Through human history, groupthink has led to lots of horrible things - maybe there are examples where individual rights have too, or maybe you could argue the benefits of collectivism outweigh the cases where it has led to trouble. It really depends on what you're trying to optimize for - which again depends on individual priorities.
We can't avoid being subject to large-scale collective decisions. Humans can't live in hunter-gatherer bands any more. The individualist US, just like collectivist Sweden, spends large amounts on public goods via its government. Even in an anarcho-capitalist utopia, large firms and other collective bodies would emerge, and would have to coordinate upon collective decisions.
The problem is imagine if all the investment put into green energy was actually put into just making fossil fuels and their use far more efficient.
It might’ve had a far better impact on the environment, but it would’ve hurt the pocketbooks of the congressmen who have money invested in these specific solutions. (The other side pushing for more fossil fuels doesn’t actually care they just have their investments there).
An individual is still able to make the best decisions for themselves and the less you allow them to do this, the more danger and misuse of resources you’ll find.
Off-topic, but... this is Econ 101! I feel a bit like a programmer would feel when someone says "hey, our car is programmed using an HTML5 supercomputer". It alarms me that an argument which has been known for 250 years, and formalized for 60 years, still hasn't percolated to the educated general public. Markets can't magically work out the correct prices in the presence of externalities.
(To head off a nerdy counter-argument: yes, yes, Coase theorem, blah blah. If you think we can automatically negotiate to internalize all externalities, then fine - that seems wildly wrong to me but it's not a logically invalid argument. But if so, markets per se add nothing. Property rights plus individual contract law get you all you need.
Haha I obviously didn't catch this. I guess then I missed your point. Between your essay and the parent comments, my takeaway is about the danger of enforcing collective decisions on everyone, because even if everyone says they agree, they can still all be delusional, or at least just too scared to speak out.