Knight Of Winter

I get the point you're making, and respectfully disagree. I don't think Peterson's statements could or should be read as encouragement of women-shaming or or forcing arranged marriages, especially not it their intent. We can agree to disagree here. This truly is an fascinating topic to ponder, and I thank you for sharing your perspective. I admittedly know little about impact of post-WWII western economic boom (grew up in different culture) on generations of young men and would be interested in hearing about it (and learning a lot in the process). I do however suspect you're erring on a side of attributing too much value on media's and culture's influence on this particular phenomenon. The core of the issue is, IMO, men's natural desire for stuff like love, romance or sex. Some men don't have any and become frustrated, and with certain percentage of those this frustration turns to toxicity and anger. That's widespread - universal even - and it applies to all societies regardless whether your grew up in baby boom culture or somewhere completely different. Add to the mix (which you reference in last paragraph) that globalization and social media make it easier for such individuals to connect across the globe - and you've got the basis for the problematics of "incels" which we witness nowdays. Lonely and toxic men around the world converged into lonely and toxic subculture shielded inside its own bubble. I'll note that there's something I find quite appealing in your rhetoric and mindset - wand that is general emphasis of individual rather than societal change. What incels expect is generally no different than what many other groups expect: for society to conform to their ideas of what should or shouldn't be - and then getting furious when society doesn't conform; all the while not realizing how delusional this entire line of thinking is. "and decided to scream bloody murder at society for not conforming to it" - as you put it. @Heartofice While I can't be sure, what I think Varysblackfyre is asking is following: in Peterson's view, what exactly constitutes "enforced monogamy"? If a society were to embrace it, what sets of ideas, norms and policies should it adopt? Like you, I don't think it does or should encompass stuff like arranged marriages or forbidding divorce - but it does leave the question of what does it encompass? I'm not sure if I saw definite answer to that, from Peterson or anyone else. Societal change of such a grand scale is impossible, at least in a short term. And even if it were possible, it would solve exactly 0% of this particular problem. The root cause of incels' bitterness and frustration is their own inability to be sexually attractive to women - and that wouldn't change even if if everyone around them would start patting them on the back assuring them that everything is just fine.

I mean, you can "win" any argument by presenting opposing view as endorsing arranged marriages and encouraging domestic violence. But in the interest of truth and honest discussion it should ne noted that literally nobody here is arguing for that. Peterson doesn't (in fact, he explicitly says the opposite three sentences before the part you quoted). Heartofice doesn't. Neither does anybody else in this thread. So I don't see any value in presenting this as point of contention. Any serious discussion of "incelship" would, however, do well if it diagnoses the problem (specifically, that large number of sexually frustrated young men is a issue of both individual and societal level) and analyze the cause of it. That should be raw data upon which to build a discussion, and I see very little controversy in it. For the record, I wholeheartedly agree with your idea of " You have to pick them up where they are and have people they trust present a different outlook on how life works and how they can improve themselves instead of blaming everyone but themselves" - and have written similar point myself a few pages ago. This would be a good direction to move this thread towards. Good thing nobody is defending it, then.

There's a pretty big blindspot that I have - and I suspect many other posters here do as well - in understanding what draws voters to politicians like Trump. I don't understand their appeal, their motives, their reasons, their thought process, their... nothing. It's a huge hole in my knowledge, and posts like Rhom's go a long way to bridge that gap. It helps me to see how do Trump voters think, what kind of priorities do they have, what their thought process look like. It breaks my epistemological bubble and helps to establish a dialogue; maybe even bit of empathy for the "other side". From a practical standpoint, this leads to less polarization and more bipartisanship, which are two things that America desperately needs right now. Such world - with a little bit more of kindness, empathy and understanding is something that I'd certainly consider a profit. And since I know moral argument will not work for everyone, as there are some who will consider Trump and GOP as Evil incarnate who has to be extinguished at all costs - I'll give them a practical reason to listen to Trump voters. Know your enemy. Know how they think, what kind of arguments they make. Know what moves them and what leaves them indifferent. That way, you'll have all the information you need in order to effectively beat them; and all of that will be given to you for free if you just listen and show some understanding. Again, this Machiavellian line of reasoning is not something I personally endorse and encourage - but it just shows how even die-hard anti-trumpers could "profit" from just listening and not judging.

