What would you "Unify" in humanity?

[The Grim Squeaker]

If you could make a single trait omnipresent in all humans what would it be?
(It can't be intelligence related or a uniform level of knowledge, so no race of IQ 220 Super Phd men ).

This will magically work in its area, so all people would become Atheists and happy with it, though racism and crime would still exist in a single global nation.

My choice would be religion (Into all humanity becoming "Atheist"), true racism and crime would still be out there but without religion so many small scale crimes would be stopped, science could progress all but unhindered, racism would be weakened, xenophobia hurt, the clash of Christianity/West and Islam averted and a large amount of potential genocides (Jews) stopped (Though Ethnic genocides [Rwanda] would still be a problem).
"Just imagine - no religion"

[Guardsman Bass]

It's hard to say. Maybe a degree of "tolerance", or less xenophobia, so that human beings would be at least a little less likely to react to something new or unexpected with "let's kill it!!"

[General Zod]

Get rid of religion and make atheism the norm. Then you take away the vast majority of everyone's excuses to commit brutal crimes and block scientific progress. Most ethnic purges are usually motivated by or at least justified by religion as well, so you'd take that tool away for warmongers to justify their crimes to the people.

[KrauserKrauser]

I'd go with Nationality, though Religion would probably do the same thing.

I think Nationality and Ethnicity would go a bit hand in hand, depending on how unified the Nationality is, ie would you be removing to the preivous ethnic alliegances or not

Also, I fart on unified economic earnings, that is a bullshit idea. Didn't work in Russia, won't work with humans. Maybe robots. Robots that weren't programmed by humans.

[Lord Zentei]

Religion. No more of a excuse for irratonality exists. This is, of course, given that for atheism to become the norm, the rationalism that underpins it has to be made manifest also.

The other options are rather less useful in that regard, exept possibly for nationality.

[Feil]

Nationality is definately the farthest-reaching of those items. Ethnicity doesn't make any difference so long as people don't base their national identity on their ethnicity; colour likewise; religion's greatest threat to humanity is in its ability to define nations, be it Catholic and Protestant Irish, Muslim and Christian Sudanese, or Sunni and Shia Arabs.

[Velthuijsen]

Other: Nothing
It is the diversity of humanity that has made us the current top dog on the planet. Yes it sometimes results in almost unbelievable atrocities but it also gives rise to some of the best things we can dream of.

There are all sorts of nasty little effects hidden in the options offered.
Removing religion basically means removing belief and on belief some of the greatest achievements of humanity are build (some of the greatest atrocities as well).
Same goes with the Economic earnings and footprint. Say hello to the communist dream and the effect of no on bothering to try to achieve something because the economic reward is non existent to do so.
The other 3 options are remove groupings of people and the hate it can engender. It won't reduce those intergroup hatreds, humans are tribal and will find something else to identify themselves as belonging to a group and others not belonging resulting in exactly the same problems those three options try to solve.

[KrauserKrauser]

Bullshit. Our diversity has nothing to do with us being the dominant species. That is mainly due to our capacity for tool use and creative thinking. Humanity did not become dominant due to multi-hued skin tones, we beat the shit out of the animals with sticks, then rocks, then bows, then guns as well as animal husbandry and farming which some animals do just on a more simple and smaller scale.

Belief in God could easily be substituted with the belief in the good of all people. People do need hope, and will always find something to believe in. Uniting them all under the same belief system is not the same as attempting to remove belief from humanity. The purges of Stalin are a great example that faith in God does not preclude a society from commiting atrocities.

The whole exercise is to suggest what we could unite under, saying that we should not unite, and that killing ourselves is a strength, is an interesting and grand aproach towards social darwinism which would unite only those that could kill off the rest.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Other: Language.

A single common language would really help, without radically changing the human psyche.

[Prozac the Robert]

Nationality. Think how much more people care about a disaster or a shooting or whatever in their own country than a massive atrocity happening in another. Without that, I think a lot more would be done to help people in shit situations.

