Soft Eugenics in the Age of Self-Improvement: On Looksmaxxing and the Fear of Being Human
The default assumption tends to be that it is politically important to designate everyone as beautiful, that it is a meaningful project to make sure that everyone can become, and feel, increasingly beautiful. We have hardly tried to imagine what it might look like if our culture could do the opposite—de-escalate the situation, make beauty matter... See more
Jia Tolentino • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
I think taking pride in and putting time and money towards your appearance is a positive thing if coming from a place of love for oneself, as watering a plant is done because you want it to stay healthy and grow. I think the emphasis should be less about beauty and instead about decentering men and refusing to fit inside the box the patriarchy puts... See more
Paris Mwendwa • Being ugly will set you free
Recently, people from right-wing Twitter anons to the hosts of Odd Lots have embraced “looksmaxxing” as the most robust human defense against machines who are smarter and faster workers than we are. Others, like Bryan Johnson, are interested in not-dying as a way to survive the transition to superintelligence.