why does this place turn so cruel and kick their fellow men when they're down? if this was an issue that affected the other gender, the tone here would be a lot different.
Women who hate men, and therefore have limited/no positive romantic experiences with men, also receive a lot of hatred all over the internet (I'm not sure why you think they don't, but it is exceedingly common). And so misandry begets further misandry, just as misogyny begets further misogyny.
Unfortunately, there really is no good solution for it: People are not obligated to like people who hate them or who hate people they care about. And people who are not liked experience depression and loneliness, which anger and hatred are common symptom of. It's a serious Catch 22.
> The subculture is often characterized by [...].
Someone have to break the hostility cycle at some point.
The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves.
The HN crowd dislikes that, because this is the worst pitfall somewhat intelligent people can fall in: misleading yourself with clever theories because it feels better than admiting fault. And we all know that pitfall and hate it when we eventually realize we did this to ourselves. The typical behaviour connected to incels is the embodiment of this fault. Being self-critical is hard, but it also benefits you in the long run.
And on the gender disparity: women tend to do this less (or at least without the public-facing self-pity) and most importantly don't tend to not kill people because of it.
Don't get me wrong, I wish every Incel the best. But at least to me this is a case of "I can't help you before you get serious about helping yourself" and that involves searching for your own faults, being self-critical and self-aware. The problem isn't that incels are not shown the door, the problem is they won't walk through it — and they can only walk through it themselves.
That's very charitable. I find this a community of people that think very highly of themselves, and that outside of very narrow technical topics, is prone to speak with a lot of false authority of things they understand very little about.
"Those other people do it wrong. But not us, we do it right".
Now you could probably draw many connections between religous and/or poltical movements and the people they are attacking using that thought — but the details are left as an exercise to the reader.
According to the paper, incels (like non-incel single men) mostly blame internal factors (i.e. their own deficiencies) for their lack of dating success.
I think it is a spectrum.
If one only searches for mistakes one has made or is making based on external feedback, it basically means, that one lets others (society, social group of people around the person) decide how one is going to live and behave. Some people just stick to their principles and when these go against what others expect, it does not necessarily mean, that they made a mistake. It just means, that they don't match with those other people. There does not necessarily have to be something wrong. Such principles can also self-exclude people from other groups of people.
For example: lets say one person is a non-smoker. They won't be around smokers much.
Or another one: Don't like dancing? Well, that person will likely not be with a partner, who is into dancing.
Many preferences and principles (or the lack of those) make a person and steer a person to have or not have contact with other groups of people. It can happen, that there are very few persons of other sex around them.
So I guess a balance of listening to external feedback and ones own convictions is probably key to be well liked by fellow human beings and yet not become externally controlled.
In fact I don't think I've ever seen that happen in real life.
It happens on the internet because it's easier for losers to pretend to be virtuous, better, and so on. Which might lead to that perception.
No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. Do you think that's actually helpful and "the greatest gift" you can give to a fellow man?
Honestly, what a delusional and out of touch response. I pity you if that's what your childhood role models taught you.
This isn't pointing out an error in thinking, this is stating a fact. A fat person most likely already knows that they're fat, so doing this again is redundant; a statement like "you're fat" is also usually emotionally loaded, turning this into a weapon of verbal aggression.
Are you sure that I am the one being delusional here?
Anyway, that was my mindset a decade ago and since then didn't have had any issues. Recently was on the dating market again and the first month I spent 80 hours into going up and talking to women and only got one date. ONE DATE! :')
I was rusty for sure.
Fast forward 2 months and I'm on Tinder, 5 matches per month.
Fast forward another 3 months, and now I'm having 150 matches per month (by thinking like a hacker, ever reverse engineered a binary or played hackthebox? Good! Use that mindset, reverse anything you can get your hands on, make Tinder a white box app - also, stay legal).
Fast forward another 2 months and I was having sex with a different woman once per week. I realized I didn't like it, I'm too much of a romantic. At one date, I met an amazingly cool and beautiful person and we really liked each other and we've been together for about a year now.
