Human Barbie Valeria Lukyanova profiled in GQ

boing
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OK, maybe you missed it. This is what that metanalysis you cited said about average faces:

These results don’t mean that all attractive faces are average…or that average faces are optimally attractive.

In other words, average faces (composite or not) are more attractive on average. Go ahead and actually read the study if there’s anything you still find “exceptionally hard to believe.”

Don’t know how to make this any clearer. The study itself concedes that not all attractive faces are average and average faces aren’t necessarily the most attractive. That concession is exactly the point I’m arguing.

It’s evolutionary psychology aiming to study what people find attractive and why. The main hypotheses considered in this metanalysis are:

  1. People find certain faces attractive because features of those faces are genetically linked with robust health or similar.
  2. People find certain faces attractive because the brain processes information in a certain way (e.g. we might find symmetrical faces more attractive because our brains are better at processing symmetrical images).
    It concludes that there’s more work to be done, especially on the first hypothesis, but that both are likely to play a role in what people find attractive.

Edit to add: One of the factors examined in what people find attractive about faces is “averageness”. This analysis concludes that “average faces are more attractive than most faces” while conceding the point that I quoted above.

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The end scene of “Death Becomes Her” comes to mind, with Meryl and Goldie packing cans of #9 acrylic and spray adhesive in their purses…

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Too many comments; didn’t read. Sorry if someone already said this, but her boobs actually look too big if she’s really going for the barbie look. She looks kind of like a cross between Barbie and Anime.

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I find the attitude “this is different, therefore it’s a rejection of what being human is” to be more insidiously monstrous than any modification I’ve seen. You can not like the modification (hell, I don’t in many cases), but to frame it as a rejection of humanity is opening the door to repression on that basis. Because you could easily claim other deviations, physical or mental, as being anti-human… I’m sure it’s been tossed around for gays for going against the ‘natural order’ in times past (I’m not saying by you, obviously).

I’d rather we expand the definition of human. Humans with ‘real’ vampire teeth, elf ears, cat eyes? More types of humans, great, maybe that’ll help to highlight how meaningless some of the other things we allow to define us are. Aside from a rather meaningless genetic category, humanity is a mindset more than anything else… we should both improve the mindset (as we have been gradually doing, no longer as a whole, endorsing slavery or discrimination, although sadly with plenty of backslides), and we should bring as many beings as possible under it: from furries to artificial intelligences to people who just want to look in ways that are absurd to us.

If we AREN’T willing to do those things, then I’m quite fine with rejecting what human is and building something better.

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“I’d rather we expand the definition of human.”

I’d rather we didn’t. Uh uh. Nope. Nyet nein non lo. Ix-nay.

“…humanity is a mindset more than anything else…”

There are right, good, beneficial, life-affirming mindsets as well as wrong, bad, detrimental, life-denying mindsets. I’m against the latter. Many people aren’t. I’m not into Cultural and/or Moral Relativism. Some things, ideas, ways of living ones life, cultural traits (and any number of other things) are demonstrably bad. All-around bad. Bad bad bad. I’m not into the whole “I’m Okay, You’re Okay”, “If it Feels Good, Do It” mentality. There are reasons that some things are considered normal and some things are considered to be abnormal. Some things are conducive to peace and prosperity and people getting along, and some things aren’t. Some things are just kinda fucked up. People with pointy teeth and pointy ears and forked tongues are some of those things. Such things normalize abnormal behavior. Down with The New Normal: we need the Same Ole’ Good Ole’ Tried and True Old Normal! Some people love to push boundaries, push envelopes, let their freak flags fly. That’s fine, when it’s some people. But social media has us all mimicing one another, influencing one another, patterning our behaviors after one another. It has us ringing bells that can’t be unrung, seeing things that can’t be unseen, thinking and doing things that can’t be unthought and undone. And we all seem to think that we absolutely need to be beautiful individualistic, eccentric, special little snowflakes. I disagree. But: we’re so annoyingly similarly individualistic that we wind up coming full circle back to being the same. But in a differnt way.

We can’t all be quirky MAKEing nerd-glasses-wearing Satanist Copyfighting Wardriving trend-surfing Dedicated Followers of the latest meme Fashion. Sometimes shit just needs to get done, damnit. Ten-HUT!

“…and we should bring as many beings as possible under it”

I disagree. We should limit that number of beings. Limit it with an iron rod! And with extreme prejudice! Limit the ever-lovin’ fuck out of it! Furries, Night of the Living Doll cosplayers, and also any Human Centipedes we catch skittering across the road must be stopped! Goatse dude is next on my pogrom. It’s an outrage! If I have my way, One Cup will soon have a restraining order against Two Girls. It’ll be free again to run away with the Spoon without having to live in fear of being shitted into. Huzzah!

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No, I’m afraid that I am against the latter, and that’s why I’m against the one you’re espousing.

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This. A thousand times This!

I don’t understand these body mods.

But I do understand where trying to write people out of humanity has led and will lead.

Look at how often people who aren’t white [or are white and Jewish, for example], aren’t allistic, aren’t abled, etc. have been written out of humanity. Look at how often even now some aspect of language, facial expressions, and/or mind-reading, which isn’t accessible to everyone, is celebrated as ‘what makes us human.’ Look at how this enables violence.

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