#Deradicalization

[respectissexy]

This is a LONG post about how to combat Incel beliefs online and in the people you know. 

I’ve had a long-term fascination with Incels, and at times have belonged to some online communities aimed at deradicalizing them. Here are some of the facts, statistics, and logical arguments I’ve accumulated in a few years of having these conversations with self-identified Incels.

I want to make it clear that there is no point in having these arguments with the “women should all be shipped to government-run rape camps” kinds of Incels. I’m talking more about the “I’m going to die alone because I don’t have 100k for leg lengthening surgery” variety, who are in the pipeline but not all the way there yet.

Even within that, if you're a woman, don’t bother having this debate with someone who is incapable of having a respectful conversation with a woman – if you catch a whiff of “that’s exactly what a lying femoid would say,” just cut your losses. The people you want to target are people you have a strong pre-existing relationship with (“my little brother has started watching terrible YouTube videos”) and people who admit to being unsatisfied with their worldview (“believing in the Blackpill is making me miserable, I just want to be normal, but I keep getting sucked back in because I find it so convincing.”)

When you’re trying to deradicalize someone, it helps to meet them where they’re at by admitting anything they’re correct about. 

The two Incel beliefs that I freely admit are correct are: it is easier to get sex/romance if you’re conventionally attractive (more on why this doesn’t mean everyone else should give up later) and, there are plenty of hideously sexist and depraved men who get pussy all the time, so it’s obviously not true that the only reason some people are Incels is because they have bad attitudes towards women. (I call this “sex and love are not a meritocracy.”)

Someone who is capable of engaging with you in good faith will usually become much more relaxed and willing to listen if you concede these two points – which, I cannot stress enough, are obviously true. There is no point in trying to sell someone on the idea that respecting women is the true key to getting laid. Anyone with eyes can see that some men who respect women don’t get laid and plenty of men who get laid don’t respect women. 

In only the loosest possible order (roughly moving from the world of provable facts and statistics to the world of more theoretical logical argument) here are some common responses to standard “Incel” or “blackpill” arguments.

The sexual marketplace favors women. Women are all out there fucking Chad while increasing numbers of men are sexless. There are way more virgin men than virgin women.

Between the ages of 20-24, 14% of men and 12% of women self-identify as virgins. This is a 2% difference. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/on-late-in-life-virginity-loss/284412/

It's over for you if you didn't date/have sex in high school or college.

While 14% of men are virgins between the ages of 20 and 24, only 5% are still virgins in their late 20s, and only 0.3% are still virgins by 40 (and this number includes the voluntarily and religiously celibate.) So even if you are a virgin at age 22, your chances of having sex by age 40 are around 99.7%. You are statistically MUCH more likely to be a "late bloomer" than a lifelong Incel. (Source: The CDC quoted in the article above) Also, only about 50% of people have had sex by the time they graduate high school. So whether you do or not, you're completely normal either way. It's a coin flip. Source: The CDC https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2017/201706_NSFG.htm#:~:text=The%20data%20represent%20all%20teens,%2C%20the%20percent%20was%2044%25

The average modern young woman has had sex with dozens or hundreds of men, and an inexperienced man could never satisfy her!

Some women have! But while the average lifetime number of sexual partners for both men and women varies by study, it is consistently fewer than 10. I find this belief is often based on poor statistical reasoning – a friend or acquaintance tells you that she hooked up with a guy this weekend and a different guy two weeks ago, so you extrapolate that she’s been fucking two different men per month since becoming sexually active, and assume her number must be in the hundreds. Most people have a varied sexual career that includes some casual hookups, some FWBs or flings, some dry spells, and some periods of long-term monogamy.

To the extent that the average “body count” may have gone up in recent decades, this is likely less because today’s young people are uniquely promiscuous and more because they tend to settle down with a life partner later – if you become sexually active at 17 and marry monogamously at 30, you will probably fuck more people in your lifetime than if you became sexually active at 17 and monogamously married at 24.

