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Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers?
An anonymous reader writes "As a follow up to their September 2008 article, IEEE Spectrum revisits the question of why a disproportionate number of terrorists have engineering degrees. According to their own summary of the interview with political scientist Steffen Hertog, 'nearly half of [individuals involved in political violence] with degrees have been engineers,' a rather ambiguous statement especially for a publication targeted at engineers. The interview makes some interesting points (lack of job opportunities for engineers despite a relatively high social status) and some suspect ones (e.g. framing Islamic culture into the western left vs. right politics). Above all, IEEE Spectrum tries really hard to associate engineers with terrorism for some reason."
Maybe a little mechanical or chemical aptitude is the reason. A bomber with an engineering degree might have the skills necessary to build a bomb and not blow themselves up in the process, whereas a non-engineer bomber might either fail to build a bomb or wind up blowing themselves to kingdom come.
Just look at Faisal Shazad, the guy from Connecticut who tried to blow up Times Square. He tried to build his bomb with a toy clock and M80 firecrackers. He had a business degree.
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You've got an enginerd with a highly complex mind and vast knowledge of the modern world sitting in some group of people who say everything they've learned is evil.
What do you do?
Build a bomb and strap it to your chest, of course!
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Excellent. I can already see more guys being apprehended for using "white text on black screens."
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2008/02/18/enginneers-vs-sociologists/
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Maybe is because Engineers have a more technical & logical mind and once they set their sights on a goal are more likely to finish it ?
I don't think any Politicians/Lawyers would be able to do the same. They will just stage a theatrical act out of which they can escape untouched or just switch sides.
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The only thing a humanities degree will teach you to blow up is your future.
Or to look at it from another point of view, why are engineers often bitter loners who have problems with authority thus refusing to live with society's guidelines and lash out by solving problems their way and only their way, because there is only one to solve a problem and its my way and if you're not with me then you're against me?
There is a disconnect here. The engineers only appear to be the dominant profession of choice because they are the only ones who can actually build bombs. Actually, vast numbers of knitting enthusiasts are aspiring terrorists. Unfortunately, their background and skill set only allows them to create scratchy scarves and mittens.
Also, I have a theory that terrorists/bakers are responsible for all the Christmas fruitcakes....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I am sure you would find that an unusually high number of non-Terrorist Asians and Middle-easterners are engineers too (compared to the west). These people are often from wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (and a few other parts of Asia and the Middle east)--and university students in those areas are known mostly for their interests in hard science, business, and engineering. You don't see a lot of history or literature majors in those areas (when's the last time you saw a Saudi come to the U.S. to study journalism or art?).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and smart people know that politicians are dangerous power-hungry individuals that, from time to time, must be exterminated (the assassination of Nero, Mussolini, Nicolae Ceauescu, etc). "The Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants - it is its natural fertilizer."
- Thomas Jefferson (an inventor/engineer but also a terrorist according to the 1700s British Parliament)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
let'sface it. Just because someone's an engineer does not make them a terrorist. But to make things go boom you need to have basic electrical skills.
And.. if you are a more advanced asshole you will need to know chemistry too.
Engineers are the people who get it done and understand that technology matters. I mean, you don't win a war by bravery or the capabilities of your leaders but because the rifles load faster. Engineers also believe in objective and observable truth. And honestly, politicians are an offense.
And the WTC attack master mind Muhammed Atta was a city planner, maybe impressed by what Operation Gomorrah contributed to the city he resided in.
I remember reading once that men were much less likely to engage in terrorism if they had a wife (or was it a girlfriend -- I'm too lazy to hunt down the reference). The real problem is that engineers can't get laid, so they become terrorists. So, ladies, for the sake of world peace, sleep with an engineer.
Everybody knows engineers have a tough time getting laid.
It's unfortunate for the world that most problems can't be solved that way. But that doesn't stop a lot of technically adept people from trying.
Someone has to create those balaclavas and flags you know - don't dis the knitters!
Surprised IEEE site is not able to handle the load.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They started this anti-engineer jihad but we will finish it.
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The revolutionary mindset has something to do with it. Your average goat herder or basket weaver isn't all that interested in toppling whatever ideology he resents. That kind of stuff is generally a product of an angry, middle class; those who aren't as concerned with where their next meal comes from. Those coming from an emergent middle-class often follow fields that are more necessary. You need doctors and engineers before you need psychologists and art majors.
is it really that hard to understand? on the other side of the war, the "proper military" that fights against terrorists is also full of engineers. In fact, they invented engineering.
