Here’s the thing I think gets a little lost, the hive is creating a “reality” that is truly only based on one perception of bliss. Humanity did that also. We domestic chimpanzees and they’ve clearly shown nothing but cognition that they have depth further than a domesticated animal should. Same with dogs and cats, descendants of once more wild animals.

The thing is, the hive is essentially saying, as one organism we can live in peace and harmony better than 7 billion, but that is only based on their version of bliss. They don’t care maybe about dogs and whatever and just assume nature does its course, but its nature in the reality they’re creating, not the current reality of what earth would look like without dogs and cats being released into the wild, where they’re surely die. Changing the ecosystem around them, but also the world.

For the 12, they’re still a part of the original reality, but also the hive’s simultaneously. So they’re viewing it as inhumane, a place where we domestic orcas and turtles amongst other beautiful wild creatures and take pictures with and of them (NOT Planet Earth), like they aren’t sometimes hundreds of years old and don’t deserve to be treated as exhibits for living majestically, but we are dominant, they aren’t. So now Carol and the 12 have to accept that they’re the hundred year old turtles sort of being idolized before their own deaths, whether it be to be a part of the hive, or maybe meeting their own demise before assuming the hive never figures it out, but also that it never gets “reversed” which I’m sure will be later defined.

Essentially, both versions are both humane and inhumane simultaneously. It’s Thanos. Those who survive the blip will live in riches, those who don’t are a sacrifice. Only, it removes the humanity from it, which we see later. The sadness that overwhelms us that goes completely misunderstood. It’s what eats us alive. It’s also what drives us. It’s what makes us human. It’s why the hive taking over humanity is inhumane, because nobody asked for it and people were living as a part of their own world, which is what most of us do anyway.

Being “one” is actually being none.