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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3985 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 27, 2023

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Also, what’s going on with the tattoos and piercings? Does anyone think that stuff looks attractive? It’s not just women either. Am I getting old? Why are people intentionally discoloring their skin and putting holes in their face?

When I was still dating, I had the impression that certain piercings strongly signalled promiscuity in women. It was usually very accurate.

Also, what’s going on with the tattoos and piercings? Does anyone think that stuff looks attractive?

In short, yes. There is also the Girardian mimetic desire thing going on. If you spend time around people with piercings and tattoos, you will desire them.

I can't stand tattoos on women. I've never seen a woman with them who doesn't look masculine or trampy.

I have a similar (but less intense dislike) for facial piercings.

I keep hoping that the pendulum will swing back and they will become unfashionable, but it doesn't look like that's happening yet.

Most piercings are a miss for me (even many earrings) but for tattoos it is entirely on a case by case basis, with some being awful and some being quite fetching.

Does anyone think that stuff looks attractive?

Yes. I genuinely struggle to be attracted to people without them.

An unadorned body is like never changing your desktop background from the Windows default. It speaks to the lack of a soul. The dreary type of person who keeps their toys meticulously mint-in-box in case they're worth something in many years, instead of playing with them. Someone who thinks a navy blue suit as opposed to a black one is just outlandish.

I'm the other way. To borrow your analogy I see it as more like the person who has a perfectly good computer that they could change the desktop wallpaper on whenever they choose but instead they fire up a hot glue gun and permanently fuse a bunch of sea shells and sequins to their monitor, and they still keep the default wallpaper anyway.

If someone thinks navy blue suits are too boring then get a bespoke mustard yellow suit instead, or just get some garish socks and an ugly tie. Most tattooed people these days wear a boss-friendly uniform over some cliche tattoos and regard themself among the social exiles while dilligently clocking in to yet another regulation 40 hour work week.

There's only one thing about a body that makes it fitting for displaying permanent imagery and that's the person it belongs to. That's why tattoos are used for identification; to tell other people which group a person belongs to and/or to prevent a person from telling other people they don't belong to that group. That's why tattoos are associated with exclusive groups, whether that's outlaw bikers, Maori tribesmen, Jews in Nazi Germany, football hooligans or military veterans. If there's no cause to be permanently identified with a specific group then you can use surface pigments for body-specific 2D decoration and traditional flat surfaces for any other 2D images.

Someone who thinks a navy blue suit as opposed to a black one is just outlandish.

Black? Who the hell wears a black suit willingly other than teenagers that don't know any better?

Huh? Black suits look fine.

Black suits are for mourners, funeral directors, bodyguards, bouncers, waiters and musicians.

The unadorned body is already quite beautiful. No tattoo can match the elegant simplicity of unadorned skin. Changing the windows default is all well and good, but how about graffiti-ing a burbling brook versus leaving it alone in its natural splendor? There is perhaps some work humans can do to improve upon nature, but it generally has more to do with accentuating features already present rather than adding your own touch. Like clearing away the underbrush around the brook, which would be more analogous to a good haircut than a tattoo.

People can create artificial beauty. I find skyscrapers beautiful. But they're their own thing, not a modification of natural beauty. Considered in a vaccuum there's plenty of quite beautiful tattoo art, but paste it onto somebody's skin or onto a rock by a waterfall and it mars the natural beauty more than it adds to it, no matter its quality.

Of course, it's all pretty subjective at the end of the day.

No offence, but that just sounds like received aesthetic indoctrination. Western culture has been historically low on tattoos, probably since Leviticus, which itself likely spawned from local hygienic concerns, like not eating pork. Overall we see that people have been using their body as a canvas since time immemorial. It can look trashy and it can look good (and even, shockingly, better than the unmodded version).

No offence, but that just sounds like received aesthetic indoctrination.

My preference against tattoos arises from deeper preferences. I appreciate elegance, simplicity, and the beauty of fully functioning complex systems. There is something spectacularly beautiful about semiconductors, well-crafted clocks, and ant colonies.

