# Would you trade intelligence for attractiveness? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 20, 2007, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771 "2007-12-20T23:51:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Pixilated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aeb1de/32.png) [@Pixilated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixilated)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/41 "2007-12-22T04:39:18Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] Intelligence is one of the prime requisites for my character class. Can I trade some wisdom or constitution instead? [/QUOTE] but - if you did - who… would… turn…those…nasty…undead..and… vaporize them? _trembles_ PS besides, someone has to be able to talk some sense into the townsfolk… many of them dont trust pervy spell-mumblers. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/42 "2007-12-22T06:51:55Z")
But if you weren’t intelligent, how would you be smart enough to not know it? If you started out attractive and dumb that is the way you stay. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/43 "2007-12-22T18:45:39Z")
I guess I’ll use the same answer I gave to the question, “Would you rather be smart, rich, or beautiful?” I chose smart, on the theory that if you’re smart enough, you can get rich, and with enough money, you can buy pretty! ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/44 "2007-12-22T22:46:02Z")
On the other hand, if you’re rich enough, it doesn’t matter if you’re not smart or pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/45 "2007-12-22T22:57:56Z")
I’ve always found it wise to trade my intelligence for pretty ladies. You work with what you have. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/46 "2007-12-23T00:52:06Z")
I’d definitely be both happier and far more effective in whatever I set out to do if I could trade some of my raw brainpower for more social confidence and a better understanding of my fellow man. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/47 "2007-12-23T19:56:35Z")
I’d rather have a good looking dumb woman than an ugly smart one. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/48 "2007-12-24T14:20:39Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] I’d rather have a good looking dumb woman than an ugly smart one. [/QUOTE] You are getting more attractive by the minute. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/49 "2007-12-24T14:46:59Z")
After graduation, the C students (“attractive”) get the clients then hire the A students (“intelligent”) to do the work. There’s a balance to be struck. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/50 "2007-12-24T14:55:07Z")
[QUOTE=Indygrrl] I’m glad I don’t have to pick. 😉 [/QUOTE] So, um, how are you doi… I mean, how are you toda… Um, how is the weather? Rats. I alway get flustered around pretty girls. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/51 "2007-12-24T15:57:41Z")
Never, not because intelligence helps me be successful–I agree it’s overrated there, and charisma matters more than people like to admit–but because being intelligent is so much fun. I love being smart, being able to appriciate subtlety and complexity in the world around me, being able to understand things. I love being able to read the dope and follow what people are saying. Giving that up would hurt a thousand times worse than being ugly hurts now. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/52 "2007-12-24T18:52:19Z")
[QUOTE=Manda JO] I love being smart, being able to appriciate subtlety and complexity in the world around me, being able to understand things. I love being able to read the dope and follow what people are saying. Giving that up would hurt a thousand times worse than being ugly hurts now. [/QUOTE] Understanding the subtlety & complexity of the world around me has been my mental/emotional undoing more than once. Mercifully, I’m now able to understand what I experience as being both black _and_ white, and therefore neither, and so am beginning to lose my ability to understand anything at all, which means I’m either becoming more stupider and won’t have to worry about a thing in the very near future, or I’ve become too smart and am realizing that in a universe devoid of blacks and whites is found Nirvana where everything has identical meaning to everything else and hence, none at all for nothing exists in and of itself. Probably I’m getting more stupider. But, in the process my hair is falling out, and I hear chicks dig bald guys, so I guess I’m getting attractiver. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/53 "2007-12-25T00:15:00Z")
> [@H.P. Lovecraft](#): > > The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. He makes a good case for looks. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/54 "2007-12-25T01:03:05Z")
Hell, I think I’d be happier dumber whether or not I was better looking. Make me dumb enough and I’ll _believe_ I’m attractive AND smart. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/55 "2007-12-25T02:26:13Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] No way, man. You don’t get stupider as you get older, but you sure do lose your looks and there ain’t a damned thing you can do about it. [/QUOTE] I’m pretty sure both happen. I’m also sure that not being able to do a damned thing about them isn’t so absolute - i.e. newer remedies for both are being developed every day. As for me, I can’t answer since I’ve never felt wanting for either, but put penis size on the table and they both can go. Not that I’m hurting much there, but I always wanted a trophy penis. ---
**Author:** ![BrknButterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/439d5e/32.png) [@BrknButterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrknButterfly)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/56 "2007-12-26T00:43:07Z")
I would give up intelligence for attractiveness for maybe a week. See what is like since the intelligent part isn’t really working for me. Hell I am not even sure I have the intelligent part, so I am not exactly sure what I would have to trade. :smack: Though yea, I would give up whatever to be today’s standard of pretty cuz it sucks being society’s standard of ugly… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/57 "2007-12-26T19:11:04Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] Understanding the subtlety & complexity of the world around me has been my mental/emotional undoing more than once. Mercifully, I’m now able to understand what I experience as being both black _and_ white, and therefore neither, and so am beginning to lose my ability to understand anything at all, which means I’m either becoming more stupider and won’t have to worry about a thing in the very near future, or I’ve become too smart and am realizing that in a universe devoid of blacks and whites is found Nirvana where everything has identical meaning to everything else and hence, none at all for nothing exists in and of itself. \ [/QUOTE] Yeah, me too. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/58 "2007-12-26T22:25:26Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] Yeah, me too. [/QUOTE] so…that’s a vote for me being a hottie, then? I would prefer it. What intellect I have hasn’t served me very well. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/59 "2007-12-26T23:52:04Z")
I would gladly trade YOUR intelligence to increase MY attractiveness. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771/60 "2007-12-27T14:27:33Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] so…that’s a vote for me being a hottie, then? I would prefer it. What intellect I have hasn’t served me very well. [/QUOTE] Nah, I was just being sardonic. But you might be a hottie; in fact, I’m pretty sure of it. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-trade-intelligence-for-attractiveness/430771.md?page=4)