Why do you need a label?

[Molochio]

I believe that people are anxious to define and categorize you. it makes you easier to control or destroy.

[tzor]

Why do I need a label? Because when I just purchased 20 or more chances from a local charity it's a pain in the wrist to have to write my name, address and phone number on them all.

[RobbyPants]

It has to do with Dunbar's number (or the monkeysphere). Basically, people can only maintain so many meaningful relationships before they start to view people in fairly simple terms. Labels help with that. It doesn't make their impressions any less prejudiced, but it's just going to happen.

[Maj]

Labeling stuff helps you understand it. Or helps you think you understand it. The benefits of this behavior can be seen in kids most easily.

While my father-in-law was here, he made a comment to the effect that children had a greater attention span - especially for the natural world - before they learned the names of things.

But watching my son learn has taught me that giving names to things enables him to use the label like a building block to conceptuality. Labels take concrete ideas and translate them into abstract ones. And that ability to abstract is the most powerful tool in our shed, so to speak.

So while labels can totally suck, there is no way remove that ability from humans without rendering us completely incompetent. This, of course, puts those who label me incorrectly in the category of "small-minded" and "not very observant or knowledgeable."

[Datawolf]

I'm not a linguist, but human languages seem built on the concept of consciously naming things, assigning them properties, then placing them into groups of other things with similar properties.

[Cynic]

The simplest explanation is that when you talk to people or about people you need a point of reference. Just calling somebody a human being/man/woman/child/manbearpig is too vague. Flea is a great human being because he exhibits all the biological markers that make a human. But that also applies to you and me. But it is better to think of him as a good trumpet and bass guitar player. Or even that half-naked guy on RHCP who has a lot of tattoos. If I'm talking about him, I can't just refer to him as that music guy who did that thing in London and paris in his underpants. Actually that's pretty decent a label because of giving it very specific markers (music guy, doing something specific in london & paris, in his underpants)

[Molochio]

Brown people - terrorists.
Black people - gangsters, drug dealers, pimps.
Blondes - stupid.

Though it serves a necessary function, the practice of labeling seems to take a notably negative light when applied unto humans.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Brown people - terrorists.
Black people - gangsters, drug dealers, pimps.

Been watching a lot of Fox News lately, eh?

[Molochio]

Fox news still exists? I haven't watched television in a decade or so.

[Maxus]

Fox news still exists? I haven't watched television in a decade or so.

Sadly, they do.

[cthulhu]

You can tell, because Tzor keeps repeating Bill O'Beck's (Sic) Conservative Talking Points of the Week

[Molochio]

Cheap psychological poisons.

[Calibron]

Human beings can't communicate directly, we require a medium in which to translate our thoughts(even the label here "thoughts" is inadequate for what I'm trying to express). Every idea you are able to express is in and of itself a label for a greater concept, hell, you really don't need to translate an idea into an expressible format for it to be a label; any experience you have to generate an idea has already been filtered through your perceptions and personal bias, been twisted into something that makes sense to you so it can be properly labeled and fitted into the structure of your brain. Everything you are is labels because you have no way of experiencing an objective reality. Your real complaint is other people using labels that are simpler than you wish them to. In the end, that's just a personal preference.

[Quantumboost]

Brown people - terrorists.
Black people - gangsters, drug dealers, pimps.
Blondes - stupid.

Though it serves a necessary function, the practice of labeling seems to take a notably negative light when applied unto humans.

Humans do tend to give negative labels to people who aren't part of their in-group more often than positive ones. They tend to give positive labels to people in their in-group more often than negative ones. It's a significant problem that needs to be fixed if we ever want to be a galaxy-spanning civilization of supercyborgs.

Oh, and: welcome to social psychology.

[TOZ]

Because we communicate through labels. Every word we use is a label. Some are just more broad than others.

[violence in the media]

I believe that people are anxious to define and categorize you. it makes you easier to control or destroy.

Is this some sort of repudiation to the idea that you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake?

Or is this an assertation that a label, no matter how accurate or precise, can effectively encapsulate the whole of someone of something?

[Vnonymous]

Labels are super fucking useful. Do you go and check every fire you find to see if it burns because labeling it would be harmful? Labels are super fucking useful, so its' no wonder people apply them to people, where they often work fine. When I see someone covered in tatoos with a nazi patch on their jacket and riding a motorbike (I've actually had this happen) I usually assume that they're a bikie.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Why do I need a label? Because when I just purchased 20 or more chances from a local charity it's a pain in the wrist to have to write my name, address and phone number on them all.

Labels is important because it allows recursive procedures to be defined in a local namespace. This is good when, for example, writing tail-recursive procedures with accumulators.

[RobbyPants]

GOTO statements?