YouSaid · the spoken record

Robin Dunbar

lines on the record: 68
first: 2024-04-02
most recent: 2024-04-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“And retire to the Caribbean. The other one was really cool because we'd done a lot of work and a lot of other people started to do work on which bits of the brain were involved in this and showing that you can predict the number of friends that people have in their social circles, friends and family, of course, by the size of particular regions in the brain. Turns out to be a particular huge neural network that we use to process social information. There were some Korean geist who did an entire village. What they did was kind of neat because most of the time what we're having to do is to ask people how many friends have you got? How many friends have you got on Facebook? Check. Write down a list of all the friends and family you have. Who are you phoning? Let's look at your phone calling records on your cell phone. So we're always looking at it from the individual's point of view. You know, well, no, okay, you can argue the list of people I phone regularly looks fairly hard.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably talking about what is it? 1% of all the people, billion people on Facebook or something of that order. Huge, huge sample from all over the world. And they came out with an average number of friends on Facebook of 149. Me, if you work on animal behavior or human behavior like I do, you do not often get predictions that come out that close. So I think on the strength of that, I'm entitled to go past go, collect my $200.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are two prizes potentially here one was a very notorious study of Facebook, which was published in a very eminent journal about 10 years ago, which became notorious because they'd used Facebook to manipulate people's feeds because they were interested in trying to understand what influence feeds had on people's perceptions of the world. What we all worry about, nice Mr. Putin sending us endearing messages on our Facebook pages to vote for one president candidate or another presidential candidate according to the one he would really prefer. There are serious issues behind this, but I'm afraid they got into a lot of trouble anyway. They have 61 million, as I recall.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things happen as you get older, the intensity of a romantic relationship cools, as you might say politely. And then they might reinstitute a male best friend that they hang out with.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Decides he's going off to Thailand for the rest of his life, it is a case of out of sight, out of mind. If he comes back again, you can pick up where you left off. No problem. But while he's not there, it's really a case of outside at the moment, which will never ever happen with women with their close friendships. They're on social media. They're on the phone, whatever, trying to keep that relationship going and keep it ticking over. And guys don't do that. What's interesting in that particular context, though, is that it's very clear that men either have one or the other. That's why they only have a peer with one, if you like, in that layer rather than the one and a half that ought to twos that the women have. And of course, it's the average of the male's one and the women's two that makes the one and a half of that layer. But men tend to have either a romantic partner or a best friend. So if they don't have a romantic partner at the time or this”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The clay obviously is usually a male is completely useless at emotional issues. You need somebody else who's better qualified to deal with emotional issues to sort of deal with that part of your life. And the only person that falls into that little bracket, as it were, is a girlfriend. Interestingly enough, when they have a male, 15% of them are male, those males tend to be much more feminized than the average female. They're often gay men, for example. And what's interesting is that you can ask a guy, do you have a best male friend of do stuff in? And very often they'll say yes, Jimmy. Jimmy and I go for a beer together now and again. We've known each other since primary still. And you explore a bit further the quality of that relationship and you go, this is not a best friend forever. It's completely different.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then my collaborators in Italy who are analyzing Facebook data and said, you know, we get this layer at one and a half. We think we must have made some error here. They were looking at the frequency of postings and showing very nicely you get these, you can identify these layers, but they'd found this extra layer. And I went, what? What are perfect. That's it. What's it all about? Well, we don't know. So when we looked into it, yes, it's true. And the question is, why are women having two? And the answer is they have a platonic friend called a best friend forever, BFF. And that's nearly always another woman. Not 100%, but 85% of women at any one time have a best friend forever because the social psychologists who've explored this question have told us that constant reason that women always give is because their romantic partner, who statistic.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very, very close friend in that circle, and the other half the population has two. What might the difference be? Well, the answer is gender. It's obvious. And if you want to know which way it goes round, he says jokingly, well, it's men only have one in that circle and women have two. And that was kind of pulling the leg of the audience, really, because the audience automatically goes, aha, that's your romantic relationships. Clearly women have won and men have two. Yes, the other way around.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always used to sort of come out with this joke when I was giving talks because I actually thought it was a joke, which was well just look at these series of circles and how very tight the kind of fractal mathematical structure is. Each layer is three times the size of the layer inside it. And remember these layers count cumulatively. So your 150 layer includes the 50 people in the layer inside. It's not an addition. But just look at the regularity of this structuring of these numbers. And surely there's a layer missing. If you project backwards, because you only knew about the five, we thought the five was the smallest number. If you project backwards, there's a number missing. And what is it? Well, it's one and a half. And everybody'd say, how can you have one and a half relationships? The answer is obvious. Think about it. Half the population has one.