WEBVTT - Is the "ugly tax" real? 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:12.520 I'm Manny. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:14.000 I'm Noah. This is Devin. 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:16.590 And this is No Such Thing, the show where we 0:00:16.620 --> 0:00:20.530 settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. 0:00:21.150 --> 0:00:25.450 On today's episode, should ugly people be a protected class 0:00:25.670 --> 0:00:26.389 of minority? 0:00:29.350 --> 0:00:29.850 There's no such thing. 0:00:29.950 --> 0:00:30.630 No such thing. 0:00:30.700 --> 0:00:32.380 No such thing. 0:00:33.659 --> 0:00:35.340 No such thing. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:50.150 I'm going to start today's episode with a potentially insensitive question. 0:00:51.270 --> 0:00:55.090 Do either of you know anyone who is truly ugly? 0:00:56.010 --> 0:01:00.070 And I mean, obviously we're not including people with, who 0:01:00.130 --> 0:01:02.750 are disfigured in any kind of way or, you know, 0:01:03.030 --> 0:01:05.330 I just mean you look at someone, you're like, wow. 0:01:05.410 --> 0:01:08.780 Just naturally ugly. Not bland. No, no, no. 0:01:08.830 --> 0:01:10.150 I'm talking about Whoa. 0:01:10.750 --> 0:01:12.810 Yeah, like make you look twice, but in a bad way? 0:01:13.310 --> 0:01:13.670 Yeah. 0:01:14.569 --> 0:01:19.929 Let me say this. I think in my current life, 0:01:20.030 --> 0:01:23.650 no one comes to mind. Okay. Maybe I just surround 0:01:23.690 --> 0:01:25.190 myself with beautiful people. Probably. 0:01:25.430 --> 0:01:27.149 I think part of it is you get to know people, 0:01:27.190 --> 0:01:31.210 and even if you maybe think they're ugly at first, physically, 0:01:31.930 --> 0:01:34.869 they have a beautiful soul, and then that shapes the 0:01:34.890 --> 0:01:35.449 way you see them. 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.220 I would say, you know, thinking about- This is the 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:39.120 hunchback of Notre Dame. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:40.620 Exactly. 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.140 Thinking back- I know this guy, he works at a 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:45.180 bell tower. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:46.619 It's pretty cool. 0:01:46.900 --> 0:01:49.660 No, I feel like there were like, we've had this 0:01:49.700 --> 0:01:53.100 conversation before, right? And there were some people from high 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.630 school who I remembered thinking, you know, nice guy, pretty 0:01:57.690 --> 0:02:00.790 unfortunate looking. But then when I went back and looked 0:02:00.890 --> 0:02:04.970 at him, I was like, you know, he definitely interesting looking. 0:02:06.790 --> 0:02:08.510 And I think it kind of works now. 0:02:08.630 --> 0:02:09.890 I think so much of, I don't know, I feel 0:02:09.910 --> 0:02:13.490 like so much of ugliness is less so how someone looks, 0:02:13.570 --> 0:02:16.100 more so how they carry themselves, how they dress, all 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:17.240 those sort of things. 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.820 You do hear about this phenomenon of the ugly, hot actor. 0:02:20.900 --> 0:02:21.400 Yeah. 0:02:21.860 --> 0:02:24.880 So in looking back now, like, you know, because I 0:02:24.900 --> 0:02:27.910 pulled up this guy's Instagram or whatever from high school. 0:02:27.930 --> 0:02:28.410 Share the app. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:28.770 Yeah, yeah. 0:02:28.790 --> 0:02:30.570 We'll put the app in the show notes so you 0:02:30.590 --> 0:02:33.810 can go check it out. But in high school, he 0:02:33.930 --> 0:02:35.690 didn't have a lot of confidence. He didn't really dress 0:02:35.770 --> 0:02:40.350 all that well. And now it looks like he's grown 0:02:40.389 --> 0:02:42.710 more into who he truly is. 0:02:43.750 --> 0:02:45.970 And now I'm like, oh, you know what? This guy's 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:46.590 not that ugly. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:47.160 Yeah. 0:02:47.820 --> 0:02:51.860 So I don't know that I personally know someone who, 0:02:52.580 --> 0:02:53.540 to your point, I'd be. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:53.980 Like, ugh. 