Comment by jongjong

I don't agree when people say that "Humans need each other to survive."

Sure, not everyone would survive in the wild on their own, but some would, with ease. They would probably be happier too. The hard part is maintaining a family because this requires convincing other people; the psychological aspect of this is way harder than the survival aspect of foraging and hunting for food.

Of course, if you or a family member becomes seriously injured or sick with a critical illness, then you have to accept death as the outcome.

Also, people don't understand that civilization collapse is a distinct, much harder, survival challenge. If you live in a big city with millions of people, you are highly dependent on other people/civilization because there is nowhere near enough food or water natively accessible within your local area to support that many people without functioning infrastructure. You would literally have to cannibalize each other in the event of civilization collapse.

People who exist in these extreme high-dependency environments tend to develop beliefs and phobias which serve the collective, not themselves as individuals. The group selects individuals and manipulates the individuals within it to instill in them the fears and motivations which the group needs them to have to guarantee the survival of the group. Sometimes the group will sacrifice individuals to protect itself.

A large group has a distinct intelligence which hijacks the subconscious minds of its members to support its collective survival goal; this is what we call 'culture' but it's essentially a mind virus for the individual. Also, the more dependent someone is on the group, the harder they will try to spread and maintain the collective mind virus within the group.