I don't really get the impression that the Western monoculture was as dominant in pre-Fall Earth as it is today. China and India, in particular, seem to have been easily as dominant as the West. That, for me, introduces the possibility of competing beauty standard markets pre-Fall, to say nothing of those who rail against those things. I imagine that sunward and rimward you're likely to find a lot of diversity of beauty, just in really different directions in each case. Especially when you can customize yourself to such an insane degree, cosmetically speaking, and nanofab your own clothes of your own design, if you so wish (and that's not restricted on the inner fabbers like guns and so on, so that would probably apply both sunward and rimward). Just my 2 credits.

OneTrikPony wrote:

China and India have bought into the western monoculture. They are increasingly westernized in fashion and other surface cultural aspects. That's my point. Those cultures inform European design much less than than the other way round.

Even then, you still have competing beauty standards. Do you want a skinny model girlfriend, or a badonk-a-donk butt? Double-D breasts, or Delicious Flat Chest? Fair complexion? Mocha hotness? An ebony goddess? Are you into fitgirls, or do you like yours ladies to be more tender-bodied? Do you like a girl with tattoos? Do you find librarian glasses hot? Blond, brunette or redhead? Are you into freckles? Sure, there are some universal aspects to attractiveness. Body symmetry will likely be universal in 10 AF, as will perfect skin complexion. Teeth might be perfectly white. No more split ends. But many other aspects of attractiveness are fairly subjective. If attractiveness were truly standardized, every person on the planet would be a perfect visual clone of one another.

I guess I just strongly resist white-washing this setting since the books seem to resist white-washing the setting.

OneTrikPony wrote:

It doesn't say it in the core. Only, as you point out, that china and inda are ascendant. The adoption of the western monoculture is not a trend that's likely to reverse itself.

Uh, that trend is reversing itself all over. If you follow Nick Land's web presence, he's very up on how Shanghai is the first city of the 21st century and is to a large extent trying to buck Western artistic and cultural trends while developing their own parallels to modernist and postmodernist viewpoints in architectural design, art, etc. that hollow out Western content and influences and supplant with fusions of ancient and modern that diverge from both Chinese art as influenced by colonialism and so on. I mean, if you follow anything outside of North America and Europe, art-wise, you can see this is a common thread among capitalist and anti-capitalist cultural efforts around the world, from the working classes up to the cultural elites, Shanghai is just doing it best right now (and as many cultural critics Nick Land cites from both sides of the Pacific and both sides of the Atlantic are saying, they're doing it better even than Paris, New York, or other Western cultural centres). So it's far from inevitable even given the zeitgeist as it stands in 2013 (if I knew more Mandarin, I'd use an equivalent word from a non-Western language, but I'm a white guy in Canada, so zeitgeist it is). I think extrapolating from a Western socio-cultural upbringing to the rest of the world like it's relevant is at best ignorant and disingenuous.

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Yes, there are distinctions left today, yes there are bollywood theaters in Texas. But monoculture is important to marketing and capitalistic interests will push the monoculture even harder as democracy becomes a more obvious fallacy, less useful in shielding the massive economic interests of corporate states from the desires of the populous.

I don't think that's true. Again, a [b]different[/b] monoculture could emerge in China, and yet [b]another[/b] one in India, and each of these could try and purge the Western monoculture elements and show the West that they can play that game at just the same levels, if not bigger and better. So while I agree that pre-hypercapitalist megacorps on Earth would try and push monocultures for ease of consumption, I think it's a lack of imagination in the West, coupled with natural cognitive biases we all share about the environments that directly shape us, that leads Westerners to assume an inevitability of our cultural imperialism (especially given how unpopular Western imperialism/neo-imperialism is, even among very capitalist people outside the West).

