Reply #9: Good insights! Here are a couple more...

[GliderGuider]

There's a very interesting essay by Andrew Schmookler called "The Parable of the Tribes" that addresses the issue of competing societies from the POV of the use of force.

Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.

If "growth=power" then the future doesn't look good for stable, sustainable societies.

Regarding the difference in human behaviour in groups vs. individually, the "triune brain" theory holds a lot of insights. In the simplest terms, the oldest reptilian part of the brain governs power and survival, the intermediate limbic system governs hierarchy and herding behaviour, and the neocortex gives us our ability to reason. As we ascend the historical layers of the brain, their connections to our emotions become weaker: reptilian urges give the strongest emotional reactions, the limbic ones come next, but the thoughts generated by the neocortex prompt very little emotional reaction. Since emotions are the strongest drivers of behaviour, the concerns of the lower levels of the brain are the most motivating. Thoughts generated by the neocortex are significant motivators only when survival is not threatened and no hierarchic/group herding issues are in play. To the degree that either of those levels are activated (as they are in most human interactions), rational thought loses its power to direct our behaviour.

Here's hoping h. Sapiens v2 is truly sapient. Version 1 is pretty much a fail.