The concept of society is something people invented long ago in pre-history. Our hunter gatherer ancestors organized into tribes which are the earliest societies. As we joined societies, we give up some individual freedoms for an environment in which we can thrive. Living in a society has allowed us to become less focused on survival and more free to thrive. As we became more free and thrived more our societies became larger. This cycle continued to the place where we are now where our most powerful societies are nations. We still have organizations that create the benefits of a society on a more local level, and we even have some global societal organizations.

A society (that we belong to) is an way of organizing ourselves that we (as a population) have created and support. This organization This is a trade-off: We give up some individual freedoms for an environment in which we can thrive. As societies have grown: we have given up more freedoms, but the societies have also given us a better environment in which we can thrive more.

In our level of society, the main embodiments are governments. These are the institutions which we have setup (or more often, our ancestors setup and we were born or moved into) to which we have given up our individual freedoms to setup an environment in which we (as individuals) can thrive.

The challenge for us today: How can we evolve our societies so that they provide the best environment for us to thrive while giving up the least freedoms.