On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness • Hacker News Board

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#261

Post by DyslexicAtheist » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

corty wrote: post #146

tonyp2121 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not support your friends through depression?

Because supporting depressed people is depressing and often futile. Mental illnesses can be transmissible that way. Also, supporting a depressed person needs lots of time and effort, and while they are depressed they give nothing back except bad vibes.

I'm very glad we're not friends.

edit: I just found this meme: https://i.imgur.com/WCzNW77.png and I decided to link it here. People think friendship is something that is built over years because it takes years in order to have finally made it through enough hardship and shared struggle so calling each other friends is justified. This is the literal meaning of having a friend. You know they'll help you even you got nothing to give and without expecting anything in return from them.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#262

Post by openasocket » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #203

openasocket wrote: post #148

> if 51% of young men are single and only 31% of women in the same age bracket are, that implies something is up So that statistic really confuses me, how could that be the case? The data seems to imply a significant number of women are dating men far older than themselves, which just doesn't seem true to me. I'm wondering if that is a sampling error or different genders are interpreting the question differently. It…

I don't know about second study or what flaws they had, but that definitely is possible if: A) the men in the study are having "side chicks" i.e. in sexual relationship with multiple women at the same time. B) women are more selective with whom they sleep with i.e. they rather not have sex than have sex with a "loser". It only doesn't make sense if everyone are in monogameous relationships and everyone has sex as oft…

So your explanations for why men might have more sexual relationships than women on average is flawed, none of those reasons would change the averages. Imagine if you had 5 men and 5 women, where 1 man had a sexual relationship with all 5 women and the other 4 men had no sexual relationships. The average number of sexual relationships for women would be 1, because each has a sexual relationship with the one man. The average for the men is : (5 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0)/5 = 1 ! So whether or not there is monogomy, or different patterns of behavior, the average remains the same. The only way the two numbers could be different is if you included same-sex relationships, or if there were more men than women (or vice versa).

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#263

Post by colmvp » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #190

>Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. This will be downvoted and poorly received, but the fact is that women despise weak men. If a man is in a poor state, most women will be visibly disgusted by him. A man generally should not expect sym…

Some of my best friends are women and have been there for me in ways that my other guy friends certainly haven't during bouts of loneliness during times of lockdowns.

But perhaps it is different when it comes to partners.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#264

Post by Loughla » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #198

Loughla wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only times I've seen "advanced classes" get abolished is when districts KEPT advanced classes in high schools, but got rid of "ability tracking" (read: high, middle, and low-performing tracks) in early grades (k-6 usually). This is because low-income and minority students are more likely to be tracked low performing in lower grades, thereby baking in the inequity in the system. Eliminating those tracking systems,…

> This is because low-income and minority students are more likely to be tracked low performing in lower grades Are they actually lower performing or is this an effect of bias? It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that children with less resources do worse. I thought the purpose of performance tracking was to give the ability to help those who were struggling. Instead, you're saying that it's more helpful to just…

Edited for clarity.

>Are they actually lower performing or is this an effect of bias?

This is why these programs in early grades are eliminated - they absolutely were based on bias and external factors. Yes, children with less resources do worse. That was the problem. Students with less access would be tracked low, thereby ensuring they had access to even fewer resources (which were diverted to high performers and TAG classes).

>Instead, you're saying that it's more helpful to just not know who's struggling and that somehow creates more equality.

I didn't explain it well. They still track student ability for interventions, they don't group solely by ability. When they did the latter of those two, the have's had even more and the have-nots had even less.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#265

Post by giantg2 » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #218

cabraca wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the idea of underrepresentation of certain minority groups or genders basically that? we hear that there are only xy % of women in tech or PoC in tech and that the goal is to get for example 50/50% women/men. Isn't this basically a discussion about equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. 50%/50% is basically equality of outcome. We can see for example in scandinavia that you get unequal outcomes if you…

I mean, if you just take it at face value, then it could be interpreted that way. I think the problem is that there isn't an easy soundbite that companies can put out to identify how they will impact equality of opportunity, so they take the easy way to seem 'woke' or whatever other adjective you want to put on it, and attack with equality of outcome. I'm not trying to have a 'no true scotsman' sort of thing, but pro…

I agree. How do you propose measuring it if not using the 50/50 metric? Are we already at the point of equal opportunity? If not, why?

