What would be the correct traits for humans irl?

[Kryndude]

Just for role-playing purposes, what would be the most accurate representation of human beings?

Personally, I don't think 'Nomadic' is suitable if you consider how humans started to settled down since the discovery of agriculture. I can agree with 'Quick Learners' since that was the key to human dominance over other animal species, although I'm not sure if it should rather be 'Intelligent.' Also maybe communal? I mean just because a lot of us uphold individualism and democracy, doesn't mean that we prefer to be isolated from the society right? I heard that we are wired at a genetic level to seek membership in a group and thus being a part of a community is vital to our mental health.

And ethics; are we really 'Xenophile?' Aside from dogs and cats, do we really give a sh**t about other animals? Yes, there are efforts to preserve endangered species and the ecosystem, but how much of it is just for the animals themselves? Also, why did those animals become endangered in the first place? Anyways... I sound a bit salty, but that's not the point. Wouldn't 'Militarist' be a better representation of what we were throughout our history?

So in short, Fanatic Individualist, Militarist / Quick Learner, Communal.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Mackus]

Nope.
No such thing as correct traits.
Humans are the base, the template by which other species are judged.
If you give humans trait X, it doesn't mean humans are good at X by some objective criteria, just that most other sentient races in our galaxy are rather bad at it by comparison.
Literally every single trait can be given to humanity. Some universes portray humans as warriors(strong), or traders(thrifty), or diplomats(charismatic), or scientists(intelligent)... etc.
Depending of whatever trope they are supposed to represent in your role-playing game, give them any traits you want.

 

[Kryndude]

Nope.
No such thing as correct traits.
Humans are the base, the template by which other species are judged.
If you give humans trait X, it doesn't mean humans are good at X by some objective criteria, just that most other sentient races in our galaxy are rather bad at it by comparison.
Literally every single trait can be given to humanity. Some universes portray humans as warriors(strong), or traders(thrifty), or diplomats(charismatic), or scientists(intelligent)... etc.
Depending of whatever trope they are supposed to represent in your role-playing game, give them any traits you want.

Interesting. I knew that it's a very subjective matter but never thought of it that way.

 

[Razzlie]

Adaptive and Communal would be biologically accurate, tentatively speaking.

I also think Mackus has a point and you could really make Humans have any traits you want and explain it off based on history, culture and whatever else you want, since biological tendencies are only one factor among many others.

There's also the thing about traits that makes them entirely subjective, and that is that they're all relative, not hard values. "Adaptive" is relative to the rest of the species in the Galaxy, with no way to measure the actual average value (The Habitability % modifier is a gross oversimplification as a representation, at best, and even that's giving it too much credit) since we haven't ran across even a single intelligent alien species yet, so the interpretation of just how adaptive, Adaptive really is, is up to the player.

Even on our own planet we can only loosely approximate that we're pretty adaptive all things considered, but compared to many other organisms we're really not so depends on how you like to look at things and imagine other life that could exist, I guess.

So to put it shortly, I don't think it's really possible to say anything you'd pick is "incorrect", as long as it feels good to you.

 

[Ruminate]

A species with a positive trait means the species is above the average compared to other species. A negative trait means they're below the average. Since aliens are fictional, a human can be given any trait and it would make perfect sense.

Same deal with ethics. They're human-only concepts, so humans embody all of it at the same time, including what many would arbitrarily consider the opposite. There is no such thing as an alien-only ethic because anything born out of the human mind is inherently human.

Some so-called "alien" ethics, like equating real collectivism with a fictional hive mind, is still very much human. (The concept of the hive mind was born from unscientific, HUMAN observation of bees and ants, combined with a human need for a boogieman [or human need for idealism] for propagandic purposes. But the actual reality is that bees and ants are very individualistic. The "queen" is huge misnomer. A bee colony is one of the most democratic societies on earth. Every bee has a vote. As for ants, there are a lot jobless/lazy ones in an ant colony. An ant can even change jobs multiple times throughout their life. You can google this stuff.) The strong mimetic behavior in humans (memes) can be viewed as a form of a hive mind.

 

[Aries666]

The only thing I think you can fairly put on is adaptive. Any other traits and ethics are wholley dependent on the nation said humans are taken from.

 

[I am Sovereign]

Repugnant

Just look what atrocities our species committed and still committes.
We are monsters.

The only thing I think you can fairly put on is adaptive. Any other traits and ethics are wholley dependent on the nation said humans are taken from.

I agree.

We are adaptable monsters.

 

[Yenzen]

- Spiritualist (left to our own devices we make up magical explanations, most of humanity is religious in some form)
- Xenophobic (for better or worse, we don't like those living by rules we don't understand ourselves)
- I don't feel like using a third ethics point. Not individualist, our societies naturally range from totalitarian empires to direct democracies. Despots have a hard time maintaining their absolute control and often slip power into subjects and democracies have to keep fighting to avoid corruption and slipping into plutocracy, so I would argue we're neutral on the individualism/collectivist scale with some countries having some bias). Arguably militarist, maybe,

Traits: Very Adaptable (can exist fairly well from desert to rainforest to temperate climate, with some help, tundra-like climate), Sedentary (mostly a thing in the recent couple of thousand years though), Slow learners (we need to repeat something many times before we really excel at it so I don't agree with quick learner at all)

There's some planetary divergence.