I would add here, it is really important to try to ground people in the statistical reality of typical “body counts” rather than going whole hog on trying to convince them that body counts don’t matter. It’s perfectly understandable to feel that someone who’s had 0 sexual partners and someone who’s had 100 may have different enough attitudes towards sex that a relationship between them might not work out. “You’re actually misogynist trash if you’d be intimidated to date a woman who had 100 past partners” is less effective for our purposes than “It’s possible that you wouldn’t be compatible with a woman who had that many past partners – you may not want her and she also may not want you! – but that’s just one example of the many reasons people can be incompatible that don’t come down to one of them being Bad and Unloveable.” 

Women are much more harsh and shallow than men, as evidenced by the studies where they rated 80% of men as Below Average on OKCupid. Women only message the most attractive men.

That study has been reported in SUCH a misleading way that it actually proves the opposite of what Incels think it proves. Although women WERE harsher in their ratings, they were actually MUCH MORE LIKELY THAN MEN to message users whose photos they didn't rate that high in attractiveness – possibly reflecting that women are more likely to realize that how you feel about someone’s picture isn’t a perfect predictor of whether you’ll find them attractive irl. (Just anecdotally speaking, most women I know report that men don’t take great pictures of themselves, so they may be giving them wiggle room for that.) The percentage of messages that goes to the most attractive women compared to the average woman, is much more extreme than the ratio for men. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-attractive/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJxteLDlJ-ORw_Sw-tDDYhHv0Xnvaco4Vk-d3mPRZg_Cu9ckzOf9FS-vbGz75_mnw7-uyqoldlf7-wEmbLo4KiFsvzkbw9kn9X3qTDZC9-ubfR9EXH54a0QVJ1QkyK1xK8osO_M9mGyNRK-ShWwPoEGt9ROicoGA4bIFnQnRe0cO

If you're not in the top 20% hottest men, no woman will ever want you.

71% of men between the ages of 25 and 44 have been married. It is mathematically impossible for 71% of men to be in the top 20%.

Women spend their youth fucking hot Chads and then settle down with ugly men later after they 'hit the wall'.

People of all genders tend to prioritize attractiveness more in a partner when they're young, their bodies are at Peak Sex Hormone, and their relationships are more about fun and passion than building a life together. People of all genders tend to increasingly prioritize stability, compatibility, and other life-building qualities once they're looking for someone to settle down with and start a family. This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s just smart. 

Looks obviously matter! It’s not true that dating is all about personality and respecting women! There is a middle ground between believing that looks don't matter at all and being fully blackpilled. "It's easier to get a girlfriend when you're tall and hot" is straightforwardly true, but so is, "regardless, literally millions of men who aren't tall or conventionally hot get laid and have loving relationships." I always say it like, being super conventionally attractive may mean you get to date on easy mode, but refusing to play the game because you didn't get to play it on easy mode is YOUR choice.

I’m too afraid to actually talk to women, but I can just tell that they all hate me!

It's impossible to judge whether you're actually unsuccessful with women if you never talk to them. If you aren't actually shooting your shot with the women you like, then you are “volcel” regardless of how you see yourself, just the same as how if you were unemployed and never applied to any jobs, that would make you unemployed by choice. Imagine you had a friend who was always complaining about how miserable it is to be unemployed and bemoaning all the things that make him unemployable, but then you found out he'd never applied to a single job -- or applied to fewer than ten before giving up altogether. That's most Incels, as far as dating is concerned.

For what it’s worth, this is why pickup artistry sometimes works much better than you would expect it to. Despite the obvious manipulation and general weirdness of pickup artist tactics, the fact remains that if you take a guy who was previously sitting in his bedroom hoping for pussy to fall from the ceiling, and you convince him to go out and hit on a bunch of women, his chances of getting laid will increase. Going out and talking to the people you find attractive is no guarantee of getting laid, but it is generally a prerequisite. 

I saw a bunch of Tweets and TikToks from women belittling short men and saying they’d never date one! Some of them had hundreds of thousands of likes!

