Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
My anecdotal evidence generally seems to support the idea that group sizes will usually plateau at a number lower than 150 participants. This comes from 20 years of doing facilitation both on and offline, running several software companies, and running various forums at America Online. In particular, many online communities provide good evidence fo... See more
Christopher Allen • The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes
Manias and Mimesis: Applying René Girard’s Mimetic Theory to Financial Bubbles
Tobias Huberdeliverypdf.ssrn.comMuch of our seeming intelligence actually comes not from raw brainpower or a plethora of instincts, but rather from the accumulated repertoire of mental tools (e.g., integers), skills (differentiating right from left), concepts (fly wheels), and categories (basic color terms) that we inherit culturally from earlier generations.
Joseph Henrich • The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
As Matt Clancey points out that “the benefits of knowledge spillovers from being physically close to other knowledge workers have been falling and may no longer exist in many domains of knowledge.” This is a controversial claim, but Clancey provides a detailed review of multiple studies that address this matter from different directions.
Dror Poleg • Dror’s Substack | Substack
A biographer of the novelist E. M. Forster wrote, “To speak to him was to be seduced by an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.” Imagine how good it would be to be that guy.
David Brooks • How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
view. For instance, in the mid-1700s David Hume wrote a lot about the “natural benevolence” of human beings. And a century later, even Charles Darwin himself attributed an “instinct of sympathy” to our species. But