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Engineers Make Good Terrorists?
An anonymous reader writes "Engineers' focus and attention to details, along with their perceived lack of social skills, make them ideal targets to be recruited as terrorists, according to EETimes. Planning skills make engineers good 'field operatives' was written up by Raphael Perl, who heads the Action against Terrorism Unit of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He offers that 'Engineers ideally make excellent strategic planners, and they make excellent field operatives. They think differently from how other people think.' That may sound like a stereotype, but Perl claims that 'because of those traits, terrorist groups actively recruit engineers.' He says that Al-Qaeda has widely acknowledged that a significant number of the group's top leadership had engineering backgrounds." This is the second time in just a few months that engineers have been likened to terrorists.
We've been tapping engineers for our cause ever since Counterstrike came out.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
...but alas I'm an engineer, not a lawyer. :(
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Since Slashdot isn't going to open a thread to discuss the new display system I must post to this thread about some of the issues. First and foremost, the "I am willing to help test Slashdot's New Discussion System" checkbox does not completely revert the older version so my critiques are not solely about voluntarily beta testing the new system. Here are the issues:
*The keymapping on '/' (to move the thread toolbar) is the same as the quick search in Firefox. Any quick search will move the toolbar around in an annoying fashion.
*The margins are too wide except for those who have wide screen monitors*
*The 'more' functionality is fundamentally broken. It loads new entries by date instead of the logical position in a thread. Individual threads should be fully populated or at least have a 'click here for more entries' option. For old stories you shouldn't have to search the page again from top to bottom for the more darkly shaded newer comments after you click on more.*
*The in page reply makes me want to cry. This isn't Digg or YouTube!*
*The parent and reply buttons are wasting huge amounts of bandwidth. For example, for one entry we have 479 bytes wasted:
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Now I know people are always going to complain about any change in the system. That is to be expected. But these changes are too much and since the system doesn't revert back to a safer format, they are extremely disruptive. I recommend that this update is rolled back completely until it is implemented better. Especially the damn '/' issue. That is killing me!
PS: are the <ul> and <li> tags now broken?
But terrorists? Only if the engineers are lonely, disgruntled people in-general. I think most engineers would be more Constructive than Destructive by nature. Though if this holds true, then any group looking to forcibly recruit should start with engineers first. Movementarians included.
We should flood these terrorist groups with engineers and let them improve all their weapons. Afterwards, they'll have pieces left over and nothing will work. Isn't there some saying about "give an engineer a broken computer and he'll give you a working radio"?
Engineers would be good planners. But you need dumb fucks to go blow themselves up.
You mean Command & Conquer: Red Alert Counterstrike, right? Since C&C had terrorist engineers long before that FPS came out...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
With a name like Perl, this man is well-suited to discuss the link between coding and terror.
Also, if you read TFA, he goes on to state that "laziness, impatience, and hubris" are the three virtues of a good terrorist.
P.S. Christ, what has happened to Slashdot's page layout today?? The goggles do nothing!
Breakfast served all day!
This the third time in just a few months that engineers have been likened to terrorists....
This the fourth time in just a few months that engineers have been likened to terrorists....
Ok we get it.
Namaste
I hate these articles, but I can't decide if I hate them because they're intellectual snobbery (not only are we better than physicists, mathematicians, chemists, etc, we're also superlative terrorists!) or I hate them because they're anti-intellectual (Engineers are all smart and anti-social, therefore they're basically the unabomber).
Basically anyone who is methodical and knowledgeable would make a good X, where X is something that needs a methodical knowledgeable person. Engineers are required to be methodical and knowledgeable, so QED.
I don't know why they're so damn fixated on engineers though. Doesn't take an engineer to slam a plane into a building, and that's about the most successful piece of terrorism to date.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
IIRC, this isn't the first article that the EETimes has put out making this connection recently - maybe the EETimes should be investigated.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
Reminds me of the quote in Wargames: "He does fit the profile perfectly. He's intelligent, but an under-achiever; alienated from his parents; has few friends. Classic case for recruitment by the Soviets"
I mean, I can't be the only one who thought this would be an article about the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Engineers Have a Terrorist Mindset? Jan 29, 2008
Thanks for playing.
That engineers plan things well should be no surprise. Engineers as a group design everything from bridges to sports stadiums to computer chips. They try to find a good balance of expected average need, overbuild and contingency performance, and cost.
That both the terrorists and those fighting the terrorists would want chemical, electrical, structural, and electronics engineers for their specific areas of expertise alone should come as no surprise. That they're also found to be good planners in general is only slightly less obvious.
The assumption that all engineers are similar to terrorists I think is a stretch.
I agree that Perl makes me want to be a terrorist.
FTA: "It's not only in Islamic countries that this is happening, he said. Al-Qaeda is increasingly recruiting scientists and engineers, especially non-Muslims, and is doing so worldwide, according to Perl." ... Al Qaeda is hardly the Soviet Union. As a non-Muslim, I would gain nothing by aiding Al Qaeda. Do they mean "non-Arab?" because that's not exactly the same thing.
With that surname he should have a hint about who are the real terrorists in the the computer world, and who is their leader,Larry bin Wall.
Why does this sound like an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy? You take brilliant but socially awkward people, scare everyone else into thinking they're terrorists, they fall further and further into loneliness and despair because everyone's afraid of them, they get more and more resentful and anti-social, and presto! Instant terrorists!
"Of COURSE engineers are evil terrorists! If you keep hitting them with this stick and laughing at them, they'll hold it against you! See? I was right!"
Since Command & Conquer had terrorist engineers years ago. Really, taking over several blocks worth of power stations - to sell them for profit (and to screw up your opponents' grid) - is a pretty high feat of terrorism.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Think of the children and outlaw engineers.
And scientists too, cause they say stuff I don't agree with.
hmm.. could this be some sort of propaganda coming from somewhere that is trying to make america "dumber" for the next 20-40 years?
Uhh, hello, isn't that a bit of a leap, going from the statement "Engineers make good terrorists" to the statement "They are being likened to terrorists".
It doesn't appear anyone is *likening* engineers, in general, to terrorists. What they are saying is if you can recruit engineerss to your terrorist cause, that can benefit your cause, because they are good at solving problems and planning. Well, is that not true of engineers? I don't think you can *be* an engineer if that isn't true.
I don't have any problem with the statement, "[Engineers] think differently than other people." I don't think that sounds like a stereotype. If other people thought like engineers, they'd likely *be* engineers. It takes a certain mindset, and a certain capacity to think logically and analytically to be an engineer. Unfortunately, this mindset doesn't necessarily inherently exclude any thought patterns which lead someone to become a terrorist in the first place. (After all, one man's terrorist is often another man's freedom fighter or courageous defender of the faith).
Are all engineers the *same*? No. Is there a certain commonality they share in how they think / solve problems which is not shared with the general public? I think the answer is likely yes.
