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why does this place turn so cruel and kick their fellow men when they're down? if this was an issue that affected the other gender, the tone here would be a lot

why does this place turn so cruel and kick their fellow men when they're down? if this was an issue that affected the other gender, the tone here would be a lot different.

phoe-krk 3y ago
Highlighting errors and mistakes in other men's thinking in order to try and reduce the suffering they inflict on themselves is one of the greatest gifts that a fellow man can give. Sure, it's a kick and therefore it hurts, but it's a kick in the right direction.
- thrwawaythygyh 3y ago
  seems less like good-faith advice and more like schadenfreude
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Maybe some fraction of folks giving tough love are doing it primarily for the 'schadenfreude' value, but it doesn't seem likely to be all that many. In fact I don't think I've ever seen that happen in real life. It happens on the internet because it's easier for losers to pretend to be virtuous, better, and so on. Which might lead to that perception.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  > Highlighting errors and mistakes in other men's thinking in order to try and reduce the suffering they inflict on themselves is one of the greatest gifts that a fellow man can give. No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. Do you think that's actually helpful and "the greatest gift" you can give to a fellow man? Honestly, what a delusional and out of touch response. I pity you if that's what your childhood role models taught you.
  - phoe-krk 3y ago
    > No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. This isn't pointing out an error in thinking, this is stating a fact. A fat person most likely already knows that they're fat, so doing this again is redundant; a statement like "you're fat" is also usually emotionally loaded, turning this into a weapon of verbal aggression. Are you sure that I am the one being delusional here?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Zetobal 3y ago
cruel and kick down? it's not socially acceptable behaviour... at least for me.
pydry 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect
127 3y ago
If the incels are bad, then it means they are wrong about society, and there is no problem.
DonHopkins 3y ago
I feel no fellowship with voluntary misogynists who kick women down. You don't get a free pass or a nudge and a wink on your misogyny just because you're the same gender as me.
- kiba 3y ago
  You have no fellowship or sympathy with misogynists because you haven't seen them as human beings. Yes, it's horrible to hate women, but this isn't some random things people decided to just one day do. There's a history behind it.
  - sureglymop 3y ago
    For most people, sympathy and empathy for other humans ends when those humans themselves show no sympathy or empathy for a group of other humans. To give an example: capital punishment. In practice this is an interesting problem to tackle though. One can completely denounce and shame people for their actions or ideologies, while at the same time showing some sympathy/empathy in wanting to address the root causes of why those people are like they are.
    - toyg 3y ago
      Well, I wonder how many incels stopped feeling empathy for women after traumatic events in school. Adolescent girls can be incredibly cruel.
      - DonHopkins 3y ago
        [flagged]
  - thrwawaythygyh 3y ago
    Yes. I would say it's more to do with a societal restructuring and changing things have been around for 1000s of years and expecting the past 50 years to just fundamentally alter humanity and for there to be no negative outcomes. And the assumption that everything prior to 50 years ago in how society was structured was bad because it was traditional. And then acting surprised when it doesn't translate into even replacement birthrates.
RoyalHenOil 3y ago
Most people instinctively respond to hostility with hostility. It is a self-defense instinct. Very few people can overcome that instinct and show sympathy and understanding to people without sympathy and understanding, and those who can tend to burn out in short order and retreat to the company of people like themselves. Women who hate men, and therefore have limited/no positive romantic experiences with men, also receive a lot of hatred all over the internet (I'm not sure why you think they don't, but it is exceedingly common). And so misandry begets further misandry, just as misogyny begets further misogyny. Unfortunately, there really is no good solution for it: People are not obligated to like people who hate them or who hate people they care about. And people who are not liked experience depression and loneliness, which anger and hatred are common symptom of. It's a serious Catch 22.
- benterix 3y ago
  Yeah, the problem is that suddenly everybody started to equate "involuntary celibates" with "involuntary celibates who hate women" who are a vocal part on the Internet. But there are many, many other groups, such as the ones in Dead Bedrooms subreddit. This superficial generalization doesn't help anyone.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    "Incels" are not just random people who happen to be involuntarily celibate. It's literally a self-defined hate group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel People in the Dead Bedrooms aren't having sex but by and large they're not "incels".
    - zelphirkalt 3y ago
      > Incel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ IN-sel; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate"[1]) is a term closely associated with an online subculture of people (mostly white,[2] male, and heterosexual[3]) who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. [...] > The subculture is often characterized by [...].
- 3y ago
atoav 3y ago
My assumption would be: People here are of the curious kind. The kind that likes to learn, likes to know when they are wrong, likes to put themselves into other perspectives, figure things out etc. The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves. The HN crowd dislikes that, because this is the worst pitfall somewhat intelligent people can fall in: misleading yourself with clever theories because it feels better than admiting fault. And we all know that pitfall and hate it when we eventually realize we did this to ourselves. The typical behaviour connected to incels is the embodiment of this fault. Being self-critical is hard, but it also benefits you in the long run. And on the gender disparity: women tend to do this less (or at least without the public-facing self-pity) and most importantly don't tend to not kill people because of it. Don't get me wrong, I wish every Incel the best. But at least to me this is a case of "I can't help you before you get serious about helping yourself" and that involves searching for your own faults, being self-critical and self-aware. The problem isn't that incels are not shown the door, the problem is they won't walk through it — and they can only walk through it themselves.
