So Boingboing points to this Washington Post article that states, according to Georgia State University and University of Colorado research, if you’re ugly you’re gonna commit crime and if you’re cute and have a date to the prom you’re going to earn more money and not break the law (my paraphrasing).
Bullshit.
Never mind any possible snarky comments from the peanut gallery. We just keep conditioning people to accept that upper echelon “white-collar” crime is not crime and such people couldn’t possibly be criminals.
And as far as looking back on my high school days (the research focuses on teens going into early adulthood), as I remember it, the so-called cute frat-destined guys tended to have little social conscience and no qualms about breaking the law, especially knowing wealthy privilege was going to keep them out of trouble. And the so-called cute sorority-destined girls tended to go along with their boyfriends (at least in the 70s, the boyfriends seemed to be the decision makers) and were socially-privileged bitches. Not all of them, but most.
Plus, as I remember it, the idea that a person was “Most Attractive Yearbook Guy or Gal” tended, once again, to be decided by social and class privilege.
I don’t go around going, “Oh, cute!” and “Oh, not cute!” On my good days I think most every one is attractive in their own way–and I don’t mean that I look at someone and go, “Well, their earlobes are attractive, aren’t they?” And on my bad days I think the whole human race is loathsome and grotesque. That said, I remember plenty of males and females who were not cute or pretty or handsome by the standards of the day and they made great grades and were certainly, if they had the money, going on to university and getting degrees.
The study says that the cute have better social skills. What? They know how to ass-wipe better those who they feel it may benefit them to ass wipe?
Who was determining “Hollywood” and “not Hollywood material” for these studies anyway?
Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University did the research.
Naci also has done studies that support the death penalty.
2003) University of Colorado (Denver) Economics Department Chairman Naci Mocan and Graduate Assistant R. Kaj Gottings found “a statistically significant relationship between executions, pardons and homicide. Specifically each additional execution reduces homicides by 5 to 6, and three additional pardons (commutations) generate 1 to 1.5 additional murders.” Their “data set contains detailed information on the entire 6,143 death sentences between 1977 and 1997. (2)
Source: http://www.dpinfo.com/death_penalty_as_a_deterrent.htm
Mocan and Gottings wrote:
“According to the standard economic model of crime, a rational offender would respond to perceived costs and benefits of committing crime.” “Capital punishment is particularly significant in this context, because it represents a very high cost for committing murder (loss of life). Thus, the presence of capital punishment in a state, or the frequency with which it is used, should unequivocally deter homicide.” Furthermore, “an increase in pardons (commutations) implies a decrease in the probability of execution, which economic theory predicts should have a positive (increase) impact on murder rates.” (4
Fuck Naci Mocan and Naci Mocan’s research supporting the death penalty.
And while we’re on the subject of what our society considers to be murder and what it doesn’t consider to be murder. Again, below, see upper echelon, white-collar guys that convince people to go out and do their killing for them.
As for Erdal. Erdal thinks childcare subsidies help young, impoverished mothers. At least Erdal got that one right.
By the way, I was not popular in high school. So if anyone from my high school happens by and says, “Sour grapes, she was not popular!” I am here first saying I wasn’t popular. And I had no use for popular. I was one of those artistic types who just wanted out of the grueling bizarro world of high school as soon as possible.
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