And there is in all of this, for boys, the mystery. But you need to be careful what you wish for, because it takes a man to reconcile the loss of the mystery with the reality that replaces it.

Incelness, then, is like being the runt of the litter. But with these differences: litter-runts are usually feisty and fighters, in every way as good as their siblings, but that fate has simply skimped on them. Incel-runts, on the other hand, are simply quitters, being as good and with all gifts none skimped, but their sense of entitlement, being unrequited, makes them just quit. Which is to say that an incel is just a child, but well past the age where that is either useful or attractive.

Considering the fact that life is a gamble of chance and random success. It's not far fetched to call life a joke. The contrast between every happy soul out there and every miserable bastard is mind numbing. It couldn't have turned out more ridiculous.

Keeping Innocence or losing it won't make a difference. You can't escape despair anyway. In the end, we regret everything that didn't happen and everything that did happen.

In the end, we regret everything that didn't happen and everything that did happen. — Wittgenstein

Well, as of your reading of this post, you're advised to manage your affairs so as to avoid any need to regret. Unless your regret is pathological, which I think you'd agree is a whole other problem.

Well, as of your reading of this post, you're advised to manage your affairs so as to avoid any need to regret. Unless your regret is pathological, which I think you'd agree is a whole other problem.

If life didn't end , we wont need to do philosophy anymore in order to make sense of our failures. Since it's not the case, we are afraid of turning our life into a single big failure.

If life didn't end , we wont need to do philosophy anymore in order to make sense of our failures. — Wittgenstein

I don't think philosophy is your thing, guy.

we are afraid of turning our life into a single big failure. — Wittgenstein

To who? The majority who can barely gather en masse without it turning into a mob/riot/fight? You are afraid of what you described, which is fair. So was I. However, it should be noted that one who can find purpose and value in what others deem as a "big failure" where the same struggle to find either in what is measured as "success" in material riches and influence should not be so easily discounted.

Meaning is importance. Feeling like there is meaning in life requires feeling like you matter to the world, like you are valuable. Romantic love is one source of that feeling of being valued. So is financial success. People’s inclination to believe the just world hypothesis tends to make hedonic suffering seem reflective of self-worth: “I’m suffering therefore something about me is wrong to make me deserve this”.

Feeling worthless is an impediment to success in any of these endeavors. The challenge then is to find another source of self-esteem, both instrumentally as it will help you to better achieve all those things, and intrinsically as a substitute for the self-esteem that comes from those things and (largely) makes them valuable to begin with.

Feeling like there is meaning in life requires feeling like you matter to the world, like you are valuable. — Pfhorrest

This is the childish if not downright animalistic viewpoint one undergoes, experiences, then hopefully sheds like a snake sheds its skin prior to reaching enlightenment ie. true self-worth as determined by the individual. In a world where slavery was not only common but law, did no enslaved person ever experience meaning beyond that of what of what his master conveyed or prescribed to him? I think not. Rare as it may have been.

It seems like you didn’t read past that first line of my post, as the conclusion was all about finding a source of meaning independent of external factors like that.

Not every diametric response is a contradiction, some are affirmations or otherwise directed at possible onlookers. Though, you are correct.

They claim getting laid ( not by escorts but someone you love ) is a fundamental need of life, similar to getting food and having a shelter. Since their basic needs are not met, they tend to give up on life and don't see a purpose in developing their personhood. — Wittgenstein

Here's what you do, you ask them this simple question: Are you entitled to someone else's body? If they answer "yes" you just ignore them because they're insane. If they answer "no" you then ask them if fate has somehow pre-determined that they'll never get laid. If they again answer "no" it goes back to the individual in question. If they answer "yes" to the fate question you've got to wonder why fate has conspired to punish them in particular and what the story behind that is. It sounds like it would sure be an interesting story.

Those problems include looking ugly , mental disorder, terrible childhood or just bad luck ( being born as an ethnic in a dominant white culture, being born in a poor family etc.) — Wittgenstein

Yes because ugly men, men with mental disorders, bad childhoods or ethnic minorities or poor men can't get laid. It's obviously impossible. Only 6'4 Chads get laid.

While growing up, they were told about life getting better as you grow up or how consuming " this and this " will fill the hole in your heart, your craving for living a meaningful life. They think it's all a scam. — Wittgenstein

I am not sure about this connection. This message isn't new, and hypercapitalism has been around a while, and doesn't seem to have given rise to anything like "incel culture" until the first online generation. I think this particular movement has more to do with the internet as a "support group gone wrong" then with capitalism or any specific hedonistic philosophy.

I'd even argue that the Incel's view on life isn't actually as hedonistic as you make it sound. Because from talking to self-professed incels on the internet, I got the feeling that their problem was less that they craved something above all else. It was more that they had elevated their suffering to a defining element of their character, which then required them to find ever more reasons to suffer.