Um... they forgot one other thing that happens to work for Hamas: A complete lack of any hope for the future.
Makes sense, Tuttle is an HVAC engineer.
However, I don't see how smart engineers could be susceptible to extremist Muslim brainwashing.
why people continue to publicate things about terrorism? Why not ignore and just dislike who talk about that? Is there no way to stop this brainwashing machine?
Engineers make good EVERYTHING.
Engineers have been an integral part of war campaigns for thousands of years, why wouldn't they be of value to any war effort? It wasn't really until after WW2 that Civil engineering really came into its own (before that they were generally employed by the Govt. when they made the transition to independent companies they got the term Civil). I'd even hold the British/American Engineers won WW2 (certainly the hard work at Los Alamos wasn't just engineers, but they certainly solved some difficult engineering problems) what with Radar and Nuclear weapons. Why would be surprised that they are viewed as high value resources to people who want to blow stuff up?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
1. A true engineer would is proud of the work that they do, therefore not hiding it. Hard to hide a bomb that you are proud of.
2. Engineers can't lie (see Dilbert). Therefore, when asked, "Are you a spy?" they answer yes.
3. That when they see a problem, they bring it to the attention of others. So, when they see a security hole, they will point it out instead of abusing it.
4. When they do something, they will tell everyone about it.
Fight Spammers!
However the pool of people with analytical minds is so large, you obviously cant draw the conclusion that people in the field of engineering are statistically more likely to be involved with terrorism.
But the converse could be true.
Not this nonsense again. I think it has been mentioned before, but many of these intellectuals were recruited in universities. Universities are known worldwide for being a hotbed of revolutions and counter cultural ideas. It is also full of idealistic young students who want to change the world. Unless this article is trying to ban engineering and universities in general, I don't think this is anything new.
That's why every single engineer should be killed! This is to prevent terrorism from spreading.
After that, we should go for biologists, we should never let god hating heathens live! Why, we may even make an exception for them, and help them abort any babies they have, just in case their babies grow up to be god hating heathens as well!
I frankly find the analysis to be flattering. I don't have to agree with who I am being compared with to appreciate the comparison.. only the qualities being compared are important.
So, thanks for the complement
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The article a few months ago I could take issue with, it basically said that engineers were more suseptible to the kind of propaganda that terrorist orginizations use to increase their number. I find that unlikely and, frankly, insulting.
This article is saying something different however. From the summary, they are saying that a good terrorist is smart, independent, with good planning and problem solving skills; a discription that your stereotypical engineer matches pretty well.
However, that isn't a bad thing. Wouldn't these same attributes make a pretty good astronaut, office worker, soldier, doctor, or farmer? The only thing I don't understand about this article is why they singled out engineers in particular.
How do you tell if an engineer is an introvert or an extrovert?
The extrovert looks at your shoes.
The fact is, engineers are good at many jobs that require attention to detail.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
So what they're saying is that people who pay attention to details will be likely to sympathize with 'terrorist causes.' I'm guessing they'd mean details like the US and the UK's foreign policy in the middle east and around the world towards companies that nationalize their oil supplies. Or maybe details like the US claiming that in the war on terrorism Americans have the 4th amendment suspended. Maybe by lack of social skills they mean "willing to actually read text books and learn about the world instead of just sit and watch American Idol." Seems a bit more accurate to me.
Of course terrorist recruit engineers. It's not because of their "attention to details, along with their perceived lack of social skills" it's because terrorists are in the business of blowing things up with pinball machine parts.
If you wanted to blow something up, who would you recruit? an English teacher or a physics graduate?
Right you are. The Brotherhood of Nod were pioneers in this style of warfare.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
When we were disparaged as 'geeks', we adopted the name. We probably should do the same with 'terrorist'. I think the ordinary people might take us more seriously, even treat us with more respect, if we proudly adopted the new name.
Think of the sound of it. Do you think a girl would rather tell her friends, 'I'm dating a geek', or, 'I'm dating a terrorist'? I bet the latter would sound more exciting and adventurous.
Proof: Nearly all important landmarks are still standing.
Overall, it's hard to disagree with the article. Heck, a guy who has the persistence and brains to go through the gruesome class schedules of an Engineering school will not be easily deterred by obstacles. And he is inventive by training if not nature.
An engineer could easily turn bad... And he'd be very good at being bad, if he has the motivation. So the conclusion should be obvious: don't alienate engineers.
That said, I recently met a very nice and competent guy from Pakistan who is in the USA on an H1B visa. He is a PHP developer, and he is quite good. We discussed finances, and to my horror, I found out that he is making $1100/month. His employer houses him in an appartment along with six other H1Bs, so he prolly saves $1000/month in rent, but still, this is an insultingly low pay rate for such a qualified guy, but a factor 4 at least.
Now, this guy is very nice, and way too busy to even think about trouble. But I can't help thinking my reaction if I was dropped into a country where I would make less than your average waiter, after years of hard schooling. I'd harbor a grudge, that's for sure.
So a piece of advice for Execs and VPs: don't be too stingy with your folks. Them techie weirdos can turn into rampaging monster at the drop of a hat. Heck, I'll give them free espressos and decent raisses if I were you. :-)
Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
Smart people, who understand how things work, would be potentially good at causing lots of damage? More so than people who aren't smart and/or don't understand how things work? Who'd have thought!? (And we know which category the author of TFA falls into...)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Arrrrr, Pass Me The Soldering Iron and The C++ Compiler, and that Slide Rule, too, Matey!
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
An educated population is more likely to have a critical perspective than an uneducated population.
Therefore, by decreasing the number of engineers one reduces the predisposition of the population to take a critical perspective on
Elected Criminals.
I hope this helps your phone call to the Unted Nations to request military intervention in the United States to help spread democracy and freedom.
PatRIOTically,
Kilgore Trout
Engineers' focus and attention to details, Yes, some engineers have these traits - along with book-keepers, microbiologists and archeologists just to name a few. Some people in any trade or profession can be described like this - there's nothing special about engineering.
Here's a good one: along with their perceived lack of social skills,
Perceived, surely it's only actual traits that count, not one's that other people might think you have.
Most engineers I know, or have met (clue: lots) are pretty normal people. They fit into society, they don't complain. They're quite likely to be successful and have other (engineer) friends. An unkind person might even call them boring.
Personally I just can't see Dilbert with a bomb strapped under his shirt.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Politicians make better terrorists, and they've been doing it for far longer.....
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
make good terrorists.
Smart, in a narrow sort of way.
Look at Ted Kazynski, who had an IQ of 170 and had PhD in mathematics. The planning to avoid detection probably didn't occupy much of his intellect. They'd never have caught them if his own brother hadn't recognized the writing in his manifesto. On the other hand, the manifesto reveals a person who is deeply unhappy and can't figure out what to do about it other than to blow people up, and construct elaborate psychohistorical theories to explain why happiness is impossible.
