The idea that any human individual can achieve anything alone - apart from starvation - is fundamentally, biologically, wrong. For someone who leans so heavily on the idea of observed reality as absolute truth, Rand has clearly not observed that, right from our earliest hominid ancestors, humans have been pack animals. A single human cannot survive alone because we lack the natural biological mechanism for doing so. Our digestive system can only cope with certain plants -we cannot graze or browse, but must gather fruit, seeds, nuts and roots. We cannot hunt alone, we aren't fast enough, have neither claws not fangs, and lack the heightened senses of a lone predator. In order to remedy these lacks, we need tools, but every moment spent away from searching for food in order to make tools is a moment closer ot starvation.

In order ot survive at all, our ancestors had to act collectively. Some hunted, some gathered, some made the tools needed for both. Then what was caught or gathered was shared among everyone. With increased knowledge, our curiosity and ability to make use of what we found, out sophistication increased. The pack became a tribe, the tribes formed clans, the clans became communities, communities joined to become nations, and so on. None of this the result of brilliant individuals working for themselves, but of ages of collective action and enlightened self-interest (aka altruism).