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What Image Should Represent All of Humanity On Wikipedia? (wired.com)

Posted by msmash on from the interesting-question dept.

An anonymous reader writes: If aliens ever do come across the Pioneer spacecraft and make assumptions about the entire human species based on the man and woman etched onto the plaque it carries, this is what they will think of us: We all look like white people; we all look about 30ish years old; we do not wear clothes. It's a problem you encounter anytime you have to choose a few individuals to represent an entire group, and it's one that the editors of Wikipedia have debated for years: What image should grace the top of the "human" entry in the online dictionary?

The photo that's there now, after years of feverish debate, is of an Akha couple from a region of Thailand along the Mekong river. "The photo of the Akha couple remain humanity's type specimens on Wikipedia," writes author Ellen Airhart. "Just as a shriveled northeastern leopard frog at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology represents its whole species, so this couple stands for all of us."

Such musing about the taxonomic representation of the human species could actually have a big impact on our digital future. "Future scientists will have to teach computers, not aliens, to recognize the human image. Right now, software engineers program artificial intelligence to recognize people by feeding them millions of pictures of faces," she writes. "But whose faces? Computer scientists run into the same questions about gender, race, and culture that the Wikipedia editors encountered. Being able to use more than one photo expands the conversation but does not necessarily make it easier."

36 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Boot on a face by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a 'Boot on a face'. It sums up most of history marvelously.

    1. Re:Boot on a face by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or a picture of a steaming pile of fresh human feces.

      It's the one thing we all have in common and, adjusting for local diet, it all looks pretty much the same no matter the race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or wealth.

      Shit is the one thing and the one symbol that binds the human race together and describes with one image the results of our existence thus far and likely the legacy we leave behind, and the universe could not have chosen more appropriately. It's so uncanny, in fact, that it might even be an argument for intelligent design! :D

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  2. A photo by DivineKnight · · Score: 2

    A photo of one of the survivors of Auschwitz (day of liberation).

    1. Re:A photo by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      If we are going to be putting these images on deep space probes, that might be found by aliens, we need to ensure that the images do not portray us as being "tasty".

      Otherwise, the aliens might visit us with Soylent Green intentions.

      We need to dress up the images of humans with huge pointy teeth, porcupine spikes, eagle claws and a nasty Stegosaurus tail.

      Or, just plain giant armadillo pictures might work:

      https://www.google.com/search?...

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:A photo by houghi · · Score: 2

      Why and which survivor?

      I would go for Michael Angelo's drawing of proportions. Make it asexual or both sexes (did not want to go with bi-sexual) if you want to be PC.

      The holocaust is just a part of our history and leaves out many other things. Pretty irrelevant for most things about humanity.

      Or just a photo of Kevin Bacon and an explanation how the 6 degrees works. That will surely confuse the hell out of the Borg.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  3. goatse by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    .cx

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Musings from selfish people by johnlcallaway · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not about you. It's not about inclusion. It's just a stupid picture and not important.

    Stop categorizing each other and creating divisive conversations all because you expect life to be fair. Stop getting upset because your color/ethnic background isn't getting the spotlight. Your pride is causing all of us to fall.

    Move on with your lives and concentrate on doing something important.

    Not like me wasting my time commenting on this post.

    --
    I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
    1. Re:Musings from selfish people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Identity politics is a tool (one of many) to keep the proles divided and distracted and bickering amongst themselves. When the entire world is partitioned into a giant Venn diagram of competing "identities" - each obsessed over which group among them is the most oppressed - there's zero chance of mustering up the will or numbers to tackle any problems that actually matter, and the 'elites' are free to plunder the world at their pleasure.

      Just imagine a left wing group trying to get something like OWS going in 2018. Even their one day Vagina Cosplay March nearly collapsed under the weight of unchecked white privilege and cultural appropriation.

    2. Re:Musings from selfish people by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They do seem to be over-thinking it a bit. Take this bit of the ideal image criteria:

      "All of the humans would be clothed, because that's how human beings are most commonly encountered: unclothed depictions should be used at the top of the "biology" section, in order to clearly depict their anatomy, but it is potentially misleading to use such an image as the lead image in the article"

      Yeah... People will be mislead by a naked photo and think that's how human beings are, despite a literal lifetime of counter-examples.

      Having said that, some of the submissions are clearly unsuitable. The woman in a burka is atypical and her clothing hides many important features of humans such as legs and arms. Many of the others only have one person when really there should be at least two to represent both genders.

      Kind of amazing how hard to is to find a photo of a clothed man and a woman in neutral poses that is reasonably interesting and attractive, which fits in the side bar area and is freely licenced. The Akha is actually by far the best that anyone has proposed, much better than the current Pioneer drawing.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Musings from selfish people by butzwonker · · Score: 2

      So you don't think it should a picture of President Donald Trump since he is the leader of the world's most powerful country and therefore represents humanity best?

    4. Re:Musings from selfish people by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 2

      He would be better than the shriveled northeastern leopard frog at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

  5. I think the plaque works by Kokuyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We're bipedal, have two arms with five fingers each, a mouth, a nose, two eyes and two ears and our species has two sexes.

    The proportions are also about accurate for most of us.

    I think that's enough for first contact information. I mean where does it end? Do we need to tell them our social structures and capacity for empathy and destruction as well?
    I'd think those are info bits for a second or third contact...

    We can make the next plaque with black or Asian people, I don't care.

