How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

Not just some Lady, Massicot is a smart one. Careful analyst. I don't think she was on the Kyiv Doomed bandwagon,  for example. 

Good link, thank you

[NamEndedAllen]

President Zelensky. From the front line at Bakhmut to the Congress of the USA. References to Americans desperately fighting the Nazis on Christmas Eve in Battle of the Bulge. To the turning point in the American War for Independence: The Battle of Saratoga. Not asking for American soldiers fighting in Ukraine, assuring instead, Ukrainians can definitely fly American jets and drive American tanks (!).

But the two simple words that should ring out, should be THE message to everyone, everywhere:

”ONLY VICTORY”

[JM Stuff]

Just now, NamEndedAllen said:

President Zelensky. From the front line at Bakhmut to the Congress of the USA. References to Americans desperately fighting the Nazis on Christmas Eve in Battle of the Bulge. To the turning point in the American War for Independence: The Battle of Saratoga. Not asking for American soldiers fighting in Ukraine, assuring instead, Ukrainians can definitely fly American jets and drive American tanks (!).

But the two simple words that should ring out, should be THE message to everyone, everywhere:

”ONLY VICTORY”

I think this could be really the most important and crucial moment, of the future of the Ukrainian Russian conflict, and who know, perhaps also from Europa !

JM

[billbindc]

5 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Not just some Lady, Massicot is a smart one. Careful analyst. I don't think she was on the Kyiv Doomed bandwagon,  for example. 

Good link, thank you

Yes, she's good. Also worth noting that nothing in her analysis requires any sort of dramatic departure from what we know already: 

1. Russia lacks sufficient manpower.

2. The Russian military has shown a propensity to backslide in terms of organization and doctrine when under pressure.

3. Russia lacks sufficient equipment.

4. For the regime full mobilization is as dangerous as no real mobilization at all.

Everything she says fits easily within that frame and she doesn't try to pretty it up. It's well done.

[chrisl]

7 hours ago, sburke said:

it is a two-part opinion piece, Here is short bit to describe the practical impact on the battlefield. 

 

The RA is likely also very limited in what they can buy commercially without going through some laundering.  Commercial satellite companies are subject to export rules and Russian access to anything good may be low or nonexistent.

 

[BlackMoria]

35 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

1: with Sweden and Finland joining NATO, the Western Military District will revert back into the Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts – like before 2010, as well as an Army Corps HQ in Karelia. This makes sense with NATO expansion, so this change checks out /3 

2: Putin tells Shoygu he will have no funding restrictions and “the country and the government are providing everything that the army asks for” but for the ‘special military operation’ but there’s a catch: Shoygu has to fix the problems, to include mobilization. /4 

If there is anything the last decade and war in Ukraine have shown, Sergey Kuzhegetovich Shoygu is the definitely the wrong person to give a lot of money to and ask to fix the military's problems. He is loyal to Putin so there's that. /5  

3: Create three new vehicle repair and maintenance facilities. This makes sense. Shoygu then throws his predecessor under the bus about that, instead of acknowledging that he’s been in his job for ten years and had ample time to fix it himself /6 

4: Conscription ages changes from 18-27 to 21-30. This is an odd shift. I don’t think it’s related to demographics, unless so many in that 18-21 age group fled Russia in 2022 leaving them in an unexpected bind. I’ll need more time to think this through. /7 

5: 3 new divisions will be created in occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Makes sense..but how? From units already deployed there, pulling from strategic reserve of older equipment, moving units from other mil districts, or just not filling them? /8 

6: uh-oh more divisions: convert 7 Ground Forces brigades into divisions , continuing a slow process of rollbacks from the “New Look” reforms. They’ve been doing this slowly for 10 years. The problem is this: they need more people and more equipment to make these units larger /9 

7: more divisions! coastal defense brigades to be converted into divisions. need more people and equipment, both are in short supply. /10 

8: divisions again - the VDV will form two additional air assault divisions. the VDV in 2022 is so severely degraded it will be a struggle to return to prewar levels in the year ahead, but they want to increase it. That will be hard /11 

7: raise contract servicemen numbers to 695,000 of a planned 1.5 million military billets. These numbers may be a goal, but they aren’t realistic, given their casualties, resignations, and what I presume must be recruiting and retention problems for contractniki /12 

