
How two British orthodontists became celebrities to incels - elsewhen
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/magazine/teeth-mewing-incels.html
======
TrackerFF
I'm gonna be honest, some years ago morbid curiosity lead me to visit the most
prominent incel forum - this was before "incel" simply became the alias for
"angry misogynistic males".

The forum regulars were mostly self-proclaimed incels. They'd analyze "chads"
to the most microscopic detail, and draw conclusions - to them, if there was a
correlation, then that implied causation, because in the end, they were
desperately looking for answers which they had no control over.

Things they could change, such as social skills, attire, and what not were
usually the laughing stock. No way were women interested in any of those
aspects - women were, in their eyes, attracted to some male because his
inherent facial features - again, often to the microscopic details.

These guys were obsessed with the immutable (or near immutable), and would
daydream about spending hundreds of thousands to alter their faces and bodies,
to meet their own perceived beauty standards - which was always a beauty
typical to masculine male models.

But, yes, it became too much. These guys would practically do nothing but post
sob stories, detailed analysis of male faces, and rants on women. It became
one nasty echo-chamber where top posters were just feeding each others misery.

If you were an incel, you were so simply because of your genes. There was
nothing that could be done, other than very expensive and extensive surgeries.

And then you had the extremists. Those that would idolize mass murderers,
perceived or self-confessed incels. They'd start catfishing girls on dating
apps, stalk people, all that. It was extremely toxic.

Truly a bizarre, but sad community. I can def. see some normal kids joining
just for the laughs, then slowly get normalized and radicalized, starting to
both doubt themselves, and believing the propaganda.

~~~
gridlockd
Fair enough, but the problem is that a lot of what an incel may believe
appears to be true. You're ignoring all the research that supports them.

It's not that mutable attributes do not matter, but sexual selection is more a
like a sales funnel than a breakdown of pros and cons. If you are very short,
your attire can not make up for it. If you have an ugly face, muscle mass
isn't going to revert that. Very high earning potential _can_ make up for
these shortcomings, but at that point you might question the motivation of the
potential partner. See Table 5.4 (looks) and 5.5 (height):

[http://home.uchicago.edu/~hortacsu/onlinedating.pdf](http://home.uchicago.edu/~hortacsu/onlinedating.pdf)

We'd all like to live in a world where we can tell everyone "If only you work
hard enough, you will find success in the end". We like to believe in cosmic
justice.

Unfortunately, that's not how nature works. Evolution works by discarding the
weakest contenders from the gene pool. That ungrateful job is performed by the
females, and it's unsurprising that those rejected males would harbor
resentment, power fantasies and other moral delusions.

~~~
edanm
You are wrong. You are _demonstrably_ wrong, in that you can just observe that
almost every "disadvantage" that incels talk about (as I understand it), also
exists in 40-50 year olds who are happily married.

E.g. being short is certainly a _disadvantage_ when dating, that's obviously
true - but it's just as obviously true that being short does not mean you will
be an incel for life - how can you possibly think that it does, given the
myriad short people who are doing just fine. Can they date literally any
partner they want? No, no one can. But can they date _someone_ , can they be
non-celibate? Yes, demonstrably so.

It's certainly true that everyone is a mix of more desirable attributes and of
less desirable attributes, and some people get a bigger mix than others. Some
are mutable, some are immutable.

The big problem with the incel worldview (as I understand it) is that it's
completely binary - you are either capable of finding a sexual partner, or
not, and some traits (that they believe they have) mean that they are on the
wrong side. But that's just utterly unfounded, again, because take any trait
that is supposedly disqualifying, and you'll find someone (plenty of someones)
with those traits that are in sexual relationships.

~~~
privacy_bodger
That refutes "a single bad card in your hand means you will inevitably lose".
It doesn't refute "At some point your hand is so bad you're basically [not]
fucked from the start". Which I think might be a fairer statement of incel
beliefs.

~~~
krapp
>It doesn't refute "At some point your hand is so bad you're basically [not]
fucked from the start". Which I think might be a fairer statement of incel
beliefs.

Serial killers get marriage proposals from behind bars. Ugly men, including
men with physical deformities, find partners. Men without working penises
still have sexual relationships. Even if there were such a thing as "basically
[not] fucked from the start," the vast majority of incels would be nowhere
near that extreme.

