Fifteen.

Sometimes we need to get out of the torrent of information to consider what is sweeping us along.

We spend the majority of our attention on very few people. Our five closest connections take forty per cent of our time, and the next ten takes twenty per cent. The maximum number of personal relationships we can deal with is one hundred and fifty, so the remaining one hundred and thirty-five have to share the forty per cent that's left. Once we get beyond that one hundred and fifty, we cross and "us versus them" boundary. (if you want the detail, see Robin Dunbar's book "Friends.") If we want to change things, its down to fifteen of us.

That means it's that improbable that we know any of the people making the news, and that, in turn, means we're in the middle of a narrative battlefield, being shelled by all sides.

Very few people, who are expertly crafting that narrative, actually know what's going on either. We are subject to a description crafted with intent to harvest our attention for t…