8: Shoygu says in 2023 the Russian military will “continue the special military operation until the tasks are fully completed.” open-ended. /13 

What do I take away from this speech? At a workshop this summer, I noted we should not assume the General Staff will learn the correct lessons from the war. Wrong lessons could include a regeneration plan cooked up by parochial interests, and Arbat generals in the General Staff 

The wrong lessons I thought at that time would be things like, letting the Ground Forces continue to dominate all discussions, creating more divisions, more conscripts to recreate something vaguely Soviet…/14 

..instead of understanding the correct lessons for what went wrong – like excessive secrecy and letting the intel services plan the war, poor use of the VKS, and insufficient enablers for precision munitions, and commanders so toxic as to undermine combat capabilities /15 

To me, this speech is a sign the General Staff is learning the wrong lessons and parochial interests are taking over in many ways. Many have hated brigades since they were announced in 2009. /16 

The General Staff concludes they need larger units for high intensity war, and the brigade and BTG do not suit their needs. Part of that is true – the BTG was not designed for this kind of war. /17 

The Russian military was purposefully redesigned in 2009 away from the kind of war it is fighting in 2022 but they didn't fix the force design before the war they chose to launch. /18

Not Built for Purpose: The Russian Military’s Ill-Fated Force Design - War on the Rocks

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a deeply flawed military operation, from Moscow’s assumptions about an easy victory, to a lack of preparation, poor

https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/

With nearly half of the Russian Ground Forces estimated to be wounded and killed in 2022, and a major percentage of their active duty armored equipment destroyed (30-50%), they announce they need more soldiers and larger units. /19 

Increases also to tactical aviation: three air divisions, 8 bomber regiments, 1 fighter regiment, six army aviation (helos) brigades. Each Ground Forces combined arms army will have mixed aviation division/brigade of 80-100 helos. /20 

But these plans - bigger units more people --don’t make a lot of sense for Russia’s new reality. With losses of personnel, equipment, and a loss of trust more broadly, they will struggle to make these plans a reality. /21 

TL:DR: these plans are not based on Russia's reality and a lot of folks on the Arbat have a little too much Soviet nostalgia and can't face what has happened on their watch. /end 

Harsh!  There is a lot of "coke lines snorted off of strippers asses"  fueled delusions going on there. Bigger  units? More units?   Equipment with what, pray tell?   That wasn't addressed.    A whole of 'magical' thinking going on there...

[Battlefront.com]

52 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

from some lady tweeting from RAND, by way of /r/credibledefense, of the changes spoken about in MoD-Putin conference. Interesting premise, Russia might not reform the way at least most in the West would consider "correct". 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for posting that.  All checks out to me.  Many months ago I was of the opinion that even if the Russians learned the correct lessons from this war that they would be unable to benefit from them.  Primarily because their equipment is not up-to-snuff, nor is their entire military structure from top to bottom.  To beat Ukraine they need years of dedicated reforms that are fully implemented along with massive spending on weaponry that is technically outside of their reach to produce.

So, to this RAND analyst I'd ask "is the Russian MOD learning the wrong lessons from this war or they have learned the correct lessons and they've decided it isn't possible, thereby going with things they think they can actually acheive?"

Steve

[billbindc]

31 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for posting that.  All checks out to me.  Many months ago I was of the opinion that even if the Russians learned the correct lessons from this war that they would be unable to benefit from them.  Primarily because their equipment is not up-to-snuff, nor is their entire military structure from top to bottom.  To beat Ukraine they need years of dedicated reforms that are fully implemented along with massive spending on weaponry that is technically outside of their reach to produce.

So, to this RAND analyst I'd ask "is the Russian MOD learning the wrong lessons from this war or they have learned the correct lessons and they've decided it isn't possible, thereby going with things they think they can actually acheive?"

Steve

There’s daylight too between what is said and what they actually believe they can accomplish. There’s also daylight between what Putin imagines is possible and what the RA and Shoigu know. Some percentage of that formidable list of units to be created, materiel to be collected is propaganda intended to reassure regular Russians. Some of it is propaganda intended to reassure the President of the Russian Federation. 