By not listening to Rhom and at least acknowledging that his reasons could be valid, you're doing yourself pretty big disservice. Look, like everyone here, I struggle to understand what prompted apparently decent person to give his vote to Trump (or in case of my country, other trump-like politicians). In that aspect, Rhom's post is a gift - reasonable, well-meaning and non-inflamatory piece of text that calmly states his reasoning. Now, you can take it to heart and use it to expand your knowledge about society and politics, you can learn and therefore "profit" from it. Or you can dismiss it as ramblings from just another racist (or bigot, or racially insensitive guy etc. - anything that amounts to "bad person") and then be surprised in 5 or 10 years when another Trump, Putin or Orban wins yet another election in some country. How could this could have happened - you will all wonder, for everyone I know agrees that he just sucks. By then it will be too late, of course. You were just to busy circlejerking in your own epistemological bubble to notice. To be fair, several responses here were reasonable, well-argumented and encouraging of further discussion - I will single out posts by Toth, DanteGabriel and Ran. But most of the rest is just a hot mess of insecurity, virtue-signaling and basest insults, comforted by the fact that everyone here supports their ideological position. For example: - first response is proud gotcha post, telling Rhom that whatever he thinks of himself, he actually is kind of a racist, or at least has some racial bias. Because why else would one vote for Trump, if not for racist reasons? - next one comes from master cryptographer, gifted with ability to see things noone else is able to see. Ciphers, secret messages and coded languages unfold before him like Moon Landing unfolds in front of conspiracy theorist. Who would be the recipient of such coded language in this staunchly anti-Trump forum remains unclear. - third one is ever so eager to take moral high ground and self-righteously publicly condemn the unfortunate sinner. For how much did you sell your political soul, full of indignation asks the guy who voted for known warmonger and accused rapist. And yes, were I an American, I'd vote for this very same warmonger and accused rapist. Point is: it's very easy - and very lazy - to sound virtuous by using labels to condemn the other side and accuse them of some kind of moral depravity. I hoped that this place is above using such cheap tricks. Apparently not - fourth one offers such a simple explanation: Rhom is a selfish guy who simply doesn't care about other people. Isn't it just magnificently wonderful to have such a worldview, such simple black-and-white morality? Selfish people vote for Trump, and altruistic ones against him. Problem solved. I'll probably sound antagonistic for what I wrote above, and I get why some might see it so. But this whole affair is seriously disappointing. If the group of well educated and otherwise reasonable leftists - which by tradition stand for virtues like tolerance, diversity, open mindedness etc. - can't respond to one polite Trump voter without petty ad hominems and virtue signalling, well, that's just sad. Again, kudos to posters who wrote sensible rebuttals or Rhom's points and who are unfortunately in a minority.

I feel like you'd have to define what do you all mean by incels, cos otherwise there will be (and has been) a lot of talking past each other here. Are incels 1) in broadest terms, people who live in involuntary celibate. These include both men and women, although it's significantly more common among the former 2) incel men who exhibit bitterness, frustration and anger due to being involuntary celibate. Subset of 1) 3) incel men who actually attack and hurt women. Subset of 2) ? Once you clear that out, at least you'll have the common ground to discuss the questions like: do incels deserve symapthy? Should we help them and if yes, how? Etc. For example, it seems to me that many posters equate "incelship" just with group 3) - which in reality are only a tiny fraction. If you take a look at phenomenon which could be defined as violence by men against women - it's easy to see that incels are not the main perpetrators. In fact, most common culprits are women's former and current partners - non-incels by definition, followed by bosses, coworkers, friends and acquaintances etc. Random angry incels are not near the top of the list. Even if you're talking proportionally i.e. is average incel more likely to hurt women than average non-incel man; or are 3) more represented among 1) than women-bashers are among non-incel men ? - nothing I've seen would indicate so. __________________________________ As for mental illness - I think it's an entirely wrong angle to take. Emotions that incels ( 2) ) exhibit - bitterness, sexual frustration, anger, jealousy, resentment are most definitely toxic and unhealthy - first and foremost to incels themselves and then to people around them. In extreme cases ( 3) ) they turn them into dangerous individuals deserving of criminal punishment. But these emotions are also human, all too human. There's nothing mentally ill within them. So, were I to tackle the problematics of incels (1,2 and 3) of possible solutions, I talk about everyday solutions instead of writing them off as a mental patients. I'd talk about their self-improvement and growth as a person - about becoming men that women are more likely to be attracted compared to than angry and bitter current selves. I'd talk about finding hobbies to vent their frustrations in a socially acceptable way - like martial arts or debate club. I'd talk about removing themselves, for their own benefit, from the company of like-minded angry and frustrated incels, and finding a friend group which will facilitate their growth and warn them (instead of encouraging) should they fall into a trap of bitterness and self-pity. I'd talk about visiting a good therapist - and spending significant amount of time and energy into finding a good therapist. Etc.

