It is a huge unspoken reality how much one's physical appearance affects the way they are treated, their life outcomes, and ultimate success in social/romantic relationships. Hair transplants, leg lengthening, plastic surgery, etc. will all explode over the next decade as AI erodes humans' ability to be successful via their industry and intellect.
The irony is that none of this stuff actually works as intended. Plastic surgery is obvious. Lip injections are obvious. Leg lengthening, I mean have you seen the proportions after?? Hair transplants too. If the most wealthy people getting these procedures look botched, what hope does anyone have really. Also, are we acting like steve jobs wasn't still a handsome man with his grey thinning head?
It doesn't come from getting legitimate validation from others. It comes from one's own fear of aging and their own mortality. Sorry, but we all shrivel up like a raisin by the end. Trying to beat that back with these means just seems so futile. Spend that cash on therapy instead to tackle your body dysmorphia.
Survivorship bias, you only notice the plastic surgery that isn't good. Most of the time it's invisible, your brain doesn't process the individual change, you just get the sense that the person looks better/less tired/more put together.
>Lip injections are obvious
Same phenomenon, but even if they are obvious some people like that aesthetic, in the same way that dyed hair/painted nails are obvious, but that's the point
>Leg lengthening, I mean have you seen the proportions after
For some men it is far better to be 6' with wonky proportions than 5'7" with perfect proportions. There is far more hate directed towards short men than men with long legs.
>Hair transplants too. I mean are we acting like steve jobs wasn't still a handsome man with his grey thinning head?
Not everyone is as handsome as Steve Jobs. If you have a handsome face you can get away with balding, if not then its a further infliction on how people percieve you.
>Sorry, but we all shrivel up like a raisin by the end
If we all die after 80 or so years then what's the point of doing anything? Why get a job, why put any effort into personal grooming?
> Survivorship bias, you only notice the plastic surgery that isn't good. Most of the time it's invisible, your brain doesn't process the individual change
So you're telling me all these Hollywood stars having infinite money, access to the best surgeons and are literally paid to look good get butchered on purpose?
Yes, often times it's some specific surgeon that overpromises, messes up, then subsequent surgeries which attempt to patch the issues end up failing. There are many celebrity surgeons who are good at marketing but bad at execution, and many celebs themselves who can't discern a good or bad job.
Everyone looks great if they live healthily and groom themselves. No one is actually an ugly duckling.
>If we all die after 80 or so years then what's the point of doing anything? Why get a job, why put any effort into personal grooming?
Because you want to be fit and healthy? All these surgeries are orthogonal to that. Every surgery is risky even medically necessary ones. You shower and groom yourself to prevent skin issues. You work out to simulate the hunter gatherer lifestyle your body is adapted to in the modern society which does not sufficiently pressure these adaptions. This stuff is your oil change and tire rotation. It is maintenance really. These surgeries are not maintenance however. It is like ricing the civic while it burns oil and the transmission makes scary sounds.
> Everyone looks great if they live healthily and groom themselves.
Not true for everyone. Simply living healthily and grooming, you are still limited by the ceiling imposed by your body. Sometimes it just doesn't live up to the aesthetic demands of the human psyche, used to a superstimulus of attractiveness as the norm.
>Every surgery is risky even medically necessary ones
Most cosmetic surgeries carry very little risk, your overall risk from even being a moderate drinker, commuting to work in a car, being mildly overweight are far higher in aggregate.
My main point is, the human modern social world isn't a perfect arbiter of reward based on whether you are doing all the "right things", by being generally healthy.
Sometimes people get a disease, like cancer, and nothing our body evolved to do can help, but human-invented therapies can actually help. Likewise, you can be perfectly healthy and nevertheless start balding, and no amount of generally being healthy is going to fix it, and no amount of generally being healthy will mitigate the minor albeit real social cost of it.
An exception isn't the rule. However Donald Trump by NY billionare real estate executive standards is fairly good looking, is very tall and has no major deformities. I doubt Trump would have gotten as far as he did if he were below average height, balding and didn't have expensive veneers.
Sure he would have. Plenty of people at the top of their industry are short, bald, and not conventionally attractive. People only have a good 10-15 years between looking 16 and showing signs of aging, sometimes much less. Such a small percent of one's life. But, people are not rational or logical but highly emotional. They see a grey hair and they feel bad. A wrinkle and they think it is the end for them. Sorry, you are becoming a high mileage car. This is just what happens. You got a lot more in you to go though.
I agree, but admitting the shallowness of the general human populace seems to be a moderate social taboo. You can get away with contextualizing it in a way that equivocates the nature of the phenomenon, but addressing it too directly seems to get pushback.
Saying
>I'm getting a hair transplant because I want to feel better about myself
Is received much more favorably that
>I'm getting a hair transplant because people are mean to bald people and I would downgraded a few points in implicit social status and general treatment if I were to exhibit male-pattern baldness.
