2. So the worst-off members of society are the social rejects (low-status men, mostly), not those who are merely materially poor.
3. But self-identified egalitarians tend to be as happy as anyone to "punch down" at social rejects.
Conclusion: actually-existing egalitarianism, as a social force, is (typically) not motivated by principled concern for the worst-off, but something more like coalitional politics to boost the status of certain favoured groups.
I'm not exactly disagreeing with this, but a few points:
1 is true after a certain minimal level of money (probably a simplification, but obviously true that having enough money to eat is more important than social connections, and anyway a certain amount of money is necessary to be able to achieve meaningful social connections with anyone other than the most socially marginal), which complicates 2, but more importantly, redistributing money is a much more tractable political goal than redistributing social status and romantic interest. Any egalitarian movement with political goals, or that hopes to attract mass support, will need to attract people who don't have strong egalitarian instincts, so there will always be axes along which egalitarian movements don't appear principledly egalitarian.
Taken together, prioritizing material equality makes much more sense than prioritizing other forms, so we should expect to see egalitarian movements be only weakly egalitarian on axes other than material equality.
Counterarguments: feminism, antiracism, and gay rights all have a social equality component and are pretty popular among egalitarians (though the first two especially have a strong material component as well)--but I think it's important that there are achievable political goals along those lines: anti discrimination laws, marriage equality, ending police violence are all at least imaginable political goals.
I agree that there's a dearth of sympathy for unpopular groups, even among egalitarians, but without an achievable political program, I think it makes sense and is probably the right decision for egalitarian social movements to not divide themselves over causes that have no goals attached to them.
I'd be curious to hear ideas for what an incel movement could ask for on a concrete level
Yeah, I don't think it would really make much sense as a political movement. A better comparison is the "fat acceptance" movement, where the ask is purely cultural, seeking to improve people's attitudes and behavior towards a previously stigmatized group.
"Stop stigmatizing innocent people for being badly off" seems like a pretty reasonable ask, in general? (And one that egalitarians, of all people, ought to be more universally open to.)
Yeah, that makes sense. And I certainly agree that egalitarians should model acceptance, just to say that there will be lots of people attached to egalitarian political movements who do stigmatize, and those movements probably shouldn't be picking too many fights over the issue.
Just thinking in analogy to fat acceptance, one ask could be representation: romanceless characters in movies who aren't treated as a joke or a figure of contempt.
I'd be interested to find examples of movies/TV in either direction: those that perpetuate bad attitudes about incels, and those that pass the "Bech-cel test"
All I'm gonna do here is contribute my data point, and perhaps take my beating. I'm 47 and single. I've had what, judging from the studies I've seen, is significantly but not astronomically greater than the median for sexual partners. I've had a few relationships lasting a few years each. I've also had multi-year sex gaps and not felt like I was suffering for it.
I'll tell it to you like an old-school D&D player who still respects nine-point alignment:
Nearly all of my sexual and relationship success involved an unmistakable element of RPing Neutral Evil.
I know all nine alignments within myself. And now, sitting here more than halfway (most likely) through my life, I love the Good. And I don't usually feel lonely. But if and when I decide that that particular form of escaping loneliness is desirable again, then being able to tap into the selfish, morally unserious charmer (carefully constrained as a superficial persona) is an undeniably useful skill.
I think many guys struggling romantically don't actually care as much about getting sex per se as it may appear. What they really desire is *respect*, and the feeling of status and accomplishment.
When a women wants to have sex with you, she thereby shows a certain kind of respect. Even stronger than the desire for women's respect is the desire for fellow's men respect that comes when you succeed romantically.
This seems to be a classic case of "you're weakmanning me!" vs "you're motte-and-baileying me!". "I'm trying to prevent sexism and you paint me as cruel" vs "You are cruel and use the sexism as a shield".
Maybe we can use some amount of time we're spending on these fruitless back and forths on policy proposals instead?
Here are some: incentivize replacing parking spaces with 'third places' (restaurant terraces, city parks...) so people can meet other people more easily, incentivize replacing capitalists firms with co-ops to combat alienation and create a more social working environment, create a UBI so people living paycheck to paycheck can spend more time going out and meeting people, have some more courses on emotional/social intelligence/cooperation in school instead of spending so much time on standardized tests. This should help with the ever increasing alienation (~loneliness).
