When noticing this post ( see below for thread ) I searched a bit more, as I remembered a relation , for "Phyles", http://p2pfoundation.net/Phyles which limited a Phyle to Dunbar's number. http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2010-November/011238.... excerpt : *"Las Indias fully adopts and practices the* *open ethos, uses decision-making through deliberation, and is committed to splitting into autonomous units, whenever the Dunbar limit is reached."* http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2010-November/011224.... *Michel Bauwens wrote:* * For those who want to follow the debates with lasindias, here are the 3 books that are the basis of their ideas:http://deugarte.com/gomi/phyles.pdfhttp://deugarte.com/gomi/Nations.pdfhttp:... respectively a history of the corporate, governance, and civil forms, each one culminating in the network age* As I did so, I also found out articles as this one http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html more : http://p2pfoundation.net/Dunbar_Number Forwarded conversation Subject: Re: [Demonetize] Dunbars Number was: Economics of Happiness ------------------------ From: *Nikola Winter* <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 8:57 PM To: [email protected] Hi, in my research on Dunbars Number i faound an article by Dennis R. Fox, "Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, and the Commons" that i want to share with you. Let my cite just one paragraph: "Edney (1980, 1981a) also argued that long-term solutions will require, among a number of other approaches, breaking down the commons into smaller segments. He reviewed experimental data showing that cooperative behavior is indeed more common in smaller groups. After estimating that "the upper limit for a simple, self-contained, sustaining, well-functioning commons may be as low as 150 people" (1981a, p. 27), he listed the following "functional benefits" of reducing group size: * Improved communication helps sustain necessary feedback; * greater visibility of member distress during scarcity enhances the probability of remedial action; * individual responsibilities are harder to avoid; * alienation is reduced; * and the role of money is reduced. Also, with many small commons instead of one large one, shortages in one cannot endanger the whole, and free riders have limited impact. "The improved focus on the group itself, the greater ease of monitoring exploitative power, and the opportunities for trust to develop among individuals with face-to-face contact are also enhanced" (1981a, p. 28). " http://www.dennisfox.net/**papers/commons.html<http://www.dennisfox.net/papers/commons.html> Kind regards, Nikola ______________________________**_________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.demonetize.it/**listinfo/discuss<http://lists.demonetize.it/listinfo/discuss> ---------- From: *Isen hand* <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 9:05 PM To: Demonetize it! <[email protected]> Sometimes I think it's annoying when you find some1 else having the same idea, especially years before me :D Small groups like that, working together in a network forms the bases of what we in EOS have worked on for the last few years. If you then add groups forming other groups you end up with a holonic structure. http://www.scribd.com/doc/76039420/The-Design Funny how the same ideas go around and around! --- Dr. Andrew Wallace BEng(hons) PhD EurIng Director of EOS http://www.eoslife.eu/ ------------------------------ *From:* Nikola Winter <[email protected]> *To:* [email protected] *Sent:* Tuesday, 20 December 2011, 20:57 *Subject:* Re: [Demonetize] Dunbars Number was: Economics of Happiness _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.demonetize.it/listinfo/discuss ---------- From: *fran k* <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 12:05 PM To: [email protected] Hi, it is really interesting to read this research you obtained, Nikola and Raffael. it feels very good. Now here I put in more of my pennyworth, or as my friend put it 'how odd it seems to put more than 20 and more years of learning in a few words that may be passed over, as it seems somehow not doing that learning justice' I know how that feels too. .............................................. Where my thoughts lie on the Dunbar number, is at present our group size is a poor 2 plus 2.4 children. Most people think that the Dunbar number is small, but that is because they compare it to the mass of artificial alienated size we live in. but, There are always two groups we live in, close family and those outside. So years ago we lived in tribal family groups of max 150, with the rest of the world outside, and today also we live in family but it is tiny, with still the rest of the world outside. one can see from that then that we live in a poor situation nowadays, compared to before. There are a few things also that relate to this; one is we tend to see the old way we lived as primitive. the other is that previously our natural group size is around 150 max and then as tribal size grows it then naturally splits off into