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Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

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Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#31

Post by lallgoe »

I think this has far more to do with a simple lack of empathy, a lack of caring for (or understanding of) other people, than any particularly noble trait.

That said, a fair amount of your online presence consist of you stating that women should shut up and never complain about anything; so I guess it's not surprising that you like to put a positive spin on your intolerance for and hatred of a full half of humanity.

Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#32

Post by tomkin »

lallgoe wrote: post #31

I think this has far more to do with a simple lack of empathy, a lack of caring for (or understanding of) other people, than any particularly noble trait. That said, a fair amount of your online presence consist of you stating that women should shut up and never complain about anything; so I guess it's not surprising that you like to put a positive spin on your intolerance for and hatred of a full half of humanity.

What? Where did you derive that from?

Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#33

Post by vonsydov »

Students of the humanities, like those of the “pure sciences”, tend to have “more sophisticated and less closed views of knowledge than do students in engineering . . . Scientists learn to ask questions, while engineering students, like followers of text-based religions, rely more strongly on answers that have already been given”. Engineering students from all backgrounds, they suggest, share a more rigid outlook than students of science and humanities. Intolerant of ambiguity, they show a preference for authoritarian systems and have more simplistic views about how the status quo can be changed. Far from them being more “religious” than other Muslims, it seems that it is the Islamist vision of a “corporatist, mechanistic and hierarchical” social order, combined with “well-regulated daily routines” that attracts them, and accounts for their over-representation.

Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#35

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #22
cpks wrote: post #16

This was completely predicted by Peter Thiel in Zero to One. There's a common set of personality traits, a little related to Asperger's, where one works from first principles, is less influenced by what other people think, has less groupthink, and is more comfortable being outside of social norms. This is a trait shared by entrepreneurs, engineers, and extremists. There's a high overlap between the three. Social norm…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#36

Post by Animats »

wstrange wrote: post #5

Maybe engineers are just more likely to be effective extremists?

There is that. The FBI's list of terrorism prosecutions [1] shows a few suicide bombers, some gun nuts, some druggies, the losers who talked about blowing up the Sears Tower (the FBI director said their plan was "aspirational rather than operational"), and some bigger losers who were trying to blow up a bridge in a park in Cleveland.

[1] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/terrorism...

Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#38

Post by caseysoftware »

Animats wrote: post #25
cpks wrote: post #16

This was completely predicted by Peter Thiel in Zero to One. There's a common set of personality traits, a little related to Asperger's, where one works from first principles, is less influenced by what other people think, has less groupthink, and is more comfortable being outside of social norms. This is a trait shared by entrepreneurs, engineers, and extremists. There's a high overlap between the three. Social norm…

" This is a trait shared by entrepreneurs, engineers, and extremists. There's a high overlap between the three." Are management-level terrorists coming from former entrepreneurs? None of the top people in al-Queda were engineers. Bin Laden did come from a family that runs a huge construction company, but he himself never did anything in that area. Within ISIS, many of the top people were either career military or rel…

> but he himself never did anything in that area

Other than earn his degree in civil engineering?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_life_of_Osama_bin_Lad...

Re: Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education

#40

Post by force_reboot »

tomkin wrote: post #34

So can the TSA do engineer profiling? Seems like it would be more accurate?

More accurate than what? If you're implying it would be more accurate than profiling Muslims, I think you are incorrect. Muslims as a group make up 1% of the US, but a generous, biased study [0] found that they are responsible for 48% of deaths from terrorism since 9/11. From this it follows that the average Muslim is responsible for approx 48 times more deaths than the average American of any religion.

And this is without considering whether the TSA considers categories that have more predictive power than simply being Muslim, e.g. following a particular kind of Islam.

[0] http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks...

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