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The history of human kind is memetic war. Christianity lost during the Renaissance. (Though it's still fighting a rear-guard action [HA! :D]) In WW2 memetic warfare was globalized like never before by america. Nations lost the war in the 70's but we're left with the grand and pitiful parting shots of the Regan administration; "Mr. Gorbachev pull down this wall!" and, "Say No to Drugs". We are now in the stage where the monoculture eats the distinct cultures of the world with the, again grand and pitiful, examples of Egyptian backlash against the muslem brotherhood and the Chinese middle-class driving hummers.

And I don't see the EP books stating that America won a world dominance memetic war, nor American corps. I see them painting a world where competition became more diverse, and that those diversities were themselves cause for increased conflict prior to the TITANs coming online. Corporate rivalries between corporations are de rigeur AF, but BF it seems that those divisions were so strong that many on Luna and in Earth orbit [b]still[/b] follow those divisions despite all being smashed to bits, and that's 10 years on in a world where 10 years means way more progress and forking and diversion that today. That speaks strongly to me of a fracturing of Western monoculture making room for other corporate hells of different flavours, though again that's just me extrapolating from global attitudes today and the lack of Western dominance mentioned in core.

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Will there still be differences in minor things like traditional dress at the time of the Fall? Maybe. But the fact is that there will be far fewer languages in which to publish Vogue and GQ 100 years from now. When morphology becomes a choice, which will happen far sooner than the timeline of EP proposes, Most people will choose to be like everyone else. It's just easier that way.

Uh, I know a lot of people of colour who would find this really offensive. The idea that they would want to be "like everyone else" where "everyone else" means "white Western beauty ideals." And I'm not just talking about lefty radical people of colour. PLENTY of business-minded African-Americans, for example, consider white Western standards to be laughable and awkward at best, and try to foster new ways of being, both surface and deeper, within the belly of the beast. And while it didn't work out so well in the 1960s and 70s with the black nationalist and black radical movements trying to promote "black is beautiful" images in media and culture and communities, the new capitalist revival of those images is doing very well, and I don't see any indication of a die-off in fashion. In fact, many of these trends have spread to Europe and if you follow any fashion blogs, you can see clearly how these trends are only increasing both in saturation and in diversity of source (i.e. not just African-American but African, not just Japanese/Chinese but South-East Asian, Korean and Vietnamese, not just Spanish-influenced Latin American styles but indigenous Latin American styles, and so on) as the years go by. While these things may fade, there is no reason to [i]assume[/i] that the BF world was [i]less[/i] diverse than the world of today, and the fashion industry is as capitalistic as they get.

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Water runs down hill.

Again, sort of a sketchy way to put this. Who is "down" the hill here, and what does "down" mean? Cultural revolutions happen with more frequency than political revolutions, and I just don't see any downward trends worldwide when it comes to aesthetics except European trends. Careful with the cultural imperialism we're all born and raised with in our media and advertising. It tends to lie, and tends to have a stronger hold in the West than anywhere else. Again, for the people of colour who play Eclipse Phase, I doubt they're seeing the setting as written as enforcing the idea of a hegemony of Americo-European dominance, and I wouldn't blame them: nothing as written suggests this. And neither does our contemporary world.

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Obviously there will be morphological cultural distinctions for attractiveness, but not as we think of them today, as races or types of body composition. The setting has already defined these as Rusters, Hazers, Lunarfliers, Europans etc. Regardless; your Sylph morph will be tall, thin, willowy because Luna and Titan drive the fashion industry and in AF10 that is the (sensible) vogue in low-G environments.

Now this I can grok, to some extent. Inner system standards taking model standards and pushing them, and everyone being able (if they can afford a sylph) to look just like those standards should they so choose...again, in my own campaign I think I'll probably have a diversity of standards of sylph in the inner system to represent (at [i]least[/i]) the 10 most common languages as if each language was tied to a deprogramming of Western monoculture 50 or more BF and was able to reshape their own idea of a monoculture and push it in a glossy, artificial, saturated hypercorporate way...but that's just me. I spend too much time on art, culture and fashion blogs, and [b]way[/b] too much time on sites critiquing media and advertising.

