As you can’t post poles I’ll put together some options:
God/Nature’s finest creation
Flawed but with many good qualities
Neutral
The sooner we’re wiped out the better
Other
So whats your opinion and why?
I’ll explain my position later but I’m just wondering what other people think and why. (its inspired by a trend I’ve noticed that seems to be increasingly common)
A little salty, but not bad with a ginger/curry sauce.
sorry
That’s about it.
I guess I feel neutral. It’s hard to be too critical about humanity since without us I’m nothing. I generally think people are shits, but when something gives me joy, it’s usually a human.
I was the type of kid to lie in bed awake at night thinking, “aaaaargh God this was a terrible idea! Why be a person when people are awful? Why so many awful people doing terrible things?” Then for ages I thought, “Well I’m sure I’ll die sometime soon and it won’t matter so just try to be nice and not hurt anyone.” Eventually I realized that it was possible that I might live more of an average lifespan on this planet with these people as they are so I better stop being so picky. So I am sort of passive towards humanity. There’s definitely something wrong with us. It’s like we have slightly more capacity for suffering than we do for compassion. Just enough to make all the difference. It’s like there’s a little mistake in the recipe. I basically try to think that it’s not worth it to judge and that most of the worst comes from bad apples. There are billions of people out there who are minding their own business and not doing too bad a job and I try to focus on them.
Rather Calvinist, really. Man is inherently sinful and can only be redeemed through divine grace. As I am also an atheist, you can see why I don’t bother much with people.
A species in its infancy showing a lot of promise.
The most successful species in the history of the planet. Sure there’s other that have been more numerous, but how many have effectively removed themselves from the food chain?
I think Christianity got it right with mankind being inherently sinful and evil. It just seems that stupidity, confusion, and error have been the driving force behind most of human history, while our technologies, good governments, and virtues have been achieved only after centuries of excruciating trial and error. (FTR, I’m an atheist.).
Still, we’ve accomplished a lot, and I certainly don’t think “the sooner we’re wiped out the better.” After a few decades of dealing with humans, I’ve stopped always trying to see the good in people, stopped trying to be a humanist, stopped trying to be perfect and stopped hoping for some bright enlightening moment within our lifetimes. I’ll settle for accepting people for who we are and going from there.
People are animals. We aren’t inherently anything, any more than dogs or rabbits are inherently good or bad. I have no opinion on humanity as a whole.
We’re animals that got lucky.
The pinnacle of creation. All others bow down before us in our majesty!
Everything else exists to be barbecued or exploited.
No, I’m not kidding.
I think pokey made a pretty good er…poke at it.
As a member of the subject-group I’m too biased to give a valid answer.
However, if I were an alien, the phrases “disappointing” and “hmmm, that’s a suprise” might well feature.
People are basically good.
Goodness knows there are enough examples to the contrary, but I tend to see them as individual persons rather than as being representative of people in general. I know it would be easy to have the opposite opinion, and many do, but I have a generally positive outlook on life and it extends to how I feel about people. (FTR, I’m far from naïve … I just don’t have it in me to be a cynic.)
Flawed but with many good qualities
We have tons of flaws:
We can be brutal to those we don’t consider ‘in’ our group (other races, other species, other genders, other religions, other nationalities, other personalities, etc).
Those of us in the first world spend more on things like toilet paper and cosmetics than we do on food and medicine for poor people overseas
We aren’t always good at long range planning
Prone to fanaticism
Poor priorities (scientists work on a 7th cure for baldness in wealthy people instead of cures for diseases that kill millions of poor people)
etc. etc. etc.
However we are by and large good. We have almost conquered hunger and probably will in the next 40 years or so. No other species has done that before.
Things like antibiotics have saved more lives than were killed in all the wars of humanity put together. Agricultural technology has done alot too.
We get more and more educated, and as a result take more and more control over our destiny. If a disease occurs instead of burning the Jews at the stake like we did in the black ages we will quarantine people and work on a vaccine and a treatment.
Once people taste freedom I don’t think they’ll give it up barring some kind of major external threat. Once people are living in a human rights friendly country they won’t give it up.
The worst human rights abusers of today are not much worse than the abuses by developed countries 100 years ago. Progress is rapid on human rights.
As a group, mostly stupid and short sighted, smart enough to be a danger to themselves and everything else living on the planet.
Individuals, on the other hand, can be beautiful and awe-inspiring.
What day of the week is it?
I’m given to wide mood swings when it comes to my species.
Day-in, day-out I’m pretty misanthropic. It’s hard for me to look around at what we’re up to and not think how stupid, petty, and narrow-minded we are. Our capacity for cruelty to one another is almost limitless.
Balancing that out, though, is the fact that I teach in the humanities, so I get regular exposure to the best that we’re capable of. It’s pretty hard to read Pearl, for example, and not be amazed at our unbelievable skill and insight.
Interesting, often fascinating. Crazy; animals. Evolution and genetics play a lot of tricks on them. Get spooked easily and do stupid things as a result. Rarely plays well with others.
These sorts of things just cause my jaw to drop whenever I contemplate them - the wilful blindness and the maintenance of such inequality of resources are surely among the least admirable traits of the species.
Really? I’d love to believe this is so, but really? 
I think so, yes. Within 40 years I’d assume economics & biotechnology will advance enough that people will have ample food. As it stands now 7/8th of the world’s population has adequate food.