Having awful taste in fashion should be a bannable offense.

[Fuchslein.8639]

5 minutes ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

That's because it's entirely pointless. Resentment will be n°1 factor in deciding whether my characters look good or not.

I'm not concerned with your opinion. I've risen to the top of the GW2 Dye job subreddit multiple times, and I therefore already have all the validation I can possibly need.

Now, I suggest you conduct an experiment. Go ahead and criticize anything: a dish, a song, a book - and then share your own taste with the angry mob you just provoked. It doesn't matter what you like, you can be sure people WILL criticize it, because all they care about is getting back at you. 

When criticizing other people's taste, never share your own. Defending them will be pointless: people don't care about being right, they just want you to be wrong - at any cost. 

 

well, why criticize others at all?
 

 

I'm totally on board with adding more options to dim down the glitter thunderstorm. But discrediting other people's taste just shows what kind of a person you are ^^.

[ArchonWing.9480]

9 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Name them then.

 

Well, doesn't matter. OP is objectively wrong.

 

If they cared about aesthetics, they would have written their post in the form of a haiku but instead they separated it into 3 uneven sentences. It had plus signs. Plus signs! Why would anyone not new to a keyboard use plus signs beyond math equations? How could you ever trust someone like that?

 

Furthermore, it is much more likely that OP just can't afford all those things, so they've already lost in the Fashion Wars and haven't gotten to that level yet.

 

I asked someone in Lion's Arch about this, and they agree.  So the facts are clear.

Edited June 6, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Danger Ferret.6342]

10 minutes ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

When criticizing other people's taste, never share your own. Defending them will be pointless: people don't care about being right, they just want you to be wrong - at any cost. 

For someone so fond of critical thought, you seem unable to move beyond "I'm right because I say so." So much for philosophical discussion.

[Tsakhi.8124]

And I believe that people with kitten poor attitudes should be banned, too. But here we are. 

 

As for the actual argument: Beauty is a matter of taste, taste is subjective. You citing philosophy as an argument is such a weird hill to die on; philosophy, like beauty, is a matter of both outside stimuli and mores dictated throughout history. Saying that babies find "attractive" faces beautiful is kind of a weird argument as well, since these studies weren't done consistently enough to hold much merit. Also, the fact that you refuse to show your own fashion makes me question the validity of your argument all together. Petty of me? Of course. But I never claimed anything to the contrary. 

[Beleron.9347]

We simply don't live in the 18th century world of Kant. Modernism did a number on traditional standards of beauty, while postmodernism (of which video games, and MMOs especially are quite representative) absolutely shattered them. For better or worse, we live in a world where both the democratization and at the same time individualization of taste has become the norm.  

[Danger Ferret.6342]

29 minutes ago, Danger Ferret.6342 said:

For someone so fond of critical thought, you seem unable to move beyond "I'm right because I say so." So much for philosophical discussion.

Because I'm bored, and because it's raining, and because actually applying a little logic seems like a good way to wake up, here's my tl;dr take on the "objectivity" of beauty.

 

If beauty is objective, it must exist independently of the observer. It is therefore an object, which has physical properties, or it is the property of other objects. As I have never seen a pile of beauty, I'm going to assume that beauty - if objectively defined - exists as a property of objects, like inertia perhaps (but the similarity is only in that they are both properties).

 

I think we can stipulate that some things are more or less beautiful than others. The comparative beauty of two objects is often a matter of debate. We can think of beauty as a property of objects and that it has a scale of magnitude. Therefore, it should be quantifiable.

 

Sit two people down in front of a spicy dish that is mixed homogeneously so that every bite contains the same amount of spice, and one may find it too spicy, while the other finds it too bland. However, give them a similar dish with more or less of the exact same spice, and they should agree on whether the new dish is spicier or less spicy than the previous one. They may experience the magnitude differently, but the more or less relationship should hold true, since there is in fact more or less spice in the food and the same people are experiencing it in the same way.

