This world we were born in is extremely weird. At one extreme, you have things like international suicide prevention day and anti-bullying campaigns, you have kindness and empathy, you have normies on reddit reacting to news of suicide with genuine sadness and compassion, you have courtesy and politeness, you have peace and flowers. But at the other extreme, you have men who have lost all hope, who feel so alienated that they hate society, men who kill themselves or others out of rage and despair, you have all kinds of negative acts and emotions, you have two world wars that killed over a hundred million people not that long ago, often in horrible conditions.
How can the two coexist?
My opinion is that society sometimes goes into failure modes. This happens when a failure follows another, and another, and so on. It happens rarely, but can have disastrous consequences. Eliezer Yudkowsky evokes such failure modes in his recent book Inadequate Equilibria.
Types of failure: asymmetry of information, unaligned interests, resource conflicts, powerlessness of those with the information and ignorance of those with the power.
World War 1 can be construed as a catastrophic failure of humanity.
Another such failure is the medical mismanagement of some diseases and health situations.
Another such failure is the existence of many men who have lost all hope and think that society hates them. The existence of, say, Elliott Rodger.
In the case of incels, what happens is this succession of failures:
(1) failure to treat everyone equally or at least with respect. Ugly boys in school are indeed treated worse on average than good-looking boys. This begins a process of anger and resentment.
(2) failure to recognize this mistreatment. Looks are taboo and bullying /discrimination over looks is taboo. This makes the mistreatment hurt more, almost by an order of magnitude.
(3) failure to manage the fallout of this mistreatment. Angry depressed boys are sent to "therapy", which usually doesn't solve the issue because of (1) and (2).
(4) failure to prescribe effective psychotropic drugs to reduce the depression. Only 1/3rd of patients react well to their 1st prescribed psychotropic drug, leading many to believe psychiatry can't help them.
(5) failure to say the truth about how romance and sex work. The standard normie lines are "just be confident", "just be honest and hard-working", or "work on your personality", which are insulting falsehoods.
(6) failure to react adequately to hateful, intolerant men. Instead of recognizing their psychological state as the result of unfair suffering, they are instead treated with contempt, reinforcing the anger and resentment.
And the saddest part is this: I don't envision how society could do anything about it.
How can the two coexist?
My opinion is that society sometimes goes into failure modes. This happens when a failure follows another, and another, and so on. It happens rarely, but can have disastrous consequences. Eliezer Yudkowsky evokes such failure modes in his recent book Inadequate Equilibria.
Types of failure: asymmetry of information, unaligned interests, resource conflicts, powerlessness of those with the information and ignorance of those with the power.
World War 1 can be construed as a catastrophic failure of humanity.
Another such failure is the medical mismanagement of some diseases and health situations.
Another such failure is the existence of many men who have lost all hope and think that society hates them. The existence of, say, Elliott Rodger.
In the case of incels, what happens is this succession of failures:
(1) failure to treat everyone equally or at least with respect. Ugly boys in school are indeed treated worse on average than good-looking boys. This begins a process of anger and resentment.
(2) failure to recognize this mistreatment. Looks are taboo and bullying /discrimination over looks is taboo. This makes the mistreatment hurt more, almost by an order of magnitude.
(3) failure to manage the fallout of this mistreatment. Angry depressed boys are sent to "therapy", which usually doesn't solve the issue because of (1) and (2).
(4) failure to prescribe effective psychotropic drugs to reduce the depression. Only 1/3rd of patients react well to their 1st prescribed psychotropic drug, leading many to believe psychiatry can't help them.
(5) failure to say the truth about how romance and sex work. The standard normie lines are "just be confident", "just be honest and hard-working", or "work on your personality", which are insulting falsehoods.
(6) failure to react adequately to hateful, intolerant men. Instead of recognizing their psychological state as the result of unfair suffering, they are instead treated with contempt, reinforcing the anger and resentment.
And the saddest part is this: I don't envision how society could do anything about it.
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