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.260 Plus a lot of quote unquote ugliness back then had 0:02:57.740 --> 0:03:00.750 a lot to do with. you know, people finding out 0:03:00.770 --> 0:03:03.649 who they are still. There's a lot of acne back then. 0:03:03.669 --> 0:03:06.210 There's a lot of, you know, you're not looking your best. 0:03:06.230 --> 0:03:08.389 You're not really put together and it's not. 0:03:08.330 --> 0:03:09.890 A priority really. Hygiene sometimes. 0:03:10.950 --> 0:03:13.850 Noah, any, any uggos in your life? 0:03:14.950 --> 0:03:18.240 No, I've cleared them out. No, but similar, I do 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.280 think a lot of it is kind of like people 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.700 coming into their own and styling themselves correctly. I mean, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:25.419 something like this that I think about is like people 0:03:25.460 --> 0:03:27.360 will be like, like a balding man. 0:03:27.380 --> 0:03:27.900 Yeah. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.710 And it's like, Kind of things that are unsightly but 0:03:30.870 --> 0:03:32.630 not necessarily ugly. Yeah, but people will be like, oh, no, 0:03:32.650 --> 0:03:34.549 they're actually really hot or whatever. And it's like, well, 0:03:34.570 --> 0:03:36.050 you don't like them because they're bald. You like them 0:03:36.070 --> 0:03:37.590 because they have some swag or something. 0:03:37.610 --> 0:03:38.010 Yeah, yeah. 0:03:38.130 --> 0:03:41.030 And it's like I think that kind of phenomenon just happens. 0:03:41.170 --> 0:03:44.750 You know, it's like George Costanza is not like a 0:03:44.810 --> 0:03:49.070 conventionally attractive guy. Jason Alexander looks okay, but people like 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.160 that character because he's funny and interesting, especially now with 0:03:52.340 --> 0:03:54.900 hindsight of time passing. It's like we can look– but 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:56.640 like he was not a sex symbol. 0:03:57.100 --> 0:03:57.740 You know what I mean? 0:03:57.900 --> 0:03:58.160 Yeah. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.720 But– Despite how much he was pulling on that show. 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:02.380 Exactly. 0:04:02.460 --> 0:04:05.860 Almost once an episode. So there are ugly people in 0:04:05.900 --> 0:04:09.860 the world, but we don't have them in our lives. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.350 So have you ever considered that the reason we don't 0:04:13.390 --> 0:04:16.270 have ugly people in our lives is that we wouldn't 0:04:16.330 --> 0:04:18.810 allow them to be in our lives? And that we, 0:04:19.529 --> 0:04:23.450 in some sense, discriminated against them, never even considered that 0:04:23.470 --> 0:04:25.480 they could be friend-worthy. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:27.440 Truth bomb. 0:04:30.510 --> 0:04:34.400 So you might have heard of this concept called pretty privilege, 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:39.540 this idea that attractive people get certain bonuses, social bonuses 0:04:39.779 --> 0:04:43.180 throughout their lives strictly because they are attractive. What you 0:04:43.220 --> 0:04:46.620 might not have heard of is a concept called ugly tax, 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.950 which is the opposite of pretty privilege. It's the idea 0:04:50.029 --> 0:04:55.250 that if you are unattractive, you receive a social penalty 0:04:55.589 --> 0:04:59.450 just for being ugly, so to speak. Another more academic 0:04:59.690 --> 0:05:05.050 concept word for this is lookism much like racism or 0:05:05.250 --> 0:05:09.669 ableism or sexism it is the discrimination against people for 0:05:09.790 --> 0:05:11.630 the way that they look. 0:05:16.890 --> 0:05:19.810 I think there is some legitimacy to that you know 0:05:19.870 --> 0:05:23.070 I think it's it's a status thing I think I 0:05:23.089 --> 0:05:25.950 don't think you know we maybe consciously were like oh 0:05:25.970 --> 0:05:27.610 I don't want to be friends with this person because 0:05:27.690 --> 0:05:30.760 I think this person is ugly yeah well at least 0:05:31.110 --> 0:05:34.750 I'll speak for myself you try to surround yourself with 0:05:34.790 --> 0:05:37.270 people who have attributes. 