Not to mention "transhumanism + brain surgery means that we should create clones of young females with dog brains to serve as docile sex slaves for incels; it's not like female brains contribute anything to humanity anyway". The way that stance meshes with the tenets of Rationalism is interesting too.
> And I think the answer is simply that no one ever hears from “moderate incels.”
Where are all the *moderate* nazis? I'm sure they have such valuable things to say!
The Bolsheviks purged the Mensheviks. Does that mean that the USSR wasn't socialist?
Nazism isn't a central example of socialism, but it does strain credulity somewhat to claim that the Nationalsocialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei didn't have any socialist elements whatsoever:
>Since we are socialists, we must necessarily also be antisemites - Adolf Hitler
>We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! - George Strasser
Thanks for actually engaging!
Perhaps we disagree on the definition of socialism we're using here (seems likely). I'm using a phenomenological one - something's socialist if it acts or aspires to act in the way socialist governments generally do - nationalising industries, expanding of public welfare programs, expropriation of private property, hostility to "Finance", pro-worker rhetoric, to name the ones the Nazis took part in.
I'm aware that according to marxist theory the Nazis weren't socialist at all. My objections are twofold - 1. Of course Marxists say that - they don't want to be associated with Nazis! 2. Marxist theory is a load of nonsense on stilts.
Wow, this is dumb. And not the kind of bullshit I like seeing in the morning. Take this confusion to literally any other subreddit, this kind of garbage thinking doesn't belong here.
DPRK isn't a central example of a democratic republic, but it does strain credulity somewhat to claim that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea doesn't have any democratic elements whatsoever.
Are you denying that the strasserites existed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program
>Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes.
>Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
>We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
>We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
>We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
*edit to add* So how did this work in practice, what with Strasserites getting murdered or run out of the country right when Nazis were actually getting in power?
> Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes.
never implemented
> Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
too vague to even evaluate but I wouldn't say this was really accomplished (when they were busy reimplementing actual slavery to boot)
> We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
Hahahaha
> We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
Division among the Fuehrer and Herman Goring, perhaps
> We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
Here's your panzerfaust gramps, try not to die to the first bullet that hits you
Yeah, they were bad at achieving these aims - but they were their aims, and are socialist.
I mean, the USSR was aimed to be a workers paradise. So does North Korea. They failed - does that make them not socialist?
> Yeah, they were bad at achieving these aims - but they were their aims, and are socialist.
Given that they never made any attempt to achieve them, and when in power embarked on a program of privatisation big enough that it led to the coining of the term "privatisation", as well as their strong anti-labour stance and their collaboration with industrialists, they're a bit dubious as far as "aims" go.
Rather, they're populist promises they had no intention of keeping, designed to decieve people who want those programs and don't necessarily care about the racism and such.
> I mean, the USSR was aimed to be a workers paradise. So does North Korea. They failed - does that make them not socialist?
I mean they aren't socialist, but that's more a factor of them not actually having abolished property and devolved power into the hands of the workers.
So some people said they would do some things before getting murdered by the party leadership and their supporters run out of town, then the party proceeds to then never talk about them or their ideas, and we still talk about some tangible influence?
*Why?*
The Nazi party did nationalise industry (Hermann Goring Werke, Romanian oilfields), and it expropriated huge amounts of private property from Jews, as well as implementing state control of religion.
Lets say you are an alien visiting the planet, and look down at the world in 1938, you compare the UK, Germany, and the USSR on the basis of the evidence. You know there are two ideological factions. Which are in which?
Well Germany and the USSR both appropriate private property from their citizens. They both drum up support by agitating against certain groups (Jews or Kulaks) and discriminate against them legally. They both have secret police. They're both currently engaging, or recently have, in state sponsored genocides. They both use show trials, and are purging political rivals (Nacht-und-nebel vs the Great Purge). Next year they'll sign a formal treaty of cooperation!
You're going to tell that alien that actually, the U.K (under Baldwin's conservative Government) and Germany are both "Right wing" and the USSR is "Left Wing"?
**National Socialist Program**
The National Socialist Program, also known as the 25-point Program or the 25-point Plan, was the party program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). Originally the name of the party was the German Workers' Party (DAP), but on the same day of the announced party program it was renamed the NSDAP, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Adolf Hitler announced the party's program on 24 February 1920 before approximately 2,000 people in the Munich Festival of the Hofbräuhaus. The National Socialist Program originated at a DAP congress in Vienna, then was taken to Munich, by the civil engineer and theoretician Rudolf Jung, who having explicitly supported Hitler had been expelled from Czechoslovakia because of his political agitation.
***
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This is true. Incel is not a term that should be taken at face value, and there is often heavy overlap with MRA and PUA stuff. Not getting laid doesn't automatically turn you into a reactionary, and getting laid doesn't make you not a reactionary.
I don't know that I'd call it dumb. Once is bad luck, twice is a coincidence, but we're well into enemy action territory. Credit where credits due, reactionaries have a real knack for picking names for their mottes that come with nice, large baileys already attached.
I meant "dumb" more in the "this dumb planet" sense than in the sense that it is literally due to personal stupidity. I'm not a big fan of "Hanlon's Razor"
> the fact that they can't get laid isn't what provokes such visceral horror - it's their beliefs.
This is at best a meaningless assessment because their beliefs are causally linked to them not getting laid. Sure, it's not inevitable that a person who technically qualifies to be incel would become an Incel, but someone who does get laid certainly won't be an Incel. It's retarded to hope that involuntary celibacy won't remain the basis of a resentful identity, or that there's a chance now to disperse incels into their little degenerate hobby communities by banning a few extremist subs, or that they won't spread.