I mean, look at the patron saint of incels (canonized as such by the incel
community itself) Elliot Rodger. Did life deal him such a terrible hand that
dating was impossible, or was the only thing standing in his way _himself_ and
his own twisted, hateful and _false_ view of women and the world around him?

~~~
privacy_bodger
The fact serial killers get marriage proposals does not mean that people who
are not serial killers necessarily get marriage proposals.

I suspect if somebody is hideously deformed and does not have a working penis,
they're going to have a lot of difficulty finding a romantic partner.
Presumably there are large numbers of people who have those and similar
issues. I think they should be allowed to talk about that, and not have people
respond by comparing them to Elliot Rodger.

That these things didn't (Ok I don't know about the penis thing) apply to
Elliot Rodger doesn't mean they don't apply to anybody.

~~~
krapp
> The fact serial killers get marriage proposals does not mean that people who
> are not serial killers necessarily get marriage proposals.

Yes, you are correct that the fact serial killers get marriage proposals does
not mean that people who are not serial killers necessarily get marriage
proposals, however that was not the argument that I was making. Serial killers
have extremely undesirable personality traits which, typically, one would
assume should exclude them from the dating pool. Despite these traits, however
serial killers manage to be attractive to people. The conclusion to be reached
here is that there is a wide range of personality traits, including negative
and antisocial traits, which women can find attractive.

>I suspect if somebody is hideously deformed and does not have a working
penis, they're going to have a lot of difficulty finding a romantic partner.

Again, yes, you are correct. But I was not arguing that it was common, rather,
I was arguing that there is a wide range of physical attributes which women
find attractive, and including deformity implicitly includes the entire range
range of attributes one would consider non-traditionally attractive as well,
and again (refer to the previous argument) most incels likely do not fall
outside of this range in terms of their physical appearance.

Therefore, the argument that every incel is somehow undateable due to
immutable and innate characteristics is demonstrated to be false when the
variety of physical, psychological and social traits of the entire population
which is dating is considered. Edanm's comment above is correct - there are
very few, if any, incels for whom a person with practically the same physical
and psychological circumstances couldn't be found, but with a partner.

>Presumably there are large numbers of people who have those and similar
issues. I think they should be allowed to talk about that, and not have people
respond by comparing them to Elliot Rodger.

If they don't want to be associated with people like him, they shouldn't self-
identify with a community that considers him a hero and a martyr for their
beliefs.

~~~
privacy_bodger
I think that's all broadly untrue or nonsensical, but I'm not going to argue
it point by point.

Basically, I think people should try to have some empathy for people who are
having a bad time. I don't really get why so many people are so adamant that
that should not happen. But I get that I'm not likely to change your mind
about anything at this point.

~~~
edanm
> Basically, I think people should try to have some empathy for people who are
> having a bad time.

I completely agree, and I have a lot of empathy for people who are unable to
find a partner. I was a very geeky "late bloomer" myself, and went through a
luckily small period where everyone around me was able to find relationships,
and I wasn't.

So when I say I think incels are _wrong_ in their view of the world, it's not
out of a lack of empathy - it's because I think the most important thing to
tell incels _is_ that they are wrong. I have no idea how to make this a
message that will actually resonate with them, but I wish I could. The cure to
believing you will never be able to get something that you desperately want,
and that you actually can get with >99% certainty, is to learn that your
belief is wrong.

------
chubot
Woah I have heard of the Mews, but had no idea about the "incel" connection.

That feels mostly like a distraction to me. Here are some related HN links,
nothing to do with "incels".

I recommend reading "Jaws" by Kahn and "Breath" by Nestor. Both of them
mention John Mew. He was an early advocate of the harmful effects of certain
orthodontic practices on breathing. Sometimes the problem doesn't show up for
decades.

