Several people shot dead in Plymouth 12 August 2021

[kabbes]

And I didnt do that either.

And yes something in this man's life turned him against his best self. What that was? Media? Online games where women are objectified and killed? I dont know. The only one who knows is the man himself.

This, to me, is a massive misrepresentation of what a “self” comprises, albeit that it is the very mainstream pop-psychology view pushed by the self-help industry. There is no essential “true” self that becomes corrupted and betrayed by the outside. Nor is there an individual self that exists free from a context. Whatever there is in terms of selfhood is a highly contested debate, certainly, but whatever model is being suggested, it only works if the self is considered indivisible from the social network it exists in. People are always in a relationship — with others, with their society — and they form patterns always mediated through the culture they developed in.

 

[Aladdin]

This, to me, is a massive misrepresentation of what a “self” comprises, albeit that if it is a very mainstream pop-psychology view pushed by the self-help industry. There is no essential “true” self that becomes corrupted and betrayed by the outside. Nor is there an individual self that exists free from a context. Whatever there is in terms of selfhood is a highly contested debate, certainly, but whatever model is being suggested, it only works if the self is considered indivisible from the social network it exists in. People are always in a relationship — with others, with their society — and they form patterns always mediated through the culture they developed in.

I was not pushing a pop psychology view of self at all. I was agreeing that environment influences self.
And I would rather believe that a new born baby has massive potential rather than nothing in terms of development of "self ".
Maybe I didnt phrase it properly by mentioning a "best self" which was not meant as a value judgement.

 

[A380]

Get what impression you like, you mean nothing to me. I advocate for them, which you'll see if you read my posts. Buggered if I'm going to take up some pretend liberal position that doesn't acknowledge the shit these kids live in.

Now don’t forget, it’s far easier and actually more accurate to pontificate on the poorest in our society from a lofty leafy suburb than actually get involved in trying to assist them in making their lives a bit different.. Byy actually working with them you appear to have forgotten that alll very poor people are noble and pure, gosh in some ways they are almost like real people. tim keeps it real in his dealings with them, he always gives a tip at the cash car wash…

 

[Wilf]

Good post, some very necessary points you raise about the practical consequences of poverty and the lived impact of austerity in working class areas. This is important because for every cunt there are millions of people denied access to mental health and physical health services and forms of care.

I was reading about Blaenau Gwent yesterday: another poor place abandoned once the pits went. 1 in 6 of the population are on medication for depression, youth suicides are disturbingly high, 25% of the population reported mental or physical health conditions that are life affecting in the census return, drug and alcohol dependency has exploded over the last 49 years with intergenerational links clear. What Raymond Williams called ‘the resources of hope’ appear to be entirely drained from the place. An odd kind of privilege I reckon.

In amongst the acres of coverage of this sickening event there are important wider questions being raised here about the reality of lives in these places and the collapsing ‘sticking plaster’ that capitalism provides to tend to its victims

As the different bits of this story emerge - I've just read about the killer's father and early life in Shetland - it feels like all the layers and conditions are there. There's a fucked up family background at the personal level that may have led to his attitudes towards women (that's likely, even probable, but not yet certain). There's the consequences of austerity as you say and the longer despair of deindustrialisation. It looks like his mother was at the very sharp end of that, trying to get some kind of help. But then there's the alt-right and incel shite that provided a context for him to interpret who was responsible for his ills. There's always been a element of that around and in the past he might have joined other like minded souls going on about 'bitches', finding ways to generalise his own hatreds and experience. What I do feel is different is that all the incel stuff and other links into guns and the far/alt-right are fully packaged and ready to go on social media. He didn't have to look very far.

In some senses I'm not that fussed about definitions, whether this was terrorism, whether this was ideological (I'd go with yes and erm, kind of). The worrying thing is the easy route into violent misogyny and all the rest. Ditto, the chances of any kind of decent society being put together.

 

[krtek a houby]

My Dad has been shooting .22 rifles his whole life. He's far from weird. Proper straight person in fact.

"Straight", "weird".

Open to interpretation, though.

The terminology, not your dad.

