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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28356 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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Who's going to be the beauty police?

It isn't hard to see various plastic surgery transformations and to conclude that both the patient and plastic surgeons completely ruined the appearance of the patient.

There are also plenty examples that don't fit into this.

Some level of subjectivity is part and parcel of everything important that can be dictated by the law. There really isn't a way to escape from the necessity of having people make correct judgements in all such cases, which includes not interfering where they shouldn't.

Which if bad examples are used as deterrent, can be most of the time, including in cases where it is simply too subjective. Absent any control, you get a system with abuses. So there should be skepticism and accountability towards regulatory authorities, and opposition and demand to replace them if they get things wrong but this idea that no judgement is a good principle and letting plastic surgeons do as they please, won't work.

The most notorious case where this perspective breaks down is with mentally ill people who want surgical procedures which harm their bodies such as self mutilation. Like the people among others who think their actual limbs aren't there, and they should remove them.

I would trust plastic surgeons to use their professional judgment and follow the hippocratic oath to not do any surgery that makes a woman less hot!

Yeah, but some women actually do need breast reductions if they happen to be so large they interfere with being able to walk properly.

If that worked, you'd think that this would be the case today, but there seem to be fairly obvious counterexamples.

Fine, we'll appoint a board of supervisors. Harvey Weinstein can be its first head, with Joss Whedon as deputy.

Mastectomies probably don't need a subjective standard.

IIRC that one Oriental vizier-themed blog considers any breast reduction surgery a crime if it brings you below E cup, the ideal male preference.

A good Schelling fence is it ain't none of the government's business what's "good aesthetics". Looking back at history, would you really trust them with that? I don't.

I wonder if he's aware that his preference aligns with back problems and doesn't care, or if he's just never actually dated a skinny girl with E cups.

I do think there's a regulatory role for plastic surgery for minors, I think we can define major deformity pretty well. Something that would make shopping at Walmart difficult, though that's hardly a scientific test.

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