> The vast, vast majority of "sad virgin nerds" are not incels
Yes they are, technically. And they're likely to become Incels in the strict sense. They've nowhere else to go, when even their contemplation of suicide is mocked; you can't help them with half-assed lukewarm second-hand compassion. Face it, you think their issues are trivial compared to those faced by actual disadvantaged groups, or even that their grievances are based on "entitlement" and thus reprehensible by default. Many here think so.
Which is fine, it's just that you won't convince them of it and you won't stop the radicalization. So in the end it'll indeed come to "welp, all sad (white) virgin nerds are those shitty hateful incels".
> Face it, you think their issues are trivial compared to those faced by actual disadvantaged groups, or even that their grievances are based on "entitlement" and thus reprehensible by default.
I mean... they are. For one thing, their issues are a subset of the ones faced by a lot of marginalised people. I wouldn't refer to them as reprehensible (except for the ones who do adopt the misogyny of incel ideology), and wouldn't dream of mocking people for depression or for being suicidal. But there's a core issue that if what is driving you into depression is not getting the sex that you think as a man you should be, then the issue that needs to be solved is one of toxic masculinity not one of unequal distribution of sex.
Stopping radicalisation is important, but the roots of this radicalisation *are* in toxic, entitled attitudes, and so combatting radicalisation has to address those problems. If lack of sex were what were causing the issue, you'd expect to see other groups than cishet white guys with this kind of attitude.
> there's a core issue that if what is driving you into depression is not getting the sex that you think as a man you should be, then the issue that needs to be solved is one of toxic masculinity not one of unequal distribution of sex.
Do you honestly imply that men would be mostly okay not getting laid ever, if not for "toxic masculinity"? Or, sorry, must I read deeper into these nifty specifics, "as a man", "should" and yadda yadda?
The nuance here is fictitious, and requires serious brainwashing and/or autism to take seriously. The truth of the matter is, men tend to strongly want to have sex when they don't have any, and they get frustrated about its lack. When one is frustrated by his sexual undesirability, it does involve women (I'm not sure about gay incels, though in principle they could exist) one way or the other. One way is that incel acknowledges himself as unworthy of relationship and, given their fixation on this issue, wallows in self-contempt and pity; the other way is exactly what everyone came to know as Incel movement per se, that is, misogyny. "Toxic masculinity" and feelings of "entitlement" probably contribute a lot in both cases, and Incel ideology may lower the threshold for violence; but the underlying cause is sexual frustration, which is mostly biological. Even if it weren't, the plight of incels is inextricably coupled to high status of popular men; you can't just have low-status men stop caring about hierarchy and getting "toxic" when those at the top visibly enjoy its fruits, this is too fundamental a jealousy.
> the roots of this radicalisation are in toxic, entitled attitudes
You're probably an extreme nurture proponent, huh. Gender is a social construct and all that. How about it: some attitudes emerge as rationalizations of desires and emotions. "Toxic masculinity" is an emergent manifestation of what men really are. You'd have to go to extraordinary lengths to have them develop in a healthy manner that's free of any toxicity.
> If lack of sex were what were causing the issue, you'd expect to see other groups than cishet white guys with this kind of attitude.
A fair, if too americacentric, point. However, I do see other groups with much worse attitudes. I'd say that every violent group throughout the history is likely to be comprised to a high degree of sexually frustrated young men; and almost every army was a bunch of temporary incels. This is true of Muslim terrorists, for example; and its' the reason they're so enthusiastic about dying and meeting the promised 72 houris (a teenager's stupid wet fantasy, really). There's even a theory that monogamous societies are stable not due to any positive advantage but simply because they prevent the undue emergence of such groups. So, dismissing incel troubles on the grounds that they feel "entitled" is strategically unwise.
It's not an attitude that makes them feel that way, it's the feeling that any violent ideology naturally latches on to.
Wonderful. Now do you have a list of your most cherished trigger words so I can help any further with your karma whoring if you wish, you bottom-feeder?
I suspect that you're trying to get yourself banned.
Congrats on your success!
----
Edit: My favorite thing about moderating on reddit is the PMs you get after banning an obvious (and, as of this PM, self-identified) troll.
You've gone and got yourself banned, which is a bit of a shame, but there are a couple of things here that I think are worth addressing still.
> Do you honestly imply that men would be mostly okay not getting laid ever, if not for "toxic masculinity"?
No, sexual frustration is not a product of toxic masculinity. You can find plenty of people who aren't men (and certainly those who aren't cishet men) who are sexually frustrated, if you ever cared to look. Hell, the term incel was originally coined by a queer woman describing her own dating troubles, albeit before it was adopted by misogynistic reactionaries and took on its current connotations. The fact that most of these groups respond in very different ways to incels indicates that there's something else at play though.
> You'd have to go to extraordinary lengths to have them develop in a healthy manner that's free of any toxicity.
Yes. Of course you do.
Society is fucked up on every level in a myriad of ways, and fixing all those problems is ***hard***. Feminists have been chipping away at some of them for well over a century. Antiracists have been chipping away at others. Queer activists at yet others still. There's progress, but it's slow, and it's hard, and it's not necessarily monotonic. There are still profound issues that need to be addressed and it will almost certainly take a long time.
That doesn't justify just throwing our hands the air and saying it must be this way.
> A fair, if too americacentric, point.
Western-centric maybe, but I'm not a Yank. And yes, toxic masculinity does exist in other places, and reactionaries exploiting frustrated or disillusioned young men is found elsewhere, particularly in how terrorists recruit, but these are separate groups with separate ideologies.
> Hell, the term incel was originally coined by a queer woman describing her own dating troubles, albeit before it was adopted by misogynistic reactionaries and took on its current connotations.
Wow, I never would have guessed. I just read the Elle article on her and her story was... not what I expected.
By understanding that men are humans and thus different from each other in many possible ways. Sex drive, self-restraint and others. How's that?
