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Social Overshoot? Dunbar’s Number, Real Relationships, and Musical Chairs

By Nate Hagens, originally published by The Great Simplification

May 23, 2025

Human hand cave art

Description

With more people on the planet than ever before – with most having constant digital access to one another – there is an abundance of potential relationships available to us. Despite this, there is also an increasing loneliness crisis across global society. What can evolutionary psychology teach us about this lack of meaningful relationships at a time of hyper-connectivity?

In this week’s Frankly, Nate reflects on the effects of technology on modern relationships, and how Dunbar’s number infers a ceiling on the number of people we can meaningfully interact with. He emphasizes the rare value of full attention in close relationships, and the implications of our current social dynamics as we face more turbulent times and a smaller world ahead.

What are the negative effects of overextending our social networks and how does that shape the way we build community? How can we foster and strengthen connections with the people who are most important to us? Finally, what will our networks look like when the economic music speeds up or stops, and those who are closest to us become our most important support systems?

(Recorded May 6, 2025)

Show Notes

PDF Transcript

02:40 – Epigamic Traits

02:48 – Sexual Selection

03:19 – Agricultural Revolution

03:34 – Evolutionary Psychology

03:36 – Dunbar’s Number

03:46 – Neocortex

03:49 – Robin Dunbar

05:54 – Iain McGilchrist, TGS Episode

06:29 – Left Brain

06:43 – Ian McGilchrist – The Master and His Emissary

07:29 – Ayahuasca and other psychedelics

07:41 – MDMA “Ecstasy”

09:18 – Mahamudra Meditation

10:57 – The Great Simplification – Full Movie

11:48 – Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

13:15 – Carbon Pulse

Teaser image credit: Cueva de las Manos, Perito Moreno, Argentina. The art in the cave is dated between 7,300 BC and 700 AD;[a] stenciled, mostly left hands are shown. By Mariano – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=265811
Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF). Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians, and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles roadmaps for understanding how human societies might adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles.

Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification, where he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, government, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us.

After ten years in finance, Nate left Wall Street to study the interrelationships between energy, ecology, and economics—and the implications for human futures. He was the Managing Editor of The Oil Drum, one of the most respected websites for analysis and discussion of global energy supplies and implications of the upcoming energy transition.

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