Oh right, I forgot you're a mod (why would I forget that anyway?); You can just ignore litigate questions. :rofl: Power is truly beautiful.

You see essential worth in human life. I dont, and Im honest about it, at least. I am not a nihilist, far from it, but a person is what it makes of itself. My cat is worth infinitely more to me than the life of, lets say, someone who would run down 12 people in the street because pornhub just isnt enough.

And no, I didnt assume you were an anti-feminist proto fascist. The *you* was fictional and impersonal. I must admit I didnt think this subject would even be controversial here. In what world do we live in that we have to entertain the sexual-resentment fueled spawn of reddit and 4chan as something that could even only potentially be not-terrible?

You see essential worth in human life. I dont, and Im honest about it, at least. — Akanthinos

Still profoundly disagree here.

:meh:
:worry:
:sad:

Are you ok? You write as if you are tying a knot. If you reread what I wrote, you will perhaps see that I have cast no moral judgement on any poster here, unless perhaps those who have entertained the thought of mass murder out of sexual frustration.

If you feel bad about your relationships with women, thats something that can be discussed, but I dont see why youd want to do it in a thread specifically on incels. Perhaps you dont at all, perhaps there is nothing to discuss. I dont want you to think that I imply anything by this, but you seem to take the subject to heart, and to me it seems a pretty black/white issue. There are a few of those, I guess.

As for my history, thats fairly irrelevant. I am not the arrogant judgemental douche you try to depict in your post. You want to make me pass as a Chad? I am not. This is not me thread-bombing to post GET GUD VIRGIN. I have approached the matter at hand in my initial posts in a critical manner, and only since then have had to justify myself. Sorry to say, but the subject of a potentially violent resentment based subculture is necessarily going to come with its luggage of moral judgements. And it probably should.

The crux of the problem, as I see it, is what I quoted. You don't see essential worth in human life, per your own admission. So of course you don't see essential worth in the human life of perpetrators of moral wrongs. So you see them as less than human. That is profoundly, tragically, unbearably wrong.

So yeah, I'm not ok.

Huh. Well, in that case, cry me a river. Had I offended you because of some unknown issue, I would have felt bad. But not to your sensibilities for scumbags. If that is all you want to discuss, feel free to start another thread, entitled The desolate moral landscape of Akanthinos, otherwise my feelings toward incels is fairly otiose to this thread.

Guys, calm down and come to your senses. These feelings aren't mutually exclusive. They're both scumbags and pitiable. I condemn them and feel sorry for them. And you should too.

Wow, such a quick change from fake concern to disdain. As I expected, from reading your posts.

*cries river*

My sensibilities for scumbags are the same as my sensibilities for fundamentalist lunies as yourself. You're beautiful human beings. I mean that sincerely.

That's what I'm saying...although less nuanced... *hoot*

Now thats offensive. Compared to Gilford and Manassian Im basically Brad Pitt.

Ok, perhaps Robert Downey Jr.

thats pushing it, Bateman is physically perfect. Like a new breed of humanity. Like Reeves.

Vic?

LOL! No, Keanu.

Obviously, the new humanity still struggles at acting...

Delete

As I also mentionned, I rather think that they are not men-children, as it is often said, but rather adults who have simply followed the logic of commodification to its nihilistic end. — Akanthinos

This is a valuable insight. Care to expand on that?

Such irony. You show your opposition to the "culture war" by demonstrating your scorn for the "warriors" on the other side. Then you tell us how to set them on the right path with your condescending pontificating. — T Clark

I don't see the irony. Is that the irony?

We are living in a time of political polarization, and I've briefly summarized several of the more silly extremes. Yes it's condescending (to people who belong to the groups I've characterized) because I've tied them all together as ignorant, insular, and absurd.

Failed philosophy often reads like pontification, so please point out where I've failed that I may alter my understanding or approach.

I've seen this kind of thing before. People feel contempt for others who demonstrate weaknesses they fear in themselves. I think this is a major source of misanthropy that many men in our society feel. — T Clark

I'm not in fact projecting my own fears onto other people and groups...

Ironic condescension aside, the misanthropy of these emerging groups is in part a symptom of the ideological isolation and emotional reinforcement that social media can facilitate. My point is that it is the mutual emotional reinforcement and radicalizing effect that an online community can provide to like minded individuals, combined with how it insulates them from mainstream and even common-sense ideas (it out-competes other sources of information), which makes ideological polarization and stratification an inevitability.