You simply cannot take things that assholes say on the internet personally. I'm a 34 year old woman with Bipolar Disorder and 11 tattoos. Do you know how many heavily-liked Tweets there are about how women over 30, women with mental illnesses, and women with tattoos are untouchable garbage that no self-respecting man would ever entertain a relationship with? And yet... I'm married. Turns out a bunch of keyboard warriors raving about how no man would ever want me didn't actually prevent men from wanting me. You probably would think I was being a little unfair if I told you that seeing those posts made me despise all men, and a little unrealistic if it made me give up on dating. Literally ask any woman with blue hair and a septum piercing if men IRL find her as disgusting as men on the internet say they do.

If you read all this, thank you! And as always remember that I block absolutely everyone who annoys me on my posts, so if you feel moved to argue that anything short of trying to persuade avowed Incels to adopt full-bore sex-positive feminism is capitulation, or that we should just kill them all, or whatever, just remember you'll be arguing with yourself. Peace and love on planet Earth.

[victusinveritas]

Reminder: you can always just stop hating and being an asshole. You'll probably even feel better about yourself.

[creature-wizard]

Hey folks, something to keep in mind - far right indoctrination runs on a lot of pseudoscience and pseudohistory. Promoting and spreading real science and real history is incredibly important, both to help people deradicalize and to prevent people from being radicalized.

[nachobsns]

Hello - I was impressed and extremely relieved by what you wrote in the post about the cult mentality of the Left RE Israel and accusations of genocide. You mentioned that you bought into the mindset until recently. If it's all right for me to ask, what was it that helped you break out of it? (Please feel free to delete/ignore if you'd rather not answer!)

thank you!! and no worries about asking— i think i put something in my pinned post about how people are welcome to send asks about this stuff, although my story isn’t super interesting. i fell down the typical online rabbithole, a couple weeks after october 7; i knew what had happened, at least vaguely, but the posts trickling onto my dash were all about the (undeniably tragic) loss of life in gaza, with little to no acknowledgment of the hamas atrocities that had started the war, so my narrative was pretty one-sided from the beginning. it just continued to snowball as the months went on and people became more radicalized, calling into question the reality of the 10/7 attacks and the humanity of all israelis. i never went all the way down the pipeline to full-on endorsing hamas or justifying their attacks, at least on a personal level, thank god, but i would reblog other people’s posts referring to hamas as a “resistance movement” and calls to boycott starbucks and mcdonald’s and condemnation of the “zionist media” etc etc etc. what pulled me out of it wasn’t any one thing— if someone had directly called me on my flawed logic and antisemitic biases while i was in this mindset, i doubt it would have done much, just reinforced my belief that i was on the “right side of history” and zionists were aggressors who couldn’t be reasoned with. it was mostly just passive observance and a slow exposure to other perspectives. i’m pretty sure the first post that led me to question my thinking was an ask on jewish-vents, which popped up on my dash in like, late july. this led me down another rabbithole, first scouring every single post on jewish-vents, then moving on to more popular jewish blogs that i had seen on “zionist blocklists” (applesauce42069, xclowniex, and spacelazarwolf were probably some of the blogs that influenced me the most, though i told myself i was just hate-scrolling at first, lol). i felt incredibly guilty seeing all the harm the movement i was a part of had caused to random jews and israelis just trying to live their lives and i realized how it went against everything i believed about how minority groups should be treated. from there, the aspect of actually undoing my thinking and changing my behavior for the better still took several weeks. denial of jewish indigenity to the levant in the face of tantamount archeological and cultural evidence was the first to go, as well as any ambiguity in my feelings about hamas. after that, it’s mostly been a slow process of redefining the idf’s actions from a “genocide” to a “war.” i still believe that what’s happening in gaza is unconscionable and horrific, and that too many innocent civilians have died, but i also understand how difficult it is to fight against a terrorist group that systematically embeds itself in civilian populations, and that the ratio of militant to civilian deaths is incredibly low compared to most urban warfare. i quietly deleted my old blog in early august— if i had directly engaged in harassment against jews, i likely would have kept it to make amends to the harmed parties and put a face to my actions, but as was, i had just contributed to the larger atmosphere of antisemitism on this site, and i felt uncomfortable knowing that i had a blog full of sentiments that no longer matched my values and beliefs. i decided i would be better if i took my endorsement out of the equation entirely, because when you’re looking through the notes of a post, it obviously doesn’t matter if someone who’s reblogged it no longer agrees with what was said— their notes still count as tacit approval, and i did not want approval of this “activism” attached to my online presence. i still have unwanted kneejerk reactions that crop up sometimes, particularly around the fundraiser posts from people “in gaza”; even though i know logically that they have all the markers of scams, there is still a part of me that really wants to believe i could help.

