Well, it is the example of two-place word EY used, but I do think that there’s a non-totally-arbitrary way to normalize it that makes it make sense to compare Sexiness(Admirer1, Entity1) with Sexiness(Admirer2, Entity2) even when Admirer1 != Admirer2. Think about how many straight men would be motivated to pursue the 70th-percentile straight woman, and how many straight women would be motivated to pursue the 70th-percentile straight man, for any given value of “motivated”.
Even by asking Admirer1 and Admirer2 to rate Entity1 and Entity2′s attractiveness respectively on a 0-to-5 scale you get the results mentioned in the article I’ve edited my comment to link to.
Being good-looking is an absolute thing? I always assumed it meant something like “top 20%”.
Well, it is the example of two-place word EY used, but I do think that there’s a non-totally-arbitrary way to normalize it that makes it make sense to compare Sexiness(Admirer1, Entity1) with Sexiness(Admirer2, Entity2) even when Admirer1 != Admirer2. Think about how many straight men would be motivated to pursue the 70th-percentile straight woman, and how many straight women would be motivated to pursue the 70th-percentile straight man, for any given value of “motivated”.
Even by asking Admirer1 and Admirer2 to rate Entity1 and Entity2′s attractiveness respectively on a 0-to-5 scale you get the results mentioned in the article I’ve edited my comment to link to.
I would argue your statement in the grandparent was misleading since it made it seem like this was a property of the Entities and not the Admirers.
Is “gold is expensive” a property of gold, or of the market? If the latter, is “gold is expensive” misleading because it sounds like the former?
That is actually a popular way to be confused about economics: thinking “gold is expensive” is a property of gold.