To what extent can we remain 'me first' and survive as a civilization?

I subscribe to the theory that you and I are here because our “selfish genes,” as Richard Dawkins argues, carried us forward. By hook or by crook, they navigated eons of environmental change, predators and human competition to arrive at this moment, reading The Chief.

But I have a feeling we may need to dial back that selfishness again, as our species may have done several times in the past to survive. There is a theory that we outlasted the Neanderthals because we acquired communication and cooperation skills that proved decisive. They may have been stronger and as intelligent in certain respects, but Homo sapiens appear to have developed social cohesion first. As a group, we outcompeted them. They became extinct, leaving behind only fragments of DNA in us.