So, I tried to chart out the evolution of how humans have socialized in the history of the world...in hopes that it sheds light on how we might continue to evolve and what holds us back from really "teaming".

Here are the steps:

Conquering the state of nature - first, we had to establish ourselves as a species...this is like the pre-evolution

Then, the sanctity of the individual was solidified - think Magna Carta, etc. Individual rights were born.

Then there was a flourishing of individual rights on grounds of race, religion, etc. At the same time we began to form partnerships and really cement the institution of marriage. Which brings us to today.

There's going to be a Big Shift in how we interact, it's already started, really. We have to form teams to figure out the difficult problems we are faced with. We're fooling ourselves if we think we can do it without teams of everyone pulling together. We can't.

But, it's also not good enough if the team-mentality doesn't captivate our species. We have too many problems to play in small arenas. We have to scale our teams. But how will we do it?

Will we create networks? Will we create really, really big teams? Will we create an army of small teams and get the individual teams to form teams? I haven't quite gotten to a good level of analysis yet. But, I'm thinking about it.

We have to crack the code on teams. We have to figure it out. Otherwise, I fear our most pressing problems will become irreversibly complex and damning. That would be awful.