That would provide a reason to dismiss me, but think about the base rate, how many millions and millions of people know about alienation? What is the prior probability of there being a comment that mentions alienation on a philosophers blogpost about isolation?
How might one get more information after establishing a prior? Maybe my about page mentions my residence?
Not sure what you're talking about but solving the incel problem is going to be done via causal methods, and I don't think many people have looked favorably upon Marx's idea of alienation as an explanatory something for quite some time. Rather than continuing the snark I'll point out what I didn't like about your previous comment.
>incentivize replacing parking spaces with 'third places' (restaurant terraces, city parks...) so people can meet other people more easily,
This wouldn't work because incels cite social isolation, bullying, and exclusion from events due to their deformed looks and awkward pathologies. Not because they're just too shy to try socializing. Also, increasing social interaction is only going to work for people who are already deemed worthy of social respect - e.g. "Chads" and "normies" who are already capable of successfully interfacing with human society and succeeding at status seeking games because they're not overly ugly or offputting. Somebody who looks like a freak isn't going to find success from building more dance clubs and outside dining terraces, because this is where successful people go to succeed more, not to start succeeding from 0 like they're pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
>incentivize replacing capitalists firms with co-ops to combat alienation and create a more social working environment,
Another reason why I don't think alienation is a good explanatory something is because white collared people overwhelming prefer remote/hybrid work. Blue collared people like waiters, cooks, etc also complain about having to work with other people. And creating a more social environment is compatible with increased bullying, tribalism, exclusionary practices, etc. Somebody like an incel is probably not going to benefit from exposure therapy because they'll start off every social interaction in the bottom social caste where people who want to be cruel can easily succeed at making fun of them and perpetuating status games that incels never come out on top of.
>create a UBI so people living paycheck to paycheck can spend more time going out and meeting people
This would again just perpetuate high status people outperforming incels, and even if we could 100% achieve this economic goal, it's not clear that people would spend their time like this. Internet and video game addiction are still climbing - the loss of third places is in part due to people's preferences changing to prioritize social media scrolling, online dating, etc. Also, I'm not even sure whether or not incels are disproportionately poor enough to benefit from UBI (although I guess some do self-identify as neets).
>have some more courses on emotional/social intelligence/cooperation in school instead of spending so much time on standardized tests.
There is some evidence that increased mental health awareness results in worse outcomes for students (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X2300003X). Also, do you think psychologists/psychotherapists/other people involved in the discipline live substantially happier lives after learning about these subject areas? Those subject areas and professions seem just as status-game-ridden as all the other ones to me, even in areas like academia where there isn't much capitalist interference and grad students/professors effectively do receive a UBI via their research stipend. Status seeking behavior might be accentuated by capitalism, but it's not caused by it.
Overall, I don't think your comment came across as trying to empathize at all with incels, let alone understanding what problems they face. You also fell into the typical Marxist/philosopher trap of legislating empirical theses from the armchair, like suggesting that incels partaking in status-seeking behavior more will result in better outcomes for them. But incels are defined by their failure to perform well in these games, and they usually have innate (genetic, personality defects) that make them easy targets for abuse (see what feminists like the ones quoted in this piece have to say about them). I also don't think much of Marx's theory of alienation stands up to scrutiny when considering the dominant paradigm shifting technologies of the 21st century - video games, remote work, social media, etc, so your policy proposals are at best still in the drafting stage and not really contributing to anything meaningful besides signaling that you're a Marxist (which triggered me).
> signaling that you're a Marxist (which triggered me)
This seems to be a problem in rationalist circles. Even Scott Alexander said that he is triggered by social justice: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/12/a-response-to-apophemi-on-triggers/ I once posted something on both the EA-forum and LessWrong, the exact same text but one with more words from leftwing-academics and one with less, and the version with less got more upvotes. It must be frustrating for a group that self-identifies as truth seekers that certain studies are triggering, especially since they are so popular among scientists/academics. Feel free to not read my comment if the emotional labor is too much.
Fwiw it's not your Marxist beliefs, it's that you were signalling them as common sense in your writing style while coming across as entirely clueless, like climate change deniers picking up a piece of snow and saying "Guess we could use some more of that global warming, huh?"
I responded to your comment about how you assumed I was the Marxist from OPs class. I suggested some methodologies on how to avoid such mistakes in the future, including thinking of the base rate and looking at a persons about page to see if that provides some information that falsifies the hypothesis.