[Battlefront.com]

Good overview of Zelensky's trip to Washington:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3784551-five-takeaways-from-zelenskys-trip-to-washington/

The publication is right of center, so pay close attention to how it discusses the Republican response, especially the pro-Putin wing of the Republican party.  It is like many of us here have said... the pro-Putin wing is loud and influential, but small in number.  On the left, nobody in the Democratic side wants to be seen sharing views similar to the radical right.  Even if they oppose military spending generally, or spending in Ukraine specifically, they will do so very quietly and with no significant impact.  The idiotic embarrassing letter they wrote and quickly retracted a couple of months ago shows us this.

So, Ukraine is going to get the full support of the White House, strong majority support in the Senate (including leadership of BOTH parties), and strong majority support in the House (probably without Majority Leadership).  In a deeply divided political landscape, that's a massive indicator of support for Ukraine.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, billbindc said:

There’s daylight too between what is said and what they actually believe they can accomplish. There’s also daylight between what Putin imagines is possible and what the RA and Shoigu know. Some percentage of that formidable list of units to be created, materiel to be collected is propaganda intended to reassure regular Russians. Some of it is propaganda intended to reassure the President of the Russian Federation. 

Yes, all of that.

Similar to what we saw with the partial mobilization.  Everything the people were told looked solid on paper, but in reality it was an act of desperation.  But it was a DELIBERATE act with the knowledge that some percentage were going to be thrown away as cannon fodder even before the first conscription notices were posted.

The relevance of this is that I doubt anybody in the Russian MOD thought that throwing cannon fodder at the Ukrainians was going to do more than keep the front from collapsing.  All the public bravado of what the mobilization was going to achieve was just window dressing.

I see these plans, like you, in the same light.  Though I am sure the RAND analyst is correct that the establishment within the MOD sees making money and solidifying power as perks.

Steve

[FancyCat]

20 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Some of it is propaganda intended to reassure the President of the Russian Federation. 

In the words of the analyst, #2 tweet, I detected a hint of Putin deliberately sort of standing away from the MoD,

"Putin tells Shoygu he will have no funding restrictions and “the country and the government are providing everything that the army asks for” but for the ‘special military operation’ but there’s a catch: Shoygu has to fix the problems, to include mobilization."

Maybe analyst spin, I don't read Russian, I would not be surprised if Putin is prepared to cast blame on the MoD if the SMO goes bad.

[Huba]

Drone CASEVAC somewhere at the front:

 

[Zeleban]

A good demonstration of the features of the use of tanks in the war in Ukraine. There are no bold attacks by tank columns. Instead, single vehicles are used for rapid shelling and subsequent retreat.

Also, this video perfectly demonstrates one of the main drawbacks of Soviet tanks - a slow reverse, which makes the tankers turn their backs.

[Zeleban]

 

[Zeleban]

11 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Ok, so if confirmed (seems legit) this is in turn big news:

Dmitri Rogozhin, former chief of Roskosmos and wice-PM of Russia, is reported to be wounded in the back today in an explosion in hotel in Donetsk. Clip, if indeed showing the event, seem confirming; looks like internal job (meaning exposive material) as roof is intact? So perhaps rather bomb than artillery.

Wouldn't feel comfortable on place of astronauts in ISS. Rogozhin is particulary vile and vangeful guy even up to the standards of Russian state apparatus, nationalist of the "certified by Kremlin" type. It would up to this date highest Russian state official suffering in Ukraine, except military ofc.

Also gauleiter from DPR was reportedly heavily wounded, the guy killed on the clip is his bodyguard.

Rogozin almost went into space, which he dreamed about so much

[LongLeftFlank]

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em

2.  Discussion of the magic number, 100k KIA

3. Pep talk from Bakhmut, but looks like the situation there is still tenuous.  Arestovich claims 60,000 RU casualties in the past 3 months in this area (direction).

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[slysniper]

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

A good demonstration of the features of the use of tanks in the war in Ukraine. There are no bold attacks by tank columns. Instead, single vehicles are used for rapid shelling and subsequent retreat.

Also, this video perfectly demonstrates one of the main drawbacks of Soviet tanks - a slow reverse, which makes the tankers turn their backs.

