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Fair enough, but the problem is that a lot of what an incel may believe appears to be true. You're ignoring all the research that supports them. It's not that

Fair enough, but the problem is that a lot of what an incel may believe appears to be true. You're ignoring all the research that supports them. It's not that mutable attributes do not matter, but sexual selection is more a like a sales funnel than a breakdown of pros and cons. If you are very short, your attire can not make up for it. If you have an ugly face, muscle mass isn't going to revert that. Very high earning potential can make up for these shortcomings, but at that point you might question the motivation of the potential partner. See Table 5.4 (looks) and 5.5 (height): http://home.uchicago.edu/~hortacsu/onlinedating.pdf http://home.uchicago.edu/~hortacsu/onlinedating.pdf We'd all like to live in a world where we can tell everyone "If only you work hard enough, you will find success in the end". We like to believe in cosmic justice. Unfortunately, that's not how nature works. Evolution works by discarding the weakest contenders from the gene pool. That ungrateful job is performed by the females, and it's unsurprising that those rejected males would harbor resentment, power fantasies and other moral delusions.

chalst 6y ago
In societies where most women eventually settle on one life partner, sexual success is much easier than career success. Your remarks on nature reflect incel fantasies, not the dominant reality.
danmaz74 6y ago
You might know an answer to a question I have. Does the "involuntary" part mean that an incel would settle for a woman he would consider very physically unattractive, but isn't able to find a partner even this way?
- privacy_bodger 6y ago
  What would "this way" constitute? I can't claim to speak for the incel community but my guess would be that in general they are probably not seeking out hideous women, but they're probably not turning down offers either. Anecdotally, as a virginal twentysomething, long before incels were a thing, I had the idea that I might be better off targeting the lower end of the beauty spectrum. I don't think it makes much difference to your chances of success. Women don't generally think "well seeing as I'm physically hideous, I'd better accept this unappealing romantic offer". I eventually ended up having some totally hot partners, as well as rejections from less conventionally beautiful people. There's also the issue that you probably wouldn't have a very active or joyous sex life, which your partner will probably have a problem with even if you don't.
  - chalst 6y ago
    My understanding is that very short men are handicapped by not wanting to face the stigma associated with being shorter than their partner, and that tall women face a comparable difficulty finding partners. The issue here is not so much that men do not find women taller than themselves attractive, but the second-order concern about drawing attention to their own height. I have the impression that it is typical that men usually become less distressed by such stigma when they get older.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      A far simpler explanation is that females want the best for their offspring, being fairly tall is generally an advantage in every aspect of life and it's hereditary. Generally, the preferences and concerns of disadvantaged males do not matter. Females choose the males, and they almost universally choose taller males.
      - chalst 6y ago
        Your explanation ignores the difficulty tall women face finding partners in wealthy countries and so addresses only part of the data. E.g., "In western postindustrial cultures, taller women tend to have less reproductive success (RS) defined as number of children surviving to reproductive age, than women 0.7–1.7 standard deviations below average height" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.06.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.06.003
        gridlockd 6y ago