- yorwba 3y ago
  > The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves. According to the paper, incels (like non-incel single men) mostly blame internal factors (i.e. their own deficiencies) for their lack of dating success.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  > People here are of the curious kind. The kind that likes to learn, likes to know when they are wrong, likes to put themselves into other perspectives, figure things out etc. That's very charitable. I find this a community of people that think very highly of themselves, and that outside of very narrow technical topics, is prone to speak with a lot of false authority of things they understand very little about. "Those other people do it wrong. But not us, we do it right".
sparrowInHand 3y ago
Its hard when a utopia dies. Due to a walkout of citizens in reality - and the model society you envisioned implodes, while external forces on which you projected the utopia and who are actually just dystopian empires use the resulting weakness to spread. Imagine a architect, kicking a machine that will not fly. Add colorful curses. The last time this happened, was when the people of the sovjiet union rebelled. And the western left leaning intelligentsia has held a grudge against the whole of eastern europe ever since. Chomsky comes to mind.
eternityforest 3y ago
Most people use the word incel community to mean a specific group of people. It's not "guys who can't get laid", it's an extremist group. To some guys, maybe it means something different, but most people think of incel as... Yeah. That community sucks people in and ruins lives. * Main forum IIRC run by the same people that do a forum for help committing suicide. * This site has the initials SS, which doesn't seem accidental. Attempting to convince someone not to do it is against the rules there. * Women are called holes, toilets, roasties(meaning one who's vagina looks like roast beef), fesikhs (apparently a fermented fish product), and a lot of race specific ones. * Elliot Rodger, a mass murderer, is often respected. To "Go ER" means to do similar abhorrent crimes. * Religion, especially Judaism, is not well liked, however, hyper authoritarian extremist factions of some faiths often get some respect. * Hitler is sometimes a crowd favorite. * An activity known as rotting is a popular activity. It's what it sounds like. Just sitting and doing nothing. It's a miserable place. * They actively try to spread their worldview, known as the blackpill, which causes such misery. * Occasionally, you'll see people actively enjoying various means of making normies, especially women, uncomfortable. Including with poor hygiene. * There is close to zero interesting content. Some of the problems they face that got them into this are real, but I think there's got to be better things to do that join those nasty forums.
sureglymop 3y ago
Because, it comes across entirely as entitlement... Why did these guys assume in the first place that they are entitled to sex? It doesn't work that way because that always requires two consenting adults. That entitlement is indicative of there being a severe misunderstanding of that. But it turns out that is not even their main issue. They feel disadvantaged and victimized in every way possible and it all turned into misogyny. But "women" are just the scapegoat, not the actual root of the issues they are having. At the same time, women have to deal with certain problems and face some adversity that is quite unimaginable to men. Almost all women I have discussed this with have had at least one encounter where a man in their workplace tried to make "advances" unrelated to work, often even by abusing a position of power. If so many men cannot comprehend that this is unprofessional behavior and not the right time and place that is something that should probably be addressed first.
pizza234 3y ago
My theory: a logic-driven reading of the problem will not fully understand it, as incel has roots on emotions, and can hardly be understood if taken in logical terms (unless one has considerable insight). Therefore, from this perspective, the attitude is to interpret those people as (in simplified terms) "people who don't get out".
mettamage 3y ago
I sympathize and empathize with incels. Many of my friends have dating struggles, they're all great guys. The reason I don't is because I'm willing to get 1000s of rejections, no matter how painful they are, I don't give a damn. I will learn from each rejection and get better, until I figure out how to attract the woman of my dreams. Anyway, that was my mindset a decade ago and since then didn't have had any issues. Recently was on the dating market again and the first month I spent 80 hours into going up and talking to women and only got one date. ONE DATE! :') I was rusty for sure. Fast forward 2 months and I'm on Tinder, 5 matches per month. Fast forward another 3 months, and now I'm having 150 matches per month (by thinking like a hacker, ever reverse engineered a binary or played hackthebox? Good! Use that mindset, reverse anything you can get your hands on, make Tinder a white box app - also, stay legal). Fast forward another 2 months and I was having sex with a different woman once per week. I realized I didn't like it, I'm too much of a romantic. At one date, I met an amazingly cool and beautiful person and we really liked each other and we've been together for about a year now. It's all skill training. And this was my second skill training loop (first time between 16 and 20). It still took 8 months and in the first months I was still laughably bad again (80 hours just to get one date, omg :') It cracked me up then and it cracks me up now). It's funny how people think this is attached to your personality and stuff, it really isn't. The skill in dating is going up to people and being able to present yourself well. I was horrible at both. It takes a while to fix (and to refix after 5 years of a long-term relationship) when you're like me.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  Are you doing okay? Genuinely, as this reads like a manic episode to me (as someone who suffers from bipolar)
  - mettamage 3y ago
    Thanks for asking :) I think so. I do feel very strongly about this. I feel a lot of pain from when I was young. I also feel a lot of love from after I was young and fixed this part in my life. I can't help but embody both feelings. I normally don't mention it unless this topic is specifically addressed. In general, I feel quite calm. But yea, I can get quite intense.
surgical_fire 3y ago
Because humans tend to be cruel when the target is perceived as one deserving cruelty. It makes people feel really good about themselves to step over members of the "other" group. We will never overcome our natural tendency to tribalism.

