Thanks for sharing your story both here and in your website, and I agree with much of what you say, particularly your 3 points. As the article points out, judg

Thanks for sharing your story both here and in your website, and I agree with much of what you say, particularly your 3 points. As the article points out, judging people based on beauty is deeply ingrained in human nature, but I think we can all agree that it's a bad part of our human nature. It's also in our human nature to want to rape, steal, murder, etc. to get what we want, but we create laws and social structures to prevent those things and I'd like to think that we as a species are always trying to transcend these primitive urges and become a more sophisticated Vulcan-like human race that is "above" such things Accordingly, I'm always perplexed as to why judging people based on their looks is still so widely accepted and tolerated in society. Companies aren't allowed to advertise a product by saying "So good you'd rape/kill/steal from your neighbor to get one" and yet they're allowed to promote the idea that becoming more beautiful makes you a better person. I think it's absurd and I think/hope that people 100 years from now will look back on our society and shake their heads in shame and/or amusement at all the shallow advertisements we allow on TV. I refuse to accept that "That's just the way human beings are, man. We gotta reproduce." Forgive me for thinking that we could do much better as a society. That's why I abhor companies like Zynga whose entire business model revolves around tapping into people's most basic, primitive instincts and making money off of it. I love video games with beautiful graphics, an epic story, and great gameplay, but Zynga games have none of those things. They are the equivalent of a crack dealer getting people hooked on low-quality games which add nothing to people's lives, and just because they grow quickly in a new space does not mean they should be lauded for doing so. Last point - I don't like the argument that because babies and children also recognize similar standards of beauty that we should just accept that there's nothing we can do about it. Children also want to eat candy at every meal, steal stuff they want, and shit anywhere. Children need responsible adults to teach them that all those things are not good for themselves and society. And yet we fail to do the same for both children and adults when it comes to looks, which never fails to sadden me. </rant> EDIT to add: pg recently tweeted "Will ownership turn out to be largely a hack people resorted to before they had the infrastructure to manage sharing properly?" I'd like to pose the same question - Will makeup and cosmetic surgery turn out to be largely a hack people resorted to before society got its shit together and collectively realized that we shouldn't be promoting beauty as a virtue?