#robindunbar — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #robindunbar, aggregated by home.social.
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Post: 150 People Max
The more I contemplate the fractures in modern society, the more I believe that the path forward requires turning away from massive, impersonal collectives and returning to smaller ones. I am drawn to a specific figure: 150. This is the estimated number of people who can live together under a social contract before it begins to bend and break. I first encountered this concept in Sebastian Junger’s Tribe, a book that remains a staple on my shelf today.
This threshold is known as Dunbar’s number, named after anthropologist Robin Dunbar. He theorized that humans can only comfortably maintain stable social relationships with approximately 150 people. This isn’t just a guess; it is backed by neurology and real-world evidence. Historical hunter-gatherer societies, modern military sub-units, and effective corporate departments frequently cluster around this size. Even in the age of social media, where we can follow thousands, our meaningful interactions still cap out at around the 150-person mark.
Consider the implications for a moment. Science suggests a person can only truly recognize about 500 people—the kind of recognition you have for someone you drive past every day but don’t know personally. If our brains are biologically limited to conceptualizing relationships 150 times over, how can we expect to make informed political decisions that affect millions? When the scale of government exceeds our cognitive capacity for community, the sense of mutual accountability vanishes.
This suggests a profound need for a societal shift toward “mini-collectivism.” By prioritizing local governance over centralized giants, we return to a scale where the social contract is enforceable through actual relationships rather than rigid, bureaucratic hierarchies. While it raises questions about how a globalized world would function without formalized large-scale governments, the current model’s failure to maintain social cohesion cannot be ignored.
There is something essential in this limitation. I’d love to hear your thoughts—please comment below if you think we can ever truly scale community beyond our biology.
#150 #anthropology #life #mentalHealth #philosophy #post #relationships #RobinDunbar #SebastianJunger #tribal #tribe #tribes #writing -
Ist Freundschaft nicht eine vollwertige Beziehung, bloß ohne das körperliche halt, oder gibt es da einfach Abstufungen? Ist es ein fluides Spektrum irgendwo zwischen zufälligem Treffen, Bekanntschaft und bestem Freund dem ich meine dunkelsten Geheimnisse anvertraue? Natürlich ist es das. Freundschaften muss man gar nicht unbedingt genau definieren, entweder sie gibt einem ein positives […]
https://blog.hamdorf.org/freundschaft/ -
¿Quién Gana? 1 Gorila vs. 100 Hombres
Vía: El Robot de Platón
#Divulgación #Ciencia #Matemáticas #Física #Cooperación #NúmeroDunbar #RobinDunbar #Biografías #AldoBartra #ElRobotDePlatón