Do you like people?

I'm neutral. There are pricks and there are good people. But I don't know every person, so I can't say whether the former or latter are the majority (I assume the latter).

edited 23rd Apr '12 8:53:39 AM by Malph

I like people by default, I think. Do I like everyone? Of course not, but I don't automatically assume that someone is an ass or idiot right off the back. If you treat others like reasonable human beings they're more likely to act like them.

Yeah, I'm big on people.

I tend to apply the age old motto "Expect the best, prepare for the worst" to people. I expect everyone to be an awesome guy, but am prepared for them to not be so. Do this, and life is a little better.

Yes.

The vast majority of people I've met have been nice, interesting, and cool. So yes.

I do not. I like most people on this forum, but the vast majority of the people I meet on real-ish life seem shallow, uninteresting or stupid... sometimes I recognize that some others are not like this but I still find it hard to care. I care way more for people I meet online or for characters in a story/the story itself so I'm seeing a pattern.

That's a problem you might wanna see a therapist about, considering how you kinda need to deal with people IRL in order to, y'know, live your day-to-day life...

I would like people better if I knew how to relate to them. Mostly they make me irritable. Never could understand how people can freely exhibit personality or converse with other people. I'm like this parakeet sitting and watching somebody's else's afternoon tea.

I'm rather indifferent on humanity as a whole; maybe it would be more accurate to say that I dislike people as a whole, but I rather like a good deal of the individuals I meet. Maybe it's because our governments and societies are capable of doing some incredibly stupid things that cause me to lose faith in humanity's ability to function as a collective. Maybe it's because when you're looking at a generic, faceless human, they lose a sense of innate... personhood and it becomes easier to project negative thoughts and associate negative things with them. I guess it's sort of the inverse of GIFT (without necessarily needing to be online, of course). Whereas anonymity gives people the disinhibition to become nasty trolls, not knowing the person gives you the disinhibition to project those trolls onto the other.

Maybe I've not made myself clear. :/

Yeah, people are alright. I'm not good with them, but on the whole I like them.

Not really.

I generally like people. In intellectual terms there are things about most people that I find reprehensible and/or pathetic, but in personal terms I have a hard time actually disliking people.

EX-TER-MI-NATE ALL HU-MANS! EX-TER-MI-NATE! AN-NIL-IATE! DES-TROY!

Humans Are Flawed, but ok.

edited 22nd Apr '12 8:04:01 PM by IraTheSquire

No, I don't. I always seem to have bad experiences that I just don't even try anymore. I'd rather talk to people on the intertubes, it seems there are more people who I can find common ground with. God that just sounds awful, doesn't it?

I call Sturgeon's Law on humanity: I think that the majority of people are quite stupid and shallow, but there is a considerable minority who are really interesting.

That being said, I mostly judge people as intellectuals - my criteria include analytical thinking, sound reasoning, general knowledge, interest in politics, intellectual honesty, and (this is very important) willingness and ability to learn new things. I recognise that while most people score pretty low on these intellectual aspects, that does not mean they can't make a valuable contribution to society. Quite the contrary, there are many people who fall in Sturgeon's "ninety percent" for me yet are very hard-working, decent, caring human beings. So it's less 'ninety percent of people are inferior scum' than 'ninety percent of people are really boring to talk to'.

edited 23rd Apr '12 2:39:38 AM by MidnightRambler

I do like people, and i try to be nice. If you don't try, all the more you'll hate them.

Which group of people title is referring to?

There are some people (ones I've met/talked to and ones I've haven't met but have heard enough about) that I really really like. There are some people (again, ones I've met/talked to and ones I've just heard enough about) that I can't stand. The rest I tend to be indifferent to until I've met/talked to/heard enough about them that I can form more of an opinion on.

Overall I tend to think people are pretty OK, and would rather judge them as individuals than as groups (whether it's a small group like "the antiques dealers at our mall" or a larger one like "people from such-and-such a location".

^Agreed on that, I consider it stupid to judge "humanity" as that means judging so many people you can never comprehend. Heck, majority of those people are victims of the so called "bastards".

The problem with judging humankind is that we lack a baseline. Humans are great/suck if compared to what?

Compared to non-sapient animals, we are beyond exceptional, and easily the most interesting beings which ever graced the Earth. We are not perfect, obviously; but we are the only beings who are even able to understand the concept of compassion on an abstract, large-scale level, and to apply it in our interactions while keeping track of long-term consequences. We don't always get everything right, obviously, but compared to ants or spiders we are beings of near-infinite love and benevolence.

Compared to "ideal" humans, that is, to the kind of beings that we feel we should strive to be... yeah, we suck. Badly. But our species is still young: we can certainly improve, and we have improved in our short history (the worst atrocities committed in the last few wars would have been considered business as usual, and actually pretty tame, just a few centuries ago) and, hopefully, we will keep improving.

Individual humans are often okay; some of which I like. Most of them are likely not evil; however half of them are less intelligent than average.

They also happen to be a rather overpopulated species for their habitat's carrying capacity. Foresight isn't a virtue of most of them.

When they group in larger numbers they seem to have a greater potential to do stupid and cruel things.

edited 23rd Apr '12 8:16:23 PM by SilverSlippers

Or awe-inspiring, incredible things.

They are the only terrestrial species which managed to set foot on the Earth's satellite. Their music is many orders of magnitude more complicated than any birdsong, and perhaps only rivaled by whale song as the most complex acoustic phenomenon generated by a biological species. And their visual arts are something that simply has no equal on Earth.

They are a young species, wild and fierce and confused and powerful beyond comprehension. To call them gods would be excessive; but to call them demigods is beneath them.

They are the true princes of the Earth, terrible and savage and occasionally wise. I am not sure of what they will become when they grow up; but I am sure that it will be a sight to behold.

Is that what the wise old alien leader said to warn his species against launching an attack in Earth?