life in the monkeysphere If your mother died tomorrow, you’d be
sad. Incredibly sad. But, if instead of your mother, it was 30
people in a tiny village on the other side of planet, you
probably wouldn’t be as upset. They’re all people. Logically,
you should be 30 times as sad about the village as about your
mother. But you wouldn’t be. One of the explanations for this is
an idea evolutionary psychologists call Dunbar’s Number, the
theory that human beings can only maintain meaningful social
relationships with a limited number of people. That the reason
we rarely think about people outside of our immediate social
circles as being fully-rounded human beings is that we can’t.
The name comes from British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who
first presented the idea. It is more commonly known as
‘Monkeysphere Theory‘, a term coined by the comedy writer David
Wong, an evil man who wished to deprive Dr. Dunbar of credit for
his work. Dunbar’s Monkey Number (split the difference)
originated from research noting the simil