from Hacker News

Sympathy for the Incel

by text_exch on 4/30/18, 2:54 AM with 38 comments

• by burfog on 4/30/18, 7:34 AM

  Besides sympathy, there is the issue of society becoming destabilized. Anything that leads to a significant number of unmarried males will cause huge social problems. This includes things that, for various reasons, we might otherwise want.

  So there is a cost to polygamy, a cost to preferentially aborting female babies, a cost to women not needing men for survival, a cost to not sending men off to die in war, and so on. The result is a greater potential for violence and general mischief.

  We tend to think of sex as low-priority compared to things like air and water and food. If we ignore the time scale though, and instead focus on what these things mean in an evolutionary sense, it is clear that they are equal. We need air... so that ultimately we can pass on our DNA. With a long-term perspective, it is clear that sex is on an equal footing with things like air and water and food.

  When a good chunk of the population is being denied something so essential, we're facing serious trouble.

• by thinkingemote on 4/30/18, 7:25 AM

  I'm sure when the rest of the tech world wakes up this will be flagged which might be ironic as it might show that that happened due to a lack of empathy - the two responses that the featured article recommends - and instead represent a denial or an opposition to discussion. (I'm being flppant here - most flag killing happens because the discussion turns into a flame war, which I can see happening here too!) but...

  Empathy is pretending to feel what its like as another person. It's not the same thing as sympathy. It is possible empathise with an angry hateful person as much as with a happy loving person. For me, it's a good tool to use to help understand what the other person wants, and how they are behaving.

  How many times do you read something which says "I don't understand why they would do this thing / act this way / vote for that / like this thing"? How many times is that person you? Those statements are true statements about the giver - that person literally doesn't understand the other person. But the question they ask is not actually asking for understanding - they are telling you that their target is The Other - that it is impossible to understand. And they haven't tried empathy. Sometimes that person might be disgusted even thinking about using empathy on the other that they disagree with.

• by godzillabrennus on 4/30/18, 7:32 AM

  In Japan the handicapped have access to physical sexual release through tax payer funded services that help with their emotional well being.

  https://coed.com/2013/06/01/japanese-medical-hand-jobs-for-d...

  Not saying incel folks are in need of this but it’s obviously beyond time we legalize sexual services as a profession.

• by brad0 on 4/30/18, 9:01 AM

  I think some men are missing three things:

  - Belonging

  - A Path

  - Status

  For most men in the past, family has provided both the path and belonging (in addition to career and hobbies etc).

  As for status, it was a lot easier to be good at something in your small circles. Now with the internet it's almost impossible to be good at anything vs the rest of the world.

  As for how we solve this, I'm not sure.

• by Hnrobert42 on 4/30/18, 6:59 AM

  I sympathize with people who can’t get what they want. The problem is, most people can’t. A foundational error in the incel world-view is not that they are lonely, but that they are uniquely lonely.

• by FrozenVoid on 4/30/18, 8:44 AM

  If you want to explore the topic from first-hand perspective instead of reading these stupid articles spend a week in 4chan's /r9k/ board.

• by jimmywanger on 4/30/18, 6:27 AM

  When you back a rat into a corner even it will strike back.

• by the_solenoid on 4/30/18, 6:31 AM

  If this is just about not getting laid, I think it's time for sex work to become legal. Or is that not an option these folks have considered?

• by cup on 4/30/18, 6:34 AM

  Someone really needs to do a write up looking at all the times race has altered the public discourse.

  Theres a consistent theme here in portraying culprits who are white as victims or sympathetic. Whether its contrasting breivik to jihadists, or incels to african american victims of police shootings or white nationalists to BLM protesters.

  I think a bit more intellectual honesty might have a dramatic effect on the level of social engagement.