The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat and Norwegian rat, is a widespread, common species of rat. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g (4.9 and 17.6 oz). Thought to have originated in northern China and neighbouring areas, it has now spread to all continents except Antarctica, and is the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America, having become naturalised across the world. With rare exceptions, the brown rat lives wherever humans live, particularly in urban areas. It is omnivorous, reproduces rapidly, and can be a vector for several human diseases.
Studies of wild rats in New York City have shown that populations living in different neighborhoods can evolve distinct genomic profiles over time, by slowly accruing different traits.
Naming and etymology
The brown rat was originally called the "Hanover rat" by people wishing to link problems in 18th-century England with the House of Hanover. It is not known for certain why the brown rat is named Rattus norvegicus (Norwegian rat), as it did not originate from Norway. However, the English naturalist John Berkenhout, author of the 1769 book Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain, is most likely responsible for popularizing the misnomer. Berkenhout gave the brown rat the binomial name Mus norvegicus, believing it had migrated to England from Norwegian ships in 1728.
Though the assumptions surrounding this species' origins were not yet the same as modern ones, by the 20th century, it was believed among naturalists that the brown rat did not originate in Norway, rather the species came from central Asia and (likely) China.
Distribution and habitat
Possibly originating from the plains of northern China and Mongolia, the brown rat spread to other parts of the world sometime in the Middle Ages. The question of when brown rats became commensal with humans remains unsettled, but as a species, they have spread and established themselves along routes of human migration and now live almost everywhere humans are.
As it spread from Asia, the brown rat generally displaced the black rat in areas where humans lived. In addition to being larger and more aggressive, the change from wooden structures and thatched roofs to bricked and tiled buildings favored the burrowing brown rats over the arboreal black rats. In addition, brown rats eat a wider variety of foods, and are more resistant to weather extremes.
In the absence of humans, brown rats prefer damp environments, such as river banks.[86] However, the great majority are now linked to man-made environments, such as sewage systems. In addition to sewers, rats are very comfortable living in alleyways and residential buildings, as there is usually a large and continuous food source in those areas.
It is often said that there are as many rats in cities as people, but this is considered an urban myth for most cities. Brown rats in cities tend not to wander extensively, often staying within 20 m (66 ft) of their nest if a suitable concentrated food supply is available, but they will range more widely where food availability is lower. It is difficult to determine the extent of their home range because they do not utilize a whole area but rather use regular runways to get from one location to another. Urban rat research is considered to be challenging due to their significant global population size and spatial distribution patterns. There is great debate over the size of the population of rats in New York City, with estimates from almost 100 million rats to as few as 250,000. Experts suggest that New York is a particularly attractive place for rats because of its aging infrastructure and high poverty rates. In 2023, the city appointed Kathleen Corradi as the first Rat Czar, a position created to address the city's rat population. The position focuses on instituting policies measures to curb the population such as garbage regulation and additional rat trapping. A 2024 study using data from Vancouver found that most municipal complaints about rats were related to garbage, and the rats were often viewed as a symptom of a community issue.
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Yeah that is what it means. For instance, the most popular example, from the book itself: "War is Peace."
Questions you can ask:
There are wars wages by the oppressed, against oppressors, there's wars waged by the oppressors against the oppressed.
There's peace upheld by oppressors against the oppressed, to exploit them. There's peace upheld by the oppressed, shielding against the oppressors.
And then there's parties stuck between these multiple class positions, one foot each door. Unable to make a decision. Such as a oppressed who has been granted special privileges by the oppressor. And there's also social classes that have been formed, as a result of currently existing super-structure. Making it even more complicated. Your skin color, your height, how you look like, where you were born, what's your education, are you married? can you bear children? do you have a disability? how easy is it to hide your differences? (visible vs invisible disabilities, visible vs invisible "racial" difference.)
There's also the fact that I'm a random stranger on the internet. For someone to take me seriously they'd have to take millions of others equally seriously, that is not physically possible for a human being to accomplish. Knowing this it's much easier to make an assumption, based on your accumulated knowledge and in your mind you're imagining a stereotype, which you think I am. Likely you are imagining a hostile "Know it all" type of person who is eager to engage in a rhetorical argument, to boost my own ego, someone who thinks she's smarter than other people on this website. I might be wrong, but this is my own stereotype I have of the people who read my posts. I'm imagining that most people don't even bother reading them. The ones who do probably dislike me and find me irritating. Some of that is my fault for being so argumentative and being hesitant to compliment people, because I myself find compliments uncomfortable.
But I think that's one of the major issues with the current internet and how it functions. There's too many of us. There's no way to verify someone's credentials. No way to tell if you should put any merit in trusting me. At best we can make attempts to legitimize ourselves, by quoting already established sources. However, this requires intense reading and block quotes are easily misinterpreted and dismissed, manipulated etc. You can see it's even become a style for some "Communists" like Zizek who loved to say shit like "Ah you don't need to engage in all this thinking bullshit to understand Shakespeare, we actually understand him better than he did himself!" I'm para-phrasing, but I know he said that.
What convenient way to disengage from the thought process. But again I can't critique him really. Unlikely anyone will take me seriously. And it's unlikely I will gain any traction or support, due to the fact that our society, at large, has already been shaped by pre-existing super-structure and the only feasible way for me to grow is to lie and go with the grain, slowly building up a support base, then as I gain "power" I can speak more and people will trust me, because if I'm popular I must be smart. Which in itself could be a doublethink: "If Elon Musk not smart, why is he so Rich?" "If This user is correct why is she so Poor?"
Surely if I was intelligent I'd know exactly how to get myself into a position of power, build up more power and install Socialism. So why isn't there socialism? This is where the "Human nature" argument often stems from. Imo. It goes like this:
If Socialism is good, then there must be at least one capable leader alive, who could make it happen. Because it hasn't happened, it must be bad. Kind of similar to time machine argument: "If there was one we'd know already."
And if I want to be a
I can just say: "Well obviously there's just some things we don't know, just do what you can. Don't worry about it, let the ignorant masses fight it out over each other, I'm the radical centrist with the one correct take.."
We are here thanks to countless people who have Marched, to the capacity they could, before us. They got us this far. It has only been 5 thousand years and we're already this far. Without those, who put humanity and our world, above their own desires, we'd have nothing. Nothing at all. We'd already have consumed each other to oblivion.
Where do correct ideas come from?
(This is also a reply to that meme from @hello_hello@hexbear.net )
Apologies for the wall of text I tried to keep it as concise as possible.