I think you can run into a lot of people who relish in how much they don't give a fuck about things that don't directly affect them.

Absolutely, I’ve met them too, but I think people like that are a minority, and probably not worth trying to reach when there are easier targets.

And its hearts and minds informed by this individualism that enter into gendered issues of which some are relevant to choosing leftist philosophy. I seldom hear people espousing the importance of focusing on your locus of control also telling you to use it to help others unless you're already in a leftist space.

I do think individualism is a spectrum and some of these folks are reachable. “People who want more autonomy” is a broader category than “people who relish not giving a fuck about things that don’t directly affect them.” People feel helpless, work is a desperate grind to go nowhere. I understand the impulse.

[Hasan Piker] is a good influence and uses his platform well [but] he's going to get blocked out of hearts and minds by accusations of "just be attractive (or worse)" […] If you can't tap into that disillusionment, you can't tap into the lines that get to the kids who grows up to think the military is cool or the entrepreneur who winds up peddling supplements and dropshipping courses.

It depends on what they want. If they want respect, both patriarchy and leftism have answers. If they specifically want to get better at dating, the good advice is more compatible with leftism. But if our question is not, “who can help disillusioned, individualistic young men frustrated with dating,” but rather, “who appeals to them,” yeah, manosphere grifters have the edge. But I think leftists could compete with them, we could use their own weirdness and toxicity against them.

Earlier you talked about impulses that are intrinsic to the left, vs pragmatic recruiting tactics. The impulse to bash manosphere grifters is intrinsic to the left; maybe one outlet for that impulse would be to give better daring advice than them. I can imagine a trend of “non-toxic dating advice for dudes: how to develop an actually attractive personality and not turn into a weird Andrew Tate-watching incel”-type videos, where some central figures in that ecosystem are leftists who help set the tone.

Manosphere grifters don’t actually help their viewers, they trap them in a cycle of bitterness and outrage. Sooner or later that bubble has to pop, there’s gonna be a cultural swing back in the other direction, no matter how much the capitalists prop this stuff up with their algorithms. The truth on the ground will win out.

If you ask me, the actually helpful advice boils down to politically neutral but leaning-toward-kindness advice like “confidence is attractive, learn to hold a conversation, learn to listen and build rapport, empathize, have a sense of humor, have friends and be well-liked, know yourself and be genuine, know your worth, and don’t send contradictory signals with your words and body language.”

Reactionary politics gets in the way of that! All the male chauvinism and pressure to “be a man” makes these dudes toxic and insecure. They end up with fragile egos, they don’t know how to handle rejection, they can’t empathize, they’re emotionally stunted, they hate themselves for not meeting every exaggerated standard of masculinity, and because they hate themselves they can’t develop the self-knowledge to be genuine with other people. They’re angry, bitter manchildren. None of that is attractive!

Outrage and bitterness do sell. Manosphere chauvinism is “baked into the superstructure” as you said earlier, it’s easy to pitch. But it has a weakness, which is that it sucks, the people selling it suck, the people buying it suck, the advice sucks. It’s so bad. “Stare at the mirror and tell yourself you’re an alpha male” is a fucking weird thing to do, and that weirdness dooms its staying power.

You want an attractive male stereotype to sell? If we’re talking stereotypes, how about the affable working class chad who sticks up for his coworkers and doesn’t brownnose to the boss like a hall monitor. He’s popular at the after-work bar, he gets along with the staff there. Everyone knows he’s a standup guy. He might tease you in a goodnatured way but he’d also give you the shirt off his back if you were in a pinch. He respects women. His ego’s not fragile. He can handle rejection. And he’s a socialist, he thinks big, he has a dream for the future that he would risk his life for. This guy is hot, and so are the female and enby versions of him.

he didn't feel like they represent a ethically reprehensible institution, but that they violated a contract and threatened his family. And I think that is a distinction informed by the ideals of masculinity he references in the manifesto and imbibes his actions.

I don’t want to psychoanalyze Luigi, but the reasons people give are not always the reasons deep down. People are good at rationalizing why they do things, and if he’s bought into the masculine scripts of our culture he might reach for those, but human behavior is deeper than the logic we use to explain it.

He watched the hell of his mother’s ever-worsening chronic pain, and then he developed chronic pain of his own. That’s a nightmare. I think in some ways this assassination was a form of suicide for a guy staring down the barrel of the same pain and indignity his mother suffered.

It’s also compensation for his stolen future. He’s an Ivy League grad, class valedictorian, he’s athletic and attractive, he has all this promise, but chronic pain rips that promise away. With this high-profile assassination I think he takes back some of what he’s lost, he gets to leave his mark on the world.

He must feel some solidarity with other victims of the health insurance industry. How could he not? He knows their pain firsthand, and secondhand through his mother. Maybe he explains his actions using masculine scripts, but I don’t think those scripts conjured his actions. Pain did.

Patriarchy might have added a little extra sting when he lost his future, and a little extra social reward for committing an act of violence, but I don’t think that’s enough justification for masculinity to claim the entire act. The situation is already intrinsically motivating.