Re:Beholding Inequality: Race, Gender, and Returns to Physic...
by Animats on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:09AM
(#27649319)
The author assumes that beauty is subjective. He writes "These attitudes around skin color and physical aesthetics, however, we
must remember, are never neutral. They are a function of power relations
and ethnoracial domination. Beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder – and the beholder learns what to deem beautiful and what to deem ugly."
But it's not. We know now that the ideal is simply the average face.[1] There's an interactive tool to average faces at [2], so you can try this. As you select more faces to average, the result gets better looking.
It's not learned. Testing on babies indicates they will look at a pretty face longer.[3]
Physical unattractiveness seems to be tied to an evolved defect detector.
But it's not. We know now that the ideal is simply the average face.[1] There's an interactive tool to average faces at [2], so you can try this. As you select more faces to average, the result gets better looking.
It's not learned. Testing on babies indicates they will look at a pretty face longer.[3]
Physical unattractiveness seems to be tied to an evolved defect detector.
[1] https://petapixel.com/2013/05/28/what-averaged-face-photogra...
[2] http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average
[3] https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/what-makes-pr...
Actually the Ok Cupid data https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/raceandattract...