 

Similarly, even if two or more people have different reactions to a "beautiful" object as to just how beautiful it is, they should agree on the relative beauty of various objects. One may find the Mona Lisa very beautiful and another not it beautiful at all, but if beauty is truly an objective property of matter, then everyone should recognize the presence of more or less of it, either through direct observation or some standard of measurement.

 

To disprove beauty as an objective reality, all one has to do is find two or more people who disagree on the relative beauty of any two objects. If both don't agree that the Sistine Chapel is more or less beautiful than the Aurora Borealis, then they are subjectively disagreeing, and not commenting on an objective property of either object. But both will insist they are right, and be unable to offer any direct metric to prove it.

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Danger Ferret.6342
general spelling and grammar error correction

[Jijimuge.4675]

2 minutes ago, Danger Ferret.6342 said:

For someone so fond of critical thought, you seem unable to move beyond "I'm right because I say so." So much for philosophical discussion.

FWIW, if people are genuinely interested in the status of beauty, Stanford Uni maintain a useful encyclopaedia of philosophy.  The subjectivity or objectivity of beauty is (as I understand it) not a settled question (when is it ever in philosophy?!), though my understanding in this area is limited.

 

I personally prefer understated looks without too much flashy stuff going on, so I tend to mentally "gloss over" the gaudy characters and pay more attention (when appreciating a look/design) to looks that seem more low-key.

 

There's a useful resource for those interested in more looks at https://www.gw2style.com  which has looks ranging from the coordinated to the jumbled, but I don't believe the site is as active as it used to be.

 

Personally it strikes me as odd to use dyes etc to show off when there's a mastery counter/PvP rank sign/toggleable title above the head of every player!  Sure, I get it that an "Eternity" or the like is more visible and "in one's face" (and I guess that has value for some), but some titles are harder to get than legendary gear...

[kharmin.7683]

3 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

Whether it's subjective or not is entirely subjective.

 

 

That's your opinion.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

3 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

That's because it's entirely pointless. Resentment will be n°1 factor in deciding whether my characters look good or not.

I'm not concerned with your opinion. I've risen to the top of the GW2 Dye job subreddit multiple times, and I therefore already have all the validation I can possibly need.

Now, I suggest you conduct an experiment. Go ahead and criticize anything: a dish, a song, a book - and then share your own taste with the angry mob you just provoked. It doesn't matter what you like, you can be sure people WILL criticize it, because all they care about is getting back at you. 

When criticizing other people's taste, never share your own. Defending them will be pointless: people don't care about being right, they just want you to be wrong - at any cost. 

so you've no examples of your objective beauty standards that you're peddling throughout the thread?  It'd be nice if we had some visual representation of what you have as objective beauty.

[JustTrogdor.7892]

I think people that feel the need to make numerous threads whenever they think out loud but with little actual thought put into it should be banned from the forum.   See how that works?   😇

 

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by JustTrogdor.7892

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

The main thing I’ve picked up from this thread is that players with ugly chars can be banished from the game. By extension I have decided that one player has the most beautiful char of all the game and can therefore decide that all other chars are too ugly to play. 
 

Having looked over my chars I realized I am the player with the most beautiful char because each of my chars is more beautiful than the others and definitely better looking than anyone else’s. Which means....

 

All of you have been banished from the game! 
 

That includes you, OP. 

 

 

 

[joneirikb.7506]

Eh, well this thread sort of started on a wrong foot, and then stabbed itself with the bayonet.

On the whole topic of not wanting to see other's "ugly" characters (as per subjective opinion). The only real solution is to nag on ANet to give us more options to disable more visual eye-sore/kitten. And enable so we can use standardised PVP models even in pve. It's the only solution that holds any kind of water, let people look at their own silly looking toons, and ignore all others looks.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

Apparently, fashion in an MMO is serious business. 😄

[nosleepdemon.1368]

9 hours ago, Witch of Doom.5739 said:

Also, the "I am so much better and smarter than everyone else" thread.  See also mention of Kant, etc.

