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Dunbar's Number is about our cognitive ability to keep social relationships, not about how many social relationships people actually have. The later should be e

Dunbar's Number is about our cognitive ability to keep social relationships, not about how many social relationships people actually have. The later should be expected to vary widely by society, age, where you live etc. I don't understand what military unit sizes tell you about number of friends and acquaintances someone has.

chrisseaton 9y ago
Some argue that a platoon or troop is a natural number of men you can get to know well, and a company or squadron the number you can be well acquainted with. Not saying that’s true, just explaining.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  That makes a lot of sense, just like Dunbar's Number does. However, at least from my personal, anecdotal experience my number of friends and acquaintances isn't currently capped or was ever capped by my cognitive capability of being well acquainted with them, but rather by not actually meeting that many people and having very little time and energy to get to know the people I meet better. And on top of that things like moving result in weakened or lost relationships.
  - dnautics 9y ago
    > my number of friends and acquaintances isn't currently capped or was ever capped by my cognitive capability of being well acquainted with them, but rather by... having very little time and energy to get to know the people I meet better. What's the difference between "cognitive capacity" and "time and energy"? I have a near photographic memoy for faces and an exceptional ability to remember details about people's lives; I have to limit the number of friends o have for precisely that reason, my cognitive capacity to care would overshadow just about everything else in life.
    - ajmurmann 9y ago
      Well the difference is this: If I'm sitting at home every evening because I'm too exhausted from work or come home late every evening and thus have very little social interaction is a very different limiting factor than what caps the number of people in a military unit that I can keep social bounds with. In fact I might be very effective at keeping good working relationships with a large number of coworkers. That doesn't translate at all though to having many friends. At one point in my career I knew everyone in an office of about 100 people by name and had frequently very pleasant conversations with then. Yet I had fewer casual (as opposed to close) friends in the city I lived in than can be counted on one hand.

chrisseaton 9y ago

Some argue that a platoon or troop is a natural number of men you can get to know well, and a company or squadron the number you can be well acquainted with. Not saying that’s true, just explaining.

ajmurmann 9y ago
That makes a lot of sense, just like Dunbar's Number does. However, at least from my personal, anecdotal experience my number of friends and acquaintances isn't currently capped or was ever capped by my cognitive capability of being well acquainted with them, but rather by not actually meeting that many people and having very little time and energy to get to know the people I meet better. And on top of that things like moving result in weakened or lost relationships.
- dnautics 9y ago
  > my number of friends and acquaintances isn't currently capped or was ever capped by my cognitive capability of being well acquainted with them, but rather by... having very little time and energy to get to know the people I meet better. What's the difference between "cognitive capacity" and "time and energy"? I have a near photographic memoy for faces and an exceptional ability to remember details about people's lives; I have to limit the number of friends o have for precisely that reason, my cognitive capacity to care would overshadow just about everything else in life.
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    Well the difference is this: If I'm sitting at home every evening because I'm too exhausted from work or come home late every evening and thus have very little social interaction is a very different limiting factor than what caps the number of people in a military unit that I can keep social bounds with. In fact I might be very effective at keeping good working relationships with a large number of coworkers. That doesn't translate at all though to having many friends. At one point in my career I knew everyone in an office of about 100 people by name and had frequently very pleasant conversations with then. Yet I had fewer casual (as opposed to close) friends in the city I lived in than can be counted on one hand.