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tags:bitesanthropology
relates Bites
Maintain 150 Stable Relationships.
Dunbar’s number is 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.
In “Her” (2013) there’s a kind of revulsion that occurs within the viewer. The protagonist is invested in a relationship with his AI. We learn that the AI has been conversing with others, at scale, while conducting conversation with him. It feels like a violation of what is human, singular devoted time towards one’s love.
A replication of Dunbar’s analysis on updated complementary datasets using different comparative phylogenetic methods yielded wildly different numbers.
NOTE
Regardless of the correct number, or if it can be discerned - the amount of people we can meaningfully interact with is cosmically small, compared to the sum total of conscious entities to interact with.
This is a tremendous access and gift, to be known by those you love.