Here's what you do, you ask them this simple question: — BitconnectCarlos

You're not going to get to any entrenched incels with reason. They're not actually all that much interested in having love and sex anyways. What they're actually interested in is being part of a community, where being like they are is suddenly an asset - because the worse you have it, the higher your status.

The supposed arguments given for why this or that character trait makes it impossible to be "truely desired" is just so much window dressing. What it's actually about is the emotional need for belonging, which they fill by being part of a tight-knit and community. They're kinda like monks, angry frustrated teenage monks.

If they answer "yes" to the fate question you've got to wonder why fate has conspired to punish them in particular and what the story behind that is. — BitconnectCarlos

I think I actually know this story. Fate here is genetics, and genetics has randomly given them the "never get loved" ticket in the genetic lottery. There was nothing they could have done (isn't that nice?) and there is no way out.

By the way, I think the most interesting topic with ties to philosophy and incels is probably how online dating, or perhaps more accurately dating between people who are always online, is changing the way relationships form, develop and end.

It's after all not impossible that dating is really changing in a way that makes it increasingly hard for a group of people - perhaps mostly men - to find something like romance.

You're not going to get to any entrenched incels with reason. — Echarmion

Oh yeah - I'm not expecting to. I was just saying since we're on a philosophy forum.... but yeah, in practical reality I'm not spending my time trying to convert any incels. I just thought this line of thought has some implications on bodily autonomy that some people might not initially recognize.

Fate here is genetics, and genetics has randomly given them the "never get loved" ticket in the genetic lottery. There was nothing they could have done (isn't that nice?) and there is no way out. — Echarmion

Gotta be tough to think this way when you do see burn victims and seriously disabled people still getting married and getting into relationships. Oh well, maybe they're just secret Chads, who knows. It's just those Chad genes.

By the way, I think the most interesting topic with ties to philosophy and incels is probably how online dating, or perhaps more accurately dating between people who are always online, is changing the way relationships form, develop and end. — Echarmion

This would be a worthy discussion topic. It would be fruitful than seeking to understand a worldview with a perpetual victim complex that divides the world into Chads, Staceys and incels and wallows in its own victimhood, because, you know, genetics.

Incels, from what I read in Wikipedia, are just a bunch of people trying to cope with what seems to be social isolation in general and sexual deprivation in particular. The Wikipedia entry describes a trend in the Incel movement from a harmless platform for sharing one's feelings, views, and experiences of being celibate to one that's become a dangerous breeding ground for misogyny, racism, hate, and extremism among other things.

As for how hedonism - the philosophy - fits into the Incel story, all I can say is sexual pleasure isn't on the list of pleasures that define happiness. J. S. Mill allegedly split pleasure into higher and lower categories and made it a point to assign carnal pleasures to the latter.

However, there's the other hedonism - mere pursuit of pleasure - that Incels will/should be more than familiar with. Sex is pleasurable and being celibate and involuntarily at that does diminish one's hedonistic expereience.

Western youth is taught from an early age to have an unhealthy relationship with sex. "Incels" are one of its many outgrowths. Lets not judge them too harshly.

Those problems include looking ugly , mental disorder, terrible childhood or just bad luck ( being born as an ethnic in a dominant white culture, being born in a poor family etc.) — Wittgenstein

Also, I imagine, being a self-entitled jerk. Unless you're a rich self-entitled jerk, in which case you'll probably be fine.

Are you trying to imply something ?

If you are calling incels self-entitled jerks then you don't have anything useful to contribute here. I am interested in something else.

Western youth is taught from an early age to have an unhealthy relationship with sex. "Incels" are one of its many outgrowths. Lets not judge them too harshly.

Agreed, l think you understand where l am coming from.

Thanks for being shallow as fuck. Nice cherry picking you got there. No one here is making the claim that you need to be a Chad in order to get laid. For every deformed person getting laid, you have 1000/10000/? or more incels rejected by women. Evidence doesn't work in favour of your argument either.

You are the only person here lashing out at incels. I don't want to defend them or attack them. I want to understand what led them to their POV. I don't see what is wrong with seeing things from their perspective. If they consider themselves as victims, then we should try to see whether it is true or not.

I think you got it right in the last paragraph. I would disagree with JS Mill on that though. I think sexual craving is stronger than any other need in life because everything else depends on it. As a result it's fulfillment brings a deeper pleasure. Food, shelter preserve life but sex allows life to continue on earth through reproduction. It isn't a mere pleasure though, it sort of connects every other pleasure in a nexus.

Feeling worthless is an impediment to success in any of these endeavors. The challenge then is to find another source of self-esteem, both instrumentally as it will help you to better achieve all those things, and intrinsically as a substitute for the self-esteem that comes from those things and (largely) makes them valuable to begin with.

