For Builders & Policy Makers

Build for Biology

Technology, cities, and institutions were built without human specs. This is why they fail. Here are the specs.

Test Your Design→Read the Specs

10x

Depression rates vs traditional societies

7hrs

Daily screen time (replacing real contact)

150

Max meaningful relationships (Dunbar)

Systems designed for human specs

The Mismatch

Depression rates 10x higher in modern vs traditional societies. Anxiety disorders affect 30%+ of the population. Loneliness is now a public health epidemic. Suicide rates rising despite unprecedented material wealth.

The standard response-medicating individuals to tolerate intolerable conditions-has failed. The systems themselves must change.

Timeline compression - 300,000 years of evolution vs 15 years of smartphones — 300,000 years of consistent conditions. 15 years of smartphones.

Modern defaults vs evolutionary spec — Modern defaults violate every biological constraint.

From the Library

What Humans Actually Require

Any system that works with humans must account for these biological constraints.

The Limits (Non-Negotiable)

•Dunbar layers: 5 intimate → 15 close → 50 friends → 150 meaningful
•Attention: Finite, easily hijacked, requires closure
•Status: Evaluated against ~150, not 8 billion
•Return windows: Days to weeks, not years to decades

The Signals (Information, Not Malfunction)

•Anxiety = threat detection working correctly
•Depression = meaning assessment working correctly
•Loneliness = isolation alarm working correctly
•Addiction = drive-seeking working correctly

The Requirements

•Visible contribution (see who your work helps)
•Closure (problems resolvable through action)
•Real feedback (from people with stake, not metrics)
•Physical presence (Dunbar relationships require it)
•Movement & nature (bodies evolved outdoors)

Dunbar layers detailed — Dunbar layers: 5 → 15 → 50 → 150

EEA spec sheet — The evolutionary spec sheet

Signals not symptoms — Signals are information, not malfunction.

Related from Library

What You're Up Against

The mismatch isn't accidental. It's profitable. Every unmet human need is a market.

•Social media profits from loneliness (connection proxies that never satisfy)
•Pharma profits from signal override (medication as tolerance training)
•Food industry profits from hijacked satiety (bliss points, supernormal stimuli)
•Dating apps profit from failed matching (successful couples stop paying)
•Self-help profits from failure (if it worked, you'd stop buying)
•News media profits from anxiety (open loops that never close)

This is documented. Internal Facebook research showed Instagram harms teens. Pharma knew long-term outcomes were poor. Food scientists engineer addiction. The exploitation is the business model.

Whatever you build will compete against systems that profit from suffering. Plan accordingly.

Exploitation loop diagram — The exploitation loop

The exploitation economy players — The players profiting from your suffering.

See the evidence →

The Opportunity

The exploitation economy has saturated the market with systems that harm. There's massive unmet demand for systems that work.

Technology

• Social platforms with hard Dunbar limits (not 5,000 "friends")
• Communication tools that create closure (not infinite threads)
• AI that serves human judgment (not replaces it)
• Matching systems for tribe formation (not engagement farming)
• Decay functions-features that degrade without physical presence

Policy

• Mental health policy mandating environmental assessment before medication
• Urban planning requiring third places and mixed-use at band scale
• Work regulations limiting always-on availability
• Education policy ending age segregation and allowing movement
• Research funding for environmental interventions (not just drug trials)

Architecture & Urban Planning

• Co-housing at band scale (20-50 people)
• Neighborhoods with spontaneous interaction designed in
• Workspaces with movement and daylight integrated
• Third places not optimized for extraction
• Fire circle spaces-evening gathering built into communities

Institutions

• Schools without age segregation
• Healthcare that asks about environment first
• Workplaces where contribution is visible
• Governance at knowable scale

Tribe vs cult checklist — Tribe vs cult: know the difference

Fire circle vs modern evening — Fire circle vs. modern evening: what we lost.

Building Solutions

Ammunition for Your Case

This framework synthesizes research across evolutionary psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and clinical research. Key findings include WHO studies showing better schizophrenia outcomes in developing nations, environmental intervention trials outperforming medication, and industry internal research documenting deliberate exploitation.