 

[scalyboy]

There's always been a element of that around and in the past he might have joined other like minded souls going on about 'bitches', finding ways to generalise his own hatreds and experience. What I do feel is different is that all the incel stuff and other links into guns and the far/alt-right are fully packaged and ready to go on social media. He didn't have to look very far.

I've been wondering whether there was a pre-Internet equivalent of incels - and I'm not convinced there was, not as a community of like-minded men reinforcing each others' f*cked-up views, anyway. Of course there have always been misogynists complaining about women, but I don't believe there were so many men who couldn't get a girlfriend pre-Internet who would have been willing to speak up about it in the pub etc - for fear of ridicule. Maybe one or two, but not as a large group. The anonymity of the net removes the fear of shame and ridicule.

Similar to what someone upthread wrote (BigMoaner IIRC?), I went through a period of several years' involuntary celibacy - well before the Internet. It never occurred to me to blame anyone else but myself for this unfortunate state of affairs, I mistakenly believed I was too unattractive / weird / f*cked up mentally for a woman to want to be with me, when in fact all I needed to do was to get out more and meet people

I don't recall knowing of anyone else in a similar position back then who outwardly blamed women / alpha males / 'chads' etc for their inability to attract a girlfriend... it would've been too sad and whiny to express this out loud, I reckon.

Are incels a genuinely new phenomenon, or were there always boys / blokes who thought like this - but because there was no group of similar-thinking men, they just assumed they were on their own and they had better keep quiet about it, for fear of being thought a weirdo?

 

[Pickman's model]

I've been wondering whether there was a pre-Internet equivalent of incels - and I'm not convinced there was, not as a community of like-minded men reinforcing each others' f*cked-up views, anyway. Of course there have always been misogynists complaining about women, but I don't believe there were so many men who couldn't get a girlfriend pre-Internet who would have been willing to speak up about it in the pub etc - for fear of ridicule. Maybe one or two, but not as a large group. The anonymity of the net removes the fear of shame and ridicule.

Similar to what someone upthread wrote (BigMoaner IIRC?), I went through a period of several years' involuntary celibacy - well before the Internet. It never occurred to me to blame anyone else but myself for this unfortunate state of affairs, I mistakenly believed I was too unattractive / weird / f*cked up mentally for a woman to want to be with me, when in fact all I needed to do was to get out more and meet people

I don't recall knowing of anyone else in a similar position back then who outwardly blamed women / alpha males / 'chads' etc for their inability to attract a girlfriend... it would've been too sad and whiny to express this out loud, I reckon.

Are incels a genuinely new phenomenon, or were there always boys / blokes who thought like this - but because there was no group of similar-thinking men, they just assumed they were on their own and they had better keep quiet about it, for fear of being thought a weirdo?

i think that changes in people's socialisation have definitely made any pre-existing similar phenomenon worse, as these objectionable virgins cluster together online in echo chambers whereas before, in the days when people got together in person in pubs or round at mates' houses it would have been harder to hold views of this extremity without having to justify them to people in person.

 

[planetgeli]

I've been wondering whether there was a pre-Internet equivalent of incels - and I'm not convinced there was, not as a community of like-minded men reinforcing each others' f*cked-up views, anyway. Of course there have always been misogynists complaining about women, but I don't believe there were so many men who couldn't get a girlfriend pre-Internet who would have been willing to speak up about it in the pub etc - for fear of ridicule. Maybe one or two, but not as a large group. The anonymity of the net removes the fear of shame and ridicule.

Similar to what someone upthread wrote (BigMoaner IIRC?), I went through a period of several years' involuntary celibacy - well before the Internet. It never occurred to me to blame anyone else but myself for this unfortunate state of affairs, I mistakenly believed I was too unattractive / weird / f*cked up mentally for a woman to want to be with me, when in fact all I needed to do was to get out more and meet people

I don't recall knowing of anyone else in a similar position back then who outwardly blamed women / alpha males / 'chads' etc for their inability to attract a girlfriend... it would've been too sad and whiny to express this out loud, I reckon.

Are incels a genuinely new phenomenon, or were there always boys / blokes who thought like this - but because there was no group of similar-thinking men, they just assumed they were on their own and they had better keep quiet about it, for fear of being thought a weirdo?

