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Romashka comments on Open Thread, Aug. 15. - Aug 21. 2016 - Less Wrong
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If nomads united into large hordes to go to war, shouldn't the change in the number of men living together have had some noticeable psychological effect on the warriors? I mean, the Wikipedia says that "a Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships", and surely they had to co-work with lots more people than during peace?
You don't "maintain stable social relationships" with the whole horde, you maintain them with your small unit. And the military hierarchy exists so that people have to coordinate only a limited number of entities: if you're a grunt, you need to coordinate only with people immediately around you; if you're a mid-level officer you coordinate a limited number of platoons, if you're a general you coordinate a limited number of regiments.
A soldier does not meaningfully "co-work" with the whole army.
Not necessarily, and after all military hierarchies are a way to cope with the complexity of managing thousands of peopla at a time.
Yes, but how? Are there different DN for peace and war?
No I don't think, but still Dunbar number are not an exact quantity, first, and second: if you only need to relate to a handful of comrade in your platoon and one higher ranking official, then you can effectively restrict the number of people with whom you have to interact.
I am asking mostly because I have trouble imagining strict segregation in, say, Mongolian hordes; and intuitively, advance (where you have an army of able-bodied men) should be different from retreat (where you have also women, children and infirm men).