Reason With Logic Filling said
If automation and manufacturing advances to Star Trek level we might someday not have to pay people anymore to do anything and we could all just do what we want
Quotes are not my thing but something about an idle mind and the devil’s playground comes to mind
More seriously, some very good points made on this thread. From the perspective of “where is this coming from”, this is a fairly random interpretation –
Gaze said
Fairness sounds like the real issue. This is not about the sexism of a few who use dissatisfaction with relationships to justify wanting things they are offered. The incent bashing doesn't solve the problem of why there are inequities in dating or relationships. Nothing is unrealistic or unsound about feeling you are owed a relationship. It's a principle our entire society is built on. How many people go through life never feeling they are owed anything, just accepting whatever they have. Chances are very few.
The first thought which hit me here was of a study published years ago which concluded those in the middle of a depressive episode had the most realistic assessment of what was going on in their lives while the controls (not depressed) had a view which was “unrealistically positive” such that those people expected positive outcomes out of various situations
as the default outcome. This point has been brought up as the whole issue of ‘entitlement’ and whether it is egotistical or normal to have this as part of our perception…. Which would be off-topic so not going there.
But it does look like fairness is a real issue with the incel group, and as life is not inherently fair or unfair, presenting this as some absolute static quality immediately puts it in the subjective perception domain – basically they believe life is bloody unfair, all the time, for all eternity. Others have pointed out society’s tendency to pigeonhole everyone into the parameters of the general population, and this does indeed encourage the extreme beliefs even if it is not a root cause.
Souvenir said
Some men sometimes aren't able to connect with women at all or form real friendships with women and some men have become corrupted by resentment being afraid or unable to cope with rejection. They typically choose at that point to move into the pickup artist type community where they have a goal and the goal is irrelevant to the woman - as in sex is the goal and the woman in this goal could be another woman or any woman.
And this is relevant too because the beliefs that life is unfair and one will always get rejected do come from the same place (and even appear similar with the ‘always’ in there) so this has been silently accepted by this group but is now being communicated through anger and rage.
The issue of entitlement fits in as well although all the examples given are relatively mild – “I should get paid X because I have the skills to do this job”, “if I am nice to people I hope they’ll be nice back” – and these are also rather positive. They encourage positive behavior or productivity and don’t really look particularly outlandish or abnormal. Contrast this with a statement like “I need this so desperately and must have it at all costs” which is extreme, negative, and sounds like it’s describing deprivation rather than entitlement. And because it’s extreme and rather static it again comes across as subjective perception rather than anything reasonable.
So we have two extreme subjective beliefs, both negative, both laced with a heavy dose of desperation, and both looking suspiciously like out of control defense mechanisms. And they even have a common aim – to prevent the person from ever forming the relationship they declare they want so badly. Based on the responses here (and really no surprise) I’d say they are succeeding – though at the expense of all the people involved. (Though as Souvenir points out, the slightly less extreme versions are quite dangerous as they would have just enough "up front decent behavior" to reel someone in and potentially turn her life upside down..)