On the other hand, there's roles for people like Richard Reid, who was probably viewed as ajoke by the higher ups. You wouldn't trust him with much, but in a sense he did ultimately prove useful.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
JACK What I've got to do now is pick up Tuttle, interrogate him at the same voltage as Buttle, to the same meter reading to the last penny, and juggle the books in electrical banking.
SAM What has Tuttle done?
JACK We suspect him of freelance subversion.
SAM (dumbly) He's a freelance subversive?
JACK He's a compulsive heating engineer. A maverick ex-Central Service repair man with a grudge against society. Now, fortunately, we're nearly out of the wood, I think. At least we will be when I get this Layton woman under arrest.
Engineers make good lovers, not fighters!
http://www.coderoshi.com/
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Anybody remember "V", the futuristic show where evil (and sexy) reptilian aliens took over the earth and started a smear campaign against "Scientists" to get them hated by the public and turned in to authorities for execution?
That show was awesome, and I remember the slow realization I had as a kid that there is no such thing as a "Scientist"... Just physicists and engineers etc.
Anyways, maybe George Bush eats mice when nobodies lookin'... I'm just throwin' that out there.
Ace
This is a bit of a silly comment. Obviously "engineer-types" are generally good at strategic planning, problem solving etc. which would be good in any number of professions. If terrorism requires those traits then obviously engineer-type people would be good at it.
It just seems like a silly point to make. In fact, what is the point?
Good thing we're also too smart to get sucked into your silly religious war.
I expect the response to this article to be explosive.
what does it pay? Health care? Time off? Options? Company Car?
Or hourly? I didn't see anything on Dice.
I'd have to agree that it's a fairly thin correlation to draw. Mind you, if I were going to blow something up, I suppose I'd want somebody with an engineering background in demolitions as opposed to an art major.
The question is where you'd fine such an engineer. Unless he/she is already a bit of a nutjob, an engineering background should come with decent employment options and intelligence that would somewhat contrast with the somewhat brainwashed or easily overwhelmed variety of terrorist-recruit that tends to be more readily available.
Recruiting engineers to be terrorists, likely not. Training terrorists to be engineers would be more likely.
Those bastards!
And an airplane pilot would be a good terrorist, a car racer would be a nice hit-and-run driver, a professional shooter would be a great killer...
If the guy study to be an engineer and them turn to terrorism, he probably was a terrorist already. They don't recruit engineers, they form engineers.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
Engineers think different. Maybe it should have been said that engineers bother to think. They usually know from "engineering problems" that sometimes the solution to problems is something that has to be analyzed rather than regurgitated. Engineers are usually better educated than the "poor unwashed masses". That and they "dare to criticize" the source. It it amazing in how a democratic populace like the US, people "like being told what to think". A simple example is GWB's why do they hate us so much? Gee, hasn't someone thought beyond the given reply and maybe even ventured a guess that maybe we are "at fault", gasp!! You mean "the C student from Yale" might be wrong? Also, engineers have access to lots of information by virtue of their profession. They meet and travel all over the world, so some of that "foreign propaganda" rubs off. The might even have met a Middle Eastern who is educated too, while as most people's encounter with Ahmed is at the filling station. Secondly, in a modern sophisticated society, weapons and tactics used by the military have common roots from that taught in engineering. It is a sort of a chicken and egg dilemma, but lots of engineering projects have been funded by the military. There is symbiosis of engineering with the military that goes back to the "Battle for Troy". Why I bet even Grog (the caveman) might have mumbled to Geek (the tinker) on how to improve his stone knife. Thirdly, engineers might even understand the plight of other people. Most likely, someone who is and engineer probably came up from the lower middle class end of society, and knows that the distribution of economic wealth is not fair. If he had been better off, he would have been a lawyer, banker or businessman. He might even question why the hell is a capitalistic country like the US subsidizing the Bear Sterns sell off to Morgan Stanley while his house price is falling below the price that he paid for it. Or worse yet, he might be an unemployed middle-aged engineer listening to Bill Gates talk about raising the number of H1B visas, while he is contemplating becoming a cashier at the supermarket. But what the hell do I know?
"Politician's lack of focus and inability to understand the outcome of their actions, along with their perceived ability to attract crowds of civilians, make them ideal targets to be recruited as terrorists, according to me. Lack of planning skills make politicians good 'cannon fodder.' I offer that 'Politicians ideally make excellent use of words over action, and they make excellent cannon fodder. They think differently from how other people think.' That may sound like a stereotype, but I claim that 'because of those traits, terrorist groups actively recruit politicians.' I say that Al-Qaeda's top leadership have exhibited a survival instinct that can be compared to a politician's."
Should be: "'Terrorists' are still a good excuse to go on witchhunts"
Twinstiq, game news
I invoke the Kryten defense. If the lie is so outrageous that NO ONE (but management) would believe it, then it's not lying.
AKA
LISTER: Kryten, I'm gonna teach you how to lie and cheat if it's the last thing I do. I want you to be unpleasant, cruel, and sarcastic; it's the only way to break your programming, man -- make you independent!
KRYTEN: Well, I'm truly grateful, sir. Don't you think I'd love to be deceitful, unpleasant, and offensive? Those are the human qualities I admire the most! But I just can't do it.
LISTER: You CAN!
KRYTEN: I CAN'T!
LISTER: (Picks up the banana again.) Look! What's this?!
KRYTEN: No!
LISTER: What is it?
KRYTEN: Please!
LISTER: Come on, what is it?
KRYTEN: It's a b... It's a b... It's a small, off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic warden!
etc.etc.
so a 'good' terrorist might be....??? one of adolf's worst 'enemies'? let yOUR conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_sc/ye_climate_records;_ylt=A0WTcVgednZHP2gB9wms0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080108/ts_alt_afp/ushealthfrancemortality;_ylt=A9G_RngbRIVHsYAAfCas0NUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html
the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.
corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7
as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet, & by your behaviors. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious cor
There is an uncomfortable feeling between police, politicians, and the military for "intelligent" types. Lawyers are wimps, just give them money and they'll shut up. Scientists are "hot house flowers" who deal with theory and few ever produce much more than papers. Mathematicians, give me a break, kill me with long division? Engineers, we are a real threat, we know shit and we know how to apply it. More than that, we often work under pressure and think about fixing problems before they happen. Also, I don't know a single "good" engineer that couldn't blow up a building if we were so inclined.
/==/
BTW, in my experience, project managers are far more likely to be terrorist meterial than engineers.
Lack of social skills? No way. I actually had a date last year, thank you very much. We even almost kissed.
We were supposed to go out on a second date, but she got the flu, and then her mother was sick, after that her grandma died and her father had a heart attack and she couldn't make it.
I figured I was better off anyway. With that many people sick in her family, she must have had horrible genes.
