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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!
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"?
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!
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"
Engineers make good EVERYTHING.
But terrorists? Only if the engineers are lonely, disgruntled people in-general. I think most engineers would be more Constructive than Destructive by nature
You see... that is the problem. The term "Terrorist" has been so deluded that most people will fall into that category anymore. Smoke pot? Terrorist. Downloaded a song? Terrorist. Using SSH? Terrorist.
And it is thrown around even more, if you show an average intelligence larger than those who would label you a terrorist... and how many people do you think fall into that category?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
How do you tell if an engineer is an introvert or an extrovert?
The extrovert looks at your shoes.
A good engineer will always think of the possibilities of destruction, even if they're in the business of construction. An engineer has to critically think about their designs to determine where the weak points are. Whether designing skyscrapers or secure software, determining weaknesses is a part of the job.
I'm sure the thought police would have a field day with me for saying this, but I think about committing crimes now and then. Not that I would do such thing, I enjoy my life outside of prison. But just as a type of mental exercise it's interesting to me while standing in line at a store, noticing where cameras are located, determining blind spots, exit strategies, exposed wiring that could be cut, etc. I then think about how I would improve the system.
My point is that engineering is about designing stability. You can't produce stability if you aren't able to see the possibility of destruction, so the same qualities that make one a good engineer are the qualities that make them a potential terrorist in the eyes of a paranoid politician.
what does it pay? Health care? Time off? Options? Company Car?
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.
Serious business, dude. I doubt you sincerely see this as anything more than FUD to silence smart people with prudent objections to the actions of the people in power.
I could stand in front of you and say that the charitable nature of Jesus's teachings make Christians good communists. It may even be true that Christianity is compatible with socialism, but that doesn't even imply that the vast majority of Christians are socialists. However, because of the stigma associated with terrorists and communists, I can start to shake your faith in Christians because of their socialist ideas.
Yeah, Engineers make good terrorists. You know who else makes good terrorists? Marines.
See Charles Whitman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
You know who else makes good terrorists? Mathematicians. Ted Kaczynski.
You know what else makes people terrorists?
MURDERING LOTS OF PEOPLE.
People act as if they can build a formula for finding at risk people, as if prevention is the number-one priority.
No, we should be mitigating risk and increasing SECURITY. If we can figure out a way to do this without OPPRESSING A FUCKING SOCIAL GROUP, I would call it the biggest advance of the millenium.
+5, Truth
Have you ever been in on an interrogation for one of these higher up? Ever met on in person or talked to one? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass? I have personally been there and done all of the above. Iraq 2003-2004 2005-2006 (sneaky bastard). Most of them are pushing a very religous agenda, even the ones high on the food chain aren't doing it because they're opressed, they do it because they want to be the opressor in their region. They want all the mosque's in their area to preach what they want preached and to keep the masses ignorant to garner more power for themselves. Ever seen a body wadi? That's what we called it because that's where we would find all the bodies of a particular tribe that another tribe hated. I was present when we captured a particularly sick imam that made a habit out of raping and beheading people with opposing religous views. Most of the guys planting the bombs don't even necessarily care one way or the other about the position of the person who wants him to do it, usually it's just some poor farmer that had someone offer him money to put a box in a certain place at a certain time. What I think you fail to understand is how the culture in the mid-east works, there is a lot more to it than U.S. vs. Sunni. vs Shiite. There are huge familial bonds, ancient blood feuds, clan feuds, tribal feuds, honor killing, among many other things. All of them want to be the dominant power where they are and after they get it, they want more power and more, it's just the way of things. Not to say that all muslim regions are like this, just the bad ones are like this. I even had a fight with my mother about lumping a whole group of people together, she said some nasty slur about muslims and I lost my cool. Muslims aren't the problem, power hungry religous zealots are the problem. I worked with so many muslims that were great (Gigi, Aziz I'm looking at you) people, fun to be around, and all they wanted is for people to stop fighting and get along. They saw us (U.S. Forces) as the best way of doing that and often they would die for that when another zealot would find out they worked with us. Here's a little story for you, we took a break in the city we were in at a place where the proprietor was friendly towards the U.S. We bought some roasted chicken and were sitting down BSing with him when he received a phone call and immediately ushered us into the back. The reason was that there were some of the above stated assholes coming and he didn't want to have a firefight that could hurt other people, so he hid us in the back. Call it what you will, but the man was just trying to help and get on with his life, the vast majority of muslims want this. The others just want to control these good people.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho