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Henry Farrel writes in the Washington Post that there's a group of people which appears to be highly prone to violent extremism - engineers - who are nine times more likely to be terrorists as you would expect by chance. In a forthcoming book, "Engineers of Jihad," published by Princeton University Press, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog provide a new theory for why it is that engineers seem unusually prone to become involved in terrorist organizations. Gambetta and Hertog find strongly suggestive evidence that engineers are more likely to become terrorists because of the way that they think about the world. Survey data indicates that engineering faculty at universities are far more likely to be conservative than people with other degrees, and far more likely to be religious. They are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists. Gambetta and Hertog speculate that engineers combine these political predilections with a marked preference towards finding clearcut answers. This preference has affinities with the clear answer that radical Islamist groups propose for dealing with the complexities of modernity: Get rid of it.
Gambetta and Hertog suggest that this mindset combines with frustrated expectations in many Middle Eastern and North African countries, and among many migrant populations, where people with engineering backgrounds have difficulty in realizing their ambitions for good and socially valued jobs. This explains why there are relatively few radical Islamists with engineering backgrounds in Saudi Arabia (where they can easily find good employment) and why engineers were more prone to become left-wing radicals in Turkey and Iran.
Some people might argue that terrorist groups want to recruit engineers because engineers have valuable technical skills that might be helpful, such as in making bombs. This seems plausible – but it doesn't seem to be true. Terrorist organizations don't seem to recruit people because of their technical skills, but because they seem trustworthy and they don't actually need many people with engineering skills. "Bomb-making and the technical stuff that is done in most groups is performed by very few people, so you don't need, if you have a large group, 40 or 50 percent engineers," says Hertog. "You just need a few guys to put together the bombs. So the scale of the overrepresentation, especially in the larger groups is not easily explained."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @08:02PM
Engineers and religious zealots have that in common. They live in a black-and-white, right or wrong, works or it doesn't world.
Perspective does not change the laws of physics (okay they usually don't) that engineers are steeped in with little knowledge of communication, psychology, or various liberal arts. Religious zealots are similar in that they ignore everything that does not conform to what they believe in. Both act to try to force conditions to fit their black-and-white mindset without regard to the idea that their "first principles" just might be irrelevant or outright wrong.
It is a match made in 72 virgin-heaven.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 27 2015, @08:33PM
Wow, you're pretty far out there in left field, aren't you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @09:36PM
From the far right, everything looks like left field.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 27 2015, @09:52PM
You're projecting. I didn't like the asshole who invaded Iraq. By definition, I think that sets me apart from the "far right". I never participated in the sport of "gay bashing". Hell, man, that's a rite of passage into the far right. I despise the richest sons of bitches on Wall Street, just as much as I despise their masters.
Far right? Dude - from where you are, I guess I do look to be "far right". I might be the pitcher, and you'd think I was far right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @10:47PM
> I didn't like the asshole who invaded Iraq. By definition, I think that sets me apart from the "far right".
So you can carve out some exceptions for yourself.
> I never participated in the sport of "gay bashing".
Don't lie. You've said some pretty shitty things about teh gays right here on soylent. Of course you didn't think they were shitty because you just thought you were speaking the truth. That's how bigotry works.
> Far right? Dude - from where you are, I guess I do look to be "far right"
Everybody thinks they are the prefect picture of balanced consideration. Few people are able to get outside of their own head. You definitely aren't one of them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 28 2015, @12:48AM
You poor little bitch, you don't even know what gay bashing was. You are less than an honest queer's shadow. In terms you might understand, a car load of boys or young men would load up, and go cruising, in search of a gay to bash. They would beat him senseless, or beat him to death, just for shits and giggles. "Gay bashing" was never meant to mean "saying harsh things that homos might not like". "Gay bashing" meant "bashing his head in with a baseball bat".
For all of your political correctness, despite your social justice warrior badges, you wouldn't make a pimple on an honest queer's ass.
