I am hard pressed to think of any nerd females I’ve known well enough to observe them in any detail, who I would actually consider non-pretty.
I’m torn about saying this because this kind of message probably good for everyone’s self-esteem and I think nerdy girls on average should be more confident, but… what’s with all these pretty nerds? Is your standard for pretty relatively low or are you just really lucky? In my experience and in common stereotype nerds of both genders are, on average, less physically attractive than the rest of the population, once you control for socio-economic conditions that influence things like diet, hygiene and exercise. Good looking people tend to end up on anti-nerd life paths earlier in life, less good looking people have less of their time taken up by socializing leaving them with more time for nerdy activities and more incentive to develop other aspects of themselves (since they can’t coast on physical attractiveness). I’ve consistently found that less physically attractive people are more intellectually interesting.
This doesn’t mean your advice is bad- nerdy girls are awesome and totally are capable of getting together with lots of nerdy guys. But I don’t think we need to mythologize the nerdy female this way and it seems a bit patronizing to pretend the self-assessment of nerdy women has no grounding in reality. Just like how not everyone gets to be smart, not everyone gets to be physically attractive.
Your standards are probably higher than mine? As far as I can tell, most women are attractive. I can think of ones who aren’t but they seem like exceptions. You can kinda see why it would work that way.
I accept your correction, albeit not literally “fertile age” (many over-40s are attractive, I admit not over-80s). I also note that I personally do not seem much sexually attracted to some younger female rationalists that seem to attract other males in the community—my “too young” threshold for sexual attraction seems set to a higher age than average. (Note which I should not have to include: This is not the same as not liking said women! You can like somebody without wanting to sleep with them.)
Young female rationalists, plural? There’s more than one of us? :P
In seriousness, I suspect that the definition of “attractive” is being used quite widely here. When someone talks about a woman being pretty to look at, they’re probably talking about something mildly different from her being aesthetically pleasing—which is, again, different from said woman being conventionally attractive—and all of these are in totally different ballparks from a woman being happy and pleasant and that doing halo-effect things to her prettiness.
ETA: using the word “attractive” to refer to all these things feels like it could lead to a “My subjective experience is realer than yours” argument (‘Parsley is delicious!’ ‘No it’s not!’), or a signalling war (‘I have good standards!’ ‘Well, I have realistic ones!’)
my “too young” threshold for sexual attraction seems set to a higher age than average
Mine too (at least if “average” is meant among males my age, i.e. in their middle twenties), but I’d also say that there’s more variance among older women than younger women: I find almost all 18-year-olds pretty-but-not-extraordinary, whereas I find lots of 30-year-olds either gorgeous or ugly.
I’d agree with your observations, except: is it wise to control for socio-economic conditions? “Well, [he/she] is gorgeous, brilliant and kind, but that’s probably all because of being born within a family with positive attitudes toward physical and mental fitness, being given the free time and economic wherewithal to self-improve, and being placed in peer groups that would encourage such improvement, so I guess it doesn’t really count.”
Life doesn’t work like a D&D stat Point Buy system—although you’re right that it’s sometimes similarly possible to trade INT for CHA or vice versa, that doesn’t make them inversely correlated. Some people are lucky enough to have more of both to begin with, and many people are lucky enough to grow up with influences that increase both.
On the other hand, even physical beauty is partially subjective. Maybe Eliezer’s perceptions of it are subject to some sort of halo effect? The “known well enough to observe them in any detail” caveat seems to suggest a factor in that direction. Aside from effects of fashion, lighting, etc., real physical beauty is a superficial thing that you can judge with a glance, not something that only becomes apparent after the more important characteristics have shown themselves.
I’m torn about saying this because this kind of message probably good for everyone’s self-esteem and I think nerdy girls on average should be more confident, but… what’s with all these pretty nerds? Is your standard for pretty relatively low or are you just really lucky? In my experience and in common stereotype nerds of both genders are, on average, less physically attractive than the rest of the population, once you control for socio-economic conditions that influence things like diet, hygiene and exercise. Good looking people tend to end up on anti-nerd life paths earlier in life, less good looking people have less of their time taken up by socializing leaving them with more time for nerdy activities and more incentive to develop other aspects of themselves (since they can’t coast on physical attractiveness). I’ve consistently found that less physically attractive people are more intellectually interesting.
This doesn’t mean your advice is bad- nerdy girls are awesome and totally are capable of getting together with lots of nerdy guys. But I don’t think we need to mythologize the nerdy female this way and it seems a bit patronizing to pretend the self-assessment of nerdy women has no grounding in reality. Just like how not everyone gets to be smart, not everyone gets to be physically attractive.
Your standards are probably higher than mine? As far as I can tell, most women are attractive. I can think of ones who aren’t but they seem like exceptions. You can kinda see why it would work that way.
Did you actually mean ‘most women’, rather than (say) ‘most women of fertile age’?
I accept your correction, albeit not literally “fertile age” (many over-40s are attractive, I admit not over-80s). I also note that I personally do not seem much sexually attracted to some younger female rationalists that seem to attract other males in the community—my “too young” threshold for sexual attraction seems set to a higher age than average. (Note which I should not have to include: This is not the same as not liking said women! You can like somebody without wanting to sleep with them.)
Young female rationalists, plural? There’s more than one of us? :P
In seriousness, I suspect that the definition of “attractive” is being used quite widely here. When someone talks about a woman being pretty to look at, they’re probably talking about something mildly different from her being aesthetically pleasing—which is, again, different from said woman being conventionally attractive—and all of these are in totally different ballparks from a woman being happy and pleasant and that doing halo-effect things to her prettiness.
ETA: using the word “attractive” to refer to all these things feels like it could lead to a “My subjective experience is realer than yours” argument (‘Parsley is delicious!’ ‘No it’s not!’), or a signalling war (‘I have good standards!’ ‘Well, I have realistic ones!’)
Mine too (at least if “average” is meant among males my age, i.e. in their middle twenties), but I’d also say that there’s more variance among older women than younger women: I find almost all 18-year-olds pretty-but-not-extraordinary, whereas I find lots of 30-year-olds either gorgeous or ugly.
Agreed. Also notable is that at least my mind conflates “funny/intelligent/interesting” with “attractive”, entirely involuntarily.
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I’d agree with your observations, except: is it wise to control for socio-economic conditions? “Well, [he/she] is gorgeous, brilliant and kind, but that’s probably all because of being born within a family with positive attitudes toward physical and mental fitness, being given the free time and economic wherewithal to self-improve, and being placed in peer groups that would encourage such improvement, so I guess it doesn’t really count.”
Life doesn’t work like a D&D stat Point Buy system—although you’re right that it’s sometimes similarly possible to trade INT for CHA or vice versa, that doesn’t make them inversely correlated. Some people are lucky enough to have more of both to begin with, and many people are lucky enough to grow up with influences that increase both.
On the other hand, even physical beauty is partially subjective. Maybe Eliezer’s perceptions of it are subject to some sort of halo effect? The “known well enough to observe them in any detail” caveat seems to suggest a factor in that direction. Aside from effects of fashion, lighting, etc., real physical beauty is a superficial thing that you can judge with a glance, not something that only becomes apparent after the more important characteristics have shown themselves.
I see another, rather obvious interpretation given the clause “well enough to observe them in any detail”.
Pretty is an intensely halo-ed trait, and people find those they know well more attractive than strangers.