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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29033 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024

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because men who are plausible leaders will never be actual incels

I suppose what you meant to say was that no group of men accepts an incel as their leader?

and no one will take the massive status hit that comes with taking up any incel-adjacent positions.

In a patriarchal society where early marriage and monogamy are the norm, this would be generally the case indeed.

I suppose what you meant to say was that no group of men accepts an incel as their leader?

A man leading a large group of men will be automatically be attractive to women and will either go fuck them or be a volcel. Albeit a larger count of incel followers than average men would be needed.

I suppose what you meant to say was that no group of men accepts an incel as their leader?

If a man is sufficiently attractive / outgoing / interesting / popular enough to be a leader of men, he is also sufficiently attractive / outgoing / interesting / popular enough to be a fucker of women.

You're aware that the male attributes that gain the respect of other men and those that sexually attract women are normally rather different, aren't you?

They actually aren’t, though.

For one, there’s the halo effect: i.e. it’s natural for humans of both genders to assume that a person successful in one field is also successful in another. So ‘success as a leader of men’ will prejudice women positively towards such a man on other axes, and ‘success as a c(h)ad’ will prejudice men positively towards such a man on other axes, symmetrically. I’ve been reading a history of Italy lately, and this is pretty much Berlusconi’s entire (winning) strategy both in politics and in Bunga Bunga.

But we don’t even require such a Fully General Argument as the halo effect to demonstrate the thesis - assessing it in detail also makes it seem like there’ll be general “popularity” skills rather than gender-audience specific ones. Being a good conversationalist, being extroverted, openness to new experiences, gregariousness - all traits which will improve one’s success both as a leader and as a lover.

I don’t dispute that some traits like “Autistic knowledge of Gundam anime” is male leadership material in specific (one might say contrived) situations, like choosing a team captain when entering a Gundam trivia quiz, but in the vast majority of cases, Chad gets both the girl and the crown because both genders want the same thing.

‘success as a c(h)ad’ will prejudice men positively towards such a man on other axes, symmetrically.

That's probably true - although I'm not sure about the 'symmetrically' part - but that's a different matter. Yes, the observable results of one's attractiveness to women will likely prejudice men in such ways. That doesn't mean that the traits that sexually attract women in the first place will socially attract men as followers as well.

I'm not sure where the snark related to Gundam comes from, but anyway, that's very obviously not what I had in mind. I'd say the traits that gain the respect of other men and attract them as followers are roughly:

  • the ability to coordinate the efforts of a group of men for a common cause
  • having executive function
  • being virtuous (keeping your word, honoring your vows, being strict but fair)
  • bravery
  • holding your followers to the same standards

Why are leaders of men disproportionately physically attractive and tall (relative to the general male population, adjusting for age etc) then? This is true even when these men are selected overwhelmingly by other men, as with male CEOs of companies where a large majority of board seats are occupied by men.

Why are leaders of men disproportionately physically attractive and tall (relative to the general male population, adjusting for age etc) then?

I'm not sure that this is true.

http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2014/06/09/tall-ceos-how-height-helps/

https://wol.iza.org/press-releases/does-it-pay-to-be-beautiful

This is pretty well known and studied. Though it may be confounded by a negative effect on the other end, truly ugly people are often dysfunctional on other points as well.

These studies aren't strictly about "leaders of men" but leaders and employees of current corporations in which presumably also include women to a large degree (maybe not 50% but surely close to that).

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I'd turn the whole thing around and say the act of leading men is in itself enough to make one attractive to women.

Russia's most known "incel", Alexei Podnebesny had multiple women (probably will get jail time for something)

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