OldGimletEye and Altherion addressed specifics - and I agree with them for most part - but here I want to emmphasize one global point regarding the points you make. Having read your argument (well written and presented, btw), I found myself thinking that all of these are characteristics of a truly great society. A country which successfully implemented them would prosper and achieve both social justice and progress on a unprecedented scale - on paper. I praxis, however, I think that some of your points unfortunately contradict with each other. There's a lot of awesome lefty stuff that both you and I are in favour of - free healthcare and education, strong welfare state, state support for the poor etc. - but these are expensive as hell. In order to finance them, you need a large percentage of population that works and pays taxes. You need an environment where entrepreneurs are free to start their businesses and profit from them if they're successful. Arguing for a free education society on one hand, and for society where noone is forced to sell their labor on the other - well, it seems to me that you can't have both. Just want to quickly address this one, for fact of the matter is that some lawyers are good while others are not. Would you be willing to lose a court case (and all the repercussions that go with it - jail, fines, social shame etc.) because RNG assigned you a crappy lawyer? And on a larger point, this seems inconsistent with the way we live our daily lives. You can choose which bread to buy, which career to pursue and which company you work for. These are not randomly assigned by the state, but chosen by you according to your preferences, personality and needs. Why should legal representation be any different?

Just have to say: intentionally or not, this is one of best double entendres I've read here in recent times.

Oh, great - more prophets of doom - just what we need at this time. Seriously, all these doomsday scenarios about USA turning into Orban's Hungary or worse, Hitler's Germany are laughable to anyone who knows anything about the latter two. Hungary, for example, is not a two-party system like the US - yet Orban's party alone holds two thirds of the parliament. It's a also country with virtually no left-wing opposition - most popular lefty party got miserable 12% of votes in the last elections (seriously, Orban's most popular opposition is another far-right party). It's a country with pretty young and not fully developed democratic institutions - not unexpected given how it's been de facto independent for only last 30 years or so. It's a country where president managed to establish effective mechanism to control the courts (no, not just Supreme Court, but all the judges and courts). It's a country which suffered for almost half a century under what is basically communist dictatorship, causing pendulum to violently swing back in opposite direction (i.e. Orban's far right). Take all of this into account, and more - and ask yourself if any of this is applicable to US today. Fortunately, the answer is no - and the comparisons to Nazi Germany are even less applicable. So, what will happen if Trump wins another 4 years? Not much. Nobody here will emigrate in panic. Gates to Hell will not open. Four Riders of Apocalpyse will stay put. True, America will suffer four more years of deranged and ridiculously incompetent president, but it will hardly be the first country to do so. There will still be strong opposition in form of media, citizens' organizations and House of Representatives, occasionally managing to block some of his most dangerous ideas. And after 4 years, his mandate will be over, whether he likes it or not. In few more decades he won't be remembered at all, except as one of biggest blunders in a history of democratic world. Ffs, America has survived two world wars, several horrific economic depressions, Cold war and nuclear crisis - have some faith it will survive one charlatanic demagague.

You're asking about powerful rulers of the 12th century, yet limit yourself to only three pretty euro-centric choices, neither of whom rises any close to any claim of "most powerful of the 12th century". The thing is, European countries of the 12th century were far from the most advanced in the world - neither technologically, nor scientifically, nor economically, nor societally, nor culturally nor in any other way - and that applies both to Holy Roman Empire and England. It would not apply to Byzantine Empire of the past, but by the time of Manuel Komnenos, it was slowly but surely entering its vestigial phase. Manuel in particular, while overall able and smart ruler, had very limited success dealing with Seljuk Turks in Anatolia or Normans in southern Italy. So who would the the most powerful ruler of the 12th century? It's a good question, and while I don't know the answer - I'd suggest looking in places other than Europe. How about whoever ruled China, for example? I don't remember if China of that period was politically divided or not, but even if it was, they were still technological, military and cultural powerhouse. Or how about Genghis Khan, who should be the most obvious choice? True, he did his conquest in the 13th century (so technically he doesn't fit your question), but in 12th century he managed to carefully and methodically lay foundations to what would become by far the largest empire in the history of humanity up to that point. What about Saladin, for that matter, who managed to unite Egypt and Syria into a most powerful Muslim state in the last century? Or whoever ruler the Khmer Empire, which was IIRC at the height at that time? At its peak, its capital of Angkor Wat had a population of around 1 million people, making it - maybe - the largest city in the world. Which tells you something about the size and power of their empire. Or about countries in central Asia or Indian subcontinent? There's just bound to be someone very powerful among them. Etc. etc.

