What traits of humanity are you proud of?

[Dispatcher]

Una cosa es Amor.

[Nuke]

our insatiable lust for war.

[Omicron314]

Sandwiches. I am pretty sure in only a select few cultures has the idea of placing practically anything you can find lying around the house in between two thin slices micro-organism-fermented plant matter become a popular dish.

[Camacha]

I have been pretty amazed by our size lately. In the grand scheme of things we are nothing, but on the other hand we are quite largish animals compared to most others. I find it amazing that a huge collection of molecules clotted together and is actually capable of influencing its surroundings. The emergent behaviour and systems we call society, culture and civilization are just a top layer of endless systems below it. Even compared to other largish forms of life - as even insects are giants in the world of yeast, bacteria and whatnot - we are huge mountains of moving meat.

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.

That was just the form it took, shaped by the circumstances of the times. The true origin of the knowlegde needed are the scientists that considered and the artists who dreamt.

[Camacha]

our insatiable lust for war.

I am not too sure that is something to be pround of. Although I actually feel this is only the result of the actions and wishes of a few - all the others just get swept up in it.

[William Freeman]

Blind Luck.

[m4v]

I will tell you once we solve the fossil fuels issue.

[Sillychris]

Beer. I'm a homebrewer and the magic involved brewing beer makes me understand why ancient man held it to such high esteem. Some scientist even wonder of beer led early man to agriculture.

When interstellar trade becomes a reality, genuine Earth brewed beer will be the most highly sought after drink in the galaxy.

Except for humans on Earth. Our most highly sought after drink will be THE BLOOD OF THE ZERG!

[Scotius]

Our creativity. And related trait - imagination. Ability to look at a plain piece of rock, go "Hmmm...", and then using a hammer and a chisel to make Venus of Milo.

[SkyHook]

Our ability to work together. This is the TRUE aspect of humanity that allows us to venture to the Moon and beyond. Together we have no limits.

[Nuke]

I am not too sure that is something to be pround of. Although I actually feel this is only the result of the actions and wishes of a few - all the others just get swept up in it.

you will think differently when we encounter aliens, and dominate.

[Idobox]

Introspection.

We look at ourselves, judge what we see, and try (although we fail quite a lot) to change it, to improve ourselves. That is a massively powerful tool for social evolution that allowed us time and again to completely transform our societies in decades.

And greed. It's an extremely powerful motivator that has been driving much of the technological progress since stone age, and we even built our modern society around it. In a universe where most species are happy with shelter and enough food not to starve, the humans would kick some serious ass and have a huge impact.

[Nikolai]

We're descended from simians. As a result, we have some pretty notable physical flexibility; the range of motion in our arms is amazing, as is the dexterity of our hands.

Our physical endurance (assuming we care about maintaining it) is unmatched. We can cover long distances like no other species.

We've not only managed to figure out how to communicate with language, facial expressions, and the like; we've learned how to communicate something useful by faking all of that. We've come up with art forms that depend on our ability to fake communication convincingly, but that exercise still manages to communicate.

For that matter, art. We can expend effort to communicate something non-vital to survival, and do so with beauty and grace. In other words, we create, and some of the things we create are amazing.

We can find out that certain things are true that we might never have guessed at intuitively, and test them even if they lie beyond our ability to sense directly. Space is curved. Solid matter is mostly empty, and most of the stuff in the Universe isn't even matter. All species are related to each other. And so on. And then we can take that knowledge to realize ideas we could only dream about before, flinging ourselves and our machines to other worlds to find out what they're like.

There are a lot of things to like about humans.

[rkman]

Aggression

Without it, we wouldn't go anywhere

There are plenty aggressive animals, they went nowhere. Must be something else that got humans to go places.

[Simon Ross]

There are plenty aggressive animals, they went nowhere. Must be something else that got humans to go places.

Nope

Sorry, but we migrate / colonise due to various pressures be they economic / military / resources etc...

Without aggression, you don't expand, frankly you die !

Simon

[SargeRho]

Then those migrations are not due to aggression, but quite the contrary, often even to *evade* aggression.

Aggressive members of society tend to be looked down upon and excluded. So that can't be it. There is no single trait that makes us expand, it's a combination of self-preservation, curiosity, and often also greed, and various others.

You may as well say "Rockets fly because of fire", when it's not only wrong, but so much more complicated.

On topic:

Curiosity, Creativity and the capacity to collect and store information to pass on to the next generation.

Edited March 6, 2014 by SargeRho

[Simon Ross]

Then those migrations are not due to aggression, but quite the contrary, often even to *evade* aggression.

Aggressive members of society tend to be looked down upon and excluded. So that can't be it. There is no single trait that makes us expand, it's a combination of self-preservation, curiosity, and often also greed, and various others.