I agree with your diagnostic but the way to get around inceldom won't be that straight. Maslow's hierarchy of needs would make it difficult for incels to reach selfhood after skipping the essential physiological needs and in general ,love/belonging needs at the lower order of pyramid.

I don't see what is wrong with seeing things from their perspective. If they consider themselves as victims, then we should try to see whether it is true or not. — Wittgenstein

No doubt many of them are victims of some kind or another. The problem is that they've turned themselves into professional victims. Inceldom is all about victimhood. Which is why you'll find almost exclusively negative posts in any of their communities, reaffirming to each other how hopeless their lot is.

Perhaps one could properly call this mindset religious. The combination of victimhood, rejection of mainstream society, traditional notions of masculinity certainly seems reminiscent of religious movements, not least political Islam.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs would make it difficult for incels to reach selfhood after skipping the essential physiological needs and in general ,love/belonging needs at the lower order of pyramid. — Wittgenstein

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is not, however, the definitive theory of human psychology.

Are you trying to imply something ? — Wittgenstein

Yes, I'm implying that your list of reasons why incels are cels is incomplete.

If you are calling incels self-entitled jerks then you don't have anything useful to contribute here. I am interested in something else. — Wittgenstein

Okay, calling them ugly is high philosophy, but suggesting their entitlement is a likely turn-off is bad, I get you. You do you booboo.

Quick question before I get into it: How many of us posting on here about incels being such and such or having this or that perspective either are, or have been, an Incel?

Ok now that that has been asked...moving on.

I can recall a number of us (6) growing up, from about 16-20 years old, weren't "getting any". I use that phrase now because we used it then. We had no girlfriends, no entertainment, and felt generally rejected by the ladies. This pissed us off, mostly because we had the impression (although with zero data to support it) that we were the only guys around in this particular boat. Looking back it's no wonder that we weren't terribly successful in love, or lust. We were angry, sullen, quiet and so focused on bitching about how unfair our situation was that none of us actually bothered to go talk to a girl. They scared the crap out us frankly. Most of us got through that crap and went on to have decent relationships, then marriages, as successfully as most everyone else. Last I checked one dude went the epic failure way, but he, despite being exceedingly physically attractive to ladies, was always an entitled ass and his personality killed whatever attention his physical features could get him.

Point is, there are likely as many frustrated ladies out there as guys, once everyone relaxes a little and actually talks to one another, amazing stuff happens.

I can't understand why half the world is still crying, man, when the other half of the world is still crying too, man, and they can't get it together, man. — Janis Joplin

you have 1000/10000/? or more incels rejected by women. — Wittgenstein

By women? My heavens they must be truly awful and beyond rehabilitation to be rejected by women. The best I have ever done was being rejected by one woman at a time.

They scared the crap out us frankly. — Book273

Me too. I have evolved to an understanding. Guys know themselves and know sex. Guys don't know girls (and never have and never will). Girls sometimes know guys, but girls rarely know themselves and rarely know sex. And it's interesting that a cock-up is a screw-up is reference to both sexual readiness and disaster. No wonder the urge is so strong, and needs be to get through so much difficulty.

I think that Incels want to get laid because it gives them a higher social status and that has nothing to do with pleasure. Speaking from experience, I think almost every guy can derive more pleasure from masturbating with sex toys used competently or by putting women’s dirty panties in their mouth or by using another advanced masturbation technique. In addition, I don’t think a real philosophical hedonist would care if the person they do sexual things is an escort or a girl doing it for free. In fact, they may prefer an escort because escorts try to please their clients while a girl doing it for free is probably just trying to please herself.

Quick question before I get into it: How many of us posting on here about incels being such and such or having this or that perspective either are, or have been, an Incel? — Book273

The notion of "incel" didn't exist back when I was younger, but I had what felt like a long period of hopeless-seeming loneliness in my late teens and early 20s. I remember friends in similar circumstances at the time saying things that now sound retroactively like proto-inceldom, with which I at least superficially agreed at the time. At the time I thought that I was exceptionally unlovable and unlucky in love, that I and those friends like me were a special underclass of losers. In retrospect, I think my experience (my actual love life as observed from the outside, not my first-person interpretation of it) was probably pretty typical.

My current girlfriend of the past 8 years has really driven that last point home to me, as she hadn't had sex or a real boyfriend at all until we met at almost-30, so from her perspective my past whiny teen self -- who lost his virginity (depending on how you reckon that) 10 years before she did and only missed out on 3 or 4 Valentine's Days in the 12 years of adulthood before we met -- sounds like an entitled little brat who doesn't know the first thing about what real loneliness is.

Funny how a little perspective changes so much eh! Thank god I am not 20 anymore...YEECH!!