I have a similar feeling about the cliched 'Hollywood transformation scene' or Beautiful All Along.
On the one hand, it's pretty absurd to show 'geekette into goddess' since the actress was selected for goddess-potential in the first place - on the other hand, it is empirically demonstrating that the same physical girl* can look geekette vs goddess, and while the average girl does not have the same potential nor access to movie facilities, illustrates that there can be a substantial difference**.
* An assumption that grows less true as time passes, I suppose...
** One does wonder how many girls underinvest in attractiveness, given how common a desire it is, and what the real-world gap is.
One does wonder how many girls underinvest in attractiveness, given how common a desire it is, and what the real-world gap is.
That seems like a biased way to formulate the implicit question. Might it not be the case that many people overinvest in attractiveness?
http://theviewfromhell.blogspot.com/2012/09/toward-non-stupid-non-blank-slatey.html
The author gives a shout out to Less Wrong as a community with a perpetually skewed gender ratio, which is precisely the conditions under which polyandry appears to thrive.
Discuss. :)