You may as well say "Rockets fly because of fire", when it's not only wrong, but so much more complicated.

On topic:

Curiosity, Creativity and the capacity to collect and store information to pass on to the next generation.

Seriously ?

To be honest I think you are confusing aggressiveness with violence. Aggressiveness in human beings is a desire to protect themselves, their family group or an extended family (ie a nation)

Far from being looked down on, warriors of all eras have been held in the highest esteem. What greater sacrifice can an individual make then to give up their life for another ?

Sorry, but if you think aggression isn't a key component of human nature, you really need to study history a lot more closely

Simon

[SargeRho]

Aggression usually means violence or tendency to being violent.

Society is also hypocritical. While it is true that they have always been held in high esteem, it is not because of their aggressiveness, but their self-sacrifice. Aggression implies initiation of violence. Soldiers killing or injuring civillians have also at least recently been looked down upon. Murderers and other violent members of society too. What is the difference between a murderer and a soldier killing a person, objectively speaking? When a soldier kills someone, it's usually someone belonging to a society hostile towards his own, so he protects his society. That's self-sacrifice and preservation of their society, not aggression.

Edited March 6, 2014 by SargeRho

[Comrade Jenkens]

Our diversity. The fact that humans vary so much!

[Simon Ross]

Aggression usually means violence or tendency to being violent.

Society is also hypocritical. While it is true that they have always been held in high esteem, it is not because of their aggressiveness, but their self-sacrifice. Aggression implies initiation of violence. Soldiers killing or injuring civillians have also at least recently been looked down upon. Murderers and other violent members of society too. What is the difference between a murderer and a soldier killing a person, objectively speaking? When a soldier kills someone, it's usually someone belonging to a society hostile towards his own, so he protects his society. That's self-sacrifice and preservation of their society, not aggression.

Again, you totally miss the point

The US landed 3 men on the Moon in 1969. Did they do this for science ? Did they do this out of curiosity ?

No, they did this in a direct response to the perceived lead of the USSR in the space race. In 8 years the US channelled it's aggressiveness into the most remarkable achievement mankind has ever produced.

Would this have happened without the conflict generated by the cold war ? In a word, no.

Mankind needs aggressiveness, without it we would be docile, always taking only the safest option, we would never take the needed risks.

Compare the US manned space programme today with the manned space programme of the 60's. Our return date to the Moon, well never at the moment. No threat, no drive

[SargeRho]

And with the Apollo program they have damned manned spaceflight to stick in LEO for almost half a century. Different people are motivated by different things. A landing on the moon shouldn't have occured until at least the 80s, driven by the pursuit of knowledge, not political motives. That is also not aggression. I'm not missing the point, you're using the wrong word.

[Simon Ross]

And with the Apollo program they have damned manned spaceflight to stick in LEO for almost half a century. Different people are motivated by different things. A landing on the moon shouldn't have occured until at least the 80s, driven by the pursuit of knowledge, not political motives. That is also not aggression. I'm not missing the point, you're using the wrong word.

Actually the Vietnam war damned us to be stuck in Leo for almost half a century, not Apollo. There were a LOT of follow on programmes that would have evolved Apollo into a hugely capable system. Instead the US decided to spend the money on bombing hundreds of thousands of people back into the stone age.

As to the wrong word, please call it what you would like, competitiveness, survival, it all amounts to the same thing, we need it, it is an integral part of our make up. Without it, none of us would even be discussing the subject !

Seriously, look at the Saturn V / Apollo configuration, now look at the proposed SLS. We had this capability nearly 50 years ago !

War is always wasteful, but a driving force behind our achievements never is

Edited March 6, 2014 by Simon Ross

[Drunkrobot]

In a sense, I support Simon's opinion. If it was not for our primal instinct to desire survival, or the survival of our children, then we would be extinct. But I wouldn't catagorise it as a part of "humanity", or "personhood". It is true amongst the entirety of Life to improve one's own position at the expense of others, such is the unfortunate truth of living on a planet that simply doesn't have the carrying capacity for every species in existence.

I was envisioning traits that Homo sapiens, alone of all the species on Earth, could be proud of having, products of our currently unmatched self-awareness. Any animal can lay claim to simply refusing to die, but how many can be willing to save other species from extinction, on purpose, at a cost to their own resources? We are meek, not in the modern sense (lack of power, helpless) but in an older sense (has power, but can show restraint in wielding that power), or at least, we're learning to be so.

As a technicality, we're only counting traits that come along with sapience

[Headhunter09]

Narcissism, as evidenced by this thread.

That or our amazing capacity for cognitive dissonance.

[SargeRho]

In that case it would be Culture. I think we are the only animals to have that. Every other trait we have, other animals have to to some extent. But none that I know of have Culture.