It's all skill training. And this was my second skill training loop (first time between 16 and 20). It still took 8 months and in the first months I was still laughably bad again (80 hours just to get one date, omg :') It cracked me up then and it cracks me up now).
It's funny how people think this is attached to your personality and stuff, it really isn't. The skill in dating is going up to people and being able to present yourself well. I was horrible at both. It takes a while to fix (and to refix after 5 years of a long-term relationship) when you're like me.
I think so.
I do feel very strongly about this. I feel a lot of pain from when I was young. I also feel a lot of love from after I was young and fixed this part in my life.
I can't help but embody both feelings. I normally don't mention it unless this topic is specifically addressed. In general, I feel quite calm. But yea, I can get quite intense.
Please don't do that, you're making women hate us because all they see is that they must constantly turn down people like you. You're behavior is part of the problem. Make some trusted friends of the opposite gender and seek dates within their peer group instead. (Well, "dating" is an anti-pattern anyway. Rather you should seek some clear-cut romantic interest from them as part of just hanging out, then asking them for a "date" is just a formality.)
I think the only thing one can say is that people need a strong yearning to figure it out if they have big issues with it. The second thing people need is a course in ethics + science. One needs to be able to evaluate the ethics proposed by whatever advice it is and think it through. And one needs to be able to verify/disprove claims in one way or another.
I also approach men, I approach dogs, I approach the world. When people don't like it, I back off. When people like it, I explore the interaction with them.
In terms of dating: many women that reject me tell me that they like my approach. I ask for feedback in many cases. I am respectful too. I hold my distance because I respect people. People say that nice guys finish last. I guess they've never thought about nice guys that have a wild side to them and are more hardcore than most bad boys will ever be. There are ways to be incredibly nice and respectful and still have that edge to you. That edge shines through. I don't even tease women as part of my attraction strategy :')
On being nice:
I think teasing/banter is a bit dysfunctional in many cases and not nice. I know I'm a bit extreme in this and many people think it's okay. I am a bit allergic to it. I'd rather just be playful. Instead of being "dominant" I'd rather be enthusiastic and curious. Instead of being "higher status" I'd rather just be immersed and enthralled by the magic of life and show people that magic that I experience as I want to experience theirs. Experiencing life feels artsy, I like people who enjoy that and that's enough for attraction. Having zest for life means having zest for adventure. It means to have zest for the unknown that people are scared of. Suddenly some women realize that I have much more courage than most people (true or not, that is how it comes across) and are attracted to it.
That's how you can be nice to everyone yet still get the attractive traits of a "bad boy". Be adventurous, be passionate, be imaginative and be playful. The only part I had to cultivate here was the adventurous part. I was already curious but scared. Curiosity + courage = adventure!
Also, my dating strategy has been working for the past 10+ years. Here's a timeline.
16 - 21: getting the skill.
21 - 22: relationship 1
2 month period of approaching women
22 - 27: relationship 2
2 month period of approaching women
27 - 33: relationship 3
8 month period of approaching women & Tinder (I got really rusty)
Now I'm on relationship 4.
Also, the relationships get better and better. One can never be sure, but I believe this relationship is for life.
So all in all, I've been out there for a period of 12 months between relationships and in the past for 5 years as a teenager.
No woman has ever been hitting on me, so when I'm in a relationship, there's nothing going on with other women ever - not even flirting. I like it that way.
People have long forgotten me by now.
It doesn't work that way because that always requires two consenting adults. That entitlement is indicative of there being a severe misunderstanding of that.
But it turns out that is not even their main issue. They feel disadvantaged and victimized in every way possible and it all turned into misogyny. But "women" are just the scapegoat, not the actual root of the issues they are having.
At the same time, women have to deal with certain problems and face some adversity that is quite unimaginable to men. Almost all women I have discussed this with have had at least one encounter where a man in their workplace tried to make "advances" unrelated to work, often even by abusing a position of power. If so many men cannot comprehend that this is unprofessional behavior and not the right time and place that is something that should probably be addressed first.
