You will get less real practice if you are walking around with a mask. If you worry what other people think about your looks to the extend that you spent 30 minutes to look presentable that will effect your confidence.
Then again, you'll be more confident wearing a mask the more practice you have with it. I think we mean different things by "masks" though.
I think that a woman who rather spends the same amount of time in daily meditation sessions will get a higher return on her time investment.
Women who don't wear makeup are much less attractive, which significantly reduces their social status and their dating market value.
Why do you believe that there a difference between men and woman in that regard? I think the fact that you separate genders has a lot to do with status quo bias.
The quote I was replying to dealt exclusively with women. That said, there is a big difference, especially if by "makeup" you mean what everyone else means by "makeup". Men are not respected more if they wear eyeliner and blusher every day. I do think that men would benefit from optimizing their personal appearance, eg by getting rid of acne, whitening teeth, dressing better, wearing heel lifts, etc.
Re Steve Jobs: Giving one outlier as a counterexample does not undermine the general principle. Anyway, Jobs seems to be countersignalling: "I'm so awesome I don't even need to dress up for you to know that I'm awesome." It wouldn't have worked if people didn't already think highly of him, and I'm not even sure it worked at all. (We don't know what would have happened if he had cared more about his appearance.)
That said, I do think there is a big difference, especially if by "makeup" you mean what everyone else means by "makeup". Men are not respected more if they wear eyeliner and blusher every day.
The kind of makeup that male actors on TV use isn't about wearing eyeliner.
There are women who use makeup to look artificial and there are women who go for a "natural look". I don't think that a women who goes for an artificial look will get more status in a Yoga class than a women who uses less makeup. The benefits of looking artif...
Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.