I take the lithe builds as fairly popular, especially in the inner system, but fashion and beauty get more diverse and odd farther out and in scum swarms. I can see some very unique, extreme mods, some suited uniquely to mico-gravity. One thing that is nearly universally stylish in most habs (except specific count-cultures): biomorphs. They are more "natural" not to mention being expensive luxury items.

Beauty will always be a combination of two things: first there's whatever the beholder is wired for being attracted to - some things like symmetry and health markers seem to be universal. Diseased morphs will most likely never be in. There are also other things like hip:waist ratios that seem to be very universal. The other part of beauty competitive is in nature. When everyone can easily be perfect according to the "natural attraction features" in EP, then that will only get them so far. Their partners won't find them unattractive at all, but to be considered beautiful in EP you need set yourself apart. It needs to be difficult. The most beautiful fabrics are invariably expensive, delicate, wears out easily and is difficult to keep clean. Arenamontanus has a take on a beautiful morph here: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Betta.pdf and he has the right idea imo. Beautiful morphs will be delicate, impractical and high maintenance. Big and delicate wings that easily break and require lots of space. Highly impractical and accentuated features like the bound feet of ancient China or those tribal neck rings. It takes dedication to live with such modifications. Difficult and expensive production has always been a hit too. Today, a handcrafted luxury car is a big thing. Maybe the biomorph equivalent of that is one that isn't vat grown but actually born and went through childhood while sleeved by athletes, dancers and singers to develop that fluidity of motion and richness of voice that you just can't get from a vat. Could there be morphs that were difficult to use but looked amazing when mastered? With a neural architecture like a fly-by-wire system, egos just flail about as they sleeve in it first - but nothing looks as impressive as the speed and grace someone who can use it can move with. A morph with an excessive amount of facial muscles under conscious control - it looks stupid if you can't control it, but once you've mastered it you can emote in the most amazing ways. And of course fashion trends and novelty will be big as always. I think those are the directions we should be looking. Being different is not enough - you have to be different in a way that is compatible with the basic laws of attraction and it has to be difficult in some way, like being impractical, expensive or requiring great effort to attain.

Fist: My supposition in response to the questoion of the OP is not my preference. I do not espouse the western monoculture nor do I prefer waifish women over another body type. Please do not address me as if I'm supporting a personal cause. This might really piss me off...

davethebrave wrote:

OneTrikPony wrote:

Will there still be differences in minor things like traditional dress at the time of the Fall? Maybe. But the fact is that there will be far fewer languages in which to publish Vogue and GQ 100 years from now. When morphology becomes a choice, which will happen far sooner than the timeline of EP proposes, Most people will choose to be like everyone else. It's just easier that way.

Uh, I know a lot of people of colour who would find this really offensive. The idea that they would want to be "like everyone else" where "everyone else" means "white Western beauty ideals." And I'm not just talking about lefty radical people of colour.

When you think of 'western monoculture' why do you think "White" ? Western cultural drivers haven't been bounded by race for 60 years as of the present day. Have you heard of these people; Louis Armstrong, Hendrix, Santana, Arsinio Hall, Dre, Tupak, Selena, Pitbull, also Titi Kwan and what about Betty Clemo??? I'm uncertain if you're attributing that sentiment to me. If I thought you were I would demand a retraction. How many, "lefty radical people of colour" do you claim as friends?

davethebrave wrote:

a different monoculture could emerge in China, and yet another one in India, and each of these could try and purge the Western monoculture elements and show the West that they can play that game at just the same levels, if not bigger and better.