ETA:  My bald Asura Engineer dressed as a dapper Victorian gentleman, not beautiful???  LIES!!!

 

To be fair, he probably *is* smarter than most people replying in this thread. At least, in the context of this discussion.

[Eraden.8740]

Would this be considered a bit too over the top? I tried to select the least garish infusions while gearing my character.

https://i.imgur.com/yFGDiny.jpg

 

 

 

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

I literally did forgot my password just to be able to comment on this giving my full and enthusiastic support for this motion, finally someone who agrees with me

 

Also, minimising the commentary re: Kant on beauty as "just repeating some dead German guy" is itself poor critical thought in my view. Philosophy is a vital tool on a civilisational level. Philosophy is more vital to understanding the human experience than science is. Science has its limits at what observations can be reproduced. Philosophy goes well beyond that and this is a perfect example.

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Elricht Kaltwind.8796

[Firebeard.1746]

I'm sorry OP, but I have to respectfully disagree. I almost fall out of my seat laughing every time I see that stuff because they're wearing it to show off, but they look ridiculous. I find the vanity amusing.

[Algreg.3629]

This is just so wonderful. You got the guy doing nothing but name dropping, believing himself a "critical thinker" while sticking to the very antithesis of criticial thinking, good ol' Manuel, the neo-platonic shaman of accept-what-the-collective-tells-you-ism while maskerading as one the enlightenment dudes, and also doing nothing but using argumentum ad verecundiam. Then of cause you have the post-whateverism and intersectionality crowd jumping in, "but but but old dead white guy, eurocentricism, something something racism" mixed with a grain of body positive "if you look with the heart, not the eye, everyone is beautiful and divine". Pretty entertaining. Please more of such threads.

 

PS: Yeah, OP is right, a noticeable proportion of the Tyria' s saviours is a complete clown fiesta.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Muting/Blocking someone should make their character model load as a generic.

[Danger Ferret.6342]

3 hours ago, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

I literally did forgot my password just to be able to comment on this giving my full and enthusiastic support for this motion, finally someone who agrees with me

 

Also, minimising the commentary re: Kant on beauty as "just repeating some dead German guy" is itself poor critical thought in my view. Philosophy is a vital tool on a civilisational level. Philosophy is more vital to understanding the human experience than science is. Science has its limits at what observations can be reproduced. Philosophy goes well beyond that and this is a perfect example.

 

 

 

Minimizing the mentioning of Kant wasn't presented as critical thought; it was presented as an example of how its champion in this thread was unable to produce it. Philosophy going beyond science is a very onanistic notion partial to most students of philosophy. The need to rank philosophy as the end all and be all of intellectual endeavors is the very closure critical thought and philosophy are supposed to lead us past. Scientists, at least, admit they don't know every damned thing in the universe. Waiting for philosophers to catch up.

 

On the other hand, perhaps you are right. In which case, it should be child's play to actually utilize critical thought to prove the superiority of philosophy over other intellectual endeavors, rather than just declare it to be so because philosophers consider things others don't. Philatelists consider things other don't. That doesn't make all stamp collectors geniuses.

 

At any rate, I look forward to reading the proof.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Danger Ferret.6342

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

You know, when I last left this thread, it wasn't on fire.  I swear, I couldn't trust you guys to be left alone with a nerf ball.

 

On beauty:  Beauty is aesthetic morality.  It is the harmony of physical elements, with everything in proper proportion and in its proper place.  I think that's how Aristotle described it, or maybe some other really old guy.  But really, it isn't that complicated of an idea.  No matter what you're looking at or what somebody has made, this is the definition of beauty that applies.  Beauty is also not as subjective as you'd think.  We're all humans, after all, so our brains like similar things and react to colors and shapes in similar ways.  We're designed to recognize faces, purple is the most stand-offish color because of how our brains handle colors, etc.