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OS wars,
Distribution wars,
Browser wars,
Editor wars.
Let's face it, regardless whether you choose to engage in radical Islamism, engineering is a violent and dangerous discipline.
some interesting points (lack of job opportunities for engineers despite a relatively high social status) and some suspect ones (e.g. framing Islamic culture into the western left vs. right politics)
Who wrote this summary? I would say lack of job opportunities is the highly suspect reason to say the least here when it comes to people blowing themselves up. Bombers tend to have more education and more opportunities than most people. The server is dead so I have no idea what he meant by the second half of that statement but I would think part of the problem is the inability of people brought up in highly anti-science, anti-Western Islamic ideology (which is what it is, as well as religion) to fit into the world of engineering, which is the world of Western values they've been thought to hate.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I've noticed with many engineers I've known that they fall into the trap of black-and-white thinking. They want answers to be solid and 100% certain, so they have little tolerance for flexible or relativistic points of view.
Seriously. What to do in these parts of the world when you're geeky enough that the remaining gal rather shares a cooler guy...
A lot of engineers are introverts.
Being treated as an outcast, even in ME countries, they tend to have an anger management problem. This is what terrorist organizations look for because they get the best of both worlds, one with brain and the thinking process to justify violent actions.
It's not just in Middle Eastern countries, but you have this in every continent, where someone without the right anger management skills can easily succumb to violent actions. Someone with an engineering degree can go crazy and do violent things. For example, this guy that was laid off at RS&H: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125753215232934273.html
I'm a fellow student and I've seen over-reactive behavior from some other students when they can't solve a problem or get a bad grade.
It would be interesting to compare engineers with liberal arts grads on the terrorist spectrum. Engineers are not usually required to take the wide variety of non-technical courses that are supposed to give lib arts majors a grounding in history, art, social sciences, languages, etc. My hypothesis is that this might make engineers a little more rigid in their critical thinking skills and less comprehension of just how complex the world really is. If you have a better understanding of where you and your culture fit into the larger sweep of human history, are you more or less likely to engage in throwing bombs? I don't know the answer to that, but would like to see some stats or papers if anyone else does.
FreeSpeech.org
Why does it turn out that so many people who go all crazy and fanatical have an engineering degree? I'll get back to you on that as soon as I get back from TA'ing a lab, finish grading papers, finish up a couple homework assignments, write this journal paper, do a little volunteer work on the side, relax a little for on my birthday, and get started sifting through the literature before I actually get to the part of my schooling that matters. At a glance though, I can't imagine why.
As Bruce Salem notes those who support creationism and claim scientific credentials tend to be engineers - http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_hypothesis
It would be that Middle Eastern culture seems to value engineering as a "real" degree and many others as not. So the bight students are forced in to engineering degrees, like it or not. My freshmen year I met a guy like that. Hated engineering but his government was sponsoring him to come to the US and learn it so he had no choice. In China you actually see this go further in that more or less everyone in the government is an "engineer" now I put that in quotes because they have lots of degrees that we wouldn't call engineering that they do. Basically the word is what matters. If you are an "engineer" you are good to go. However if you get the same kind of degree but are not an engineer, well then too bad for you.
Our engineering college sees more foreign grad students from a few places than any other place. It isn't like it is the only "hard science" college. Computer science, chemistry, optics, pharmacy, then are in different colleges. However only we award "engineering" degrees. Get a masters in Chemistry and it is just that, it is not Chemical Engineering. That title of "engineer" seems to be the only thing acceptable to many.
Above all, IEEE Spectrum tries really hard to associate engineers with terrorism for some reason.
Well, of course they would. Everyone knows chicks dig bad boys. And there's no more Apollo program or nuclear testing or other "big science" stuff to boast about. Gotta protect the rep, knawmean?
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I wonder how much of the engineer's idealistic mindset comes into play. Many engineers know how things should be and often get frustrated with the world around them when it doesn't conform to those ideals.
Perhaps engineers, trained to think logically, are less able to ignore the more violent verses of their chosen religious texts, or more prone to come to logical but extreme conclusions.
For example, if an engineer believes that there is an afterlife, he may see mortal life as of very little value. It's only a temporary waiting place en route to eternity - all that really matters is making sure people are believers in his religion when they make their exit. Thus there is no violence in dieing for the cause - it isn't really dieing. Nor is there a problem with killing the unbelievers: They were going to hell anyway, this just sends them there a little earlier and aids in expanding the True Faith.