[Velthuijsen]

Bullshit. Our diversity has nothing to do with us being the dominant species. That is mainly due to our capacity for tool use and creative thinking. Humanity did not become dominant due to multi-hued skin tones, we beat the shit out of the animals with sticks, then rocks, then bows, then guns as well as animal husbandry and farming which some animals do just on a more simple and smaller scale.

You forgot the and recognizing people in the tribe you live in as friendly and the tribe on the other side of the river as rivals to be exterminated because they are laying claim to the same resources as your tribe. That is why removing a single way to group people won't work, people will just find other groupings to do the same in.

Belief in God could easily be substituted with the belief in the good of all people. People do need hope, and will always find something to believe in. Uniting them all under the same belief system is not the same as attempting to remove belief from humanity. The purges of Stalin are a great example that faith in God does not preclude a society from commiting atrocities.

Belief in that humanity is good is worse then believing in God. Since it blinds you to daily reality that shows that humans are not intrinsically good, nor intrinsically evil but just try to survive. Something so hardwired into the system that we've for eons now been trying to tell each other that death isn't permanent (AKA religion). Your statement about Stalin seems to me nonsensical since I did write down that belief caused some of the greatest atrocities.

The whole exercise is to suggest what we could unite under, saying that we should not unite, and that killing ourselves is a strength, is an interesting and grand aproach towards social darwinism which would unite only those that could kill off the rest.

Now you are putting things into my mouth I never said. I'm willing to take you up on those arguments though.

Killing ourselves was a strength for a single tribe in a time when that tribe could starve to death if it didn't have access to resources and other tribes occupied those resources. These days where (it looks to me that) we are managing to produce more then we need it is a liability since this mentality combined with greed (aquisition and hoarding of resources is another survival trait if done in moderation) causes wars, unrest, theft, etc.
Social darwinism won't work due to the size of the human population and (ironically since it was probably this that made you claim I was in favour of it) the diversity in this population.

[Darth Raptor]

The nationality one is way too vague with far too many variables. What kind of nation are we talking about? The Holy Roman Empire was a "nation" in the most technical sense of the word. So long as we got to choose the strength, centrality and policies of this one-world government, one could feasibly attain all of those other options. But unless we get something other than a glorified UN, my vote goes to religion: i.e., none.

[KrauserKrauser]

Is English your second language? Because it is a bit hard to read your responses, I'll soldier on though.

You forgot the and recognizing people in the tribe you live in as friendly and the tribe on the other side of the river as rivals to be exterminated because they are laying claim to the same resources as your tribe. That is why removing a single way to group people won't work, people will just find other groupings to do the same in.

So, ummm are you trying to argue that tool use was not the reason we became dominant, or not? I can't understand how this statement has anything to do with the point I brought up.

Belief in that humanity is good is worse then believing in God. Since it blinds you to daily reality that shows that humans are not intrinsically good, nor intrinsically evil but just try to survive. Something so hardwired into the system that we've for eons now been trying to tell each other that death isn't permanent (AKA religion). Your statement about Stalin seems to me nonsensical since I did write down that belief caused some of the greatest atrocities.

How is that worse than believing in a Vengeful God, or that by blowing yourself up you will be rewarded with virginal sex in the Afterlife? It's easier to put to the test? Gosh, now that's horrible isn't it. People will always find something to believe in, whether it's in their children, a rock, the government, whatever, you won't be able to remove humanity's need to believe in something. My bringing up Stalin and his purges was to show that even in a system without a belief in a higher power, humans will still commit atrocities on one another.

Now you are putting things into my mouth I never said. I'm willing to take you up on those arguments though.

You're right, I jumped ahead a bit with that, sorry.

Killing ourselves was a strength for a single tribe in a time when that tribe could starve to death if it didn't have access to resources and other tribes occupied those resources. These days where (it looks to me that) we are managing to produce more then we need it is a liability since this mentality combined with greed (aquisition and hoarding of resources is another survival trait if done in moderation) causes wars, unrest, theft, etc.

Ok, another pile of bullshit. There have been wars, unrest, theft, etc since, well, shit, who knows, all of recorded history at least.

