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Nit: Dunbar’s number is casually used in a way that doesn’t seem relevant here. It’s not true that we can only remember about 150 entities. People know many tho

Nit: Dunbar’s number is casually used in a way that doesn’t seem relevant here. It’s not true that we can only remember about 150 entities. People know many thousands of words. (It is true that there are limits on what people will remember.)

Retric 4y ago
Dunbars number relates to remembering relationships between people which is 150 * ~149 things not 150. You might not remember what everyone in the group thinks of everyone else, but keeping track of grudges is often relevant.
- robocat 4y ago
  It is nowhere near 150 * 149 because people in human networks have different amounts of connectivity, “influencers” with many connections, and others with few connections, as well as cliques with high internal connectivity but low external connectivity. And relationships between influential individuals matter way more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
  - Retric 4y ago
    Influencers are more a function of very large social networks, they don’t really represent small tightly knit communities very well. Consider something like a thanksgiving dinner you have what looks like central figures say a grandparent that everyone is related too, but the grand kids have tighter bonds to their parents than the grandparent. Extend that to a village and you get more social people with more connections across the community, but those aren’t even close to the strongest bonds.
mellavora 4y ago
Dunbar's number is that ON AVERAGE people can only maintain 150 relationships. "maintaining relationship" is not the same as remembering or knowing the person's name. It is spending enough time with the person that you have an ongoing relationship, which is eased if you remember a number of details about them (job history, hobbies, birthdays, etc). On average matters because the number is about group size, not any one individual's ability. For the group to cohere, most of the people in the group need to know most of the people in the group. You will find people who can only manage 100 or fewer relationships, likewise, people who can maintain many more, even orders of magnitude more. It isn't about the individual. It is about the group.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Another way to put it is that for a group of 100-150 or so, you'll be able know everyone decently well. A small college graduating class, or a tiny high school perhaps. At about 300 or so, you'll "recognize" most of the group, but you won't know much about many of them, or really have a relationship. And once the group is above that, you either need to have it hierarchical setup (you don't know all the members of the families at your school, but you recognize the parents, etc) or it just becomes a mash of smaller groups (no matter how you try to pretend it isn't).

Retric 4y ago

Dunbars number relates to remembering relationships between people which is 150 * ~149 things not 150. You might not remember what everyone in the group thinks of everyone else, but keeping track of grudges is often relevant.

robocat 4y ago
It is nowhere near 150 * 149 because people in human networks have different amounts of connectivity, “influencers” with many connections, and others with few connections, as well as cliques with high internal connectivity but low external connectivity. And relationships between influential individuals matter way more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
- Retric 4y ago
  Influencers are more a function of very large social networks, they don’t really represent small tightly knit communities very well. Consider something like a thanksgiving dinner you have what looks like central figures say a grandparent that everyone is related too, but the grand kids have tighter bonds to their parents than the grandparent. Extend that to a village and you get more social people with more connections across the community, but those aren’t even close to the strongest bonds.

mellavora 4y ago

Dunbar's number is that ON AVERAGE people can only maintain 150 relationships. "maintaining relationship" is not the same as remembering or knowing the person's name. It is spending enough time with the person that you have an ongoing relationship, which is eased if you remember a number of details about them (job history, hobbies, birthdays, etc). On average matters because the number is about group size, not any one individual's ability. For the group to cohere, most of the people in the group need to know most of the people in the group. You will find people who can only manage 100 or fewer relationships, likewise, people who can maintain many more, even orders of magnitude more. It isn't about the individual. It is about the group.

bombcar 4y ago
Another way to put it is that for a group of 100-150 or so, you'll be able know everyone decently well. A small college graduating class, or a tiny high school perhaps. At about 300 or so, you'll "recognize" most of the group, but you won't know much about many of them, or really have a relationship. And once the group is above that, you either need to have it hierarchical setup (you don't know all the members of the families at your school, but you recognize the parents, etc) or it just becomes a mash of smaller groups (no matter how you try to pretend it isn't).