A prevailing and counter-productive concept is that survival is insured by insulation and independence. This fails to acknowledge global interdependence as a present-day fact. Such egocentric understanding is manifest among irresponsible technological leadership as the philosophy of survival of the fittest; it results in the energy and other resources of technological systems being directed away from the meeting of real human needs and diverted into the duplication of non-essential goods. Conversely, it is manifested at the grassroots level in a sense of helplessness and victimization, or isolation from external sources of power and goods.