Or is it for the simple fact, there is no way to see where one is going by driving backwards.

The driver is on his own to get out of there it appears, the commander at no point shows up  as to the fact the reversing was going to be a option.

 

[Zeleban]

9 minutes ago, slysniper said:

Or is it for the simple fact, there is no way to see where one is going by driving backwards.

The driver is on his own to get out of there it appears, the commander at no point shows up  as to the fact the reversing was going to be a option.

 

On the video BM Bulat. These tanks are equipped with a rear view camera for the driver.

[slysniper]

good to know

Edited December 22, 2022 by slysniper

[kevinkin]

Nice step by step summary. Clearly recommends the West piling on now when Russia is at it's weakest i.e. don't freeze the battlefield. The threat of WMD will always be there regardless of the strategy moving forward. Putin should freeze the battlefield to give troops and the population a breather - but can't due to warmongers breathing down his neck. Net net, Russian is gasping for air so it's no time to think about negotiations. I have read elsewhere a form of Russia will always exist and with WMD. So best to bled them dry now to delay the next war for many years. 

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/target-russia’s-capability-not-its-intent

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Discussion of the magic number, 100k KIA

That ain’t the magic number.  I suspect the number is about 1.1 - 1.5 million dead and or wounded, but there are a lot of caveats to that estimate.

Humans can hold about 125 intimate relationships in their heads, max.  These are family, friends, acquaintances/neighbours, guys we hang out in forums with.  “Intimate” means we actually get a glimmer of empathy for them because we see them as people - of course empathy is a slippery beast and different for everyone, especially guys on a forum.

So if that is “first order” then those intimate relationships, relationships are second order - so 125 times 125 = 15,625 (“technically”, because I know some guys here are going to be that picky, it is 125x124 because our connection should not be counted twice). People who are connected to the max amount of people we can give a crap about. (Assuming no overlaps but let’s try and keep it simple).  So this is “there is a guy I know from work whose cousin…” type of thing - two degrees of separation.

In order to have an second order effect on 144 million people Russia need only have about 10,000 casualties in this war and they crossed that threshold months ago. This is the point where “I know someone who knows someone” effect kicks in.

However, we humans are also pretty damned insular.  Just because the guy at the grocery store had a second cousin who got his leg blown off at Kharkiv does not mean I am going to march in the streets and overthrow the government.  For that no one can really calculate the tipping or saturation point easily.  One could argue it is 1 in 125 - which for Russia is about 1.1 million.  This would mean that the average Russian is likely to know someone directly who has been killed or wounded in this war - “the guy in the grocery store went to Kherson and got his legs blown off”.

I am not sure that would even do it to be honest but as that number of dead and wounded grow the pressure on the average Russian’s little security bubble get higher and higher.  In order to ensure every single Russia household has at least one direct impact we are talking 58.6 million - https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/number-of-households-in-russia-2096160/

That number will very likely set off the micro-social bomb unless Russia is truly “all in”.  The number for Ukraine is about 17 million - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households

Historical example - in WW1 Germany took 7.4 million casualties (https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_germany)  with a population base as of 1910 of about 65 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany). That is 1 in 8 Germans.  No data on German households, given that family sizes were larger but that is approaching the 1 per household line. Add to this food shortages and a bunch of other pressures it really is not that hard to see why Germany buckled, in fact it is pretty impressive they lasted as long as they did.

But of course none of this takes into account context.  Is a nation in an existential war?  Who are they fighting?  How unified is their culture?  [aside: Russian mobilization concentrations in certain regions is a very bad idea as it creates schisms as some regions will feel the effects much more than others - this little exercise assumes uniform distribution of casualties, which we all know is not the case, but making it worse is a very bad idea]

So the real question: when does Russia start to feel the pain enough to do something about it?  Almost impossible to answer in detail.  How invested are Russian in this war?  Seconds cousins of grocery guy?  Grocery guy?  My second cousin?  Brother, son or father?  Me? Just about every society will tolerate the Grocery Guy’s second cousin to a point. Unless the war is really upside down or the society is really anti-war - we had rumbling and push back here in Canada on Afghanistan and we were likely just below the grocery guys cousin in that war.