0:05:36.870 --> 0:05:40.130 That you admire or you're. 0:05:39.970 --> 0:05:42.690 Attracted to in some way and not even romantically at 0:05:43.300 --> 0:05:45.659 least you know me personally that's what I tend to 0:05:45.700 --> 0:05:47.600 do so I think there is a world like you're 0:05:47.620 --> 0:05:54.250 saying if I viewed someone as ugly maybe we would 0:05:55.150 --> 0:05:59.260 work together or have some mutual friends but i wouldn't 0:05:59.300 --> 0:06:01.880 go out of my way to talk to that person 0:06:02.100 --> 0:06:05.279 or to be friends with that person yeah so inevitably 0:06:05.300 --> 0:06:07.740 if i'm putting just less effort into getting to know 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.940 those types of people yep then i would weed them 0:06:10.980 --> 0:06:11.760 out of my life. 0:06:11.860 --> 0:06:13.850 It could totally be subconscious we can go even a 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.710 layer deeper you might not even work with any ugly 0:06:16.750 --> 0:06:18.890 people because they might not get a chance to get 0:06:18.910 --> 0:06:20.430 hired i think that's a big. 0:06:20.310 --> 0:06:22.470 Piece i'm sorry i've worked with ugly people. 0:06:23.180 --> 0:06:24.200 Well, some get through the cracks. 0:06:24.220 --> 0:06:24.940 Name some names. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:26.520 I'm just kidding. 0:06:27.339 --> 0:06:27.750 Please don't. 0:06:28.500 --> 0:06:31.370 Manny, you didn't answer the question. Do you have any 0:06:31.430 --> 0:06:32.270 ugly people in your life? 0:06:32.750 --> 0:06:32.990 No. 0:06:33.390 --> 0:06:35.989 But I also, I think, have this kind of hippie 0:06:36.070 --> 0:06:37.969 idea that there aren't really ugly people. 0:06:37.990 --> 0:06:38.529 Oh, please. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.780 I look at a person who's ostensibly or supposedly ugly, 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.220 and I just think, yeah, I guess they don't look 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.839 the best. But like, ugly is such a specific, you know, 0:06:50.860 --> 0:06:55.059 I'm thinking of like, gremlins and ghouls from my fairy 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.740 tales that I read when I was young. Goblins, ghouls. 0:06:58.040 --> 0:06:58.640 Yeah. 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:01.720 Goblin, ghoul, a zombie with no conscience. 0:07:01.779 --> 0:07:04.020 Question, what do these things all have in common? 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:05.000 I'll play the receiver. 0:07:05.380 --> 0:07:08.300 A zombie with no conscience. But human.... 0:07:09.570 --> 0:07:14.290 Human beings, I mean, I can't really conceptualize ugly. I 0:07:14.330 --> 0:07:16.010 know people who are unattractive. 0:07:16.130 --> 0:07:16.430 Okay. 0:07:16.970 --> 0:07:17.910 I think it's different than. 0:07:17.930 --> 0:07:19.330 What's the difference? 0:07:20.330 --> 0:07:24.200 Ugly, I think, is something that... is, you know, a garish, 0:07:24.260 --> 0:07:26.920 like a, something that makes you maybe recoil. 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:27.660 Okay. 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.680 Let me, let's, let's, you're both in loving relationships. You're 0:07:31.700 --> 0:07:35.320 both in loving marriages. Right. But there was a life 0:07:35.380 --> 0:07:37.850 before that where you were both on this thing called 0:07:37.970 --> 0:07:41.050 dating apps. When you were on hinge, you didn't have 0:07:41.790 --> 0:07:45.910 people who liked you on hinge, who you looked at 0:07:45.950 --> 0:07:47.370 and said, this is so mean. 0:07:47.950 --> 0:07:53.880 Oh, yeah. I, of course, encountered people who I was 0:07:54.060 --> 0:07:56.710 definitely not attracted to. 0:07:57.270 --> 0:07:59.270 Nobody you encountered that made you rethink? 