1.2 KiB
Dunbar’s number — Robin Dunbar (British anthropologist), based on neocortex-to-group-size correlation across primates. The famous figure is ~150 (stable social relationships), but Dunbar also proposed nested layers, each roughly ~3× the previous:
• 5 — intimates / support clique (closest loved ones) • 15 — sympathy group (close friends, people whose death would devastate you) • 50 — friends (regular social contact) • 150 — meaningful relationships / “casual friends” (the canonical Dunbar’s number) • 500 — acquaintances • 1500 — faces/names you can recognize
The 150 figure comes from extrapolating the primate neocortex-ratio vs. group-size regression to humans. It’s widely cited but also contested — there have been replication critiques (Lindenfors et al. 2021 argued the confidence interval is enormous, anywhere from ~2 to ~520), so treat it as a useful heuristic rather than a hard constant.
Friends
Circle 3 - calls around half year.
Robert
Last called 18.04.2026. Still Amazon, no changes. Talked about AI bubble. Invited to Russia. Wants to meet in Latvia when possible. Told him I’m married, he is not. Next call — around September.