\-----

 _Breathing habits are related to physical and mental health (wsj.com)_
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23271572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23271572)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23434377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23434377)
\- _Fitful nightly sleep linked to chronic inflammation, hardened arteries_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24012001](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24012001)
\- Book recommendation

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23665164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23665164)
\- _Has anyone fixed their own bruxism?_

\-----

I'm thinking of starting a blog on this subject, after mostly fixing my own
breathing, with a lot of help... If anyone is interested feel free to mail me
(e-mail in profile)

~~~
emsy
There are a lot of dismissive comments in this thread about “Mewing”. Not
because studies disproved his theory but because no study proves it yet, which
I find ignorant. It reminds me of the critics of Semelweiss that laughed about
the idea that hand washing would save patients lives. I’m not saying Mew is
right, I simply think dismissing a plausible theory outright is dumb.

~~~
api
Unfortunately the best way to discredit something is to have a toxic community
like incels pick it up.

------
Xophmeister
I found this super-interesting, but the article's cliff hanger was left
unsatisfactorily unresolved.

So skeletal records show that malocclusion wasn't regularly observed before
around the time of the industrial revolution. Why not? I presume that
mainstream orthodontics is evidence-based and that these guys are either
deluded or charlatans, but on the other hand, they at least had the scientific
curiosity to challenge the status quo. I don't buy their conclusion -- and the
incel/alt right/whatever weirdness doesn't help -- but how does mainstream
dentistry account for the sudden physiological change?

~~~
drcode
Dentistry seems like an extremely conservative profession, and one that
received very little attention from outsiders. This story definitely makes me
wonder if there are still a lot of "low hanging fruit" in dentistry that have
been left unexplored.

It does seem rather strange that nearly be 100% of parents are told that their
kids' mouths are terribly messed up and need expensive procedures. Never are
parents offered any convincing scientific explanation for why everyone's mouth
seems to go counter to all the usual biological rules of evolutionary
adaptation.

~~~
klipt
Implant dentistry seems to acknowledge that jawbones atrophy without exposure
to bite forces, which is one reason they recommend implants over false teeth.
False teeth don't transit enough bite force to the jawbone, which causes
atrophy and leads to the recessed chins common in older toothless people.

~~~
phkahler
Yes, diet is important. Feed young kids jerky and other things that take some
effort to chew. It makes the jaw grow so there will be more room.

Another thing told to me by a mechanical engineer who is the son of a dentist:
people from different countries can have different characteristics and inter-
breeding may cause problems. He said oh, German teeth in an Irish mouth - the
kid in question is indeed a mix from those two places. My kids ortho said they
do things differently depending on race too. Example they gave was that
Chinese teeth tend to be more straight across the front as opposed to more
arched, so they take that into account when doing braces.

~~~
modeless
Jerky sounds like it would work, but probably not a great idea to eat every
day. I've heard a lot of people saying kids should eat harder to chew foods
but not a lot of suggestions about what hard-to-chew foods would actually be
appropriate, healthy, not a choking hazard, and palatable to a toddler.

~~~
ibeckermayer
What’s wrong with eating jerky every day?

~~~
kabouseng
Jerky easily gets stuck between the teeth, requiring flossing to get out.
Children ain't great at daily flossing, leading to tooth cavities.

~~~
wincy
I thought sugar was the only thing that actually caused cavities?

~~~
indecisive_user
As I understand it, sugar feeds the main bacterial catalyst for cavities (s.
Mutans), but food stuck between the teeth provides them protection from the
mechanical forces of brushing.

------
didibus
> The orthodontists stressed that no one had ever conducted a credible study
> of orthotropics, and so all of the Mews’ claims of its efficacy were
> unproved

To me, this is the gist. Obviously there's not infinite resources to research
all theories, and one needs to make educated guess into where to best put the
funds for which theory to research. That said, I do believe we're realizing
that a lot of sciences have gotten a bit in a state of complacency, in some
ways, the job is a job, you learn and apply. True curiosity and breakthrough
is hard and rare, but it seems the institutions have also lost a drive towards
them.

Unless the article is missing other factual information, like hard
overwhelming evidence of the genetics theory for example. But still, as a
truth seeker.

So it leaves me wondering, what else is being researched in orthodontistry?
Where's the fund going? What theories are considered worth investigating? Or
is the whole field just stale?

------
pengaru
I read an article not long ago that claimed the reason post-industrialized
human teeth are all sort of messed up and don't fit in their small jaws is
people don't chew on things early in life anymore.

