I listed my close relationships and got to 69, which I found to be a lot. My criteria was: at least 2 meaningful social interactions/year OR at least ten years of friendship (without recent social interactions). For instance high-school chums Aaron Pearlman and Greg Francis make the cut! Congrats, fellows. Four friends (and one mom) have passed away but I continue to invest in them so they are counted. Thanks, brother for another Challenge!
It can be worse. I liked Dance so much I joined the AP Society and their discussion board and now my Dunbar includes others who like to talk about it. http://anthonypowell.org/
Part of my COVID reading was all of Dostoyevsky, then when I re-read Dance I found several allusions to the __Idiot__ (which I had not read before COVID)... if you look at the AP site you will see that various members have written whole books on art in Dance, music in Dance, books about Uncle Giles. It's crazy fun. Saw link to your Substack on FdB.
I'm going to order the first book in the Gamache series. Thanks for the suggestion.
I see they're developing it into a show starting Alfred Molina who is one of my favorite actors. I forever associate him with a small but indelibly memorable role and scene in the movie Boogie Nights.
In your typical conversations and arguments revolving around "why this instead of this?" and the copout/rejoinder "why not both," these ideas about humans' natural limits to caring about things are often left out of the conversation in favor of specifics about the equal or relative importance of things.
My theory is that this idea, which many people intuitively understand - the idea that there's a limit to how many things you can pay attention to - got buried because people are in denial about how the internet just won't and can't live up to its "potential."
The infinite amount of things to learn and people to care about on the internet translates to a diluting. The internet's great but if you want to actually learn or care about anything in the long term, you paradoxically have to limit your time doing attention-span-shattering things on the internet. This means less money for an economy largely built on coercing people into spending more time on the internet than they might otherwise.
People don't want to confront this contradiction so they don't.
Thank you for this post, Dunbar’s number is such a good reminder of our natural limitations. Thank you for writing this.
I listed my close relationships and got to 69, which I found to be a lot. My criteria was: at least 2 meaningful social interactions/year OR at least ten years of friendship (without recent social interactions). For instance high-school chums Aaron Pearlman and Greg Francis make the cut! Congrats, fellows. Four friends (and one mom) have passed away but I continue to invest in them so they are counted. Thanks, brother for another Challenge!
Pity the person who has for their Dunbar number the bridge hand equivalent of a yarborough.
I hope you know Nick Jenkins (Anthony Powell). New book compares the two: Patrick Alexander ‘A Dance to Lost Time’.
Thanks! Just ordered it.I have read Dance once and loved it. I have read Proust all the way through once and Swann's Way half a dozen times.
They are both works of genius!
It can be worse. I liked Dance so much I joined the AP Society and their discussion board and now my Dunbar includes others who like to talk about it. http://anthonypowell.org/
I actually did an earlier post based on a "Dance" quote.
https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/does-everyone-need-their-own-personal?s=w
General Conyers was even better the 2nd time around. Good eye.
Thanks for the link! Now I'm tempted to do a second read!
Part of my COVID reading was all of Dostoyevsky, then when I re-read Dance I found several allusions to the __Idiot__ (which I had not read before COVID)... if you look at the AP site you will see that various members have written whole books on art in Dance, music in Dance, books about Uncle Giles. It's crazy fun. Saw link to your Substack on FdB.
Thanks for subscribing. I've been enjoying your SS. May have seen it on Astral. Not sure. Uncle Giles is hilarious!
James Herriot and Armand Gamache.
I'm going to order the first book in the Gamache series. Thanks for the suggestion.
I see they're developing it into a show starting Alfred Molina who is one of my favorite actors. I forever associate him with a small but indelibly memorable role and scene in the movie Boogie Nights.
The first book is great but there are a couple later in the series I found stunningly good. And I can't wait for the series!
In your typical conversations and arguments revolving around "why this instead of this?" and the copout/rejoinder "why not both," these ideas about humans' natural limits to caring about things are often left out of the conversation in favor of specifics about the equal or relative importance of things.
My theory is that this idea, which many people intuitively understand - the idea that there's a limit to how many things you can pay attention to - got buried because people are in denial about how the internet just won't and can't live up to its "potential."
The infinite amount of things to learn and people to care about on the internet translates to a diluting. The internet's great but if you want to actually learn or care about anything in the long term, you paradoxically have to limit your time doing attention-span-shattering things on the internet. This means less money for an economy largely built on coercing people into spending more time on the internet than they might otherwise.
People don't want to confront this contradiction so they don't.