Political grooming gangsters, Incels, Authoritarianism and Legislation
“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century.” Aneurin Bevan
This is a very brief over view of the Incel phenomenon.
The recent mass shooting in Plymouth is part of a larger pattern. Our culture is a dominator culture. Within it emerge subcultures of violent domination and supremacy, and what tends to happen is that these subcultures are used as proxies and as scapegoats when they are in fact symptoms of the prevailing culture.
There are lots of superb well researched scholarly explorations of the Incel movement, not least because there have been a number of attempted and 'successful' serious, horrific mass shootings and other crimes 'inspired' by the ideology of 'Incel' and that drives a need to properly understand what is going on.
A problem fully understood is half way towards a solution, whereas a problem partially understood is insoluble.
"Mass violence connected to incel ideology has increased public and academic scrutiny of incel communities online. Although not all such communities support violence, and not all those who identify as incel will go on to commit violence, incel communities have drawn the public, academic, and policy world’s attention."
source : here
I wanted to write about this as it links a few different domains that my previous writing has touched upon.
“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” ―
A young Canadian woman started an online web discussion board in the 1990s to explore the experience of being unable to create and maintain intimate relationships, in a world where sexual relationships were paraded as a rite of passage and mark of success, to create a self help group, a place of understanding, a safe space free of ridicule or disdain.
The term 'Incels' was derived from the descriptive 'Involuntary Celibate' coined by these people, as a term to describe themselves, a cohort of people who were experiencing problematic intimate loneliness, men and women alike who found forming intimate relationships really challenging, difficult and distressing (a not uncommon experience) and who were using this online forum to write about and explore their experiences, as a kind of self help dynamic.
People in pain and distress trying to help each other.
It was shortened first to 'InvCel' then to 'incel'.
Those discussions were well moderated for a few years, and the community grew, and it remained basically honest, and was a safe space for those who were using it. The Canadian woman who initiated it handed it over to others after a few years, as she moved on in life.
These posting boards and forums were then taken over by a dedicated group of male supremacists, who swamped the boards, and then actively manipulated and exploited the vulnerable lonely men who were gathering online about their issues, who were seeking support. The male supremacists deliberately worked to create this cult that is now a radical ideology that demands dominion over women’s body’s as sex providers by right.
The term Incel was co opted and made into an identifying badge of honour by the infamous Bodybuilding Miscellaneous forums, 4chan and other havens of young men who like to sadistically troll the world and each other with the most cynical interpretations of their social prospects.
Starting arguments, making money.
Starting arguments, making money.
This is part of a dynamic called 'The Internet Of Beefs'.
A competitive atmosphere where actors deliberately initiate open ended arguments that cannot be 'won' or 'concluded' because they are not evidence based, they are opinion or belief based: deliberately inciting deeply biased positions into oppositional arguments in order to drive almost endless traffic through to a page which carries advertising, in order to generate income.
When people started to make significant income from stimulating aggressive arguments online it became a business model that was hard to put down, and then it became impossible to prevent, the genie was well and truly out of the box. Anger drives traffic online. More traffic means more income from advertising.
The second wave which co-opted Incels was in turn were influenced by pick up artists. PUA theory is basically a modern version of the existing beliefs about women’s nature from the time of (actual anthropological) patriarchy. This tied into existing networks of misogynistic political activity.
The ‘movement’ is driven rather than emergent. It is not by any means a natural development, an emergent movement.
Driving a 'movement'
Driving a 'movement'
Someone with access to funding and logistics is stoking political fires, with intent.
"The “Red Pill,” a term that comes from the 1999 film The Matrix, has become a framework for individuals to describe their awakening to some previously hidden supposed reality. The major contemporary secular male supremacist movements—PUAs, men’s rights activists, The Red Pill, and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW)—all use this terminology to describe their “realization” that men do not hold systemic power or privilege. Instead, they awaken to the “truth” that socially, economically, and sexually men are at the whims of women’s (and feminists’) power and desires.
"The “Red Pill,” a term that comes from the 1999 film The Matrix, has become a framework for individuals to describe their awakening to some previously hidden supposed reality. The major contemporary secular male supremacist movements—PUAs, men’s rights activists, The Red Pill, and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW)—all use this terminology to describe their “realization” that men do not hold systemic power or privilege. Instead, they awaken to the “truth” that socially, economically, and sexually men are at the whims of women’s (and feminists’) power and desires.
As in the film, to be blue-pilled is to accept the mainstream narrative and choose to live in ignorance of the truths of the world. Red Pillers see themselves as intellectually superior to “blue-pilled normies.”