The claim was that while genetics determine the ultimate form a jaw will take,
its complete growth requires stimulation from resistance and usage during the
formative years.

So if you have kids, I guess feed them ribs to gnaw on instead of spoon-
delivered goop and give them chew toys instead of pacifiers?

~~~
gerdesj
When I was teething I used to chew on Bonios - dog biccies and I carried on
eating them until about six or seven. My nickname was Gnasher for a while. I
had my four pre-molars removed aged 10 or 11 but my teeth were still too large
for my gob. I wore a brace "spider" to try and move my upper incisors into
something like the right place.

I've had two of my wisdom teeth removed. One was impacted and the removal was
a quite unpleasant ordeal over 45 minutes. At one point the (female) nurse put
me in a hold that I (male) can only describe as a bit of a highlight but it
was needed because breaking my tooth took a lot of grunt. The other was
whipped out 20 years later before I even knew the dentist had got a grip on
it. The pain relief from that extraction is nearly indescribable.

I don't think that dentistry is quite as simple as we think. My problems seem
to stem from when I was a toddler and cracked a baby incisor on a step. The
tooth eventually "died" and went a bit weird. When it finally came out it had
a huge root with a small hook on the end compared to the one next door to it.
My teeth also seem to be too big for my jaw size.

Incidentally my mum never used a dummy (pacifier) on her children. Ever.

------
user_501238901
There are still hunter-gatherer populations of humans who have the same
lifestyle as they did 10 thousand years ago. Wouldn't studying their skulls
settle this debate?

~~~
AlotOfReading
Modern hunter-gatherers are generally not considered representative of our
ancient ancestors. I can go into more detail if anyone's curious, but the
short version is that they've had just as long to "evolve" as we have and the
extant groups are those that were able to live in _very_ marginal environments
where no one else could, among other things.

Of course there's debate both ways and lots of people trying to tease out the
parts that _are_ representative, but it's unsettled enough that I recommend
just thinking of them as wholly unrepresentative.

~~~
ip26
Whether or not they are representative, I thought they generally have been
observed to have perfect teeth?

(Except for the ones foraging a lot of honey)

~~~
AlotOfReading
A lot of foragers feast extensively on honey and other wild sugars. The Hadza
mentioned in a sister comment are one such group and the males have a higher
proportion of tooth decay than the females (with little access to honey).
Additionally, some groups like the Mbuti practice dental modification that can
severely impact tooth health, particularly in older people.

What I wasn't sure about was (A) whether craniofacial morphology changes with
diet/economic mode and (B) whether that transition is also associated with
disorders. I'm not remotely qualified to evaluate the latter, but the former
is apparently true. A quick spin through Google pulled up a bunch of well-
known papers I've encountered before that pointed it out. Must have just
forgotten that detail.

[1]
[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2006.01.004](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2006.01.004)

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/IgV7x](https://archive.is/IgV7x)

~~~
johnyzee
Thanks. Please try to add 'paywall' to your comment, that makes it easier to
find quickly.

------
rsynnott
> “What would be the point?” he said. “If someone doesn’t look good, I’ll just
> say they didn’t comply; and if they do look good, I’ll just say they did.”

Don't think you're supposed to say that bit out loud....

------
Igelau
Dentistry is a bit on the arcane side as it is. The Lund lawsuit. The sudden
realization a few years ago that no one could actually point to proof that
flossing does anything. When they quote an orthodontist (let's face it, they
make a killing selling binding for mostly aesthetic reasons - at least in the
US) as saying one of these Mews is an idiot... it stinks of the pot calling
the kettle quack.

------
serf
so, after the past few years incel has shifted from "involuntarily celibate" ,
to "young men who congregate online and who explain their lack of romantic
success through a toxic and misogynistic ideology." , NYTimes definition mid-
article, not mine.

Pretty shitty, given that the title 'incel' is rarely self-appointed in
comparison to the amount that its' bandied about by those who seek to insult
by mockery or phrase.

This points to an over-simplifying of the language.

People who have poor romantic luck and charisma _ARE NOT ALWAYS THE SAME_ as
people who gather around social outlets online in order to share 'toxic and
misogynistic' opinions -- but public opinion and media are referring to both
parties as 'incels'.

This means that the simply unlucky and uncharismatic folks are being pigeon-
holed by society and the media to get out of the 'incel' title simply to stave
off comparison between themselves and _the bad incels_.

It's weird that a pro-sex movement finally won over the hearts of the public
by demonizing and chastising those unfortunate enough to not have found a
sexual partner.

I wish people (and the media at large) would make a larger effort to mention
that someone can be involuntarily celibate _and_ mentally stable and balanced.

The momentum lately to paint all involuntarily celibate people as mentally
unstable and angry is a trend that will force _a lot_ of people into life-
changing mistakes more promptly than they would have been before the social
pressure that equated routine sex with a partner as an indicator of mental
stability and trustworthiness.

