Community, and the machines we continue to develop to connect with it, allow us to willfully extend our individuality into a networking node, expanding our access to information, knowledge and services, and allowing our own value to be utilized for common benefit and evolution.
As such, it can be seen as our fourth brain, beyond brain stem, limbic system or neo-cortical functioning (physical/emotional/mental -> relational body/brain/intelligence).
We will eventually weave the web between human and machine even further and give rise to a new breed of humans – one, that will require fourth brain relational intelligence to maintain our individuality and to not get lost and fall into the Narcissus’ pond of our own creation.
Therefore it is of great interest to investigate new patterns of human relating that embrace and celebrate both the individual and the entirety of consciousness-capable beings before singularity occurs and machines begin to operate on current human behavior patterns.

Am working on preparing a talk on this topic. Been thinking a lot about community lately, and how the technology we have created for ourselves allows an unprecedented melding of minds, but how we should ensure that we have proper ways of relating in place before Singularity occurs. We have to step up so that the evolution of the machine is paralleled by the evolution of our consciousness.