To some guys, maybe it means something different, but most people think of incel as... Yeah.
That community sucks people in and ruins lives.
* Main forum IIRC run by the same people that do a forum for help committing suicide.
* This site has the initials SS, which doesn't seem accidental. Attempting to convince someone not to do it is against the rules there.
* Women are called holes, toilets, roasties(meaning one who's vagina looks like roast beef), fesikhs (apparently a fermented fish product), and a lot of race specific ones.
* Elliot Rodger, a mass murderer, is often respected. To "Go ER" means to do similar abhorrent crimes.
* Religion, especially Judaism, is not well liked, however, hyper authoritarian extremist factions of some faiths often get some respect.
* Hitler is sometimes a crowd favorite.
* An activity known as rotting is a popular activity. It's what it sounds like. Just sitting and doing nothing. It's a miserable place.
* They actively try to spread their worldview, known as the blackpill, which causes such misery.
* Occasionally, you'll see people actively enjoying various means of making normies, especially women, uncomfortable. Including with poor hygiene.
* There is close to zero interesting content.
Some of the problems they face that got them into this are real, but I think there's got to be better things to do that join those nasty forums.
It makes people feel really good about themselves to step over members of the "other" group. We will never overcome our natural tendency to tribalism.
You don't get a free pass or a nudge and a wink on your misogyny just because you're the same gender as me.
Yes, it's horrible to hate women, but this isn't some random things people decided to just one day do. There's a history behind it.
Note well: I am not denying that "there's a history behind it". I am not denying that they were dealt a bad hand. What I am saying is that your post goes too far the other way. It denies incels their agency. They are still responsible what they choose to do with the hand they were dealt.
One can sympathize with them for the bad hand they were dealt, and still not give them a free pass for misogyny.
One can sympathize with them for the bad hand they were dealt, and still not give them a free pass for misogyny.
I am not giving them a free pass for misogyny.
To give an example: capital punishment.
In practice this is an interesting problem to tackle though. One can completely denounce and shame people for their actions or ideologies, while at the same time showing some sympathy/empathy in wanting to address the root causes of why those people are like they are.
Women who choose to not have sex with men who choose to hate them are doing humanity a service.
NBA teams are NOT denying starter positions to paraplegics "because the paraplegics choose to hate basketball".
I was lucky when I was young and spent time with basically 'hippies anarchists' who completely destroyed my false ideas about women, sex, and my own worth. I could have ended as an incel too.
> the word "incel" is short for involuntary celibate
....
It's possible to choose to not hate women, you know. Nobody forced you to, and you don't have to get somebody else's consent to not be a misogynist. And as you know, the term "incel" does not just exist in a vacuum and literally mean the combination of the words "involuntary" and "celibate", it refers to a particular well defined subculture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel
>The subculture is often characterized by deep resentment, hatred, hostility, sexual objectification, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and the sexually successful for their situation (which is often seen as predetermined due to biological determinism, evolutionary genetics or a rigged game), a sense of futility and nihilism, rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and nonsexual violence against women and sexually active people.[9][24] Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, the endorsement and encouragement of violence, and extremism.[25] Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiple mass killings mostly in North America perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.
So no, it's not a bad-faith assumption or projection. Is it a bad faith assumption on my part that you carry the water for incels by intellectually dishonestly quoting me out of context and refusing to post under your own account and real name, because you consider yourself to be an incel? Your incel misogyny is a bad faith assumption about women and a voluntary choice that you make.
Maybe if you stopped putting so much energy into feeling sorry for yourself and trying so hard to play the victim and blaming women for your lack of sex, you'd realize that your voluntary misogyny is getting in the way of you ever getting laid, and it's YOU, not women, who are you own worst enemy.
Imagine a architect, kicking a machine that will not fly. Add colorful curses.
The last time this happened, was when the people of the sovjiet union rebelled. And the western left leaning intelligentsia has held a grudge against the whole of eastern europe ever since. Chomsky comes to mind.
Therefore, from this perspective, the attitude is to interpret those people as (in simplified terms) "people who don't get out".