Once again Ted Chiang strikes just the right cords in this masterfully crafted short story based on the central theme of aesthetics of beauty perceived either as a blessing or a curse. Narrated in form of a documentary, the story comprises of various interviews and speech extracts from people in favour of or against calliagnosia. So what is calliagnosia? In a distant future, neural technology allows humans to remove judgements based on appearances. This particular brain modification enables people to not be swayed by facades posed by advertisers and cosmetic producers which in turn aims to create a more equal and unbiased society.
