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On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

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

#811

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No it doesn't https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/y-chromosome-crash...

Respectfully, after reading the original paper, I agree with the findings of the authors. The last bit in the abstract puts their findings the best: "In contrast to demographic reconstructions based on mtDNA, we infer a second strong bottleneck in Y-chromosome lineages dating to the last 10 ky. We hypothesize that this bottleneck is caused by cultural changes affecting variance of reproductive success among males." S…

The extreme skew (1 male for every 17 females reproducing) is what's incorrect, not the average man having less reproductive success than the average woman.

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

#813
post #682

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> I am frequently surprised by the number of "dead bedrooms" I know about among friends I originally thought they were mostly an old people thing, but I am hearing more stories about it from friends. And we are mid 20s.

Exposure to phthalates reduces testosterone in both men and women, and thus lowers sex drive. Phthalates are widely used chemicals, primarily for softening plastic. https://news.umich.edu/reduced-testosterone-tied-to-chemical... That's not the only cause. Increased obesity levels also play a role. Probably other factors.

Stress is higher across the board as the middle class is wrung out of the economy and the gilded age begins again.

Even if it isn't fight-or-flight stress inducement, sheer business and exhaustion are also undeniably up.

All one has to do is look at the laundry list of economic differences (housing, health care, education, salary, etc) between the current generations and the boomers.

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

#814
post #723

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Assuming porn causes incels, but the golden age of porn started at 1969, so that doesnt work. Assuming incels cause porn, has porn become more profitable in the past ~20 years? I 'd say probably true based on the innovation of the profitability models , expecially after onlyfans became a thing

Key to remember that in the Golden Age of Porn, probably less than 5% of teens had seen a pornographic film. Today it's probably over 99%?

That’s likely overblown. I suspect 70+% of kids in the 90’s had seen porn and I doubt it’s much past 95% today.

If anything we just don’t see what people do in their private lives that much. Incel isn’t some new thing, it’s simply more talked about today.

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

#815
post #495

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It's weird to try and explain this from a sterile alien-studying-humans perspective, but since that's the HN theme I'll do my best. Marriage and having dependents carries with it a lot of economic cost. By revealed choice theory, that implies it has significant benefits, or else nobody would ever do it.

> It's weird to try and explain this from a sterile alien-studying-humans perspective, but since that's the HN theme I'll do my best. This made me laugh, in a good way :) I'll approach it from that angle: Monogamous child-rearing looks to me a successful evolutionary strategy for the human race (and keep in mind the "monogamous" part might be relatively recent). It implies less about the happiness of the parental uni…

Good point. Evolution will use anything including happiness to propagate genes.

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

#816

These issues are far more serious than is known and commenters saying “too bad, you don’t deserve to date someone” really don’t understand how ineffective this approach is. You can’t just shame tens of thousands of men into accepting a substandard life. Disclaimer: I am not making any ethical judgments here, just observing. This problem didn’t really exist before for three reasons. One, widespread access to prostitut…

Enforced monogamy and limited movement curbed the expression of the disposable male pattern in cultures, but with the introduction of dating apps, easy physical transport, increasing domination of financial resources by the few, and cultural lauding of "single life" (it drives so much consumption in consumer culture) implies it is coming back.

I would also like to say that dating culture is evolving at lightspeed right now, and as cultural reflections of internet data enter the overall "pop culture consciousness", then dating culture will shift. In the years I used online dating it went from "closet backchannel" for dating to the primary means of mate seeking, and entire apps are coming into popularity based on different game theory rules applied to the process in short amounts of time.

I'd hazard a guess that the evolution is happening as quickly as internet advertising techniques hit a hot streak for about 1-2 years before everyone collectively catches on and they don't work anyore.

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

#817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say that it’s incentivized at all. Weddings are expensive, divorces are financially disastrous (yet easy to initiate), and a sizable segment of the population thinks the idea of marriage is “uncool”, for lack of a better word. Things like adultery are nearly outright encouraged in Netflix shows and novels. It doesn’t surprise me at all that many people look at marriage as it currently stands and just say,…

We spent around $700 on our wedding. Front yard ceremony, $150-200 for the justice of the peace, trays of food from the local BBQ place, more wine, beer, and drinks than our 25 or so closest friends could consume. Getting married isn't inherently expensive. People make it so because an entire industry is optimized around convincing you to spend more on a dress than we spent on an entire wedding.

You didn't have a friend do the internet church thing to become an officiant? Is that no longer possible?

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

#818

>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…

Deconstruct the term "loser", the universal label for an undesirable man applied (stereotypically) by women.

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

#819
post #372

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No, I'm not. While I would appreciate help in such a situation, I can fully understand anyone walking away. Being a bother to people and needy is one of the worst parts of being ill.

Thinking your depressed friend is a bother to yourself has told me that I'm very blessed you and I are not friends.

If you have a treatable form of depression, go get treated. If you have a personality disorder, the person you're responding to is the lucky one, not you.

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

#820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you're a straight male, I dare you to cry in front of your girlfriend/wife.

I do generally once a month with zero issue. This "men don't cry" thing is a point of toxic masculinity. Men and women both perpetuate it. 'Tis silly.

I'd say what we're talking about is both toxic masculinity and toxic femininity working together.
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