A non-engineer, on the other hand, has the ability to believe in an afterlife and yet completly ignore that belief. This is why devout believers will still spend vast amounts of money on medical treatments to stay alive just a little longer - because they may say they believe heaven awaits, but they have compartmentalised their religion away from their everday actions.
Note this works just as well for either Christian or Islamic terrorists. Right now the Islamic types lead in the kill-rate derivitative, but they arn't really so different from medival Christianity - a religion just as willing to have it's members kill and die for the cause, and for the same reasons.
If my guess is right, then engineers will be less able to tolerate the contradictions of moderate religion - and so will either abandon religion entirely and become atheists (or at least agnostics), or will turn to the more self-consistant fundamentalist sects.
The rigors of engineering training discourage fundamental questions of why and how in favor of rote mastery of rules of thumb which are known to work. To engineers the question of why gravity works is unimportant, their concern is in dealing with the consequences of gravity (and so forth for other physical laws). The analogy to faith based belief systems, wherein you accept rules handed down by authority and are discouraged from questioning that faith. or from seeking justifications for those rules, and are forbidden to consider revisions of those rules, is quite direct.
The kind of person who thrives under one set of these conditions has met many of the criteria to thrive under the other set of conditions.
and the non-engineers failed miserably?
So in the end (execpt for some lucky shots) you only hear about the somewhat successful ones because they haven't been blown up in the basement and not categorized as terrorism.
That's 178 out of 404 which equals 44% of the original data sample. And 44% of that is 19%, so less than a fifth were engineers.
"Diego Gambetta soon found themselves poring through records of 404 people from 30 countries engaged in political violence between 2005 and 2007.Their answer? Engineering. Of the 178 whose academic focus could be ascertained, 44 percent of those were engineers" link
Engineering is about creating and realizing plans for getting things done, rather than just sitting there thinking, "What a shame that the world isn't the way I want it to be. If only there were a bridge over that river and a piece of software that does what I want with my spam. But there isnt. *sigh* Oh well, I'll just accept the world as it is."
An engineer with a political goal can vote for a representative, but that's more like hiring a political engineer than being one. Directly trying to personally cause a policy change is appealing, but most of the avenues for doing that, have high social barriers. Terrorism actually does too, but a stupid or naive engineer (i.e. a person who thinks terrorism is actually effective at persuading people to see things the terrorist's way) will see it as a way to personally get the job done, without having to rely on other people who will just drop the ball. "While you're all pointlessly talking, I can go shoot someone."
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Perhaps we shouldn't be asking why engineers become [individuals involved in political violence] on their own accord. Rather, the engineers may be targets of recruitment by [organizations involved in political violence] because they possess desirable skills.
Part of the allure may be that carrying out such an attack is a challenging problem to solve. Engineers are all about solving problems, figuring out puzzles, coming up with elegant solutions.
Terrycloth Lobster
Well, there is evidence to suggest engineers are terrorists. I mean at my humble university Anwar al-Awlaki received his degree from the civil engineering department. Not sure how many terrorists have come out of the rest of the college of engineering though...
Now, you're an engineer
Could it be that aspiring terrorists decide to get their education in engineering since the skills acquired may be of use in their pursuits? If you wanted to build bombs to blow up people (assuming your school did not offer a degree program in "terrorism"), what other program would come in as handy?
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
They're trying to show that engineers can get jobs even in this economy!
I bet a disproportionate number of software developers have Computer Science degrees.
I bet a disproportionate number of CEO's have MBAs.
I bet a disproportionate number of military personnel know how to properly handle an assault rifle.
An organization is composed of the people that it recruits and has the skills that it trains its members with. Terrorist organizations need engineers to build weapons. All the terrorists that majored in History, Art, or Econ are the ones wearing the vest or being sent back to school to learn something "useful".
I have noticed a disproportionate number of intellectuals are depressed. Probably because they are smart enough to know no matter what you do you are screwed. This in turn leads to acting out against the dumb/happy people. The dumb/happy people are generally unphased because they didn't even realized you just dissed them making the intellectual even more furious. Which in turn leads them to target the dumbest group of all...that's right...government officials which gets twisted to be a political statement instead of the "kill all dumb people" it was truly intended as.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I always knew Active Directory was part of some global terrorist plot.