[aqlstar]

Question for Jews and non Jews alike-

Has anyone seen someone go from supporting Hamas/Hezbollah/PFLP while claiming they aren’t antisemitic to understanding why those orgs are in fact antisemitic and changing their position?

Curious not because I think it’s a good use of our time to try to convince terrorist supporters why they’re wrong, but because if it’s a thing that people have had success with we could come up with a guide for well meaning gentiles to be able to deradicalize their friends.

Idk anyone have any ideas here? Open to everybody.

[odinsblog]

The fucking nerve of Netanyahu talking about “de-radicalizing” Palestinians, as he is committing genocide. Somebody needs to de-radicalize Benjamin Netanyahu and the state of Israel.

[boreal-sea]

Look,

If you’re slowly starting to question the extremely radicalized “pro-Palestine” edge of the current conflict, I’m proud of you.

If you’re quietly reading posts by Jews and learning more about the history of the region and it’s starting to change your mind, I’m proud of you.

If you’re questioning the things you believed when you got swept up by the momentum of the movement, I’m proud of you.

If you’re starting to think “yikes, maybe some of that actually was antisemitic”, I’m proud of you.

If you’re listening to more than one voice or one opinion on the matter, I’m proud of you.

You can do this.

Maybe at first you’re just going to quietly delete all those posts where you said “globalize the intifada” now that you know what that actually means. Maybe you’re going to quietly unblock a lot of Jews, and even follow some of their accounts. Maybe you’ll block the non-Jewish accounts that spread a lot of antisemitism and hatred, the ones that got you all angry and radicalized you in the first place.

Those are all good first steps towards deradicalization. It’s kind of scary to pull back from all that, but if you’re trying, I’m proud of you.

[pumpumdemsugah]

People online think deradicalisation can be achieved through the power of friendship and not a years long process that requires introspection, therapy, and sometimes professional deradicalisating services and if you're ever suspicious of someone with a past like that or you're even slightly mean to a white man, you're to blame for neo nazis, you're a fascist and not leftist and you can't play with my toys anymore.

" If someone's changed, you should forgive them or its sin (not leftist)." ok, youth pastor

What do you people think forgiveness is because it doesn't mean people are obligated to be around you. There are literal groups dedicated to deradicalisating people and have been trained to do so. Your white ass doesn't need to try to guilt other people into " forgiveness."

Every day, people on here make it clear they grew up as deeply obnoxious white American Christians and all ideas about community need to function like a fucking church where everyone needs to play nice or they're going to hell...sorry I mean not a real leftist

[thestrangerinyourmidst]

One thing that struck me at my intro to judaism course today as we were learning about zionism was that my shul's cantor made it clear to us that we are not required to be zionists to become Jewish.

One accusation I've had thrown at my rabbi and my congregation by multiple people is that they are just telling us (conversion students) Israeli propaganda. Which in itself is problematic because it feeds the antisemetic "Jews are liars and manipulators and can't be trusted" trope, but it also shows a fundamental lack of understanding in the way a synagouge functions. There is no preacher who tells you "this is what we believe" the Rabbi or another member of the congregation may present to the congregation something that they personally got out of the text, but won't force you to believe that. Similarly, members of the congregation are likely to want you to join in on discussions and debates about any number of topics but won't force you to believe what they believe. The ability to learn, understand, and make an informed decision is highly valued, especially in the reform/progressive movements.

I used to be a bit of a hamasnik (thankfully a nonconfrontational and nonviolent one) and it was a combination of learning Jewish history, talking to people who have lived in Israel or have family in Israel, and hearing live updates about the hostages, combined with a non-threatening and non-confrontational environment where I was never forced to submit to frivolous morality tests or risk being shunned from my community that made me realise I can actually think for myself.

