5 ms·

90 years ago in Serve it Forth, the glorious M. F. K. Fisher stated definitively that the maximum number of people at an ideal dinner party is six, and probably

90 years ago in Serve it Forth, the glorious M. F. K. Fisher stated definitively that the maximum number of people at an ideal dinner party is six, and probably three or four. Glad to see she's being upheld! Of course, the individuals probably matter more: >It is, though, very dull to be at a table with dull people, no matter what their sex. Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat—and drink!—with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.

wslh 2y ago
> 90 years ago in Serve it Forth... I wish there were a tool that could quickly connect new articles to older ideas, highlighting how much of what seems original today often builds on existing work, or just was mentioned before. It wouldn't need to be as precise as mathematics or the hard sciences, just probabilistic enough to reveal meaningful connections.
- jackthetab 2y ago
  That would be _tres cool_. Thinking out loud here...That could be like an LLM that is tokenized on ideas as opposed to words/fragments, no? I'm sure someone has worked on this, but how would a computer extract an idea from a bunch of words (sentences?) ? Looks like another rabbit hole to add to the list...
  - wslh 2y ago
    I would say that tracing concepts back to their origins could be a good benchmark for evaluating AI models. In the context of the article you mentioned, Robin Dunbar’s research and the Max4 Principle are referenced [1], along with a relevant Wikipedia article [2]. Expanding further, one can trace earlier foundational works, such as “The Primary Group as Cooley Defines It” [3], and even earlier sociological contributions by thinkers like Auguste Comte. As for the “Serve it Forth” answer, I haven’t come across that yet except when, obviously?, I named it explicitly. [1] https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups [3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  It could only go back to 1992 or so. For most people, history is whatever is linkable or the 5% of pre-1992 stuff that is popular enough to rate a dead wiki footnote.
  - wslh 2y ago
    The Google Ngram Viewer indicates that data was indexed well before 1992, even if the resource isn’t publicly accessible [1]. This likely reflects the reality that new content often garners more attention than old content, which doesn’t align with the "pay-per-click" model of monetization. [1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=darwin&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=darwin&year_st...
ghaff 2y ago
When I was a full-time IT industry analyst, one of the things that regularly annoyed me was overly large tables at dinner. A lot of factors were in play including the fact that many analysts felt very strongly about being at a table with the "important people" (tm) in the room. But if you were at even a round table seating 8+ people, it meant in practice you only talked with a few people who were reasonably adjacent. I would say a 4-6 person table is about the largest where everyone can be talking with all the other people.
- RangerScience 2y ago
  Six can be a bit of magic number for a table in a larger crowd, because people tend to be in groups of 2 or 4, so a table for six (apparently) means you’re inviting/ causing groups to mix.
  - cutemonster 2y ago
    Three seats is also magic? To invite/cause one person in each such group of 4 to go and find new friends. Plus some drama
- Tempest1981 2y ago
  At weddings, table sizes seem to be 8 or 10. Is that deliberate, to create 2 conversation groups? I sometimes find myself trying to follow both conversations, or switching to the more interesting one. Is that bad etiquette?
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    Could be - making sure that everyone at the table always has a choice of conversation to listen to, instead of being trapped in one they have no interest in. I doubt it's that explicit, though. Maybe it's just worked out better that way over the years, without anyone fully realizing the why?
  - jfengel 2y ago
    I suspect that it's more about the geometry of best fitting people into the space. It allows the right amount of room for centerpieces and bread bowls and such. At least as far as the caterer and wedding planner are concerned, conversation is the last thing on their minds. Those tables are intended for eight comfortably. They stretch to ten. You can do twelve, but everyone is gonna be cramped.
rr808 2y ago
Dinner parties at someone's house are such a lost art. I'm going to use this winter to start to bring them back!
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  My parents used to host dinner parties. Actual sit-down dinners at a table with place settings, not pizza with paper plates. They are a lot of work, especially if you do the cooking yourself. I was pretty young and only remember them vaguely, but they stopped because nobody ever reciprocated.
  - anal_reactor 2y ago
    The problem with dinner parties is that they only work if all attendees like each other equally. Any group of people talking at once will boil down to the lowest common denominator, so one bad guest can easily ruin the whole event. Meanwhile during a pizza party it's okay to chat in a smaller group, which means that when you have a complex network of "A likes B but doesn't like C who is best friend of B", there's much higher chance of making it possible to somehow divide the guests into sensible subgroups.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      Well that brings up another thing that we seem to have lost in society: how to be pleasant at a social event even if you don't like or find agreeable everyone else there.
      - anal_reactor 2y ago
        Oh, I can perfectly do this! Actually, I'm very good at this! It's just that after 8 hours of doing so for 5 days in a row, I don't have any more energy for that.
        wellix 2y ago
        Do you have any tips on how to perfectly coexist with disagreeable people?
SoftTalker 2y ago
I like that even as someone nearly 60 years old there are still new words to learn. TIL "degustation" - the act of tasting with relish; savoring.
adverbly 2y ago
"three couples" makes an excellent group!

