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I do have problems with technology but e-ink is close enough to paper not to bother me. It's really a personal thing I think.

Currently reading:

ATHOL FUGARD: Blood Knot
KIERKEGAARD: The Sickness unto Death

It's a summary of my understanding of longer and more justified material. I'm going to wait to see what @unenlightened says before going further into it. It's a very broad brush relative to the OP.

You don't get moral brownie points for a pseudo-Jesus act that pretends they are all the same.
— Baden

Moral guidance from you? Hardly, — BC

I apologise for characterizing your position as a "pseudo-Jesus act". That was neither fair nor charitable. Here's my dilemma: I'm sitting across the table from a self-identifying incel of the virulent online kind I've earlier described. Let's call him a friend of a friend I have just met. He brazenly begins to expound on his misogynistic world view. What do I do? Is silence complicit? Is compassion complicit? Is polite debate legitimizing? Is opprobrium counter-productive? I'm reminded of Nietzsche's advice that to spare someone shame is the greatest charity but this someone is so immersed in shame and so apparently in love with it, it seems that neither further shaming nor compassion can work. What can work? We don't want them leaving the table thinking talking this way has no consequences but we can't batter them into submission either.

And what better to way to fill the void than with all things our hearts desires, provided in the most effective and efficient way possible, via the markets. Why determine what to value and where to go as a society, if we can just leave that to the invisible hand? — ChatteringMonkey

This is also key. We've outsourced most of the magic of reality into economic efficiency and the consumerism therein implied. Technology lends a hand through the manifestation of media that do what's left of this magic for us. Our function is reduced to survival and etiquette.

That's how people are going to romanticize ebooks in 50 years when the technology will entail injecting the words into our retinas. — Hanover

:100:

I think you have a point. From a broader perspective though the way I see the process is that Religion was culture; then it became politics; then it became science. Culture itself was fundamentalist in isolated groups and Religion couldn't be separated from it. In order to have a Self at all, you believed and your belief was your Self. There was no other option or reality.

When groups became larger and encountered cultural difference and the potentials of war and trade, religion became about unification and inspiration as a means to maintain the power of the community against external threats. Religions adept at this spread and became dominant. There were other options then--though most people still lived and died under one ideology, there were conversions (even if more often coerced than voluntary). And so some fluidity was introduced into the notion of self.

When technology became a clear edge in war and trade, the scientific and rational thinking it implied gained hegemony, and so now there was a universal "religion" that was a practical reality of everyday life and this implied potentially no religion or every religion. It was up to the philosophers/scientists to sort it out. But of course they could never agree and "selves" were left to pick up the pieces.

The basic movement then would be from Religion/culture to science (as "religion") + religion + "culture". And from Selves to "selves". But "selves" always long to be Selves and in order to do that there must be a movement back to Religion/culture (fundamentalism).

It is more for me than just atheist dogma though, it's cultural fragmentation and the individual fragmentation that that implies.

Honestly, I don't know. It does sound very plausible though.

I'm wondering what place this thread has on a *philosophy* forum. I've read right through this, and I haven't noticed anything worth calling philosophy at all. Just ignorance, prejudice, personal insults, argumentative trollishness, and prurient speculation about other people's lives--all of it unleavened by the most basic factual information or attempt at empathy. I wouldn't describe myself as a snowflake, but this thread doesn't make it hard to see why transgender people get suicidal. — Sophie Grace Chappell

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This thread is an embarrassment. Happily, we've moved on and had much more intelligent conversations as of late.

And... politically the whole incel bubble is particularly about demanding compassion and sympathy not because these men find it difficult to form romantic relationships (they're not interested in romance) but that society doesn't provide them with good-looking white women (Stacy's) to have sex with, which they think they have a moral right to. So much so they often claim denying them this is "reverse rape", making them the real rape victims and the ones truly deserving of compassion. We should not put ourselves in a position where we play into this.

