[ExI] re end of world

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2015-09-11 17:02, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> I noticed over the 35 years of teaching  that as a term progressed the 
> people that I came to know who performed at the top on my tests 
> morphed - the girls especially.  They became more attractive to me.  
> But there was one guy who I would have voted as the ugliest person 
> I've seen who got top grades and somehow lost his ugliness.

It is known that the opposite effect happens: beautiful people are 
perceived as smarter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype
without actually being smarter:
Feingold, Alan (March 1992). "Good-looking people are not what we 
think". Psychological Bulletin 111 (2): 304–341. 
doi:10.1037/0033-2909.111.2.304.
(But see Kanazawa
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/I2004.pdf
for an opposing view that I am not very convinced by; one should really 
go to the empirical literature and dig in rather than wave around theorems).

In any case, maybe learning that somebody is intelligent will cause a 
halo effect making us think they must be beautiful too?

(Leaving aside how sparkly personality or other cleverness can 
compensate for a homely appearance. That is how I do it. Sparkle sparkle 
sparkle.)

-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University