>>lacking a crucial ingredient for our continued evolution: the ability to align our actions (and motivations, and rewards), on a societal scale. I don't think

>>lacking a crucial ingredient for our continued evolution: the ability to align our actions (and motivations, and rewards), on a societal scale. I don't think these are contradictory statements. Our society is both defined and limited by the quality of our "collective consciousness," ability to operate cooperatively and such. It's not zero, and it's not unlimited either. Personally, I don't see this as a purely ideological or philosophical limitation. Our ideologies and philosophies tend to trail culture, IMO, not the other way around. Neither do I think that individualism vs collectivism is a defining dichotomy. Both individualism and collectivism are, likely, inevitable. Also both individualism and (especially) collectivism compete within themselves as much as they do with each other. And yes, the ways that we cooperate are clunky, maybe immoral, and not really designed. Money is a cultural construct, for example, that creates cooperation. So is religion, tribalism, legal systems, etc. Is money a collectivist artefact? I think it's very hard to argue otherwise. Money is useless if you are alone, and requires a collective consciousness to even exist. Equality and collectivism aren't synonyms.