Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pelegrin_1]

Help me out here, if you can understand what I'm trying to get at.

I want to explore a list of characterizations of the human species. To throw out some examples of what I'm talking about, here's a list to start, with words that I could use as personal identifiers, though the problem with most or all of them is that they refer to rather specific things and I'm looking for a term or characterization, as I'm calling it, that would be more general.

Ok, I'm an atheist.
I'm a secularist.
I guess I could say I'm a humanist )but there's something about that term that makes me think it's just saying I'm "human" and putting a specific definition as to what being human means. But perhaps it's the best one.
I'm an evolutionist.
I like to think that I'm a rationalist.
I like to think that I'm a naturalist.
I'm a progressivist.

Anyway, that's enough to get started with. As for myself, I'm now thinking that perhaps what I'm looking for can only be stated by maybe combining some of these. Like to say I'm a Progressive Naturalist, for example.

I don't know how "philosophical" this topic is, but it's something I thought that some of you here might be interested to comment about.

[Pelegrin_1]

Here's another formulation of what I'm trying to ask for: Personal characterizations of what it means to be human, or of how one characteristizes his/her human identify.

[Pelegrin_1]

The reason I referred to it as "characterizations of the human species" in the title is that part of what i'm getting at isn't just "personal identifiers" but identifiers that "personally" one might think applies to all of us, even though many may not believe or think some of them to be true for them personally. For example, if I think of myself as a "rationalist" in this context, then what I mean is that I identify human beings as being rational creatures of which I'm one. Certainly, there can be different degrees of being rational, but it's a quality that can be generally identified in the human species.

[Pelegrin_1]

Oh, rather than "quality", I should have said "characteristic".

[heracleitos]

According to Nassim Taleb's "The most intolerant wins: Dictatorship of a small minority", a consensus is effective only if you are collectively intolerant about certain things.

I do not see what you would be intolerant about?

There simply are no diehard members in your putative consensus who would do whatever it takes for their convictions.

An example of an effective consensus.

The free and open source software movement. The diehards refuse to use proprietary software from commercial software vendors. Every program must be licensed under a GPL compatible license, or the diehards would rather die than to allow that thing to be installed on their computer. It is a very effective consensus. Corporations profoundly fear this movement and make sure not to offend it.

There are of course many other examples of successful consensuses.

Jews and Muslims don't eat pork. The diehards would rather go without a meal than eating meat that is not kosher/halal. So, according to Nassim Taleb, pretty much all the frozen lamb coming out of Australia and New Zealand is in the meanwhile kosher/halal.

On the other hand, I do not see what someone who is an atheist, secularist, humanist, evolutionist, rationalist, naturalist, and/or progressivist could possibly insist on?

Your consensus looks quite ineffective. Therefore, your consensus has no impact at all.

You will merely find yourself renormalized by consensuses that are successfully intolerant and that are much more effective than yours.

Society is entirely shaped by intolerant views and not by tolerant ones. Seriously, you will almost surely not achieve anything at all.

That is why I am always looking for new things to be intolerant about, with a sufficiently large hardcore of recalcitrant diehards who won't budge an inch. If it makes sense to me, I will most probably join.

[Pelegrin_1]

Interesting analysis of what you think was the motivation for my question. Either that or an excellent troll. Haha. But truly, the thread is more for an exploration of various identifiers for the human experience. I don't think that identifying ourselves in certain ways needs to necessarily involve intolerance of those who identify themselves differently. In fact, quite the contrary can be the case. Sometimes we simply need to understand that there are all sorts. I think the problem is more so when we have tribalism around our identities.