~~~
colmvp
My experience online is most time a guy complains about their frustration in
not finding someone there's like zero sympathy... except in places where one
probably don't want to hang out namely misogynistic subreddit/forums.

I can totally see why some guys become radicalized when a good portion of
society DGAF.

~~~
noir_lord
Not sure why society should care (beyond preventing people been radicalised
into becoming a danger I guess).

There are lots of pressures on people to conform in one way or another to
goals and ideals that are largely unachievable - none of them are an excuse
for driving cars into crowds.

From the limited interactions I've seen online most incels don't realise they
aren't unattractive physically but by nature of their personality which causes
a vicious feedback loop.

When I was younger I didn't have a huge amount of success with women (I was by
nature shy and introverted, still am to an extent) but I realised early that
was my issue and no-one elses, things improved as I matured and became more
confident in who and what I am but had they not I'd still have been happy
enough - I was for years after all.

~~~
Kalium
> Not sure why society should care (beyond preventing people been radicalised
> into becoming a danger I guess).

What I find most interesting about this reaction is that it often comes from
people who wholeheartedly believe in kindness, compassion, and empathy. In
almost every _other_ context.

Yet for these people, they're told that their feelings don't matter while
everyone else's does. No wonder they sometimes react poorly. Perhaps if we
want to avert their radicalization, we could consider the possibility of
treating them with the same sensitivity we readily offer others when they
express subjective pain and suffering.

~~~
LandR
It's not that their feelings don't matter, it's that their is nothing anyone
can do for them.

I'm very ugly, I'm very single. I don't expect anyone to do anything about it
for me. You just have to get on with life and make the best of it. Be a nice
person and try to enjoy yourself.

If the worst thing you have to deal with in life is having a sub-optimal face
then you're probably pretty luck! Act like it.

~~~
Kalium
In my limited personal experience, the emotional journey of "Shut up, nobody
cares about your feelings you overprivileged ass" is very different from that
of "That sounds very painful, I'm so sorry you're going through that". I'm
sure others have had different experiences.

As you say, there often isn't anything obviously actionable. It's just that in
some cases, for some people, going from nothing actionable to dismissive can
be a good way to convince them to find people who at least offer a hint of
empathy.

Again, you're completely right. There's absolutely nothing anyone can do for
them. Except, I think it might be the case that listening with sincerity might
be an option.

------
im3w1l
> But if crookedness lends a castle its beauty, it does the opposite to a face
> — and nothing concerns Mew more than the proliferation of ugly faces, which
> he considers a modern epidemic. In the process, [The Mews] they’ve become
> popular among incels, the “involuntary celibate” young men who congregate
> online and who explain their lack of romantic success through a toxic and
> misogynistic ideology.

I don't understand, it sounds like they explain it with being ugly and try to
fix it? But why do they go to this fringe science instead of proven solutions
like plastic surgery?

~~~
pjc50
> But why do they go to this fringe science instead of proven solutions like
> plastic surgery?

Other way round: the _problem_ itself is fringe pseudo science. The solution
needs to be marketed, so people must be convinced that there is something
wrong with them.

People love pseudo science these days.

~~~
im3w1l
But there _is_ something wrong with them, or else they would get laid. If
people swipe the wrong way it must be either the looks or the composition of
photos?

~~~
rsynnott
Or, I mean, their personality, possibly? Plenty of ugly people out there with
partners.

