the system and allow future generations to reach greater potential.