> solving the incel problem is going to be done via causal methods
How are the methods I suggested not causal?
> This wouldn't work because incels cite social isolation, bullying, and exclusion from events due to their deformed looks and awkward pathologies.
If you look at incels you see that "deformed looks" and "awkward pathologies" are not a give, take for example Elliot Rodger, he shoots up a school because of his incels beliefs, but if you look at him he was actually handsome. They can cite it all they want but clearly there are other elements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings#Perpetrator
> Not because they're just too shy to try socializing.
I never said anything about shyness. More third places don't just benefit the shy, they benefit everyone.
> Also, increasing social interaction is only going to work for people who are already deemed worthy of social respect
Look I really don't want to go line by line here. It takes a lot of time and makes it seem like I'm just being mean, so to summarize this section, I really need a source.
> Another reason why I don't think alienation is a good explanatory something is because white collared people overwhelming prefer remote/hybrid work. Blue collared people like waiters, cooks, etc also complain about having to work with other people. And creating a more social environment is compatible with increased bullying, tribalism, exclusionary practices, etc...
>This would again just perpetuate high status people outperforming incels
I don't know your source for that, but even *if* we assume that this will help non-incels more than incels, it will help incels too and will set a floor for which level of misery they can fall under.
> people's preferences changing to prioritize social media scrolling, online dating, etc
The question is, is that people's actual preference? If you aks the average doomscroller whether they would rather hang out in a 'third-place' with a group of friends, I suspect most would actually prefer that.
> although I guess some do self-identify as neets
Yes! I never claimed all these policies would help literally every incel, just that they would helps incels.
> mental health awareness
I mean I didn't say we should teach mental health awareness, I said "emotional/social intelligence/cooperation"
> Also, do you think psychologists/psychotherapists/other people involved in the discipline live substantially happier lives after learning about these subject areas?
I'm not talking about everyone becoming a psychologists, just that we get rid of the misery inducing standardized tests and replace them with some basic lessons on empathy and communcation skills, but to answer your question apparently they are: https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/psychologist/satisfaction/
> there isn't much capitalist interference and grad students/professors effectively do receive a UBI via their research stipend.
> Status seeking behavior might be accentuated by capitalism
So you're agreeing with me? We should lessen it's effects through policy?
>You also fell into the typical Marxist/philosopher trap of legislating empirical theses from the armchair, like suggesting that incels partaking in status-seeking behavior more will result in better outcomes for them.
What? Where in my comment did I suggest that incels should partake in status-seeking behavior? Also, I'm actually quite empirically minded, see e.g. all the empirical studies I cited. If you have any empirical studies for the claims in the comment, especially in the last paragraph, I am more than happy to change my mind on any and all subject matters.
The incel identity is astonishingly ineffective at solving the problems it postulates, and arguable makes them worse. A huge amount of social interaction is contingent on self confidence and identity. If you identify as someone who will never get girls it significantly decrease your chances. In that sense its a bit like marxism, the grievances are cognizant but the formulation is so unhelpful that it's frankly a danger to society. Stigmatizing bad ideas is good, the overwrought insane bashing is dumb but the general ick and shame to someone who self identifies as an incel it a good mechanism of social regulation.
I've had this argument with a number of people and what they say is that they understand Incel to refer to members of a certain cultural movement -- the people talking about Chads and Stacies. And while I tend to read it as ambiguous in the same way that you do I have enough friends who understand it as meaning membership in this particular movement that I think we need to conceed that's a, if not the, definition amoung US English speakers.
As such, I think the better critique is that there is a motte-bailey move going on and that the author here clearly means to blur the line as you mention.
I don't think all critics of "incels" do that. Some genuinely mean members of that movement. However, it's hard to understand what else Pao could mean when she says that some incel's misogyny is hard to spot.
The paradox of egalitarianism:
1. Social connections matter more than money.
2. So the worst-off members of society are the social rejects (low-status men, mostly), not those who are merely materially poor.
3. But self-identified egalitarians tend to be as happy as anyone to "punch down" at social rejects.
Conclusion: actually-existing egalitarianism, as a social force, is (typically) not motivated by principled concern for the worst-off, but something more like coalitional politics to boost the status of certain favoured groups.