But monks are extreme outliers. The whole point that incels make is that they're not monks, they're involuntarily deprived of sex. I mean, Jesus, it's right in the title. There's even a meme group called "volcels" who mock incels.
There really are extremist
leftists—Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-whateverists—who smash store windows,
kill people (or did, in the 60s), and won’t be satisfied by anything
short of the total abolition of private property and the heads of
the capitalists lining the streets on pikes.
what a charitable and intellectually honest thing to say
In the 60s, some very powerful people *were* extremist leftists. Now, sure, they're (almost) entirely gone - but incels are *also* non-powerful, "completely irrelevant" 20-30somethings. The comparison is valid (as long as you replace "moderate incels" with "people who can't get laid", which I wish Aaronson had done).
Here's a definition: if you're willing to commit atrocities in the name of your ideology, you're an extremist.
Quoting you:
> Seizing the means of production isn't a euphemism, it's literally what Communists like myself want to do. If it could be done without violence then that's great, we just need the bourgeoisie to step aside.
You're implying that we might have to *force* the "bourgeoisie" to step aside. Presumably, by any means necessary. That's textbook extremism.
That's not an atrocity, it's getting people to step aside. If it can be done non-violently that would be great. I mean, the same thing happened with slavery and I wouldn't call the abolitionists extreme either.
> If it can be done non-violently that would be great.
Again with the implication that violence might be necessary. Just how much violence, exactly? Red China-level violence? Red Cambodia-level violence? Please elaborate.
Furthermore... I wouldn't compare this with slavery, my dude. Slaveowners were *continuously* committing atrocities, and had been doing so for *centuries*. Plus, the South instigated the Civil War.
inb4 "but capitalists commit atrocities, too!" Is your friendly neighborhood business-owner as morally reprehensible as your average Southern slave-driver? Because you're suggesting we make *both* "step aside".
Of course violence might be necessary. Violence is a pretty standard part of life, police are enforcing laws all the time through violence. USA is in plenty of wars around the world as we speak. If you dislike violence so much then I presume you are protesting US involvement in Yemen, for example?
Obviously the proletariat will have to enforce their own rules and I expect that this will come to blows at some points - I'm not a utopian.
The friendly neighborhood business owner might be roughly as "morally reprehensible" (whatever that *means*) as the friendly neighborhood slave-owner. But obviously it's not a competition. They're both bad in different ways. It's kind of an apples and oranges question. Is the neighborhood rapist more morally reprehensible than the neighborhood murderer? I didn't bring up slavery to say that capitalism is worse than slavery, I brought it up to show that violence is often necessary when class systems are in the process of being replaced.
You didn't answer my question of how much violence you'd be willing to go to. (Let's say the political establishment isn't fully on board. Would you support Stalin-style purges? Let's say they aren't socialist at all, as with the U.S. Would you support a violent revolution? What if the revolution turns into a Spanish-style civil war?)
You're pretending not to know what "morally reprehensible" means. It means "bad". It's possible in principle to make comparisons between these groups, you're just dodging the question. Clearly, the average business owner isn't bad at all. He's enabling a collection of voluntary transactions of capital. He's not hurting anybody - not badly, not directly. The average slavedriver is harshly and directly hurting the slaves, depriving them of even the most basic human rights. My point was to say that violence can be justified in response to atrocities, but violence (on a massive scale) *ex nihilo* is evil.
Well, how many people are you willing to kill to maintain capitalism? Let's call this number *n*. Then I would be willing to kill n+1 to achieve communism. How many are you prepared to let die in Yemen for the sake of capitalist violence? The average business owner is indeed depriving people of their basic human rights - the right to communism.
What was your point? I said that I'm in favor of the global proletariat using some violence in order to defend their own rights. That's a pretty moderate point to make.
I left a comment on his blog which is currently "awaiting moderation", for the sake of a charitable and open discussion I hope Scott Aarsonson will approve it and enter into a dialogue with me.
So people don't have to search, here is [Aaronson's reply](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3766#comment-1764216):
>MarxBro #56:
>>I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, and you are correct in a very limited sense that we are “extreme”. However, we are only extreme from the standpoint of the average irrational person. We wish to re-organize society on a rational basis – where all means of production are seized by the proletariat and used to their full potential. This is not extreme in the slightest, and those who wish to deny our aims through violence (the capitalist imperialists and comprador bourgeoisie) are actually the ones who are extreme I think.
>Even though your ideology led to the deaths of 100 million people in the last century, I predict that you might have more success winning mainstream support for it nowadays than for the ideology that says that socially awkward male tech workers bleed when you prick them. 😉
He’s right though, places like LateStageCapitalism are explicit in their calls to violence and more “moderate” crowds like ChapoTrapHouse like their euphemisms about “seizing the means of production”.
Look, we’re all here to make fun of the various feces that SSC puts out, but at least speaking for myself violent leftism is pretty easily found online. I don’t like Communists any more than I do the racists.
And denying or excusing Communist violence is just as bad as the post-Charlottesville CW Roundup Thread.
There’s this annoying phenomenon where any remotely left leaning meta sub necessarily turns into a economic leftist sub - a bizarro version of Neutral vs Conservative.
Would love to avoid that here.
There's talking about legitimate issues with extreme leftist politics, and there's adding spooky scaremongering to a description that was going remarkably well, just because *they're not extreme enough when compared to van-murdering incel terrorists*. Which they should be made to get to whatever point Aaronson kept making after my eyes glazed over and I stopped reading.
That's what I'm taking issue with.
Are you seriously suggesting that Communist terrorism is less of an issue than Incel terrorism?
There are ongoing communist insurgencies in multiple countries (the Naxalites, FARC etc), North Korea is a going concern, the Great Leap Forward and the Holodomor and the Gulag system happened.
Meanwhile, there have been 2 Incel terror attacks in history.
Saying communists aren't extreme compared to Incels is just incomprehensible.
The Naxalites (Not even all communists) kill more people every year than Incels have killed in all of history.
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/240417/mapping-death-toll-in-naxal-attacks-across-country-over-past-10-years.html
Do you just not care because they're not in a western country?
I mean, that's a lot of people. On the other hand, capitalism kills them much, much faster (estimated at 4 million excess deaths per year in India by Amartya Sen) so I'm not sure the support from the populace those movements enjoy is misplaced on at least utilitarian grounds.
We obviously disagree on economics.
On the specific, bounded claim that Incel terrorism is more of a danger than communist terrorism though? I hope you'll admit to being mistaken.
Rather than "My side has no terrorists" you're arguing "My ideology is correct enough that terrorism is justified"
Fair enough, in developing countries incels aren't as much danger to the population as either communists or rightist paramilitaries, which typically account for majority of ongoing violence. Which *might* be super relevant in discussing an article written in the context of a Toronto incel attack somehow for the amount of effort you spent drilling at it, I dunno.
I was going to dispute this with the FLQ, but reading about terrorism in Canada has alerted me to Marc Lepine, who appears to have been a sort of proto-Incel, and that bumps the Incel body count up significantly.
Obviously violent misogyny in Canada at least, is a bigger problem than I thought, and probably a bigger issue than communist terrorism in Canada (depends how you weight economic damage).
On a global level, Communism is far more dangerous, but from the perspective of a wealthy white westerner, your initial statement makes sense.
I don't think anyone claimed that political unrest was less of an issue in the developing world than toxic internet communities. And capitalism (or at the very least colonialism) is responsible for destabilizing the developing world so if you want an ideology to blame maybe don't go after it's largest opponent?
> He’s right though, places like LateStageCapitalism are explicit in their calls to violence and more “moderate” crowds like ChapoTrapHouse like their euphemisms about “seizing the means of production”.
I don't deny that there are issues with leftists who seem to be interested in violence largely for its own sake rather than as a tactic for other ends, but if you're casting "seizing the means of production" as a call to violence then I don't think you're honestly engaging with left wing thought.
> There’s this annoying phenomenon where any remotely left leaning meta sub necessarily turns into a economic leftist sub - a bizarro version of Neutral vs Conservative.
How is this in any way a bad thing?
Private property isn't a lie any more than slavery is a lie. If you're going to do this you should at least know some of the basics of Marxist thought.
>I don’t like Communists any more than I do the racists.
Centrists like you are literally also part of the problem. These deliberately insulting, nonsense equivalencies say a lot more about you than anything else.
>euphemisms about “seizing the means of production”.
That's not a euphemism, but thanks for spelling out that you're not remotely interested in actually learning, or understanding any of what you talk about.
People like you aren't even liars, you're bullshitters. You care less about what's true than you do about trying to make yourself feel clever, and it's really fucking transparent.
And *you* can’t even see someone be a capitalist on the internet without starting the zillionth iteration of this conversation.
I’m here to sneer at SSC, not play debate club with communists.
> And you can’t even see someone be a capitalist on the internet without starting the zillionth iteration of this conversation.
You were already having the conversation, I joined it.
Y'know what, go fuck off.
Seizing the means of production isn't a euphemism, it's literally what Communists like myself want to do. If it could be done without violence then that's great, we just need the bourgeoisie to step aside.
>I don’t like Communists any more than I do the racists.
Why not? Communists are cool.
Here’s the central point that I think Robin failed to understand:
society, today, is not on board even with the minimal claim that the
suicidal suffering of men left behind by the sexual revolution really
exists—or, if it does, that it matters in the slightest or deserves any
sympathy or acknowledgment whatsoever. Indeed, the men in question
pretty much need to be demonized as entitled losers and creeps, because
if they weren’t, then sympathy for them—at least, for those among them
who are friends, coworkers, children, siblings—might become hard to
prevent.
I wish I believed in a God who could grant you [the lonely young male
nerd] some kind of eternal salvation, in return for adhering to a higher
moral standard throughout your life, and getting in return at best
grudging toleration, as well as lectures about your feminist failings by
guys who’ve obeyed the Zeroth Commandment about a thousandth as
scrupulously as you have. As an atheist, though, the most I can
offer you is that you can probably understand the proof of Cantor’s
theorem, while most of those who despise you probably
can’t.
Sorry Aaronson, but Chads can do math too.
So where are we today? Within the current Overton window, a perfectly
appropriate response to suicidal loneliness and depression among the
“privileged” (i.e., straight, able-bodied, well-educated white or Asian
men) seems to be: “just kill yourselves already, you worthless cishet
scum, and remove your garbage DNA from the gene pool.”
I don’t see Aaronson how can complain about others being uncharitable
or unfair when he says bullshit like this.
> in return for adhering to a higher moral standard throughout your life
Lol, what higher moral standard? Working somewhere in Silicon Valley? Not shooting up a sorority house?
The context is the nerd is adhering to the Zeroth Commandment:
>I hold the bodily autonomy of women—the principle that women are freely-willed agents rather than the chattel they were treated as for too much of human history; that they, not their fathers or husbands or anyone else, are the sole rulers of their bodies; and that they must never under any circumstances be touched without their consent—to be my Zeroth Commandment, the foundation-stone of my moral worldview, the starting point of every action I take and every thought I think. This principle of female bodily autonomy, for me, deserves to be chiseled onto tablets of sapphire, placed in a golden ark adorned with winged cherubim sitting atop a pedestal inside the Holy of Holies in a temple on Mount Moriah.
So basically: respecting women's bodily autonomy = adhering to a higher moral standard.