0:07:59.290 --> 0:08:03.050 I was never like, damn, this person is ugly. 0:08:03.290 --> 0:08:06.250 Look, and I say this because I feel when this 0:08:06.470 --> 0:08:08.880 happens to me, I feel kind of bad because it's 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.080 usually those– the people sometimes who I– find the most 0:08:13.180 --> 0:08:15.560 unattractive who are liking me on these apps or sometimes 0:08:15.580 --> 0:08:18.860 people put the most effort into their responses yeah they 0:08:18.900 --> 0:08:20.840 have to right and they you know they write like 0:08:20.860 --> 0:08:23.740 a really nice response to one of my prompts and 0:08:23.780 --> 0:08:26.360 it's like really thought out and they're putting really effort 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.310 in and i'm like not a chance damn i'm not 0:08:29.350 --> 0:08:32.630 gonna date this person but i wish i could just 0:08:32.710 --> 0:08:35.010 respond to the thing you know just. 0:08:34.890 --> 0:08:38.210 Hey that was really nice yeah We're going to pass 0:08:38.250 --> 0:08:40.170 it this time, but we will keep you in mind 0:08:40.250 --> 0:08:42.370 in the future if other roles open up. 0:08:44.010 --> 0:08:46.850 Maybe if a friendship role, we're going to open up. 0:08:46.929 --> 0:08:48.329 Feel free to keep an eye on openings. 0:08:49.610 --> 0:08:52.930 So we all agree that there probably is some form 0:08:53.090 --> 0:08:58.589 of discrimination happening, being done onto our ugly brothers and sisters. 0:08:59.170 --> 0:09:00.050 Oh, for sure. 0:09:00.090 --> 0:09:02.650 And maybe you don't feel like discrimination is the right word, 0:09:02.690 --> 0:09:05.610 but that you know, they're being treated a little bit 0:09:05.650 --> 0:09:06.530 differently than the rest. 0:09:06.450 --> 0:09:07.090 Of the population. 0:09:07.170 --> 0:09:07.530 Yeah. 0:09:07.550 --> 0:09:09.530 There's a bias against it. I mean, just we know 0:09:09.590 --> 0:09:12.150 from past episodes, tall people get paid more. 0:09:12.370 --> 0:09:12.530 Yeah. 0:09:12.570 --> 0:09:12.770 Yeah. 0:09:13.030 --> 0:09:16.130 That's a simple example of something like that where in 0:09:16.170 --> 0:09:19.480 society we've decided tallness is attractive. 0:09:19.700 --> 0:09:20.040 Yeah. 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.000 And this exhibits itself not only in dating where obviously 0:09:23.059 --> 0:09:25.260 you hear about this all the time, but even in 0:09:25.340 --> 0:09:27.679 the workplace where it's like presumably not everyone's trying to 0:09:27.700 --> 0:09:31.059 date this person they're hiring. because they're tall. Right. But 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:32.300 that's hard numbers. 0:09:32.580 --> 0:09:35.780 But that brings up an interesting dynamic here because are 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:40.199 we talking about tall people being, you know, getting essentially 0:09:40.260 --> 0:09:43.580 a bonus for being tall or are we talking about 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.870 shorter people or average height people being actively penalized for 0:09:47.910 --> 0:09:51.189 being that way? Or maybe it's a little bit of both. 0:09:51.530 --> 0:09:55.250 So like, is the ugly tax real or is pretty 0:09:55.330 --> 0:09:59.950 privilege real? This idea that you get benefits for being 0:10:00.030 --> 0:10:02.949 attractive or more attractive than an ugly person. 0:10:03.450 --> 0:10:04.010 I think it's both. 0:10:04.030 --> 0:10:05.500 A little bit of overlap. 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:07.800 They have to be inextricably linked. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:08.340 Yes. 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:10.440 Or else neither could exist. 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:11.840 Like Batman and the Joker. 0:10:12.059 --> 0:10:13.180 If you're getting a bonus for being attractive. 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:13.360 Exactly. 0:10:14.860 --> 0:10:17.160 Literally about Batman and the Joker, honestly. 0:10:17.260 --> 0:10:17.920 Joker's ugly. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.530 That's his whole problem, kind of. Depending on when you 0:10:22.570 --> 0:10:22.870 ask him. 0:10:23.110 --> 0:10:25.070 You want to know how I got these scars? 0:10:26.050 --> 0:10:29.650 I think there's a neutral where it doesn't affect it 0:10:29.710 --> 0:10:34.550 at all. Let's say job hiring is an example. This person, 0:10:34.809 --> 0:10:38.250 I'm not even thinking about their attractiveness. They look normal. 