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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

#41

Post by force_reboot »

analognoise wrote: post #20
im3w1l wrote: post #11

The left has managed to grasp control of academia, and shut other groups out[1]. I imagine the pattern will be reversed in countries where social studies means quran interpretation. [1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-major...

There is no left, there is no right. There are two levers, connected to nothing, which we pull occasionally to quell dissent and give the illusion of self-determination. We are like children in a shopping cart, pretending we're at the helm - we aren't.

Where is the evidence for this? What are the points where Barack Obama and Donald Trump are actually colluding by supporting something that the average American would oppose?

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

#42

Post by krunaldo »

force_reboot wrote: post #40
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 w…

Nitpick, Deaths due to TERRORIST attacks. Not arbitrary deaths....

"From this it follows that the average Muslim is responsible for approx 48 times more deaths than the average American of any religion."

^ This statement is false as it assumes all deaths are from terrorist attacks, based on your previous statement of 48 times more likely to commit TERRORIST attacks, of which has a silly low death rate compared to ANYTHING else in the US.

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

#44

Post by diskcat »

caseysoftware wrote: post #38
Animats wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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...

He probably earned it because his family is in construction and so it was the 'path' for him.

This is different from some suburban geeky guy who likes computers and decided to study electrical engineering in university. It reflects on his personality more.

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

#45

Post by rdlecler1 »

analog31 wrote: post #12

My hypothesis: The study of engineering simply brings people from less developed countries to the West, where they are exposed to the seeds of radicalism. They study engineering for many of the reasons that we do: Aptitude in the preliminaries such as math, interest in the subject matter, practical applicability, and employment prospects. There may be a couple of additional factors: Engineering has a cross cultural a…

As well, most of these countries will put more emphasis on math and physics rather than a liberal arts education. The defense of the liberal arts education is that you develop a rounder human being.

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

#46

Post by lallgoe »

tomkin wrote: post #32
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?

I'm not wrong.

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

#47

Post by mchaver »

analog31 wrote: post #12

My hypothesis: The study of engineering simply brings people from less developed countries to the West, where they are exposed to the seeds of radicalism. They study engineering for many of the reasons that we do: Aptitude in the preliminaries such as math, interest in the subject matter, practical applicability, and employment prospects. There may be a couple of additional factors: Engineering has a cross cultural a…

I think that is a hypothesis worth investigating. A good data point to look into would be what educational backgrounds do Western extremists come from.

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

#48

Post by option_greek »

maged wrote: post #26
KhalilK wrote: post #21

Tunisian here. My country is sadly known as the first exporter of ISIS fighters. I couldn't agree more with this! It is mostly attributed to the educational system. Engineering studies are focused mostly on math and physics and albeit present, Languages are treated like scond-class subjects. You end up with a generation of students who are effective engineers (to an extent) but who can't think at all. They are not ta…

I think more than what we are taught in engineering, the field itself tends to attract more conservative minded people (maybe because it's a safe field?). There's also correlations shown between religiosity, conservatism and studying engineering.

Could it be because conservative people tend to be disciplined which requires certain amount of will in the first place ? Just a theory...

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

#50

Post by dang »

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.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11189571 and marked it off-topic.
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