It's ironic, in a tragic sort of way, that the exact same agrieved entitlement that registers to others as creepy and undateable registers to the bearers as a depressing and pervasive injustice.
Feminists call it "toxic masculinity" because it's most poisonous to the men who believe in it. And we have a simple and effective remedy: stop comparing yourself to "Chad" and make some peace with the body and mind you actually have, then maybe you'll be the kind of being that someone else actually wants to invest emotional energy into.
This isn't the kind of advice that incels are prepared to hear, though, so apparently we just want them all dead.
HOwever, to the general public (often a young boy), and especially if the listener is autistic, it comes across as "you are bad because penis". WHich leads to the Bill Hicks John McKinley skit - "where's the tower, where;s the gun... did my penis make me a bad boy? That's that they said BLAM BLAM"
I'm not felling like the blog name makes for a satisfactory sneer. It's more cringy by virtue of it's age. But it is not quite sneer-worthy in the way that the *spirit* of what motivated that name choice continues of manifest in Aaronson's writing today. At the very least, the position he took up today on his blog would be one that emphatically distances himself from anything incelly in the way his blog title was conceived so many years ago. At least that's how I'd steelman it.
See [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/8hfg6u/scott_aaronson_on_incels_general_decency_and_the/dykisy8/). By Aaronson's own admission the title of his blog is because he thinks, from a social perspective, he's optimized for the Shtetl.
Isn't it more HBD than Incel anyway? I always read it as "we Ashkenazim through generations have become gene-culture coevolved for shtetl life" (which is nonsense from a Jewish history POV, but ok).
Interesting take, but he always uses "I" statements when discussing his preference for the Shtetl so I don't think he's trying to speak to a broader Jewish perspective. The section in his comment that mentions it is mostly about how he thinks he would prefer a courtship context with a much more formally structured set of rules, possibly up to arranged marriages, which is what makes me think it's more incel-y than HBD-y.
Yeah I see that now. I just meant all this time I thought he meant something completely different by that than what it turned out to be. It still seems dubious to me, as people aren't 'optimized' for patriarchal nonsense and shtetl life was really miserable, but indeed it's more incel than HBD. I've updated my priors!
>Scott Aaronson asked why society pities someone who steals food to keep himself from starving to death, but doesn't pity a sex-starved virgin who commits rape when no one will sleep with him
What the *fuck*.
Why is it that all the "rationalist leaders" have made unbelievably creepy posts justifying rape at some point? Hanson is the most infamous, but Yudkowsky has that [horrifying sci-fi story where rape is legalised](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8) and where future humans are so "enlightened" they can't even understand why rape would ever be illegal.
>When our children legalized rape, we thought that the Future had gone wrong."
>Akon's mouth hung open. "You were that prude?"
>The Confessor shook his head. "There aren't any words," the Confessor said, "there aren't any words at
all, by which I ever could explain to you. No, it wasn't prudery. It was a memory of disaster."
>"Um," Akon said. He was trying not to smile. "I'm trying to visualize what sort of disaster could have
been caused by too much nonconsensual sex -"
This is an updated version, written after he edited the original story to be less "problematic", BTW. The original had a bit written from a character's perspective musing about how boring dating would be if there were no risk of being raped.
I wouldn't point to that story as an example of creepy rape justification and Yud honestly seems to have avoided this trap while unwittingly making the bed for everyone else by giving them the whole 'rational' excuse for all their creepy behavior. It was explicitly designed to be a deeply unsettling scene, in a clumsy attempt to show far future humans with an alien morality that they themselves were perfectly fine with to illustrate a point about values drift. Furthermore, in-universe it is implied that humans hurting other humans permanently is impossible.
Clumsy and problematic, but intentionally disturbing to make a minor point.
From what I understand, Yud's brilliant "solution" for rape was to genetically engineer people so they don't mind being raped.
So from a purely utilitarian perspective I can see the logic there, but... **fucking hell**. Maybe don't just casually throw that in as flavor for an otherwise generically utopian society the reader is supposed to identify with, without any explanation?
That was actually kind of the point, to be shocking and make an impression. It's hardly the only attempt in the story to be so, we have 'babyeaters' and the like throughout. The whole story was from his perspective a teaching exercise about self-modificarion, value drift, the fragility and contingent nature of value, and ultimately why you needed to give the singularity institute your money so they can create an AI that doesnt drift and carries human values forward to their ultimate conclusion, not an endorsement of a particular utopia. This common and reasonable reaction from many is proof that it was not done well in certain bits. I still sympathize with him on this point, its a case of clumsy writing not apologetics.
>Arthur Chu is also claiming that the backstory of Aaronson's blog's name ("Shtetl-Optimized") is also pretty incel-y.
Aaronson said it himself in [comment 171](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664).
>At one point, I actually begged a psychiatrist to prescribe drugs that would chemically castrate me (I had researched which ones), because a life of mathematical asceticism was the only future that I could imagine for myself. The psychiatrist refused to prescribe them, but he also couldn’t suggest any alternative: my case genuinely stumped him. As well it might—for in some sense, there was nothing “wrong” with me. In a different social context—for example, that of my great-grandparents in the shtetl—I would have gotten married at an early age and been completely fine. (And after a decade of being coy about it, I suppose I’ve finally revealed the meaning of this blog’s title.)
He's since added a "disclaimer" but it still seems pretty bad:
> This is not, in any way, shape, or form, to suggest that I yearn for an era when women could be purchased as property. There were many times and places where marriages did not occur without both parties’ consent, but there was also a ritualized system of courtship that took much of the terror and mystery out of the process. Even that is not exactly what I “yearn” for; I merely say it’s what I felt “optimized” for.
Wow, that's pretty damning. I appreciate (and regret) that he has deleted the original blog post (and set his robot.txt to omit it from archive.org). Now he can't even complain about people taking this quote out of context, because he's burnt the context!
