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

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

#941

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 05, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #760

ceilingcorner wrote: post #240

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…

The whole business about "top players getting more resources" is driving me a bit wild; as if there's an epidemic of "Chads each getting multiple Staceys" (in incel-speak). What seems to be more likely - based on the age charts in TFA - is that at the margins (excluding the large portion of people married or partnered relatively quickly and stably) there tends to be an age gap among those playing the fields. Early 20…

And then when you look at the other end of the age distribution in those diagrams, you have a lot of women over 65 going without, AFAICS mainly because the older men they've partnered with are dead already.

Technically / logically / mathematically, the solution seems blindingly obvious: Women as a group could help not only (younger) men as a group, but themselves (later in life) too, simply by selecting their partners more from their own age range.

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

#942

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 05, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #884

xiphias2 wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why haven’t these been tested? They were tested and perfected a hundred thousand years ago when humans were living in tribes. In a tribe shaming people for being polygamous was part of the system to keep some checks and balances. With people moving to cities and dating online, those checks and balances are suppressed, and the market balance shifted towards polygamy (few high value man date many women).

That doesn’t even follow logically. Pairing one man with one woman will remove one of each from circulation. With polygamy being more accepted means that basically noone gets removed from circulation, a women can have more than one partner, increasing chances...

Yeah, theoretically. But because of remaining cultural / social mores, women in general probably tend to be less polygamous than male "players" are. So in practice, "polygamy" turns out to be one man having many women much more than the other way around. Therefore a few "Chads" remove disproportionately many women from "the market", and you get many more male incels than female ones.

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

#943

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #893

TameAntelope wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an extremely interesting take -- that with the advent of the Internet, we've created a vehicle for mental illness to metastasize, and the only real solution is to treat mental illness like we treat malaria or even COVID, and upgrade our global healthcare systems to handle the influx of this "new" disease variant. The analogy breaks down when you start to try and think of what our "vaccine" might be, th…

Except that it doesn’t spread that way? And that it had always been around. We have just started paying attention to it.

Maybe we notice it more because we're paying more attention to it... Or maybe because there actually is more of it, since it now can be transmitted more efficiently -- has become "contagious" in a way it wasn't before. Hard to tell which it is.

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

#944

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #859

TameAntelope wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know we joke about it a lot, but I think there's a serious case to be made that the Internet's ability to connect groups of previously unconnected people might end up literally ending humanity, or at least severely setting humanity back from a human rights standpoint. "Incels" are one example of this that you're pointing out here, where a group of people who've always existed without name are now able to group toge…

Ironically, I think the internet's connection is causing the problem on both ends of the phenomenon. Dating apps allow women to expand their dating pool to people they would never encounter in everyday life. I have quite a few female friends and I've been around them while they're swiping around and they are absolutely brutal in a way that's not at all malicious. Then the regular (male) losers in that system can then…

> I have quite a few female friends and I've been around them while they're swiping around and they are absolutely brutal in a way that's not at all malicious.

Depends on how you define "malicious", doesn't it?

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

#945

Post by a_band » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #814

a_band wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We're just relying on guesswork here but to think that the internet only created a 25% increase in porn exposure for teens seems really off, especially considering how hard porn was for minors to obtain pre-internet.

Also, it's worth considering that the "porn" they would have had easiest access to was Playboy magazine content--not the catalog of Pornhub.

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

#946

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #697

JohnBooty wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's room for some down to earth, responsible men to try and fill this space. Right now the "teach young men how to be" space is mostly filled with misogyny and terrible pick up artists. Goodness yes. The PUA and red pill communities have absolutely poisoned this space and, at least in America, it's impossible to see how a healthy alternative could even take root. I know that if one sprang up, my first rea…

goes back to the author's statements: >there’s a vast difference between a person who believes the stated beliefs of a group as opposed to a person who holds membership in a group as a defining part of their identity. Imagining a conversation with someone who generically believes women should be treated well is a much different experience than imagining the same conversation with person who boldly declares themselves…

Also seems to come down to identifying oneself with / as... Well, anything. Maybe hanging one's whole identity on something is a sign that one is obsessing too much about that one thing; "Nobody is just one thing".