why does this place turn so cruel and kick their fellow men when they're down? if this was an issue that affected the other gender, the tone here would be a lot different.

phoe-krk 3y ago

Highlighting errors and mistakes in other men's thinking in order to try and reduce the suffering they inflict on themselves is one of the greatest gifts that a fellow man can give. Sure, it's a kick and therefore it hurts, but it's a kick in the right direction.

thrwawaythygyh 3y ago
seems less like good-faith advice and more like schadenfreude
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Maybe some fraction of folks giving tough love are doing it primarily for the 'schadenfreude' value, but it doesn't seem likely to be all that many. In fact I don't think I've ever seen that happen in real life. It happens on the internet because it's easier for losers to pretend to be virtuous, better, and so on. Which might lead to that perception.
antisthenes 3y ago
> Highlighting errors and mistakes in other men's thinking in order to try and reduce the suffering they inflict on themselves is one of the greatest gifts that a fellow man can give. No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. Do you think that's actually helpful and "the greatest gift" you can give to a fellow man? Honestly, what a delusional and out of touch response. I pity you if that's what your childhood role models taught you.
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  > No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. This isn't pointing out an error in thinking, this is stating a fact. A fat person most likely already knows that they're fat, so doing this again is redundant; a statement like "you're fat" is also usually emotionally loaded, turning this into a weapon of verbal aggression. Are you sure that I am the one being delusional here?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Zetobal 3y ago

cruel and kick down? it's not socially acceptable behaviour... at least for me.

pydry 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect

127 3y ago

If the incels are bad, then it means they are wrong about society, and there is no problem.