Also, now I understand why Aaronson takes extended digs at Chu in his blog post---Chu has rightly observed how Aaronson "rationalizes" incel grievances, building an "[immaculately logical tower of reasoning for why their depression is wholly rational and inevitable](https://www.salon.com/2015/01/10/the_plight_of_the_bitter_nerd_why_so_many_awkward_shy_guys_end_up_hating_feminism/)."
This happens to be the first time I've seen a photo of Scott Aaronson and I am genuinely shocked at how attractive he is. After the impression I've gotten from how he talks about himself and how the community refers to him I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't a thoroughly ordinary looking fellow.
I'm not going to deny that there are people who are physically unattractive and that can unfairly create no end of troubles for them. I'm regularly surprised, though, at how many infamously ugly men turn out to look perfectly average when I finally run across pictures of them.
I mean, I think physical looks are just not quite what any of this is about. I think, like the notion that incels *just* need sex, the idea that "sexual frustrated" young white men are so because they're physically unattractive is wrongheaded. Sure these people are ugly and they don't get any sex, but the relationship between these factors is more complicated than I think they are typically capable of seeing for themselves.
I haven't noticed Aaronson say anything about looks, which makes me believe that isn't an element of the problem he thinks worth emphasizing---probably for the best. But he's revealed himself to be an ugly person: in the past for for reason perhaps beyond his control, and today for reasons that seem snugly in the realm of his own personal problems and responsibilities. *Ugly* here meaning something that goes well beyond someone's looks.
I think it comes down to how these people use (or understand) "rationality" as immunization from "all bad things." Racism, sexism, etc are, to them, necessarily irrational. And so, even when they see overt signs of racism or sexism, they won't see it as connected to their pet projects. And when the racism or sexism is "subtle," they think that therefor that bad stuff comes from "out there"---it is either something that will be cleared up with more rationalism or it is something the "irrationalists" project on good ol' fashion rational thought. But the key here is that they can't see that what rationalism is, for so many of them, is a way to sanitize racism and sexism of the "bad stuff"---the what they think is simply *irrational*. I think its the same *rationalization* that Alexander also uses to clean Murray of his very unsubtle racism. It looks like a game from the outside.
BTW, I think (by looking at the blog comments, and then search the social media for "incel" + "Scott Aaronson"), I think that this whole blog entry was motivated because Chu tweeted a few days ago the connection between incel thinking to the stuff Aaronson has been writing about for the past 7: that they're all nice guys suffering life in a world rife with feminism and Chads.
If my guess is right, I think that the reason he's yanking really hard on his own personal definition of incel is because he wrote this blog post backwards from the point where he attacks Chu "or the other anti-Aaronson Twitter warriors" for the incredible crime of trying to drive him to suicide (that is, "their unstated modus ponens."). I don't think he quite realized that most people, even his blog readers, weren't thinking of Aaronson as being an incel (and I don't even think Chu was either). Thus he manufactured this absurdest defense of Hanson (his style is "not easily detachable" from his intellectual activity!).
But in defense of this oversight on the *common* usage of the word incel, he produces the sketchiest justification for his own private meaning: because after comment-171, "[all across social media, people insisted on applying the 5-letter word to me, or at least to my previous self](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3766#comment-1764183)." There is just a few things I want to sneer about this:
1. It has been the funniest side-show watching people who are paid to have opinions constantly whine over the past year or two about how oppressive social media has been on their own personal lives. But the one usful thing it should have done for every rational person, is to disabuse ourselves of the notion that just because it is said on social media, doesn't mean it is a popular sentiment. This isn't even the hysteric gesturing to Russian conspiracies: I'm just saying blogging or doing journalism about what people tweet is an invitation to absurdity.
2. I will say that I did try to snoop around and find any significant or noteworthy instance of Aaronson being identified as an incel, and I'll tell you examples were thin on the ground. But two important things I saw: A. There were only two tweets that I could find explicitly linking Aaronson and incels---neither calls Aaronson himself an incel. B. It seems like all I saw of Aaronson being connected with incels, were instances were people for good or ill were pointing out the clear connections between his "nerds are oppressed" theories with incel rationalizations. And these connections were mostly being made by people who were defending the legitimacy of Aaronson/incel grievances against Chad/feminism.
3. What I think then we're observing Aaronson do in the end of [his defense of his definition of incel](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3766#comment-1764183) is an incomplete realization of what incel means. The story he repeats is that "we need to preserve some linguistic space for the many nerdy guys"---Aaronson's "good" incels. But what he fails to fully apprehend is the people who find *the* incels so bad, see in Aaronson's "many nerdy guys" precisely the same toxic beliefs and activities---and he's never understood that's what this is really about.
> The story he repeats is that "we need to preserve some linguistic space for the many nerdy guys"---Aaronson's "good" incels. But what he fails to fully apprehend is the people who find the incels so bad, see in Aaronson's "many nerdy guys" precisely the same toxic beliefs and activities
I think he might notice that they have the same toxic beliefs. See [this comment from that thread](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3766#comment-1764188).
> If you’re such a guy, then you don’t much need commandments telling you not to lie or steal or murder (let alone worship graven images or covet your neighbor’s ox 🙂 ), because you feel so little temptation in those directions.
> But walking outside every day, seeing so many cheerful, laughing, achingly beautiful women who you can’t kiss, can’t touch, and probably shouldn’t even approach (even though other men can, and do, using social skills about as accessible to you as Galois theory is to a baboon)? And then back to your dorm room, or your office, to your ascetic programming or theorem-proving life, and not letting it warp your character—rejecting every whispered invitation of bitterness and hate—so that you can look yourself in the mirror and say, “yes, I’m still the kind and decent person who I wanted to grow up into when I was a boy”? Now that strikes me as a genuine spiritual battle between your higher self and your lower one—and moreover, a battle that your higher self needs to win every single time without exception. This, it seems to me, is precisely the sort of situation that the prophets of old would have recognized as requiring a Commandment.
