Why it is good to gossip.
By: Charlotte Dorn
Tags: Culture, Sociology

We live in a world of an abundance, with more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet and enough wealth to overcome the worlds public health challenges. Therefore, all of our biggest problems, such as famine, poverty, and climate change, are a result of wealth distribution — a small number of individuals hoard all the value and power while others suffer.

Many of us imagine an ideal society, where every person takes only what they need and shares the rest of it. In this society, everyone could live in abundance, with ample food, healthcare, living essentials, and more. However, we consider ourselves realists and have come to terms with the fact that any group of individuals in a free market, due to game theory, it is inevitable that each individual must act competitively for their own self-interest. But is the answer to denounce the free market and blame it for all the negative externalities that exist?

No, because our world is not made up of lab participants or rational agents, but rather, human beings with personal connections, relationships, and stories. These qualities can allow for common-good to overcome self-interest. The underlying and overlooked force that is propelling what many consider to be the descent of humanity is that no one is being held accountable.

Imagine any nuclear family. What would happen if one person in the family started optimizing at the expense of others? For instance, imagine the father realizes that if he leaves the table before dinner is done, he can avoid doing the dishes. If he starts doing so, the other members would notice it and call him out — or someone would talk smack about him and eventually he would be confronted. These types of relationships keep people in check so they cannot exploit others or in other words, be assholes.

The same thing happens in classrooms (think tattle-tails and gossipers) and in teams and in many other small groups and communities. People act more fairly because if they do not, they’ll suffer social consequences. Is it a perfect system? Obviously not. We know that there are always bullies, narcissists, and uncooperative folks. Inequality will always exist, but in these groups, one individual cannot benefit or suffer ten times more than another.

So why don’t we live in a kumbaya society where these social pressures keep everything in check and everyone acts fairly?

There are two contributing factors:

Dunbar’s number, which is 150*, is said to be the number of individuals that a person can “know”. Beyond 150 people, you can’t remember their names or relations to others or their history. This number is said to be the maximum size of tribal groups prehistorically before the tribe would split into smaller groups. Beyond this number, individuals are not held accountable for their actions socially because an individual can act selfishly and even if many people hear about it and would prevent further inequality, that individual can just interact with new people. By exceeding Dunbar’s number, individuals escape accountability.

*The exact value of Dunbar’s number does not matter for this exploration.

2. Anonymity allows for individuals to act selfishly with no consequences. This is fairly obvious to anyone who has ever looked at Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, or any social media that is not necessarily linked to one’s identity. People acts cruelly and can cause a great deal of suffering with no social consequences. Similarly, when using money, rather than bartering or giving directly, there is complete anonymity. If I run a bakery and a person wants to buy bread, I have no way of knowing if their money was hard-earned or if its blood money or even stolen. The use of interchangeable and unidentifiable currency prevents accountability in transactions. Corporations move vast amounts of money without the consumer knowing its source or who accumulates the profit.

How does this impact us day to day?

In a world of almost 8 billion people, untraceable currency, and free markets, there is very little connection, accountability, or community. This is what makes it possible for one human being to have one TRILLION times the net worth than others. This has gotten out of hand.

Is gossip the answer?

Kind of.

If Jeff Bezos only interacted with a community of less than 150 people, his exploitative money-hoarding habits would quickly gain him a bad reputation in the community and due to the power of social pressures, he would eventually be put in his place.

By focusing on community and local goods and services, we can create communities that have accountability and agree with our values. We can choose to not buy from companies that exploit people or the environment and we act in a way that encourages others to act for a common good.

This is not a solution, but it’s the least we can do.

The idea of Dunbar’s number being a mechanism of negative externalities was brought to my attention in Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá.

“Tragedies [such as fisheries collapsing, strip-mining, toxic smokestacks, and melting glaciers] become inevitable only when the group size exceeds our species’ capacity for keeping track of one another, a point that’s come to be known as Dunbar’s number.” -Sex At Dawn

The idea is also explored in The Power of Scale by John Bodley.