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
We engineers are not all terrorists! This satan's bitch & capitalist pig can't say what he wants and get away unpunished. Let's all send him a mail bomb. The IEEE, ACM or Linus should issue a fatwa. I'll start planning right now. Any advices?
"The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain!"
--
Montgomery Scott
In commenting on his t3rr0rist act of disabling Excelsior's Trans Warp Drive to allow another pirate, the renegade J. T. "I see you managed to get your shirt off" Kirk, to commandeer a military vessel.
Burn the Witches^H^H^H^H^H^HTerrorists!
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Who better to destroy buildings and bridges than the same kind of people who designed them? Chemists and Doctors are good at making biological weapons too. For what it's worth, Canadian Engineers take an oath that would likely prevent them from being terrorists (unless they break their oath).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
'Engineers make good terrorists because they're smart.'
Can we flip this to 'liberal art students make poor terrorists because they're disorganized and irrational'?
Didn't the GDI engineers have the same ability? IIRC, in the first C&C either side could take over a building with a lone engineer. Then C&C:RA required either a van full of them, or some damage to the building ahead of time.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That is not news. Except to the people that run the fear-campaigns at the moment.
I know no engineer that has not thought about where he/she could do massive damage. All have found credible attack vectors. And there is really nothing that can be done about it. Engineers need these skills and insight to be able to perform their jobs.
The reason we soo so little terrorist activity, in comparison to the numbers of people that have the capabilities, is that typically engineering training imposes a bit of rationality and morality beyond the subject matter.
BTW, good scientists in practical subjects (physics) do also qualify.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Don't get your panties in a bunch, engineers. One of the important things to remember about the assertions made in TFA is that it is explicitly an a posteriori analysis. Which is to say, it asserts that most terrorists are engineers, and submits a few reasons why this may be so. It does not necessarily follow therefore that most engineers are thus terrorists. Simply put, the analysis is running "backwards" not "forwards" - which would be a priori analysis.
For a classic example of the difference, consider that while most murdered married women are killed by their husbands (a posteriori), it does not follow that most husbands will kill their wives (a priori).
Finally, as a liberal arts major, allow me to say that it does not surprise me in the least that we make terrible terrorists. =P
I mean, given the definitions flying around lately a chef makes a great terrorist. They're knowledgeable and methodical also. They have to be or the food will look/taste like crap.
What am I missing about what a terrorist is and is not?
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
I suppose the GDI did too, but they weren't so clearly a terrorist organization. Or were they?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Here's a good one: along with their perceived lack of social skills,
Perceived, surely it's only actual traits that count, not one's that other people might think you have.
No, it's the perceived nature that gets the targeted for terrorist recruitment; which is what this is about. Becasue the people doing the recruiting are perceiving your attributes.
I have never met a boring engineer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As an engineer who has spent time in the explosives and pyrotechnics industry "AND" having read the The Gulag Archipelago makes me wonder what sort of walls they are trying to back us into. Purge this ,.|.. fear monger.
Fixer of things broken by people who really ought to know better
And the video for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRzNuIvpMUc
I could go for some terrorism. Lets start with One Infinite Loop. Surely there are no engineers there.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
Looks like the entire Engineering profession needs to be outlawed. How quickly can this be pushed through congress? Surely a "think of the children" can be slipped in there.
.
Mai name is Abu Suckit Al Bashzlib GNU-ouri.
I will set us up the bomb! Main engineer on.
and I'd put my money on those teach nothing leftist professors I had to take classes from.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Smart people make good terrorists, news at 11!
Engineering school tends to weed out idiots. That leaves a pool with a higher probability of pulling off the complex "make bomb, plant it and destroy things" process. Plus, they might be smart enough that they don't have to blow themselves up while doing it!
I'm an Electrical Engineer.
THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY I WANT TO BLOW SOMETHING UP!
And yeah, C&C had Engineers. You could take over buildings with them, as long as the building health was below 50%. Otherwise, they would damage the building.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
If they like engineers so much, perhaps they are just interested in the X-prize.
I'm a software engineer AND also an avid amateur photographer. so I'm definitely on some watch list, given how paranoid our current leaders are (and how they look to scapegoat ANYONE they can).
;(
I also have a beard. now, you and I would see it as an 'engineer look' but we all know that this can be seen in lesser evolved ways.
a guy in a beard taking pictures in public. if that's not enough to 'scare the children', then I can show them my business card as a working engineer and I guess I'll find out if you really do get one call or not when they take you away 'downtown'.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Maybe there is some truth to it. Does anybody remember where the 9/11 terrorists came from? (hint: many of them studied at a technical university)
Football players
If very many competent engineers were terrorists, terrorism would be far more devastating than it is today.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Am I currently posting to the equivalent of Al-Queda.net?
To err is human, to really foul up requires a computer
It was not trains that crashed into the World Trade Center! It was airplanes! You want to round up the pilots , not the engineers.
smart people are good at scaring dumb people, big shock there... I'm not sure he's an engineer if he thinks this is news.
They make horrible CEOs because they are detailed oriented. You need folks who are big picture people to excel at being a CEO. One of the reasons why many CEOs are so incompetent is because of the corporate ladder. You have to start at the bottom and work your way up. But the thing is, what makes a good middle manager and engineer (attention to detail) is the worst thing for a CEO. Hence, when folks get promoted up to the upper echelons of management, many fail because they are unable to see the big picture. They are so worried about some little piddly thing they miss the trends in the market, economy, and the world. Details are for underlings.
Of course an engineer could make a good terrorist. There's plenty of spare parts lying around.
- Maybe the engineers should go elsewhere. The "pick a country" would be so much better off with the politicians, plutocrats, me-first'ers, welfare riders and managers as the sole population. All those nerdy engineering types do is say that their betters can't have what's wanted, when it's wanted, at no cost. Who need those engineering types to fix things, run infrastructure and create new products? They should just go away and let their betters run things and enjoy the good life.
- So be it, just as long as I can watch from a distance, a very great distance.
Makes sense to me; at my school, the CS and engineering departments are full of terrorists.
'Nuff said.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Hell doesn't have a big enough oven for the average American belly. Perhaps they could outsource the actual roasting to China, and just FedEx the finished product back to Hell?
I hate printers.
I must watch Ow! My Balls! while drinking a Brawndo.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
as it turns out I'd make a very good terrorist. I was trained in chemical warfare by the US Army, trained as a diesel mechanic and electrician by the Air Force, and I was trained in basic electronics in high school. Alas, I am not in the market for a new career killing people this year. Talk to me near retirement, if my investments tank and the Social Security system collapses I may be in the market. Sheesh, makes me sad I spent all that time learning that stuff.
