A power available in modern environment = superstimulus? That makes sense. At least it would explain why powerful people sometimes do things that don’t give them an evolutionary advantage (such as killing most of their relatives, and having the few remaining ones predictably killed after their death by opponents).
Question: What position in a modern society is a power equivalent of an ancient chieftain? (The highest non-superstimulus power level.) I don’t know how exactly to measure it, because the environment is so different. Even using Dunbar’s number, should we define it as “1:150 power level” or rather “power over 150 people”? Which components of power are emotionally most relevant: is it the ability to give commands to others, or not having to obey others’ commands (a distance from the bottom or from the top of the society)?
I think social distance is key here. But perhaps it has more to do with feedback mechanisms supplying information to those wielding power. A village chieftain would have more direct channels of feedback than a general in the Pentagon, say.
Institutionalized power relationships would also create stimuli that didn’t exist in the past. For example, prisoners wouldn’t remain prisoners for years on end in hunter gatherer societies. They’d either be killed, exiled, or absorbed into the community.
The number of people seems a very likely factor. That could be involved with feedback. It’s probably a lot harder to process feedback information from 50,000 people than for 50.
EDIT: A metric might combine the number of people over which one has power, with an economic measure of social distance and social feedback. It’s the confluence of these which seems to be the problem, not just the number of persons ruled.
A power available in modern environment = superstimulus? That makes sense. At least it would explain why powerful people sometimes do things that don’t give them an evolutionary advantage (such as killing most of their relatives, and having the few remaining ones predictably killed after their death by opponents).
Question: What position in a modern society is a power equivalent of an ancient chieftain? (The highest non-superstimulus power level.) I don’t know how exactly to measure it, because the environment is so different. Even using Dunbar’s number, should we define it as “1:150 power level” or rather “power over 150 people”? Which components of power are emotionally most relevant: is it the ability to give commands to others, or not having to obey others’ commands (a distance from the bottom or from the top of the society)?
I think social distance is key here. But perhaps it has more to do with feedback mechanisms supplying information to those wielding power. A village chieftain would have more direct channels of feedback than a general in the Pentagon, say.
Institutionalized power relationships would also create stimuli that didn’t exist in the past. For example, prisoners wouldn’t remain prisoners for years on end in hunter gatherer societies. They’d either be killed, exiled, or absorbed into the community.
The number of people seems a very likely factor. That could be involved with feedback. It’s probably a lot harder to process feedback information from 50,000 people than for 50.
EDIT: A metric might combine the number of people over which one has power, with an economic measure of social distance and social feedback. It’s the confluence of these which seems to be the problem, not just the number of persons ruled.
Probably?