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The answer is localization and allowing people to make choices for themselves rather than those choices being made by some huge monolithic uncaring entity.
The answer is localization and allowing people to make choices for themselves rather than those choices being made by some huge monolithic uncaring entity.
The very enlightened self-interest which you [seem to] champion brought us government as we know it today. Simply because nothing else could have (unless you believe in something external and separate from mankind, like God, Satan, or Princess Twilight Sparkle). A truism, but worth repeating.
'Enlightened self interest' created the very intelligence that you abuse here to denigrate its value and power. It's called "evolution".
Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest.
It is not called "evolution."
I have neither praised nor denigrated it.
Ok, fair enough. Evolution ~= enlightened self interest - but there is a valid analogy to be drawn that speaks to your claim.
The evolution that resulted in YOU and the intelligence you are attempting to display here today began with random interaction of subatomic particles that formed more complex particles, which then formed molecules, which eventually somehow managed to accidentally come together in a self-replicating form. Skipping forward a bit, we get complex living creatures, who tend to act in a manner consistent with their own self-interest - either 'enlightened' or otherwise.
Somehow, all that random and, ultimately, intentional activity - none of which ever involved any higher centralized planning - resulted in YOU.
Yet you choose to belittle the concept of 'enlightened self interest', and you seem to suggest that 'enlightened self interest' is a priori inferior to planning and committees and government. I would suggest that, so far, nature seems to be more clever than any committee I have seen - so I would not belittle the value of what can come of random interactions of actors pursuing their own ends.
I don't suggest here that nature (or enlightened self interest) always produces the 'best' immediate result - that is a very subjective judgement. But, like Adam Smith, I do marvel at how often it does produce a wonderful result - and I can't seem to think of anything achieved by committee that is comparable.
I'm still not being clear enough, it seems you're addressing my edit:
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...(On the off-chance that you meant something along the lines of "we must not try to impede enlightened self-interest, but rely on it): That's self-contradictory. If enlightened self-interest is valid as a concept, there could be no talk of "allowing it to guide us" or "subjugating it." It either works or it doesn't. We can no more "allow it to do its thing" than allow gravity to do its thing.
Going with your evolution analogy:
Evolution is not a progression from "worse" to "better"--"better" (or "wonderful," to use your language) is a post-factum value judgement imposed by us, the survivors. It produced what it has produced, and the "wonder" existence holds it holds only for us, the product. Nothing suggests that if the end result of biological evolution was undifferentiated slime, that slime would be any less "wonderful" to bits of that slime (if "wonder" was even a thing for those slime bits, but you get my drift).
Evolution simply produces what it produces. Going by its definition, "survival of the fittest," everything extant is the fittest.
Again, by definition.
Not "the best," not "the best of all possible worlds," but simply "that which exists."
Another tangent: You can no more encourage, deride or discourage enlightened self-interest than you could encourage, deride, or encourage evolution. TL;DR: I ain't. Is this a bit clearer?
*This is getting pretty far away from watching Teh Wall, but there's not much happening there [that I can understand or work with]. Hope we're not annoying the purists.
BitchicksHusband did an amazing job of planning though so we were able to skip many long lines with fast passes and did way more than I ever thought possible in a week. It is really beautiful there too. So all in all it was tons of fun! 
