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Comment by mathiasgredal | Hacker News Reader

Which begs the question, if attractiveness is such a big predictor of success, why hasn’t everyone evolved to become very attractive? The evolutionary pressure for increased attractiveness should be very high, since it affects so many areas of your life, from career success, to getting partners etc.

Is it that the speed at which we evolve to become more attractive is superseeded by our ability to become better at discriminating for attractiveness?

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It's possible that people have evolved to be more attractive than a long time ago, but the issue is not of absolute beauty but rather relative attractiveness. There will always be a top 10% and a bottom 10%, even if the entire population increases in attractiveness across the board.

But separately, it's not clear that attractiveness is hereditary in the same way that height, for example, is. If two tall people have kids, they will almost certainly be tall. It's also incredibly unlikely that two short people will not have kids that are tall.

With attractiveness, heterogeneity between generations is much more common. I know some very attractive people who have not-very-attractive offspring, and vice versa. It depends on how the features of the two parents mix together.

I mean at the very minimum there lies a great deal within our locus of control that can influence overall attractiveness. Are you in shape and well groomed? So many are not, and it’s weird that people don’t at least try to hit that Pareto inflection point within their own possible range of attractiveness, knowing, as we all do, that it makes a difference.

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