[RD] Toronto van attack

[Broken_Erika]

Especially how he took down the suspect without firing a shot.
Cop:Get Down!
Suspect:I have a gun!
Cop: I don't care! Get down!

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

The cool thing about people like this is that as racist and Islamophobic as the basically all white male incel crowd is, their toxic masculinity and the way it manifests itself via violence is way, way more similar to religious extremists than they would ever admit to.

 

[Lexicus]

The cool thing about people like this is that as racist and Islamophobic as the basically all white male incel crowd is, their toxic masculinity and the way it manifests itself via violence is way, way more similar to religious extremists than they would ever admit to.

They are after all simply different flavors of patriarchal lunacy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If we want to help these people, we first have to understand them. Right now most people don't understand them or even know that they exist. IMO it's a good thing to share more information about these "incels" and what they believe. How else are we going to figure out ways to get them the help they need? A lot of these guys seem to have genuine mental problems, and some of them just seem to be down on their luck. There is a lot of hate in the movement, or whatever you want to call it, but we should be looking to pull people out of it, and make sure that others don't get sucked into it in the future, instead of ridiculing them, which is probably how they turned into incels in the first place

I wasn't aware of it until I heard about this story (if you'd asked me what it meant prior I'd have guessed people with medical issues/unfortunate injury...stuff that is arguably more strictly involuntary), but the core problems with "incel" seem to be a diffusion of responsibility away from oneself (a problem shared with quite a few "groups/movements") and, as typical with any group that gets constantly butthurt over some perceived slight, struggle with beliefs vs evidence.

In *general*, there has to be something wrong with someone to go on a killing spree. That holds for Islamic terror, drug induced insanity, or deranged serial killers who do it for pleasure. It's not a particularly interesting conclusion to make.

The people who can get "pulled out of it" are the ones with the capacity to update their beliefs based on evidence. Perhaps you won't find many given you'd need pretty limited exposure to evidence to fall into that line of thinking while being capable of updating, but those that can be will likely be the naive sort who had a bad experience early on or something.

I'm going to guess on a rate basis incel is going to wind up doing less violent crime per person identifying as incel when compared to extremist groups, and that this group is mostly going to be comprised mostly of not-so-well-off folk with poor social skill complaining about it to each other and feeling sorry for themselves. We'll see though.

 

[warpus]

The people who can get "pulled out of it" are the ones with the capacity to update their beliefs based on evidence.

I'm not so sure about this. That doesn't work very well as an approach when pulling people out of cults, for instance.

What sort of evidence do you suggest we show them, though?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not so sure about this. That doesn't work very well as an approach when pulling people out of cults, for instance.

What sort of evidence do you suggest we show them, though?

I have no idea. But I think if anybody can be "saved" from such a group (including generic cults) it's the ones with this capacity still intact. It's improbable with it, but seems impossible without.

 

[Lexicus]

It's improbable with it, but seems impossible without.

It's not about evidence, it's about a sense of belonging. The best way to get people out of cults has nothing whatever to do with "evidence," it's showing them that they can feel like they belong and are loved and have a sense of purpose outside the cult.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's not about evidence, it's about a sense of belonging. The best way to get people out of cults has nothing whatever to do with "evidence," it's showing them that they can feel like they belong and are loved and have a sense of purpose outside the cult.

I don't suppose we're convincing them of this with spellcasting and mind control though. It's likely we're using some other method to demonstrate opportunity for a sense of belonging. Likely something they can observe.

It doesn't have to be a vetted research paper to be evidence.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't suppose we're convincing them of this with spellcasting and mind control though. It's likely we're using some other method to demonstrate opportunity for a sense of belonging. Likely something they can observe.

It doesn't have to be a vetted research paper to be evidence.

I don't think my "showing" and your "convincing" mean the same thing here.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think my "showing" and your "convincing" mean the same thing here.

Going on the assumption that the actions work, they should be the same in principle and very likely tied to empirical reality.

 

[Lexicus]

Going on the assumption that the actions work, they should be the same in principle and very likely tied to empirical reality.

Feeling loved is not a matter of empirical reality. It is inherently a matter of subjective perception.

 

[warpus]

I have no idea. But I think if anybody can be "saved" from such a group (including generic cults) it's the ones with this capacity still intact. It's improbable with it, but seems impossible without.

I just don't understand what sort of data you expect to present to them that will make a difference. They need a human touch, not an excel spreadsheet with numbers in it.

 

[inthesomeday]

I think this kind of action or mindset wouldn’t even exist without the culture of toxic masculinity here. I mean something tells me sexual frustration doesn’t lead to mass murder unless you’ve been preened your whole life to believe women owe you sex and that aggression/violence is what makes you and your demographic powerful and desirable.