0:10:38.910 --> 0:10:40.870 It doesn't come into effect. I think there's a wow, 0:10:40.890 --> 0:10:44.940 this person is very attractive in that Can help or 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.220 hurt in certain situations, right? I've heard about, you know, 0:10:48.500 --> 0:10:51.160 really attractive women maybe in a business context not being 0:10:51.210 --> 0:10:55.589 taken seriously. And then there's, I think, a penalty of, 0:10:56.290 --> 0:10:58.570 you know, if you have two people who are maybe 0:10:59.510 --> 0:11:04.170 just as qualified. Let's say three people. One is average looking, 0:11:04.390 --> 0:11:07.810 one is really hot, and one is really ugly. I 0:11:07.830 --> 0:11:09.689 think the ugly person is probably going to be the 0:11:09.730 --> 0:11:11.290 first person eliminated out of that. 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.200 You know, if you're if they're all exactly. 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.960 Think about politics or something. You get two men who 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:20.340 are have the same policies on paper. 0:11:20.420 --> 0:11:20.579 Yeah. 0:11:20.980 --> 0:11:23.100 One is kind of just like more clean cut and 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.070 more conventionally attractive and kind of a better speaker. Seems 0:11:26.110 --> 0:11:28.569 more confident probably because of those things. 0:11:28.650 --> 0:11:28.870 Yeah. 0:11:29.010 --> 0:11:31.410 Versus another guy who's just a little nerdier and like 0:11:31.690 --> 0:11:35.230 less cool looking. And, you know, maybe just facial features 0:11:35.290 --> 0:11:38.010 aren't as nice. Body's not as, you know, kept up 0:11:38.050 --> 0:11:38.589 as the other guy. 0:11:39.330 --> 0:11:41.370 Who's going to win? We know this. 0:11:41.490 --> 0:11:43.810 That's a really good analogy actually because the word people 0:11:43.890 --> 0:11:47.390 use for that is electability. Like if you are ugly 0:11:47.809 --> 0:11:49.970 and you're going for a job that an attractive person 0:11:50.050 --> 0:11:54.070 is going for, who's more electable, quote unquote. And if 0:11:54.350 --> 0:11:58.460 the more attractive person is more electable strictly because they're 0:11:58.500 --> 0:12:02.760 more attractive, does the uglier person deserve to have some 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.120 kind of attention paid to them in terms of like 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:06.579 their civil rights? 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:06.760 Yeah. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.860 Are we talking about like DEI for ugly people? Maybe. 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.119 If it's a real class of people who are facing 0:12:14.500 --> 0:12:17.559 discrimination for something that they can't control. 0:12:17.580 --> 0:12:18.400 Yeah. 0:12:18.450 --> 0:12:23.350 And you can also say that about race and gender 0:12:23.610 --> 0:12:24.150 and age. 0:12:24.210 --> 0:12:24.450 Sexuality. 0:12:24.490 --> 0:12:26.170 All these other classes that we protect. 0:12:26.370 --> 0:12:26.570 Yeah. 0:12:26.870 --> 0:12:28.890 Do ugly people get to, should they have a little 0:12:28.910 --> 0:12:29.870 bit of that as well? 0:12:30.450 --> 0:12:31.490 But then who's determining? 0:12:31.510 --> 0:12:33.189 Yeah, that's where I get to protect. 0:12:33.830 --> 0:12:36.750 Who's determining who fits into that class? Some of this 0:12:36.809 --> 0:12:38.230 other stuff is obvious, right? 0:12:38.250 --> 0:12:39.110 Yeah, yeah. 0:12:39.130 --> 0:12:40.429 And you're saying this is more subjective. 0:12:40.950 --> 0:12:42.190 Well, yeah. 0:12:42.250 --> 0:12:45.610 Who's going to be rating whether or not you qualify for... 0:12:45.570 --> 0:12:46.590 If you're ugly enough to. 0:12:46.530 --> 0:12:47.330 Qualify for this class. 0:12:47.350 --> 0:12:49.270 It would have to be based on your weight or 0:12:49.290 --> 0:12:52.340 your height or... It can't be like, oh, your nose 0:12:52.380 --> 0:12:52.800 is big. 0:12:53.660 --> 0:12:55.179 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.560 How do you... What criteria would it be? It would 0:12:57.580 --> 0:12:58.340 have to be case by case, I guess. 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.420 It would have to be being ostracized, being shunned from 0:13:00.460 --> 0:13:03.380 society and then being like, oh... All those people are 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.260 on this weird island for ugly people. Let's throw them 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:06.660 some money. 