DonHopkins 3y ago

I feel no fellowship with voluntary misogynists who kick women down. You don't get a free pass or a nudge and a wink on your misogyny just because you're the same gender as me.

kiba 3y ago
You have no fellowship or sympathy with misogynists because you haven't seen them as human beings. Yes, it's horrible to hate women, but this isn't some random things people decided to just one day do. There's a history behind it.
- sureglymop 3y ago
  For most people, sympathy and empathy for other humans ends when those humans themselves show no sympathy or empathy for a group of other humans. To give an example: capital punishment. In practice this is an interesting problem to tackle though. One can completely denounce and shame people for their actions or ideologies, while at the same time showing some sympathy/empathy in wanting to address the root causes of why those people are like they are.
  - toyg 3y ago
    Well, I wonder how many incels stopped feeling empathy for women after traumatic events in school. Adolescent girls can be incredibly cruel.
    - DonHopkins 3y ago
      [flagged]
- thrwawaythygyh 3y ago
  Yes. I would say it's more to do with a societal restructuring and changing things have been around for 1000s of years and expecting the past 50 years to just fundamentally alter humanity and for there to be no negative outcomes. And the assumption that everything prior to 50 years ago in how society was structured was bad because it was traditional. And then acting surprised when it doesn't translate into even replacement birthrates.

RoyalHenOil 3y ago

Most people instinctively respond to hostility with hostility. It is a self-defense instinct. Very few people can overcome that instinct and show sympathy and understanding to people without sympathy and understanding, and those who can tend to burn out in short order and retreat to the company of people like themselves. Women who hate men, and therefore have limited/no positive romantic experiences with men, also receive a lot of hatred all over the internet (I'm not sure why you think they don't, but it is exceedingly common). And so misandry begets further misandry, just as misogyny begets further misogyny. Unfortunately, there really is no good solution for it: People are not obligated to like people who hate them or who hate people they care about. And people who are not liked experience depression and loneliness, which anger and hatred are common symptom of. It's a serious Catch 22.

benterix 3y ago
Yeah, the problem is that suddenly everybody started to equate "involuntary celibates" with "involuntary celibates who hate women" who are a vocal part on the Internet. But there are many, many other groups, such as the ones in Dead Bedrooms subreddit. This superficial generalization doesn't help anyone.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  "Incels" are not just random people who happen to be involuntarily celibate. It's literally a self-defined hate group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel People in the Dead Bedrooms aren't having sex but by and large they're not "incels".
  - zelphirkalt 3y ago
    > Incel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ IN-sel; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate"[1]) is a term closely associated with an online subculture of people (mostly white,[2] male, and heterosexual[3]) who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. [...] > The subculture is often characterized by [...].
3y ago

atoav 3y ago

My assumption would be: People here are of the curious kind. The kind that likes to learn, likes to know when they are wrong, likes to put themselves into other perspectives, figure things out etc. The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves. The HN crowd dislikes that, because this is the worst pitfall somewhat intelligent people can fall in: misleading yourself with clever theories because it feels better than admiting fault. And we all know that pitfall and hate it when we eventually realize we did this to ourselves. The typical behaviour connected to incels is the embodiment of this fault. Being self-critical is hard, but it also benefits you in the long run. And on the gender disparity: women tend to do this less (or at least without the public-facing self-pity) and most importantly don't tend to not kill people because of it. Don't get me wrong, I wish every Incel the best. But at least to me this is a case of "I can't help you before you get serious about helping yourself" and that involves searching for your own faults, being self-critical and self-aware. The problem isn't that incels are not shown the door, the problem is they won't walk through it — and they can only walk through it themselves.

yorwba 3y ago
> The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves. According to the paper, incels (like non-incel single men) mostly blame internal factors (i.e. their own deficiencies) for their lack of dating success.
surgical_fire 3y ago
> People here are of the curious kind. The kind that likes to learn, likes to know when they are wrong, likes to put themselves into other perspectives, figure things out etc. That's very charitable. I find this a community of people that think very highly of themselves, and that outside of very narrow technical topics, is prone to speak with a lot of false authority of things they understand very little about. "Those other people do it wrong. But not us, we do it right".

sparrowInHand 3y ago

Its hard when a utopia dies. Due to a walkout of citizens in reality - and the model society you envisioned implodes, while external forces on which you projected the utopia and who are actually just dystopian empires use the resulting weakness to spread. Imagine a architect, kicking a machine that will not fly. Add colorful curses. The last time this happened, was when the people of the sovjiet union rebelled. And the western left leaning intelligentsia has held a grudge against the whole of eastern europe ever since. Chomsky comes to mind.

