So the social strain of lockdown, while hopefully short-term, could have some long-term effects on some friendships, he says.

In a paper in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings A, Prof Dunbar has delved into the ways in which our social connections will be changed by lockdown.

The University of Oxford academic’s insight into those effects comes from a social world far from Zoom quizzes and Whatsapp groups. The roots of our friendships, he says, lie in the social lives of non-human primates.

For many of those primates, strong social bonds – being part of a “stable group” – means protection from predators and rivals.

That goes some way to revealing why many of us treasure our closest friends as though our lives depend on them. In our evolutionary history, they did.

And those bonds require a great deal of maintenance.

In both monkeys and humans, research shows that the quality of a relationship – measured by how likely a fellow monkey, ape or human is to step up and defend you – depends directly on the time invested in it.

“We have to see people surprisingly often to maintain a friendship,” explains Prof Dunbar, from the University of Oxford. And, because nurturing friendships requires all that time and cognitive capacity, we can only keep up a limited number of social connections.

“In lockdown, many people are forming new friendships with people on their street and in their community for the first time,” says Prof Dunbar.

“So when we emerge from lockdown, some of our more marginal friendships might be replaced by some of these new ones.”

Source – https://www.bbc.co.uk/

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The high court ruled that the state appeals court made mistakes in its decision to shut down 77-year-old barber Karl Manke. The appeals decision was not unanimous and did not afford Manke oral arguments to defend himself, the court said.

“It is incumbent on the courts to ensure decisions are made according to the rule of law, not hysteria.” Justice David F. Viviano wrote in his opinion. “One hopes that this great principle — essential to any free society, including ours — will not itself become yet another casualty of COVID-19.”

Manke, who has operated his shop in Owosso for 60 years, became a national symbol of resistance after he continued to cut hair despite being cited at least twice and having his license suspended by the state.

He even gave free haircuts outside the state Capital with other barbers and hairdressers in protest of Whitmer’s “stay-at-home” order, which was meant to slow the spread of the virus.

Manke told “Fox & Friends First” last month that he hoped “that there’s a certain amount of sanity that will prevail” in the courts.

“I’m 77 years old. I mean, what are they going to give me? Life?” he asked. “I’ve got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I [couldn’t] care less.”

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The state’s attorney general last week filed a motion to find Manke in contempt if he continued to cut hair following the appeals court decision, the Flint Journal reported. The motion asked for thousands of dollars in fines each day against Manke if he kept cutting hair.

But with the Supreme Court on his side, Manke said he hopes to get back to business.

“I needed to work and figured it was time to move forward,” Manke said Friday in a statement obtained by the Washington Times. “But I feel like I have been ruled over with a heavy hand, not governed, and my constitutional rights have been trampled underfoot. It is high time for all of Michigan to stand up, open up for business and for people in our community to show up in support.”

The attorney general’s office said it’s prepared to return to court to argue the health risks of keeping Manke’s shop open.

Source – https://www.foxnews.com/

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