I think you make a good point in that the internet has given them space for a community that wasn't there before. I think before they would largely have been seen (some of them) as the local 'weirdo' or 'saddo' and had horrible lives where they were ignored or ridiculed.

The community aspect of the internet interests me. Community is often used as a force for good, a positive thing, which obviously it can be. But the problem here is that incel seems to me a community with a very negative purpose, a manifesto against women. And I'm sure it's the internet, a powerful tool, that has cranked 'weirdo' 'saddo' up to that level.

And nobody is about to take away the internet, so maybe this 'thing' is here to stay and somehow has to be lived with and managed. I.E it's probably not a one-off.

 

[hitmouse]

Nice one. Thanks hitmouse

Oh, and the name of that book I was trying to remember before was Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates - not actually read that one so dunno how good it is, but certainly sounds relevant.

Vice has also been covering this stuff for a while, see:

Young, Male and Anti-Feminist – The Gen Z Boys Who Hate Women

Half of young men in the UK now believe that feminism has “gone too far". How did it get this bad?

www.vice.com

How I Stopped Being an Incel and Started Loving Myself

"A lot of my venting was done online because I never felt comfortable talking to people in real life about this stuff, because it’s embarrassing."

www.vice.com

 

[Wilf]

I've been wondering whether there was a pre-Internet equivalent of incels - and I'm not convinced there was, not as a community of like-minded men reinforcing each others' f*cked-up views, anyway. Of course there have always been misogynists complaining about women, but I don't believe there were so many men who couldn't get a girlfriend pre-Internet who would have been willing to speak up about it in the pub etc - for fear of ridicule. Maybe one or two, but not as a large group. The anonymity of the net removes the fear of shame and ridicule.

Similar to what someone upthread wrote (BigMoaner IIRC?), I went through a period of several years' involuntary celibacy - well before the Internet. It never occurred to me to blame anyone else but myself for this unfortunate state of affairs, I mistakenly believed I was too unattractive / weird / f*cked up mentally for a woman to want to be with me, when in fact all I needed to do was to get out more and meet people

I don't recall knowing of anyone else in a similar position back then who outwardly blamed women / alpha males / 'chads' etc for their inability to attract a girlfriend... it would've been too sad and whiny to express this out loud, I reckon.

Are incels a genuinely new phenomenon, or were there always boys / blokes who thought like this - but because there was no group of similar-thinking men, they just assumed they were on their own and they had better keep quiet about it, for fear of being thought a weirdo?

I think you make a good point in that the internet has given them space for a community that wasn't there before. I think before they would largely have been seen (some of them) as the local 'weirdo' or 'saddo' and had horrible lives where they were ignored or ridiculed.

The community aspect of the internet interests me. Community is often used as a force for good, a positive thing, which obviously it can be. But the problem here is that incel seems to me a community with a very negative purpose, a manifesto against women. And I'm sure it's the internet, a powerful tool, that has cranked 'weirdo' 'saddo' up to that level.

And nobody is about to take away the internet, so maybe this 'thing' is here to stay and somehow has to be lived with and managed. I.E it's probably not a one-off.

This was behind my thoughts on the idea of there now being a pre packaged set of beliefs and a community for 'incels'. I don't know much about the origin of these groups, but they are clearly linked to/partially within the alt-right. However I would guess they sit uneasily with some of the 'alpha male' strands that are also part of that milieu. I'm not sure, for example, whether the repulsive 'pick up artists' - essentially, neo-rapists - are just the other side of the same coin. They are certainly part of the 'culture wars', but whether there are substantive links to the political and economic positions of the alt-right is something I should read up on.

 

[Wilf]

This was behind my thoughts on the idea of there now being a pre packaged set of beliefs and a community for 'incels'. I don't know much about the origin of these groups, but they are clearly linked to/partially within the alt-right. However I would guess they sit uneasily with some of the 'alpha male' strands that are also part of that milieu. I'm not sure, for example, whether the repulsive 'pick up artists' - essentially, neo-rapists - are just the other side of the same coin. They are certainly part of the 'culture wars', but whether there are substantive links to the political and economic positions of the alt-right is something I should read up on.

