[P2P-F] Fwd: [Demonetize] Dunbars Number was: Economics of Happiness

Wed Dec 21 17:35:06 CET 2011

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.html

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.html

*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://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf
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* <nikola.winter at zeitgeist-movement.at>
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 8:57 PM
To: discuss at lists.demonetize.it

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

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----------
From: *Isen hand* <isenhand at yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 9:05 PM
To: Demonetize it! <discuss at lists.demonetize.it>

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 <nikola.winter at zeitgeist-movement.at>
*To:* discuss at lists.demonetize.it
*Sent:* Tuesday, 20 December 2011, 20:57
*Subject:* Re: [Demonetize] Dunbars Number was: Economics of Happiness

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From: *fran k* <frank_bowman at yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 12:05 PM
To: discuss at lists.demonetize.it

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.

------------------------------

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From: *fran k* <frank_bowman at yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 12:13 PM
To: discuss at lists.demonetize.it

I forgot to mention that I loved your comment on this Kellia . putting
things clearly into perspective.  I have it saved.
Frank

------------------------------

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From: *T at aworldbeyondcapitalism.org* <openawbc at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 4:33 PM
To: Demonetize it! <discuss at lists.demonetize.it>

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.

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