The terrorists have actually recruited exactly the same number of liberal arts students as engineers. But it's only been nine years and the liberal arts students haven't got out of bed yet. They totally intend to attack something and have some really great ideas that'll totally change the neo facist world order but, well, Oprah was on. Plus, do you know how hard it is to hide explosives on your crotch when you're wearing your little sister's skinny jeans!
MacGruber could do it with a stick of guBOOOM!!!!!
Not this crap again
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
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When I studied at Helsinki University of Technology, the Christian student group or the campus, Ristin Kilta, was very Fundamentalistic, rigid and conservative compared with other similar groups. Engineers tended to be much more simplistic and single-minded in their religious views than the theologians, for example.
Apparently engineers are good at reducing the complexities of the nature into concise principles and apply the reductionism to their social life, ideology and philosophy as well. The trait seems to be coupled with a feeling of superiority (god complex) and a can-do attitude.
I remember quite a few maths and physics professors who had the potential to make students go off the deep end.
Hell, two years later the TA who taught our first-semester assembler course ran amok and first killed his mother and then himself!
What's ambiguous about that?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
why are engineers often terrorists? perhaps they see a flaw in the system that requires elimination.
Reminds me of the Salem Hypothesis, which states that creationists who claim to have degrees often have degrees in engineering.
Most people think in terms of emotions, the equality of individuals, rights, etc.
Engineers think about society as if it were a machine that needs fixing (and given our overpopulation, pollution, ugly modern lifestyles, boring architecture, slavish jobs, etc. they may have a point). They are thinking of the long term consequences of our actions.
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking terrifies 99% of the population who never want to be told what to do, or that what they're doing (buying SUVs, having 11 illiterate grubby children) is wrong. They want to think about their karmic pleasures, like who they're having sex with, what they're buying, who thinks they are pretty on myspace, etc.
If your ideas are demonized by 99% of a population, your only recourse is to be a terrorist or extreme ideologue.
* Ted Kaczynski (advanced mathematics)
* William Pierce (physics degree from Rice U)
* David Myatt (IT guru)
* Joseph Goebbels (PhD in philosophy)
And doubtless many more.
Futurist Traditionalism
Why not associate doctors with terrorists too?
Che Guevara, Abdul Aziz Ar-Rantisi, Baruch Goldstein, and Bilal Abdullah were all MDs. Oh no!
Islamist Terrorists have carried out more than 16051 deadly terror attacks since 9/11. (Source http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/) Often groomed from early childhood to recite hatred towards infidels and that jews are descended from apes and pigs.. It is no wonder that study in the paramilitary arts includes engineering. Realistically, there is not much that can be done to stop this death cult from spreading--and spreading it is.
The Federal Government, using their mountains of vague laws, further volumes of studies, memos, etc. and network of "fusion centers" is very gradually expanding the definition of "terrorist" to basically mean anyone that criticizes Federal government policy and/or engages in political activism. As we know, there are companion laws and policies which are in place to deprive "terrorists" of their lives and liberties and deny them any sort of due process or other Constitutional (or even "human")rights.
In my experience, engineers are solution-oriented folks and tend to speak bluntly when identifying problems and proposing solutions (exactly opposite to the approach of elected officials and bureaucrats). Washington D.C. is a gigantic batch of problems, so my theory is that engineers might be disproportionatley critical of the government, and are therefore, by definition "terrorists".
Thank you.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The points already made about engineers being specifically recruited for their skills, being the ones most likely to be successful (or nearly so), and engineering being a very dominant field of study among educated middle-easterners are all well-taken, as are the jokes about antisocial engineers who can't get laid, but I wonder if there's not another element.
Engineers are, by aptitude and by training, problem solvers. We tend to look at the world as a series of problems to be solved, and to be fairly realistic about the materials and capabilities available to us. We also have a tendency to focus on approaches that involved hardware and technology rather than social processes. I think those factors may lead an intelligent young engineer who is extremely unhappy with perceived injustice and sufficiently fanatical about it to be willing to resort to violence to consider terrorism.
If, for example, you really felt you wanted to get the USA out of the middle east, you would immediately realize that economic forces are working against you. The US really wants middle-eastern oil. That makes political protests unlikely to succeed at anything, particularly protests of the scale and in the places you can manage. Conventional military options are clearly infeasible, even if you could manage to apply the full power of your nation's military, and even fully mobilize your country on a war footing, the US military is just too advanced, too powerful. You have to find something you can do to make the US want to leave. You can't make the oil go away, but maybe you can make it too costly to obtain.