And right on cue hitmouse delivers.

 

[Sue]

I own a shotgun, I have never shot an animal in my life.

I enjoy a bit of clay-pigeon shooting, it's a good fun way to spend a few hours honing a skill.I also live in London, not the country. Maybe try it.

That fucking cunt of a loser would have used a knife or ram people with a car if he didn't have a gun, and sounds like he slipped through the net probably down to poxy Covid restrictions. My licence was renewed last year and because Covid, it was done over the phone with the Fire-Arms Officer and no home visit.

See imo, you shouldn't be allowed to have a gun. Clay pigeon shooting seems like a very, very poor reason to own one.

 

[felixthecat]

See imo, you shouldn't be allowed to have a gun. Clay pigeon shooting seems like a very, very poor reason to own one.

So shooting as a sport shouldn't be allowed?

 

[hitmouse]

This was behind my thoughts on the idea of there now being a pre packaged set of beliefs and a community for 'incels'. I don't know much about the origin of these groups, but they are clearly linked to/partially within the alt-right. However I would guess they sit uneasily with some of the 'alpha male' strands that are also part of that milieu. I'm not sure, for example, whether the repulsive 'pick up artists' - essentially, neo-rapists - are just the other side of the same coin. They are certainly part of the 'culture wars', but whether there are substantive links to the political and economic positions of the alt-right is something I should read up on.

Yeah, I think there's definite links in terms of them both emerging from the same spaces, basically 4chan/8chan and reddit. I think the incel "beta/omega" types and the self-styled "alphas" certainly overlap ideologically in terms of their obsession with natural hierarchies, belief that "alpha/beta/omega" is a real coherent thing that exists among humans and so on. Beyond that, I'd also say it's worth going back to Gamergate as a really important moment for both movements, like Milo's so washed-up and irrelevant now that it's hard to remember a time when he sort of mattered but he was one of the first important faces of the alt-right/alt-lite and he made his name in Gamergate. That moment was also when Milo's boss at Breitbart, one Steve Bannon, first realised that angry young men on the internet were a constituency that could be mobilised.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

See imo, you shouldn't be allowed to have a gun. Clay pigeon shooting seems like a very, very poor reason to own one.

It's a perfectly valid reason to have one. There are thousands and thousands of people who partake in shooting sports who have valid reasons to own guns. There's an argument for stricter checks and making the licensing process more involved, sure, but to simply say "nobody should have one" is daft.

 

[Sue]

So shooting as a sport shouldn't be allowed?

Maybe in a gun club that holds weapons securely. But I don't see why individuals should have them at home purely for sporting reasons.

 

[hitmouse]

So shooting as a sport shouldn't be allowed?

I don't think that clay pigeon shooting is the most interesting topic to get into here, but off the top of my head, a few possibilities would be: clay pigeon lasertag, clay pigeon paintball, airsoft (maybe, I dunno exactly how airsoft works), tightening up licences so that guns can only be kept on specific licensed clay pigeon shooting premises and aren't allowed to be removed from the premises?

 

[Sue]

It's a perfectly valid reason to have one. There are thousands and thousands of people who partake in shooting sports who have valid reasons to own guns. There's an argument for stricter checks and making the licensing process more involved, sure, but to simply say "nobody should have one" is daft.

I don't think it is a perfectly valid reason.

 

[klang]

Maybe in a gun club that holds weapons securely. But I don't see why individuals should have them at home purely for sporting reasons.

i don't get the 'right to own a gun' sentiment either.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

However I would guess they sit uneasily with some of the 'alpha male' strands that are also part of that milieu. I'm not sure, for example, whether the repulsive 'pick up artists' - essentially, neo-rapists - are just the other side of the same coin.

Yes - redpill vs blackpill are the terms you want to look out for.

 

[Griff]

Maybe in a gun club that holds weapons securely. But I don't see why individuals should have them at home purely for sporting reasons.

My home in a secure gun cabinet is far safer than the Portacabin where I go shooting. It's simply not viable. By the way I don't have any gun cartridges at home, just the gun.

