Would you rather be ugly or stupid?

[Perfection]

I'd rather be ugly because smart people can get good jobs and therefore afford face lifts to become pretty.

Stupid people are forever damned to be stupid.

 

[Hitro]

We can always improve our intelligence afterwards

That's nonsense. You can improve your knowledge but you can't improve your intelligence. Intelligence is a natural talent, now maybe it is impacted by how you are treated in the early years of your life or not, but you surely can't just "become" more intelligent through "practice".

And for the sake of the question let's assume you'd be so ugly that you couldn't completely change it even with modern surgery and the like.

Then still the answer has to be ugly for me, for one simple reason. Being as intelligent as I am, no matter how much that is, is an integral part of my character, of what "I" am in the end. While my looks are certainly not of no importance they are just an external factor (like your overall life situation, approval or disapproval from your peers, etc.), but intelligence is an integral root of your character.

As anyone who's ever been completely trashed on alcohol or, may your diety of choice forbid, on some other chemical substance that changes your mind, will probably agree this "changing your mind" means just that. It makes you a different person, albeit (usually) temporarily, by changing (reducing) the abilities of your mind.

And while that can be fun for a night it is still so that you aren't completely "yourself" then. And I think noone who respects himself could wish for that to become a permanent status. Because factually "he" would no longer exist then.

 

[CurtSibling]

Intelligence lasts longer than youthful good looks.

 

[Yom]

Intelligence can be improved. Generally, the more knowledge you have, the more easily you are able to comprehend things, so you can't say that knowledge is irrelevant when considering intelligence. Though intelligence is indeed inherited, you can change the way you think and increase your intelligence, whereas you're stuck with bad looks. I'd choose natural ugliness over plastic-surgery-induced beauty anyday. Marla's convinced me though, you can always work on improving your intelligence, just like you can become stupid if you don't exercise your mind.

 

[Milan's Warrior]

I'd choose to be beautiful.
I tried the "being smart" thingy already and I found intellingence to be perfectly useless.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

I would rather have the gossips say I should wear a bag over my head. The reputation of dumber than a box of rocks sticks a lot longer.

 

[CenturionV]

Intelligence over good looks anyday, thankfully I got a hefty helping of both

 

[Dann]

@Marla_Singer
So you knew that fable about the toad too? It's used nowadays to describe a person who lives within a small circle, blissfully ignorant of the larger world outside.

I would rather have the gossips say I should wear a bag over my head. The reputation of dumber than a box of rocks sticks a lot longer.

Ah, but if one is indeed dumber than a box of rocks, he wouldn't care a fig about his "reputation".

Intelligence over good looks anyday, thankfully I got a hefty helping of both

Not modest at all, eh?

 

[CenturionV]

Not modest at all, eh?

No way, I am the KING! of modesty.

 

[CurtSibling]

Intelligence over good looks anyday, thankfully I got a hefty helping of both

By Klingon standards, of course!

 

[Norlamand]

there isn't an option for both?

 

[yoshi74]

Stupid, and good looking. So i could have fun with the hot stupid girls .

When i would be stupid, i wouldn't really notice and quite surely live a happy life.
But ugly...

Fortunatly i don't have to choose.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

I've tried ugly. It sucks being alone. Stupid pretty people may not have any real friends, but they're never alone.

Trade my brains for looks? O hell yeah.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

@Marla
Picture #2 + contact lenses + new hairdue + lip job + boob job + fashion consultant == Picture #1

 

[citizen001]

If you're ugly, then you will get teased at school, find life hard at university, extremely hard to get certain jobs, and almost impossible to get married.


I'd rather be ugly.

 

[The Person]

The best thing would be both, but that's not an alternative. Either way, if you start in one end, you could become both (if you believe what has been posted until now).

 

[stratego]

Remember people. Just because you chose ugly doesn't mean you'll be smart. And just because you chose stupid doesn't mean you'll be good looking.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Intelligence lasts longer than youthful good looks.

Again, the solution to that is to die young.

If you're ugly, then you will get teased at school, find life hard at university, extremely hard to get certain jobs, and almost impossible to get married.

In my more cynic moments, I'd say being intelligent has much the same effect.

 

[Dann]

In my more cynic moments, I'd say being intelligent has much the same effect.

In US high schools perhaps. Here the overachievers lord it over the rest, and they get chosen too for membership in some Party youth arm.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I wouldn't know about the US.

When I'm being realistic, I recognize that, where I come from, intelligence has little to do with any of those, except that some jobs are essentially unavailable to the stupid.

It's just that I'm, in the opinion of just about anyone I know offline, highly intelligent, and was teased (well, "mobbed" is a more accurate term) at school, and am having little luck with the opposite sex.