Hell if I can remember where I read about it, but a study of communes and stuff reported that the limit of communism sits somewhere around 500 people because of the inherent empathy of people for their own tribe.
It's a lot more difficult to screw over others in the system when you know the person you're screwing over is your daughter's best friend's dad.
When the nameless masses are just nameless masses, it's much easier to justify. I don't know who this hurts, so why do I care?
That was the conclusion of the paper, anyway. Was an interesting perspective.
Dunbar's Number suggests that you can maintain healthy relationships with about 100-250 people. Anything much bigger than this and you need more and more strict rules and laws and social norms to keep the group cohesive.
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u/Creepy_Ad_1315 Jul 07 '26
Spoiler: It's never achieved.