Thread by @Sanilac_J

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MONEY BUYS BEAUTY?

There have been rich uglies throughout history. Beauty and wealth aren't well correlated, and in the past it was impossible to buy beauty. But that's changing. In this thread I'll discuss the brave new world ahead of uss.

This is the only beauty topic I haven't addressed before that I consider important. But I've been thinking about it quite a while. The last few years have seen some significant improvements to cosmetic surgery. Particularly high-end facelifts.

And it seems likely that there are more improvements to come. But these procedures come at a very high cost. Especially when you add them up. And the more improvements to technique, the more procedures can be beneficial.

An issue that troubles me particularly in this context is Baumol's cost disease. Because surgery still has to be done by hand by an individual skilled surgeon, we should expect the cost to go up over time. This will continue every year until we have automated robot surgeons.

Automated robot surgeons will come one day and some futurist will post a link to a story showing that they're just around the corner. There are always such stories and they almost never pan out. Fully automated surgical robots will come one day, but that day is not soon.

The situation can thus be described as follows:

Cosmetic surgery is getting more and more effective, the cost is high, and we have good reason to believe that the cost will climb even further. It will be possible to buy more and more beauty, but at a higher and higher cost.

In the past beauty and wealth were poorly correlated. The richer were healthier of course, but most aspects of prettiness were randomly distributed. This amounted to a limit on inequality. There were always going to be some peasants who were prettier and smarter than their lords.

Now that limit is being removed. Not only for beauty, but for other potential upgrades to the body and mind as well. The consequence is that total inequality can rise to previously impossible heights.

As you know, I'm in favor of cosmetic surgery in principle because I think we should try to make the world a more beautiful place. I'm nevertheless troubled by this new leap in inequality that will potentially last generations (until surgery is automated).

Some people worry that rejuvenation technology that extends healthy lifespans and makes us younger will only be available to the wealthy. But THIS worry is wrong. Rejuvenation will be available to all because it saves a massive amount of money on end-of-life care.

The same can't be said for surgical procedures that VISUALLY restore youth (and add beauty as well). And THAT is where the new inequality will manifest.

Is beauty inequality even a problem? This becomes a thorny political question. There's a reasonable argument to be made that we should ignore inequality and pay attention only to absolute wealth, which would be lower if we tried too hard to eliminate inequality.

Others argue for moderation and point out that we can sometimes share out the wealth more evenly without much impact on overall wealth and growth.

I don't think I'm the right person to answer these political questions but I'll make two suggestions.

First, beauty is a public good and not just a personal one. Subsidizing the beautification of other citizens doesn't make less sense than planting trees and flowers in public spaces. People don't think about these in the same way, but perhaps they should.

Second, an "Elysium" scenario where the ultra-rich leverage their power to permanently separate themselves from the rest of us is something that anyone with less than a hundred million dollars should worry about a little.

There are further issues with the concentration of wealth, because it can be used to hijack political power and thus establish itself permanently. But you are better off reading about that elsewhere as it's outside my bailiwick as an aesthete.

In the past I've proposed Universal Breast Implants (UBI), a subsidy to make the procedure more affordable. This is only half a joke. The more we can meaningfully improve the human body, the more seriously we should consider making some such improvements available to all.

Typo in the OP so you know this thread isn't AI-generated.🤣

Interested to hear any thoughtful replies that aren't just knee-jerk programmed partisan political reactions.

Regarding the opening video, Salma was of course naturally beautiful when she was young. The issue is that she's 58 in this video. Great work, of course, and I think it's praiseworthy. But it obviously cost a LOT of money to look 38 at 58.