Gender

[zjhentohlauedy]

I wrote no such thing.

sorry >_< quotation tags fail >_<

[NejinOniwa]

Except that you can use your imagination to attempt to bridge the gap. We're all human, when all is said and done.

I sense wishmaking...besides, 90% of all humans I would disqualify from this for having utterly useless imagination.

All humans share emotions, desires, needs and wants. All it takes to understand each other is patience, common sense, and acceptance.
All of which have been in short supply for the entirety of human history.

Understanding takes a lot less than that, as a matter of fact. If it's one thing that humans are capable of, it's understanding - the problem here is that the species in general has lost its pack mentality, and edged into lone predation mindset. Deep down most people don't think of how to further the species just for the sake of it - they do it for their own profit, whether the currency is self-satisfaction, remembrance or currency. No matter how often the terms "mankind" or "the human race" is spouted in the media, the amount of people who actually think of it on that level is mournfully small.

[Bella]

stereotypes are useful tho D:

now the problem comes when it prevents you from keeping your mind open

I think I would have to agree with you (and IDK) here... when you first meet somebody, you have no way of knowing exactly who they are. It could take years to, and it might not ever happen. Stereotypes and labels are ways of making things orderly and graspable in our minds.

Like you said, it's only a problem when you CAN'T see past the initial label that you give a person-- or when you begin assuming that they must act xyz way because of the stereotype you associate with them. Still, this happens all the time in our daily life, with humans, things and more abstract concepts as well.

   

it also hinders the concept that most humans seem to lack an imagination, except in terms of things like racism and discrimination.

"oh, they're dark-skinned! they're going to hurt us!!"

goddamn white america. >:[ (i'm racist against my own race. the only time i feel comfortable saying "white power" is when i'm talking about rice.)

Lol, me too. Then again, I think "white" is too broad a term to reflect the different heritages of "white" people-- legally I'd be considered "white", but ethnically I consider myself Slovak-Mediterranean and having little in common, culturally, with the Anglo-Saxon identity that goes with the term "white". (Better save this topic for somewhere else, though).

All humans share emotions, desires, needs and wants. All it takes to understand each other is patience, common sense, and acceptance.
All of which have been in short supply for the entirety of human history.

As a misanthrope, my complaints about humankind are in no short supply... but I think you've hit on an important fact about humanity here.

That we* are inherently impatient, often illogical and wary of accepting people who are different from us.

I've always suspected that there was an evolutionary advantage to being violent, mistrustful and rash... let's say your an early human, and your tribe ran across another one. Yeah, you could work together and pool your strength but wouldn't it be more effective, in the short run at least, to wipe them out and take their resources? And wouldn't this make you sufficiently wary of others, especially those outside your own tribe? You're already living day-to-day as it is... it's not exactly like your planning for your future... the aggressive ones probably did the best in way of getting food, resources and mates.

I don't think that humans have changed all that much since then-- only now, our* wariness is blindly directed toward entire ethic/national/religious groups, and the paranoia is usually unwarranted (even in wars when a country poses a threat, it's usually just a small portion of people who are the actual THREAT-- the rest are just innocent civilians or people who get swept into the fighting). And now, we aren't fighting with spears and arrows-- we* have guns and bombs and nuclear weapons. Yes. I believe that basically, cavemen are in change of our national arsenals.

The point of this whole rant? I think that most humans are, in essence, rather close-minded and that this has probably served an evolutionary role in survival, but that we* must learn to think differently if we want to survive as a species.

*Maybe not you or I, but humankind in general.

Understanding takes a lot less than that, as a matter of fact. If it's one thing that humans are capable of, it's understanding - the problem here is that the species in general has lost its pack mentality, and edged into lone predation mindset. Deep down most people don't think of how to further the species just for the sake of it - they do it for their own profit, whether the currency is self-satisfaction, remembrance or currency. No matter how often the terms "mankind" or "the human race" is spouted in the media, the amount of people who actually think of it on that level is mournfully small.

That's exactly the point I was getting at with above rant. Even political/social/religious groups who espouse doing good for humanity rarely do so in practice. Because humans are in charge, and wherever humans are greed closely follows. It's probably partially a flaw of upbringing, but I think that it's largely a hard-wired reaction.

[NejinOniwa]

white

Actually, I believe the proper term is Caucasian.

That's exactly the point I was getting at with above rant. Even political/social/religious groups who espouse doing good for humanity rarely do so in practice. Because humans are in charge, and wherever humans are greed closely follows. It's probably partially a flaw of upbringing, but I think that it's largely a hard-wired reaction.

Hard-wired, yes - to some point. The basis for any kind of survival is egoism, to make sure that the individual survives, thrives, and ensures the same for its offspring. What needs to be done is simply to apply this on a larger scale - this is pretty hard, however, as long as mankind lacks competition...

And if the aliens keep on delaying, I'll just have to be the competition myself. If we can't have ETs, the demon overlord and his horde will make do.

[Chocofreak13]

caucasian is to white as african american is to black.

i myself consider myself european, more specifically swiss/swedish, with some canadian and french (mainly the former).

physically and mentally the line for gender gets blurred, and socially it is getting more and more blurred, which may be a double-edged sword. it is good to have typical gender "roles" fading away, however with my dystopic view on life i fear a world in which someday all form of gender s obliterated and we are nothing more than drones.

SOME gender is good, but it doesn't nessasarily have to apply to just one sex.

and zen, me and my friends call each other "dude" all the time regardless of sex. :3

[zjhentohlauedy]

and zen, me and my friends call each other "dude" all the time regardless of sex. :3

no dudettes? XD

sides i don't really use those kinds of terms. it's either a nickname or "hey you!" XD

yeah i'm badass like that XD

FUnny thing too, most people online think i'm a girl whenever i ask em about my gender, some say it's the emoticons tho

[Chocofreak13]

well

you're just FABULOUS.

[zjhentohlauedy]

well

you're just FABULOUS.

awww shucks >////<

people in real life will probably never even imagine i'm mistaken for a girl online XD

[Chocofreak13]

xD tell em. watch their reaction. then laugh. (? profit)

[Red-Machine]

Actually, I believe the proper term is Caucasian.

No, Caucasian is the term for a white American.  The rest of the world is normally just white, with a few things like white European thrown in for police and military identification purposes.

[IanDanKilmaster]

I won't really get into just how absurd racial/ethnic labels are, as this is not the place for it (although I suppose it would make for an excellent analog in this discussion), so we should really be steering this away from labels and focus more specifically on the thread title - gender.

So, despite my open-mindedness and awareness on the matter, I still think in a gender binary.  I think what makes my thinking slightly different, however, is that sex is not taken into account when I classify with the binary.  I still recognize things as masculine and feminine, but none of it is clouded by sexual appearance.  I'm really groggy right now, so I can't truly expound upon what I'm saying, but I should be able to better explain myself after some rest.

[Chocofreak13]

can someone explain "gender binary"?

[Sora]

can someone explain "gender binary"?

It means you're ether boy or girl. Nothing else.

[zjhentohlauedy]

can someone explain "gender binary"?

It means you're ether boy or girl. Nothing else.

i kinda lean towards this in a way..

[NejinOniwa]

Well, as statistics go, everything IS made out of binary on the basic levels, but scaling it up is a little bit meh...