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Wengrow has it out for Dunbar's number for fairly esoteric philosophical reasons. Dunbar is often taken as meaning that above a certain group size, direct, int
by dalbasal 5y ago
Wengrow has it out for Dunbar's number for fairly esoteric philosophical reasons.
Dunbar is often taken as meaning that above a certain group size, direct, intuitive or emergent democratic organisation isn't possible. You need kings, presidents, parliaments , courts and whatnot. He's mad at Yuval Noah Harari for similar reasons.
It's somewhat of a straw man, imo.
As for Dunbar, what do all these Dunbar's number studies amount to? I mean sure, they confirm something about how many relationships we can maintain, and such. What does any of that imply though.
Dunbar's number studies haven't really proposed, tested or studied any consequences to their theories. What happens when group sizes increase beyond the number? That makes it pretty empty theory, imo.
- wahnfrieden 5y agoIt's promising validation for fans of there being alternatives to capitalist realism. You also can't deny there's piles of shit discourse built on top of the number, there's a good amount to unwind there.
- dalbasal 5y agoPerhaps, but personaly I found it disingenuous. Sure, Dunbar has a lot of influence in shallow realms: MBA textbooks, managerial self help books, military slideshows and such. Re: umwinding... I think most of what Wengrow unwinds is a strawman. The steelman version of Dunbar is pretty small and unimportant. The strawman is pretty much made up by Wengrow. It all amounts to cheesy discourse, IMO. It has a "what the media don't want you to know" quality to it.