~~~
im3w1l
If you use tinder, being ugly it makes things much harder. But there are other
avenues where it doesn't matter as much. I've had very sweet friends though
who struggled with those other avenues too because they worked in software
(meeting few women at work) and were homebodies so didn't meet women in free
time either. If they changed their entire life style around for the purpose of
finding a woman maybe that could work, but it's a steep cost to pay without
guaranteed success.

------
darkerside
Interesting to hear a perfect example of Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon on the
article. Once the author knew what to look for, he started seeing examples of
facial underdevelopment everywhere.

I had a BM moment of my own. I recently heard a theory on censorship. It is
most commonly exercised by powerful groups that are at risk of losing their
power (example, Catholic church vs Galileo). And now I see it everywhere,
including in the examples of quoted orthodontists who want to shut down
discussion even though (or because) they don't have the answers.

~~~
api
I don't see anyone doing a Galileo here. Nobody's arresting this guy for
speaking. I do see him being dismissed a lot.

Ultimately the burden of proof is on him as he is the one proposing an
alternative hypothesis. He is free to meticulously document his work, propose
studies, etc. It should also be possible to investigate his hypothesis by
studying cultures that still do consume harder foods vs. individuals of the
same genetic background who have migrated into the modern world and now
consume softer stuff.

~~~
darkerside
This is what I'm talking about. I realize it's not state/church sponsored
censorship, but the scientific community does suffer from groupthink and
orthodoxy. When bringing up somebody's name immediately makes a group mad,
it's usually because they are having an emotional reaction to a potential loss
of power. It sounds like he is dedicating his life's work to building that
alternative case, without the support of major academic or scientific
institutions.

I agree it should be easily provable or disprovable. Since it makes people so
angry, and still hasn't been disproven, I'm inclined to think this hypothesis
is worth more investigation.

> The Mews have enraged the orthodontic community with the caustic,
> uncompromising way they’ve promoted their theories. They and the coterie of
> nontraditional practitioners who follow them often occupy the furthest
> reaches of the orthodontic fringe, written off for decades as a small but
> troublesome band of cranks and kooks. They almost never speak at mainstream
> conferences. Their papers, if they publish them, tend to appear in obscure,
> fourth-rate journals or profit-driven industry magazines. British and
> American orthodontic researchers told me that nearly every claim the Mews
> have put forth is wrong. Kevin O’Brien, a leading academic orthodontist in
> the U.K., described their work to me as “mostly discredited.” When I
> mentioned Mew to a prominent American orthodontist, he cut me off. “John Mew
> is an idiot,” he said. “A total idiot.”

~~~
rsynnott
> They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright
> brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown

If you bring up Andrew Wakefield with a doctor, they may well be annoyed, but
it's very much not because they think he's right.

Note that the offending orthodontist is treating adults even though he claims
his treatment only works on kids. That this is happening at all actually seems
to speak to surprisingly poor regulation of dentistry; if you were a surgeon
who was selling a treatment which was not generally regarded as safe or
effective, and _you yourself_ claimed it probably wouldn't work for the
patients you were providing it to, you would have issues.

~~~
darkerside
What I've learned in life is that when all the arguments against are ad
hominem, there's usually something political going on.

He may not be right, but that doesn't mean he's not on to something.

------
Mountain_Skies
How is "incel" not a slur? Do people who are called incels actually like the
label or has it been imposed on them as a pejorative? If so, why is
acceptable?

~~~
btilly
Incel stands for "Involuntarily Celibate", and is a self-applied label.

The subsequent online behavior of people who so self-identified is what has
given it a bad reputation. But no matter how clearly they demonstrate the
reasons why they remain celibate, the incels seem to remain proud of their
label.

Normal people, of course, see "incel" as a slur.

~~~
dependenttypes
> and is a self-applied label

Is it though? You sometimes see people in the "woke" crowd call someone an
incel without them self-identifying as one.

~~~
JohnBooty
Yes, you do see that.

The etymology here is muddled... as etymology almost always is. It's also
pretty interesting.

The Wikipedia article has a really (surprisingly) good rundown on the history
of the term:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel)

So, yes, it was originally a term of self-identification dating all the way
back to the 1990s.

Usage as an insult began after self-identified incels began making headlines
by murdering people. After that, "incel" became shorthand for men who were
bitter, alienated, misogynistic, and potentially violent.

A very similar thing happened in the 1990s, after a string of workplace
killings by postal workers in the U.S. -- the phrase "going postal" entered
the vernacular for a time.

When "incel" is used as an insult like this, I don't believe it is ever meant
as a literal reference to the subject's sexual activity or lack thereof; only
as a reference to their bitter attitude.