I'm not exactly disagreeing with this, but a few points:
1 is true after a certain minimal level of money (probably a simplification, but obviously true that having enough money to eat is more important than social connections, and anyway a certain amount of money is necessary to be able to achieve meaningful social connections with anyone other than the most socially marginal), which complicates 2, but more importantly, redistributing money is a much more tractable political goal than redistributing social status and romantic interest. Any egalitarian movement with political goals, or that hopes to attract mass support, will need to attract people who don't have strong egalitarian instincts, so there will always be axes along which egalitarian movements don't appear principledly egalitarian.
Taken together, prioritizing material equality makes much more sense than prioritizing other forms, so we should expect to see egalitarian movements be only weakly egalitarian on axes other than material equality.
Counterarguments: feminism, antiracism, and gay rights all have a social equality component and are pretty popular among egalitarians (though the first two especially have a strong material component as well)--but I think it's important that there are achievable political goals along those lines: anti discrimination laws, marriage equality, ending police violence are all at least imaginable political goals.
I agree that there's a dearth of sympathy for unpopular groups, even among egalitarians, but without an achievable political program, I think it makes sense and is probably the right decision for egalitarian social movements to not divide themselves over causes that have no goals attached to them.
I'd be curious to hear ideas for what an incel movement could ask for on a concrete level
Yeah, I don't think it would really make much sense as a political movement. A better comparison is the "fat acceptance" movement, where the ask is purely cultural, seeking to improve people's attitudes and behavior towards a previously stigmatized group.
"Stop stigmatizing innocent people for being badly off" seems like a pretty reasonable ask, in general? (And one that egalitarians, of all people, ought to be more universally open to.)
Yeah, that makes sense. And I certainly agree that egalitarians should model acceptance, just to say that there will be lots of people attached to egalitarian political movements who do stigmatize, and those movements probably shouldn't be picking too many fights over the issue.
Just thinking in analogy to fat acceptance, one ask could be representation: romanceless characters in movies who aren't treated as a joke or a figure of contempt.
I'd be interested to find examples of movies/TV in either direction: those that perpetuate bad attitudes about incels, and those that pass the "Bech-cel test"
All I'm gonna do here is contribute my data point, and perhaps take my beating. I'm 47 and single. I've had what, judging from the studies I've seen, is significantly but not astronomically greater than the median for sexual partners. I've had a few relationships lasting a few years each. I've also had multi-year sex gaps and not felt like I was suffering for it.
I'll tell it to you like an old-school D&D player who still respects nine-point alignment:
Nearly all of my sexual and relationship success involved an unmistakable element of RPing Neutral Evil.
I know all nine alignments within myself. And now, sitting here more than halfway (most likely) through my life, I love the Good. And I don't usually feel lonely. But if and when I decide that that particular form of escaping loneliness is desirable again, then being able to tap into the selfish, morally unserious charmer (carefully constrained as a superficial persona) is an undeniably useful skill.
I think many guys struggling romantically don't actually care as much about getting sex per se as it may appear. What they really desire is *respect*, and the feeling of status and accomplishment.
When a women wants to have sex with you, she thereby shows a certain kind of respect. Even stronger than the desire for women's respect is the desire for fellow's men respect that comes when you succeed romantically.
This seems to be a classic case of "you're weakmanning me!" vs "you're motte-and-baileying me!". "I'm trying to prevent sexism and you paint me as cruel" vs "You are cruel and use the sexism as a shield".
Maybe we can use some amount of time we're spending on these fruitless back and forths on policy proposals instead?
Here are some: incentivize replacing parking spaces with 'third places' (restaurant terraces, city parks...) so people can meet other people more easily, incentivize replacing capitalists firms with co-ops to combat alienation and create a more social working environment, create a UBI so people living paycheck to paycheck can spend more time going out and meeting people, have some more courses on emotional/social intelligence/cooperation in school instead of spending so much time on standardized tests. This should help with the ever increasing alienation (~loneliness).
I take it you're the Marxist classmate described in the piece?
That would provide a reason to dismiss me, but think about the base rate, how many millions and millions of people know about alienation? What is the prior probability of there being a comment that mentions alienation on a philosophers blogpost about isolation?
How might one get more information after establishing a prior? Maybe my about page mentions my residence?
Not sure what you're talking about but solving the incel problem is going to be done via causal methods, and I don't think many people have looked favorably upon Marx's idea of alienation as an explanatory something for quite some time. Rather than continuing the snark I'll point out what I didn't like about your previous comment.
