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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 2025

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A while ago I kicked around a concept of political representation that hinged on dunbar's number

Basically: You choose to join a group of 100 people. These 100 people can live anywhere, it's just the group you're a member of. You can leave your group if another is willing to accept you.

Every group, let's call it a "century" after the Roman military unit, is a member of a higher level group of 100 centuries (call that a "meta-century" for now), and each one elects a representative into the meta-century. Just like individuals, the representative can choose to make their century a member of a different meta-century, if that meta-century is willing to accept it. The meta-century chooses one representative into the meta-meta-century, and so on until you have one president.

Every century would be essentially sovereign with respect to every individual who is a member, including up and down the hierarchy.

I have no idea how well it would work but it would ensure that every single person is contained within a political unit below dunbar's number, which I think is a good property.

You choose to join a group of 100 people. These 100 people can live anywhere, it's just the group you're a member of. You can leave your group if another is willing to accept you.

It might be slightly more practical to say:

  • A normal-size group comprises 71–140 people.

  • An undersize group comprises 51–70 people. Within one month it must become a normal-size group, by either merging with another group or taking on new members individually.

  • An oversize group comprises 141–200 people. Within one month it must become a normal-size group, by either splitting into multiple groups or bleeding off members individually.

I'm glad this was the biggest problem you could find with this proposal lol