Thoughts?

P.S: The quotation you plucked is a slight modification of an Orwell quote "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength". I modified it for my own use, which is to say that there's something very wrong with being motivated in battle by one's scorn for the other side alone, as scorn is a terrible source for justification. In a backwards mind, in a backwards land, scorn is pity and the righteous bloody.

I will, but tomorrow, its getting awfully early here. Good night.

the article cited in the OP is pretty good on this:

"Once Rodger’s friends or the girls at school see him with his new thing, he thinks, he will finally have access to the prize he seeks. The more expensive, exclusive, or exotic the object, the greater its sexual exchange value. This logic extends to the literal acquisition of people ... Sex is money. Acquiring coolness and sexiness is just a matter of buying things. Desire is produced in the form of commodities. But the more items Rodger acquires, the more frustrated he becomes by their failure to give him what he really wants. Nothing stays true to its promise. At every turn, he is betrayed. But instead of questioning the logic in the first place, the logic equating the accumulation of luxury goods with sexual fulfillment, the logic of desire as a lack of something, he concludes that his problem is simply that he doesn’t have enough money. Only with a virtually infinite amount of money, he thinks, will he be finally irresistible to women.

...How different is the logic of capital and sexual accumulation Elliot Rodger articulates from the proper values of our society? What makes it pathetic when Rodger wears Gucci sunglasses to get laid and perfectly normal when his father, or Harvey Weinstein, or Donald Trump do so? Why do we, ostensibly well-adjusted bourgeoisie, think it is so absurd that Rodger expects that these commodities entitle him to sex and affection when we exhibit and encourage the same behavior ourselves?".

But instead of questioning the logic in the first place, the logic equating the accumulation of luxury goods with sexual fulfillment, the logic of desire as a lack of something, he concludes that his problem is simply that he doesn’t have enough money. — StreetlightX

Well, that's quite literally insanity... Self fellating garbage as you would say.

However, what interests me is how can this logic, outlined in your post, be reasoned with? It seems like a no win situation.

I'm not sure one can reason with it so much as attempt to show that another logic is possible - beginning, perhaps, by trying to show that sexuality is situated beyond a economic circuit of mere supply and demand; people are not 'goods': they have autonomy which must be engaged with and appealed to - even at - especially at - the risk of rejection. 'Goods' don't reject you, for a start.

I'm not sure one can reason with it so much as attempt to show that another logic is possible - beginning, perhaps, by trying to show that sexuality is situated beyond a economic circuit of mere supply and demand; people are not 'goods': they have autonomy which must be engaged with and appealed to - even at - especially at - the risk of rejection. 'Goods' don't reject you, for a start. — StreetlightX

I'm still trying to reason through where the incel has gone wrong in his beliefs. Namely, the assumption (grounded on what) that people are all hedonists or all subscribe to some rational self interested based theory of human behavior.

@T Clark

From the article:

"The community is generally resentful, misogynistic, and misanthropic, calling for violence against women and sexually successful men. They post on websites like 4chan and Reddit. They have a strange, intricate language they use to talk about their world. And they often express admiration for Elliot Rodger, the self-identified incel who went on a killing spree near the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014 and had uploaded a series of threatening YouTube videos and a 140-page manifesto, My Twisted World, to the internet beforehand."

That's what's being discussed specifically, not just sexually unsuccessful reclusive males.

the misanthropy of these emerging groups is in part a symptom of the ideological isolation and emotional reinforcement that social media can facilitate — VagabondSpectre

:up: I went on one of their sites (https://incels.me/) and took a quick look.

Typical threads

Main theme:
Self-indulgent self-pity/despair concerning finding a sexual partner (often backed up by scientific research to make it harder to dismiss).

"Study on the sexual market of Tinder"

"According to this analysis a man of average attractiveness can only expect to be liked by slightly less than 1% of females (0.87%). This equates to 1 “like” for every 115 females"

"There's no any discuss required. Anything is clear. It's over. What else can be added?"

"I never thought about it that way. It's like a new sort of feudalism. Ethnics and sub4 whites must toil 40 hrs a week while Chad fucks all the girls."

Even 1 YEAR OLDS AVOID unattractive people

"ugly person, ugly life."

"What's new in it? It's a damn proven point known to uglycels since Cretaceous era."

