Dunbar At The Fall Of Nations

“Dunbar, not Dumb Bear.” – Dances with Wolves

If beer makes you smarter, that didn’t work out for Budweiser®. (meme not mine)

People are funny.  And I’m not talking, “John Wilder after fourteen beers at Chili’s when someone mentions that we’ll have to give up PEZ™ to meet CliMAtE ChAnGE GoALZ” funny.  No, I’m talking about the way that we’re wired to react as people, and yet pretend we’re not.

Out of all of the aspirations of the way that we want to think about ourselves, there are some constants.  Except for Mark Zuckerberg, we all need air to breathe.  We all need food.  We all need something to drink.  I’ve heard some people drink water, but I keep wonder why they do that when mankind made civilization so we could have a nice beer.

The other thing most of us need is . . . people.  Although everyone is slightly different, there seems to be something hardwired into us as to how we deal with people.

I told the doctor I didn’t trust him to stitch me up.  He said, “Fine, suture self.”

Robin Dunbar (Grad student for Dr. Batman® Von Unterober) is a British Psychologist.  He looked at the various sizes of primate brain, specifically the neo-ocasio-cortex.  Er, just the neocortex.  Sorry.  The neocortex is the most recent delivery to the brain, and allows humans to do complicated things like talking, brewing beer, heating up frozen pizzas in the oven, giving each other chlamydia, and writing columns while drinking beer.

Dunbar sliced up a lot of primate brains, and compared the size of the neocortex to the size of the primate tribe.  There was a correlation.  Dunbar then said, “Hey, humans are primates, even though we are so very sexy, so what size would a human tribe be?”

His result based on math and brain size, and, I’m guessing a few pints of Guiness®?

Stable human tribe sizes should be about 150 based on Dunbar’s math, and this number is called Dunbar’s Number.  I wrote about this before in this post (LINK) where I have the original (as far as I can see) hypothesis that some mental illnesses might have helped small groups survive back when we were killing mammoths to survive, and I write a bit more about Dunbar’s Number in that post.

My friend’s wife is leaving him because of mental illness.  Or at least that’s what his cat told him.

This 150 person (let’s be generous and say it’s somewhere between 100 and 250) group size seems to show up wherever I look.  Huge corporations may have tens of thousands of employees, but each of the actual operational chunks is small.  Most that I’ve seen have been . . . less than 150 people.  Even operating locations I’ve been to that have 500 people or more break down into groups.  Office staff versus day shift versus night shift, or people who forgot their pants versus people who always remember them, or something similar.

Many folks might say, but Wilder, my country has hundreds of millions of people in it.  Dunbar’s Number doesn’t seem to apply.  Dunbar himself theorized that this number would only be exceeded when those groups faced extreme survival pressures, like invading Huns or women wanting to vote.

I’ll toss in a different theory here:  larger groups than Dunbar’s number can exist when there’s a great degree of wealth that requires cooperation to maintain.  My theory was (and is) that civilization was formed so we could make beer (LINK).

So why is it so big now?

How is Alexa® like my ex-wife?  She tried to listen to everything and pretended to know it all.

Wealth, technology, and order allow Dunbar’s Number to get immense.  If every small town in the United States has a McDonald’s®, then life gets simpler.  We have built around an economic “sameness”.  Similarly, people watch the same NFL™ teams or NCAA© college teams based on regions.  This economic homogeneity is based on wealth and technology.

If you’re a fan of {INSERT SPORTS TEAM HERE} then if I’m a fan of the {SAME EXACT TEAM} we’re not so different, we’ve created a commonality.  Dunbar’s Number is short-circuited, and a shallow trust is created.

But what happens when wealth (and the hope of having it) goes down?

I think we’re seeing it.  Trust shrinks.  People we once put inside our group are now put outside our group because the competition for resources increases.  An example is probably in order:  if everyone has a job and all of the PEZ™ and Hot Pockets© they want and big houses with swimming pools, having the odd illegal immigrant doesn’t bother them much.  But when times get tight and jobs are scarce and Hot Pockets® cost $10 each, the “in-group” shrinks.

The Mrs. cringes every time I call them “Squat Pockets®”.