>incentivize replacing parking spaces with 'third places' (restaurant terraces, city parks...) so people can meet other people more easily,
This wouldn't work because incels cite social isolation, bullying, and exclusion from events due to their deformed looks and awkward pathologies. Not because they're just too shy to try socializing. Also, increasing social interaction is only going to work for people who are already deemed worthy of social respect - e.g. "Chads" and "normies" who are already capable of successfully interfacing with human society and succeeding at status seeking games because they're not overly ugly or offputting. Somebody who looks like a freak isn't going to find success from building more dance clubs and outside dining terraces, because this is where successful people go to succeed more, not to start succeeding from 0 like they're pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
>incentivize replacing capitalists firms with co-ops to combat alienation and create a more social working environment,
Another reason why I don't think alienation is a good explanatory something is because white collared people overwhelming prefer remote/hybrid work. Blue collared people like waiters, cooks, etc also complain about having to work with other people. And creating a more social environment is compatible with increased bullying, tribalism, exclusionary practices, etc. Somebody like an incel is probably not going to benefit from exposure therapy because they'll start off every social interaction in the bottom social caste where people who want to be cruel can easily succeed at making fun of them and perpetuating status games that incels never come out on top of.
>create a UBI so people living paycheck to paycheck can spend more time going out and meeting people
This would again just perpetuate high status people outperforming incels, and even if we could 100% achieve this economic goal, it's not clear that people would spend their time like this. Internet and video game addiction are still climbing - the loss of third places is in part due to people's preferences changing to prioritize social media scrolling, online dating, etc. Also, I'm not even sure whether or not incels are disproportionately poor enough to benefit from UBI (although I guess some do self-identify as neets).
>have some more courses on emotional/social intelligence/cooperation in school instead of spending so much time on standardized tests.
There is some evidence that increased mental health awareness results in worse outcomes for students (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X2300003X). Also, do you think psychologists/psychotherapists/other people involved in the discipline live substantially happier lives after learning about these subject areas? Those subject areas and professions seem just as status-game-ridden as all the other ones to me, even in areas like academia where there isn't much capitalist interference and grad students/professors effectively do receive a UBI via their research stipend. Status seeking behavior might be accentuated by capitalism, but it's not caused by it.
Overall, I don't think your comment came across as trying to empathize at all with incels, let alone understanding what problems they face. You also fell into the typical Marxist/philosopher trap of legislating empirical theses from the armchair, like suggesting that incels partaking in status-seeking behavior more will result in better outcomes for them. But incels are defined by their failure to perform well in these games, and they usually have innate (genetic, personality defects) that make them easy targets for abuse (see what feminists like the ones quoted in this piece have to say about them). I also don't think much of Marx's theory of alienation stands up to scrutiny when considering the dominant paradigm shifting technologies of the 21st century - video games, remote work, social media, etc, so your policy proposals are at best still in the drafting stage and not really contributing to anything meaningful besides signaling that you're a Marxist (which triggered me).
> signaling that you're a Marxist (which triggered me)
This seems to be a problem in rationalist circles. Even Scott Alexander said that he is triggered by social justice: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/12/a-response-to-apophemi-on-triggers/ I once posted something on both the EA-forum and LessWrong, the exact same text but one with more words from leftwing-academics and one with less, and the version with less got more upvotes. It must be frustrating for a group that self-identifies as truth seekers that certain studies are triggering, especially since they are so popular among scientists/academics. Feel free to not read my comment if the emotional labor is too much.
Fwiw it's not your Marxist beliefs, it's that you were signalling them as common sense in your writing style while coming across as entirely clueless, like climate change deniers picking up a piece of snow and saying "Guess we could use some more of that global warming, huh?"
Care to elaborate which proposal/empirical study I linked are comparable to climate change deniers using snow, and why?
> Not sure what you're talking about
I responded to your comment about how you assumed I was the Marxist from OPs class. I suggested some methodologies on how to avoid such mistakes in the future, including thinking of the base rate and looking at a persons about page to see if that provides some information that falsifies the hypothesis.
> solving the incel problem is going to be done via causal methods
How are the methods I suggested not causal?
> This wouldn't work because incels cite social isolation, bullying, and exclusion from events due to their deformed looks and awkward pathologies.
