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Not everyone is beautiful

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, October 20, 2012, 05:36:39 PM

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P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Man Green on October 20, 2012, 09:31:51 PM
Here is a thought; the value of beauty is connected to the value of reproduction. So, then, when we use beauty as a value judgement, are we also reinforcing the thought that a person's value, particularly a woman's value, lies in her reproductive desirability? Not to downplay the importance of reproduction, as it is one of our basic and essential drives, but society itself, the reason for which our large brains exist, creates many opportunities for survival value to be expressed indirectly, by contributing to the survival of the clan... and that ties back full-circle to the reason society exists. So why should we decide, culturally speaking, that beauty should be the ultimate value judgement for women? I don't think it's for biological reasons, especially since the assessment of physical beauty is a changing and culturally dependent variable.

I was bewildered back in the 90's when the mainstream was pushing that - fucking skeletal / cocaine for breakfast lunch and dinner - look. Aside from the fact that I, personally, found those models absolutely fucking hideous (maybe it was just me - I'm a wierd fucker at the best of times) I was thinking that, biologically speaking, the act of impregnating one of those "waif" things would kill her, never mind carrying a foetus to full term. So where was the natural selection?

Must be overridable/programmable?

There's a lot of basic biological systems that seem to be falling by the wayside under the pressure of these huge, bloated brains we've grown. Good thing? Heh, fingers crossed  :lulz: 

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
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"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

tyrannosaurus vex

I think the easiest way to defeat this idea that everyone is "beautiful in their own way," and to show it for the farcical idea that it is, is to say other things that should make the same sense if this was true, but actually sound absolutely ridiculous:

Everyone is generous in their own way.
Everyone is intelligent in their own way.
Everyone is a Harvard law professor in their own way.

I agree with Nigel. What you really are should be the basis of what people think of you, not what you're not but "should be." There is actually nothing wrong with being an ugly person, so why try to mitigate your ugliness by saying your beauty just exists in some spiritual wavelength that the eyes cannot pick up? It's like saying "Everyone is heterosexual in their own way." A) It is complete meaningless bullshit, and B) so what are you saying about non-hetero people?

Granted, if you are physically unattractive, you will have trouble finding mates -- or at least you might, if all people ever know about you is what you look like. But why we take our biological urge to mate with someone and pretend that it has an effect on any single other aspect about that person eludes me.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Salty

You don't see other whole groups of mammals obsessing over one of them the way humans tend to admire beauty. Maybe it's a numbers thing, there's so damned many of us we want to pick out patterns of people, add that with our reaction to visual stimulation, and everyday stupidity and BAM!

People care about Jennifer Lopez.

Yet, as the OP points out, this thing exists, yeah? . Ignoring it is bullshit too.
The world is a car and you're the crash test dummy.

tyrannosaurus vex

It just seems like making beauty a value judgment is half a step away from reducing all human behavior to code for "would mate with" and "would not mate with." I mean, sure we're just monkeys who think very highly of ourselves, but there's more to our interactions with each other than just that, right?
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I'm extremely unsure about the degree of connection between beauty and reproductive desirability. I think that the connection, if it exists, has far more to do with social status than any form of biological fitness, which would explain why standards can vary so widely from era to era and from culture to culture. So, we're back to our giant brains, again.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: V3X on October 20, 2012, 09:51:00 PM
It just seems like making beauty a value judgment is half a step away from reducing all human behavior to code for "would mate with" and "would not mate with." I mean, sure we're just monkeys who think very highly of ourselves, but there's more to our interactions with each other than just that, right?

A whole lot more. That's why we got so smart in the first place.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Man Green on October 20, 2012, 09:55:07 PM
I'm extremely unsure about the degree of connection between beauty and reproductive desirability. I think that the connection, if it exists, has far more to do with social status than any form of biological fitness, which would explain why standards can vary so widely from era to era and from culture to culture. So, we're back to our giant brains, again.

I agree, right now but I'm fairly sure that's where it came from. Look at the animal kingdom, it's all "displays" it's all about how you look. There's waving your pretty feathers and there's fight contests which means that the strongest and fittest will get the hooch, ergo  strength and fitness is attractive.

Then came the big brains and we started second guessing everything and building our lizard instincts into our civilised ritual. Women in the 1800's used to wear dresses with scaffolding that made their child bearing hips look like you could squeeze a bus out of there. Where do you think that came from?