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“General health and well being. So the best predictor of your mental health and well-being, your physical health and well-being, and even how long you're going to live into the future from today is predicted by the number and quality of the friendships you have in that layer. The five is an average. So if you only have three, don't panic yet. Because introverts tend to prefer to have fewer people but have stronger friendships as a result extroverts tend to prefer slightly more people but have weaker friendships those kind of effects but on average very much five so as I like to say if you really want to live forever just make sure you've got five friends”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“150 layer. Well, that's what I always call your varmits for weddings and funeral party. These are the people who will turn up out of obligation on that big once-in-a-lifetime event. You may not know they're there. The third case, the funeral party, but believe me, they'll be there. And then as you come in, so the relationship's getting stronger and stronger you go through the 15 layer is your sympathy group, the people who you would feel extremely upset about if they died. That's been known for a very long time. I didn't discover that. And then inside that is a five, the cinema slayer, which is what we call the shoulders to cry on friends. And that layer turns out to be very important for it. It usually consists of two family members and two friends plus an odd one from either side. That number turns out to be the one that has the most influence on your”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As you come further in the 500 layer, it's the layer of acquaintances. Many of the people you work with will be in that layer. In other words, you might go and have a beer with them after work. You might even spend a weekend away for some big work-related project with them, but you would never invite them back to your home for a big party.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of faces you can say whether you've seen them or not before. In other words, it's the distinction between a complete stranger. I've never seen that face in my life and somebody you've seen, but probably for most of them you don't know much about. You don't even know their name maybe. But then the 1500 layer within that, which actually turns out to be the typical size of tribes in hunter-gatherer societies, the distinction there is that you can put names to faces. So for all of us, whether you like it or not, nice Mr. Donald Trump is in your 1500 lair. But that's only because if you saw him in the street downtown, you would recognize him straight away. But if you kind of wandered up to him, slapped him around the shoulder and said, Donald, come and have a drink with me. He would look very surprised. I'm sure he'd be a good politician and pretend not to be. So it's that kind of relationship.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But each ripple gets bigger and bigger. But the kind of amplitude of the wave, the height of the wave, gets lower and lower. And that's quite a good metaphor for what your social world looks like. So you have these series of layers going out from you, which increase in size, but the quality of the relationship and the frequency that you contact them gets smaller and smaller and smaller or lower and lower as you go further out. So these layers occur at very, very specific numbers. Core is really this 150 number Dunbar's number. But within that, there are a series of layers, 50, 15, 5, and the smallest one and a half, 1.5. And then beyond the 150 going out furthest, there are layers at 500, 1500. The last possible one is 5,000 because 5,000 identifies the number.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of it best in terms of your personal social network, all the family extended family and friendships you have. If you look at those and the frequencies of it you contact them or how emotionally close you feel to them or your willingness to do them a favor that would cost you something serious, not a question of just putting a dollar in a beggar's box as they say, but actually giving them a significant amount of money they ask you to lend money for a project. All of these reveal a kind of layered structure and that layered structure looks pretty much like the ripples on a pond where you throw a stone into a lake, for example. So if you think of yourself as the stone surrounding you are these layers moving out from you. And as you go further and further out the area covers”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're quite complex groupings, not just a single group hung together as like we do live in sort of multi layered social systems. So I was looking for a layering within their social systems that was about 150 in size rather than, say, 2000 or 25. And sure enough, there is one. It's generally called a clan or a regional grouping or something like that. It's basically a unit that shares hunting territory as much as anything that shares the right territory, let's say. They don't necessarily all live here. And after that, we just kept finding this number everywhere, everywhere. We looked in the modern world. Our entire modern world is built around this number, 150.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of group size in primates and their brain size. And so I collated data on group sizes and I collated data on brain sizes. I stuck them together and sure enough there's a very nice relationship. Now we're about three o'clock in the morning and getting quite excited about how this is going. It occurs to me that we should be able to use this to predict what humans group sizes are. So I did. This gave me a number about 150. So I then spent obviously the rest of the night and several other days and nights sitting in the library looking for data, natural human group sizes. Metropolis is like New York and London and Tokyo in mind. They're all very recent things barely a century old. We spent most of our time in small scale hunter-gatherer groups looking for data on the size of these groupings.”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quite a convoluted story, really, actually, because there was a proposal made back in the late 80s that reason primates, monkeys, nakes, had much bigger brains than anybody else was that they lived in complex societies and therefore needed a big computer to manage this. But it was based on largely casual observation as much as anything. And that was a real problem because primates do have much bigger brains. This stuff is expensive. Why would you be carting around all this heavy duty computer consuming energy like Fury if you weren't doing anything different to what everybody else is doing? So anyway, the suggestion was made is to do with the complexity of their social systems. And I had the bright idea one evening when I was trying to solve a completely different problem, which is why primates groom each other. If that hypothesis is true, then we ought to find correlation between some”
2024-04-02 · Invest Like the Best · Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Dunbar's Number) - [Invest Like the Best, EP.367] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source