(Hmm, I think I just got more of a handle on what it is that makes me uncomfortable with "identity politics".)

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

#947

Post by cblconfederate » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

a_band wrote: post #945

Retric wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We're just relying on guesswork here but to think that the internet only created a 25% increase in porn exposure for teens seems really off, especially considering how hard porn was for minors to obtain pre-internet. Also, it's worth considering that the "porn" they would have had easiest access to was Playboy magazine content--not the catalog of Pornhub.

It appears to affect non-heterosexuals differently , though

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

#948

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #916

betwixthewires wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the article? We are discussing this topic from a sympathetic standpoint. Sure, the idea of "destigmatize prostitution" is an over simplified magic bullet, but so is your response. And their point would probably do more towards alleviating the problem than yours honestly. You're basically saying "want to solve the problem? That's easy: solve the problem." Different people want different things. Prost…

Did you even read my comment? I ended with "Guys need to treat themselves with dignity and put themselves together." I don't think that includes paying for sex. Also to your comment "Different people want different things. Prostitutes want money." That's not what prostitutes want, it's what they need from a practical point of view. When you're just trying to get by, you do things you don't want to do in order to get…

> Did you even read my comment? I ended with "Guys need to treat themselves with dignity and put themselves together."

> I don't think that includes paying for sex.

A) That's what you think. Who died and made you God if defining "dignity"?

B) You think that, in large part, because of the stigma associated with prostitution; attitudes like yours are what that stigma is.

C) That's why the original suggestion was to remove the stigma around prostitution. (If that could be done, then you possibly wouldn't be thinking the way you are now.)

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

#949

Post by thelean12 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #914

thelean12 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you can't get women, it's entirely your fault I'm curious, and this will probably be too curt but I am honestly trying to figure it out: Whose fault is it? Because incels believe it's the women's fault, and this message is the opposite. It doesn't seem productive to tell them that it's society's fault or some other external thing. What are they supposed to do about that? Most men that I know, including myself, f…

> Lose weight, hit the gym, learn to lower my ego, listen better, practice small talk, learn about fashion, etc. This is a bit of a fresh thought to me, but it seems that the standard male self-improvement advice ends up in one of three buckets: 1. The activity is its own reward (lose weight, hit the gym). Even if it’s not immediately successful at helping one find a partner, their benefits are almost immediately sel…

> “Learn fashion” is hard to place on here. On the one hand, ensuring that you comb the crumbs out of your beard daily and wear clothes that fit better than a garbage bag is essential. On the other, becoming “into fashion” when it’s not a natural interest is often more of advice for advice’s sake unless you’re targeting a very fashion-conscious woman (or the fashion-forward portion of the gay dating pool).

Yeah I mean, I think most of the things on the list have a "basic" and "advanced" tier.

Lose weight/hit the gym: Basic is to not be obese. Advanced is to be fit.

Small talk: Basic is to be able to start and hold a conversation. Advanced is to be smooth and captivating.

Learn fashion: Basic is learning how clothes are supposed to fit. Advanced is... something like what you said. (I'm not advanced here! haha).

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

#950

Post by kaba0 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

CRConrad wrote: post #942

kaba0 wrote: post #884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t even follow logically. Pairing one man with one woman will remove one of each from circulation. With polygamy being more accepted means that basically noone gets removed from circulation, a women can have more than one partner, increasing chances...

Yeah, theoretically. But because of remaining cultural / social mores, women in general probably tend to be less polygamous than male "players" are. So in practice, "polygamy" turns out to be one man having many women much more than the other way around. Therefore a few "Chads" remove disproportionately many women from "the market", and you get many more male incels than female ones.

Well, then it’s unfortunately just a fact of life. I’m sure similar disproportionate mating chances are apparent in many species of animals between sexes as well and it may even serve an evolutionary goal that the stronger gets to pass their genetic lineup.

Either way, the answer is most definitely not viewing women as objects that should be forcefully attached to a male to have any value and other misogynistic shit that incels make up. I do get their frustrations, but it’s a downward spiral. Many of them could very well find a partner if he would actually believe that he is wanted. But even if he himself doubts that, how can he reasonably think that someone else will want to do anything with him? And at this point we are very close to mental health issues, most likely depression, but then that should be treated.