THE MONKEYSPHERE

The Monkeysphere

The Monkeysphere, otherwise known as Dunbar's number, is an absolutely brilliant theory of sociology, government, philosophy, and human nature. Fundamentally, the theory is based off a study of the social organization of monkeys; how they organize and how they govern themselves.

Due to the size of a monkey's brain, most great apes and chimpanzees develop tribe-like family units, living together in communities. Thus, they are capable of forming attachments, relationships, and connections with a maximum number of about 50 other primates. Any more is too much, and so groups and communities are never more than 50 members. Any other primate they come into contact with would be seen as a stranger and not part of the group, and thus those monkeys cannot identify, relate, or empathize with any other monkey outside of their sphere of community.

So that is why you might have monkeys living together harmoniously within a group, while waging war and fighting for food, resources, etc with any other monkey not in their sphere of community.

Scientists at Yale University conducted a study similar to Dunbar's number, however, with a different species of primate. The study concluded that humans, being 98% genetically similar to a chimpanzee, have a similar limit and capacity to their group sizes and communities. That number, dunbar's number, is 150.

Humans are naturally social creatures and this academically accepted theory has found that most humans have approximately only 150 other humans that they can have relationships with. And in those communities, humans live harmoniously. So is this the reason one human can kill another, commit acts of cruelty, and thrust middle fingers at each other while driving? Because they cannot relate to them, think of them as friends and family?

And is this why great peacemakers and leaders like Jesus, Ghandi, Schweitzer, and M.L. King can "love thy neighbor"? Because they have extended their monkeyspheres to all of humanity?
Please check out this enlightening article for those answers and a better explanation on this info:

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

as well as wikis official writeup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number