If you look at incels you see that "deformed looks" and "awkward pathologies" are not a give, take for example Elliot Rodger, he shoots up a school because of his incels beliefs, but if you look at him he was actually handsome. They can cite it all they want but clearly there are other elements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings#Perpetrator
> Not because they're just too shy to try socializing.
I never said anything about shyness. More third places don't just benefit the shy, they benefit everyone.
> Also, increasing social interaction is only going to work for people who are already deemed worthy of social respect
Look I really don't want to go line by line here. It takes a lot of time and makes it seem like I'm just being mean, so to summarize this section, I really need a source.
> Another reason why I don't think alienation is a good explanatory something is because white collared people overwhelming prefer remote/hybrid work. Blue collared people like waiters, cooks, etc also complain about having to work with other people. And creating a more social environment is compatible with increased bullying, tribalism, exclusionary practices, etc...
And why do they prefer not spending time in the workplace? Mayhaps because of it's capitalist structure? 75% of employees say they quit their boss, not their job: https://seedscientific.com/job-satisfaction-statistics/ The structure of cooperatives makes the workplace more, well, cooperative. Studies have shown that co-ops create more social trust: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254445736_Do_cooperative_enterprises_create_social_trust as well as a higher perception of fairness and cooperation: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjir.12135
>This would again just perpetuate high status people outperforming incels
I don't know your source for that, but even *if* we assume that this will help non-incels more than incels, it will help incels too and will set a floor for which level of misery they can fall under.
> people's preferences changing to prioritize social media scrolling, online dating, etc
The question is, is that people's actual preference? If you aks the average doomscroller whether they would rather hang out in a 'third-place' with a group of friends, I suspect most would actually prefer that.
> although I guess some do self-identify as neets
Yes! I never claimed all these policies would help literally every incel, just that they would helps incels.
> mental health awareness
I mean I didn't say we should teach mental health awareness, I said "emotional/social intelligence/cooperation"
> Also, do you think psychologists/psychotherapists/other people involved in the discipline live substantially happier lives after learning about these subject areas?
I'm not talking about everyone becoming a psychologists, just that we get rid of the misery inducing standardized tests and replace them with some basic lessons on empathy and communcation skills, but to answer your question apparently they are: https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/psychologist/satisfaction/
> there isn't much capitalist interference and grad students/professors effectively do receive a UBI via their research stipend.
Awww man I wish that we're true, but the mantra "publish or perish" rings true with grad students too (And sidenote, if you want to have your heart-broken you can read about the adjunct professors who live in their cars: https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/homeless-professor-who-lives-her-car )
> Status seeking behavior might be accentuated by capitalism
So you're agreeing with me? We should lessen it's effects through policy?
>You also fell into the typical Marxist/philosopher trap of legislating empirical theses from the armchair, like suggesting that incels partaking in status-seeking behavior more will result in better outcomes for them.
What? Where in my comment did I suggest that incels should partake in status-seeking behavior? Also, I'm actually quite empirically minded, see e.g. all the empirical studies I cited. If you have any empirical studies for the claims in the comment, especially in the last paragraph, I am more than happy to change my mind on any and all subject matters.
The incel identity is astonishingly ineffective at solving the problems it postulates, and arguable makes them worse. A huge amount of social interaction is contingent on self confidence and identity. If you identify as someone who will never get girls it significantly decrease your chances. In that sense its a bit like marxism, the grievances are cognizant but the formulation is so unhelpful that it's frankly a danger to society. Stigmatizing bad ideas is good, the overwrought insane bashing is dumb but the general ick and shame to someone who self identifies as an incel it a good mechanism of social regulation.
Great post! Thanks for the encouragement to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
I've had this argument with a number of people and what they say is that they understand Incel to refer to members of a certain cultural movement -- the people talking about Chads and Stacies. And while I tend to read it as ambiguous in the same way that you do I have enough friends who understand it as meaning membership in this particular movement that I think we need to conceed that's a, if not the, definition amoung US English speakers.
As such, I think the better critique is that there is a motte-bailey move going on and that the author here clearly means to blur the line as you mention.
I don't think all critics of "incels" do that. Some genuinely mean members of that movement. However, it's hard to understand what else Pao could mean when she says that some incel's misogyny is hard to spot.
I think the word your looking for with InPoor is either bum, welfare queen or low-class.
thanks for this, very thorough. assortive mating is amorally unfair, am grateful there's a vocal Chorus of complaint against it.