John R. Miles

can truly manage at one time.

It's the limit for what Dunbar calls social grooming, the mental and emotional work of tracking who people are, what they need, who they're connected to, and whether they're trustworthy.

Beyond 150, we physically can't keep up.

The connections don't just get thinner, they break.

They turn into acquaintances, contacts, avatars, not real kin.

But here's where it gets dangerous.

Paul Ehrlich, the legendary biologist, recently wrote a sobering reflection on what he calls humanity's group size problem.

He says we are fundamentally small group animals, evolved for bands of 100 to 200, now trying to survive in a world of 8 billion.

And when groups grow too large, something predictable and ugly happens.

We stop seeing individuals with full stories, full lives.

We start seeing categories.

Our brains take the shortcut.

If someone isn't in our intimate circle, they become the other.

That's exactly the biological seed of the stereotypes, the tribalism, the political vitriol, the religious divides.

all the myth-making that turns complex humans into caricatures.

We aren't being cruel on purpose.

We're being maladaptive.

We're trying to use a brain built for gathering around a campfire to process a planet connected by satellites.

Now, look at your life right now.

It's January 2026.