The Most Important Thing In The World

Being attractive is the most important thing in the world.

I don’t say this as a normative thing. I think it shouldn’t be the most important thing in the world. But in my experience, it is descriptively true that the single most important thing about you to everyone else is how attractive you are.

I used to be unattractive. I grew up a gangly nerd, with no social graces, an annoying foreign accent, bad clothes and hair, and big thick glasses. When I left home and started feeding myself I put on a bunch of weight and was now a pudgy, shlubby nerd with no social graces, bad clothes and hair, and big thick glasses.

Unfortunately, I believed what society said. I’ve always been very trusting that way. When everybody says “looks don’t matter, it’s what’s on the inside that counts” I believed them. When they said “you are judged for your ideas and your character, that’s what’s important. Looks aren’t important at all, don’t be shallow,” I believed them.

I knew looks mattered for sex stuff, but they don’t matter in the day-to-day.

Then I lost a bunch of weight after a surgery that left me on a liquid-only diet for several weeks and I decided to keep going with it, see how far I could ride this boost. I got down to a nice trim weight. I started working out. I bought clothes that fit well and got lazik. I did get female attention from potential sex partners, which was gratifying. But what was shocking was how everyone else treated me.

I still worked in the same job at the same place as before. I had my same ideas and my same personality and same energy. And yet everything was different. I was treated well by everyone. My coworkers were more helpful and cheerful.¹ My (older, male, straight) boss was more impressed with my (same quality) work, and generally more interested in my input. People I talked to about ending death and aging (or whatever) were a lot more respectful of the ideas I espoused. Everyone gave me far more benefit of the doubt in all situations. Even where I knew I definitely did not deserve it!

To be very clear, this happened with all ages and sexes, with people who didn’t even remotely consider me a sexual prospect. Yet somehow just being more physically attractive made me a better person. It made my ideas better. It somehow made my intentions more pure. I was more deserving of good things. Customer service was more servicing. Government officials were actually helpful! Even sales people seemed to want to cut me a better deal. I believe the vast majority of it was subconscious/not intentional.

This was mind blowing. I only saw the difference because I had spent 27 years ugly, and within a matter of months had this vastly different life to contrast with my previous life. It’s not primarily overt actions, it’s a shift in how you are treated, which is huge in aggregrate. People who haven’t lived on both sides of the divide don’t even know it’s there.

The impact is life-altering. Suddenly you’re implicitly supported in everything.² People are on your side by default. It’s like getting +2 to ALL rolls, forever. It’s insane. This thing that I was told is just superficial BS that only shallow people care about is actually revealed to be the one thing that everyone cares about more than anything else. It’s not just an interesting Effect one can adjust for, it’s a massive root-level hack present in all entities running on human hardware.

I’ve spoken with a few other people who grew up ugly and had a major physical transformation in adulthood. We all had similar experiences. One agreed so much that we jokingly dubbed attractiveness The Most Important Thing In The World, except we both knew we weren’t joking.

I can accept that humans are easily hackable. What I can’t fathom is the absolute magnitude of the lie I was told. By everyone. How did all of society manage to coordinate to feed our generation this incredible bald-faced lie? From my family to my institutions to every bit of media available to me… they were all in on it. I probably wanted to believe them, being ugly and all. But the harm of leaving such a major exploit wide open to attack by pretending it doesn’t exist was worth, what exactly? What did they get out of this?

I hate being lied to. If you love your children, don’t lie to them. It will give them a huge advantage over people who don’t know this, and they won’t ever resent you for constructing a world of lies around them. Let them know that, at least to our biology, being attractive is the most important thing in the world.

1. Hey, Bitter Middle Aged Lady Coworker #1 and #2, who gave me shit and the stinkeye for no reason whenever I passed pre-glow up, and then fawned over me for no reason post-glow up — I DIDN’T FORGET WHAT YOU WERE LIKE 6 months ago. Screw you. I should have told you that in person, but I was so blown away by the nice treatment I didn’t have the courage to risk losing it, back then.

2. Sometimes explicitly supported.