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#266

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #122

benlivengood wrote: post #4

> I got absurdly lucky when I found my wife, but I spent every day without her more or less miserable. It’s arguable she’s the only reason I’m able to be happy. I imagine some of these men are similar to me in the loneliness and not as lucky in finding someone, and it’s impossible for me to not feel something. This is basically a red flag for any relationship. If the only thing making or allowing a person to be happy…

> having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. This is a bit silly: either it's trivially true but irrelevant, if the claim is that there exist people who can live happy lives without (sexual) relationships; or it's flatly false, if the claim is that everyone can be equally happy without relationships as they would be with them. Relationships bring significant happiness. People who…

[deleted]

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#267

Post by foogazi » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #140

Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. The need for sex is perhaps as high as the need for money but nobody talks about this crushing inequality, perhaps because there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. The problem is worse for men since a man needs a certain set of skills and…

> what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy...

It’s an economy of sorts (age, looks, height), but it also follows the financial security aspect. Inequality creates a class of people that hoard desirable traits

> When social norms dictated that you must be married to have sex, every woman and man paired off and got to have sex, however low quality and in however unhappy of a marriage

Might we see a return to conservative values here?

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#268

Post by 2lwxxtj » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #223

tachyonbeam wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one bitter truth about life: (almost) everyone needs some amount of physical intimacy to be happy, but it's not something anyone is entitled to. Those of us who have access to that are privileged. I agree with the author though. IMO the existence of so many "incels" is some expression of a real societal problem. Many young men are suffering, and we don't acknowledge their suffering as genuine. We just tell the…

Masculinity isn't toxic. It becomes toxic when it blames women for its problems. Feminism is all for men talking about their issues. It practically begs them to. It is absolutely, positively not feminist to tell men that you're not enough if you can't get a woman. That doesn't, however, pose an obligation on any woman to listen to you. It doesn't matter whose fault it is that you can't get a woman; it does matter tha…

>It becomes toxic when it blames women for its problems. Feminism is all for men talking about their issues. It practically begs them to.

Gotcha, it wants them to talk about their issues, as long as they don't say anything unapproved. Why would any man want to go along with that, again?

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#269

Post by toyg » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #259

spoonjim wrote: post #140

Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. The need for sex is perhaps as high as the need for money but nobody talks about this crushing inequality, perhaps because there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. The problem is worse for men since a man needs a certain set of skills and…

>there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex This is part of the function of anti-bigamy laws and frowning upon promiscuity, is it not?

That's a cap (and supply restriction), not redistribution.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#270

Post by GavinMcG » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

tryonenow wrote: post #42

giantg2 wrote: post #3

"It’s 2021, and it would be pretty hard to find someone who would come out and say that women deserve to be treated worse than men by default, and similarly difficult to find someone believes men shouldn’t have rights. In that sense at least we are all feminists and men’s rights activists, but nearly 100% of everyone reading this would have felt some emotional recoil from being called at least one of those two things…

The problem with the definition of equality within the modern feminist movement is that it does not make allowance for the social power that females intrinsically have over men. In particular it completely ignores that, as in the vast majority of sexually dimorphic species, women are (at social scales) effectively the gatekeepers of the bedroom, and this gives females massive influence over male behavior. The dominan…

> the gatekeepers of the bedroom

There is no way this can be true. Sex takes two consenting people; there is no "gate" to be unequally "kept" because both parties have autonomy.

Trying to shift to "social scales" to escape the central role of autonomy is a nifty trick. But casting individual bedroom decisions as a matter of social equality is to presume a degree of entitlement in the bedroom. After all, we're entitled to be treated equally, right?

By governments? Yes. By our managers at work? Yes. By those who we desire? No, not at all.