Why bother
Send them a bunch of software "engineers". Just wait until the Windows CE hand held explosive vest dentonator (written in VB) crashes making it impossible to detonate the vest. Or better yet, detonates the vest while still in headquarters.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Yasser Arafat was too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#Childhood.2C_education_and_personal_life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat#Education_and_1948_Arab.E2.80.93Israeli_War
Don't put advice in your sig.
Does this article actually suggest "Terrorist" as an alternate career path for Engineers?
Pro:
Outsource proof. You have to physically be there to get the job done!
Con:
You think you'll suddenly know how to talk to 72 virgins in the hereafter? Yeah right, get a life..er nm.
x + y = z
where
x = bomb
z = terrorist
What is y?
a. farmer
b. stay-at-home dad
c. engineer
There are plenty of terrorists that are not engineers, but when a plot needs engineering, the guy in charge doesn't call upon the best DJ or cook in the house. They call on Mr. Gadget. At the end of the day the gadget might be what explodes, but that doesn't mean there weren't 100 non-engineers watching while the guy built it.
Terrorists need engineers. And good engineers usually have better things to do, so they usually recruit the bad ones.
Of course, not to mention this is a completely jobist comment. Saying engineers make good terrorists is like saying african americans are good at basketball. It is completely prejudicial.
In Serbia, there's still a compulsory military service. Before you become 27, you have to spent 6 months in the army. When it was my age to finally get rid of that it was 9 months. One simple way to make that reasonably comfortable was to enlist to Officers in reserve training instead of regular army.
Prerequisite is to have a university degree. As a result, our "class" had 100 pissed well-educated young man, forming 4 platoons. My platoon consisted of electrical engineers, one platoon consisted of mechanical engineers. We were trained for duties in "technical service of army" (dunno correct English term for that). Last two platoons were trained for logistics (food, laundry etc) and they consisted of people from many fields, mostly with degree in economy.
It is important to say also that in Serbia, electrical engineering is considered much more prestigious than mechanical engineering, and generally (when I was the freshman) best students enrolled to electrical engineering.
And as you may predict, our platoon was always with the best discipline, with the best scores and with the best attitude toward (usually meaningless) tasks. Those two platoons of "mixed origin" were complete mass, and only thing that helped them from being constantly punished were their superior who had to take a lot of effort to cover their screw-ups.
(Funny thing with this system is that our reserve officers are actually most educated ppl in the army system, much better educated than regular officers, as they were trained in extremely crappy military academy.)
No sig today.
Ayman Al-Zawahiri is a doctor. He's a top Al-Qaeda guy - arrested decades ago in connection with the murder of Anwar Sadat, and he also wrote a lot of Al-Qaeda's various manifestos. He has a masters in surgery. That's not quite like an engineer, but it's not exactly totally different, either.
And then of course there's the Unabomer, Ted Kaczynski. He has a PhD in Math.
Of course, there are plenty of stupid people who become terrorists. They just tend to not be as good at it... for some mysterious reason. And so they do not become nearly as famous as the smart terrorists.
It's somewhat disturbing that intelligence is no safeguard against feelings of murderous rage (aren't the smarties supposed to "know better?"), but such condition is hardly limited to the intelligent.
It sorta makes me wonder how many doctors, engineers, and mathematicians get away with regular old-fashioned non-terroristical murder each year. I would not be surprised to learn that smart people commit murder at the same rate as anyone else, but simply have a much better shot at getting away with it.
I'd love to be a terrorist, but today's religiously based terrorism outfits aren't tailored to the atheistic youth. Give me political terrorism any day - Perhaps I should go to China and get involved in or form a Tibetan resistance movement :P
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Engineers are good at lots of things, as are all smart people. What makes someone an effective terrorist is lack of moral boundaries and there is no evidence that engineers are less moral than anyone else.
In short, the premise of the article is a crock of bull.
In fact being good at stuff might actually make a person more difficult to recruit. Right wing militias have had very little success recruiting Special Forces soldiers. Such soldiers are *really* effective soldiers and would be great at training those knuckleheads but they have too much pride in their hardwon skills to prostitute them out to said wingnuts.
The truth is an offense, but not a sin.------R. N. Marley
as they have easy access to bomb makeing parts and are good at bypass Security and softy devices.
Terrorism has always been defined as the use of violence or the threat of violence to achieve political goals. For states, of course, this definition only applies to the "enemy", which in a sweet twist of fate, includes enemies both foreign and domestic.
The military is a terrorist organization when used in an aggressive manner not congruent with international law. But of course the rules only apply to "them" and not "us."
Don't get caught up on boogeyman tactics like trying to suggest engineers are good terror suspects. Everyone has a place in a well rounded terror organization. Are you a charismatic people-person? Great, you're in recruitment. Are you a natural born leader? Great, you're a middle-manager. Have a boat-load of money and a crazy political agenda? Perfect, you're the terror CEO. Are you an engineer? great, you're in the strategic planning department. Are you a completely moronic gullible fool who is easily susceptible to social pressure? You get to hold the bomb. Congrats, see you in heaven.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Some one better keep a eye on the mythbusters as they have easy access to bomb makeing parts and are good at bypass Security and safety devices.
It's been awhile, but I seem to remember that ROTC at my alma mater was populated mostly by engineers. It seems that maybe the stateless military forces aren't the only ones that have figured this point out.
In a similar line of thought: what do most cadets major in at the academies?
The Department Of Homeland Security lists Underwriters' Laboratories as a "Terrorist Organization", and tech schools as "Terrorist Training Camps".
That degree in Engineering now seems less like a Badge Of Honor and more like the Mark Of The Devil.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
But most of the terrorist groups the US seems concerned with today wouldn't appeal to the interest of a vast majority of Slashdot's readership. Unless, of course, there was a great deal of money involved.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. There are people who think that the oppression of the English state justifies the actions of the IRA. For them, the IRA fights for freedom. For England, the IRA are terrorists.
Buddhist monks are "terrorists" to the red Chinese- they certainly use tactics we would consider "terrifying", such as pouring gas on a reverend monk and lighting him on fire in opposition to the southern Vietnamese regime.
+5, Truth
The only 'good' terrorist is a dead terrorist.
Since engineers make good terrorists they must be dead.
Therefore all engineers must be pre-emptively killed in order to satisfy the logical requirement.
QED.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I'd say religious nuts make the best terrorists. They're easily lead automatons and nobody says anything when they start talking their BS.
See, I checked into the thread figuring, Slashdot, Engineers, Terrorism = Hilarity.
I was not disappointed. Sometimes, you just know.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
A real engineer would not be an asset to a terror-seeking team. If it is terror driven by religion, I can guarantee you that the engineer will always be the odd man out that won't want to stick to the rules, be it scheduling of prayers or that pork rinds are not acceptable, etc.
What you want is a sleeper. You find the right kind of young recruit that will make a good engineering student. Indoctrinate first, engineering education later. If you try to indoctrinate an engineer you will probably end up losing your own religion over the ordeal.
