> the fact that so many are happy being isolated at home with no real interactions with any peers is concerning in itself.

That seems to be a huge straw man. "Interactions with peers" doesn't have to mean "going into an office for 8 hours, 5 days a week". I know plenty of (pre-pandemic) fully-remote people who get tons of interactions with their colleagues. And I know others who, yes, do want to keep that interaction to the minimum necessary to get their jobs done. Both of those situations are fine.

Work is not the be-all, end-all of existence. While I have made many good friends through work, and some (though not most) have made the transition to non-work friends (the true friendship-type test is when one party in the work friendship leaves the company), I have very little need or desire to socialize at the workplace these days. I get plenty of interaction outside of work, and that's how I like it. I certainly recognize that others want more interaction through their work, and that's fine. But you don't need to drag me into that to get it.

> humans collaborating together, in person, to work on a common goal, has been a thing since humans existed.

It was a very, very rare thing for most people for all of human history until the Industrial Revolution. Yeah, a lot of people helped build StoneHenge and the Pyramids, but most people were just farming (at home) or else hunting/gathering in family units.

For how pre-industrial farmers worked, look to the Old Order Amish. They are not isolated family units, the community is the bedrock. The oldest settlements found suggest group cooperation was essential in the development of hominids.

To be clear, there's no discrepancy between "the larger community was essential" and "daily life revolved around the homestead and kinfolk groups". The former doesn't refute the latter. Indeed, I grew up amid the Amish, and both were true: their daily work was on their own farm or else they were helping their kin farm and their communities were very important to them. I suspect that's also the case with the other hominids you're referencing.

it wasn't nuclear families hunting together, it was all the warriors/hunters of the tribe or whatever. that was "going to the office" for them. i wonder how those who wanted to "hunt remotely" would fare in that environment?

That's one hell of a false equivalence.