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 20, 2012, 10:01:25 PM
Quote from: Man Green on October 20, 2012, 09:55:07 PM
I'm extremely unsure about the degree of connection between beauty and reproductive desirability. I think that the connection, if it exists, has far more to do with social status than any form of biological fitness, which would explain why standards can vary so widely from era to era and from culture to culture. So, we're back to our giant brains, again.

I agree, right now but I'm fairly sure that's where it came from. Look at the animal kingdom, it's all "displays" it's all about how you look. There's waving your pretty feathers and there's fight contests which means that the strongest and fittest will get the hooch, ergo  strength and fitness is attractive.

Then came the big brains and we started second guessing everything and building our lizard instincts into our civilised ritual. Women in the 1800's used to wear dresses with scaffolding that made their child bearing hips look like you could squeeze a bus out of there. Where do you think that came from?

The thing is, we're not birds, and showing off a display of beauty to attract a mate isn't true across the spectrum in the animal kingdom. Do bears have flashy displays of beauty? Do rabbits? Do wolves? Do chimpanzees?

Across the ages, at times it has been men whose beauty was highly valued, and not women's... and it all cases, it seems more closely tied to social status, rather than to reproduction.

Look around you in the animal kingdom you live in... that of the human being... and ask yourself whether you observe that unattractive people have difficulty reproducing, or reproduce less.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

I hear what you're saying but I can't help thinking that beauty is inherently genetic and thus most likely comes under the domain of reproduction. Certainly it's my reproductive circuitry that responds to it with the most enthusiasm.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Able Kane

Answer me this, folks; is the "beauty" of an immensely attractive human being the same beauty as the "beauty" of some immensely beauteous nature (for example an Edenic river valley or a tropical paradise et al.)? What about the "beauty" of a beautiful feeling (like, for example, an orgasm? That's pretty beautiful)?

If they're the same beauty, then this discussion has been thrown wide open. If they're not, "beauty" should be defined much more narrowly if just for the threadly purposes. If one looks hard enough one can find some form of beauty in any old thing.
Eat ye not from the Tree of Irony, lest the Tree of Irony should surely eatst from thou.

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Epimetheus

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Anna Mae Bollocks

What I don't get is the rash of "scientific" guys saying that what we consider attractive is tied to good genes, reproductive ability, etc. I mean, yeah, a healthy person is a lot more attractive than a diseased one, but there's guys calibrating fractions of centimeters and assigning more points to one celeb than another. Isn't it a matter of personal taste?

A lot of people tend to have types, and one person's type isn't the next persons. FFS. Why is this being presented as science?
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Able Kane on October 21, 2012, 12:58:40 AM
Answer me this, folks; is the "beauty" of an immensely attractive human being the same beauty as the "beauty" of some immensely beauteous nature (for example an Edenic river valley or a tropical paradise et al.)? What about the "beauty" of a beautiful feeling (like, for example, an orgasm? That's pretty beautiful)?

If they're the same beauty, then this discussion has been thrown wide open. If they're not, "beauty" should be defined much more narrowly if just for the threadly purposes. If one looks hard enough one can find some form of beauty in any old thing.

You should try reading the thread: or, what Epimetheus said.  :lol:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on October 21, 2012, 01:47:32 AM
What I don't get is the rash of "scientific" guys saying that what we consider attractive is tied to good genes, reproductive ability, etc. I mean, yeah, a healthy person is a lot more attractive than a diseased one, but there's guys calibrating fractions of centimeters and assigning more points to one celeb than another. Isn't it a matter of personal taste?

A lot of people tend to have types, and one person's type isn't the next persons. FFS. Why is this being presented as science?

There are generalities for which that is true; we are most likely to find healthy, reasonably (but not overly) symmetrical people at peak reproductive potential the most sexually attractive, both relatively and generally speaking. What actually gets billed by a given society at a given stage of time as "beauty", however, varies widely. (There are also some complex factors like relatedness that come into play, but those can be considered extraneous details for the purpose of this conversation.)

There are also other factors that may override that tendency in individuals, like our own age and sexual orientation.

As for "what's up with those guys", I don't know. Who are they? Can you cite a study? Are you talking "pop" science, or real scientists?
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Also, now for some reason we seem to be mostly discussing "What is beauty?" and "Is the perception of human physical beauty based in biology?" which is not irrelevant, but is completely tangential to the OP. Seems like it might be worth its own thread.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."