[l33tbro]

I thought the data in sport stuff was interesting, but the rest of your arguments were fairly superficial and got lost in the weeds.

I guess my main gripe was that a lot of your thesis can be explained by trend. Women looking like Kardashian is simply no different than looking like Sophia Lauren in a bygone era. AirBnB's being sameish? Go back to the 70s and notice the uniformity of interior design with plywood, rockwalls, bright orange vinyl, etc. Brand mascots being smoother and slicker - again - just reifying the values of our era in the same way the original mascots reflected the masculine values of their day.

As for your broader argument about refinement (itself a clumsy descriptor for all this) - is this really anything new? Hasn't optimisation been the fundamental constant since humans started doing stuff?