Art is less beautiful when it lacks focus. I don't find the Mona Lisa (or really any portrait) very beautiful, but I certainly wouldn't choose to add some random design to her face, no matter how beautiful the design was, simply because then there would be two competing objects of attention. I wouldn't give a beetle a tattoo, paint a design onto a statue, etch a shape into a nice watch, or arrange ants into geometric patterns, because all of those things are already quite beautiful and don't need to be changed.

You could argue that this broader preference not to tattoo beetles etc. is also culturally engrained, but at that point I think it's both a reach and also pretty irrelevant.

Western culture has been historically low on tattoos, probably since Leviticus, which itself likely spawned from local hygienic concerns, like not eating pork.

All of the most tattooed countries are Western. We are the most accepting cultures towards tattoos in the world. You're inventing a just-so story that isn't just inaccurate, it's the exact opposite of the truth. That's not to say Westerners have always been accepting of tattoos--I have no idea what our history has to say--but rather that we are currently the very most accepting of tattoos.

I don't think tattoos always look bad, but they usually do, and the ones that look good IMO detract from the simple beauty of the human form much more than they enhance it.

but how about graffiti-ing a burbling brook versus leaving it alone in its natural splendor

Would work if we weren't talking about a literal blank canvas. It's nothing special, everyone has one. They are all mostly the same. Probably the most unremarkable thing on the planet. A gallery full of blank cavases would be a boring sight indeed.

Even if our bodies were blank, they are not canvasses. Shape alone is its own art form. I've never seen a statue with tattoos, and those are universally less interesting than actual human bodies. Do you consider all statues, sculptures, etc. unremarkable and boring? I find even simple statues and sculptures more aesthetically interesting than almost any 2d art.

Statues and sculptures are remarkable because they're creations of human talent. Everyone has a body. I can walk outside and see hundreds of them just wandering around my town. They are all broadly the same. Some are nicer than others, like some rocks have a more pleasing shape than others. But a statue is on a level above, and requires that rock to be shaped by human intervention. Meaningful art requires human intervention. Trying to put a stock human body on the level of someone who has turned their body into art is like bringing a nice rock you found as an entry to a sculpture contest.

Meaningful art requires human intervention.

Meaningful beauty does not require human intervention. I agree that the skill required to create statues is very cool, and adds to the beauty, but also the amazingly complex systems which create other things (such as human bodies) are cool too, probably even cooler imo.

Statues and sculptures are remarkable because they're creations of human talent. Everyone has a body. I can walk outside and see hundreds of them just wandering around my town. They are all broadly the same. Some are nicer than others, like some rocks have a more pleasing shape than others. But a statue is on a level above

That's interesting. I generally find statues much less interesting and beautiful than actual people.

Trying to put a stock human body on the level of someone who has turned their body into art is like bringing a nice rock you found as an entry to a sculpture contest.

I'd compare a stock human body to a natural stream. Some streams are more beautiful than others, but nearly all are quite beautiful and nearly all fulfill their purpose in a very aesthetically pleasing way.

Some bodies being much more beautiful than others says nothing about how non-artistic bodies compare to non-bodies.

but also the amazingly complex systems which create other things (such as human bodies) are cool too, probably even cooler imo.

Something which everyone possesses by default has almost no value. If everyone's super, nobody is.

I generally find statues much less interesting and beautiful than actual people.

I find most people to be profoundly boring and lacking in substance, soul and imagination.

Being scared to alter your body in any way immediately marks you to me as being boring, lacking in substance, soul and imagination. You are store-brand Cornflakes in a plain white box.

Something which everyone possesses by default has almost no value. If everyone's super, nobody is.

OK, but we're talking about beauty, not value. Snowflakes are virtually worthless, and incredibly common, but are very pretty.

I find most people to be profoundly boring and lacking in substance, soul and imagination.

Again, this has little to do with physical beauty.

scared

Using this word is so disingenuous that I consider it lying. Who said anything about fear? Disliking something is not being afraid of it.

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