that human limit might be the reason why no empire can last very long

yeah that's what I'm thinking

but once you take that to the power of just 2, so you know 200 people, and one of those people knows 199 people you dont

because we need to balance it out in a sort of game theory sense too

complex nations and economies are powerful

you're at small city size already, and most of those people are cared for by someone

so while you might be more sustainable in the long term, it doesn't matter if you can't fend off against potential beligerents

this is basically what happened in ww2

maybe humans just need to evolve some more

only a million more years

eugenic lebensborn program when?

the real question is, what constant evolutionary pressure is exerting itself on us now

✡

haha

'the jew jew'

welfare state

even if our brains will never grasp thousands of relationships, we should be able to deal with that limit in some other way

lol

the way it should work is communal hierarchy

so you have your "villages"

and they all fit in a "district"

well, the idea is, even if you dont know that person, you can lean on one of the people in your dunbar group that does, and rely on their opinion

each village elder is accountable to the warden of the district

who is then accountable to the king, or whatever

you know them, so you should be able to form an opinion bridge based off of what you know of them

good point

yeah chunking people up into villages has the added benefit of stereotyping

if im a terrible judge of character, and you ask me if steve the mechanic is going to fuck you, and i say 'nah steves great'

well

which acts as a "shortcut" in forming opinions about people

be wary friend

that's essentially the function of that psychological feature

i think that for better or worse, this current techno-hell-hole we live in right now does do a lot to circumvent the worst bits of the issuess with dunbar's number

"the village over there are good people, we trade with them regularly. We kicked their asses last summer in foozball. And one of our girls just married one of their warriors"

yelp is like a proto-village leader that can grant value judgements for you, as an example

yeah technology does change things

like look at us right now

we're part of the same village, tribe, culture whatever

if you were my next door neighbor, we'd totally be bros

but IRL, throughout European history, this wouldn't be happening

right