Reputation and Relation
Two strategies for human connection
Humans are social creatures. We form bonds with others up to Dunbar’s number of 150. People who struggle with this recieve clinical labels, and not without cause. Those with Avoidant Personality Disorder struggle with relationships outside their direct kin. When people lack the normal template, we consider their attachment style Disorganised. But being a social butterfly is not a necessity. Wallflowers are still considered part of the normal range psychologically and culturally (to the extent they are different). This normal range has however a concrete tipping point.
Relatable or Admirable
On the lower end we see people focussing on building relationships. Their limited selection gets deepened over time through time. People who build these direct relationships can be recognised by the nature and origin of their relationships. They are from all over, and there is no grand narrative to their joining. They are there because they have always been there. If one would have lived in small farming community this would have been very useful. Incorporating the people you will know for the rest of your life by just being there aligns well with the environment.
On the higher end we see people focussing on building reputation. Their wide selection gets broadened over time. People who build this relational gravitation can be identified by their friend group being in flux. Their friends are found along the path, and are often a social package taken as a whole. If one lived in a dynamic environment like a nomadic entourage this would serve one well. If people can appear and disappear from your life, investment is wasted. Better then to learn how to continuously pull people in to ensure you have a social group.
People liquidity
Some environments have more dynamism in the people you are exposed to. This range of intuitions expressing themselves in specific cognitive construct building, we would expect a relatively narrow middle. To some extent we see few mixers, but mostly tight pockets interacting with others through dynamic intermediaries. One could imagine a metaphorical landscape of plains with jagged rocks sticking out. The intermediary group of people are often energetic, assertive, competitive and ambitious, for all can be gained and lost in the plains in an instant. Their groups are tumultuous, where those that succeed get followers, who have splinters chipping off if the main flow does not serve. Those fixed groups are more tempered, agreeable, hierarchical and reserved. Winning is nice, but you can’t kick half the people off the rock. The value is in the community, and so winning must be slow, incremental and limited for the survival of the group. An optimal answer for personal utility is how liquid people are as a commodity to you. Treating people more as a commodity if they are more of a commodity is capturing that potential asymmetric value in the contact. If you burn through people to fast in an undynamic environment you end up with missing out on stable revenue. To be of the rock on the plain will get you taken for a ride, to be off the plains gets you kicked off the rock collectively before long.
This seems like an uneasy truce, but in the narrow piece of the world where the rock meets the plain, people get together, mingle intellectually and physically. Historically, the cities that connect a big landmass to the sea, this interplay creates tremendous wealth for the inhabitants. Socially, legally, culturally, what would we expect but to find the most valuable at the connector between the open space and the closed space.
