The Monkeysphere and Dunbar's Number are ideas that came from Robin Dunbar's research into primate social systems.
According to Dunbar, primates are limited by the size of their neocortex in regard to how many social relationships
they can maintain.
Some critiques of Dunbar's work suggest that in fact it is the economics of survival and grooming that actually this,
and that Dunbar has it exactly backwards. That's somewhat irrelevant to the point, however. Dunbar found that the
upper limit on average human being's social circle is 150. Other researchers have postulated this number is closer
to 240 people.
The concept of the Monkeysphere is essentially those 150 (240) people that we are able to empathise with.
Humorist and Novelist David Wong did a great job a few years ago summarising these concepts and explaining how
we do not consider and explaining how we do not consider people outside our Monkysphere as proper people.
The fact that 99,9999% of the population falls outside our Monkeysphere is why hate, bigotry and discrimination
exist. Now people being clever, we've learned to categorise people into groups that we can then slip into
Monkeysphere slots or not.
"The restraint that governs ambition isn't a lack of a unified language. It's studied primate brains, and their
behaviour in groups. And found something that will change the way you think about the world, he found that the
larger the primate's, the larger communities it formed. It takes a lot of brain to process all of the relationships
in a complex society, you see. When primates find themselves in groups larger than what their brains can handle,
the system breaks down. Factors form. Wars break out. Now, and do pay attention because this is crucial--you
can actually look at a primate brain and, knowing nothing else about what the species in came from, you can
predict how big their tribes are.
If Dunbar is right this is the central issue of human civilisation, and frankly, the problem we seem to be staring
In the face after the recent election in the USA. Can we find ways to get around this built-in-doom? I believe we
can, I believe that there is, in fact, nothing more important for our survival as a species and our liberty as humans.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... bin-dunbar