wslh 2y ago

> 90 years ago in Serve it Forth... I wish there were a tool that could quickly connect new articles to older ideas, highlighting how much of what seems original today often builds on existing work, or just was mentioned before. It wouldn't need to be as precise as mathematics or the hard sciences, just probabilistic enough to reveal meaningful connections.

jackthetab 2y ago
That would be _tres cool_. Thinking out loud here...That could be like an LLM that is tokenized on ideas as opposed to words/fragments, no? I'm sure someone has worked on this, but how would a computer extract an idea from a bunch of words (sentences?) ? Looks like another rabbit hole to add to the list...
- wslh 2y ago
  I would say that tracing concepts back to their origins could be a good benchmark for evaluating AI models. In the context of the article you mentioned, Robin Dunbar’s research and the Max4 Principle are referenced [1], along with a relevant Wikipedia article [2]. Expanding further, one can trace earlier foundational works, such as “The Primary Group as Cooley Defines It” [3], and even earlier sociological contributions by thinkers like Auguste Comte. As for the “Serve it Forth” answer, I haven’t come across that yet except when, obviously?, I named it explicitly. [1] https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ https://newcreate.org/max-4-principle/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_in_small_groups [3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4105179
hindsightbias 2y ago
It could only go back to 1992 or so. For most people, history is whatever is linkable or the 5% of pre-1992 stuff that is popular enough to rate a dead wiki footnote.
- wslh 2y ago
  The Google Ngram Viewer indicates that data was indexed well before 1992, even if the resource isn’t publicly accessible [1]. This likely reflects the reality that new content often garners more attention than old content, which doesn’t align with the "pay-per-click" model of monetization. [1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=darwin&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=darwin&year_st...

ghaff 2y ago

When I was a full-time IT industry analyst, one of the things that regularly annoyed me was overly large tables at dinner. A lot of factors were in play including the fact that many analysts felt very strongly about being at a table with the "important people" (tm) in the room. But if you were at even a round table seating 8+ people, it meant in practice you only talked with a few people who were reasonably adjacent. I would say a 4-6 person table is about the largest where everyone can be talking with all the other people.

RangerScience 2y ago
Six can be a bit of magic number for a table in a larger crowd, because people tend to be in groups of 2 or 4, so a table for six (apparently) means you’re inviting/ causing groups to mix.
- cutemonster 2y ago
  Three seats is also magic? To invite/cause one person in each such group of 4 to go and find new friends. Plus some drama
Tempest1981 2y ago
At weddings, table sizes seem to be 8 or 10. Is that deliberate, to create 2 conversation groups? I sometimes find myself trying to follow both conversations, or switching to the more interesting one. Is that bad etiquette?
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Could be - making sure that everyone at the table always has a choice of conversation to listen to, instead of being trapped in one they have no interest in. I doubt it's that explicit, though. Maybe it's just worked out better that way over the years, without anyone fully realizing the why?
- jfengel 2y ago
  I suspect that it's more about the geometry of best fitting people into the space. It allows the right amount of room for centerpieces and bread bowls and such. At least as far as the caterer and wedding planner are concerned, conversation is the last thing on their minds. Those tables are intended for eight comfortably. They stretch to ten. You can do twelve, but everyone is gonna be cramped.

rr808 2y ago

Dinner parties at someone's house are such a lost art. I'm going to use this winter to start to bring them back!

SoftTalker 2y ago
My parents used to host dinner parties. Actual sit-down dinners at a table with place settings, not pizza with paper plates. They are a lot of work, especially if you do the cooking yourself. I was pretty young and only remember them vaguely, but they stopped because nobody ever reciprocated.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  The problem with dinner parties is that they only work if all attendees like each other equally. Any group of people talking at once will boil down to the lowest common denominator, so one bad guest can easily ruin the whole event. Meanwhile during a pizza party it's okay to chat in a smaller group, which means that when you have a complex network of "A likes B but doesn't like C who is best friend of B", there's much higher chance of making it possible to somehow divide the guests into sensible subgroups.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Well that brings up another thing that we seem to have lost in society: how to be pleasant at a social event even if you don't like or find agreeable everyone else there.
    - anal_reactor 2y ago
      Oh, I can perfectly do this! Actually, I'm very good at this! It's just that after 8 hours of doing so for 5 days in a row, I don't have any more energy for that.
      - wellix 2y ago
        Do you have any tips on how to perfectly coexist with disagreeable people?

SoftTalker 2y ago

I like that even as someone nearly 60 years old there are still new words to learn. TIL "degustation" - the act of tasting with relish; savoring.

adverbly 2y ago

"three couples" makes an excellent group!