Comic Strips

Yeah, basically beyond Dunbar’s Number your society needs something like honor to function. Below that number, empathy alone is sufficient to ensure social order. But beyond that you need honor or law, and the personality trait that makes it possible in the individual is conscientiousness.

Another way to look at it is that for small numbers of people you can rely on people to treat others well because they like them. That’s empathy at work as a social cohesive principle.

For larger groups you need to rely on people to treat others well because it’s the right thing to do. That’s conscientiousness at work as a social cohesive principle.

Empathy requires high bandwidth connection with other people and is limited in number of relationships it can serve. Conscientious requires dedication to principles, and is basically infinitely scalable. Someone walks into your store and you treat them well because you pride yourself on being a good shop owner. That’s conscientiousness. That’s how post-Dunbar societies operate.