In that situation, asymmetric warfare, AKA terrorism, is the logical choice. It requires little resources, is made vastly more effective with technical skill and detailed planning, and allows you to strike an actual blow against your perceived "oppressors". Of course, it's only one small blow, and won't by itself accomplish anything. Still, it's all you can do, and it's something substantial.
I can see that. Lack of actual experience with violence and the messy, complicated ways things go wrong may actually help as well.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
FWIW, I think engineers become terrorists for two simple reasons
1. Engineers are typically intelligent people who are perceptive enough to see and understand the inequities present in the world, and assign blame to individuals/groups/nations.
2. When confronted with a problem, engineers want to solve it. Unfortunately, terrorism may be the most effective way for an individual or small group to both gain retribution against the powers who oppress and gain the attention of the masses -- who are often completely ignorant of the situation causing the terrorists to act.
Sauer
IEEE is such a useless "tits on a bull" organization to anyone who works as an EE in this country. I can't believe they're still around for any reason other than people pay the dues to have the resume entry.
Would /you/ trust a bomb built by a humanities student?
Seriously? You people are all either engineers yourselves or work with them (or both!) And you have to ask why engineers are likely to become terrorists? How many stupid flamewars have you seen about the superiority of someone's favorite OS, text editor, programming language, or software license? Engineers are some of the most hard-headed people I've ever met; they'll die fighting over the most inane of things. Just look at Terry Childs; the guy was willing to lose his job and go to prison over passwords to his employers' network. Rational people do not behave that way, and sad to say, very few engineers (IME) are rational about their pet projects (myself included).
Take someone with that mindset then plunk them down in the middle of a culture that celebrates death, doesn't provide a way (outside of dying) to get laid, and posits an us-vs-them mentality towards much of the world, and I'd frankly be surprised if those guys didn't become terrorists.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Simple, how else will they get laid? They're after the 72 virgins!
Bert
army engineers are the bastards that blow up bridges (for peace), because engineers are who know how to blow things up.
i think this story already appeared on /. months ago.
Remember that one? Where IQ measures some intelligence, EQ measures someone emotional intelligence. Very roughly said, those with an high IQ tend to have low EQ's. And vice versa. That at least is the stereotypes both groups would like to label on each other.
Now, are all engineers highly intelligent? No. Does it mean all engineers have less developed social skills? No. BUT if I want to find socially awkward people, people that don't fit in, that feel left out, who lack social empathy with others, who tend to divide the world into us and them (or me and them) I would look in an IT department or a technical college before a teaching hospital. You don't go looking for people who hate kittens at your local animal shelter do you?
And terrorists NEED people who don't fit in. Why is Islamic terrorism not nearly as popular as you would think by the number of Muslim youth who in some polls indicate they hate everything western? Because they might well do, if asked with the right sort of leading question, BUT they don't hate it enough to end their own lives, kill their friends or at least people they know and don't want to actively hurt. You might hate the US, might be pro-Palestine but that does NOT mean you can just blow up a bomb strapped to yourself sitting next to a kid.
When you look at the "engineers" that this article talks about, it isn't hard to see that these weren't the kind of guys that broke the stereotype of the loner engineer who can't make friends. The detroit bomber has had a lot of his history published and boy, does he fit the profile. Rich kid from a macho culture upset with his parents who goes abroad and comes into a culture were his race and religion are ... well there is no polite way to say it, so fill it in yourself. How is a black socially akward muslim with a huge status change regarded in England? Don't forget where the german Rotte Armee faction recruited from. Not socialist worker families, but kids of upper middle class. Nothing like the misfit for some radicalism. Give them a place where they feel welcome and are told that they don't fit in with everyone else because everyone else is wrong.
It works, it is basic reqruitement and has been done throughout the ages. Every army recruiter works on the principe of talking an unsure kid into a army career by promising him certainties.
The lack of social skills being a major part of radicalism shows clearly when you compare those immigrants that have settled in and those that haven't. What came first, are the ones better at the language because they fit in, or do they fit better because they are better at the language OR rather COMMUNICATING in the local language? The better you are capable of dealing with strangers, the less strange they will become. Wanna bet these engineer terrorist stood in the corner at the first day of university?
Oh, sure, some here are going to be upset. They know themselves to be socially akward engineers but claim they are not terrorists. No, because nobody recruited you. And you did fit in because of your skin color and cultural background. I have been a foreigner myself and people mean well, but it can be so easy forget to speak slow or even in English. And maybe an invite is missed for an event and nobody meant to exclude that crazy black guy who never talks to anyone but it happened. And an outcast is born.