The greater the stress on the people, the smaller the group gets.  Who do I trust?  In my circles, it’s my family first.  That number is small.  Then my close friends – those that I know, based on experience, that I can trust.  That number is bigger, but still pretty small.  Then there are those who I have strong reason to trust.  Then those in the neighborhood.  Then . . .

Well, you can see, the tougher the situation, the smaller the circle.  If we go back to our history, this is what we find – somewhere between 100 to 250 of us in a group trust each other, and can work as a group.  When times are good, technology is in place, and the NFL® is playing that number can certainly be bigger.

I tend to think we’re past the point of Peak Dunbar.  As things get tougher, you can see the friction already started as violence has escalated.  As jobs disappear, and as hope disappears, this will increase.

But at least right now, I can still have fourteen beers at Chili’s™.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

55 thoughts on “Dunbar At The Fall Of Nations”

  1. My understanding is that Dunbar’s number is the maximum number of humans we can know/track as individuals; the rest are lumped into stereotypes. Dunbar’s number is a brain limitation and does not change size.

    When you increase tribe size from 150 individuals to 300 million, the factor of 2 million increases the tax base and makes the head monkey drastically too powerful. The leader can declare any 5% of population to be a scapegoat. This will be popularly accepted because none of the targeted group are in most peoples’ Dunbar set.

    1. It is. My argument is that economic “sameness” will be a shorthand so more people can be in the tribe – the guy running the register at McDonald’s is not an enemy, mostly. It shrinks when tough times kick in.

  2. Excitement begins when 14 beers at Chili’s ends with the drinker stating he has no money. That is what will shrink the circle of trust.

    If one does anything Engineering or technical wise they are immediately struck with the fact that 20 years ago smart people here were common. They are hens teeth now. The immediate future is going to be ugly.

    1. yep been noticing that to , engineering newbies are not fully prepared or competent , I had a 4th year Architectural intern that could not determine the height of a roof using simple trigonometry. Thank god he wasn’t working for the Aerospace Engineering side of things. We are in Heap big trouble ! Things are going to get ugly for sure , be prepared to live in a third world grid down lifestyle. Only way out is Thru.

    2. Maybe not ‘smart’ but at least had the ability to think in a logical manner…that might even descend into the ‘scientific method’ (anyone remember that process…).

  3. I had never heard of Dunbar’s number before this. I am adding it to my small collection of significant numbers (which until now only included “one” and “nine”), making it the first significant number that I didn’t get in my head from a song.

      1. Nine the bright eyed shiners,
        Eight Gabriel angels,
        Seven, seven stars under the sky,
        Six, the six pallbearers,
        Five ferrymen under the bush,
        Four Gospel preachers,
        Three of them were drivers,
        Two of them were lily white babes, clothed all in green-o,

        And then yes one is one and all alone.

  4. There’s been some studies lately about the minimum group size for a stable Mars colony, The traditional number has been around 100, but a recent study put it at just 22. Not sure how they came up with that number without having detailed engineering plans of the base. Elon will show us the way.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/16/mars_colony_size/

    I think Dunbar’s number is really the number of people required to have somebody around with enough guts and gumption to tackle the nut trying to open the door on a jet in flight, which is the ultimate trust environment.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12259797/EXCLUSIVE-tackled-drunk-passenger-stop-opening-aircraft-door-mid-flight.html

    2. Mars colony? Marvin had no cohorts, only Bugs, who prevented him from blowing up earth. Along with Orson Welles, my namesake.

    3. See, more people need to take action, but most of them get charged in court. Thus goes man.

      22? Sounds made up. Need at least 69.

  5. Alexa is a curse. Sweetie uses it to play music; I prefer my 28 year old Bose™ CD Player. No monthly royalties.

    By 2025 I’d hazard the guess that the average Dunbar Number will be 25, except for looters.

    2. This is likely why unit badges are for units large than companies. You can know everyone in company C but you need badges to know who is in the rest of your regiment.

  7. >>>If every small town in the United States has a McDonald’s®, then life gets simpler. We have built around an economic “sameness”….But what happens when wealth (and the hope of having it) goes down?…I think we’re seeing it. Trust shrinks.<<<

    This is actually a complex matter.

