Beauty Is the Greatest Privilege (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Beauty Is the Greatest Privilege (2020)

medium.com

38 pointsenigmatic0210 comments

Skimmed the article so may have missed the point, but what is the end game here? Are we to only hire 50% attractive people and 50% ugly people? (Or whatever percentages represent the general population).

Have we reached peak "woke"?

Beauty is not simply a privilege. There are a lot of things that someone can do to enhance their aesthetic appeal. Broadly, this includes exercising, dressing well, and maintaining a positive demeanor.

I suspect the author fell for this when he was describing how his "beautiful young (friend) in her mid twenties who runs a makeup and lifestyle instagram account" has been "blessed with naturally perfect, glowing, caramel skin, infectious smile," etc. It sounds like he's not seeing her without makeup because she's great at applying it. Granted, I could be wrong, but it seems unlikely.

Those things can reduce ugliness but even moderately attractive people can let themselves go in all those areas and still be attractive. Conversly, if you are unattractive enough those things will only make you look like a monster/villain/creep.

> The common optimistic retort is that beauty is indeed a social construct and that we have the capability of shedding ourselves of the instinct favouring conventionally beautiful people.

The number of attractive ugly people I have met in my life, is under 10, but not 0. Some of it was personality, some of it was an intangible/nonverbal bond. I've had a LTR with more than one of them.

I ended up marrying someone who was both physically attractive (overall) and had a compatible personality. This is not the same thing as having an overwhelmingly attractive personality.

I think there is a "social construct" aspect of beauty, typically a variation on very skinny women, maybe plus big breasts. Those are basically what as a young man (and probably woman, I'm a man) you are conditioned to be interested in. And I've seen some guys basically parrot that. But for me and lots of men I talk to, there is, in my view, an instinctive view of attractiveness, basically a combination of health and good nature, or more simply curvy and smiling. I don't think that's a "social construct" in the way that term gets used, I think that's evolution.

Thinking about this reminded me about how Kirstie Allsop (a British TV presenter that would not be considered a traditional model) beat out lots of models in a world sexiest women ranking, for, in my opinion, exactly the reason I describe.

https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/celebrity-news/kirstie-al...

I think there is some truth in that there is some amount of "social construct" aspect, rather than being intentionally conditioned, that is a form of the "mimetic desire" Thiel always talks about, where you subconsciously want what others want. But where I disagree is that "skinny women big breasts" is an outdated archetype, from about the 80s to mid aughts (2000-2010). There's still the same mimetic desire on beauty that wades into unhealthy territory. "Curvy" is actually quite en vogue and on the extremes, there are many women getting elective plastic surgeries and injections on their lips, butts, and elsewhere, much moreso than the previous archetype. That used to be quite taboo, nowadays it's much less so. And as sure as the sun sets, there will still be ever changing shifts in mimetic desire of beauty among the next generations, just as older men still might favor the "skinny big breasts" archetype today.

> You might tell a friend “you’re a 10” but when was the last time you told someone you respect “you’re ugly.”

Once a year? Men and Women don't have as big a problem with this as you might think, because relative unattractiveness is not talked about casually. Especially when someone is dating, relative attractiveness comes up regularly. You tend to have honest discussions with people you respect.

Possibly a controversial opinion: No one looks unattractive when lean (reasonably lean, not body builder sub 5% body fat)

Just as a side note, even for body builders just hitting 5% body fat will be essentially impossible. Maybe someone can hit it though insane work and meal planning but it isn't maintainable. Even 8% is super low. Most body builders likely sit at 10-14%

2020

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