        Fair enough, here's the missing part: Tall women have trouble finding partners because women not just want a tall man, they almost universally want a man who is taller than them. It's the same for high-earning women, they almost universally want a man that earns more than them. The same is true for education or job status and many other factors, and they compound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy Women who are exceptional in one or more of these traits face a commensurately smaller pool of men that are acceptable to her, whereas every man in that pool is attractive to a commensurately larger pool of other women. However, men are not hypergamous, they do not care about earnings or education and they prefer shorter mates. Therefore, the males in that pool are more likely to end up with another female than the exceptional one. Unable to find an acceptable partner and absent societal pressure in western societies, those exceptional females may defer or give up on reproduction.
- TrackerFF 6y ago
  That was also part of their problem. A lot of them would, or couldn't even imagine, settling with anyone under some arbitrary "score". I do recall that many posters would post about "hunting" girls that they deemed ugly, on dating sites, just to get laid. Then they'd come back lamenting over the fact that even these "ugly" chicks seemed to have standards, and continued to bemoan that regular guys were inflating these girls egos, due to matching with them on Tinder, etc. I'd say that some of these guys, absolutely showed signs of narcissism, along with extreme victim mentality.
edanm 6y ago
You are wrong. You are demonstrably wrong, in that you can just observe that almost every "disadvantage" that incels talk about (as I understand it), also exists in 40-50 year olds who are happily married. E.g. being short is certainly a disadvantage when dating, that's obviously true - but it's just as obviously true that being short does not mean you will be an incel for life - how can you possibly think that it does, given the myriad short people who are doing just fine. Can they date literally any partner they want? No, no one can. But can they date someone, can they be non-celibate? Yes, demonstrably so. It's certainly true that everyone is a mix of more desirable attributes and of less desirable attributes, and some people get a bigger mix than others. Some are mutable, some are immutable. The big problem with the incel worldview (as I understand it) is that it's completely binary - you are either capable of finding a sexual partner, or not, and some traits (that they believe they have) mean that they are on the wrong side. But that's just utterly unfounded, again, because take any trait that is supposedly disqualifying, and you'll find someone (plenty of someones) with those traits that are in sexual relationships.
- privacy_bodger 6y ago
  That refutes "a single bad card in your hand means you will inevitably lose". It doesn't refute "At some point your hand is so bad you're basically [not] fucked from the start". Which I think might be a fairer statement of incel beliefs.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >It doesn't refute "At some point your hand is so bad you're basically [not] fucked from the start". Which I think might be a fairer statement of incel beliefs. Serial killers get marriage proposals from behind bars. Ugly men, including men with physical deformities, find partners. Men without working penises still have sexual relationships. Even if there were such a thing as "basically [not] fucked from the start," the vast majority of incels would be nowhere near that extreme. I mean, look at the patron saint of incels (canonized as such by the incel community itself) Elliot Rodger. Did life deal him such a terrible hand that dating was impossible, or was the only thing standing in his way himself and his own twisted, hateful and false view of women and the world around him?
rsynnott 6y ago
And yet, short ugly poor people have partners. Being without a partner permanently (in western societies) is rather unusual, and if you were looking to draw correlations between the people in that category, you’re probably looking at a combo of psychological issues and lack of interest, not so much what they look like.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > And yet, short ugly poor people have partners. That might actually be an odd but perfectly rational dating strategy for females that want to make absolutely sure they are not being cheated on, to be in a relationship where they have all the power, because they damn well know how hard it would be for that guy to find another partner. Of course you have exceptions like this, for all kinds of reasons. There are people who fetishize morbid obesity or amputation. That doesn't mean that for every morbidly obese amputee there's a matching partner.

