In the hit TV show, Pluribus, a signal from space turns the human race into a single collective with a hive mind, all except for thirteen people. The goal of the collective is to assimilate these outliers. Two of them—Carol and Manousos—ardently resist the effort. What plays out in the first season is the tension between “rugged individualism” and “warm collectivism.”
Those phrases are from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural address on January 1, 2026…