Inceldom

[Thumpalumpacus]

There's no blame for anyone.

This entirely ignores the toxic outlook of so many incels who have chosen to accept those premises rather than find a way to be happy with themselves. This is tommyrot. Of course there's blame -- even by your own argument, there's blame for those who bully or shun ugly folk. Indeed, you've blamed them here in this very thread. You just won't blame the incels themselves.

[FrustratedFool]

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/28/17290256/i...tacy-becky

A very website incel behaviour, sadly. I guess it's an elaboration on the more popular 1-10 system.

[GrandizerII]

I have found that the emotional connection to my inorganic lovers is in many ways more intense than with my human lovers.  I honestly think there's good reason for everyone to have both, let alone lonely people.  In the future, AI tech will surpass human to human relationships even for those who struggle with inorganic connections.

That's not really a connection (in a two-way sense). Your inorganic lover doesn't have any feelings towards you at all. The only validation you're getting here is self-validation. In that case, great. But you still have a human partner anyway, right? If your sex doll were to suddenly disappear, you'd feel lonely even with your human partner still around?

As for what the future will hold, I'm sure things will get significantly better for lonely people, but since we're not there yet, it's not relevant to what the current solution needs to be here. And right now, the current technology just isn't sufficient to replace human connection.

It seems to me, having been someone on the inside of not receiving validation, that the root cause is precisely the lack of romantic and sexual validation.  If I, and I expect incels, had received that at an appropriate age (ie. at the same time as all their peers) the mental health issues wouldn't have manifested.  Certainly for me the root cause of all my original mental health issues was that I was ugly and bullied for my looks.  It had nothing to do with not being heard.

You're conflating different things here, and you can't really just know what the root causes of your issues are just by introspection since this is stuff that's deep-seated within your subconscious, nor are we good at predicting what would've happened if something hypothetically did not happen.

Bullying is bad and needs to be stopped (I was bullied myself as a kid), but stopping bullying is not going to stop the problem of loneliness and "inceldom"

The sticking plaster is addressing the psychological damage.  The true prevention is ensuring that everyone receives romantic and sexual validation.  That can only happen through technology.

Maybe in the far future. I don't know.

Tuecels who are lonely and mentally ill because of the way they were treated because of the way they look or their neurodiversity aren't going to be treated through therapy that makes them take false accountability for not being dateable.  The true solution is for them to be dateable: if not by humans than bots.

Accountability is a good thing. It means you're growing and maturing.

The primary problem with incels isn't themselves. Nor is it others.  There's no blame for anyone.

If they want their problems fixed, they need to step it up and do the adult thing of self-improvement. You can't keep blaming your bullies or your abusive parents or your abusive boss forever. Whatever the reasons, the resultant problems you're having dwell within you, and if you want to do something about them, you have to be real about how you go about addressing them. You can't keep falling prey to self-fulfilling prophecies that say you can't do this or that because you're doomed. You can still do something with your life.

I get that this is easier said than done. But this would be the starting point.

It's just the bad luck of having a bad body and/or brain.

Bad brain? Sure.

Bad body? No. Or at least for the most part, no. If you happen to have a very unfortunate medical condition that significantly impacts your appearance in a negative way, then that can be very challenging. But otherwise, most incels/lonely people look fine, and they only perceive themselves to be ugly or unfuckable.

So no, it's not about looks, and it's very harmful and self-sabotaging to keep dwelling on that. The real problem here is dysfunctional thinking. And there is a specific brand of dysfunctional thinking (in the case of some lonely people) that drives men/women away. That is what needs to be addressed.

[Belacqua]

The primary problem with incels isn't themselves. Nor is it others.  There's no blame for anyone.

If they want their problems fixed, they need to step it up and do the adult thing of self-improvement. You can't keep blaming your bullies or your abusive parents or your abusive boss forever. Whatever the reasons, the resultant problems you're having dwell within you, and if you want to do something about them, you have to be real about how you go about addressing them. You can't keep falling prey to self-fulfilling prophecies that say you can't do this or that because you're doomed. You can still do something with your life.

I get that this is easier said than done. But this would be the starting point.

I think that both can be true. 

Sad lonely men must take responsibility for themselves, not blame others, and not be horrible to people. 

And the rest of us can work on making a society in which it's easier for them to do that. 

Oversimple analogy: all drivers must obey traffic laws. But a good urban planner can make it a lot easier for them to do that, so they aren't nearly as likely to misbehave. 

So it's not irresponsible to talk about what we can do to make life easier for lonely people. I would want to live in a culture that offered help to those who were suffering. Doing something with your life is easier if college is affordable, rewarding jobs are available, all that basic stuff. 

Earlier on this thread (or the similar one) FF described the perfect storm conditions that led to the incel boom. Surely some of that can be worked on -- without declaring that horrible behavior gets a pass.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It'd be interesting to see pictures of these incels doomed to loneliness because they're hideous in appearance. Let's get a sample here, to support this argument being laid.

[GrandizerII]

So it's not irresponsible to talk about what we can do to make life easier for lonely people. I would want to live in a culture that offered help to those who were suffering. Doing something with your life is easier if college is affordable, rewarding jobs are available, all that basic stuff.

