I agree that we’re probably designed to get stuff done in communities, which is is why our babies are so helpless. And I agree that when a true team has formed out of a group, everyone is smarter. And there’s lots you can only do in a group, like fight a war.

But think of all the crappy family dinners, or by-election committees, or The Office, and the Bug is obvious. Michael’s piece captures how it goes even when people like each other.

We, the Bug Group, contend that groups often get less done, more painfully, than the constituent individuals would in smaller groups or alone. You have teenagers, right? What about your last family holiday? ;-)

Wrong. Groups are usually smarter than individuals.
Hence the practice of people to live in groups rather than lurk individually in the woods.
Rugged individuals like John Wayne and Dubya notwithstanding.