Rate of loss is also a factor.  Over time the grocery guy’s cousin is going to die anyway.  So rates of loss = shock.  How fast those second order hit happen is important.  Over 20 years is a slow pressure, in 10 months the effect can be amplified.

And then we have the internet effect.  We are able to make connections over greater distances. I am not sure if this is changed fundamentally how many connections we can make but online communities clearly have an effect as we have seen here. Before it had to be people in my neighbourhood that mattered, now it is a much wider net.  The converse of this is a desensitization effect.  

We can also have a phenomenon I call spontaneous relevant convergence this is when something hits a note that resonant deeply within human collective psyche.  It creates convergence on a focal point from a large collective of people who would normally be completely disconnected.  For example, the was a dramatic difference in opinion and support wrt the 2015 European refugee crisis after that photo of the four year old boy washing up on the beach happened.  No one could predict that, nor are the mechanisms really well understood - some sort of empathetic transpositional response?   

So here we are at let’s say 350k Russian casualties of some shape or sort.  That is about 1 in 400ish, well outside uniform intimate community impacts.  Some neighbourhoods are going to be severely impacted while other only see it on the evening news.  Plenty of room for denial and whatabout-isms.  Until that number gets to 1 in 125 - about 1.1 million, large swaths of Russia will only see this war at a distance.  A thunderstorm “over there”, I can raise an eyebrow, have an opinion and pretty much get on with my life.  Unless something happens that resonates, I can ignore the whole thing because the grocery guys cousins really doesn’t mean much to me. I do not have a significant sense of collective empathy or social responsibility. I just want to get through the freakin week.

But once the storm get closer, faster…well then I start to think about my roof and my car. And we have not even touched the economic effects of this war, which are easily in that intimate area to some extent.  Finally, this is also likely why Putin is not mobilizing 5 million men, that is well into intimate communities across the entire nation, and he knows it.

Edited December 22, 2022 by The_Capt

[Huba]

Partisan activity in the occupied southern territories continues:

 

[billbindc]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

That ain’t the magic number.  I suspect the number is about 1.1 - 1.5 million dead and or wounded, but there are a lot of caveats to that estimate.

Humans can hold about 125 intimate relationships in their heads, max.  These are family, friends, acquaintances/neighbours, guys we hang out in forums with.  “Intimate” means we actually get a glimmer of empathy for them because we see them as people - of course empathy is a slippery beast and different for everyone, especially guys on a forum.

So if that is “first order” then those intimate relationships, relationships are second order - so 125 times 125 = 15,625 (“technically”, because I know some guys here are going to be that picky, it is 125x124 because our connection should not be counted twice). People who are connected to the max amount of people we can give a crap about. (Assuming no overlaps but let’s try and keep it simple).  So this is “there is a guy I know from work whose cousin…” type of thing - two degrees of separation.

In order to have an second order effect on 144 million people Russia need only have about 10,000 casualties in this war and they crossed that threshold months ago. This is the point where “I know someone who knows someone” effect kicks in.

However, we humans are also pretty damned insular.  Just because the guy at the grocery store had a second cousin who got his leg blown off at Kharkiv does not mean I am going to march in the streets and overthrow the government.  For that no one can really calculate the tipping or saturation point easily.  One could argue it is 1 in 125 - which for Russia is about 1.1 million.  This would mean that the average Russian is likely to know someone directly who has been killed or wounded in this war - “the guy in the grocery store went to Kherson and got his legs blown off”.

I am not sure that would even do it to be honest but as that number of dead and wounded grow the pressure on the average Russian’s little security bubble get higher and higher.  In order to ensure every single Russia household has at least one direct impact we are talking 58.6 million - https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/number-of-households-in-russia-2096160/

That number will very likely set off the micro-social bomb unless Russia is truly “all in”.  The number for Ukraine is about 17 million - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households

Historical example - in WW1 Germany took 7.4 million casualties (https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_germany)  with a population base as of 1910 of about 65 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany). That is 1 in 8 Germans.  No data on German households, given that family sizes were larger but that is approaching the 1 per household line. Add to this food shortages and a bunch of other pressures it really is not that hard to see why Germany buckled, in fact it is pretty impressive they lasted as long as they did.

