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0 pointsistjohn4y ago0 comments

I'd like to believe that there is some kind of counter-balancing drawback to beauty like you suggest. Life would be more fair. But I think the cruel truth is that people continue to enjoy advantages from the headstart they got from their youthful beauty long after their beauty has faded. Advantages like self-confidence, career advancements, and social networks don't vanish the instance beauty fades.

Also, I don't think beautiful people are particularly likely to be narcicists or sociopaths or otherwise consciously rely on their beauty as a tool. I think most beautiful people are oblivious to the advantages they enjoy. Things are just a bit easier for them. Steve Yegge tells how he was catapulted into leadership at Amazon shortly after losing over 50 pounds.

I believe white privilege works in much the same way. It's difficult to see that you're playing on easy mode when you've never played on hard mode.

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A4ET8a8uTh04y ago

There are some awful looking guys, who nevertheless achieved quite a lot despite their lack of beauty. Naturally, some selection bias might be at play here ( as in -- you don't hear from the ones that did not make it about how they persevered and failed ).

There is no doubt about the advantages. Beyond the already present research, I have my own little anecdote of a friend, who was not great with computers and yet is now IT manager at a major corporation.

As for the white privilege, I can only say that I don't know. I come from a very white country. As you can guess, given the invariable laws of human nature, since nearly everyone was white, another other had to be found. I don't know what it is about humans that forces us to immediately label everything and self-segregate.

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