chalst 6y ago

In societies where most women eventually settle on one life partner, sexual success is much easier than career success. Your remarks on nature reflect incel fantasies, not the dominant reality.

danmaz74 6y ago

You might know an answer to a question I have. Does the "involuntary" part mean that an incel would settle for a woman he would consider very physically unattractive, but isn't able to find a partner even this way?

privacy_bodger 6y ago
What would "this way" constitute? I can't claim to speak for the incel community but my guess would be that in general they are probably not seeking out hideous women, but they're probably not turning down offers either. Anecdotally, as a virginal twentysomething, long before incels were a thing, I had the idea that I might be better off targeting the lower end of the beauty spectrum. I don't think it makes much difference to your chances of success. Women don't generally think "well seeing as I'm physically hideous, I'd better accept this unappealing romantic offer". I eventually ended up having some totally hot partners, as well as rejections from less conventionally beautiful people. There's also the issue that you probably wouldn't have a very active or joyous sex life, which your partner will probably have a problem with even if you don't.
- chalst 6y ago
  My understanding is that very short men are handicapped by not wanting to face the stigma associated with being shorter than their partner, and that tall women face a comparable difficulty finding partners. The issue here is not so much that men do not find women taller than themselves attractive, but the second-order concern about drawing attention to their own height. I have the impression that it is typical that men usually become less distressed by such stigma when they get older.
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    A far simpler explanation is that females want the best for their offspring, being fairly tall is generally an advantage in every aspect of life and it's hereditary. Generally, the preferences and concerns of disadvantaged males do not matter. Females choose the males, and they almost universally choose taller males.
    - chalst 6y ago
      Your explanation ignores the difficulty tall women face finding partners in wealthy countries and so addresses only part of the data. E.g., "In western postindustrial cultures, taller women tend to have less reproductive success (RS) defined as number of children surviving to reproductive age, than women 0.7–1.7 standard deviations below average height" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.06.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.06.003
      - gridlockd 6y ago
        Fair enough, here's the missing part: Tall women have trouble finding partners because women not just want a tall man, they almost universally want a man who is taller than them. It's the same for high-earning women, they almost universally want a man that earns more than them. The same is true for education or job status and many other factors, and they compound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy Women who are exceptional in one or more of these traits face a commensurately smaller pool of men that are acceptable to her, whereas every man in that pool is attractive to a commensurately larger pool of other women. However, men are not hypergamous, they do not care about earnings or education and they prefer shorter mates. Therefore, the males in that pool are more likely to end up with another female than the exceptional one. Unable to find an acceptable partner and absent societal pressure in western societies, those exceptional females may defer or give up on reproduction.
TrackerFF 6y ago
That was also part of their problem. A lot of them would, or couldn't even imagine, settling with anyone under some arbitrary "score". I do recall that many posters would post about "hunting" girls that they deemed ugly, on dating sites, just to get laid. Then they'd come back lamenting over the fact that even these "ugly" chicks seemed to have standards, and continued to bemoan that regular guys were inflating these girls egos, due to matching with them on Tinder, etc. I'd say that some of these guys, absolutely showed signs of narcissism, along with extreme victim mentality.

edanm 6y ago

You are wrong. You are demonstrably wrong, in that you can just observe that almost every "disadvantage" that incels talk about (as I understand it), also exists in 40-50 year olds who are happily married. E.g. being short is certainly a disadvantage when dating, that's obviously true - but it's just as obviously true that being short does not mean you will be an incel for life - how can you possibly think that it does, given the myriad short people who are doing just fine. Can they date literally any partner they want? No, no one can. But can they date someone, can they be non-celibate? Yes, demonstrably so. It's certainly true that everyone is a mix of more desirable attributes and of less desirable attributes, and some people get a bigger mix than others. Some are mutable, some are immutable. The big problem with the incel worldview (as I understand it) is that it's completely binary - you are either capable of finding a sexual partner, or not, and some traits (that they believe they have) mean that they are on the wrong side. But that's just utterly unfounded, again, because take any trait that is supposedly disqualifying, and you'll find someone (plenty of someones) with those traits that are in sexual relationships.

privacy_bodger 6y ago
That refutes "a single bad card in your hand means you will inevitably lose". It doesn't refute "At some point your hand is so bad you're basically [not] fucked from the start". Which I think might be a fairer statement of incel beliefs.
- krapp 6y ago
  >It doesn't refute "At some point your hand is so bad you're basically [not] fucked from the start". Which I think might be a fairer statement of incel beliefs. Serial killers get marriage proposals from behind bars. Ugly men, including men with physical deformities, find partners. Men without working penises still have sexual relationships. Even if there were such a thing as "basically [not] fucked from the start," the vast majority of incels would be nowhere near that extreme. I mean, look at the patron saint of incels (canonized as such by the incel community itself) Elliot Rodger. Did life deal him such a terrible hand that dating was impossible, or was the only thing standing in his way himself and his own twisted, hateful and false view of women and the world around him?

rsynnott 6y ago

And yet, short ugly poor people have partners. Being without a partner permanently (in western societies) is rather unusual, and if you were looking to draw correlations between the people in that category, you’re probably looking at a combo of psychological issues and lack of interest, not so much what they look like.

gridlockd 6y ago
> And yet, short ugly poor people have partners. That might actually be an odd but perfectly rational dating strategy for females that want to make absolutely sure they are not being cheated on, to be in a relationship where they have all the power, because they damn well know how hard it would be for that guy to find another partner. Of course you have exceptions like this, for all kinds of reasons. There are people who fetishize morbid obesity or amputation. That doesn't mean that for every morbidly obese amputee there's a matching partner.