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.

Comments

Old news

[spazdor]

We've been tapping engineers for our cause ever since Counterstrike came out.

Engineering Improvements:

[smartaleq]

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"?

Re:Engineering Improvements:

[Trouvist]

Based on the engineers I know, it's more like "Give an Engineer a working Computer, and he'll give you a broken radio."

What about the managers

[esocid]

I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Aptly named

[PCM2]

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!

Engineer Joke

[essinger]

(Engineers are all smart and anti-social, therefore they're basically the unabomber).

I think a common stereotype. A friend of mine (who is an actor) told me he'd heard a great joke about engineers:

How do you tell if an engineer is an introvert or an extrovert?
The extrovert looks at your shoes.

Then answer this...

[Anonymous Coward]

what does it pay? Health care? Time off? Options? Company Car?

Re:Then answer this...

[spazdor]

None of the above, but let me tell you about our virgin remuneration plan.

Lack of social skills?

[TheSeventh]

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.