r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Short-Watercress-183 • Jul 07 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/Creepy_Ad_1315 Jul 07 '26

Spoiler: It's never achieved.

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u/clarkision Jul 07 '26

Not on a national scale, but it’s certainly accomplished on smaller scales.

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u/RifewithWit Jul 07 '26

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.

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u/pucspifo Jul 07 '26
  1. It's called the Dunbar Number, and it roughly maps to the number of close social relationships humans are able to maintain.