The meme wars are not a zero-sum game. I can see that the western monoculture scares you, (and it should), but not because everyone in the world is going to eventually be a 'Merican'. As I stated, nations are already out of the game. The Nation of America is no longer the primary driver of cultural change over the globe, (hasn't been since the Beatles) neither will be the nations of China or India. The monoculture is globalized but that does not change the fact that it has it's roots in the west. Memes cannot be 'purged'. That's the nature of a 'meme' it's cultural genetics. You can't 'purge' western memes from eastern cultures anymore than you can 'purge' bilateral symmetry from mammals. No one can deny that to this point the flow of cultural ideas has largely traveled from west to east. To put it another way; the damage is already done. However I don't think that's how Nick Land would put it. I think he's simply surprised and pleased that china has proved that his 'cyber culture' does not entirely consume everything it contacts. Western memes are strong but that strength comes from their tendency to absorb and incorporate rather than crush and obliterate. Point: Marco Polo proved this 800 years ago. If the western monoculture were antithetical to all else the cold war would have ended in a much more violent manner. Dave, you seem to have educated yourself on this subject, having spent a lot of time on fashion blogs and read Nick Land's CCRU stuff. You've posted your arguments against my supposition so now I think it's time for you to post your own. As the OP asked; What will be the beauty standard of 10 AF and why do you think so?

Lorsa wrote:

First I was contemplating not responding to you at all OneTrikPony, because you stated your opinion as if it was fact within the Eclipse Phase universe, something you can only do if you are in charge of the setting. Are you in fact in charge of the setting? I don't respond very well to that sort of discussion technique.

I think this is the second time you have obliquely accused me of claiming some ownership of the game. I really don't know where that's coming from. I state my opinion, I base it on facts that I am aware of as I understand them. What else am I supposed to do? I don't know what about me or the tone of my typing rubs you wrong, Lorsa, but I think it's fair for me to demand that next time you make that accusation you include the specifics of the reason you take offense. Are you just angry with me because I disagree with your premise? Do you only post for people who agree with you? The fundamental basis of beauty ideals is not their difficulty to achieve. The fundamental basis for beauty ideals is biological fitness [i]in relation to environment[/i]. Take that and tack on cultural memes that have occasionally required things like chinese foot binding, and artificial cranial deformation and there you have fashion. In EP fashion is informed by a low-G environment being tall is socially beneficial and it no longer requires any labor or attention to be skinny. You ask what the standard will be then posit that there will be no standard, then become frustrated with me because I point to current [u]trends[/u] and the writers words to disagree with you. If you want me to stay out of your threads just ask. That would hurt my feelings less than being accused of taking credit for the game.

When someone reads something that is obviously speculative but doesn't have "I think" in every sentence and then interprets that as the writer being 100% convinced of it, I assume that the reader is either a) socially inept and unable to read between the lines b) from academia and so ingrained with that particular language that they're not willing to accept that people outside of it don't communicate with such rigorous standards c) more interested in nitpicking about "oh noes force language bad" instead of actually arguing the issue. I mean, when you're saying that no matter the message you'd never vote for someone who used force language, there's something really fishy going on. That is indeed some weird priorities, if the language of policy makers matter more than actual policy. Bottom line: real men use force language and smart people don't take it literally.

I never knew that 'force language' existed. I'm still not sure that it does, it seems kind of like a PC term and I've never heard the term in any reference to debate technique. Now that it's been explained to me, the concept of 'force language' is 'bad' makes me feel... revulsion, and sad, I guess. For me, when people do not use what I think I understand to be 'force language' they seem disingenuous. It makes me itch between my shoulder blades. I can't trust false circumspection. I don't get along well with people who are not plain spoken. I'm sorry Lorsa, I think we just have one of those incompatible cultural differences. It's nothing personal and I'm not here to bother you. I'll check the ID of the OP before I jump in. Thanks for clearing things up.

Lorsa wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:

When someone reads something that is obviously speculative but doesn't have "I think" in every sentence and then interprets that as the writer being 100% convinced of it, I assume that the reader is either a) socially inept and unable to read between the lines b) from academia and so ingrained with that particular language that they're not willing to accept that people outside of it don't communicate with such rigorous standards c) more interested in nitpicking about "oh noes force language bad" instead of actually arguing the issue. I mean, when you're saying that no matter the message you'd never vote for someone who used force language, there's something really fishy going on. That is indeed some weird priorities, if the language of policy makers matter more than actual policy. Bottom line: real men use force language and smart people don't take it literally.

