Incels: A new terror threat to the UK?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58207064

by pmoriarty • 5 years ago

29 40 5 years ago

bbc.co.uk

TechBro86153• 5 years ago

Sounds like a whole bunch of generalizations made by someone only because they need to write words to get paid.

edgyquant4• 5 years ago

Incels are an online community responsible for real world terrorists attacks.

TechBro86153• 5 years ago

Is this community in the room with you right now?

UnpossibleJim• 5 years ago

In a weird way, I kind of have to agree. Granted I'm only familiar with the cartoonish, hyper-stylized internet version of the involuntary celebate, but in this version they are always white, right and misogynistic even though they love women (in a very twisted and immature fashion), but submissive to women when women talk to them (real or imagined). Thus frustration then turns into violence when whatever fantasy is not reciprocated.

There are a few things wrong with the version I've read, as is plain to see. An involuntary celibate would have no race - surely. I've known enough nerds in my time who had trouble with girls where no explanation is necessary. So it isn't just that.

If it's truly "an online community" as has been posited elsewhere in these forums, I have a doubt that these young men are going on suicide runs. Community tends to have the opposite effect on that. Being part of a community, even one as depraved as a white power group or whatever is theorized by this writer, keeps people from committing suicide (and white trash girls don't have the highest standards, if it's just a sex thing).

To be honest, this seems a lot like "nerd shaming", to borrow a turn of phrase. It almost feels like to add insult to (literal) injury, these people are screaming "VIRGIN!" instead of looking for what really drove a person to do something horrible, like some fratboy d-bag trying his least to come up with a solution.

javajosh2• 5 years ago

Isn't sex work legal in the UK, and shouldn't that have a damping effect on the incel thing? I mean, it's hard to be enraged to the point of mass-murder when you can get laid for 100 quid.

edgyquant4• 5 years ago

They aren’t mad because they can’t get laid they are mad because they can’t get hot girls to sleep with them for free. If they worked on their careers and charisma they could probably land an attractive girl but I digress.

542458• 5 years ago

It’s this strange phenomenon where they claim they desperately want a relationship, but also have ludicrously specific requirements as to what the person in that relationship should be like. Those requirements are often thinly veiled hatred for perceived qualities of the other gender (such as an incel disqualifying nearly every woman for being “sluts”). Incels have adopted a worldview that disqualifies essentially all living humans as valid romantic partners - they don’t want just any partner, they want an impossibly idealized partner.

Heck, there are both male and female incel communities (each claiming they can’t find anybody of the other gender to form a relationship with) which would be funny were it not so grim.

So to your comment: I don’t think it necessarily matters how well groomed or charismatic or conventionally attractive they are. As long as they have that hate of the other gender any potential partner will be rejected.

rowanG0772• 5 years ago

Tbh this essentially just like saying to a depressed person: "have you tried not being depressed?". Of course they could get a girl if they were more attractive.

aejnsn• 5 years ago

Came here to ask this same question. Amazing how peaceful things are when everyone gets the full Maslow hierarchy experience.

Invictus0• 5 years ago

Incels are a community--if an incel were to see a sex worker, they would no longer be an incel, and would lose access to the community. The real driver of the community is ostensibly access to sex but I think it's really about being in a tribe of people that identify as ugly/failures/losers.

ronnier• 5 years ago

That's not always true as most don't count paid-for sex to break their inceldom. Though some even have trouble paying for sex being that they are so unattractive.

mabbo2• 5 years ago

Sex work is legal in Canada, for the most part. Didn't stop Alek Minassian.

belltaco• 5 years ago

Illegal for buyers I think.

azaras2• 5 years ago

You can jerk off. It is cheaper and it have less moral issues.

baby5• 5 years ago

I learned recently the term incel. It seems to have a bad connotation even though it describes something very human. I've long theorized that a lot of terrorism would be gone if dudes would get laid. It's not for no reason that some groups promise hundreds of virgin women in heaven if you get killed in combat.

Two interesting things from the point of view of someone who doesn't know much about the term incel, but:

* I think technology is going to put a dent into this. It's easier and easier to meet someone else via apps like Tinder.

* At the same time it's interesting that this "minority" found itself as a community thanks to social medias.

ch4s3• 5 years ago

I've long theorized that a lot of terrorism would be gone if dudes would get laid.

Daesh fighters often have/had multiple wives. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were married. The history of the IRA, and ETA are full of married dudes blowing up civilians.

Only a very narrow type of mass murderer fits the incel mold.

baby5• 5 years ago

Anecdotic but I remember watching a documentary in France about someone going undercover and meeting these terrorist wannabes. At some point they tried to get one of the guys to marry another girl he had never met, for the cause, perhaps to add more credibility or something. That scene was like that guy’s most beautiful day ever (from his pov).

