From what I've seen of the world, this belief isn't universal across either time or space. It happens to be especially prevalent in North America right now, an

From what I've seen of the world, this belief isn't universal across either time or space. It happens to be especially prevalent in North America right now, and found fertile ground on internet forums. Neither of those is exactly a glowing recommendation in my book, though. If anything, they tend to make me suspicious, since it's hard to imagine any arenas where stability and sustainability are less valued than America and internet forums in 2019. In specific contexts, even the most libertarian people seem to agree that complete autonomy simply isn't viable, e.g., in a spacecraft, or a military group in battle. When the survival of the group's members depends on everyone working together in a certain way, autonomy is surrendered. I wonder if even America will come around on this issue in the future. As Buckminster Fuller said, we're all on Spaceship Earth. Its capacity for supporting human life looks more fragile now than any time I've been alive. I don't think Honnold's climb was particularly irresponsible, but there are countless actions that people do every day that are. 50 years ago, you could sit on your own land and burn a million gallons of oil, right up into the atmosphere, and we'd call that independence. Today, you're destroying our spaceship. (You didn't choose to live here, but neither did I.) There are many such issues that we once thought were only about individual freedom which have turned out to be global issues that affect us all. Every year, there seems to be less that I do that doesn't have far-reaching consequences. The choice between Individual and Group isn't a binary decision -- almost nothing is -- but I've come to realize the sustainability threshold is much closer to the Group side than I ever before appreciated. We're way past Adam Smith.