 

When someone says that beauty is subjective, they're taking advantage of a lack of information to try and make an argument.  There are some philosophical underpinnings and desires that go into a person's view of aesthetic morality, and if you know what those underpinnings are then what they want/like makes logical sense.  It only seems like it is random and magical if you don't know those factors.  Take... humans, for an example.  When it comes to standards of beauty in humans, it all ultimately represents one thing:  health.  This is done for a few reasons, particularly to avoid disease and check for fertility, and it isn't always super straightforward, but all around the world the prime consideration for beauty is health.  Differences in aesthetic ideals between cultures comes down to geological determinance: the features that were important for survival in that area become the "healthy" features, which is what is looked for.

 

When it comes to in-game fashion, I see two reasons that cause people to make really garish outfits.

 

#1: A lack of perspective.  This is something I used to encounter a lot back in college, when my partners in projects kept wanting to make the slideshows have different colored background and font on every page.  They simply do not have the scope of mind to look back at their character as a whole and see what it looks like to others.  Instead, they're focused on the bits, or they like how "dynamic" it is that everything is changing, etc.  

 

#2: Peacocking.  Funny thing about aesthetics is that it is worse off to be immemorable than to be either ugly or pretty.  So, players will take all of their flashy items, throw them onto their toon, and make a walking disco nightmare.  It screams LOOK AT ME and it gets all the attention.  Even if it looks terrible, so long as it is memorably terrible, then that is good enough.  

[Danger Ferret.6342]

1 minute ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

When someone says that beauty is subjective, they're taking advantage of a lack of information to try and make an argument.  There are some philosophical underpinnings and desires that go into a person's view of aesthetic morality, and if you know what those underpinnings are then what they want/like makes logical sense.  It only seems like it is random and magical if you don't know those factors.  Take... humans, for an example.  When it comes to standards of beauty in humans, it all ultimately represents one thing:  health.  This is done for a few reasons, particularly to avoid disease and check for fertility, and it isn't always super straightforward, but all around the world the prime consideration for beauty is health.  Differences in aesthetic ideals between cultures comes down to geological determinance: the features that were important for survival in that area become the "healthy" features, which is what is looked for.

 

 

An interesting argument. One wonders why the anorexic supermodel has been held for decades as the standard for female beauty when it is anything but healthy, either emotionally or physically. Or why women are having to work so hard to change that.

 

Also, as a gay man, I can tell you that "fertility" has very little to do with my personal standards of beauty.

 

Reducing someone else's argument to a belief in randomness and magic seems more like an ad hominem than a serious argument, since I've seen zero people make a case for "magic" as the cause of beauty's subjectivity. But perhaps that's easier to argue than what people have actually written.

[Danger Ferret.6342]

30 minutes ago, Danger Ferret.6342 said:

Reducing someone else's argument to a belief in randomness and magic seems more like an ad hominem than a serious argument, since I've seen zero people make a case for "magic" as the cause of beauty's subjectivity. But perhaps that's easier to argue than what people have actually written.

I'm going to conclude my portion of this conversation with the following notes:

 

The OP initially postulated, probably as a joke, that people not conforming to that player's ideas of beauty should be banned from the game. Poster than went on to claim that beauty was objective, and attempted to claim inherent superiority over the opinions of others by trying to form a firm tether between poster's opinions and objective reality, thus placing them beyond the realm of argument into the land of truth. All of this while claiming to be a proponent of philosophical discussion and critical thought, however none of the OP's posts - or any of those supporting that opinion - have provided one bit of evidence that philosophy is an inherently superior pursuit, or displayed one bit of critical thought.

 

The OP also dismissed any possible arguments as an attempt to prove OP wrong at any cost, thus effectively refusing to consider any divergent opinion.

 

Which is all well and good, I suppose. But we've also been treated to "Western Civilization is inherently superior" (I would have to go back to read again, but were the enumerated reasons accomplishments of philosophers or engineers?) in response to a charge of Eurocentrism ("My bigotry, like my philosophy, is correct because the things I believe are just inherently superior.")

 

I think it's worth fighting against those opinions, if philosophy means anything at all.