--
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I haven't even started a degree yet and I could kill alot more people than the very amaturish attempts I have seen from religious groups and the IRA and probobly not get caught and not die in the proccess. The reason I doun't is because there is no reward for killing people and a large amount of risk.
....the engineers get some jocks drunk and all fired up and convince them to go out and do the terrorist stuff...
"Is this just pop psychology masquerading as science?"
Yes. Otherwise they'd call it "going engineer" instead of "going postal".
Besides, wouldn't technical writers be even more qualified? They'd seem to be a match as defined by the article: "focus and attention to details, along with their perceived lack of social skills, make them ideal targets to be recruited as terrorists". Plus, they wouldn't have to understand what's going on inside the backpack, just how to work the controls. And, they suffer from the job frustration that "nobody reads the manual anyway."
QED
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
Anyone who isn't a drooling retard knows that the politicians, not engineers, are always the "terrorists". If they can get their way everyone who isn't a drooling retard will be labeled a terrorist and put in the FEMA camps for execution.
I'm an engineer. I can design and build a detonator for just about anything, and if that anything won't burn with the material around it, I can figure out what to add so it will. I can design guidance systems. I can study a system and design a process to infiltrate it. I, and many engineers, can do lots of things that could be used for evil. However, I will only do those things under a specific set of circumstances. If you're an idiot or a nutjob, my interest in doing it for you will be pretty low, no matter how many truckloads of gold bullion you say you'll give me.
Engineers do not attribute credibility to anyone on faith, and they are absolutely horrible about doing what they're told to do without a logically compelling reason to do it. If you tell an engineer that wasn't raised as a fundy islamist to design a bomb for you, he will ask you what for, and if you give him some religious claptrap as a reason, he will laugh in your face.
You are more likely to recruit a herd of cats and get them to do your evil bidding for you than a herd of engineers. I don't think Raphael Perl would do very well in an intellectual meritocracy.
Any attempt to link engineering to terrorism as a causal correlation is post hoc reasoning.
Osama was an engineering student, and he knew how to take down a large building, and he knew nobody engineered large buildings against his ideas, so that is the goal he set. On al Quaeda's second try, they succeeded.
If he were a marketer he might have gone for the popular icons, playing the "nothing is sacred" card. Instead, al Quaeda exploited the weakness they understood.
If he were a politician he might have gone for heads of state. Instead, he attacked what he though was important.
If the authors of this "study" examined their methodology they'd find they were presuming their conclusion.
The reign of terror imposed by GDI can only be ended by GDI+. Or maybe OpenGL.
Why not fork?
There goes my security clearance.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I think its the time to start investigation of IEEE and other engineering bodies. The investigation should be lead by the current govt, this way, no actual engineer will ever be contacted.
The Myers-Briggs personality theories predicted this congruence. Engineers tend to be NTs, or iNtuitive Thinkers. So do CEOs, generals, scientists, programmers, mathmeticians, and revolutionary leaders. Might as well say that CEOs, scientists, and generals share a lot in common with terrorists. Fact is that they do, and it's because intuitive thinkers (NTs) parse the world in terms of principles, axioms, models, and abstractions based on logic and reason as the NT understands them. They can be willing to fight, kill, and die for a principle or belief. Most people will fight to protect themselves, to protect family, or by extension their own country, but most will not fight for an abstraction. However to an NT an abstraction can be real and worthy of being defended. That is why IMO the NT mindset can be persuaded to join a revolutionary group and be effective at it and at the same time morally at peace with himself over his actions, even if those actions are seen to be high treason by the majority.
When I decided on civil engineering I wanted to make sure people had access to clean, affordable water and solve interesting problems. On the other hand TFA is sort of a backhanded compliment, I suppose I could just as easily use my fabrication skills and what I know to cause a lot of damage if I was that sort of person.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/the_security_mi_1.html
Counter-terrorists make good terrorists, too. What's your point?
I think we're seeing that all you have to do is destroy a few big important buildings, and society will tear itself apart.
'Engineers ideally make excellent strategic planners, and they make excellent field operatives. They think differently from how other people think.' ... 'because of those traits, terrorist groups actively recruit engineers.'
Well, gosh. I'd've never thunk it.
The part that surprises me is not that terrorist groups recognize that good strategic thinkers should be actively recruited, but that US corporations typically pay more to socially proficient people even if they lack good strategic thinking skills. That is not to say that there are no business people who are exceedingly adept strategic thinkers (they may even be more rare and perhaps more valuable than good engineers), just that there are so many nimrod schmoozers getting wheelbarrows full of cash for short-term-oriented stupidity (see Bear Stearns; how could I see the real estate crash coming in 2002 and they missed it?!? With all those MBAs! And they get bailed out?!?!?! FEH!).
OK, maybe I'm just venting.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
So, people with the intelligence to be engineers also can use their intelligence to engineer terroristic events. Seriously slashdot authors, stop posting crapola articles like this just because it says 'engineer' or has some word related to science in the headline.
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
an independent firm by the name of westwood studios confirmed this in a 1996 research project utilizing software models of conventional and guerrilla warfare. the work was entitled "Command & Conquer: Red Alert". fascinating research.
What could be more creative than destruction?
A passion for logic over emotion. Liberal tenancies?
Or just powerful traits that power doesn't like.
This so much reminds me of the miniseries V where the Visitors fomented suspicion of doctors and scientists.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
How long until you have to contend with bureaucracy security checks in order to complete a project or have a psychological profile ran before you receive your engineering diploma?
Or will the CIA/men-in-black always be in your background...
Good engineers?
If you include 'software engineers' with no claim to the title I'd say about 10-20% are good enough to be called 'good software engineers'.
If you only include real engineers I'd still say about 50% are what I'd call 'good engineers'. It's just a job to the rest of them.
Granted I have worked places that for a few short years was basically engineering flat-foot free. Then it all went to hell. Had a marketing department when I bailed.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Bravo, you hit the nail on the head there. As you said, I doubt anyone *IN* the engineering community actually takes this seriously, but my question is how do we get word out?
This is one issue among many. The problem is not this issue, but the trend that it represents. In order to restore political and social stability, we need to change the cognitive norm.
There's a small minority with innovative thoughts and real solutions to real problems, but in order to make things happen they need the backing of the community at large. Right now their voices are, for the most part, drowned out in the noise of infomercials, advertisements, and propaganda. So how do we change the intellectual landscape at large?
These are the questions I ask myself. It's not enough for me to throw my opinion out there, I need to do something. We all do. We see the problems, is it not our responsibility then to *DO* something about them? There must be a way to change the situation. So slashdotters, what do you have to say? What do you think can be done to revolutionize the way the world thinks? Can we turn this boat around, or are we doomed to kill each other over religious and political differences, just before the space age finally begins?