I've been contemplating what to say to this all day, going back and forth between various options. After some thought I decided to skip completely misreading your post and claiming I was reading between the lines as well as starting to write my posts as though they were objective truth. To be fair I am not sure my definition of force language is correct or applicable. I got carried away and wanted to put a good word to something I can easier describe in swedish (I think). Nevertheless I find your position rather curious. Let's start with politicians. I think the personality and character of the people that should rule my country to be very important. If that wasn't so then we'd simply vote for ideas or computer programs and not people. You choose to vote for people that you trust. A person who states opinion as fact appears to me as a person who only cares for his (or hers) own opinion, that would never listen to anyone else or change his (or hers) mind. That people should listen to him/her [i]because this is simply how it is.[/i] That is not the kind of person I want to rule my country. I want someone that can listen to others and accept that he (or she) may occassionly be wrong. Stating opinion as fact seems to me as bullying and I don't like bullies, especially not as country-rulers.

Ok, you're one of the "votes for the guy they'd most like to have a beer with" types. You should look into rhetoric, social engineering, sales techniques and such to see how easy that feeling of trust and rapport is to fake for charismatic people, and how inaccurate it is. Btw, that's a good example of what an assertion of fact looks like.

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In response to your list I do believe I continued the discussion with some thoughts of my own, presenting things that I saw in the world that could change our beauty ideals in time for the Eclipse Phase setting. I am still not convinced I am right and there is a lot of merit to what's been said by people (including OneTrikPony) arguing for a specific ideal. So that leaves you with assuming that I am either from academia or socially inept. While I most deifnitely prefer to read on the lines than between them as there is where the actual text is located the problem with reading between the lines is that two people can read two very different things. As we obviously did. I have found in my life that assuming people will "read between the lines" and "understand what you mean" is futile and the road to communication problems. Better to say what you mean how you mean it. Especially with text and even more especially across cultural borders. I am not sure what you mean with being from academia but I have spent a fair amount of years at the university (and will be for a long time if I get my wishes through). What I don't understand is what academia language you are referreing to? The way I write my physics thesis is definitely not applicable to an internet forum.

I mean that in academia you learn to write and speak with very accurate and constant indications of your confidence level. Outside of academia, people rarely do that, and they take that sort of language as either contrived or as a sign that the speaker is very uncertain of what he's saying.

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So, if something is obviously speculative, why would you accept a person trying to make it something else? Besides, how do you KNOW the person believes it is specualtive when nothing in what is being said indicates such? That's not reading between the lines, that is taking your own assumptions about a topic and disregarding what is being said because you see it through a filter of your own assumptions. Reading between the lines is, to my knowledge, reading things that aren't written. In this case a person's views ARE written.

If you read speculation or opinion as statements of fact just because it isn't labelled as speculation or opinion, then yes, you do need to read between the lines instead of taking things literally.

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Besides, it is so easy to express yourself the way you want to, so why should I assume someone is not? Let's have a few examples to illustrate: When talking about opinions about the future 100 years from now there are a few ways to write things: "In 100 years the world will be ruled by multinational banks and 70% of the people will be indentured slaves." - this is the way you write a statement of fact. "In 100 years I think the world will be ruled by multinational banks and I believe 70% of the people will be indentured slaves." - this is the way you write an opinion.

Honestly, they read the same to me.

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Let's have another example: "I think you are stupid." - an opinion. "You are stupid." - a statement of fact and for most people also considered an insult.

I hope you're joking...

