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What traits of humanity are you proud of?

Drunkrobot

By Drunkrobot
in Science & Spaceflight

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Drunkrobot

Drunkrobot

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You may or may not be familer with the 4chan-born concept of "Humanity: F*** Yeah!". Put simply, in fiction, notably science fiction and fantasy, where multipe sapient races exist, humans are, quite often, the "vanilla" race. Average, boring, jack of all trades, master of none. Every other race in the setting will have a "hat", something about them that makes them special, but not us. This is done because most writers (and readers) are human. How would a pacifist react to a book preaching our "natural supremicy at war", or a cynic to our "favor towards peace and friendship"?

"Humanity: F*** Yeah!"'s goal is to give humanity a hat. Someone writes a short story, with a characteristic of the human race as a main theme. Maybe our dogged tenacity catches a stronger opponent off guard in a war of attrition? Or we take one look at the tech the older races are wielding, chew them up and spit them out smaller, cleaner, more powerful and available in several colours? In a few stories, our passion of music, literature and fashion turns us into the settings cultural rock. Or, we're just really good at killing everything , everywhere, because that's how we roll.

Of course, if it was reality, we can't be all of these things. What we would become in a wider community depends on exactly what traits make us stand out. Given that we have no comparable species to measure our psychology against (at least for now), we are free to speculate.

What general aspects of our collective personality (maturity, impulsiveness, tolerance, rage, genius, insanity etc) are you glad that we have, and how would they affect how we interact with "others"?

Edited by Drunkrobot
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NASAFanboy

NASAFanboy

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What do I admire about humanity?

The fact that each and every human, once their mind is set, is determined as hell.

The fact that humans will never lose hope in something, even if it is clear that it won't succeed.

But most of all, to sum it up.

The fact that entire groups of humans will walk into a battle knowing they've lost at first glance and they are no match, but still give it their all.

True courage is not a person with a gun, but an person who knows that they are beaten, but still go in and see it through.

That's the best of humanity.

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Albert VDS

Albert VDS

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Our curiosity, no doubt about it. Without it we wouldn't be sitting here talking to each other through this thing called the Internet, we wouldn't be able to fly, we couldn't cure our diseases, we wouldn't be eating roasted duck that you just cooked in your oven, etc. It has made us what we are today and it will solve the problems of tomorrow.

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Drunkrobot

Drunkrobot

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How can we know that something is a "trait of humanity" when we have no other sentient species to compare and contrast with ?

Put it this way: If you had to make the absolute best case for the human race in a single paragraph, what would you preach about us? What aspect of our intelligence do you, personally, hold in highest regard?

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MBobrik

MBobrik

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We can't know, but that is not the question :)

If you don't know what are the "traits of humanity" to begin with, how can someone say what of them he is proud of ?

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example. Some will say "intelligence", only to discover centuries later, that compared to other sentient species in the galaxy our intelligence can at best be charitably described as "stunted".

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Or one says "creativity" only to realize that it is an universal trait shared equally by all sentient beings.

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Or saying "curiosity" while later research will show that the variation between humans is three orders of magnitude larger than average difference between humans and other sentient species.

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MBobrik

MBobrik

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You're badly off-topic and you are derailing the thread MBobrik, we are not discussing any supposed future intelligent life here, what if anything about humankind are you proud of?

I don't think that expressing doubt about the meaningfulness of the question is derailing.

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Another example. I say I am proud of my typing speed not knowing that I am at the very bottom percentile of typing speed distribution... sounds stupid, and it surely is. And that is exactly what the question is inviting us to do.

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Seshins

Seshins

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I think Aggression and the Ability to Create, Make War, and Overcome challenges would be my favourite. a bit OT but i believe that if any Aliens were to meet/observe humanity, we would be forever doomed to be underestimated, which may not be a bad thing for us.

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Albert VDS

Albert VDS

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I thought it was trying to find a round with the range of conventional artillery,Making the V1/2.Which could also be attributed to aggression I guess.

A lot of Robert Goddard's work was copied and used in the V1 and V2.

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