~~~
dependenttypes
The same holds true for the words [censored] and [censored] however, yet
somehow both of these are bad but "incel" is okay.

I had to repost it because
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250085)
does not appear when viewing it outside of my account.

~~~
JohnBooty
That is a shockingly poor comparison, defying all logic.

"Incel" was a term of self-identification chosen by a subculture of people and
refers to a specific set of beliefs they subscribe to.

It is not even remotely equivalent to the slurs you mentioned in your original
comment. One of those slurs is based on the color of one's skin. Another one
is based on one's sexual orientation.

(I can see your original post because I have "showdead" turned on in my HN
prefs)

~~~
dependenttypes
> "Incel" was a term of self-identification chosen by a subculture of people
> and refers to a specific set of beliefs they subscribe to.

And [censored] was originally a unit of measurement, while a variant of
[censored] is commonly used between members of the african-american community
to self-identify/refer to each other.

Regardless, we are talking about the use of incel to refer to someone who does
not identify as part of said community.

> One of those slurs is based on the color of one's skin. Another one is based
> on one's sexual orientation.

And the other is based on whether they are virgins or not.

------
RedBeetDeadpool
Well this whole article is a glaring example of a fallacy argument.

Let's just associate something that might take away a lot of income and tie it
with a derogatory label.

Paid for by the Dentist Association of America.

------
GreeniFi
Interesting article. The final “cliff-hanger” was great and not what I was
expecting. But I wondered if there was bias in the collection of skulls. Did
researchers, to satisfy their own biases, collect skulls which had a specific
appearance?

One thing that I noticed traipsing around German castles in my youth was how
ugly, to my eyes, the portraits of medieval castle denizens were. It could
well have been that poor diet, lack of antibiotics and similar were the
reasons for this.

Writing this, I recall an essay, sadly I can’t remember the writer, who said
that adult beauty is really a function of exposure to parasites in childhood.

Final point: I thought big jaws were a result of exposure to testosterone. As
is clearly the case when you see the before/after pics or steroid users.

------
rsynnott
Figured out what bothers me so much about this; it’s medicalising beauty to a
level basically no-one else does. Dentists are sometimes a bit inclined that
way anyway (though many aren’t; my dentist told me that I could get
orthodontic treatment if I wanted, but that my orthodontic issues were purely
cosmetic and there would be no medical benefit; I declined and thought better
of the dentist), but this is something else.

Imagine this in a non-dental medical setting. Worst of all, imagine it in the
context of fashion! You’d have untested quack treatments being prescribed to
make people bulky now and skinny in a few years. Complete madness.

------
eecc
I guess it would be crazy to consider maxillofacial surgery just to reshape
the maxilla.

But I imagine progress in medical practices will increase the numbers of
patients undergoing this sort of treatment making it progressively more
viable...

Seems that non surgical options exist, but require a significant investment in
time:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3700158/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3700158/)

------
Henk0
Some thoughts after reading the article and browsing through the comments on
NYT and here so far:

1\. Choosing the angle of emphasising a (fairly recent in origin) connection
to a maligned fringe group. Great way to taint a theory and practice that is
not the current paradigm, and implicitly associating anyone who takes an
interest in it with a community of people few want to be associated with

2\. “Many self-identified incels have a highly mechanistic understanding of
human relationships and believe they can improve their station in the sexual
hierarchy through a practice called ‘looksmaxxing’: enhancing one’s sex appeal
through weight lifting, skin and hair treatments, and even plastic surgery” –
Try replacing ‘self-identified incels’ with ‘self-identified women’. Hardly
controversial that getting in shape and grooming oneself increases one’s
chances of finding a romantic partner, even if might be neither sufficient nor
necessary.