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I really don't see how the way you say something is NOT important. Cummincation is the first and last thing all relationship therapists tell you to work on. There are books written about this subject, all to help people communicate and get along better. Internet pages are devoted to this subject. To me it is clearly important. Let me write an a-to-c list of my own. When someone writes something about a topic that is obviously speculative but doesn't have "I think" or "I believe" or "In my opinion" (or similar) in the first (and most) sentences and instead writes "It is", I assume the writer is either a) socially inept and unable to communicate properly b) poorly educated and unable to accept that communication is important and as such not educate him/her-self c) more interesting in forcing their opinion on people instead of arguing the issue.

In the case of OneTrikPony, you're certainly wrong. He's a curious guy, knows about many things, and is humble enough to discuss the merits of his beliefs and listen when others have good points or knows more.

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Bottom line: ... oh yes, let's discuss the bottom line. It is interesting that you started your post clearly stating that this was your opinion, which then helps make sure this bottom line also be read as being an opinion. Nevertheless your bottom line has an implicit threat in it. If you don't accept people stating opinion as fact you are stupid. You don't want to be stupid, do you? No, so accept it. It implies that you do not want me to accept your opinion on its own merit but because I don't want to be seen as stupid. That is a very poor discussion technique. BUT, I assume your bottom line wasn't completely serious and that you don't truly believe that in order to be a real man you have to use force language and if you take people for what they say you are stupid. I could be wrong, but that's what reading between the lines says me.

You are quite correct :) I thought it was hilarious

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Bottom line: smart people think of how they come across when they communicate and real men treat people around them with respect.

Nah, you shouldn't universally treat people with respect. Start out with respect, and if they live up to it, continue with respect, and if they don't, give them a chance now and then to earn respect. What a game theorist would call GENEROUS TIT FOR TAT (they like to write strategy names in caps).

Lorsa wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:

Btw, that's a good example of what an assertion of fact looks like. I mean that in academia you learn to write and speak with very accurate and constant indications of your confidence level. Outside of academia, people rarely do that, and they take that sort of language as either contrived or as a sign that the speaker is very uncertain of what he's saying.

That's kind of weird. Why would it seems as if the speaker is uncertain? Besides, academia adopted that language for a reason, and that same reason can easily be applied to people outside of it. I don't see how "people rarely do" means that they are right and academia is wrong. If anything, shouldn't we look towards those with higher education to inspire us to further greatness?

People associate assertiveness with truth. That's just how people are wired. It takes training to interpret statements like they do in academia. Nervous people are for example believed to be wrong or even liars far more often than charismatic people. And you're gonna have a bad time if you look to people with higher education to inspire you to further greatness outside of their specific branch of academia. Education is training in narrow field with limited real world application, both because of its limited scope and because of faulty assumptions. The map is rarely the territory. I see many people with fancy educations who don't understand that 80% of business is hustling - it's about building rapport, reading people, manipulating, exploiting information assymetry, giving false information, pulling cons, and whatnot. And how so many can educate themselves and not study cognitive biases and probability theory is beyond. So they get gutted by coworkers, bosses, competitors, suppliers, customers and chance instead of the other way around. As a wise man said "science is about understanding the world. Business is about making other people misunderstand it."

Lorsa wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:

If you read speculation or opinion as statements of fact just because it isn't labelled as speculation or opinion, then yes, you do need to read between the lines instead of taking things literally.

But how would I KNOW that the writer doesn't see it as fact? The problem with reading between the lines is that people can see all sorts of different things there. I can impossible know what the writer wants me to see and I've heard accounts of people who've been offended when people have read things "between the lines" that wasn't there. The only way reading between the lines work is if two people know eachother very well. I claim that communication through a text based medium is best made when the writer assumes that the things said will be taken literal. For God's sake, just look at how many issues the need for reading between the lines in the Bible have caused! If it had been written like a scientific thesis it would have solved so much! More literal reading! (and yes I've stopped being literal because you've proven to be able to read between my lines) ;)

And if only everyone would cooperate in non-iterated Prisoner's Dillema, everyone would be better off. But everyone but schmucks defect. I get your point, but it is wishful thinking which gets you nowhere.

