I mostly agree with this. However, this point seems reversed:
In the EEA, both were probably somewhat correlated with interpersonal trust and reciprocal altruism. When there are lots of people, a reputation for backstabbing spreads more rapidly and has more consequences.
When there are more people your chances of meeting the same person again are lower, also this makes it hard to keep track of reputations. To the extent abundance correlates with high interpersonal trust and reciprocal altruism, the causation goes the other way.
The curve will be particularly complex. When there’s no one. No curve. Very few, then it’s worth to collaborate even when they backstab you. Specially if the environment is super-dangerous. You want to create a story according to which they didn’t betray you at all. Anything, as long as the mutual knowledge is still on the friends side.
Bigger numbers: Something close to Dunbar number would probably be where you most need to signal trustworthiness, and from then on, the more there are, the lowest is the cost of free-riding.
I mostly agree with this. However, this point seems reversed:
When there are more people your chances of meeting the same person again are lower, also this makes it hard to keep track of reputations. To the extent abundance correlates with high interpersonal trust and reciprocal altruism, the causation goes the other way.
The curve will be particularly complex. When there’s no one. No curve. Very few, then it’s worth to collaborate even when they backstab you. Specially if the environment is super-dangerous. You want to create a story according to which they didn’t betray you at all. Anything, as long as the mutual knowledge is still on the friends side. Bigger numbers: Something close to Dunbar number would probably be where you most need to signal trustworthiness, and from then on, the more there are, the lowest is the cost of free-riding.