What I find intresting in the slashdot summary is that the author is basically saying "The most makes some interesting points (translation, I agree with them) and some suspect ones (translation, they upset me)". Sorry. life don't work that way.
The reason this is upsetting is because it means WE bred these western terrorists. And that the old bleeding heart mantra of "just give them the same chances" just doesn't work. Is racism or religious intolerance to blame? Maybe, a bit. But the real problem is that all the world cultures have really great difficulty in recognizing the severity of a culture clash. A large part of it is that those who would
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I find it interesting that so many of the comments on this story are actually constructive and objective.
The headline basically asks "Hey, how come so many of you guys are terrorists?". In spite of that,
you don't see anyone on slashdot refuting the idea or questioning the body odors of the author or whatever. What we
do post is thoughts about the study, ideas about why the numbers are this way, ways the study may be flawed
and/or improved, etc.
No nerd rage. No flaming. Not even the usual "Correlation is not causation".
Kudos, slashdot. You've shown why geeks rule!
Terrorists are often engineers because terrorists are often Muslim. Many Muslims tend to go into engineering rather than the natural sciences because many aspects of the natural sciences conflict with Islam.
It doesn't compare 50% with some control frequency, so it's uncertain what that statistic actually means. And of course political violence doesn't necessarily mean terrorism, it's up to whoever gathered the data, but he doesn't tell us. And then he didn't specify what proportion of individuals involved in political violence have degrees, which might make his statement irrelevant if it's small. Though perhaps the poster was referring to the ambiguous construction of the argument that seems to imply that it's the engineering degree's fault, despite the fact that it's almost certainly some other set of variables.
But other than those little things, I agree, it's totally unambiguous.
Engineers can't get pussy so they get frustrated. Then they get even. Women of the world: please give up your ass to an engineer. Just a pity fuck or two can prevent the next terrorist attack.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I think you just proved his point.
I think one reason for "engineers" to be ranking up there in the ol' terrorism hall of fame (among others posited here) is that it is likely that they have spent some time studying in the US or some other Western country. They then see for themselves the banality and decadence of the consumerist "lifestyle", and are recruitable when they get back home.
Maybe because most engineers are terrorists.
Why Are So Many Terrorists Engineers?
The answer is pretty simple. Where else are you gonna find 72 virgins???
I notice in this looong thread that hardly anyone offered that engineers have no social/political critical thinking skills or interest which, with their tech skills makes them the perfect terrorists. OK, maybe a generalization, but I recall while in university during heavy political times, while we were immersed in rallies, protests and every get-together was full of political commentary, the engineering students were off getting shit-faced and not getting laid. (We got laid, BTW). It might be of some value to the world if schools would offer some serious practical ethics courses (not just philosophy) to engineering students so that they don't rush headlong into a terrorist cell because "Wow, that's an interesting tech problem you have there! I bet I could solve it!!"
1. Definition of engineer (Licensed PE? Guy with an engineering degree? Guy with some generic technical-ish degree? Microsoft(R) Certified Systems Engineer?)
2. Definition of "political violence" (Seriously, WTF?)
3. Definition of "involved in" (Does this include only those captured in the act, or everyone involved in planning/funding it?)
4. Definition of "have been" (How far back does this go? If I took an engineering class while I was in college and never worked as an engineer, does this count?)
This story is a troll.
This almost certainly has something to do with the Salem Hypothesis.
Basically if your degree is in engineering, you tend to see design where none exists. Since terrorism is a market cornered by the religious fundamentalists, this is not at all surprising.
I believe the trend began with Windows ME.
Lack of social skills.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
You mean "they intentionally proselytize engineers because they don't want to waste time cleaning up idiots." not "cleaning up after idiots".
And yes, this would all be more clear if they said "successful terrorists" tend to be engineers. Lots of successful CEOs came from technical backgrounds too. It seems that success at making complicated stuff work (companies, products, evil devices) goes with technical competence - duh.
I worked with some Engineers at this company once; let's face it, they were MEAN. Devoid of social skills and any desire to attain them. And don't ever correct their drawings -- it could quickly become a fist fight.
Then, as others have pointed out; people who don't get laid are much easier to convince to blow themselves up.
