If you optimize only for the collective or only for the individual you get grotesque results at the other layer.

To optimize the system you have to optimize the whole.

If you optimize for only the individual, in the limit you get the super-chicken problem.

Instead of building each other up and collaborating, everyone tears everyone down all the time.

A hellscape of maximal competition that no value can cohere in.

If you optimize for only the collective, in the limit you get a machine that churns through humans, consuming them on the path to a collective outcome.

A machine that burns through people on its way to achieving its end.

A human has to treat themselves as an end.

The machine / collective will see you as a means.

Only you can remind yourself that you are an end.

Being human means treating yourself, and others, as ends in and of themselves.