I also support the humane treatment of prisoners. That's a different issue. But the reason I claim compassion is the wrong orientation towards hate groups like incels is that it does nothing to discourage their growth and the more they grow the more harm they can do. So compassion ends up being self-serving for those who experience it (sure, it's nice to feel you're a nice person) and otherwise useless.

People tend to react strongly to social forces so I'm saying the best way to confront clear social evils that we can't jail people for is social opprobrium. And the message to Nazis, racists, incels etc should not be one that in any way facilitates them in claiming victimhood because that's always a large part of the propaganda machine by which they spread their ideologies. You don't fight neo-Nazis who claim to be victims of Jewish conspiracies by taking an orientation of compassion towards them and you don't fight misogynists who claim to be victims of women in that way either. That approach just aids them in turning reality on its head, whereas our focus should always be on trying to stop them and minimize their impact.

As a caveat, I concede that this doesn't mean that if we meet an individual incel, racist etc in real life, compassion is necessarily the wrong way to steer them in a better direction. That's completely context dependent. (I took that approach once with a student who was a homophobe). But to me, that's different to how we talk about the issue in general terms and I reject the idea that compassion is a good in itself. It may feel good to those that wield it but insofar as it aids and abets social evils / dangerous ideologies it's the wrong approach.

I'm all for saving anyone worth saving. But yes, we should call out this online world for what it is and not sugarcoat it. Anyway, my point is made. Good night.

Far as I'm concerned the vast majority of disagreements on this thread would simply dissolve if we all recognised that the term "incel" signals a specific ideology of hatred and misogyny that goes beyond a difficulty establishing romantic relationships. I don't know how more evident this needs to be or why it's such a block.

It's not as if there is an International Incel Foundation that sets forth a mission statement and clearly defines their ideology. An incel at his base is an involuntary celibate, meaning someone who desires female interaction, but does not receive it. — Hanover

No, they do have an ideology and they are not shy about telling us what it is. You've been given plenty of examples. Stop conflating "incel" with average dude who can't get laid. An average dude who can't get laid doesn't necessarily identify as an "incel" because he probably knows they are an online hate group.

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/incels-involuntary-celibates

"The incel ideology is rooted in the belief that women have too much power in the sexual/romantic sphere and ruin incels’ lives by rejecting them
Incels are the most violent sector of the manosphere, and have perpetrated a range of deadly attacks against women"

"the label of incel adopted now describes much more than loneness or singledom, including the subset of incels who are consumed by homicidal rage."

"The underlying theme of incel ideology is that the current sexual “marketplace” gives women too much freedom to choose their own partners. Those partners tend not to be incels, who in turn believe they are being deprived of their sexual birthright. Some incels charge that women who deny them sex are committing “reverse rape” – just as dangerous and harmful as actual rape."

Incels are a hate group no better than Nazis or the KKK.

You are shallower than I thought you were. — BC

Like I said before, I don't think you understand the implications of what you're saying. But if you do, back this up with reasoning and evidence or I'll just need to put it down to more of the same.

The victims of thieves are deserving of more compassion than the perpetrators of theft. The victims of violence and rape are deserving of more compassion then the perpetrators of violence and rape and the victims of online misogynistic abuse are deserving of more compassion than the perpetrators. You don't get moral brownie points for a pseudo-Jesus act that pretends they are all the same.

Well, good luck with the psychopaths. Seriously though, I never said compassion meant approval and if all you are saying is we should always be compassionate for everyone regardless of what they've done or what they stand for then you really aren't saying anything but just effacing all moral distinction.

From what I have heard of incels, I am reasonably comfortable to write them off - the way I would virulent racists or any other vile bigotry. No doubt everyone has there reasons, no doubt there's a perspectival, George Lakoff-style way to understand their conceptual framing and contextualize their value systems, etc. But I find it hard to give a fuck. — Tom Storm

That's pretty much where I am. I think the level of depravity is hard to understand at first and one might be tempted to conflate them with others with similar problems minus the hatred. But when it's pointed out and others have specified distinctions, an apparent refusal to do so is odd to me.

