[jhkiehna]

lol, this is what happens when massive organizations with bloated budgets have nothing to do. Suddenly an extremely small group of sad, disaffected weirdos have been branded terrorists.

I think we need a disgruntled ex postal worker task force too.

[zozbot234]

Incel ideology is pretty nihilistic and violent. We're not talking "sad, disaffected weirdos" here but people who profess a rabid hate for the female gender, comparable to any other extremist ideology. (And yes, this means that the "not getting any" part of it is pretty much a self-created problem. Who could possibly want to get intimately involved with people who endorse that kind of nuttery?)

[bradlys]

Truly varies though on the incel and the ideology changes. From my readings - some of what you said is true but it’d be a mistake to group all incels together. After all - we’re all incels until we’re not.

I think ContraPoints video on this was good at summarizing the themes that are common though - and to be honest - most incels just seem like guys who are down on their luck and hate themselves more than they hate women. Sure - you get some psychos but I think psychos exist in every ideology. I’ve yet to see one that doesn’t have them.

[zozbot234]

> we’re all incels until we’re not

But that's what makes the "self-proclaimed incel" worldview so strange and twisted in the first place. They make "not getting any" into a part of their identity, so normalization of hate towards women isn't that far behind. By and large, guys who are just "down on their luck" would never self-identify with this "incel" thing.

[bradlys]

Once you've experienced 25 years of being down bad, it is a part of your identity. For many of these men, being down bad is their entire life. It's also something that other people label other men as. You don't necessarily get to choose the identity - people throw you into that camp without your choice.

The other aspect of it is that it's not purely mental or what not. It's not like they just need to take a shower and put on a clean shirt. It's something far more fundamental that is broken and many are autists/aspies. Some are normal but the overwhelming case is that many have very unpleasant physical features. So, they're just ugly dudes who might not have anything exceptional to note about them. Add in a bit of social anxiety, awkwardness, etc.

The guys like the Santa Barbara killer and what not are just unhinged psychos. I don't think being an "incel" at that point has any relation. Just as many unhinged psychos going on about degradation of their race of choice, immigrants are yadda yadda, etc. These people just needed something - anything - to latch their psychosis onto. If it wasn't for race crimes - they'd think people were secretly Nazis or something and they were killing them for the good of humanity.

I guess my point is - I find that many people in these communities who have degenerate views of women and what not are also people who have degenerate views of other classes of people too. They have a fundamental brain/belief-system/way-they-were-raised issue. The incel community is just an outlet for that degeneracy.

[wolverine876]

> we’re all incels until we’re not

Don't speak for me!

[igetspam]

Right? Incel is a brand. I don't always have as much sex as I want but I always don't want to murder women. There's a difference.

[bradlys]

I don’t think we have Incel stores like we have Supreme, man.

[matt321]

They hate themselves but misinterpret it as hate for women.

[SauciestGNU]

I think they hate women, but if they were capable of truthful, meaningful introspection they would hate themselves instead.

[dekhn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games#Raid_by_th...

[jhkiehna]

I had no idea that that's how the EFF started. Interesting fact. Thanks.

[fennecfoxen]

It might also have something to do with that Santa Barbara incident in 2014 that killed 3, and the Toronto van attack in 2018 that killed 11 (and injured 15).

[tsomctl]

9/11 shows what happens when those weirdos are intelligent and get some funding.

[belorn]

Which is why the secret service started to profile all the Muslims located in the US as potential threats.

The big question that security experts and social researcher ask is if such profiling do anything to actually reduce the number of terrorists attacks, and if it is cost effective compare to just regular investigative police work.

There is also a portion of the population that dislike profiling of religious/political views, and view profiling as a slippery slope towards authoritarianism.

[igetspam]

When was the last time a postal worker went "postal?" This type of violent misogyny happens all the time but we only talk a out it when the numbers are interesting. This is not the same thing and to lump the two together is to be dismissive of the problem. Real people are being killed and there's a pattern. Hell, there are forums and a public club with a brand and a manifesto. How many ISIS do there have to be to call them terrorists? Or is it the turbans? Do we change the language because those exhibiting the behavior happen to be white boys?

[MattGaiser]

> Suddenly an extremely small group of sad, disaffected weirdos have been branded terrorists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#Mass_murders_and_violenc...

[jhkiehna]

I'm sad for the people who were killed needlessly by alienated young men, but Tylenol kills more people in a single year than all of those cases combined. The fear mongering around this subject is off the charts.

I think some form of compassionate outreach is probably a better approach to that problem than branding them terrorists.

[woodruffw]

Lots of things kill more people than lots of other things; that isn’t the sole metric that dictates our domestic policies.

I happen to agree re: positive outreach. But outreach is a prophylactic measure, and the incel “movement” (as it were) contains people who run the spectrum from reachable with traditional support to people who merely lack the means to kill at the current moment. Both need to be addressed.

[pizza]

I agree with your last sentence, but the reason why malicious actors who kill fewer than drug overdoses deserve considerable concern is bc at most one person will die if you take too much tylenol. The number of casualties is linear in the number of actors.

Processes of violence have much higher variance in terms of the number of casualties, and the consequences of networks of actors even moreso, because, tragically, the events are not wholly independent and there can be multiplicative effects if one copies another, if a community that leads people toward committing acts of violence forms, etc.

I agree we should remain vigilant about encroachment upon our civil rights, who is being accused of 'future crimes' ex ante, etc., but to treat each as the same kind of statistical outcome-generating process is not the most useful mental model imo.

[datavirtue]

”compassionate outreach"

Yeah, it's called legalized prostitution.

[krapp]

When they commit mass murder in the name of their ideology, they become terrorists. That isn't off the charts fear mongering. Any group which did the same, and celebrated the people who did, would be called the same.

[hereforphone]

Not only that, but it's becoming increasingly taboo to talk about threats originating from minority groups. Whether those groups are religious, ethnic, or "racial" minorities, pointing out issues tied to / originating among them could be political suicide. Such issues have to be approached carefully.

[igetspam]

Nice whataboutism you have there.

[fundad]

Can we at least right-size the police?