One of my favorite exercises is to try and quantify the world around me, especially the world of popular culture. The most recent of these excursions led to the quantification of the “1 to 10” scale. For those unfamiliar, the “1 to 10” scale refers to how we rate the attraction of people on a scale of 1 to 10. But what exactly does that mean? We know people want a ten more than a 1, we know that it isn't necessarily a physical rating alone. So what does it mean?

First let's define what these numbers mean. I like to use flaws as a measurement, more accurately lack thereof. Someone who is truly a ten has no flaws, nothing about them that promotes a dislike in us. This doesn't necessarily just talk about being perfect either.

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, some people will seem more attractive to someone than others. This phenomenon occurs due to what I call bias.

Bias refers to our own individual taste. Some of us like certain kinds people. We enjoy certain traits and possession of these traits makes people seem more attractive to us. It adds points to a person's individual score. So someone who ranks as a 7 may seem like a 10 to me if they fit my personal biases.

So this scale has been quantified in a way that we can understand. But the question is why? Why try to define such a objective scale? Well the advantage comes from knowing how this works. We now know that complimentary biases are more valuable than an overall higher score.

Well what are you waiting for, go out there and find them.