Agreed. At the extreme one configuration culminates in a sclerotic dystopia and the other into a dysfunctional freak-show. But even if someone were smart enough

Agreed. At the extreme one configuration culminates in a sclerotic dystopia and the other into a dysfunctional freak-show. But even if someone were smart enough to scare-up and responsibly impose a configuration which optimized individuality and mutuality based on actual human nature (which exhibits a tendency towards a Peircean pragmatism) what's going to prevent abuse by the powers-that-be then charged with managing and maintaining the social structure? As the old behaviourist Skinner put it over 40 years ago: who's going to control the controllers? AI? Sounds like a plot lifted from the old cold-war SF movie "Colossus - The Forbin Project (1970)". As they say, shikata ga nai, neh?