Let’s imagine you’re beamed forward to 2025 Gangnam South Korea… You materialize in a party room filled with twenty lovely happy humans smiling flirting laughing but… there’s… something.. .wrong… strange… weird…

Staring confusedly, then shuddering, you realize:

“everybody looks… exactly the same! aaagh!…. what is this? a clone chamber?… there’s two genders but otherwise… everyone’s identical… same wide eyes, full lips, sleek physiques, ivory teeth, arching eyebrows, elfish nose… freeeeaaky!”

Nervously you approach the bar to guzzle a fizzy beverage. People approach you, they’re friendly, you chat, you admire how everyone’s so “easy on the eyes.”

Slowly you notice subtle differences. His legs a little longer, her breasts a little larger, she has a mole, he has a goatee…

Relaxing, you drink more, you giggle, mix, backslap.

After an hour you need to piss so you head to the toilet, glancing in the mirror there you notice - YIKES! You’re ONE OF THEM!

You’ve lost your old familiar ugly face! You’re someone else! HEELP!

With trembling fingers you try to scrape away, scrub off the new face… sobbing, you fail…

but then… peeking in the mirror, a bizarre joy enters your brain…

“Damn! Soooo beauuuutiful! I’m looking at one of the best-looking humans EVER…!”

You stare intently. Wow! Your new head. Your whole body. You take off your shirt and gasp “what a lovely shape I am!”

You realize… you don’t want your flabby ass back. Your beady eyes bad hair blemished skin. You like the NEW YOU. You shout out loud:

“I’m sexy! I’m fantastic! With this new look I can do anything!”

Beaming with self-infatuation and confident pride you return to the party and make twenty new friends who all totally love you.

—-

Is the scenario above optimistically stupid? I don’t think so.

Do you think a future world of lookalike beauties would be alienating, depressing? I disagree.

You hate plastic surgery and despise people who do it?

Excuse me, I regard your opinion as very self-righteous, out-dated, intolerant, and regressive, and I don’t mean that in a nice way.

South Korea is currently the world leader in cosmetic surgery - 20% of the women between 19-49 in Seoul have gone “under the knife.”

Clinics for men are proliferating also, promising a strong-but-sensitive soap opera star sultriness.

Other nations are also slicing forward - Brazil leads in buttock operations and vaginal rejuvenations, and Greece has leaped ahead in penis enlargement.

Miss South Korea 2012, Kim Yu-Mi, was an ugly duckling in high school, but nip ‘n tuck excised her flaws. 2013’s contestants for the SK beauty queen title all looked incredibly similar. Many bloggers decry the trend in South Korea as “unnatural”, “addiction” “unnerving”, “Samsung Robots,” “plastic poisoning”, and “a clone parade.”

Cosmetic surgery opponents often say South Koreans are racing towards similarity because they want to look like Americans. Ha! The main trend of the Super-Size Nation is towards obesity, estimated to be 66% in several states by 2030.

Critics of cosmetic improvement mutter that “beauty is only on the inside” and other false maxims, but South Koreans and the rest of the planet recognize the politically-incorrect truth - physically attractive people aren’t just more likely to attract the opposite sex, they are also less likely to be ignored in a room, more likely to be hired, more likely to be paid more for a job, less likely to be fired, even less likely to be perceived as guilty when they’ve been charged with a crime.

(References: Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful; Survival of the Prettiest; and Do good-looking people have a better life?)

The Ugly Truth Is—Beauty is Better.

Why are many people bioethical prudes on the subject of cosmetic surgery? Are they religious, believing we cheat “God” if we tamper with His Work? No… If that was a majority POV, why are newborn American boys circumcised at birth? Additionally, we mend cleft palates at infancy and remove extra fingers and toes.

Enemies also relish the tales of plastic surgery gone awry, to assert their POV that techno-beautification just “doesn’t work.” These anti-plastic progress folks remind me of troglodytes 100 years ago that resisted the automobile, due to accidents and blown radiators…

What are the real reasons behind the gripes? Perhaps two are:

1) Some people think they’re maximum high class hotties already, and those that aren’t as lucky deserve to suffer, like untouchables,

2) If we view ourselves as homely, we don’t want to confess our insecurity to the public via a fixit operation.

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I suspect many people flutter in a self-deceptive fog, mumbling plaintively, “I Like My Face” even though they really do want multiple improvements, or a major overhaul…

South Koreans don’t have this hang-up. They are asking each other admiringly, “where’d you get your nose?” They’re thrilled that modern technology can liberate them from Darwinian beastliness, giving them the face and form they desire.

This transhumanist attitude is a progressive step forward. We select our clothes, hobbies, friends, and careers… we even demand the right to decide whether we Die, or not…. so…

Let’s assume total control of our exterior biological appearance!

Transsexuals enjoy cosmetic surgery, and we support them.

Biohackers enjoy magnets in their ears and RFID chips in their fingers - we thrill at these enhancements.

We prettify our nails, wax our pubes, shave our legs, freeze off unwanted moles…

Let’s manage the entire anatomy.

South Korea - I support your leadership in the cosmetic surgery field. I support anyone everyone who want to “upgrade” the aesthetics of their physical form. Girls with Neanderthal jaws. Boys with piggy eyes. Fat-cheeked matrons. Raisin-wrinkled CEOs. Go for it! Let everyone look exactly how they want. Maybe they want to be Barbie or Ken, or a movie star, or their mother, or a reptile, or an historical character.

Reader, you disagree?

In 10-20 years, you fret, we won’t be able to tell each other apart because we’ll all be identically gorgeous…

We will lose our personal identities, because they are based on… what? Fleshly imperfections? That’s your actual concern? Really?

If it is, don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be that way. You personally can do something about the situation. All by yourself. You - alone - can remain who you are - stubborn and cheap. You can be…

The Last Ugly Person on Earth.