Incels: A new terror threat to the UK?
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
In their case, the solution they seem to arrive at is to buy/adopt more cats. Incel men really need to get a similar hobby.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Long answer: There are many "pills" for different mindsets, and I don't believe incels subscribe to any specific "pill" in their entirety. I don't have enough first hand experience with incel groups to say which is most prevalent, but I would assume it's a toss up between the red and black pill. These guys fault society and women for their problems instead of attempting to fix it themselves.
Here are the main pills I've seen used online. Some have political connotations attached to them;
White pill - Having hope and optimistic look on the future. You probably won't see this in incel communities.
Black pill - Everything is out of my control, and I have no power over outcomes.
Red pill - This is the most ambiguous of the "pills". It is about recognizing "how the world really is". This is a huge spectrum from "The media lies" to extreme racism. Sometimes it is also used to describe someone joining the Republican party.
Blue pill - Believing main stream media narratives. Often used as a synonym for "ignorant" and "naive." Sometimes used to describe someone joining the Democratic party.
Those are the main pills I've seen used online. There are more, and the ADL[1] has a decent breakdown of others that I won't go over here. Some of these I've never heard of and are NSFW.
NSFW! [1] - https://www.adl.org/blog/the-extremist-medicine-cabinet-a-gu...
Their attractiveness puts them right into the "swap to reject" category.
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.
Note: I don't actually belief women are objects and men are owed sex. That first sentence is intended to be descriptive.
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.