Are we surprising?

[Edwardo Piet]

Yes which? Yes you take my point now or yes you still have some objections?

P.S: Are you being deliberately vague?

P.P.S: Don't just say "Yes" because I won't know if you are answering "yes" to my question of "yes which?[...]" or to my question of "Are you being deliberately vague?", and so you will continue to be vague (or "vague to me"), whether deliberately or not.

[Darwinian]

Yes, it's all subjective. In this case things just are and it is us who provide the adjective.

Right, I'm off for a bacon sandwich

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Well ,I'm a scetptic and cynic,it's a very long time since I've been surprised by anything nasty,greedy,stupid or absurd done by human beings.

However,I have been surprised from time to time by acts of love and kindness of which I've been the target. I've been even more surprised when I've been guilty of such appalling behaviour myself.

[Edwardo Piet]

"Well ,I'm a scetptic and cynic,it's a very long time since I've been surprised by anything nasty,greedy,stupid or absurd done by human beings."
[...]
"I've been even more surprised when I've been guilty of such appalling behaviour myself."

Interesting that you would be surprised by that. Does this mean you are usually less cynical towards yourself than other human beings (otherwise why would you be surprised)? And if so, are you a lot less cynical towards some human beings than others? Are there some human beings you treat with an equal level of cynicism (or less) than yourself?

[Violet]

Tis both surprising and not.

Ie: I dont have to read Doubtie's post 9/10 times, as I already know what it says.

On the other hand, I surprise myself all the time, usually not in a good way.

This thread isn't surprising when I consider it was posted by Doubtie... but I didn't expect him to post it today. What a surprise ^_^

[Minimalist]

I'm surprised that humanity sucks as much as it does.

Does that count?

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Is there anything surprising about humanity? Or are we all, when it comes down to it, ultimately predictable?

Thoughts?

As a whole? It largely depends on how intelligent the predictor is. I doubt someone of human intelligence can accurately predict what the human race as a whole entity can and will do in any given situation.

Certain generalizations are easily predictable (people will generally run or evacuate away from dangerous situations if they can help it, emergency services will respond to designated emergencies, and so on) but more specific and long-term predictions become increasingly difficult.

This also depends on whether or not the predictions account for humanity as a whole, individual nations, individuals, or whatever.

That in mind, predictive power comes with two things - the intelligence of the observer and the level of knowledge of the subject to which the predictor has available of the subject.

For example, trained experts in sociology will have a pretty good idea how groups of people will respond to given scenarios, whereas the layman will have only common knowledge, personal knowledge, and experience. (Which can be hit or miss.) Even so, the level of detail this sociologist can bring to the table is rather limited in detail.

A hyper-intelligent computer with the mental capacity of a million billion humans with intimate knowledge of human nature and knowledge of virtually every individual that exists is going to have enormous predictive power. (This is a thing that can happen thanks to moore's law and technological advancement).

So... to answer your question, yes, humans can be very predictable.
They can also be very surprising. Depends.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Does this mean you are usually less cynical towards yourself than other human beings (otherwise why would you be surprised)? And if so, are you a lot less cynical towards some human beings than others? Are there some human beings you treat with an equal level of cynicism (or less) than yourself?

Yes and no

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm surprised that humanity sucks as much as it does.

Does that count?

It depends whether we mean "absolutely surprising, as in intrinsically" or "surprising to you and others who have the same opinion".

I'm not surprised that humanity sucks so much. We're supposedly only something like 1.5% genetically away from Chimpanzees, so that's intelligent enough to USE the gift of inquisitiveness and technology that we have, but not intelligent enough to use it RIGHTLY that much it seems. We so often fuck things up of course. Intelligence can be used for the right things AND the wrong things. Even the stupidest of us may outweigh chimpanzees in intelligence but we still have enough capacity to fuck things up. And even the best of us - humans - throughout history might seem "genius" or whatever, but we're still far from fucking perfect.

[thesummerqueen]

Know what's surprising?