the formation of new tribes. thus we had a prehistory world or a non invaded world of these villages, so we may ask what was it that caused one of these tribes to unnaturally exceed its numbers to eventually expand and conquer the world? the pressure that is continually on us ever present through history to stay artificially larger. I do not think it is agriculture alone, I think it is tax, number of debt owing in exchange, and power. Protection money. forced exchange. usury. Indeed 'pay or die'. Exchange. or die. Here I think we can divide commodity into two. Those things that if we don't have we die. our needs. and those things that if we can't afford to pay for we don't die. The pressure on us of exchange is with needs. It's the 'Why should we have to pay to live on our earth?' So, if we take my contention that in order to have abundance and all fed, it is a of first order and first priority that we create a gift economy for basic needs, primary resources. as of course We are stupid not to, because paying a price for those things by competitive exchange, or exchange alone, because the competition of the exchange process is inherent. is a stupidity of provision of shortage! Paying a price for those things is actually the hold that keeps the whole money system together. Without that we will collapse back to gift economy of village. Maybe we could collapse back to not only the gift economy but with a cooperation between those villages of useful technology. I still consider highest technologies being our own lovely legs, our own lovely voices, our own group togetherness. and the lower basic technologies. With the more complex technology we esteem, now, as being less, but very interesting. I consider we should esteem the basics and ourselves the highest. (apart from useful medicine and its helpful technology. I think we should esteem that , but living more healthily we would need less as they do in those present communities like okinawa and asabygan and other low impact living peoples who live happy very long lives. it is priorities, that is important. ------------------------------ ---------- From: *fran k* <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 12:13 PM To: [email protected] I forgot to mention that I loved your comment on this Kellia . putting things clearly into perspective. I have it saved. Frank ------------------------------ ---------- From: *[email protected]* <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 4:33 PM To: Demonetize it! <[email protected]> Dear Nikola, Isen, Frank and friends, This is an interesting conversation about groups of people 150 or less. I have studied communities for a very long time and lived in many all over the USA. I have come to find that most Intentional Communities that have between 11 and 150 people have a turn-over rate of 50-75% of the residents typically staying 6 months or less. In the USA, over 50% of the communes and Intentional Communities of the 1960's have disappeared. The reasons for this have been extensively covered in vatrous books (I once read a book that solely and individually chronicled why hundreds of communities closed down) and in a recommended quarterly publication called Communities magazine. Personally, the top 3 reasons I think the groups of 150 or smaller have a high turn over rate are as follows: #1. Lack of love as a shared priority. Too complex a topic to even touch on. *happy laughter*. #2. The reason I have heard verbalized most often is money issues and lack of long term equity. #3. Drama and lack of third part arbitration, mediators and non-violent communication Here is a wikipedia excerpt: *Nonviolent Communication (NVC)* (also called *Compassionate Communication*or *Collaborative Communication*[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication#cite_note-0> [2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication#cite_note-Branscomb-1>) is a communication process. NVC often functions as a conflict resolution<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_resolution>process. It focuses on three aspects of communication: *self-empathy* (defined as a deep and compassionate awareness of one's own inner experience), *empathy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy>*(defined as listening to another with deep compassion), and *honest self-expression* (defined as expressing oneself authentically in a way that is likely to inspire compassion in others). NVC is based on the idea that all human beings have the capacity for compassion and only resort to violence or behavior that harms others when they don't recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs. Happy Holidays everyone, Love for the people, -T -- "...remember that if the struggle were to resort to violence, it will lose vision, beauty and imagination. Most dangerous of all, it will marginalize and eventually victimize women. And a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it and within it is no struggle at all." ~Arundhati Roy, The 2004 Sydney Peace Prize lecture. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.demonetize.it/listinfo/discuss