    The kind of markers of uniformity you mention here don't arise in great number until there is first a high degree of mobility — and that degree of mobility is propelled by economic incentives. Restaurants of every kind were originally patronized principally by people on the road for business reasons: e.g., salesmen and field representatives. Without the emergence of nationwide transportation and communication systems, the ubiquitous McDonalds / Howard Johnson's / Holiday Inn is non-viable.

    Conversely (and of equal importance), the prevalence of "shallow trust" — a nice phrase, I may steal it from you — is reduced by predators' discovery that high mobility increases their chances for successful predation. That effects categories of predators from petty thieves all the way to national carpetbaggers. So the economic forces that propel the emergence of uniformity over great distances are opposed by the criminal forces of increasingly effective and profitable predation. ("All roads lead to equilibrium." — Me.)

    There's a lot going on here!

    2. There really is. I remember nearly getting in a fight with a guy until we realized we were fans of the same NFL team.

      Steal away! I liked the turn of phrase as I was writing it.

      There is a lot going on, but hardship shrinks it all.

  8. PEZ was cited in the first paragraph and the world is now a slightly better place.

    Fruity. So tangy. Pebbles of joy.

  9. You don’t trust stairs?
    Well I don’t trust elevators. They’re always letting me down.

  10. The participation trophy educational system has allowed a lot of what we experience daily. Anyone can get into engineering school. It fools us into believing the group is infected when in reality the clan will survive if it is not too big.

    That’s why the Native Americans would split their tribe and start new clans in other areas with sufficient food and water. The white man screwed that all up. Indian hunt and fish all day, and make war. Woman cook, clean and care for the young and teepee.

  11. Are you suggesting that 350 million people of various competing and hostile identity groups united only by a common currency might not be a stable society? Sounds rayciss to me.

  12. It is near the number that prevents anonymous crime because you know everyone personally.

    It is also very close to the min number for security and diversification of labor.

    1. It can and will grow quickly beyond that, but the degradation scales right along with the productivity until it collapses and starts again.

    2. Right, @Pilot Doc. If we have to contract to Dunbar, expect a decrease in standard of living. For example, we would have no need for the huge herds of free-range micro IPAs, nor for the Pez strip mines. We’d have to rely on less efficient means of providing for the essentials.

    3. Exactly. My thesis (at the link) says that human traits show up nearly exactly at the rate you’d need them to for small bands. Every band needs a psycho and an autist and someone with schizophrenia.

      1. Why is the percentage of psycho, autist, and schizophrenia so much higher at work than in the general population? HR is up to something.

  13. You may enjoy reading “The Way of Men” by Jack Donovan. He did some research into the numbers of men required for various groups / tribes / gangs.

    1. Interesting reference. Can you be part of 2 tribes at the same time? For example, your work tribe specialized in economic functions and you community/religious tribe focused on meeting social needs.
      Does this dual tribe system function well in times of stress? It seems like in WWII, we had a strong social tribe and the economic functionality was secondary and in service to the social tribe. Now, we have strong connections to our economic tribe and somewhat contrived social tribes.

  14. Or is it better to go to the movies with Boebert?
    Beers are a construct of the white male patriarchy and will redistributed as part of the property is theft, you’ll own nothing and like it.
    Chili’s?
    We don’t need no stinking Chilis.

  15. I have spent most of my career in small start up companies or small existing companies and the “magic number” in these settings is somewhere between 70 and 90 people. Beyond that, people just start to lose touch with other individuals as you do not see them on a daily basis (this assumes, of course, a single location). At 125 and above, things almost have to self organize into a more permanent sort of structure (Current day: management structure; ancient times: tribe or clan). Anything over 200 people simply becomes a group that is effectively splintered into smaller units.

  16. We’ll have AI to decrease Dunbar’s number in the future. It will match the lack of computing capacity of a society that is helpless without technology. Of course, they’ll be led to believe it is still 150, but never realize 125 “people” are AI generated composite personalities well suited to their shrinking mental acuity.

  17. Engineering newbies, by definition, are not well trained. They just start from a higher platform to either jump even higher or fall even further. Always been that way, and a lot have always fallen.

  18. You screwed up the ho-pocket meme with batteries. They are not acidic. Read the label. They are a healthy alkaline!

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