31. Ship of State - Cultural functions and dynamics beyond the dunbars number.

We begin putting the concepts and principles of previous episodes together into a systems perspective, using the metaphor of the ship of state. The innovation or evolution of money and the persona abstracted the individual to a functional role within a system. They provide the framework that allows large numbers of people to coordinate as a single body without knowing each other. They make the greater societal structures robust against disruption by commoditising the individual, allowing the role to persist even as the person that carries it out is replaced. It creates a robust signaling system in the form of the economy which grounds the intellectual communication carried in speech in value dictated by physical constraints and biological needs.