I'm still afraid of this growing menace, and I think we need a Public Works project of spreading tanning lotion on college girls somewhere, just to keep them occupied. Give the girls all an ipod with some music so that it isn't a total fiasco.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
here are some probabilities of interest:
given:
p(slashdotter | engineer)
p(terrorist | engineer)
compute:
p(slashdotter ^ terrorist)
sorry, couldn't resist. ;-)
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
My own experience is that I was involved in engineering (electrical) for the first few years of my education (including intern-like technician work). I found the general attitude of the engineering types, with few exceptions was more hostile, isolationist, insensitive and judgemental. So I changed to a health care field, and, all better. This experience was both at university and in the business sector. Perhaps some of these characteristics make a person more likely to respond to terrorist influences.
"Above all, IEEE Spectrum tries really hard to associate engineers with terrorism for some reason."
If you're really pissed off about it, you could always go blow up their office or something.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Having been in engineering majors before, I can testify that engineers receive little or no training in ethics. Antisocial attitudes are rife; they are trained to look down on other people, and think it's "funny" to install a virus on someone's computer or blow something up with a pipe bomb. I was a software engineer for 10 years, but I got fed up with these attitudes, so I moved into the health professions. I feel much happier here; it's all about caring for other people.
>I remember reading once that men were much less likely to engage in terrorism if they had a wife (or was it a girlfriend -- I'm too lazy to hunt down the reference).
You've been modded as "funny", but I think you should have been modded as "insightful".
Engineers are still, by and large, the nerds. There is probably more than a grain of truth to the observation that people who don't fit in very well socially find comfort in academic endeavors, as opposed to social or athletic endeavors.
If I was going to go find people to blow stuff up for me, social misfits would be a nice place to start. The fact that they are smart enough to design bombs is a bonus.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Isn't it obvious? Engineers can't get laid in this life. They're only chance of getting laid is the 72 virgins.
I'd wager that those with political science and law degrees have caused more deaths than all of the engineering varieties. Also, Hitler was an artist/writer. Now which field of study is responsible for the worst terror the world has ever seen?
...those terrorists who are Fashion Designers spend far too much time arguing over the correct fabric to make the suicide vests out of, to actually do anything.
Good job with the Back to the Future reference, except for one thing... it was Libyan terrorists who wanted a nuclear bomb in that movie, not Iranians. (At least they were supposed to be Libyans... I thought they looked more like vietnam war vet
Nerd rage, plain and simple.
He ain't a man cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
At least they aren't recruiting tech support people. Basic technical aptitude and a burning desire to see all of humanity die, slowly and painfully.
Looking back at the events of 2008, how many financial terrorists who created the situation had business degrees? I bet pretty much all of them.
The overall damage done to society by terrorist in business suits exceeds any other terror damage by far.
The countries the terrorists come from have bad job markets for engineers(libya, saudi arabia,pakistan). Engineers get their degrees and have high hopes for their careers. When they get disappointed by the closed job market in their countries, they tend to get radicalized.
Engineers tend to be more religious/right wing.
Both have a worldview consisting of strict mathematical certainty, with no room for shades of gray.
Both place little value in opinions or interests that do not align with theirs.
Both are more likely to blame their problems on external factors rather than internal flaws.
Both grossly oversimplify interpersonal relationships.
Both have an innate sense of superiority.
Take a look at the way the OP blames the magazine publisher and at some of the highly rated comments here for examples.
You don't go looking for people who hate kittens at your local animal shelter do you?
Actually, that might be an excellent place to look for them. Where else would they get such a wonderful job where they get to execute them?
(And who knows what all else while they're waiting?)
Where would you go to find pedophiles? How about schools, churches, sports and community activities (after-school) facilities. An excellent
place for a pedophile to blend in and pick his/her victims.
What about a bank robber? Most bank robberies are inside jobs, the result of an employee with access to the money making discreet and inapproriate
transactions to embezzle it. But even in the case of the more notorious type-- in the infamous words of Al Capone, when asked why he robbed banks,
"Because its where the money is!"
Its not uncommon at all to find people predisposed to certain types of criminal or anti-social behavior "hiding out" in plain view, and
well-placed to take advantage of their situations.
Yet no one protested when IEEE Spectrum magazine's offices in midtown Manhattan virtually overlook the hallowed ground of ground zero (if you squint a bit and stand on your tip toes).
PHBs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-Haired_Boss - enough to turn anyone against society.
maybe because they can't get laid in real life so they need those virgins in the afterlife???
Terrorism generally exists because government policies exist that allow/encourage it. ("Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"... yada yada) Hence to the extent that terrorism exists, this is evidence of a government policy decisions in an imperfect world, policy failure etc. For instance, yes, the US could solve the Israeli/Palestinian issue, but solving it does not fall within it's acceptable portfolio of policy options. So could Israel and Palestine for that matter.
