7 ms·

It's very strange that people are ok with people charming others "naturally" (while it's probably because they learned by imitation, often from parents) while "

• YurgenJurgensen 1y ago
  You say ‘somehow’ like the reasoning isn’t obvious. Physical attractiveness is a signal of reproductive fitness when it’s genetic, and not otherwise.
  • whstl 1y ago
    This is a bullshit rationalization for horrible behavior. The people doing the judging certainly aren't gonna reproduce with 99.99999% of the people being judged, and I'm being extremely generous here.
    • lazide 1y ago
      Sure, but why would they care? And why do you think it matters?
      • whstl 1y ago
        That's precisely my point. If you're not gonna reproduce with someone, their "reproductive fitness" is none of your business. Once again this is just a rationalization for horrible behavior.
        • lmz 1y ago
          You could argue that they are ruining the value of the signal for everyone.
          • whstl 1y ago
            If it was about signal-to-noise, there would be no bullying of bald people, or short people.
            • coldtea 1y ago
              Or it could still be, but have other explanation. E.g. you're called out if you ruin the signal to noise ration, but you're also called out if you genuinely give the unfit signal. (Don't approve doing this or anything, just pointing the blind spot in your dichotomy, interested in the argument on a purely technical manner).
              • whstl 1y ago
                HN never ceases to surprise me with the rationalizations for any kind of behavior.
                • coldtea 1y ago
                  You keep using this word rationalization. I don't think it means what you think it means
                  • whstl 1y ago
                    Nope. I'm using it correctly. You might be in denial, though ;)
                    • boat-of-theseus 11mo ago
                      [dead]
        • lazide 1y ago
          But this is the neurodivergent ‘just world’ blind spot. The world isn’t just. People like people with good genetics, because being friendly with the strong gets you benefits more than it gets you costs. Especially if you’re able to influence (or even pathologically manipulate) them. Most people just know this, subconsciously. So they would probably even deny it. But it’s transparently easy to test, and even easier to see evidence of by just looking around. Also, most attractive people work to be attractive because it’s often mutually beneficial (assuming they can counter manipulate or influence appropriately). Having people attracted to you gives you the ability to use other people’s resources for your benefit. Most attractive people just know this, subconsciously. So they would probably even deny it. But it’s transparently easy to test, and even easier to see evidence of by just looking around. This is generally kept covert, because like most covert power, it attracts negative attention if brought to conscious awareness - as then it’s perceived as manipulation, not influence, or encourages more jealousy, etc. as it’s not fair. But life isn’t fair, except where we make it, and making something fair requires power. And acquiring and maintaining power is fundamentally unfair.
          • whstl 1y ago
            I'm not saying the word is just anywhere in my message. I'm just saying I can call a spade a spade. If anything, it's the rationalizations around certain behaviors that are claiming the world is perfect and just as is.
    • K0balt 1y ago
      While I certainly agree that it is an example of poor judgment and perhaps weak character to be broadly judgy about cosmetic efforts in general, I can understand the theoretical plight of someone who might be taken in by a deceptive person in that regard. If you steelman the argument you can see the point, but it’s also unreasonable to assume that a person is living the steelman version of life (and being a deceptive person) just because they had a facelift. OTOH, if you are admiring people’s genetics using their appearance as a proxy, I can see why it might seem like “cheating”
      • whstl 1y ago
        But the problem is not admiring good looks if they're natural, or expecting someone to be truthful, or anything of the sort that might or might not theoretically happen. The problem is clearly with the bullying. And the assumptions around character. And basically using "changing yourself" as a proxy for hallucinating all sorts of completely unrelated bad characteristics. And the rationalizing around it. It's the same for behavior: people are fine with the behavior of "naturally charming" people but as soon as someone mentions "learning how to do it" people immediately jump to conclusions and call it manipulative.
        • MichaelZuo 1y ago
          Someone having one consciously developed ulterior motive… does increases the likelihood of them having other consciously developed ulterior motives that might be hidden away? The linkage isn’t as strong for unconsciously or subconsciously developed ulterior motives. Hence the huge gap in how people behave towards that.
          • whstl 1y ago
            Calling it "ulterior motive" is already a judgement call. Being better at socialization is virtually demanded by society. "Not looking good" is also punished. There is nothing ulterior about anything. The fact that a certain chunk of society demands both perfection and authenticity already makes it necessary for people to not be transparent about such things.
    • YurgenJurgensen 11mo ago
      You might think that those people’s opinions don’t matter, but it turns out that ‘lots of other people value me highly’ is in itself a signal. And yes, it is horrible, but if you want to solve a problem, you must first understand the problem, and ‘some people are just born with Evil in their hearts’ is not a very good sociological model.
      • deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
  • coldtea 1y ago
    The reductionist biological explanation might be obvious to you, but in the actual world, the reasoning and the moral condemnation of things like plastic surgery is never explicitly about giving false signals regarding one's reproductive fitness. Reasons "haters" cite are about vanity, narcissism, refusing to look your age, etc.
    • bayindirh 1y ago
      For me, motivation matters. If you want to learn social skills to make your life easier while not harming others, that's perfectly fine, admirable even, but if you learn it to damage others for your own profit, that's immoral. Same for the motivation of surgeries. You might not be comfortable with yourself, and want to change something, and that's perfectly fine, but again to changing appearance signal something to benefit you and harm others with less effort, it's immoral again. And, I believe, if you need to change how you behave or look to get acceptance from a circle, this means the circle is toxic and you'll be far happier elsewhere.
      • boat-of-theseus 11mo ago
        [dead]
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • YurgenJurgensen 11mo ago
      That too is pretty obvious from the same perspective: Admitting you only care about someone’s genes is itself considered shallow, so people make up other justifications based on other, more accepted values.
    • vacuity 11mo ago
      To me, a big factor that I subconsciously evaluate on is the "fakeness" of the appearance itself. Instances where plastic surgery results in the uncanny valley of "should be good but looks too perfect or messes up a critical aspect" disturb me. Plastic surgery isn't as powerful as Photoshop. Maybe that's more on the surgeon, and subjective criterion of attraction (such as mine), but it simply isn't the case that plastic surgery makes someone look good.
  • kubanczyk 11mo ago
    > Physical attractiveness is a signal of reproductive fitness when it’s genetic, and not otherwise. Nay, artificial physical attractiveness is also a signal of reproductive fitness. It isn't a given. It's the subject's genes that made a brain that was able to design (and to arrange to pay for!) the improved attractiveness. It's not qualitatively different from brushing hair.
    • YurgenJurgensen 11mo ago
      Yes, technically, having spare resources to devote to your own appearance is considered a positive signal, but it is an unreliable one, and often one not as valued by the people making the judgement. If there are many ways to signal wealth, a signal that has some intrinsic downside will lose its value if lots of people are sending the other wealth-signals.
• Hendrikto 1y ago
  Playing the hand you were dealt is fine. Pulling an ace out of your sleeve is cheating.
  • whstl 1y ago
    I'm talking about real life, not a card game.
    • Hendrikto 1y ago
      I am sure you are familiar with the concept of a metaphor.
      • whstl 1y ago
        Of course, but just because you can throw a metaphor around doesn't make it true. There is no "rule" in life that says that people have to be judgmental assholes to each other. Using a card game to justify the behavior is just a rationalization.
        • lazide 1y ago
          And yet, it’s how it is.
          • whstl 1y ago
            Yes, people who judge others like this are anti-social assholes. Of course that's not as bad as people who try to rationalize bad behavior behind a veil of pseudo-intellectuality. Once again: rationalizations don't make something true.
            • coldtea 1y ago
              >Yes, people who judge others like this are anti-social assholes On the contrary, since many (if not most) people do it, they're on the social side. >Once again: rationalizations don't make something true When it comes to social truths, what most people do make them so. If most people think X bad, X is bad is a social truth. Doens't matter if you think X is "not bad in reality". Reality doesn't care about good or bad anyway, it doesn't have a morality.
• Arisaka1 1y ago
  >It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it. We also tend to hide how hard we work to make our success look natural, but we reveal how hard we work on the extremes of success. For example, if I work hard and take a score of 17 out of 20 in a test people will say "I barely read last evening, phew", but if you're consistently scoring 19-20/20 people may even approach you to learn your studying methods and for tips, because they assume there are important takeaways that they can adopt. It's my pet peeve with how society recognizes that someone is talented, which is blatantly flawed because all you can do is see what they're capable of doing. Someone may be talented yet unable (or unwilling?) to tap into their talent, but since we recognize talent by the output you can't really tell the existence of talent unless it's at the extremes of success, like the 8 year old who can solve mathematics that are a grade or more above the current grade. I see talent like a genetic predisposition that can be appropriately cultivated to attain success. It's not much different than my height, because I didn't choose it, yet I can guess that there are men out there who hate the fact that I have their desirable height yet I never hit the gym, cultivate my social skills, or take advantage the fact that I look younger than I am. I am willing to bet everything that I met at least one person who thought of all of these things the first moments they looked at me. But at least genetic predispositions like height are visible to the naked eye and no one can dispute the differences. When it comes to differences in the brain it's where we ignorantly proclaim that things are obscure therefore they can violate the very facts of observable nature. In sort, not only I fully agree with you, but I also agree with the obvious double standards in society around it. If I take ADHD medication and that helps with my focus to improve my performance in school or work then I deserve that success as much as someone who naturally had no problems with ADHD. Why is this different for looks (like hair transplants, etc.) is beyond me.