0:13:07.809 --> 0:13:10.730 I guess it would work like if I felt like 0:13:10.750 --> 0:13:13.030 I were fired for being black, I would have to 0:13:13.090 --> 0:13:15.890 make some kind of complaint. Then someone would have to 0:13:15.950 --> 0:13:18.750 look at the case to determine whether that was true. 0:13:19.350 --> 0:13:22.740 And for someone who's a little homelier than the rest 0:13:22.770 --> 0:13:25.980 of the population, might have to go through that same process. 0:13:26.020 --> 0:13:27.860 So like a judge would have to look at him 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.120 and say, are you ugly enough to qualify to be 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:31.839 protected against this firing? 0:13:32.130 --> 0:13:32.370 Yeah. 0:13:32.550 --> 0:13:35.170 They could use AI tools to determine this. 0:13:35.970 --> 0:13:38.589 Well, these are all the kind of floating questions in 0:13:38.610 --> 0:13:41.250 my head for this episode that we're hopefully going to 0:13:41.270 --> 0:13:44.429 get to the bottom of. There are two things I 0:13:44.470 --> 0:13:49.670 think we need to do here. Number one is talk 0:13:49.750 --> 0:13:50.630 to an ugly person. 0:13:51.070 --> 0:13:52.410 Okay. 0:13:52.429 --> 0:13:55.130 And try to understand their experiences. Try to figure out 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.840 how they feel like they've been discriminated against. 0:13:58.080 --> 0:13:58.260 Sure. 0:13:58.890 --> 0:14:02.510 But before that, we're going to talk to Thomas Spiegel, 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:07.640 who's a professor at the Miyazaki University in Tokyo, Japan. 0:14:07.660 --> 0:14:08.219 Wow. 0:14:08.700 --> 0:14:11.260 And he's also a philosopher, which I didn't know we 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.900 were still calling people that these days. So that's interesting. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:14.740 I'm one of those. 0:14:14.900 --> 0:14:18.530 He's studied lookism for years and years and years, and 0:14:18.550 --> 0:14:20.690 he'll be able to kind of hold our hands through 0:14:20.730 --> 0:14:22.890 this learning process. That's after the break. 0:14:23.090 --> 0:14:23.270 All right. 0:14:23.290 --> 0:14:24.970 So we want to talk to an ugly person. So 0:14:24.990 --> 0:14:27.230 we have Manny Fidel on the podcast today. 0:14:27.310 --> 0:14:34.490 Hey. That's good stuff right there. 0:14:39.950 --> 0:14:40.470 We're back. 0:14:40.810 --> 0:14:41.270 I'm Manny. 0:14:41.430 --> 0:14:41.810 I'm Noah. 0:14:41.970 --> 0:14:42.290 Devin. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.980 And we are about to hear from Thomas Spiegel. I'll 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:47.940 just have him introduce himself. 0:14:48.540 --> 0:14:53.400 My name is Thomas Spiegel. I'm professor of philosophy at 0:14:53.500 --> 0:14:58.210 the Miyazaki International University here in Japan, but I'm originally 0:14:58.330 --> 0:14:59.190 from Germany. 0:14:59.570 --> 0:15:02.110 The first question for Thomas is the obvious one. Can 0:15:02.130 --> 0:15:06.630 you just define what lookism is exactly? 0:15:07.650 --> 0:15:11.650 Lookism is a term that was invented and popularized in 0:15:11.700 --> 0:15:16.780 the seventies in sociology and psychology. And it means just 0:15:17.900 --> 0:15:22.110 discrimination of people based on appearance. Like with any kind 0:15:22.130 --> 0:15:27.460 of discrimination, there's positive and negative discrimination. Positive discrimination about 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.320 your appearance is when you're being treated better for looking good. 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:35.480 And negative discrimination is if you're being treated worse for 0:15:35.540 --> 0:15:38.760 being not good looking, for being ugly, or for just 0:15:38.860 --> 0:15:44.700 being bland or not meeting some other standard. And lookism 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.760 can take specific shapes as like subgroups. For example, we 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:53.490 have something like fatphobia. heightism, which is something that I'm 0:15:53.850 --> 0:15:58.490 currently working on. So heightism, the discrimination based on your height. 0:15:59.150 --> 0:16:03.310 We have ageism, which is at least partially appearance discrimination. 0:16:04.110 --> 0:16:09.330 And in some cases it overlaps with something like ableism, 0:16:09.650 --> 0:16:14.300 where people are sort of avoidant of disabled people who 0:16:14.380 --> 0:16:17.420 are also, or may be disfigured, for example. 