He thinks "don't be a rapey fuck" (but dressed up in pseudoreligious language) is necessary as a Commandment for the good incels. Sure seems like he thinks that the good incels are a small step away from turning into bad incels, and that they need a firm, paternal hand to keep them on the narrow path.
^\(Clean ^your ^room, ^bucko?)
I wouldn't see the quoted passages that negatively, even if the language is kinda cringeworthy.
Speaking from (long past) experience: When you are a sexually frustrated and somewhat socially inept young man, then bitterness, misogyny, and misogyny-cloaked-in-irony are a really slippery slope that one should consciously avoid.
I think we could acknowledge this fact, and still tell people (and help them if possible) not to slip into such toxic beliefs. Of course, feel free to disagree with the observation that these views are seductive enough for sufficiently many people to warrant actively staying away from them. I can't bring a study or large anecdotal N to the table, and I don't have any friends who actually ended up swallowing any red/black pills. I can just say that they looked tasty, at some point in life.
I'm not talking about "rapey fucks". Start at the beginning, with the possible progress from harmless jokes to pseudo-ironic honesty, aka "locker room talk", which is bad enough: Not for the sake of any women, but really toxic for the person who becomes so bitter.
edit: So, basically, he is saying that his "good incels" are the population at risk of becoming "bad incels". And, according to standard social norms about discrimination, we should not use this observation in order to attack his "good incels".
If you strip away my complaints about Aaronson's formulation of his Zeroth Commandment (side note: [this comment](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3766#comment-1764249) on his blog does a good job at laying out some of the problems with the Commandment, and does so in a much more generous and charitable fashion than I ever could), then I think we're saying largely the same thing. Like any good feminist will tell you, misogynistic attitudes aren't confined to a small subset of 'extreme' men. Of course, few are so virulent about it as the incels, but at least some could be radicalized, under the right social circumstances, into becoming more incellish. As a corollary, favorable social circumstances would mean fewer incels.
> And, according to standard social norms about discrimination, we should not use this observation in order to attack his "good incels"
Aaronson really shot himself in the foot by using "incel" to refer generally to a lonely male nerd, rather than the narrower sense used by everyone who had heard of incels before the Toronto van attack. He's the one who's identifying lonely nerds with extreme misogynists.
>Aaronson really shot himself in the foot by using "incel" to refer generally to a lonely male nerd, rather than the narrower sense used by everyone who had heard of incels before the Toronto van attack. He's the one who's identifying lonely nerds with extreme misogynists.
Thanks!
For experience shows that, if you even breathe a phrase like “the
inequality of romantic and sexual fulfillment,” no one who isn’t weird
in certain ways common in the hard sciences (e.g., being on the autism
spectrum) will be able to parse you….
There is nothing so perfectly sneer-worthy than naturalizing the
garbage stereotypes that excuse sexism within STEM, while also assuming
that truth of these stereotypes as “common in the hard sciences.”
And the titular “ideological” statement, Aaronson’s Zeroth
Commandment or “[t]his principle of female bodily autonomy,” that
terminates in this excessive religious singling (you know, despite his
immediate admission of atheism with an inability to believe in God) is a
ripe cherry of disingenuousness on top of this cake layered with
righteous narcissism and wretched self-pitying. Like, wtf is this?
To such [nerds that are reading this], I say: yes, throughout your
life you’ll encounter many men and women who will despise you for being
different, in ways that you’re either powerless to change, or could
change only at the cost of renouncing everything you are. Yet, far from
excusing any moral lapses on your part, this hatred simply means that
you need to adhere to a higher moral standard than most people. For
whenever you stray even slightly from the path of righteousness, the
people who detest nerds will leap excitedly, seeing irrefutable proof of
all their prejudices. Do not grant them that victory. Do not create a
Shanda fur die Normies.
P E R S E C U T I O N C O M P L E X drowned in smug
nerd aggrandizement.
If I ever decided to believe the portrait of me painted by Arthur
Chu, or the other anti-Aaronson Twitter warriors, then I hope I’d have
the moral courage to complete their unstated modus ponens, by quietly
swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. After all, Chu’s vision
of the ideal future seems to have no more room for me in it than
Eichmann’s did….
My controversial hot take in return: I don’t actually think,
as an unqualified statement, that having more contrarians around makes
the world (or even just academia) better.
Aaronson is a lot more thoughtful and sophisticated than the guys he capes for. I just wish he would lend his percieved interlocutors, the "progressive normies," the same generous reading he does to Hanson and Boss Ross. Maybe I'm lucky, but I can't think of any individual who fits the cruel description he implies here. Does he really think people mad at incels because they don't grok Bayes Theorem?
> Does he really think people mad at incels because they don't grok Bayes Theorem?
I think the Bayes stuff was an aside about his respect for Hanson's intellectual work.
I think he means something different by "incels" than the consensus understanding here. Under his interpretation, which is basically a literal reading of "involuntary celibate," an incel is despised by society pretty much by definition. It's a pretty unfortunate term, bound to cause lots of this kind of confusion, and likely to exacerbate unconscious prejudices against ugly and socially awkward people.