When I think of more organized jihadists, I also think about people fighting for a cause and blaming, rightly or wrongly, the US for a lot of the problems in the middle east. The ones that act within their own western countries seem to have become extremists for much more frustration-related reasons. My 2 cents.

WesleyHale2• 5 years ago

I think technology made the problem worse. These guys get together and share their anecdotal stories about being rejected by women and it cements their world view. They get black pilled and feel it's out of their control.

It is the opposite of a self-help group. If these guys actually wanted to improve, they'd go to the gym, fix their clothes, be more hygienic, hold themselves accountable and etc. Instead they all share their rejection stories and blame society for their problems. Eventually it comes to a head.

baby5• 5 years ago

Are incels only about this more “redpill” group? Or is it more nuanced and it’s also about peaceful and self improvement groups as well?

BrandoElFollito• 5 years ago

Tinder for men is super complex. You have to be at least average to stand a chance.

Their attractiveness puts them right into the "swap to reject" category.

baby5• 5 years ago

I got hitched quickly after tinder became a thing, so haven’t had much time but it already helped me do some dates in a place where it was hard to get one. Lots of my friends have had lots of success with it while little to no success without. It really seems like a game changer.

logicalmonster• 5 years ago

For the life of me, I can't understand why everybody in modern society is supposed to get some sympathy for being marginalized or a victim of some kind, but a group of people who can't achieve some kind of basic human connection for whatever reason are so outright hated on by the media and establishment politics.

javajosh2• 5 years ago

It's a good question, but it does have an answer: violence. When members of a community do violence, especially generalized violence, it seeds terror in the population. It's not fair that the entire community is blamed for the actions of a few; in an ideal world we'd be able to understand that distinction. But from all the history I've read, that's not how humans work. We make snap judgements, generalize and approximate about large groups based on anecdotal evidence. (It probably doesn't help that "incel" connotes "terror cell".)

igetspam2• 5 years ago

Because they are targeting people (an actual marginalized group: women) and killing them.

mabbo2• 5 years ago

One man who did want to emulate Rodger was Alek Minassian. He killed 10 people in Toronto. He later told the police that he had been inspired by incel ideas.

I live right in the middle of his path of destruction. My wife crossed that street not 10 minutes before the attack. This isn't a hypothetical to us anymore.

Ideologies that denigrate specific groups of people will always have fringes that decide it's okay to murder those people. We cannot, as a society, tolerate these groups. I don't like the word 'terrorist' because it's mostly used as a means for governments to be excused for abusing rights. But I also don't think government should sit idly by, watching as a such an ideology grows.

belorn• 5 years ago

There is a lot of things people can be inspired by to commit horrible acts of violence. A decade ago it was GTA and video games. A decade more it was rap. Before that all the classic 90s action films.

What I would be worried about is the social environment which had a person that was able to consider murdering 10 people. The classical profile would be a person with no social support, no attachment to their near environment, and borderline personality disorder. Looking at the details about the attack, it was a high school teen who moved to Toronto with no attachment to the new home, was a social outcast at the bottom of their perceived social ladder, and suffered from a personality disorder. While its only a very small portion of such people that are able to consider becoming a mass murdered, much of the risk factors were preventable. As a society we are much better off if we focused on fixing the risk factors than what ever is an currently popular inspiration once a person has decided that it is okey to kill an other human being.

DiabloD3• 5 years ago

Remember: always be lifting, never give a shit about what others think about you, look to what the successful people do and not what they say, don't cargo cult, and always be trying to improve your day to day routine.

Incels aren't a threat to the UK, incels are a byproduct of western society crumbling under 60 years of gross mismanagement. What caused them to exist is the threat. Here in the US, you can thank the people who ushered Reagan into the White House, in the UK, whoever their neo-lib equivalents are.

baby5• 5 years ago

Your comment is a bit all over the place, but I like the idea of analyzing the root cause instead of the symptoms.

beardyw• 5 years ago

I can't help but think that the answer will have the word "entitlement" in it. The more you consider you are entitled to, the unhappier you will be.

sekia• 5 years ago

Incels are surely a byproduct of our society, not only the West but also my country (Japan) and other regions (so called "ethnicels"[1]), and a threat at the same time. They have already crossed the line. Violence, especially femicide, due to their misogyny and self-pity is not able to be justified by any words.

What caused them to exist is the threat.

I agree with that it is a threat and removing it is the fundamental solution. But we should also have symptomatic treatment for making the world of today safer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#Lexicology

azaras2• 5 years ago

Sex is important but computers are more.

Rabbits and rats have a lot of sex but they can not do a simple "Hello World" program.

If you can not have sex do sports and play with computers.

Incels: A new terror threat to the UK?

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