[soledades]

I agree with the first part of your point, but this in particular is an emergent phenomena that only happens with large-scale civilizations.

So I think some kind of sociological argument makes more sense (I don't know what that would be though).

[Zircom]

I've read that there is a certain number of people that we're basically optimized to coexist within a societal structure, and modern civilization passed that a long time ago, and human beings in general just aren't capable of empathy on the scale of modern civilization. And I mean, it makes sense when you think about it. On some abstract level you have to know that even meagre standards of living in western society requires someone, somewhere to be suffering to provide it. $1 for a pound of bananas shipped from across the world before they even have a hint of yellow on them? That shit don't come without a cost, and our $1 sure as hell aint paying it. But we all just kind of don't think those people just to get through the day, because dwelling on the extent of suffering and horror we've wrought upon our fellow man in pursuit of whatever fresh hell the guys over at Oreo have managed to shape into the general form of a cookie would leave us a broken shell of a person and unable to show up for our next shift at the Big Mac factory.

[oblio]

> I've read that there is a certain number of people that we're basically optimized to coexist within a societal structure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

> Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.

[tpxl]

> this in particular is an emergent phenomena that only happens with large-scale civilizations

Is it? If you have N participants in a market and a bunch of investment opportunities that are on average net negative, the person with the most money will take the most opportunities resulting in their relative worth increasing the most. The endgame for this is one person with all the money. Works for N=2 and N≃infinity.

It doesn't happen in (some? most?) small communities because of specific things that aren't present in big communities.