Wednesday 30 August 2017

Some links for you

1. A better job than that one in San Francisco? Probably.

2. Physiognomy is very bad. But you (yes, you) can tell how clever someone is by looking at them.

3. Literally rent-a-mob: "Whether your organization is lobbying to move forward a healthcare, financial or other social initiative, we can organize rallies and get media attention for your causes and candidates. We also assist individuals, companies and political organizations with protests and picketing campaigns. We’ve protested governments, corporations and everything in between." There's even a case study: "A foreign government hired Crowds on Demand to help generate a positive reception for its newly elected leader during the UN General Assembly. The concern was ensuring that the leader was well received by a US audience and confident for his work at the UN. We created demonstrations of support with diverse crowds. We also used the media primarily local and national outlets to bring more attention to these demonstrations which led to a mostly positive portrayal. The crowds that we deployed drew in more supporters creating a strong presence for this leader at the UN and an improved perception of him by the American public."

4. Have you ever wondered what had happened to Walid Jumblatt? Spoiler alert: he's still going.

5. Why do women wear so much make-up? Hmm. I don't think this is anywhere near being the whole story. I'd want to include signalling effects including 'making an effort'. The women were asked to do their make-up as if they were going out for the evening, not as if they were aiming to be as attractive as possible. Those are not the same thing. To take another example, I am quite prepared to believe that women consider men more attractive in clothes other than kilts, but at the same time would regard a man who went to the effort of putting on a kilt (the right man, on the right occasion) as being better dressed than a man who didn't. There are social norms about clothing and make-up that are only distantly related to attractiveness. I wonder what the results would be of asking the women to put on make-up as if "going to an undergraduate lecture in the morning but wanting to look attractive to a fellow student" or "going to a wedding and wanting to look more attractive than the other female guests" or "having Sunday lunch at your parents' house but there will be a guest there that you want to impress" or "for a job interview, where you think attractiveness will be a plus" or "for your only photo on a dating website"? 

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