 

[scalyboy]

Yeah, I think there's definite links in terms of them both emerging from the same spaces, basically 4chan/8chan and reddit. I think the incel "beta/omega" types and the self-styled "alphas" certainly overlap ideologically in terms of their obsession with natural hierarchies, belief that "alpha/beta/omega" is a real coherent thing that exists among humans and so on. Beyond that, I'd also say it's worth going back to Gamergate as a really important moment for both movements

Definitely. Also as a sub-group is that community of anti-PWAs - men who spaffed money to attend PWA training courses, lectures, events etc and found they still couldn't get a girlfriend (surprise surprise) and so became even more embittered - an incel overlap or subset there. I don't pay too much attention to these online groups (because of the stomach-churning effect) but I do remember some time back being struck by how big the anti-PWA 'movement' had grown. Possibly Elliot Rodger brought it to wider attention.

 

[Ax^]

jesus always thought the no fap movement was weird

but no we have weird eugentics "blackpill" ballocks

 

[Wilf]

It's a perfectly valid reason to have one. There are thousands and thousands of people who partake in shooting sports who have valid reasons to own guns. There's an argument for stricter checks and making the licensing process more involved, sure, but to simply say "nobody should have one" is daft.

That might be the understatement of the year.

 

[klang]

My home in a secure gun cabinet is far safer than the Portacabin where I go shooting. It's simply not viable.

apparently checking if people are stable enough to own a gun isn't viable either.
ffs, a three year old girl and a mother just got shot, we should be appalled that there are guns in private ownership, not talk about fucking clay pigeon shooting.

oh, and the fact that he 'would have killed anyway, with a knife or a car' doesn't justify him legally owning a gun.

 

[Aladdin]

i think that changes in people's socialisation have definitely made any pre-existing similar phenomenon worse, as these objectionable virgins cluster together online in echo chambers whereas before, in the days when people got together in person in pubs or round at mates' houses it would have been harder to hold views of this extremity without having to justify them to people in person.

And also the whole expectation that young people experience..to look and act a certain way.

When I was a teenager there was nobody in school wearing full on makeup and having their hair perfect. We were scruffy teens. Only one girl wore makeup. Mostly because none of us had the time or the money or inclination to wear makeup to school. Our school was right next to a boys secondary school. They were in the same boat. There were the very few naturally very good looking people in both schools .. but most of us were common or garden variety teenagers.

There has been an increased pressure on kids to look and act a certain way for quite a while...going back to I would say the beginnings of social media. I see this pressure in the teens I work with. Pressure is on the girls to look like a model or someone on tv. Girls starving to look a certain way. Straightenijg their hair and wearing full face makeup to school. Boys feeling that they have to lift weights trying to build themselves up and have a 6 pack. Having the right runners. Having a certain teenage "socially acceptable look".

It's sad...some of these kids barely get to know themselves because their focus is on their appearance and being popular.

 

[klang]

My home in a secure gun cabinet is far safer than the Portacabin where I go shooting. It's simply not viable.

the shooting clubs clearly need stricter policies.

 

[Griff]

the shooting clubs clearly need stricter policies.

Clearly you know nothing on the subject.

 

[klang]

Clearly you know nothing on the subject.

tbh i don't.
just finding what happened desperately sad.

 

[scifisam]

The mentality will be “See, this is what happens when you don’t sleep with me. This is what feminism has done.” or something like that. That will be the ‘cause’ being advanced by their terror.

Did you mean to quote me? I wasn't talking about that. ??? All I said was that it looks like his victims were probably just the first people he saw. Maybe he wanted to go and shoot up a nightclub or something, but that's not what he actually did.

I'm not sure it matters all that much whether it's defined as "terrorism," except that it won't be used as an excuse to beat up brown people or bomb their countries.

That fucking cunt of a loser would have used a knife or ram people with a car if he didn't have a gun

That's always a shit argument. He could maybe have got one stranger (as well as his mum) but that's it. The only knife attacks that manage to harm multiple people are those with machetes and the like, which, unlike shotguns with a licence, are illegal.