The Red Pill terminology grew in male supremacist forums and was adopted more broadly by far-right and white supremacist groups to describe their own versions of awakenings, conspiracist worldviews that often overlaps with male supremacist positions, such as antifeminism.38
Beginning around 2016, misogynist incel forums began to shift from a Red Pill to an increasing “Black Pill” mentality. This belief system accepts the Red Pill view of society dominated by women but rejects individual-level attempts such as learning game to achieve a sexual relationship with women as misguided, asserting that only change at a societal level has the possibility to be effective. Black Pill adherents believe that looks are genetically determined, and that women choose sexual partners based solely on physical features (“lookism”), so whether or not a person will be an incel is predetermined.39
Misogynist incels attempt to prove the truth of the Black Pill through misreadings of scientific studies, online dating datasets, and their own “experiments” to prove that women only care about a man’s physical looks. Although some incels still seek out plastic surgery, work out (“gym maxxing”), or try to otherwise improve their physical features, many believe such strategies are pointless as inceldom is a problem with society, not the individual. Blackpilled incels are aware of appearance and sociability/game strategies and reject them as solutions.
The Black Pill philosophy typically offers only two options for what to do with their new accepted reality: accept their fate as an incel or try to change society to their benefit—usually advocated as potentially achievable by means of mass violence and terror, not politics or other methods of change. “Copes” are looked down on as methods of coping with without changing the unjust system, including denying the reality of the Black Pill."
https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/red-pill-to-black-pill/
The Red Pill terminology grew in male supremacist forums and was adopted more broadly by far-right and white supremacist groups to describe their own versions of awakenings, conspiracist worldviews that often overlaps with male supremacist positions, such as antifeminism.38
Beginning around 2016, misogynist incel forums began to shift from a Red Pill to an increasing “Black Pill” mentality. This belief system accepts the Red Pill view of society dominated by women but rejects individual-level attempts such as learning game to achieve a sexual relationship with women as misguided, asserting that only change at a societal level has the possibility to be effective. Black Pill adherents believe that looks are genetically determined, and that women choose sexual partners based solely on physical features (“lookism”), so whether or not a person will be an incel is predetermined.39
Misogynist incels attempt to prove the truth of the Black Pill through misreadings of scientific studies, online dating datasets, and their own “experiments” to prove that women only care about a man’s physical looks. Although some incels still seek out plastic surgery, work out (“gym maxxing”), or try to otherwise improve their physical features, many believe such strategies are pointless as inceldom is a problem with society, not the individual. Blackpilled incels are aware of appearance and sociability/game strategies and reject them as solutions.
The Black Pill philosophy typically offers only two options for what to do with their new accepted reality: accept their fate as an incel or try to change society to their benefit—usually advocated as potentially achievable by means of mass violence and terror, not politics or other methods of change. “Copes” are looked down on as methods of coping with without changing the unjust system, including denying the reality of the Black Pill."
https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/red-pill-to-black-pill/
There are very nasty, well funded adept people and organisations who are grooming others who are vulnerable, working on the targets over time using a wide range of tactics and techniques, and online these actors are exploiting micro targeting within existing advertising systems on all platforms.
The emotive dynamics of Brexit, anti-masking, viral marketing, influencers, neuro-marketing, election hacking - based on amygdala hijacking - are all connected elements of modern advertising technologies, methods and strategies.
Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communications Laboratories, Capuchin are the tip of the iceberg, or for a more apt metaphor, the tip of a volcano of politically motivated behavioural nudge marketing driven by Surveillance Capitalism's gathering of 'behavioural surplus' data of billions of people and their ability to analyse that data, and use it to predict and influence behaviour, on behalf of advertisers.
This area of publishing is entirely unregulated. There are no laws inhibiting nudge behavioural modification techniques, not least because they are now a core element of NeoLiberal governance settings. Nudging unsuspecting populations along lines of behaviour the rulers deem appropriate.
Choice Architecture.
Channelling carefully crafted content to trigger and exacerbate those vulnerabilities, by feeding the anger side of the pain, by creating scapegoat dynamics such as blaming women, by encouraging rage and providing permission for ever more extreme expressions which leads to attitude changes and those can lead to behavioural changes that can be exploited.
The emotive dynamics of Brexit, anti-masking, viral marketing, influencers, neuro-marketing, election hacking - based on amygdala hijacking - are all connected elements of modern advertising technologies, methods and strategies.
Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communications Laboratories, Capuchin are the tip of the iceberg, or for a more apt metaphor, the tip of a volcano of politically motivated behavioural nudge marketing driven by Surveillance Capitalism's gathering of 'behavioural surplus' data of billions of people and their ability to analyse that data, and use it to predict and influence behaviour, on behalf of advertisers.
This area of publishing is entirely unregulated. There are no laws inhibiting nudge behavioural modification techniques, not least because they are now a core element of NeoLiberal governance settings. Nudging unsuspecting populations along lines of behaviour the rulers deem appropriate.
