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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   25943 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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since the level of pre-meditation and personal desire makes it qualitatively different to say, treating someone who tried to commit suicide because of mental illness.

Isn't something like nullification a pretty solid indicator of mental illness? FWIW I agree that we should give more sympathy/pity to people who attempt suicide, but I have a hard time identifying the difference.

Maybe the usually higher level of pre-meditation and planning plays a role, but I'd still sympathize more with someone who planned a suicide attempt over months than someone who planned and received a nullification over the course of a day or two.

I can certainly discriminate between different types of mental illness, and have no qualms about doing so.

A BPD art-hoe and a depressed incel are both self-destructive, for no "fault" of their own (as popularly conceived as ethereal metadata not grounded in material properties), but one is far more destructive towards others.

A depressed person often doesn't want to be depressed. Or they feel terrible about being a burden, most of them aren't overdosing on paracetamol to get on welfare when their liver fails (presuming that doesn't kill them). In the UK, they are lucky to have the NHS around to save their ass for free (and me, eventually, though I charge for my services), but they do not undergo dangerous, crippling procedures to indulge a fetish and expect other taxpayers to clean up after them. The closest are the people into self-harm, and razer cuts and burns are nowhere near as expensive to treat, presuming they don't grow out of it.

Many would prefer not to be saved. We insist on saving them. I have mixed feelings on the matter, including extending to euthanasia: suffice to say that if rules and regulations didn't tie my hands, I would let a lot more people who didn't want to live on philosophical grounds kill themselves (presuming it wasn't just pure depression, or at least a form of depression that can be cured/managed to provide an acceptable QOL). Alas, the law and my medical licensing bodies disagree, and I care more about my paycheck than my principles here.

On the other hand, our friend Nullius Maximus here? While I have no way to prove it, I think he was mentally competent to gauge the consequences of his actions, and would likely have not gone through with it if he was left with the burden of fending for himself. And if he had, he wouldn't be newsworthy, just another crazy who killed himself for dubious reasons. Here, his craziness can be presumed to be sly.

That is far worse, as far as I'm concerned. I endorse his ability to do as he pleases. I do not endorse shielding him from the consequences of his actions.

A BPD art-hoe and a depressed incel are both self-destructive, for no "fault" of their own (as popularly conceived as ethereal metadata not grounded in material properties), but one is far more destructive towards others.

And to be clear it is the BPD art chick causing harm to people around her and the incel silently seething but not hurting anyone.

I would hope that was obvious, but I suppose it's worth clarifying in case someone came away thinking I was making the opposite argument.

Understood. Which is why I'm pointing out that the opposite is actually true. Incels are (to within round off error) harmless. BPD art chicks are very harmful to the unfortunate people drawn into their social sphere.

A BPD art-hoe and a depressed incel are both self-destructive, for no "fault" of their own (as popularly conceived as ethereal metadata not grounded in material properties), but one is far more destructive towards others.

I suppose men are more predisposed to criminality, but neither is likely to be harmful to others.

The amount of damage a typical incel can cause is far more bounded than what a reasonably attractive woman with borderline personality disorder can inflict. The overwhelming majority of incels don't go around shooting up schools, they sulk and argue on 4chan. People with BPD are corrosive to the psyche, uncovered flames that draw moths for miles.

You're (were?) a regular on the RSP subreddit, I'm sure you can imagine all the examples you like.

I’m not sure it’s a particularly good argument for the harmlessness of the incels that they congregate on 4chan, one of the most culturally influential websites on the planet, molding the headspaces of countless young men all over the world (some young women as well).

One of the precise risk factors of the incel subculture is that exposure to it seems to convince numerous temporarily virginal 17-year olds (or even younger types) that it’s over, women will only have sex with them if they’re a chiseled sociopathic gigachad, nothing they do can matter since they’re [short/fat/not rich/weak-chinned/Asian/etc], best not even try.

I’m not sure it’s a particularly good argument for the harmlessness of the incels that they congregate on 4chan

The gynosupremacists/femcels hang out on Twitter. I only see one of those two sites in the news constantly, so I believe the one I continue to hear claimed as a legitimate source by the vast majority of world media is taken a lot more seriously.

And then it is this core demographic that forms the backbone of the education-managerial complex as well as a significant chunk of state bureaucracies. The angry women are, in aggregate, much, much more dangerous than the angry men.

On a per capita basis? The average incel, be it on 4chan or elsewhere, is largely harmless.

And 4chan has all kinds of mentally ill people, from the humble incel, to schizos, to Taylor Swift.

AFAICT, the only reason people look down on their argument is that it denigrates higher status people than them in doing so (ie, women). Remove that and you get a bog standard feminist argument that men shouldn't seek validation from women through sex.

I thought the implication was that the art-hoe was more dangerous to others. I picture the depressed incel not leaving the basement; the BPD, out keying cars over imagined slights.

That is indeed what I'm getting at. Anyone who disagrees hasn't met enough depressed incels or women with BPD. I have the dubious fortune of knowing plenty of both.

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