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.320 It's interesting to hear sort of like the overlaps, you know, 0:16:20.340 --> 0:16:23.920 like height and which we've covered before and some of 0:16:23.940 --> 0:16:27.440 these other things that, yeah, are looks related. 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:27.780 Yep. 0:16:28.060 --> 0:16:32.020 So I want to know if there's any empirical data 0:16:32.470 --> 0:16:35.050 about lookism. It sounds right. It makes sense. 0:16:35.070 --> 0:16:35.330 Yeah. 0:16:35.910 --> 0:16:37.950 But is there, I need to see some hard numbers. 0:16:37.970 --> 0:16:41.010 Are ugly people actually being discriminated against and how can 0:16:41.050 --> 0:16:42.390 you prove that in the numbers? 0:16:46.420 --> 0:16:51.450 The amount of evidence is insane. I was myself surprised 0:16:51.490 --> 0:16:54.930 when I first started to become interested in this. If 0:16:54.990 --> 0:16:58.630 you start to look for sources and surveys and experiments 0:16:58.670 --> 0:17:02.850 or whatever, you find dozens, maybe hundreds of studies on this. 0:17:02.950 --> 0:17:08.149 The most researched or the best researched disadvantage is in work. 0:17:09.230 --> 0:17:12.080 So on the one hand, there's a hiring disadvantage for 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.399 ugly people. People who don't look good are less likely 0:17:16.460 --> 0:17:20.270 to be hired, all else being equal. Another very well-researched 0:17:20.310 --> 0:17:25.070 thing is sort of a wage gap between good-looking people 0:17:25.109 --> 0:17:28.690 and bad-looking people. And that depends a bit on the 0:17:28.750 --> 0:17:33.530 society that you live in. So one recent study in 0:17:33.609 --> 0:17:39.480 China showed that for every 10 centimeters that you are taller, 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:44.399 for example, than somebody who's otherwise similar to you or 0:17:44.420 --> 0:17:48.280 the same to you, you get almost a 6% increase 0:17:48.380 --> 0:17:53.050 in wages. There's an older study in the USA that 0:17:53.290 --> 0:17:57.550 found that for each inch of your height, you get 0:17:57.670 --> 0:18:02.710 roughly a bonus of roughly like $ 100, 000 in lifetime earnings. 0:18:03.670 --> 0:18:08.490 Same job, same demographic. It's also something that doesn't really 0:18:08.830 --> 0:18:11.010 start late in life, you know, when you start getting 0:18:11.050 --> 0:18:15.200 into the labor force. We have some experimental evidence that 0:18:16.740 --> 0:18:20.120 teachers as well as parents, which is even more sad, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.169 are treating their better-looking children better than the ugly children. 0:18:23.590 --> 0:18:27.669 So in elementary school already, but basically as soon as 0:18:27.690 --> 0:18:31.010 you're out of the womb, you're being sort of judged 0:18:31.070 --> 0:18:35.180 differently for the way you look. Then there's the very 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.700 obvious discrimination that you have in dating and in romance. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:40.860 We kind of all grew up with this knowledge that 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.450 if you're better-looking... You're most successful in romance. 0:18:54.150 --> 0:18:56.659 The thing that struck me the most, I think, is 0:18:56.700 --> 0:19:00.959 that you get a bonus of roughly like $ 100, 000 in 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.240 lifetime earnings for each inch. 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.930 So if Devin is 10 inches taller than me. 0:19:08.230 --> 0:19:08.510 Yeah. 0:19:08.550 --> 0:19:09.629 Oh, come on, I ain't Devin. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:11.480 I know I'm saying demonstrating for. 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:13.609 The sake of argument you would make a million dollars 0:19:13.660 --> 0:19:16.950 more in lifetime over your life yeah which is if 0:19:17.190 --> 0:19:20.510 we're both podcasters yeah exactly all else being equal yeah 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:21.740 Which is crazy. 0:19:21.770 --> 0:19:23.450 Look exactly the same except for this one. 0:19:23.830 --> 0:19:26.450 Especially when you think about what you could do. Let's 0:19:26.530 --> 0:19:31.230