It's pretty easy I would have thought to condemn extreme misogyny, rape culture and the like as embodied in this group and then specify you're talking about others more deserving of sympathy. I guess I don't understand the reticence.

I never said I found any particular comment offensive. I said I found it difficult to understand your position and so I'm asking these questions to clarify where you are coming from. So, please do.

We can and should be compassionate towards them. — BC

You said "we", not particular individuals. In normal parlance that is a generalised "we" that includes women and everyone else. So this:

Compassion is the province of individuals...
I don't recollect advising women to be compassionate — BC

suggests you don't know what you're saying. I don't want to hound you but I think it's fair to ask what you're talking about.

Is this your way of saying you never understood what the thread was about or you never understood what incels were? I think it's fair to be curious about who you think you're going to bat for here. Would you also demand compassion for Nazis and white supremacists? Or is it that you never meant incels but as Hanover has specified, unaligned marginalized young men who are not misogynistic etc. I think it's reasonable to ask that that be specified considering there's a significant difference there. I don't believe it is at all humane to demand sympathy for victimizers over victims. Quite the reverse. (Not a mod issue btw, no.)

It's difficult to know if you and @T Clark have realised yet how offensive is the idea that women (especially) should be compassionate towards an organized online group ("incels", the subject of this thread) that considers them to be semi-sentient animals who want to be and should be raped by these incels and otherwise enslaved to give them pleasure.

The way doublespeak works is that the preaching is "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." but the practice is that it doesn't matter if you cheat as long as you win. This is mainstream culture, and as old as politics and patriarchy. — unenlightened

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There's more to be said but seems like diminishing returns when some here insist on wearing their doctor's masks over their eyes.

Modern liberal democracies, while remaining patriarchal, no longer see fit to so self-describe. So, within the mainstream there's an image and reality split, of which organized incels are a symptom. Reality gives them the green light so the image can paint them as an anomaly and in this nebulous lacuna they can fester and grow. This is why I'm thinking in terms of explicit and implied cultures. I don't want to over-theorize but if you take the incel movement as a filter to view society you get neither an entirely clear nor an entirely distorted view. It's something like patriarchy suffering an identity crisis; optimistically, desperation that marks a positive transition; pessimistically, a point of extreme degradation that stabilizes a relatively less degraded whole.

Maybe counter-culture vs mainstream is not the right binary and we should talk of explicit and implied culture or something. I'm not sure, but certainly "counter-culture" insofar as it implies a threat to dominant social power structures is utterly antithetical to a phenomenon that, running with the metaphor above, reflects patriarchy in its most distilled form. At the very least that might be a fruitful topic for further debate and analysis here.

It's hard to fathom how vicious their organized online incarnation is but it seems the nature of such groups in such media is to distill down to the most potent form.

Sure. But what healthier alternative and in what context exactly? And what reasoning are you offering to suggest it would be effective?

Probably the most succinct way I can put it is that sympathising with incels--in their developed online form--is akin to sympathising with white supremacists because black people won't be their slaves or with neo-Nazis because they can't put Jews in concentration camps. There is a point where compassion is not the appropriate response.

Incels: a misogynist hate movement so extreme they approve of enslaving and raping women. Living embodiments of rape culture as unenlightened and @Baden astutely point out.

Bloke who gets frustrated with lack of romance in their life: not a threat, could fester if they don't check themselves. — fdrake

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I think this is step one for understanding and dealing with the situation. Conflating those two groups isn't helpful. Both may experience self-loathing but the characteristic trait of incels is that they see women as animals to be used and abused for their pleasure and resent any social structure that prevents that.

I guess there's something latent there. Like you and others, I've been through periods without sex and had the common sense to blame myself for it.

Agree.

Wasn't aimed at you anyhow bruv. Skimmed through the thread and saw some odd comments that seemed to underplay what's going on so I thought I'd stick my oar in.