I agree that when it comes to mental health problems, it's important for society to continue to raise awareness regarding these problems and promote means to facilitate potential solutions or treatments for these problems, like making psychotherapy/counselling options more affordable for those who are in most need of it (for example).

But at the end of the day, real change needs to come from within. You can implement all sorts of solutions for people to make use of, but if these solutions require effort on the part of the targeted beneficiary (especially if it involves such difficult things as deep and honest self-reflection, acknowledging one's pattern of thinking and addressing that, and being motivated to improve oneself), then this is something they (the individual) need to do something about (as challenging as that may be unfortunately). Society cannot do that task for them.

[The Grand Nudger]

It'd be interesting to see pictures of these incels doomed to loneliness because they're hideous in appearance. Let's get a sample here, to support this argument being laid.

It aint their face that's ugly, or at least, no uglier than faces attached to bodies which are getting laid.  They're plenty ugly, alright, but it's in a worse way than buck teeth.

[FrustratedFool]

How does one 'solve' an ugly face, short height, and autism? Because for truecels, that's basically what we are talking about.

As for knowing the root causes, introspection plus therapy is pretty much all we have at present.

Regarding inorganic connection, yes it's not a true two-way relationship in that I don't believe my tulpas or doll etc have agency. However, much like a dream character a imaginary friend can feel like they do to a fair extent, and thus the relationship feels quite 2 way. I feel loved, and that's the important part. I mean, it could turn out that my human lovers are, in fact, simulacra, but the love would have been just as real. A good enough technological simulacra and bingo. Yes, we are not there yet, but the future will bring such artifical companionship and I really can't see any other way of solving the problem of some people being undesirable to most others and therefore not being able to form relationships at a similar time to their peers (thus preventing the development of the mental health problems connected to inceldom).

To me, the issue is fairly simple. Some people are genuinely unattractive. They are physically ugly and/or socially inept in such a way that they will likely receive little to no sexual validation in a time frame comparable to their peers. That becoming attractive is for them extremely difficult or impossible. And they are going, through bad luck, spend a good portion, or all, of their lives very lonely. This will most likely lead to mental health issues. And they be vulnerable to online radicalisation and bitterness and worse. The root core issue, though, is that they are unattractive to most others. If technology becomes such that either they can be made attractive easily, or that it doesn't matter, then the problem is solved. This can only be done through tech. Anything else is really dealing with a symptom not the disease.

[Belacqua]

I agree that when it comes to mental health problems, it's important for society to continue to raise awareness regarding these problems and promote means to facilitate potential solutions or treatments for these problems, like making psychotherapy/counselling options more affordable for those who are in most need of it (for example).

But at the end of the day, real change needs to come from within. You can implement all sorts of solutions for people to make use of, but if these solutions require effort on the part of the targeted beneficiary (especially if it involves such difficult things as deep and honest self-reflection, acknowledging one's pattern of thinking and addressing that, and being motivated to improve oneself), then this is something they (the individual) need to do something about (as challenging as that may be unfortunately). Society cannot do that task for them.

I agree with you. Nobody can force a person to change. And I don't think that individuals should be able to evade responsibility for their actions by saying "my society made me that way." (Well, maybe extreme examples, but not usually.) 

Partly I think we're reproducing the classic conservative/liberal argument about personal responsibility vs. social conditioning. The right says "lock-em-up." The left says "get them therapy, the poor dears." 

As usual I can see the wisdom in both sides -- or imagine that the solution will be a mix. 

For a more theoretical and less practical analysis, I honestly think we should go back to Marx. He's the one who got us all talking about how the social conditions of capitalism cause alienation. How every aspect of life is turned into a commodity that can be assigned a value quantified in money or something equivalent. Incels think there is a list of measurable qualities that attractive partners must have, and that they are the deprived underclass. 

So when you elect me emperor, I will institute a number of programs that will help the country and, along the way, rouse some incels out of their dank cellars.

~ Free college or job training for everyone. No student debt. 

~ Universal health insurance, which includes psychological counseling. 

~ A nation-wide public works program, in which young people form groups to work on infrastructure and other practical quality-of-life projects. Some of the pale basement dwellers would benefit from a year of physical activity, sunshine, a healthy diet, and the camaraderie that comes from cleaning up a river together. 

~ I would end the symbiosis between the Pentagon and Hollywood. Instead, the government would spend that money on movies in which normal-looking people solve problems in non-violent ways. Extra points if friendly non-sexual affection is portrayed as success. 

In other words, taking large parts of life out of the work-or-die capitalist world that we live in would decrease alienation, in my view. 

Fantasy, I know.

[no one]

The problem isn't unattractiveness, the problem is entitlement.

I know I am unattactive. That I do not possess a single redeeming quality. There isn't anything I bring to the table, that I make everything worse.

That being said, I do not plunge into diatribes of denunciation and disapproval regarding anyone who is repulsed by my existence.

I am not owed a single second of your time. My birth, does not entitle my '' privileges'' over your liberties.