    1. Re: I think the plaque works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      two sexes

      Speak for yourself you binary-lovin cissy!11
      triggered

      Seriously though, there are growing numbers of people on here that get personally offended by this.
      Literally arguing against human genetics by trying to use genetic disasters as evidence.
      Other species might have naturally differect sexes, humans don't. They aren't functional components in producing offspring, their literal purpose for existing.
      Doesn't mean they are useless, just not a distinct, useful sex.
      Of the many transgender people I've talked to over the years, every one of them hate this dumb PC '57 million genders' nonsense.

  6. Probably davinci by Z80a · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Vitruvian Man to be more specific.

  7. Pass the Plexaderm Please by rfengineer · · Score: 2

    The man on the pioneer plaque was supposed to look African and the woman was supposed to look Asian. However, after years of exposure to cosmic rays and micrometeorites, I'm sure the aliens will believe we have acne and pits all over our bodies.

  8. Meanwhile, a message arrives from the stars. . . by Salgak1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    . . . .that reads:

    "Stop sending us naked pictures of yourselves and directions to your home planet. It's ***CREEPY***. . . . ."

    (evil grin)

  9. African roots by Zobeid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, I think the Thailanders photo works OK. (Forget about ethnicity for a moment: Their clothing and context imply a pre-industrial way of life that was dominant throughout human history but now is diminishing rapidly!) However I would have more likely have suggested a recognizably African couple. My reasoning: Humans originated from Africa, and it still holds the greatest genetic and cultural diversity of any region. People elsewhere in the world are offshoots from that root.

    1. Re:African roots by Viol8 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Shouldn't the picture show where we've got to rather than the primitive roots we came from?

      Africa may hold the greatest genetic and cultural diversity but the entire continent (aprt from maybe SA) achieves virtually nothing in the scheme of things today.

    2. Re:African roots by hey! · · Score: 2

      Well, cultures rise and fall. A modern person transported in time a thousand years back would find Europe to be quite horrible, and certain places in Africa far more civilized, like Ghana for example. Even five hundred years ago you'd probably prefer living somewhere like Benin to anywhere in Europe, which was at the start of a two hundred year period of religious warfare.

      If you look at history quite a few civlizations achieve a kind of cultural and political domination Europe achieved after, say 1700. And very few continue to enjoy that for more than three or four hundred years.

      Going by sustained cultural achievement, you'd have to choose either Han Chinese or South Asian civilization as representative of humanity. Population-wise, they're also the more numerous than Europeans. India in particular has had continuous civilization dating back to before the First Dynasty of Egypt.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  10. it cant be done with a single couple by FudRucker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    if they use that asian couple, then what about the people's of other ethnic origin? why not a panoramic (extra wide photo) showing several couples of various ethnic origins to capture the diversity of humanity

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    1. Re:it cant be done with a single couple by Gilgaron · · Score: 2

      That's what they do with the dog entry, so sure, why not. Otherwise I think you're going to need to either do a computer generated average image or perhaps get some anthropologists and geneticists together to figure out what subgroup is closest to wild-type.

    2. Re:it cant be done with a single couple by denzacar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Otherwise I think you're going to need to either do a computer generated average image

      A computer generated image based on a global model which would include all most recent census data from all over the globe would work great for that.
      Particularly if the whole process was automated, updating itself on its own as new data arrives.

      And as for anyone feeling underrepresented by such an image, you can legitimately tell them to go and reproduce themselves.
      Reproduce themselves billions of times.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  11. Why does one need to represent all? by BlacKSacrificE · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why do we require one image to signify humanity on wikipedia? The pages for cats, dogs, birds, bats, spiders and fruit all feature composite images of the many species represented in one image. Why would the page for humans be any different? Indeed, the page goes on to show many examples of humans.

    Am I missing something here?

    --
    [Sorry, this signature is unavailable in your country/region]
  12. Worth a thousand words... by magusxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Norman Rockwell's The Golden Rule

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals...

    --
    Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
  13. A photo of Bruce Jenner before and after by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or Caitlyn Jenner. Anyway, sure to confuse our alien overlords.

    --
    "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
  14. Most by countach · · Score: 2

    Whichever race is the most prevalent. That would be Chinese I guess.

  15. Computer generated by sad_ · · Score: 2

    Feed a computer algorithm millions of pictures of people, as diverse as possible, and let it then generate what the average human looks like.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  16. Re:Mostly Harmless by olsmeister · · Score: 2

    I prefer the words "Mostly Tasteless".

  17. Re:The "Pale blue dot" by Drethon · · Score: 2

    I agree but someone will probably complain about which continent is visible... maybe an image with both halves showing or something?

  18. We Are All Fucked by sycodon · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...if Aliens look to Wikipedia for anything.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  19. any healthy member of H. sapiens by ooloorie · · Score: 2, Informative

    Any healthy adult members of H. sapiens will do, since they are biologically interchangeable. If you object to one member over another on racial grounds, it simply means that you're a racist.

  20. Re: At first I thought "Holy fuck, who cares?"... by stealth_finger · · Score: 2

    Maybe the guy in 5th element wasn't being sarcastic when he said he was a 'meat popsicle'

    --
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    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  21. Your own photo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When you go to the wikipedia page, it takes a picture of you and puts it there to represent the whole humanity. That way you can feel special and represented. Because that's what's important in life.

  22. Chuck Norris by gavrc · · Score: 2

    nuff said

  23. Re:Interesting... by Dast · · Score: 2

    You can tell by the hair. That's 100% white people hair on that plaque.

    --

    This sig is false.

  24. Re:I feel offended by this picture!! by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    If the asians were just a tiny intelligent, they would do whatever they could to REDUCE their numbers

    Actually if they were intelligent they would reduce YOUR numbers given you could sustain two of them for the resource consumption of one of you.