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Thought experiment: if you lived in a world without mirrors (no reflective surfaces, no cameras for playback, no way to see your own face) would you be more self conscious of the way you appear? Or less self conscious of the way you appear? Would you eventually get to a point where you might be able to discover how attractive you were by comparing other people's reactions to you against those same people's reactions to other people?
We can look at some human properties as only having meaning when they are placed in relationship with human interaction. These could be called "social mirror" properties. They have no numerical measurement associated with them but are instead measured by comparison against another thing. Beauty is one such property and this is why the thought experiment eventually leads to this conclusion.
Power is another social mirror property. We might re-introduce the "Persian Emperor" thought experiment here, whereby a person is asked what they would do if they woke up one morning and everyone started agreeing with everything they said. As soon as one gets to the point of trying to "see how far they can take this" newfound ability they begin to see how cult leaders and totalitarian dictators might start with an idea for doing good in the world but are corrupted by their own power.