[alittleannihilati0n]

Trying to deradicalize my MAGA teenage sister and I need to crowdsource some info! For the time being, I can pretty easily access her Instagram (which is her main social media) and follow/unfollow/mute accounts, but i have to be subtle so she doesn't catch on. I muted Charlie Kirk, but I don't think I can do much else in terms of muting/unfollowing without it being obvious tampering. Are there any creators anyone knows of who make subtle deradicalization content? I've found a lot of deconstructers or ex-maga/right-wingers, but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for accounts that couch their deradicalization content in language that doesn't immediately turn off people who are currently MAGA. If anyone knows of any, please lmk in the replies or reblogs!! Also do me a favor and reblog this if you can, I actually wanna get some visibility for this post so I can get more responses.

[wirewitchviolet]

Observing an Infantalized 4chan Nazi

So recently I fell down a real serious rabbithole with a game that really puts your brain through the ringer. Nobody I know seems to want anything to do with it, so I wandered into some discord trying to find people to compare notes with and get my head around some more headache-y bits. It's not my community, I don't really know the vibe, I'm still feeling it out, but the other day someone new wandered in, and I dunno, I feel like a researcher lucking into an unexpected glimpse at a rare phenomenon in the field, or maybe like a vampire hunter stumbling onto someone who only just got bit and is having stomach pains because he tried to eat garlic bread. One of those.

See, I'm no stranger to watching nazis try to sneak into communities for nefarious purposes. It's always the same song and dance where they try real hard to come off like polite functional human beings, and casually ease into their talking points, and then their masks slip right off because if they could conduct themselves like rational empathetic human beings, they wouldn't have ended up as nazis. This here though isn't one of those. This is someone who seems to just have wandered in here for tips on how this weird game works, who doesn't have the wherewithal to even try to act like a normal person.

He's just attempting to ask questions about game mechanics, and it's spilling out as this weird mix of disgusting Nazi frog pictures, self-flagellation, slurs, and weird baby talk. I'm trying to find something that can be quoted in polite company and I just can't. Here's the closest I can manage, with apologies:

"I dont have enough weaponised autism to play this game LOL"

And when questioned on that phrasing- "I dont have the 4chan/pol weaponised Elon autism. I have the garden variety THE DUMB"

Both of these of course paired up with gross poorly drawn Pepes, one drooling, one... committing an act of self-harm. The vibe I'm getting off the entire server is this mix and disgust and confusion at this gross pathetic mess. There's some polite hinting that this isn't cool to maybe try and catch a mod's attention, and there's some effort being made to parse out the actual questions and answer them. Then there's a bunch of blubbering from the channer shocked at anyone being willing to engage with him.

Meanwhile of course I'm over here on the sidelines, just kinda simmering with rage and knowing better than to open my mouth, over just being in the presence of one of these creeps, all the casual hate speech, nazi symbols, and vile imagery, idol worship of deeply hateful and stupid people, the total lack of self-awareness, and, like the title says, just general disgust at the weird cocktail of learned helplessness and self-loathing simmering in that sort of environment has reduced what I assume is physically a fully capable of adult into.

But, I say through incredibly clenched teeth, I suppose this here really is sort of the ideal scenario for our rare specimen here. He's not SO far gone that he's completely given up on having actual interests and at least trying to make some kind of attempt at healthy interactions with people. Again, usually when I see a nazi in some discord, there is zero question that they are there for absolutely no purpose beyond trying to recruit/attack/spy on people. So theoretically, not completely beyond saving here. And he's getting a taste of how normal people interact, with a nice contrast against the nazi crap, and doing... yeah literally anything with his time but marrinating in hate. He just needs to stop metaphorically dropping his pants and taking a giant dump on the floor every time he enters a room and to talk like an actual damn adult and not some kind of racist giant baby.