Get outside of their own head? Well - I'm happy to inform you that you are out of your fucking mind. Good job, Cupcake.
For all the "shitty things" I've said about homos, I have never advocated killing a queer just because I don't like queers. I haven't advocated that they be deprived of the right to vote. I haven't called for them to be exiled from the nation. I don't like homosexuality, no. And I don't have to. For all my dislike, I respect them as human beings.
And, that is probably more than you can say. For you, gay is just some politically correct thing to rally behind. The fact that you don't know what "gay bashing" was is proof that you know little to nothing about the gay's history in this nation, let alone this world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @01:48AM
> You poor little bitch, you don't even know what gay bashing was.
Arrogance in ignorance is practically the definition of being "far right."
A verbal gay bashing might use sexual slurs, expletives, intimidation, threats of violence, or actual acts of violence. It also might take place in a political forum and include one or more common anti-gay slogans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gay_bashing&oldid=689249561 [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia not good enough for you?
How about the OED:
The action or practice of specifically targeting homosexuals for physical or verbal attack.
https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/gay-bashing [oxforddictionaries.com]
> For all the "shitty things" I've said about homos, [I'm still a great guy because I wasn't 100% shitty]
It is so revealing that you proudly uses gay slurs and still think you are not gay bashing. Never mind that you went full bigot when you suggested that legalizing gay marriage will lead to pedophilia. [soylentnews.org] Yeah, not gay bashing at all.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 28 2015, @04:15AM
That is so very SJW-like. "I don't like what you have to say, so you're equal to the barbarians who butcher gays in Chop-chop square!"
Grow a pair. You can't have an honest, open discussion because you see no difference between verbal disapproval, and beheading in the name of Allah. Grow the fuck up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @09:56AM
> You can't have an honest, open discussion because you see no difference between verbal disapproval
You were the one who used words you didn't understand. Then you tried to call me an idiot because you didn't know WTF you were talking about - and you accuse me of projecting?
> Grow the fuck up.
You are the petty name-caller and I'm the one who is juvenile. Only in runaway-world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @01:41PM
And that's so very right-wing-like, calling everyone who disagrees with you an SJW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @07:37AM
Nope, in fact you have agreed with me several times today. You aren't a Bernie supporter are you?
I simply see views on the world and knowledge of it incomplete and ever shifting. Different perspectives are hard, but add new information. Liberal arts is all about that, far past when it becomes a fault. Engineers and other disciplines that do not spend much time dwelling on such fault in the opposite direction.
When radical liberal arts people get mad a tumblr post is made, safe spaces created, and college staff sacked. When radical STEM people get mad, unibombers, suicide bombers, and WTC targeting pilots are created.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @10:13PM
engineers don't take anything for granted except newton... i should know
if you're looking for dogma, have a look at your nearest physics dept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @07:41AM
I'd very much like to agree, however I see the two fields as being very close as to have an indistinguishable difference in dogmatism. Just self reflect. Newton has already been proven wrong in a number of ways, yet is still used as "close enough" most of the time without even an exploratory analysis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 29 2015, @11:36AM
No, the Physicists are the ones continually doing ever-more precise experiments to test their theories. Generally, the engineers depend on the Physicists to provide them with accurate theories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @05:23PM
No,
I am an engineer with computers and networks and stuff. Engineering is very analog. Half-assed stuff is often what gets done and installed and is what works and what the client can use. It may not be the best, but it also may be that there is no money to do it right. It just has to get done.
Getting something that mostly works and works well enough to get by is fine, often enough. There are always cases for complicated designs, and plenty of cases of complicated designs where they are unneeded.
You seem to think that engineers design a closed box and are upset when the gears inside become unsprung due to a differing opinion. Those people exist in any industry.
Engineers can adapt. You are describing something else that happens in many industries. Considering "analog" is a big part of lots of engineering, you should question what it means to be an engineer. It sounds like you know only of what it is to deal with religious people and not a machine.