A real engineer would not be an asset to a terror-seeking team. If it is terror driven by religion, I can guarantee you that the engineer will always be the odd man out that won't want to stick to the rules, be it scheduling of prayers or that pork rinds are not acceptable, etc.
:)
What you want is a sleeper. You find the right kind of young recruit that will make a good engineering student. Indoctrinate first, engineering education later. If you try to indoctrinate an engineer you will probably end up losing your own religion over the ordeal.
An engineer planned 9/11 afterall. That's right, Bin Laden is an engineer.*
*I might be full of shit, I'm still right though!
Umm, last time I checked, engineers are logical thinkers, Terrorism doesn't employ any sort of logic [well maybe flawed logic].
Most engineers here [in Canada] also take an oath to protect the public, at all costs, terrorism violates that oath. [what if they work in as a defense contractor?]
The breeding grounds for terror, are poor, ignorant people. Engineers [most that I know] are neither.
Spies maybe, terrorists, no.
Film at 11.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
They weren't "pioneers" in this style of warfare. Combat engineers have existed since ancient times. In fact the word "engineer" comes from their activities, working the siege engines such as catapults, battering rams, etc. As an aside, in the British and related armies, a "pioneer" is an infantry soldier with some combat engineering training. A pioneer in those armies is trained to blow things up in close combat.
Engineering has traditionally been for fighting wars. See the Royal Engineers for example. Over time, people have started to think of engineering as a peaceful profession, but there are still many combat engineers in the world, ready to blow things up.
Well considering that the Global Defense Initiative was originally a UN organization (UNGDI), before Tiberium became such a problem that the existing world governmental system failed (by Tiberian Sun a fair amount of earths population had been relocated into colonies run by the GDI, and by Tiberian Wars all remaining civilization lived in GDI administered Colonies in the "Blue Zones"), leaving only Kane's Brotherhood of Nod, and the Global Defense Initiative as government-like organizations, it seems reasonable to conclude that the GDI should not be considered terrorists. Consider that the United States must approve anything the UN does (as must the rest of the security council) and it seems extremely unlikely that the UN could create something that could truly be considered a terrorist organization.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
You could consider Noah an engineer, building the Ark wasn't all that easy. So is he terrorist material?
No job too dirty for the fucking scientists. --William S. Burroughs
Yup, and that was a big load of crap when you needed more than one. It was difficult enough getting one engineer into a building.
But do terrorists make good engineers?
No, right?
So being an engineer is neither necessary nor sufficient (nor relevant) to being a terrorist.
This has become just another silly meme that those other people down at the monkey end of the gene pool have created.
This gives a whole new meaning to "Planned Outage" :((
The article is interesting however the summation at the end of the introduction (This the second time in just a few months that engineers have been likened to terrorists) is inaccurate. The article doesn't liken engineers to terrorists. Rather it says engineers have many characteristics that, if they turn bad, make them good terrorists and that as a result, Al-Qaeda tries to recruit engineers.
This recognition of key characteristics is no different than what I do at work or any other organization does when recruiting. When I need to hire a salesman or tech support engineer I know that certain groups tend to have a higher success rate. I tend not to limit myself however I know where to start looking. Interesting article although I'm not sure it the author had any concrete suggestions on how to use this information but interesting none-the-less.
So it's the United States that gets to decide who is and who is not a terrorist?
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Creative people are a threat to the status quo. As an engineer can make disruptive technologies like the Internet or a car that runs on water.
When an engineer, hacker, or whistleblower breaks up a long running conspiracy, the best way for the status quo to handle this is to make the media create disinformation, there by squelching exposure as much as possible. But the engineers can and have engineered a way to crack the squelch and spread their ideas penetrate the market where status quo only provides two choices created by the same manufacturer.
So now the status quo pulls out their terror card by calling engineers terrorists. That sh*t may have worked on 9/12/2001 but not 4/4/2008 where people are much wiser and now see that their concent has cost them freedom and liberty.
There should be more engineers in the world, as they break the silence of status quo and bring towering conglomorates crumbling down faster than any international terrorist organization can crash a jet into a high rise.
The real terrorsits are the Engineers of Armageddon that we elected as leaders for the past 8 years. Two of the candidates for president want to make it 12, 16, perhaps 100 years.
It is time to put the real engineers back in charge and start hacking, creating, and engineering again. Give them hell, engineers!
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
It is probably safe to assume the second case...
Al Qaeda has been hopelessly and purposefully over-hyped. We in the US and to some extent other Western powers went looking for a vast international octopus to put the old Cold War spy and intelligence networks to shame. We were told there were sleepers everywhere and huge underground control compounds somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. Years later almost every so-called terrorist cell case has fallen apart as utterly empty and not one bit of major organizational infrastructure or evidence has come to light. The truth is that Al Qaeda is tiny and not very well funded. There is no serious wide-spread and powerful terrorist movement afoot. All that energy pretending there was was merely an excuse for greatly curtailing freedom, massively increasing government power and control and creating military power bases in certain highly strategic spots. It is high time we put paid to this vicious nonsense and utterly rejected any arguments or suggestions made on such a basis.
Engineers, especially of the hackerish variety, scare control freaks of every stripe. I think that is a very good thing.
People who know how to actually do things (engineers) are recruited by all organizations to Actually Do Things(TM). If you can't build a machine or train a factory worker to do it, you probably need an engineer.
This fits exactly with the polical currents nowadays.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Can't think of any witty comments, so I'll just link to a related webcomic.
**TODO** [X] Steal someone elses sig.
Once it was intellectuals that were suspicious because 'they think differently'. Now it is engineers, same difference. This is reactionary fear-mongering, simply: You take a group of people that belong to a different stereotype than your own, and then you cast suspicion on them. So intellectuals are "revolutionary" and engineers are "terrorists", as if they were somehow not quite people like the rest of us. It is strange to see how "security" is being twisted to imply that you have to be scared of your own shadow - you would have thought that "security" meant "feeling secure".
The difference is not that engineers and intellectuals think differently, but that they think at all.
What about those creeps that still play RPGs in person?
SOME OF THEM ARE ENGINEERS TOO.
Its just backlash from the American way of doing business dying, I just got the first job in 2 years that's run the American way of doing business. Hope you like working for free alot to please your boss and worring about how your social life outside of the office would make your employer look.
I think you mean "by the English state" but, oh no, you can't because there's no such thing.
It's so obvious. Terrorism is mostly an engineering and resource management problem. No surprise terrorist will want to have engineers to solve them properly.
What's new about that?
Hey, if you're gonna say engineers are terrorists, we need to be specific on which ones you use. Civies build targets, mechies build weapons.
They've been doing this aside from the official UN terrorist groups list for a looong while, i don't think they'll change their behaviour anytime soon.
May the source be with you!
Terrorist boy: Do not try to understand the Terrorist. That's impossible. Instead...
only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Terrorist boy: There is no Terrorist.