 

But getting back to the original point of the post, which I now wonder if it was humorously intended at all: if the OP can't stand to be around the less aesthetically inclined, it might be more useful to play single-player games where the OP doesn't have to be bothered by anything that looks or sounds like something less than beautiful, which is now I suppose, a crime against the natural order or something.

 

This all sounds a little too game eugenics Ubermensch-y for me. And sure, it's just a game. But who wants to play a game with people who think they can dictate beauty as they are just inherently better suited to do so, having a superior understanding than I, because I - disagreeing with their premise - must believe in .... magic? I mean.. where do you go from there?

 

It all sounds like an attempt by some people to make others feel unwelcome.

 

In my 55 years of life, one philosophical notion that I've taken to heart is that it is much easier to control my own behavior than the behavior of others. Were I to need aesthetic purity surrounding me in order to mercilessly slaughter ettins and bathe in their gory remains, I would probably try to create it myself, rather than haughtily demanding anyone who displeases me get the hell out of my game.

 

But that's me, and I'm just a stupid boomer with a physics degree. It's probably a much better outcome for the game if the self-styled philosophers win, and all other impure forms are forced to comply or vacate.

 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Danger Ferret.6342

[Chaba.5410]

Still no objective beauty standards named by OP? How odd for someone who proclaims others lacking in critical thinking.  Such banal thinking and rhetoric should be the actual bannable offense.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Chaba.5410

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

1 hour ago, Danger Ferret.6342 said:

An interesting argument. One wonders why the anorexic supermodel has been held for decades as the standard for female beauty when it is anything but healthy, either emotionally or physically. Or why women are having to work so hard to change that.

 

Also, as a gay man, I can tell you that "fertility" has very little to do with my personal standards of beauty.

 

Reducing someone else's argument to a belief in randomness and magic seems more like an ad hominem than a serious argument, since I've seen zero people make a case for "magic" as the cause of beauty's subjectivity. But perhaps that's easier to argue than what people have actually written.

 

Anorexia is not, nor has it ever been, the standard of beauty.  That's just misandrist lies.  Hell, my sister is on the very-thin side, and most guys just think there's something wrong with her.  When I was a kid, the big model around town was Tyra Banks, who weighed in at 160-165lbs.  Society, by and large, does not like skeletons.

 

I call it magic as a direct insult, because that is what subjectivity ultimately comes down to.  Knowing the causes for someone's standards of beauty and desires allows one to exercise scrutiny on those causes, as well as exercise a degree of control over them.  You can compare and contrast, evaluate those standards, judge them on internal and external consistency, and evaluate their accuracy and their outcomes.  I'd argue that this is ultimately good, but the caveat is that this all leads to a series of moral obligations that one has to fulfill.  First, the obligation of self-evaluation.  Second, the obligation to attempt to be beautiful.  Third, the obligation to spread this wisdom.

This is where most of the contention comes from.  Fulfilling all of these duties is hard, so the simplest solution is to deny that beauty means anything.  The standards now generate spontaneously from thin air with no rhyme or reason, their influence on society is effectively spooky action at a distance.  Now, everyone gets to be beautiful because they can create fully arbitrary standards of beauty that they themselves meet which are equally valid as every other standard.  Now, they get to like or say whatever they want because it all has inherent value, merely from being spoken by them.  No critical thinking skills needed.  Of course, the real world still has to deal with the real outcomes of all this.  That's the reason why I denote subjectivity and relativistic standards as moral and intellectual hedonism.

 

Granted, not everybody who believes in subjectivity does so out of hedonism.  Some people are just repeating the line because it is what they've been told.  Some people just cannot grasp the notion that desires and ideas don't magically appear from nowhere.  Some people just don't realize that asserting relativistic standards violates the law of non-contradiction.  Some people are Critical Theory types who maliciously pick at western society to try and slowly destroy it.  Whatever the reason, there's a very simple way to describe it: magical thinking.  Incomprehensible, unknowable, sacrosanct, spooky action on the human brain.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493
forgot a line