Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Size of Communities

[Brian Bartholomew (bartholomew.brian]

> "support clique of best friends (5), the sympathy group (12-15), the
> number of individuals contacted at least once a month (and the
> overnight camp in hunter-gatherers) (30-50), the social network
> (150), megabands in hunter-gatherer societies (500) and tribal
> groupings (1500)"

Those numbers seem to be set by features in the brain, in the same way
that humans have about 7 slots in short-term memory.

As the tribal grouping number grew from 1,500 to 400 million in the
US, that's about 18 doublings.  It amazes me that the brain's tribal
organization (political) instinctual algorithms still work as well as
they do, after the problem domain grew by 18 size doublings.

Brian