Molyneux on Incels

Of possible interest. He pretty much touched every main point I went over in the thread about beta orbiting. @greenboy

I have to work out, so I don’t want to take a lot of time with this, but he says early in the video about getting picked for teams as kids (two team captains take turns picking players):

“It’s kind of a humiliating process, but it’s kind of important so you figure out where you are in the pecking order, like if you want to be good at sports but you’re being picked later you want to practice and up your game and so on, right? Now, that process of picking and choosing used to happen in the sexual market as well…”

Which is interesting, because I thought it was a loathsome process, personally. Not helpful, not “important.” I was a skinny kid with glasses who lacked coordination. Crippling lack of confidence did even more damage through the years of elementary school team-picking, so I didn’t perceive myself able to manage high school gym at all and was a miserable mess when I couldn’t get out of it. I couldn’t run the mile! Know how far I can run now, without the advantage of youth? Miles. It wasn’t until I left school and stopped giving a shit about any of it that I started having any success in recreational sports. I took a job at a gym at 21 and from there the process reversed, until I eventually perceived myself as more athletic than most women my age, which perception persists.

Which is to say, in summary, that the team-picking analogy is an excellent one in my opinion, and nothing has changed. This is still an apt analogy, the sexual marketplace still works this way. It may not be good or fair, but it is still a selection process. I posit that the young men you and he are concerned with are analogous to the young me refusing to participate in high school gym classes.

Lastly, Molyneux has quite a curriculum vitae. The table of contents from his Wikipedia page:

Contents

Editing to add that I know your concern for this stuff comes from a place of decency, @BrickHead. I just don’t see the process as having gone off track the way you and @greenboy do. I see healthy coupling all around me, at every age, with the inevitable unhappy players scattered through, as they always have been.

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But life, even school life, doesn’t work that simply. You could be the kid picked last for the team but later, in class, outperform the others academically. And, if you’re the kid who is picked first for teams, you may get some satisfaction from that, but if when called upon in class to read aloud you have obvious difficulty (and maybe hear laughing from other kids), you feel like crap.

The problem I see with “incel” types is that they don’t look at women as human beings but as objects that reflect upon your status as an “alpha.” They don’t want to be judged based on looks and money but think that’s all women care about. The irony is that they are against feminism which, as part of its core, is about women being able to choose who they have relationships with based on whatever criteria they value the most. Society tells women (girls really) to go after the Ken doll, the Prince Charming, and feminism is about changing that. So there are two sides to the issue.

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I’ve never understood any of this incel stuff. I haven’t put a lot of work into understanding it, but I don’t see the utility of the rhetoric I’ve heard.

Nobody owes affection to another person and I don’t see how complaining about being involuntarily celibate is likely to change the situation.

I steer clear of women who behave similarly towards men. It’s a big red flag for me if someone is constantly blaming others for the outcomes they experience. My ex’s best friend was like this. Sure, she could get laid, but she seemed frustrated that every guy runs for the hills right afterwards.

I kept my big mouth shut, but it seems self-evident that few men would be interested in a relationship with a long-term unemployed radical feminist whose main hobby seems to be complaining.

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But now you have social media so these men can go and commiserate and tell each other it’s everyone else’s fault.

Did you watch the video?

Did you watch the video? I don’t recall him saying any of that.

Yes, you have to work to your strengths. Kids who have none, so perform poorly in both the physical and academic arena, tend to become angry and aggressive (bullies). Another apt analogy, in my view.

Yes to both comments. It comes from both directions. I talked about a cousin like this several years ago, who to me represents all that is icky in the dating world:

I spoke to my cousin last night and I was so disgusted by the things she was saying that I came close to asking her never to contact me again. She’s still got two boyfriends who don’t know about each other, she laughingly states that she has no conscience and needs to stop, and then asked me to see if [my now-husband] has any friends so I can fix her up because she needs to find a good guy. Um, NO. A good guy doesn’t deserve you, cuz. The entire thing was repulsive. Her talk of what men should represent and provide… ugh. I’m still shuddering. I seriously don’t know a man awful enough to deserve this train wreck. She wants to visit me - maybe move here! - and I couldn’t even respond to her about those things, I just sat silently paralyzed.
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I’m trying to remember examples, but I know that something she repeats (which her behavior suggests she doesn’t believe) is that “we’re the prize,” or “we’re the treasure,” indicating that we women should sit back and wait for men to shower us with… something. Attention, money? I’m not sure. They have to “show us” that they’re worth our time.

I think it’s fair to view oneself as a prize and expect that others prove worthwhile, but I believe it should be a two way street. A good man is absolutely a prize or treasure in my view, and I think a good man deserves a good woman. That’s where one’s own responsibility to be worthy comes into play.

Her attitude is one-sided to a degree that is bizarre to me, though I suppose there are many men out there with similarly one-sided views (I have accused you of this in the past [@orion] ). She’s disgusted on my behalf over Tim’s lack of character, but laughs off her own similar behavior. She wants a man “with his shit together” but doesn’t have her own house in order.

Aside from that she’s an out of shape smoker with no financial assets. Her choice of men boggles my mind, though it is possible that her options are limited.

Is it unfortunate that men are less prone to value big-boned women who tend to be loud and aggressive? Yes. Is it unfortunate that her father, my uncle, was a weak, slightly slimy man who taught her to think those qualities normal and acceptable? Yes. Is it unfortunate that she hasn’t found something nicer to model herself upon, presumably due to some innate shortcoming? Yes!

But it’s not a political issue, and there’s nothing cultural/societal to be done about it except to make it possible for her to attend college and have enough of a career to self-support, which the feminists had already done, happily.

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My understanding, though, is that they’re all nice guys. And that should count for something!

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So every guy having a hard time finding a mate looks at women as objects? Interesting.

Actually after some reviewing, the men I’ve known with the easiest time getting women think of women just like that.

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“Because so many of the women are chasing the high-market men, it’s kind of not worth it to groom … it kind of makes sense. Like why would you bother, if you don’t have a job interview why would you bother shaving, and if it doesn’t really matter because the girls are all chasing the high-value alphas, sort of what’s the point? You might as well stay in and play video games.”

I watched the vid, Brick. The above is from around 16 minutes in. He goes on to say that the qualities of character have diminished for women, so wonders why men should be interested, and comes to the answer that the only answer is sexual access, which makes the women less valuable. Also, “when they wish to punish a man, then they threaten to withhold sexuality.” And then he blames feminism. It’s just yucky, can you not see that? Just a nasty, ugly frame.

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That’s the problem: the idea of “getting” women. How about becoming a better person?

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No. I don’t way to derail the thread, but I have heard him before and he tries to hide his racism behind science but he isn’t a scientist. He is a history major and apparently learned nothing about humans during his studies.

This supposes the notion that some such men aren’t good people and that all men with women are good people.

I posted the video to discuss what’s said in the video. How are you not detailing by not doing so?

You’re free to derail though. It’s not my forum.

How do you conclude this?

He has a theater background also, and is apparently worth millions. Excellent career he’s built for himself.

No I didn’t. I was speaking about my general experience with the topic of incels.

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That’s actually a serious concern for men generally. I’m glad I got my wife.