Here's one interesting case. When pandemic started, Brazilian city of Manaus failed to react in any way: they had no distancing, no masks and no obligatory disinfection in stores. Naturally, they were hit hard - and I mean really hard - by the virus. Hospitals ran out of beds very quickly, death toll skyrocketed to such a degree that impromptu mass graves were dug to accommodate all the bodies. It'd not be far-fetched to say that Manaus was one on the worst places to be during the corona-crisis. But recently, something changed. Not the population - who still don't wear masks and don't practice distancing - but the disease itself. Number of fatalities suddenly plummeted - having gone from 120 daily in May to almost zero recently. So scientists speculate that maybe enough people survived the virus to develop the herd immunity. Far from anything definite, but certainly interesting food for thought.

People behave selfishly now. They behaved selfishly 100 or 1000 or 3000 years ago, in every civilization in every corner of the world. With such a widespread phenomenon, can there be any other explanation than inherency? Yes, I know, altrusim and cooperation are also widespread, and also inherent to humans. Which is all the more reason to avoid simplistic generalization such as "humans are selfish" or "humans aren't selfish". It's a curious trait, I think - for the main two economical systems still don't quite know how to approach it. Capitalism pragmatically acknowledges it, but then oftentimes makes the mistake of liking it a little bit too much. Communists, on the other hand - often fall into a trap of outright denying it, and aiming for a society where there won't be any selfishness around.

Wow. I mean, I agree with this approach wholeheartedly - but wow, what you're talking about here are deep and fundamental problems of an ill society, whose illness manifests all the time in all the different directions: one time it's Trump as president, other time it's furious mobs, third time it's something else. If you're correct, I'll have to take whole "how do we combat cancel culture" question a level of two higher than just angry twitter nobs.

I don't know, this seems like a case of drawing diametrically opposite conclusion from a same set of data. So, the data is: cancel culture is nothing new, It has caused harm, and has been used to a great degree by employers, corporations, racists, government etc. The conclusion I'd infer is that such a idea is wrong, and should be stopped to a degree it's possible. The opposite conclusion which I'm seeing here is: no, the idea is great - it's just that wrong people were in charge, Now, with internet mobs doing the cancelling - now things will go well. Now we'll achieve something good. And there's the whole issue that @S John mentioned: which is punishment without a chance for redemption. Cruelty in the name of self-imposed righteousness, Many times, the "wrongdoer" actually did nothing wrong, just had the misfortune that their actions were misinterpreted in the worst possible manner by paranoid people. Other times, where "wrongdoer" actually did something problematic - benevolent warning and giving a chance for them to think and improve would be infinitely better response. Almost never is vicious harassment the correct approach, yet it seems to be the default approach today. Pretty disappointing and sad. Especially from the left, who traditionally favor ideas such as as mercy, rehabilitation, redemption and such. Just to address this: Taking the supposition that losing a job is the adequate punishment for fuckups and alleged fuckups (which I personally disagree with, but found it reasonable enough to be a starting point), how do you mean to accomplish that? Give power to the internet mob, but then restrict to only to certain kinds of punishment? Remember guys, getting someone fired is fine, but death treats are not. Nor is online harassment or doxxing. Be nice. And do it only to the people who really deserve it. Ok? such

Small digression; but whole Adria Richards case reminds me so much of this timeless tweet:

@DanteGabriel - sure, then let's wrap this up. Just to adress this - I'm not accusing you of anything, and while I'm fallible and susceptible of strawmaning your argument, I generally try to avoid it and answer the points you made. So likewise, I'd appreciate your assumption of at least some goodwill for me. This was a debate of two people with different opinions, nothing more. And the one I enjoyed and which gave me some food for thought. Other than this, while we agree on some stuff: the main difference is that it seems to me that you think (correct me if I'm wrong) that CC may be fallible, but has many upsides and can be used as a good tool to make better, less-bigoted world. I think it opposite - that it's a step in wrong direction. Elaborating on this will be - as you say - going in circles, so we can agree to disagree here.