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On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

residentcontrarian.substack.com

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

#161

Post by d0mine »

whatshisface wrote: post #88
burlesona wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correlations are clear but causality less so. What if it’s not marriage that makes men happier, less prone to crime, and longer-lived - rather it is that women select for partners who are happier, less prone to crime, and healthier?

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.

> or else nobody would ever do it.

People often do things that are not good for them.

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

#162

Post by sudosysgen »

Loughla wrote: post #109
edgyquant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this thrown around by Jordan Peterson and his fans but I’ve never met anyone, regardless of how crazy their ideology was, advocate for equality of outcomes outside of basic necessities. I’m convinced it’s a strawman.

I don't know why you're being down-voted, you're right. I haven't met anyone, even in the insanely left and progressive university circles that I run in, who advocate for equality in outcome. It's equality in opportunity that's important. It's about letting 'your freedom as an individual to choose your own destiny' actually be 'free' from the start and not constrained by social mores, ingrained biases or discriminati…

Hell, if you want to take it to the limit, even Karl Marx didn't believe in equality of outcomes.

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

#163

Post by 29athrowaway »

When the Internet started expanding, the first communities to connect were communities forming around common interests shared by the majority of people and businesses.

But then something happened... controversial/evil communities started forming: hate speech, racism, harassment, mysogenists, flat earthers, anti vaxxers, scammers...

Geographically speaking, incels are very sparsely distributed. But now the incel guy in one town can connect to an incel guy in another town. And groups that did not have a critical mass to start a community before, now do.

Before the Internet, without interaction with an incel communities, incels would be brought back to sanity through assimilation by other groups in society. Now with the Internet, incels can connect with other incels, reinforce their behavior and become radicalized. That sucks.

Connecting people is not necessarily a good thing.

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

#164

Post by _qwfv »

rjbwork wrote: post #133
_qwfv wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. Marx was critical of the capitalist mode of production. Marxism is a lens of looking at economics and sociology. Communism and socialism, which are considered different in modern writing but were the same in Marx's time, are something Marx believes are an inevitable outcome of capitalism. Marxism suggests that when the workers own the companies, then benefits are distributed to the workers who own/opera…

You're correct, of course. I was also downvoted for an even slightly more simplified version of this post. Not too surprising given the general demographics of HN being quite biased towards startup founders, VC's, and the like.

I'd understand if I was out here being like, "SV SHOULD BE MARXIST" but I'm literally just answering a question that's a common misconception.

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

#165

Post by cabraca »

Loughla wrote: post #109
edgyquant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this thrown around by Jordan Peterson and his fans but I’ve never met anyone, regardless of how crazy their ideology was, advocate for equality of outcomes outside of basic necessities. I’m convinced it’s a strawman.

I don't know why you're being down-voted, you're right. I haven't met anyone, even in the insanely left and progressive university circles that I run in, who advocate for equality in outcome. It's equality in opportunity that's important. It's about letting 'your freedom as an individual to choose your own destiny' actually be 'free' from the start and not constrained by social mores, ingrained biases or discriminati…

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 amplify the equality of opportunities.

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

#166

Post by commandlinefan »

edgyquant wrote: post #40
throwawayboise wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or equality of opportunity vs equality in outcomes.

I’ve seen this thrown around by Jordan Peterson and his fans but I’ve never met anyone, regardless of how crazy their ideology was, advocate for equality of outcomes outside of basic necessities. I’m convinced it’s a strawman.

> advocate for equality of outcomes

Well, usually when I see somebody arguing "equity vs. equality", they're advocating strict racial quotas: absolute equality of outcome, at the level of race.

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

#167

Post by slg »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #50
throwawayboise wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or equality of opportunity vs equality in outcomes.

Genuine question: Isn't this equivalent to equity vs equality?

In my experience, people who are against "equity" call it "equality of outcome" because it sounds more Orwellian/communistic/whatever your dystopian descriptor of choice is. Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome".

Equity is closer to "equality of opportunity" than "equality of outcome". "Equality" is neither of those things because it doesn't correct for differences in opportunity and therefore obviously doesn't yield an equal outcome.

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

#168

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#169

Post by scarmig »

landryraccoon wrote: post #147
scarmig wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Man this thread sure must be depressing if you're single. Single? That's your problem, that your single. Go get a relationship and be happy! Way to dogpile on people when they're down. I say enjoy being single. If a relationship happens, good for you, but don't listen to people that say you're damaged / worse off / going down the drain because you're single. They're just jealous you can travel and play video games wh…

I see far more people saying the opposite, that if you're single and unhappy, it's your fault for not trying hard enough to be happy.

Some people need relationships to be happy. Some don't. It's silly to deny the existence of either group, but most discourse seems to deny that it's valid for someone to see a relationship as an important component of their path to happiness.

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

#170

Post by keerk43 »

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…

I think in this context it's not about toxic masculinity, but simply biology. We're merely animals with big brains, and most individual animals have a deep desire to reproduce. So it's not exactly weird that historically everywhere in the world young men unable to find a partner have been frustrated and a source of social problems, especially as with men troubles finding a partner tend to correlate with lower socio-economic status in general.
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