I went on some incel forums as research for a short story a few years ago. lf you're not an extreme sexist and misogynist you just won't last in that community. That simply is their culture. This article fits with my experience:

https://medium.com/the-no%C3%B6sphere/i-joined-a-popular-incel-forum-heres-what-they-really-think-of-women-862eda9f2edf

"Plenty of other theories there suggest that it’s not actually possible to rape or sexually assault women since they’re not ‘sentient enough’ to understand it, nor do they feel pain, and even if they do, they enjoy it.
Here’s what some users have to say about this topic:
One reason women seek out and stay with attractive abusive men is because they enjoy being beaten up.
Rape or any kind of sexual violence should not count as a crime because foids are begging for it.
We must take foids by force like the animals they are.
Females don’t care about consent very much; they care about Chadliness and the feelings they get when their instincts detect competitive genes. (…) that’s why females don’t mind going to frat houses where raping and roofing are known to be common."

There's absolutely no reason to have sympathy with "incels" in their online incarnation. It's not the involuntary celibacy that's key to understanding them, it's that they blame women for it and hate them as a result. They are not morally superior to any other hate group and the most charitable thing I can say about anyone who doesn't realise that is that they're misguided and/or ignorant.

Also, tonal languages can cause problems. E. g. the Thai words for "near" and "far" are both pronounced like "guy" only with a different tone and for an English speaker getting stuff like that right requires a lot of practice.

Im not sure if this is a fact but from our experience, it seems like we can imitate any sound and intonation of other languages with little effort. — TheMadMan

It's unfortunately not true. E. g. the Czech Ř is notoriously difficult to pronounce.

I only learned about this kind of stuff as part of my university education. Most native English speakers wouldn't be aware of these nuances. Anyhow, no explicit knowledge of any language is required for proficient use under conditions of natural exposure from birth. It's know-how not know-that. But if you miss a certain window in childhood, no amount of exposure, even combined with explicit knowledge, can guarantee correct pronunciation, so in that sense, this could be considered a primary problem. However, it depends very much on circumstance. There are too many variables to say definitively what causes learners most problems (what learners? what language? what constitutes a "problem"? etc. )

Claims to reason and political compromise while insisting on unsupported opinions and admiration for fascists. Fairly easy decision.

I think you're technically right about the probability but so much the worse for the way we are supposed to talk about probability. The rest we're all solidly on the same page now I reckon.

Either you were given X and the other envelope contains X/2, xor you were given X and the other envelope contains 2X. Those are separate cases. If you were given X and the other envelope contains X/2, you'd lose X/2. If you were given X/2 and the other envelope contains X, you'd gain X/2. In the second case, if you were given X and the other envelope contains 2X, you'd gain X, if you were given 2X and the other envelope contains X, you'd lose X. If you're in the first case, the expected gain of switching is 0, if you're in the second case, the expected gain of switching is 0, both cases are equally likely, so the expected gain of switching is 0. — fdrake

Said pretty much the same thing five years ago. I think Michael has at least partially come round.

Whether you benefit by switching or not is dependent on what envelope you just chose, which must be Envelope X or Envelope 2X where X is a given sum of money. So, switching can only ever take you from Envelope X to Envelope 2X (+X) or from Envelope 2X to X (-X). — Baden

So, you have 10. But only one scenario applies to your choice, either the one where you lose by switching in which case X is five and 2X is 10, or you gain by switching in which X is 10 and 2X is 20. You can't be in both scenarios at the same time and X has a different value in both — Baden

We know the chosen envelope has £10 in your scenario and we also know that one of the envelopes contained an amount X and one of the envelopes contained an amount 2X, and therefore we know we can only move from X to 2X or from 2X to X by switching. Therefore we know we have a 50% chance of gaining X by switching and a 50% chance of losing X by switching and that therefore there is no point in switching.

You're using X to refer to both the X in the scenario where switching gets you less and in the scenario where switching gets you more. But given any given amount you see in front of you after already choosing an envelope, those are not the same X. — Baden