If you could improve just one quality about the human race...

[omega 616]

Make people more objective!

So many of our choices are made cos of emotions, beaten wives staying with there abusive partners cos of emotions (which is the most extreme example I can give).

Stop being scared of a harmless spider cos it is objectively harmless, rather than emotionally reacting to a creepy crawly

 

[Arakasi]

I'd be boosting intelligence.
That would have far reaching effects of making everything better imo.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Make Conman sense actually conman and Sense ability

Are... are you proposing that we should have a sixth sense devoted specifically to the detection of confidence tricksters and grifters?

In any case, I propose giving everyone the natural intuition that there's no such thing as universal empathy and that granting our desires to "improve" the human race despite our own limited scope may be counter-intuitive to that process and have far-reaching implications beyond our ken... he said without a trace of irony on a joke thread.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I was going to say empathy but there would be too many unintended consequences. We are already destroying Africa with aid programs as it is. Empathy needs to be tempered with more understanding to be effective. If I was offered the chance, I don't think I would pick anything. Our knowledge is not complete enough to fully comprehend what the effects of any such change would be, and we shouldn't be so arrogant as to assume we could.

If I was forced to choose though, I would simply make our species smarter. I could foresee it creating a lot of problems when 80% of the world begins to realize how much they are being screwed over by the other 20%. It could very well end up plunging Earth into another world war; but hey at least it would be a lot of fun seeing all the new things people would invent. I can't wait for the inexpensive space travel and robots. That or the apocalypse that arises when the underclasses lose all their jobs to the robots.

If not that, at least remove that useless appendix!

The belief that the appendix is useless is outdated.

The appendix protects useful bacteria; the kind that produces vitamins we use, produces hormones for us to help store fat, aid in digestive processes, kill off bad bacteria, ect. When you get an infection that is particularly bad your body goes into overdrive and cleanses the intestines with metaphorical fire. Basically annihilating anything it can get it's hands on. The appendix protects some of the bacteria from this purging, so that it can repopulate your intestines. If you don't have the appendix, then you will face a high chance of recurring infection without the crucial bacterium it protects.

 

[Lynx]

I was going to say empathy but there would be too many unintended consequences. We are already destroying Africa with aid programs as it is.

I suppose I know where you're getting at, but personally I don't think many aid programs or commercials that say "Look how horrible this is, give money now" have anything to do with empathy. Rather, I'd say it's about guilt and perhaps sympathy. And as far as sympathy goes, I think we have quite enough of it. A lot of people have said "greater understanding", and that is exactly what empathy is. With empathy grows the ability to know what not to say, what judgment not to pass, and perhaps politicians would be less self-absorbed and cut back on the "He said this!", "But he said that!", *drops an a-bomb*. Maybe that's just my wishful thinking.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I was going to say empathy but there would be too many unintended consequences. We are already destroying Africa with aid programs as it is.

I suppose I know where you're getting at, but personally I don't think many aid programs or commercials that say "Look how horrible this is, give money now" have anything to do with empathy.

That's not what I'm getting at at all.


Spoilering text for space

Spoiler

You'd have to read the book to get the full effect because she's just going off on one point in that video. Aid programs create a reliance on the charity of outside sources. Too few of them foster actual growth(The 0% loans to African businesses being a good exception.) We burst in with food and medicine but what does that do to the African's who produce food and medicine. How do you compete against a product that is being given away for free? You can't. You fold. Charities put those companies out of business or in the case of farmers who could be growing food, we force them to make cashcrops that they can actually sell, which tends to be things like opium or coca.

Now that's already bad because we are ruining their ability to self sustain their own countries and economies. But it gets worse because our economy is not stable at all, it fluctuates as we try to force a constant growth through spending policies and quantitative easing. The end result though is that our economy goes up and it goes down, which shouldn't really be news to anyone.

Now ask yourself do people give more money when the economy is good than they give normally? And what happens when the economy goes up, the aid starts pouring in. It lasts several years and we feel like we are doing a really great thing, but those farmers switch their crops out because food aid is screwing over their bottom line and taking away all their local customers. Those medical facilities get undercut. The people who want to make mosquito nets get undercut. And then our economy goes into the shitter, our countries credit rating gets downgraded and unemployment goes up. That aid gets cut, and the businesses that should be around over there to keep making medicine and food are not nearly as numerous as they need to be. And a lot of people suffer because of it.

It's the cruelty of charity that we don't think about because no one takes the time to think things through. It's why more empathy can be a very dangerous thing. But it's late and I'm not going to go on further because there's enough information for Dambisa Moyo a PhD from Harvard and Oxford to fill an entire book, so I could go on for quite awhile. The countries that have received the most foreign aid are the countries that have the slowest economic growth and thus continue to be the poorest.

That is why I don't think unbridled empathy would be a good thing. Until we learn to take the time to understand how to fix a problem, our best of intentions can do the worst of damage.

 

[Lynx]

snip

I agree with all of what you've said, and yes, without thinking things through from beginning to end, a "good deed" can often do more harm than good. But what has this got to do with empathy? As far as I've seen, people who throw money at aid programs (and perhaps even the people making these programs) are doing it it out of pity, and out of guilt for being more fortunate than others. A deeply empathic individual would sit themselves down and meditate on what it truly is like for these people, think "If it were me, what is it that I would need...", and probably realize early on that in order to answer that question they first need to go read a book or two on economics.

Empathy is a genuine, long-term interest to understand the situation of another human being. People who have no such deep interest tend to create destructive "quick fixes" in order to make themselves temporarily feel less crappy.

 

[Kaymish]

i would level us up beyond religion that causes the most suffering in the world and does very little good to make up for it plus the whole brain washing children and stuff really gets to me
if that's not allowed magic powers i would love me some magic powers

 

[Tipsy Giant]

+1 ability to imagine other people more complexly
DFTBA

 

[Mr F.]

Well, you said level up

So in that case, I want the human race to respec Elephant.

Cause that would be awesome

And I like elephants.

As for a single trait to be changed? Lots of people have covered the big ones. Empathy, Greed. I would say inhibitions. Not the big ones, you know, cause rape and stuff is bad an all. But the things that stop you from calling a **** a ****, I wouldnt mind those going away,

 

[Vegosiux]

I'd just make everyone tell the truth all the time.

Sure we'd be looking at a rough decade or two, but then it'd settle down.

 

[RadioactiveMicrobe]

For people to stop being so goddamn selfish all of the time..

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I'd like to see people being less assholish. If not, then superpowers might make life interesting...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I would do something about our tendency to be unable to cooperate and self-destruct but not sure how.

 

[Jandau]

I'd make everyone stop being assholes. Everything else would sort itself out in short order after that...

 

[HalfTangible]

I would up personal responsibility. Most problems in the world can be traced back to greed, true. But the problem isn't so much greed as the fact that the greedy person doesn't control themselves. Moreover, every OTHER problem in the world comes from one person or another blaming someone else for their own actions. Sure, not everything is one's own fault, but one can at least take responsibility for fixing their problems.

Either that or give everyone the power to photosynthesize. Take out food bills and pretty much everyone on the planet would be well-off.

 

[deathbydeath]

I'd make everybody not stupid. Bam, problems solved.

 

[Uszi]

Base sexiness. Lets bump it up so even elephant man was like a 6.