Choice Architecture.
Channelling carefully crafted content to trigger and exacerbate those vulnerabilities, by feeding the anger side of the pain, by creating scapegoat dynamics such as blaming women, by encouraging rage and providing permission for ever more extreme expressions which leads to attitude changes and those can lead to behavioural changes that can be exploited.
More misogynists would vote for Trump after a tape recording of his misogynistic attitude is 'released'. That release did not harm Trumps election prospects.
All of this kind of activity is political grooming, it has political social impact and it has purpose.
"Regardless, there is a substantial difference between a community being vulnerable to self-harm and promoting and threatening violence against others. Members expressing suicidal ideation on misogynist incel forums are also encouraged to “go ER” or “be a hERo,” meaning to commit mass murder before committing suicide. Many misogynist incels don’t just advocate for suicide as a solution to inceldom, but also to create structural change through first committing mass violence."
"Regardless, there is a substantial difference between a community being vulnerable to self-harm and promoting and threatening violence against others. Members expressing suicidal ideation on misogynist incel forums are also encouraged to “go ER” or “be a hERo,” meaning to commit mass murder before committing suicide. Many misogynist incels don’t just advocate for suicide as a solution to inceldom, but also to create structural change through first committing mass violence."
Supremacy of any kind is political.
The Plymouth murder spree and other shootings carried out by men who identify as 'incels' affiliated with this online movement is not driven by mental health issues as much it is driven by political grooming operations.
This is a cultural problem, inherent to the hierarchy of power and violence culture which I call the Bully Cult. Incel grooming and violence is a form of terrorism. Not all the people who identify as Incel are terrorists. They are, for sure. groomed by people who really are terrorists.
We need to inhibit the movement and prevent future atrocities. That means we must tackle the groomers. That means we need legislation that defines grooming, quite precisely, as a criminal offence, as an act of psychological and emotional abuse.
We need to inhibit the movement and prevent future atrocities. That means we must tackle the groomers. That means we need legislation that defines grooming, quite precisely, as a criminal offence, as an act of psychological and emotional abuse.
It is quite similar to the dynamics that drives much of the Brexit marketing campaigns, the Proud Boys, and other online organised grooming operations, David Icke, Alex Jones and so on, including anti-masking and anti-vaxing, where pain, anger and frustration is targeted, exacerbated and turned to active rage which can be exploited for political, ideological or financial gain.
Mycelia of unresolved anger carefully fertilized, by malign actors, fruiting as above ground action, driven by active sophisticated grooming operations.
Behavioural modification that is enabled by studying behavioural surplus data, finding trigger points, stimulating them via micro targeting, exacerbating the underlying bias or vulnerability and nudging the targets towards behavioural changes facilitated by the developments of surveillance capitalism.
Protecting the vulnerable, defining abuse, inhibiting exploitation.
Protecting the vulnerable, defining abuse, inhibiting exploitation.
I propose a discussion about establishing a legal definition of a behaviour that we are all too familiar with.
“Organised operations that target peoples cognitive biases, their social wounded-nesses, their insecurities, prejudices and worries, their misunderstandings, cultural conditioning and fears, and do that through public and social media, through marketing, propaganda, media and online social media campaigns operating as cottage industries or at an industrial scale, intentionally targeting and manipulating vulnerable people for ideological, religious, political or economic advantage.”
This behaviour is grooming.
Grooming is psychological and emotional abuse. If we had legislation defining this, and then criminalising it because it is intentional exploitation of human vulnerability and thus it is a profound abuse, then media platforms would be unable to permit any publishing of such content on their platforms, and it would be impossible then to exploit as a revenue stream. All internet providers would be legally obliged to prevent such behaviour.
I have written a few letters to News Media in England and Ireland on this, and one has been published. I have also passed the idea to my local MP, and he has submitted the concept to the Digital Media and Culture Committee of the Westminster Parliament.
I have written a few letters to News Media in England and Ireland on this, and one has been published. I have also passed the idea to my local MP, and he has submitted the concept to the Digital Media and Culture Committee of the Westminster Parliament.
Masculinism: reclaimed
I have been mulling over this for a while, and I think it is time 'Masculinity' was redefined for the 21st Century, resonating with our most ancient and evolved egalitarian roots of Humanity
I have been mulling over this for a while, and I think it is time 'Masculinity' was redefined for the 21st Century, resonating with our most ancient and evolved egalitarian roots of Humanity
definition : we see and understand the violent hierarchy cult and we see it's inequity and we will, holding hands with one another, as men and women, work together to dismantle that violent hierarchy, confront that inequity and correct it, thus bringing human culture into a healthy balance as we move forwards.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."