eternityforest 3y ago

Most people use the word incel community to mean a specific group of people. It's not "guys who can't get laid", it's an extremist group. To some guys, maybe it means something different, but most people think of incel as... Yeah. That community sucks people in and ruins lives. * Main forum IIRC run by the same people that do a forum for help committing suicide. * This site has the initials SS, which doesn't seem accidental. Attempting to convince someone not to do it is against the rules there. * Women are called holes, toilets, roasties(meaning one who's vagina looks like roast beef), fesikhs (apparently a fermented fish product), and a lot of race specific ones. * Elliot Rodger, a mass murderer, is often respected. To "Go ER" means to do similar abhorrent crimes. * Religion, especially Judaism, is not well liked, however, hyper authoritarian extremist factions of some faiths often get some respect. * Hitler is sometimes a crowd favorite. * An activity known as rotting is a popular activity. It's what it sounds like. Just sitting and doing nothing. It's a miserable place. * They actively try to spread their worldview, known as the blackpill, which causes such misery. * Occasionally, you'll see people actively enjoying various means of making normies, especially women, uncomfortable. Including with poor hygiene. * There is close to zero interesting content. Some of the problems they face that got them into this are real, but I think there's got to be better things to do that join those nasty forums.

sureglymop 3y ago

Because, it comes across entirely as entitlement... Why did these guys assume in the first place that they are entitled to sex? It doesn't work that way because that always requires two consenting adults. That entitlement is indicative of there being a severe misunderstanding of that. But it turns out that is not even their main issue. They feel disadvantaged and victimized in every way possible and it all turned into misogyny. But "women" are just the scapegoat, not the actual root of the issues they are having. At the same time, women have to deal with certain problems and face some adversity that is quite unimaginable to men. Almost all women I have discussed this with have had at least one encounter where a man in their workplace tried to make "advances" unrelated to work, often even by abusing a position of power. If so many men cannot comprehend that this is unprofessional behavior and not the right time and place that is something that should probably be addressed first.

pizza234 3y ago

My theory: a logic-driven reading of the problem will not fully understand it, as incel has roots on emotions, and can hardly be understood if taken in logical terms (unless one has considerable insight). Therefore, from this perspective, the attitude is to interpret those people as (in simplified terms) "people who don't get out".

mettamage 3y ago

I sympathize and empathize with incels. Many of my friends have dating struggles, they're all great guys. The reason I don't is because I'm willing to get 1000s of rejections, no matter how painful they are, I don't give a damn. I will learn from each rejection and get better, until I figure out how to attract the woman of my dreams. Anyway, that was my mindset a decade ago and since then didn't have had any issues. Recently was on the dating market again and the first month I spent 80 hours into going up and talking to women and only got one date. ONE DATE! :') I was rusty for sure. Fast forward 2 months and I'm on Tinder, 5 matches per month. Fast forward another 3 months, and now I'm having 150 matches per month (by thinking like a hacker, ever reverse engineered a binary or played hackthebox? Good! Use that mindset, reverse anything you can get your hands on, make Tinder a white box app - also, stay legal). Fast forward another 2 months and I was having sex with a different woman once per week. I realized I didn't like it, I'm too much of a romantic. At one date, I met an amazingly cool and beautiful person and we really liked each other and we've been together for about a year now. It's all skill training. And this was my second skill training loop (first time between 16 and 20). It still took 8 months and in the first months I was still laughably bad again (80 hours just to get one date, omg :') It cracked me up then and it cracks me up now). It's funny how people think this is attached to your personality and stuff, it really isn't. The skill in dating is going up to people and being able to present yourself well. I was horrible at both. It takes a while to fix (and to refix after 5 years of a long-term relationship) when you're like me.

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
Are you doing okay? Genuinely, as this reads like a manic episode to me (as someone who suffers from bipolar)
- mettamage 3y ago
  Thanks for asking :) I think so. I do feel very strongly about this. I feel a lot of pain from when I was young. I also feel a lot of love from after I was young and fixed this part in my life. I can't help but embody both feelings. I normally don't mention it unless this topic is specifically addressed. In general, I feel quite calm. But yea, I can get quite intense.

surgical_fire 3y ago

Because humans tend to be cruel when the target is perceived as one deserving cruelty. It makes people feel really good about themselves to step over members of the "other" group. We will never overcome our natural tendency to tribalism.