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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

#71

Post by mercurial »

force_reboot wrote: post #41
analognoise wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You don't need a conspiracy for that to work. Elected officials in any country have different incentives to pass laws that will favour different groups. If some groups are more persuasive (or coercitive - "think of employment") than others (eg, the public at large), this leads to these groups having an influence out of proportion with their membership.

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

#72

Post by mercurial »

batz wrote: post #2

Main argument according to reviews is the gap between aspiration and achievement that occurs when engineers' expectations of success are not met is what drives many of us, apparently, to join extremist groups. The explanatory and predictive power of, "just sore losers" seems weak. A review of the book (FT, paywalled) summarized other arguments about polarized, binary thinking, and an inability to accept culture, ambi…

Nice way of putting "horoscopes" and "Piketty" on the same level.

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

#73

Post by hasenj »

BWStearns wrote: post #53

When I studied insurgency/extremism more actively I would always hear the assertion, generally voiced in advocacy of increased foreign aid or nation building efforts, that extremists are generally recruited from the ranks of those left behind by the political and economic worlds and violence remains their only recourse. It's a nice narrative because it feels intuitive and provides an addressable problem, the downside…

It's not that they personally are affected negatively by negative political or economic circumstances. It's that their people are. Identity is a powerful thing. Humans evolved a strong sense of belonging and an urge to do everything they can for their tribe.

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

#74

Post by jacobush »

leoc wrote: post #70
HillRat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really more likely -- and I'm replying without having read the topic article -- that this is related to the fact that developing states with "socialist" (I use the term advisedly) bents tended to privilege engineering, medical and scientific education in its universities, while not having economies capable of effectively supporting those graduates. Take a bunch of middle and upper-middle class students whose par…

I wouldn't discount the possibility of a correlation between radicalism and the "engineering personality" (or the limitations of an engineering education) playing a significant role, but this other, more Marxian explanation strikes me as the best starting point. A young, smart, ambitious middle-class man with thwarted personal ambition is a dangerous thing, because when he sublimates his career ambition into some oth…

This was a great parallel to ISIS and also places the culture in these countries somewhat similar to European culture 18th to 19th century.

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

#75

Post by BWStearns »

IvanDenisovich wrote: post #67
BWStearns wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it doesn't. IRA, LRA, KKK, Mormon extremist groups, Cubans (for a while if you got hijacked you could safely assume you were being forcibly redirected to Havana), Nationalist movements too numerous to count etc. No one who has seriously studied violent non-state actors believes that Muslims are more prone to violent extremism than any other group. Islamist groups have certainly gotten the "best" press for a wh…

Pardon my bayseanity, but the article discusses P(Engineer|Terrorist), not P(Terrorist|Engineer). I'm saying that a similar claim holds for P(Muslim|Terrorist), while your point is regarding P(Terrorist|Muslim). But this is way off topic and my argument has nothing to do with Islam. I'm just pointing out how easy it is for us to play couch sociologists when weighing the merits and problems of "Engineering" culture, v…

Neither direction is significant. Given reasonable definitions of terrorist (and the ones I think are best) terrorists are not significantly more likely to be muslim. In order to make that the case you need to extend "terrorist" status to a lot of groups that are really governments or insurgencies and not give "terrorist" status to a lot of Christian and political anti-government groups.

P(Muslim | Terrorist the US currently gives a shit about) is interesting, especially given the propensity to regard certain terrorist groups as criminal elements for political reasons.

Also interesting, other countries sometimes negotiate disliked groups onto our lists to legitimize their crackdowns (ironically the crackdowns can push the group to actually become terrorists. Hi Turkey!) and make their international fundraising efforts effectively illegal.

It is important to refute you because the implicit points when you talk about "how difficult it is to hold a similar discussion about the issues of "standard" religions or cultures". It isn't difficult for scholarship to have that discussion. It has been had. It disagrees with what you suggest to be true.

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

#76

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

For a less-volatile example, my anecdotal/observational experience is that mathematics cranks (the angle trisectors, circle squarers, anti-Cantors, and so on) are disproportionally engineers, and in particular electrical engineers.

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

#78

Post by force_reboot »

mercurial wrote: post #71
force_reboot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You don't need a conspiracy for that to work. Elected officials in any country have different incentives to pass laws that will favour different groups. If some groups are more persuasive (or coercitive - "think of employment") than others (eg, the public at large), this leads to these groups having an influence out of proportion with their membership.

I didn't mean to imply a conspiracy with "colluding". Just tell me what the issues are where Barack Obama and Donald Trump are actually on the same side and the American people would really want someone on the other side. What was your point about employment, for example?

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

#79

Post by wfo »

diskcat wrote: post #44
caseysoftware wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The bar for being an engineer is so high these days. Even being an engineer isn't enough.

I know some Scotsmen who might be upset, but they aren't true Scotsmen.

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

#80

Post by wfo »

ITT: plenty of silly speculation from people in armchairs about what they would prefer the causes of extremism to be (ignoring the well-researched book full of evidence written by experts). A lot of "No, all of the experts must be wrong and I alone am right. I'm an engineer and I'm /smarter/ than my peers, not more easily radicalized". Do you not immediately see how people with this attitude are so easily swayed toward extremism of all stripes?

But we've been pretty effective about doing away with the humanities in our culture. The sneering, the derision, the contempt in which many STEM people hold those from the humanities is disgusting, and this is one side effect of it; our best weapons to combat terror and extremism are not engineered or built -- there is nothing stopping terrorists or extremists or radicals from understanding technical facts about the world and building things according to their desires. Crafting a weapon or circuit or bridge does not require that you think critically about society or culture. Engineers even here rarely think about how their work effects others, simply about the technical problems involved (wonder why so many engineers are complicit in surveillance/backdoors/etc?) since that is how they are trained (perhaps a throwaway ethics course jammed into an already-overloaded schedule in college).

The way to combat extremism is with culture; a strong, vibrant culture with art and dialogue and critique and critical thinking. Every time a kid tells you he's studying philosophy and you say "remember in 5 years I'll want fries with that lazy humanities scum, get a real job" you're throwing our culture away.

When our culture is gone and something like ISIS comes knocking, it's difficult to point to the iPhone or reality TV and say "look, our values are different from (better than) yours". We need to point to poets, philosophers, public intellectuals, artists, and say -- look. Our people are free to create* where yours are not.

*So long as their creation has wide appeal and does not step on too many toes and can be mass-produced and turned into a viable business model.

Contrast the argument with and without the asterisk.

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