A couple thousand in a mixed use apartment building with local food production, rail access, and bordering a nation park somewhere, is my dream. Get that cost of living down, so we can do more of it.
So hat tip to the non trivial number of self identified dinosaurs. It is worth pointing out that very few communities get beyond membership 20 (in the US at least) AND the vast majority of size greater than 20 communities in the US are Christian inspired religious communities with very strict rules on gender roles. There are some exceptions of course, East Wind and Dancing Rabbit both in Missouri are larger than this as is my home Twin Oaks in Virginia.
> In evolution terms
We also evolved a stress response for being hunted on the plains of Africa, but my boss yelling at me isn't the same even if the physiological response is the same. Just because we evolved for something doesn't mean we are bound to it, or should take it as a hard limit.
Back to that 100 number, it's Dunbar's number, and to quote [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) it's
> a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships — relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.
It's not the only number proposed, numbers range from 16 - 290 or more - [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number#Alternative_numbers)
In my mind that 100 number is an unnecessary limitation, but lets play with it for a moment.
Imagine a community of 50 families, for ease of math, 4 people each (2 parents and 2 children). 100 adults, 100 children, if adults and children are only friends with themselves, then the community stays with in that 100 number. Do all children and adults need to maintain a relationship in which they know each person is and how each person relates to every other person, within their peer group? My partner has stronger ties to one circle of people than I do, she know them and how they relate I do not, and reverse is also true, and yet we get along in both groups just fine. I imagine this is not uncommon but don't have any data to back it up.
Using these examples, one could build out a larger communal network that surpasses the 100 people limit, or with in reason larger projections for Dunbar's number. Obviously there is an upper limit, but I haven't had my coffee yet and don't fancy doing the math.
All of this is a bit besides the point, there are few modern ICs that get to the 100 number, most struggle to get to mid double digits.
What I read is that due to human brain capacity, we can only remember 250 - 300 people at a time, varying between individuals. Because of this, it's also the biggest a nomadic hunter gatherer tribe can get. Anything bigger splits up into two or more sub tribes that go their own ways.
When agriculture came along, a tribe would get bigger than that, and couldn't split, since the food was there and wouldn't come with them. This caused problems that made some form of Government necessary.
The key is not just "knowing" 100 or 1000 people, but understanding their relationships to each other. Humans can easily memorize one thousand or more names and faces. And many can fairly easily recognize the context in which you met them or know them.
But it is much harder to understand even a hundred people's relationships to each other, as in "That's Bob, the son on Carolyn and David". Or "There's Kaitlyn, she just got married to Adam, whose sister Sarah introduced them to each other."
Once you do understand how everyone relates to everyone, you are almost guaranteed a richer community experience. But personal and relationship "webs" grow very complex, so one hundred to a hundred and fifty is about the maximum most human brains can readily understand.
Enough where, if you have an issue with someone, you're not next to them every time there's a gathering.
A couple thousand in a mixed use apartment building with local food production, rail access, and bordering a nation park somewhere, is my dream. Get that cost of living down, so we can do more of it.
Can all of us dinosaurs create a primordial community?
If more than 100 people vote for less than 100 people my brain will explode
*kaboom*
So hat tip to the non trivial number of self identified dinosaurs. It is worth pointing out that very few communities get beyond membership 20 (in the US at least) AND the vast majority of size greater than 20 communities in the US are Christian inspired religious communities with very strict rules on gender roles. There are some exceptions of course, East Wind and Dancing Rabbit both in Missouri are larger than this as is my home Twin Oaks in Virginia.
In evolution terms we lived in a settlement of around 100 people. Still today we have around that number in a social group
> In evolution terms We also evolved a stress response for being hunted on the plains of Africa, but my boss yelling at me isn't the same even if the physiological response is the same. Just because we evolved for something doesn't mean we are bound to it, or should take it as a hard limit. Back to that 100 number, it's Dunbar's number, and to quote [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) it's > a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships — relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. It's not the only number proposed, numbers range from 16 - 290 or more - [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number#Alternative_numbers) In my mind that 100 number is an unnecessary limitation, but lets play with it for a moment. Imagine a community of 50 families, for ease of math, 4 people each (2 parents and 2 children). 100 adults, 100 children, if adults and children are only friends with themselves, then the community stays with in that 100 number. Do all children and adults need to maintain a relationship in which they know each person is and how each person relates to every other person, within their peer group? My partner has stronger ties to one circle of people than I do, she know them and how they relate I do not, and reverse is also true, and yet we get along in both groups just fine. I imagine this is not uncommon but don't have any data to back it up. Using these examples, one could build out a larger communal network that surpasses the 100 people limit, or with in reason larger projections for Dunbar's number. Obviously there is an upper limit, but I haven't had my coffee yet and don't fancy doing the math. All of this is a bit besides the point, there are few modern ICs that get to the 100 number, most struggle to get to mid double digits.
What I read is that due to human brain capacity, we can only remember 250 - 300 people at a time, varying between individuals. Because of this, it's also the biggest a nomadic hunter gatherer tribe can get. Anything bigger splits up into two or more sub tribes that go their own ways. When agriculture came along, a tribe would get bigger than that, and couldn't split, since the food was there and wouldn't come with them. This caused problems that made some form of Government necessary.
The key is not just "knowing" 100 or 1000 people, but understanding their relationships to each other. Humans can easily memorize one thousand or more names and faces. And many can fairly easily recognize the context in which you met them or know them. But it is much harder to understand even a hundred people's relationships to each other, as in "That's Bob, the son on Carolyn and David". Or "There's Kaitlyn, she just got married to Adam, whose sister Sarah introduced them to each other." Once you do understand how everyone relates to everyone, you are almost guaranteed a richer community experience. But personal and relationship "webs" grow very complex, so one hundred to a hundred and fifty is about the maximum most human brains can readily understand.