Roots of the Social Network
We developed and in essential nature remain a social, small-group oriented species.* The majority of your ancestors and mine spent their lives relating to no more than a few hundred people. That’s how it was from the time we were still in trees to the birth of agriculture. And for many it remains much that way today.
*see Dunbar’s Number for more on natural human community size
Our innate drives for survival and status were focused on these small groups for literally millions of years. Consequently, it also has a close relationship to the boundaries of our Altruism* drive . Survival was a precarious enterprise. This was no idyllic time of pastoral peace and wisdom but rather one of short and difficult lives. And the available technology was not enough to change the social paradigm much from what it’d been from before the birth of language: a small, vulnerable group immediately dependent on one another for any life at all.
* See Biological Altruism to better understand its relationship to the concept of community
But while the technology was limited and life was short, in social terms the paradigm did have one thing going for it… We’d had a long time to adapt to it!
It’s not that these ancient groups were all alike certainly. We can assume plenty of variation in marriage practices, inheritance patterns, beliefs, rituals, etc; with some peaceful, others warlike, some matriarchal, others patriarchal, some savanna dwellers, others mountain people; locally-adapted technologies, coalitions and rivalries, etc.
But what would they all have in common?
The Ground that Nurtured the Social Network
- Each individual knew almost everyone he/she encountered – and then encountered them repeatedly – thoughout their lives. Strangers were not unknown but rare and never the majority.
- Each individual knew their own social status and the social status of those with whom they interacted.
- (An important corollary is that individuals DID NOT have more than one group with which they identified and hence separate statuses for separate groups.)
- The altruism drive was limited to, closely coincided with, and did not often extend beyond the boundaries of this social grouping.
Further:
- There was ubiquitous awareness that personal well-being was dependent on the group’s well-being.
- There was ubiquitous awareness that whatever the group decision process was – and there was almost certainly a range – decisions on group matters had whole group effects.
- Effects of group decisions to the extent they were knowable, were known to the whole group.
- Individual concealment of assets was difficult (and had no value regardless) while intragroup distribution enhanced the status of the giver.
- Lines of communication and influence were proximate and immediate.
- Decision maker(s) could not persist in the role without consensus agreement by the group.
- The Ultimatum Game’s implications made it imperative that the range of asset and power distribution within this group not exceed limits defined by that group as fair.
The Breach in the Social Network Paradigm
This leads to a very important observation: The Social Network significantly coincided with the Social Organism!*
* A self-recognized and internally governed economic/political grouping organized for basic survival.
Until recently…
By recently I mean the revolution catalyzed by the Birth of Agriculture 10,000 years ago. (I bet you didn’t think I was going to say that but in evolutionary terms that’s just yesterday!)
The population concentration, labor specialization, intellectual stimulation, technological development , environmental manipulation, wealth creation, etc. which came along for the ride was the most significant alteration in the human condition since… well, since being human!
This revolution continues and expands. In fact it’s all been a single revolution… a revolution in technology which reached a phase transition with agriculture and has been continuing ever since.
However, this has altered the social organism in ways to which the social network mechanism was not adapted and with which it did not coincide.
This first real change in social structure for eons necessitated the creation of new systems of governance, decision-making, persuasion and control which were nevertheless built on these same social network mechanisms adapted for very different conditions. And this inevitably led to a hierarchy of social networks and authoritarian forms dominated by the decision-making classes (i.e. specialized social networks within a social organism composed of a hierarchy of social networks).
Further, problems in scaling the altruism drive create a self-reinforcement feedback loop; powerful networks tend to get more powerful. This resulted in severe imbalances in wealth and status neither tolerable or possible previously because of counter-forces offered by the proximity available within a social organism that coincides with its social network.
Political and economic thinkers from Plato and Aristotle, Locke and Nietzsche, to Adam Smith and Karl Marx have been essentially attempting to address problems related to social imbalances.
All of recorded history with its wars and revolutions are largely a recitation of struggles related to survival, status and social identity (altruism drive boundaries) as groups and individuals attempt to conform their drives to the social organism of which they are a part.
In other words, they are directly related to failing decision systems within a network of social networks. And, generally an associated perceived injustice beyond Ultimatum Game tolerable limits
The re-emergence of self-government has been a slow and difficult process. Various forms have been tried and are in use now. But success is not assured. There have been successes and failures, the lure of Authoritarianism has always been a strong temptation.
Some believe, and I am one, that a healthy future must include mechanisms for resolution of this breach between natural human community size and the boundaries of an emerging global social organism. In fact, that was largely the intent of cultural engineers like Madison, Jefferson et al…
I recently read a fascinating piece by Kevin Kelly The Unabomber was Right in which he discussed Ted Kaczynski’s belief that man could never be happy in technological society… that it would trap us; essentially making us slaves who’d lost our self-determination.
I believe this is what old Ted was talking about… this incongruity which he believe technology would accelerate and broaden. But he saw no good solution so came up with a very bad one.
He’s wrong. There are solutions ready and others still to be sought. Information and communication technology especially are the lever making resolution possible.
That is, IF we can avoid the many traps along the way… here system design is critical and, as is very often the case, the devil truly is in the details.
The outcome of this story is yet to be written… and in pop culture terms… with a likely denouement as either a Star Trek Federation, a Borg Collective… or extinction.
Personally, I pick Uhuru!
( Reposted from my blog Chagora & Civilization Systems )
Chagora Proposal http://www.netsquared.org/projects/chagora
Prototype & FAQ http://www.Chagora.com/faq.aspx
As a consequence of your ancestors and mine having spent their lives living in small groups the Social Media world has great interest in Dunbar’s Number and natural human community size.