But of course none of this takes into account context.  Is a nation in an existential war?  Who are they fighting?  How unified is their culture?  [aside: Russian mobilization concentrations in certain regions is a very bad idea as it creates schisms as some regions will feel the effects much more than others - this little exercise assumes uniform distribution of casualties, which we all know is not the case, but making it worse is a very bad idea]

So the real question: when does Russia start to feel the pain enough to do something about it?  Almost impossible to answer in detail.  How invested are Russian in this war?  Seconds cousins of grocery guy?  Grocery guy?  My second cousin?  Brother, son or father?  Me? Just about every society will tolerate the Grocery Guy’s second cousin to a point. Unless the war is really upside down or the society is really anti-war - we had rumbling and push back here in Canada on Afghanistan and we were likely just below the grocery guys cousin in that war.

Rate of loss is also a factor.  Over time the grocery guy’s cousin is going to die anyway.  So rates of loss = shock.  How fast those second order hit happen is important.  Over 20 years is a slow pressure, in 10 months the effect can be amplified.

And then we have the internet effect.  We are able to make connections over greater distances. I am not sure if this is changed fundamentally how many connections we can make but online communities clearly have an effect as we have seen here. Before it had to be people in my neighbourhood that mattered, now it is a much wider net.  The converse of this is a desensitization effect.  

We can also have a phenomenon I call spontaneous relevant convergence this is when something hits a note that resonant deeply within human collective psyche.  It creates convergence on a focal point from a large collective of people who would normally be completely disconnected.  For example, the was a dramatic difference in opinion and support wrt the 2015 European refugee crisis after that photo of the four year old boy washing up on the beach happened.  No one could predict that, nor are the mechanisms really well understood - some sort of empathetic transpositional response?   

So here we are at let’s say 350k Russian casualties of some shape or sort.  That is about 1 in 400ish, well outside uniform intimate community impacts.  Some neighbourhoods are going to be severely impacted while other only see it on the evening news.  Plenty of room for denial and whatabout-isms.  Until that number gets to 1 in 125 - about 1.1 million, large swaths of Russia will only see this war at a distance.  A thunderstorm “over there”, I can raise an eyebrow, have an opinion and pretty much get on with my life.  Unless something happens that resonates, I can ignore the whole thing because the grocery guys cousins really doesn’t mean much to me. I do not have a significant sense of collective empathy or social responsibility. I just want to get through the freakin week.

But once the storm get closer, faster…well then I start to think about my roof and my car. And we have not even touched the economic effects of this war, which are easily in that intimate area to some extent.  Finally, this is also likely why Putin is not mobilizing 5 million men, that is well into intimate communities across the entire nation, and he knows it.

If I am doing my sums correctly Imperial Russia, which was at least as decrepit a state as Putin's oligarchy, went way above those ratios before the wheels came off. In that context, I would be very wary of looking at any number and drawing a conclusion or prediction even tentatively (as I know you do not). Casualties aren't going to decide this one. It's going to be elite commitment to Putin's rule or lack thereof that will rely on a complicated mix of politics, economics and forecasting. Call it the regime pessimism index. If enough Russian elites can still see some less painful possibility to overthrowing the current order down the road then they will go along. Once they can't, things will start to happen pretty quickly.

[FancyCat]

5 hours ago, Zeleban said:

 

Old footage from Syria sadly.

 

[sburke]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

That ain’t the magic number.  I suspect the number is about 1.1 - 1.5 million dead and or wounded, but there are a lot of caveats to that estimate.

Humans can hold about 125 intimate relationships in their heads, max.  These are family, friends, acquaintances/neighbours, guys we hang out in forums with.  “Intimate” means we actually get a glimmer of empathy for them because we see them as people - of course empathy is a slippery beast and different for everyone, especially guys on a forum.

So if that is “first order” then those intimate relationships, relationships are second order - so 125 times 125 = 15,625 (“technically”, because I know some guys here are going to be that picky, it is 125x124 because our connection should not be counted twice). People who are connected to the max amount of people we can give a crap about. (Assuming no overlaps but let’s try and keep it simple).  So this is “there is a guy I know from work whose cousin…” type of thing - two degrees of separation.

Yeah but what if one of those guys is Kevin Bacon?