Hacker News Reader

Comment by 310260 | Hacker News Reader

>it's someone with deep mental illness who happened to turn it towards women

I don't think this was just happenstance. You don't just randomly become a misogynist because of mental illness. This kind of hatred is cultivated over time through what you are consciously and subconsciously taught and conclusions you are making about the world around you. That level of hatred eventually devolves into something clinically diagnosable sure but I don't think it's right to say that he just "happened" to direct his hatred at women.

I agree with you though on destigmatizing mental illness and that our systems are not set up to deal with cases like this well enough.

View on HN

When religious people violently attack other people over religious beliefs, is it because of some kind of hatred cultivated over time that eventually devolves into something clinically diagnosable, or is it the other way around? Is it possible that a small subset of people with deep mental illness go into religion, politics, or any other self identity (possible as a form of finding social support), and through that the outgoing violence get focused towards a specific out group.

Cause and effect. It not happenstance since what people choose to self identify with is not random, but the chain of events can just as easily be explain from both directions.

As I understand: Anger is a common pool inside you that is instinctively directed toward the easiest outlet. If your boss yells at you, you yell at your subordinates or get ticked off at the cashier or yell at other drivers or get in an argument with your spouse, etc. (I mean, I hope not and I'm obviously not talking about you in particular, but you know the pattern). You don't direct your anger toward your boss for obvious reasons - not an easy outlet. Simlarly, people who are abused often become abusers of others, not of the people who hurt them.

This person obviously had great emotional problems and for whatever reason directed it at women. If somehow women weren't an option, they would find something else - it's not like they would otherwise be a happy, well-adjusted person.

This is what people need to understand about incels. It's grown and evolved into a political movement, with its own mythology, lingo and aesthetics, a community that actively seeks to radicalize and indoctrinate. People don't "come down with" inceldom, they identify with the propaganda and choose to identify with the movement, just as with neo-Nazism or any other extremist ideology. Then some of them inevitably take those ideals to their inevitable conclusion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com