 

[Divi]

Besides Nomadic and Quick Learner (most of our history was one of nomadism), I'd also add Deviant and Communal.

Communal because humans are fundamentally tribal animals who usually deal very poorly with extended solitude, to a point where it can have really, really bad psychological effects.

And Deviant because despite that, you can put three people in a room, ask them a question, and get four different answers. Contrarianism runs deep.

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

It really depend from people. I imagine all ethos can be used.
But for my thinking i think we can go with fanatic egalitarian/xenophobe (coz people tend to fear what it's unknow and foreigner and countries tend to protect their rights and interests over others countries)

for traits i think i will be going with weak (human has a frail body compared to animals for exemple) but humanity is adaptative and quick learner.
I don't think communal will fit coz in ower capitalist society individualism seems to be common practice, there isn't really mutual assistance or social aspects anymore.
You can also pick deviant, that will fit very well in my opinion, coz with individualism go very diferents opnions.

Repugnant

Just look what atrocities our species committed and still committes.
We are monsters.

I totally agree. Humanity is a virus for Earth. Well, more than humanity i think it's the society that humans have created, the race for money and profit that is capitalism take away people from each others resulting in high individualism, wars and industrialisation that destroy the beauty of the planet.

 

[Divi]

(human has a frail body compared to animals for exemple)

That's actually a common misconception. The human body tends to make up what it lacks in physical strength with a significantly better ability to heal itself, even before medicine. Things that will cripple some animals forever, humans will walk off painfully and heal through.

 

[I am Sovereign]

It really depend from people. I imagine all ethos can be used.
But for my thinking i think we can go with fanatic egalitarian/xenophobe (coz people tend to fear what it's unknow and foreigner and countries tend to protect their rights and interests over others countries)

for traits i think i will be going with weak (human has a frail body compared to animals for exemple) but humanity is adaptative and quick learner.
I don't think communal will fit coz in ower capitalist society individualism seems to be common practice, there isn't really mutual assistance or social aspects anymore.




I totally agree. Humanity is a virus for Earth. Well, more than humanity i think it's the society that humans have created, the race for money and profit that is capitalism take away people from each others resulting in high individualism, wars and industrialisation that destroy the beauty of the planet.

Yeah bodywise I would say we are weak. Armors and weapons all come from our adaptive trait. There are only a few regions on earth where naked humans could survive or defend themselfes against the fauna without tools.

And we are all xenophobes in some way. We can eventually over come it using education but it is a fact that we even have a reflex what makes us fear anything "foreign".

"Organics fear that which is different. It is a hardware error. A reflex of your flesh.".
A quote from the Mass Effect series which I found to be very true.

 

[MAHak]

I would argue for the 'slow breeding' trait, based in the fact that most other species on earth tend to procreate in larger numbers and that birth rate seems to drop in more developed societies.

 

[bronze Void poison]

I say we are Xenophobes as given how likly we are to kill each other over stupid resons we would kill aliens for looking different

 

[Yenzen]

I would argue for the 'slow breeding' trait, based in the fact that most other species on earth tend to procreate in larger numbers and that birth rate seems to drop in more developed societies.

But an xeno species that birthed every cycle in the same amount as say, rabbits, would be unsustainable. Humans might actually be fast breeders compared to other sapient xenos.

Besides Nomadic and Quick Learner (most of our history was one of nomadism), I'd also add Deviant and Communal.

Communal because humans are fundamentally tribal animals who usually deal very poorly with extended solitude, to a point where it can have really, really bad psychological effects.

And Deviant because despite that, you can put three people in a room, ask them a question, and get four different answers. Contrarianism runs deep.

For deviant, I think you're projecting very modern western societies. Previously the opinions of groups was dictated top-down from religious and authoritarian sources.

Nomadic... eh, I could take Sedentary back, but are most people really on the constant move if they can choose not to be?

It really depend from people. I imagine all ethos can be used.
But for my thinking i think we can go with fanatic egalitarian/xenophobe (coz people tend to fear what it's unknow and foreigner and countries tend to protect their rights and interests over others countries)

I'm not buying egalitarian at all, the basic human tribe had a leader and the people were not equals. Many human societies were and are divided into castes and only recently is that starting to change.

At best it's once again projecting some of the current western world against the history of humanity which seems to indicate otherwise.

 

[Lordadmiral]

this discussion reminded me strongly of this picture....

 

[Yenzen]

this discussion reminded me strongly of this picture....

One could make a case for resilient. It's just sad how much that trait sucks.

I still hold unto "adaptable". Most mammals cannot naturally exist across as wide as biosphere as humans can with very simple methods.

 

[Diezy]

Very Adaptable indeed! Scary humans can already handle anything. Although to be fair, much of the food comes for Continental/Ocean/Tropical, not as much from the other environments! But we'd 40% habitability just fine still! With current technology, I might add!

I shudder to think what we conjure up by 2200!

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I actually totally buy humans being "nomadic". Consider the long history of the human species expanding from one environment into another and taking extreme steps to do so- the whole Polynesian dispersal comes to mind. Easter Island was settled by people in what amount to seafaring canoes.

Furthermore, in the modern world it's not unusual for a working population to be migrant-based- plenty of people pack up from home and move somewhere just to work and send money back home.

 

[extrapancake]

deviant probably