Lorsa wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:

Honestly, they read the same to me.

Really? So what do you do to differ between facts and opinion?

I don't really see how you can meaningfully confuse the two. With the caveat that of course I don't trust statements of factt - so many people remember things wrong or misunderstand them or simply lie that you can't do anything but try to estimate the probability of it actually being true.

Lorsa wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:

Nah, you shouldn't universally treat people with respect. Start out with respect, and if they live up to it, continue with respect, and if they don't, give them a chance now and then to earn respect. What a game theorist would call GENEROUS TIT FOR TAT (they like to write strategy names in caps).

Tsk tsk, you should always be better than the people around you, so even if they don't earn your respect you should give it because that makes you a better person than them. I like to be the better person. Also, I have great balance so I can stand on a high horse without falling.

That's like, your opinion ;) Btw, nice to talk to someone who actually does the whole discussion thing like it is supposed to be done :)

Dude, that is the most mature and reasonable response to a critique I have heard/read in a very long time. The fact that you are willing to own up to micommunication, consider how others view you, and make adjustments.. Just wow. If every argument was between people as mature as this, the world would be a better place. Just, thank you for being willing to listen and adapt, with an eye to making discussion of ideas better for everyone. +10 rep in the network of your choice.

And to answer your earlier question, OTP: I think in 10 BF (nevermind 10 AF), the immense explosion of neurodiversity from psychosurgery and morph experimentation and so on will probably lead to very localized standards of attractiveness, literally hab to hab (and as scum swarms show, where the diversity is greatest, it's hard to even pin down a single average for one type of morph, much less for morphological beauty standards in general). I really do think that your points are probably pretty spot on as far as the inner system goes, but I bet even there regional variations would mean a lot. Consider what it says in the core book about how connected people become to their hab's local networks (or in the case of Mars, Luna, etc. the mesh network of their planet). I would envision that driving a lot of things, from styles of interior decorating to fashion trends to what kinds of body images are found most applicable to scult onto a sylph biomorph. It also provides a lot of local flavour to distinguish different habs within the same region from each other as your players investigate between them if everywhere they go there are slightly different overarching themes (such as habs where an overabundance of dverger morphs might skew their sylphs a bit shorter and stockier than a neighbouring hab, or Consortium Martian body image ideals skewed towards Chinese cultural forces vs. Lunar expats from India in control of advertising hypercorp interests in the LLA vs. a Venusian fashion house of largely Eastern European and Russian background vis a vis pre-Fall Earth...and that's just the inner system!). Obviously these are all just ideas, and all just off the top of my head here, but does that give you a rough sketch of what I'm talking about? Memetics is something to get a PhD in if you want to make money with the spin-doctors, culture-shapers and other assorted Bernaysian hyperpropagandists of the post-Fall period, and I feel like the degree/scale which these meme wars can achieve in Eclipse Phase are almost out of touch with our slowed down early 21st century conception of meme transmission, conflict and dominance/defeat. I would think it equally realistic to say that the rates have slowed down because of the Fall to more grokkable levels (for now, with an inevitable ramp-up to pre-Fall levels and beyond on the horizon) as it would be to say that in a desperate attempt to "Keep Calm and Carry On" (to quote what would be an ancient meme AF) they actually have accelerated the mesh-centric memewars to a degree that has even the bodies of an individual metacelebrity fluctuating wildly month to month as body standards change in scaled up versions of social justice/anti-SJ tumblr wars of today, but taking places exclusively in fashion industry mesh chat simulspaces.

There's a limit on how fast body image can change, even in a fast-paced memetic war. It's as fast as the primary consumer market can replace their morph. The determining factor there is speed at which new morphs can be grown, time it takes to save up for a new morph, and potential waiting periods as other's who need a new morph are ahead of you in line. Even the most hyperconnected Glitterati has to wait 3 years for their custom designed biomorph to mature in an exowomb. Beauty ideals cannot change significantly over a smaller time-frame than years for that alone.