It kind of sucks that the Kind trait negates social bonuses from beauty along with ugliness

[a three-colored carp]

How kind is it to completely ignore that someone is beautiful?

[boytype]

A kind person doesnt base their opinion of someone on their physical appearance?

[Cuddle_Rat]

A kind person wouldn't be like: "Oh that person just murdered someone, striped them of their organs, and ate the flesh that remained, ah but hell, they're HAWT"! *Attitude plus 10!*

[Jigain]

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

How kind is it to not completely objectify someone?

Now there's a question for the ages.

[a three-colored carp]

Originally posted by boytype:

A kind person doesnt base their opinion of someone on their physical appearance?

I get the not looking down on someone for being staggeringly ugly. But if someone looks good it seems weird to ignore that fact.

Originally posted by Jigain:

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

How kind is it to not completely objectify someone?

Now there's a question for the ages.

Literally no person looks at someone whose face looks like a malformed fetus in a jar of formaldehyde and then looks at an attractive person and says "these two things are exactly identical to me!" That's face blindness, not kindness.

[Jigain]

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

Literally no person looks at someone whose face looks like a malformed fetus in a jar of formaldehyde and then looks at an attractive person and says "these two things are exactly identical to me!" That's face blindness, not kindness.

I think this deserves a prior reply as an answer:

Originally posted by boytype:

A kind person doesnt base their opinion of someone on their physical appearance?

[Minty Fresh]

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

I get the not looking down on someone for being staggeringly ugly. But if someone looks good it seems weird to ignore that fact.

There are plenty of cases where someone would look at an attractive person and just have a feeling of repulsion or, at least, mistrust.

Those of us towards the bottom of the beauty hierarchy have learnt long ago that attractive people usually equates to horrible people. The (supposedly) default instinct when seeing someone physically "beautiful" gets overwritten by an experience-learnt Pavlov reflex that they are probably horrible.

[theslasher1646]

Originally posted by Minty Fresh:

Those of us towards the bottom of the beauty hierarchy have learnt long ago that attractive people usually equates to horrible people. The (supposedly) default instinct when seeing someone physically "beautiful" gets overwritten by an experience-learnt Pavlov reflex that they are probably horrible.

I think part of that though is your own bias from being at an extreme end of the scale. You will naturally be at odds with people on the opposite end of the spectrum and resent them. Basically, you will perceive them in a particularly negative way out of resentment/jealousy.

A lot of it is a perspective thing, and you would probably find that if you did things like eat healthy, exercise, etc. and do little things to improve yourself and improve or at least maximize your own potential attractiveness not only will you look healthier/better/more beautiful but people will respond to you better, treat you better etc. because you are exhibiting more positive personality traits, and you yourself will be more inclined to treat others better as well in a sort of positive upward spiral.

It's usually self-destructive, lazy, or otherwise indulgent personality traits that drive or maximize physical ugliness, and most of that is in turn lifestyle driven by personal choices. Some people will always be naturally more cute than others or whatever, but tons of attractive people can easily trash and destroy themselves with terrible life habits and choices, and people who are not conventionally attractive can still look above average and maximize their own personal beauty through good living. The outside is often a reflection of the inside, much more than people want to believe.

[a three-colored carp]

Originally posted by Cuddle_Rat:

A kind person wouldn't be like: "Oh that person just murdered someone, striped them of their organs, and ate the flesh that remained, ah but hell, they're HAWT"! *Attitude plus 10!*

Counterpoint: Lady Dimitrescu

[Astasia]

I think the actual issue is the main method the game has for increasing opinions of other colonists to the point where everyone likes everyone is through beauty. The colony cohesion glue is aesthetic shapers and noses (and the beauty gene now), these increase opinions significantly, increase moods for couples, reduce breakups, increase relationship forming, and increase lovin and babymaking. There are no implants or modifications you can do that makes a person more attractive mentally. This unfortunately results in the kind trait being somewhat terrible. While the main downside of pawns not getting along is insults and slights which a kind pawn will not do, they also miss out on the mood advantages of thinking their partner is beautiful. You can work around this a little bit in some cases, if a couple does workbench jobs all day you can set them up in a room near each other so they can build up relations by talking, but this doesn't do anything for lovin frequency.

The morale of the story in RimWorld is if you can't appreciate physical beauty in people you will never be truly happy.

[boytype]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I think the actual issue is the main method the game has for increasing opinions of other colonists to the point where everyone likes everyone is through beauty.

I mean, he could change the name of the word from 'Beauty' to 'Appeal'. It would literally change how no game mechanics works, but represent the same thing.

I dont think that is the issue IMO. I think it is the fact that the OP insists that beauty standards are unavoidably universal, which is not true. There are plenty of cases where pretty or beautiful people are with ugly or staggeringly ugly people IRL. Those are nice people.

The abstraction seems to work perfectly well to me.