**ETA**: [Clarification from him, in comment # 15](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3766):
> JonW #3: Yeah, I thought about it. You’re right that most people today don’t seem to be using “incel” to mean “involuntary celibate” (i.e., the literal meaning), but rather “involuntary celibate who’s also hateful.” Normally, my attitude is that I care about reality, not definitions, so I’ll happily adopt whichever way of using words my interlocutor prefers. In this case, however, the obvious problem is a euphemism treadmill (e.g., crippled → handicapped → disabled → differently abled, toilet → bathroom → restroom → facilities). I.e., no matter which term we use for the romantically frustrated, the same forces that worked on the word “incel” will operate similarly: people will only pay attention when there’s some terrible episode of violence, or toxic subcultures that celebrate it; ergo the new term will acquire the same radioactive connotations; ergo those who want to discuss the broader issue will need to find yet another term, and so on forever. Or am I wrong?
> In this case, however, the obvious problem is a euphemism treadmill (e.g., crippled → handicapped → disabled → differently abled, toilet → bathroom → restroom → facilities). I.e., no matter which term we use for the romantically frustrated, the same forces that worked on the word “incel” will operate similarly:
Oh my god, "society" didn't do this to the term "Incel". Nobody in mainstream culture used this term to describe involuntarily celibate people until it went mainstream last month!
The horrible connotations of the term "Incel" were baked in from the beginning by the online Incel community! A community that actively *rejected* "people who want sex but can't get it" unless they subscribed to the horrible Incel ideology!
So, one pretty sneer-worthy point is how the strongest criticism of Hanson he is able to muster is to basically say that his ideas are *too radical for society to accept*, whereas he has no problem expressing horror at Pao's rather benign tweet.
More importantly, I find the bolded paragraph and what surrounds it rather aggravating. It's difficult to take the florid and over-the-top language at face value; and when he goes on to say that nerds should embrace those principles [respecting women as human beings with agency] because if they don't, it might vindicate some lefties and lose them Internet arguments, it becomes pretty embarrassing.
In general, I'm always annoyed by his posts on the plight of male cishet nerds getting less attention from the ladies than they might wish, because I happen to be one of those male nerds, spent my grad school years surrounded by other guys in similar circumstances, and the notion that our lack of romantic success made a dent in the overwhelming privilege we enjoyed is ridiculous. So I don't want Scott Aaronson to speak on my behalf.
Also, incels = moderate Muslims = lefties-but-those-that-don't-break-store-windows-cause-that's-bad, really?
I find I mostly agree with you here. He's trying to be tempered and take a soft touch. He's also, I'd wager, trying to 'pay forward' the debt he perceives he owes our beloved Scott Alexander for 'Untitled.' The two goals are slightly at odds, and the result feels a bit messy. Like, if you think a topic is radioactive smallpox and shouldn't be touched even with disclaimers, don't then go on to touch it. Just take your own advice and keep out of it.
That leaves:
>men left behind by the sexual revolution
Which is a worrying turn of phrase. Does Aaronson buy in to the "before no-fault-divorce and the Pill, (almost) every man got a wife" narrative that the rationalists seem to have spun out of thin air and repeated ad nauseam? I think he instead means to say that the sexual revolution hasn't benefitted everyone equally, which fair enough, it hasn't. That being sort of the point. And if further revolution\* is needed to achieve the leftist vision, so be it.
\* - No, not like that. Calm down, tankies and Peterson fans alike. Revolution of the same kind as the sexual revolution: the kind with minimal overthrowing of goverments and violence for maximum quality-of-life improvement. Really, it was one of the better revolutions. We need to start taking credit for it properly.
And:
>For me, the scariest part of Pao’s proposal is that, whatever in this field is on the leftmost fringe of the Overton window today, experience suggests we’ll find it smack in the center a decade from now.
Even if we accept the Moldbuggian framing that everything moves left all the time despite the last forty years of taking apart the New Deal and the emergence of what many call "late stage capitalism" - even then, it's still not that *any far left statement becomes mainstream,* but rather that *any mainstream position was once far left.* Aaronson's mathematical mind ought to be able to handle the obvious difference.
[deleted]
what a charitable and intellectually honest thing to say
What the fuck does he think “society” is?
Good fucking God what a clusterfuck.
I should really just block reddit and keep only using Twitter for astrobiology and molecular bio…
Scott Aaronson has the worst case of victim mentality. He needs to get the fuck over himself.
Edit 2: I made a thing: the virgin incel vs the enlightened progressive Chad.
Edit: A couple sneers:
Sorry Aaronson, but Chads can do math too.
I don’t see Aaronson how can complain about others being uncharitable or unfair when he says bullshit like this.
There is nothing so perfectly sneer-worthy than naturalizing the garbage stereotypes that excuse sexism within STEM, while also assuming that truth of these stereotypes as “common in the hard sciences.”
And the titular “ideological” statement, Aaronson’s Zeroth Commandment or “[t]his principle of female bodily autonomy,” that terminates in this excessive religious singling (you know, despite his immediate admission of atheism with an inability to believe in God) is a ripe cherry of disingenuousness on top of this cake layered with righteous narcissism and wretched self-pitying. Like, wtf is this?
P E R S E C U T I O N C O M P L E X drowned in smug nerd aggrandizement.
Seriously, WTF!? (Chu’s article for incredible comparison)
Since Aaronson has now banned someone from commenting in that thread, we can calibrate what he counts as “a spirit of kindness and mutual respect”.
Bad: Pointing out that wealth inequality is a bigger problem than some nerds not getting laid, and pointing out that some incels are responsible for their own situation. (See Aaronson’s warning here, and here is the final comment that got them banned.)
Good Open islamophobia.
My controversial hot take in return: I don’t actually think, as an unqualified statement, that having more contrarians around makes the world (or even just academia) better.
I must say that I really like that piece. Apart from the obvious gripes:
Hanson really deserves a lot of flak, even though lot of it is misguided, see other posts.
I don’t see Srinivasan excluding romantically challenged white male nerds from her compassion.
I’d be interested in all your sneers and critiques of it; I’m sure I missed a lot of problems.