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date: 2025-05-18
categories:
  - philosophy
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# What is law?
"What is comedy ? Is this comedy ? What about this?" - Limmy

### Group Intercommunication Formula: n(n − 1)/2

The group intercommunication formula calculates the number of potential communication channels or connections in a network of n nodes.

## Key Questions

- What is law?
- Who makes law?
- Did these people make law?

## Historical Development

### 1975: The Mythical Man-Month
Fred Brooks identified that adding more people to a late software project makes it later, partly due to the increasing communication overhead calculated as n(n - 1)/2.

### 1983: Metcalfe's Law
Robert Metcalfe adapted the formula n(n - 1)/2 to describe the value of telecommunications networks (though the text notes "he stole it from Fred").

### 2008: Beckstrom's Law
Expanded the concept to: (n(n - 1)/2) * usage * time

### 2013: Reed's Law
David Reed proposed an alternative formula for the value of networks that support group formation: 2^N − N − 1

## Related Concepts

Is this just Parkinson's Law(s) at work?

- **Parkinson's Law**: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion
- **Law of Triviality**: Organizations give disproportionate weight to trivial issues

[The Mythical Man-Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)
[Metcalfe's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law)
[Beckstrom's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckstrom's_law)
[Beckstrom's Networks Paper](https://www.beckstrom.com/images/networks.pdf)
[Reed's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%27s_law)
[Parkinson's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law)
[Law of triviality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality)

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