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re: This may actually be the core of the problems of humanity
gbaikie — (archived)

"I'm sure an anthropologist could work this up more clearly, especially one with some background in libertarian thought as well. "

I believe most anthropologist would use the ape & babboon models in describing some of human social structure. But would describe human culture as mechanism of forming rather large groups of individuals [towns and cities]. Without some form of common culture, groups of animals can't "live together". Culture rather than biology dictates maximium number in a group. The maximium size of indivduals working closely together in our "modern culture" is around 500 [of course, this implies that the members are not clueless in regards to practices and rituals of the "modern culture"]. Obviously cities are larger than 500 people, but neither do people in a city constantly work closely with everyone. Instead they form smaller groups in which they spend most of their time interacting. On average, people generally have difficulty knowing who more than 500 people are. Hierarchies "work" by reducing the number of actual human interactions in a group, and this lowers potiential conflict. Hierarchies segment a group, and of course if you need the whole group "talking to each other" this can cause problems. The idea of having a large group of people constantly talking to each other will breakdown any structured hierarchy and result in serious conflicts.
1000 peace loving hippies living together in a group will result in that group splintering [violently, if more peaceful separation is not allowed] unless they develop a system to keep themselves isolated into smaller working groups [some form of Hierarchy].

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