[Feil]

The nationality one is way too vague with far too many variables. What kind of nation are we talking about? The Holy Roman Empire was a "nation" in the most technical sense of the word. So long as we got to choose the strength, centrality and policies of this one-world government, one could feasibly attain all of those other options. But unless we get something other than a glorified UN, my vote goes to religion: i.e., none.

Nations are not states. "Kurdish", "Sunni", and "Shia" are nations. "Iraq" is a state.

[Darth Raptor]

Nations are not states. "Kurdish", "Sunni", and "Shia" are nations. "Iraq" is a state.

Operating on that definition, how would that be any different from standardizing race or religion; which happen to be distinct options on this poll?

[Rye]

I voted "ethnicity" on the principle that if we got invaded by aliens, we would all ignore our differences and unify through our allegiance to terra, though the ideal follow on from that would be one nation.

[The Vortex Empire]

Definitely unify religion. Make everyone on the planet atheists, and that could help get rid of some racism. No more idiot fundies, no more religions protesting cloning, stem cell research, the world would be a better place all around. No more holy wars, fewer genocides. Ahhhh, paradise.

[Enforcer Talen]

I voted "ethnicity" on the principle that if we got invaded by aliens, we would all ignore our differences and unify through our allegiance to terra, though the ideal follow on from that would be one nation.

Just to annoy you, up to about 1500, most of humanity's wars were within the same color. Europeans vs Europeans, Asians vs Asians, etc.

[Rye]

That doesn't annoy me, there's lots of infighting and hatred to go around. Look at the Balkans, or Ireland and England, or England and France, or all of Europe and Germany. Yet common enemies have forced everyone into alliances where for a while at least, they forgot their differences because they hated a common enemy enough.

[Enforcer Talen]

I think there will always be sixth columnists, neutrals, and all the rest, though.

I dont view any crisis, even aliens, as slowing that down.

[Darth Raptor]

If aliens managed to cross the Endless Gulf of Nothing to get all the way here and bring a full-scale invasion force with them, the +1 attack we'd get from racial purity isn't going to do us much good.

[Covenant]

I'm for equalizing the economy across the board. While I have no idea how to do that, since I've been invested with the Godlike power to change all of one thing, I'll do that.

The reason for it is that I believe a lot of the problems we see are socioeconomic ones, especially when it comes to the kind of ignorance that crops up in poor areas of the planet. Redistribution of wealth for the purpose of dragging people out of poverty might have a great effect of reducing so much of the tension we attribute to religious and ethnic conflicts, especially if things like a cosmopolitan worldview and adequate education came with it.

Unifying religion and erasing that into athiesm still leaves us with a lot of problems based on economy. We can assume Bush is truely a fundie running the country, or we can look at some of the other despicable things he does--along with all the other non-religious bunch running the show--and see this as something possibly driven much more by economic interests than religious or political ones. Religion often seems like something that infects the weak, poor, unwashed masses of the world and is merely a tool for the wealthy and enlightened. People may still fight over religious ideologies in some regions of the world even though they have full economic rights and a pleasent life at home, but I think it would be less common. Money has a way of eroding religion.

I mean, look, people usually elect idiots like Hitler not out of a religious fervor, but because things are bad and they want something to blame, and something to believe in. People who are fat and happy, and who can't gain anything by invading their neighbors due to my magically delicious wish, seem much more likely to stay home and enjoy life than poor athiests might.

[Rye]

If aliens managed to cross the Endless Gulf of Nothing to get all the way here and bring a full-scale invasion force with them, the +1 attack we'd get from racial purity isn't going to do us much good.

Of course, but that wasn't the purpose of the analogy. A common threat without the baggage of ethnicity would, for my money, be the best way to unify people and set up a one-world nation where the territory disputes are a between private citizens, religion is a private thing, poverty and wealth distribution would then have to be dealt with within that.

[Beowulf]

Name a conflict which isn't fueled by:

They have it, we want it.
Or:
They're different from us, and therefore bad.

If there isn't a difference, humanity will make one up. It's impossible to eliminate conflicts.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Religion aside, the last 2 World Wars weren't started by religion. So religion isn't the only contributing factor. If there's a will, there's a way. Justifying it is just a silly tidbit to rouse the masses to support your little/huge war.