Neo: There is no Terrorist?
Terrorist boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the Terrorist you understand, it is only yourself.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
No big surprise. Terrorists are essentially combatants. We may not agree with HOW they combat, but they are combatants. It has long been established that a well-engineered army will be an effective force:
- When Hannibal built (from scratch) a bridge to cross the Rhine(?) River and invade Roman Gaul.
- When Rome responded by building their very first fleet, and soundly defeated the Carthage navy thanks to superior engineering.
- When Julius Caesar built siege walls to starve Vercingeterix into submission.
- When Roman soldiers formed a "tank formation" and, like a machine, marched across Britania killing everything in sight, including Queen Boudica and her rebellion.
- And in more modern times (1991 and 2003; Iraq), the way that U.S. engineering can wipe-out ground stations, effectively blinding the enemy and winning the battle.
Engineering can make the difference between success and failure on the battlefield, whether it's a terrorist squad or a national army.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
What's next? Should the Fed start to worry & send 'em all to Guantanamo?
"They're not going to talk to a lot of people and brag about any terrorist activity they may be involved in." Well DOH !!!!
davecb5620@gmail.com
Hey, I'm not saying that engineers don't make good terrorists. It's just that if you premise that the terrorists you're talking about are from the mid-east then it is a natural direction. Any organization (terror or not) looks for educated people for leadership and planning skills. Oil producing countries send many people to Britain, Canada, US, etc for training: mostly oil related engineering such as mechanical, geological, electrical, etc. The population of available educated people is going to have a major contingent of engineers.
The fact that a lot of terrorists have tech/eng backgrounds is not a surprise: they have good skill sets and there are a lot (relatively) available. Ho hum.
| perceived lack of social skills I love how people try to simultaneously embrace and reject the geek stereotype with words like "perceived".
Given that the issue at hand is social skills, isn't how other people perceive you the entire point? How can you claim "I'm actually a well liked person, it's just that everyone dislikes me"??!?!?!
Embrace the facts, kids. We're geeks, lots of people don't like us, and sometimes that sucks. On the plus side, most of them are morons, so what the hell....
I think it should be noted than in almost all cases of what you're describing, that is an act of self immolation.
The monk pours and lights the gasoline himself. Buddhist monks do this as an extreme act of protest, but they do not light other people one fire. (And, yes, I'm aware of some appallingly bad examples of behavior in Thailand recently with infighting among groups of monks.)
It is terrifying in that we can't conceive of doing it -- but, it is not terrorism in that it isn't intended to instill in the general populace a fear of having themselves lit on fire. This isn't terror in the traditional sense of causing the rest of the people to live in fear -- this is an act of conviction that most of us can't even begin to fathom (including me), but it is not directed at other people. So, I would argue that self immolation falls outside of any reasonable definition of terrorism.
Certainly, the Chinese deem the protesters in Tibet to be terrorists. But, most of the world thinks the Chinese government are a bunch of thugs. But, that's what Mao showed them to do.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sorry, folks. Everyone gets upset with Racial profiling, so we'll do it by profession
Let's start with just my profession, civil engineering (from Wikipedia):
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - President of Iran
Yasser Arafat - Former Palestinian President
Osama bin Laden - Civil engineering student
Sukarno - former President of Indonesia
Fritz Todt - Reichsminister for Armaments and Munitions during World War 2
Boris Yeltsin - Ex President of Russia
And this is just civil engineers!
Mahar Arar was a Canadian engineer switching planes in the US who was sent to Syria to be tortured. He was exonerated by the Canadian government who supplied some of the information that was used by the Americans to decide to send him off to Syria.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
What's with the vilification of smart people? They may as well have said "Engineers are smart and quirky. We can't understand what they say. We don't care if they're Civil Engineers, Software Engineers, or Maintenance Engineers, anyone with reasoning skills is scary." Akin to the attacks on "Scientists in their Ivory Towers" this kind of attitude does nothing to help our society out of the glorification of stupid beautiful people. And the fact that it's come up twice in recent times leads you to suspect that it might be a more directed smear campaign.
Wow; I didn't think it was possible to stuff that many left-wing buzzwords, slogans, and code-phrases into that small a space. I take it you're the guy who folds those plastic raincoats into those impossibly small plastic pouches? You know; the ones that, once you pull them out, you can never fit them back in again?
I'll bet you never blinked an eye when you put "peace lover" in the same paragraph with "permanently eliminate," "go for the jugular," and "deadly force."
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Regards;
We are very goal-oriented.
When I'm on a startup NOBODY gives a rat's ass why we're not making production.
You make the cars move down the line if you have to hold in the contactors and punch the valves by hand.
You use the other hand to fix the bugs in the program.
When things work they way they're supposed to, you get to go home. Not before.
This is where the terrorist mindset overlaps with the engineering mindset.
I doubt that most terrorists woke up one morning with the desire to kill people and break their stuff. I understand that some folks enjoy doing that just for the sake of doing it, but I'm betting that it's not a primary motivator for your typical terrorist.
The terrorist is trying to accomplish political change.
Why the political change has not happened does not get them a ticket home.
Making the change happen "by whatever means necessary" permits them to say "done!".
Terrorism has nothing to do, specifically, with killing people and breaking their stuff.
Any effective means of producing political change will be defined as "terrorism" by the folks already in power.
According to the FBI, Dr. King (killed this date in 1968) was a "terrorist"--not because he terrorized people, but because he was an agent of political change.
At the time, though, the word was spelled "Communist".
Free speech zones exist because somebody has decided that public awareness of peaceful protest might be an effective means of instigating political change.
But, if nobody sees the protest, the threat is gone.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Hmmm, an engineer, someone who is studied and proven at being able to apply science to solve a problem. I'm not sure I see the connection here.
You may need a bigger and/or better monitor for this, and you may need to place it further away from you. Anyhow:
Crank up the resolution and then turn up the text size a bit. That way the big meaty buttons of death are only a little bigger than the text, and the vast stretch of whitespace that builds up to the left of the comments is reduced, while at the same time fitting a lot of text on the screen. Next, crank up the contrast so there is a more clearly defined border around the comments.
Now if only I could figure out how to put some common settings to the right of the new reply box for easy access. Maybe this idea I have using things I call "tabs" and "radio buttons" would work...hey, don't go stealing my ideas now!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Most 'terrorist' events have in fact been false flag operations (USS liberty, 9/11, Oklahoma City). The 'War on Terror' is yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Write in Dr. Ron Paul and save this great country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
I think there's a good reason they don't want people from other fields.
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
We prefer the term "Freedom Engineer". It sounds so much better than "Terrorist".
If terrorists are expected to design and build devices, then ...DUH!... of course they'll be engineers.
Can you imagine the havoc which could be wrought by a terrorist cell whose operatives majored in comparative literature? Oh, the horror!