"What do you expect from them? They are the reason why suicide is deemed immoral and isn't already a fundamental right. They want us to suffer more. Younger generation of uglycels will come over listening to their bluepilled ideology only to be bullied so bad that they hate their existence. This is a propaganda to make our lives worse and our deaths painful."

"Someone please kill me"

"Time to rope"

Sub-themes: (Including) racism

[Serious] Mix breeding should be illegal

"Solid thread. Mixed breeders deserve the death penalty"

"No, it really depends. You either end up as a subhuman incel or as a giga Chad/Stacey supermodel. You can't be a normie while mixed race, you're condemned to live at one of the extreme. There's famous example of that fact here and there :"

"Venting about the disfortune of being ethnic, incel etc shouldn't be enough to get a ban or warning in my opinion. Being a nigger or ethnic a legit disadvantage. I would have nothing but sympathy if a whitecel with facial deformity kept venting about his deformity... We wouldn't call that 'deformitybaiting', so why the double-standard when its about race?.. And isn't this what this forum is for? :feelsbadman:"

Some usernames from the discussions

mylifeistrash
acnescarcel
Junkyard Roach
Gremlincel
PleaseKillMeLoseSkin
UnfortunatelyINCEL98
Sadist
fukmylyf
Dispair

Typical banner ad (a computer sex game, no surprise there):



In line with what you said, ideological group isolation with emotional reinforcement that couldn't be delivered in so intense, immediate or pure a fashion from anything but social media culminating in a smorgasbord of self-indulgent masochistic emotion that's probably as addictive as it is (self-)destructive.

Reminds me of the perverse attachment to philosophical pessimism. Probably cathartic in a similar if dramatically less sophisticated way.

...How different is the logic of capital and sexual accumulation Elliot Rodger articulates from the proper values of our society? What makes it pathetic when Rodger wears Gucci sunglasses to get laid and perfectly normal when his father, or Harvey Weinstein, or Donald Trump do so? Why do we, ostensibly well-adjusted bourgeoisie, think it is so absurd that Rodger expects that these commodities entitle him to sex and affection when we exhibit and encourage the same behavior ourselves?". — StreetlightX

Not different at all.

I'm still trying to reason through where the incel has gone wrong in his beliefs. — Posty McPostface

Clearly, the incel has failed to deploy the Tic Tacs. Or, just possibly, he has deployed the Tic Tacs, and they failed to do what it said on the tin. Because after all, he wasn't worth it.

These, I think are among the casualties of the psy-ops we call 'advertising', along with the anorexics, shopaholics, gambling addicts, and so on. Fear, jealousy, hatred, are easy to invoke and manipulate and powerful motivators; tied to sexual frustration and negative identity - you're only worth what you can spend.

Try a site for anorexics for comparison. I'm not linking one here, but have an article instead. I think it would be a mistake to blame social media for this, just as it is a mistake to blame it for terrorism. The extremes are always logical extensions of 'normality'. This is what we have made; these are the values we live.

These, I think are among the casualties of the psy-ops we call 'advertising', along with the anorexics, shopaholics, gambling addicts, and so on. Fear, jealousy, hatred, are easy to invoke and manipulate and powerful motivators; tied to sexual frustration and negative identity - you're only worth what you can spend. — unenlightened

Can one criticize the botched, perverted, and sadly mass produced/manufactured Jungian collective unconscious, at all? How does one reason with this insanity?

I don't know. I blame the idolatry of the self and taking your-self too seriously. Since the self is the common denominator for all things perceived/felt/understood.

Does it really boil down to such a truism because it really seems true and undeniable on face value...

Social media creates the echo chamber that amplifies the cry that might otherwise fall on deaf ears. It doesn't create the basic type, but it creates opportunities for its propagation and distillation, I guess.

Life provides multiple status markers and cues. If a male individual is unfortunate enough lack an attractive body, an able mind, money and adequate genitals, then the chances are that this low status will result in a lack of reproductive success. In some cases, blame for this, fairly reasonable, frustration will be directed at women.

That's what's being discussed specifically, not just sexually unsuccessful reclusive males. — Baden

Yes, I am aware of that. I still think the way the issue was framed demonstrates an underlying contempt and fear of men.

On the other hand... I'm still pretty burned from the men/women discussion of a few weeks ago and I'm probably oversensitive. If I want to keep credibility on this issue, I should pick my fights more carefully. Thanks for the reality check.

Oh, no worries, mate, I'm just in the process of informing myself about this stuff now anyhow.