3\. “I already knew how I felt about some of the Mews’ claims – John’s absurd
belief, for instance, that unattractive criminals are less likely to reoffend
if their faces are made more beautiful” – Ok, so say you have two job
applicants for the position you’re trying to fill for a customer-facing job.
One applicant, though in all other ways a seemingly good candidate, has
terrible teeth - think ‘faces of meth’ bad - the other, equal in all other
respects has a mouth full of perfect glistening teeth and a winning smile. Who
do you honestly think you’re more likely to pick? If you think the first,
you’re most likely fooling yourself, and you’re also not good at your job,
being to find the person most suited for interacting with your customers and
making them feel at ease. Which of the candidates do you think is more likely
to stumble down a path of criminality due to lack of good job opportunities?

4\. Yup, the Mews are definitely odd characters, that in no way invalidates
their theories, and apart from some representatives of the current paradigm in
orthodontics expressing their disdain for the Mews and their theories, there’s
no substantial evidence given for why they are so wrong – so wrong as to be
villainous in the eyes of their critics it seems. The article ends with a
cliff hanger with the perfect teethed skulls of yore. This is in fact very
strong evidence that the heredity argument is plainly wrong. To argue that the
crooked teeth and underdeveloped mouths that appear quite suddenly in
conjunction with the industrial revolution are due to genetics is like ripping
off your shirt to show the massive tattoo on your chest that says, “I know
nothing about the timescales of evolution”

5\. “This emphasis on compliance irks the Mews’ critics almost more than
anything, because it allows them to blame their patients for any failures” –
replace ‘the Mews’’ with ‘the sports coaches’ and *patients’ with ‘athletes’.
All treatments that are not surgical require compliance to some extent to
work. Changing your body through behavioural changes is obviously possible,
but often requires more diligence and discipline than many are ready for. On a
personal level, I fixed a massive overbite and a terrible posture as a
teenager by consciously pushing my jaw forward all waking hours and
straightening my back and paying attention to my posture while walking and
standing. It takes time, but it generally works

6\. What is the actual, real scandal exposed in this article? A couple of
dentists who believe strongly in a theory and practice based on fairly good
evolutionary reasoning and some obviously positive results? The fact that a
community of bitter young men who deem themselves undateable and ugly are
looking to these dentists ideas to improve aspects of themselves? Or maybe the
fact that our current paradigm has no good explanation for why our collective
mouths have on average degraded in modernity, and the standard treatments –
that are both invasive and painful – apparently don’t fix the underlying
problems.

7\. From my own experience with everything from teeth issues to asthma, eczema
and allergies, I know that the current paradigm of healthcare for all those
problems is stuck on a track of symptom suppression via medication, with
practitioners in general knowing nothing to very little about how things like
breathing, nutrition, gut flora and many other things affect these conditions.
Scientific and medical paradigms are always tough to change, and there’s a
plethora of examples of mainstream practices and accepted truths that in
hindsight appear absurd – such as the belief that hand washing was unnecessary
for doctors between attending to patients that was dogma before Semmelweis –
that are defended tooth and claw by the establishment, while detractors like
Semmelweis are shunned and vilified.

8\. Among the comments on NYT and here, many of which gleefully or
dramatically jump straight at the incel angle and join in the hate and
ridicule chorus (it’s apparently ok to hate and ridicule disillusioned, often
autism spectrum young men who can’t find girlfriends. How sweet…), I see
comments from dentists and individuals who testify to the problems of the
current paradigm, and share stories of positive and negative change that lends
credence to the Mews’ theories. How would the comments section have looked
with another angle to the article? Are there examples of people who have
started practicing these methods and have documented their results? Wouldn’t
that be more interesting to look into? Oh well.

edit: paragraph separation edit 2: spell check and specifying comments on NYT
and here in point 8

------
elric
Previous similar article & discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23335368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23335368)

------
moltar
This was described in the Breath book.

------
citizenpaul
Why is this on "Hacker" news?

------
trabant00
Why are trying to tie these two orthodontists to mysoginism, alt right, toxic
internet forums, etc? Do they personally hold any of these views? Do they push
such beliefs?

Same thing with Jordan Peterson and other examples.

These are character assassination attempts. And I am extremely sad to see this
on front page.