 

[warpus]

I think this kind of action or mindset wouldn’t even exist without the culture of toxic masculinity here. I mean something tells me sexual frustration doesn’t lead to mass murder unless you’ve been preened your whole life to believe women owe you sex and that aggression/violence is what makes you and your demographic powerful and desirable.

Do we know how many of these "incels" end up resorting to murder and/or other forms of violence though? Is it any more likely for them to resort to extreme violence than any other person? You'd think if it were more common we'd know about it already, but I really don't know. My impression of these people is that they sit in basements and don't really engage others violently, but that's just my perception given what we're told of these people

 

[red_elk]

This guy's aggression looked more like desperation than attempt to look more powerful and desirable. The problem seems to be in his personal mental health issues, rather than in culture and society. I'm not saying everything is fine with the culture, but this particular guy just needed medical help.

 

[Kyriakos]

I just don't understand what sort of data you expect to present to them that will make a difference. They need a human touch, not an excel spreadsheet with numbers in it.

He possibly even killed another incel. Can't only get Chad and Stacy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Feeling loved is not a matter of empirical reality. It is inherently a matter of subjective perception.

You're still making observations that allow you to "feel loved". It doesn't come from a vacuum. It comes from what people you care about actually do/say.

I just don't understand what sort of data you expect to present to them that will make a difference. They need a human touch, not an excel spreadsheet with numbers in it.

I didn't say anything about presenting an excel spreadsheet to cultists.

I think this kind of action or mindset wouldn’t even exist without the culture of toxic masculinity here. I mean something tells me sexual frustration doesn’t lead to mass murder unless you’ve been preened your whole life to believe women owe you sex and that aggression/violence is what makes you and your demographic powerful and desirable.

Nobody really "owes" anybody anything unless we're talking about legal contracts, and the law is pretty clearly against mass murder.

How about putting some personal responsibility on the people willing to sink to these lows? Unless this guy was force fed drugs into insanity or something the most reasonable person to blame for this kind of travesty is the person who did it. Not someone else. "Toxic masculinity" didn't make you try to turn real life into grand theft auto, nor does it to the overwhelming majority of the population. But this guy was sufficiently salty to turn murderous, and very likely over matters similarly experienced by large numbers of people who *don't* turn around and murder double digit people.

That's not women's fault. That's not society's fault. It's his.

Do we know how many of these "incels" end up resorting to murder and/or other forms of violence though?

How would you go about classifying "incel"? Does it require self-identification or would you just broadly categorize people into this group? Is there a time requirement? Maybe someone looking for 1 month is incel? 6 months? Year? Surely if you take a night off from the bar you're not an incel for a day, even if you really wanted to go.

I suspect it has to be self-identified. From the implication, someone who thinks they could get laid any time they wanted but actually couldn't wouldn't technically be an "incel" as it would not meet the "in" part of that concept; they'd at least believe they were choosing it voluntarily.

Seems a rather nebulous group.

 

[warpus]

I didn't say anything about presenting an excel spreadsheet to cultists.

You said two things, that evidence should be presented, and that you don't know what sort of evidence it should be

That's fine, but it sort of forces me to think up examples of evidence that would work, so that I can examine your position further and respond to it. But the thing is that my position is that evidence alone will probably not help much, so as a result I can't think of any good examples. All I can think of are bad examples like tabulated data in the form of a spreadsheet. If I could think of a good example then I would probably not hold the position that I do, so perhaps by offering a better example you can help convince me of your point of view

 

[inthesomeday]

Nobody really "owes" anybody anything unless we're talking about legal contracts, and the law is pretty clearly against mass murder.

This is such a spooky sentence.

How about putting some personal responsibility on the people willing to sink to these lows? Unless this guy was force fed drugs into insanity or something the most reasonable person to blame for this kind of travesty is the person who did it. Not someone else. "Toxic masculinity" didn't make you try to turn real life into grand theft auto, nor does it to the overwhelming majority of the population. But this guy was sufficiently salty to turn murderous, and very likely over matters similarly experienced by large numbers of people who *don't* turn around and murder double digit people.

That's not women's fault. That's not society's fault. It's his.

He’s definitely partly to blame, yeah. Society is too.

If he was mentally ill I suspect it didn’t manifest the day of the attack, for one thing.

 

[Narz]

From what I read these incels feel worthless, like nobody cares about them, like they are not real men because they don't know how to talk to women.. If we don't figure out a way to help these people this is going to happen again. It's easy to make fun of them and ridicule them, but that just makes things worse, not better.

Everyone seems to hate pickup coaches too, probably no one more than these 'incels'.

Legalization of prostitution would probably help alot (although the main problem is likely emotional not sexual)

Thruout history a large minority of males likely did not get any sex at all, but these were the low status males and just had to take their lot. Now with access to cheap powerful firearms they can make themselves known.