So in this one very specific case, hey, glad to see it, here's hoping he slips away from the chan scene and focuses on games or whatever. But before anyone gets any ideas about running around redeeming nazis or anything, keep in mind the following things- I only see this as even potentially on the table here because this is a rare unicorn situation of someone who's clearly been cooking in a nazi stew long enough to lose all ability hold a conversation like a civilized person but not QUITE so long as to stop seeing other people as anything but potential targets or recruits, a window that tends to be so short I've maybe seen it one other time ever. Even under these rare ideal conditions, odds are pretty low this particular channer is going to actually withdraw from that scene in favor of say this random discord, not have some kind of relapse, not pose a clear threat or danger to anyone, and it's not like people who stop being slur-spewing nazis magically turn into decent people. Best case scenario's still going to be a fairly repellent right-wing creep, just you know, one who keeps quiet about it and lives a normal life instead of being some indoctrinated fanatical foot soldier actively antagonizing people.

[odinsblog]

war criminals 🇷🇺🤝🇮🇱

The Joseph Goebbels, “always accuse the other side of that which you are guilty of doing” strategy has always worked remarkably well on a lot of people, especially tankies and their counterparts, authoritarian conservatives.

Who will deradicalize Israel, and denazify Russia??

[jewish-vents]

I hate that it's our responsibility to deradicalise them

it's not our responsibility to deradicalise antisemites, our responsibility is to live our life respectful and kind to others, and to do our part to better the world or our community.

there's no use talking to people who think you're less human for the way you were born or because of actions others are taking in what they believe to be in your name, especially if they're not people you know personally. you can always try to explain to them if you believe it comes from a place of misinformation or ignorance, but it's not your responsibility to change their mind.

please stay safe anon 💙

[aloeverawrites]

The basics:

Human rights are important.

Animals rights are important.

Abuse is never okay.

Marginalised communities deserve to be exist and be respected.

Harming others is wrong, being odd is okay as long as no harm is being caused.

Words can hurt.

The goal is world peace.

[screamingfromuz]

hi. i know this isn't an easy question to answer but i'm very lost right now so i would appreciate any advice. how can you deradicalise someone away from conspiracy theories? my white roommate has been liking israel did 10/7 posts, as well as some praising mob attacks on random diaspora jews, and i'm really scared. it's all because of twitter. i've given her my login info for a couple of newspapers i subscribe to but she hasn't been reading them. i've sent her links to books/podcasts but she doesn't open them (just says oh thank you and then nothing). she doesn't listen when i tell her bluntly she should stop getting her news from the site run by a neonazi. i am not a zionist and i know i'm significantly more pro palestine than her (she didn't even know who ben gvir was or what the west bank was the one time we talked about it, i really think it's just a Correct Twitter Opinion for her), but i'm scared she'll dismiss me as anti palestinian and deem me a bad jew if i say anything and i'm not in a position to move out rn. i'm so nervous and feel like i'm walking on eggshells all the time. please let me know if you know of any resources for this kind of situation. i don't know what to do

first, I know you said you cannot move out right now, but get an escape plan ready, just in case. Deradicalization should never come at the cost of your safety.

two, efficient deradicalization does not use facts, sending articles and podcasts is useless because of the nature of ideologies. Althusser explained that ideologies have a central place in the perception of reality of someone, your ideology is part of you, and forcing change on others never ends well. If you want to deradicalize her, you must engage in a conversation that acknowledge emotions and the way people get defensive when their opinions are challenged. Talk about the emotional reality of the matter, ask her why she thinks that it was an inside job, or what makes her comfortable attacking random Jews and them deconstruct that belief with her. If you feel comfortable, you can ask if she thinks it's ok if you were attacked, if she would praise people that would put you in danger.

this will require the trickiest thing in deradicalization, you must not come from a place of moral superiority, you must come from a place of equality and serve as a companion and not a guide. deradicalization is placing a mirror in front of someone and helping them examine themselves and develop empathy for "others".

this is a long process, that often requires you to teach people a whole new language. I can tell you that part of deradicalization here is simply getting the term "Palestinian" into the vocabulary.

I will warn you, it only works if the other person has a desire to change. deradicalization is a lot like speech therapy, it will take time.

this is a great video that might give you tools. Daryl Davis is am amazing person and a role model for how to deradicalize people.

good luck love, be safe.