Now, the functional nature of engineering is generally thus: Apply standardized solutions to a given problem and some optimized solution will be the outcome. Output = f(x,y,z...)... Alternatively if one studies a social science, it is all about the messy business of human beings and their decision making. A political science person professionally accepts the fallibility of outcomes of human decision making and hence policy due to incentive structures, dichotomies, or ideologies etc. As does a sociologist, lawyer, economist etc. But engineering as a science is much about the outcome being an optimal solution to a set of problems than a compromise policy on a set of problems.
Hence an engineer has more difficulty accepting the failings of humans and their decisions (governmental policy), where most other professionals are more accepting of policy failure. Just ask Scott Adams--he mocks the corporate decision making process remorselessly, because as an engineer, it is his profession's nature.
Because terrorists aren't cave-dwelling urchins with brain damage like our great media likes to portray. These guys are extremely intelligent and motivated. No one seems to call anyone on this though, if they were as poorly trained and unintelligent as we make them out to be then why haven't we rapped this up quickly with all of our "intelligence" and technology? It's because they are equally (if not more) intelligent than our side, they may lack the funding and technology but they manage to devise incredible feats with what little they do have access to.
I'd take the terrorist over the mostly (failed) high-school educated soldier we put into battle. I do realize there are many very intelligent folks in our service, but a large majority are not.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
It certainly is from an engineering standpoint.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
An inflated sense of self-worth and a general contempt for their fellow non-engineer man? Delusions of control?
Best way to may an engineer happy is to remind them they're an engineer.
What other profession wears rings, making sure everyone is as aware of their marital status as their professional status?
Engineers may be useful, but in the grand scheme of things they are useful (and, apparently, dangerous) idiots.
To be an engineer, one must be intelligent and somewhat idealistic. Those are traits that would enable one to be an effective terrorist.
blah blah blah
The original research (2008) studied the records of people "engaged in political violence."
So the point is that active (in some sense) terrorists are more often engineers. It isn't a random selection of all people who are part of terrorist organizations, only those who actually participate in actions, who do things. I could suggest reasons other than political philosophy for that.
To me the answer to this question is obvious. The construction of explosive devices (and probably impromptu weapons, not to mention makeshift communications equipment) would require more engineering knowledge than virtually anything else.
Have a relatively old firearm, and need it fixed? Engineer. ;)
Have an old car, and need it fixed? Engineer.
Have an old computer, and need it fixed? You get the idea.
Last I checked, the person who handled explosives in a group of soldiers was also referred to as an engineer.
They could be 'janitorial engineers' for all we know. The term has become pretty loose especially with the lack of actual education in universities now. As far as terrorists go, I think we can all agree that if they are engineers, they've been FIRED from their other job. I mean the last few guys that I heard about built some improvised explosive, were in position and ready to detonate, and the bomb DIDN'T EVEN WORK. Even I could do better than that, and I'm just a software engineer. Terrorist, or just a regular idiot? You make the call.
There are a few reasons I suspect and not all of them are about how awesome and useful they are as most of the posts above would have you believe. If technical skill was all that was required, why are there not more chemists?
From personal experiences only, I would say it is the fundamental difference in mindset required to practice a science over engineering. Self doubt and questioning are par for the course in the physical sciences, indeed it would be extremely difficult to do the job without the question "Are you sure?" running through your head every 15 min. Engineers on the other hand tend to deal in absolutes, laws carved in stone, it works or it doesn't, black and white. This does appeal to those with a predisposition to ignore shades of gray and are exactly the same traits as those of a fundamentalist of any persuasion, making them the ideal recruiting target.
This can be summed up by saying engineers tend to have a "I'm right. I'm right. I'M FUCKING RIGHT!" attitude to their work and life in general and woe betide anybody who tells them otherwise.
Disclaimer.... I openly accept that there is variability in any population, I made sweeping generalizations etc. This was done to stop the post turning into a monty python sketch listing all the exemptions. But the very fact I'm writing this disclaimer is a dead give-away that I am not an engineer.
Maybe it is a little too extreme of a way to get out of paying a student loan?
Because so many of them lack empathy http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/15/we-yawn-because-we-c.html
"One study, done in 2007, even found that psychology students--who presumably spend a lot more time than average thinking about other people's mental states--were more susceptible to contagious yawning than engineering students."
Apart from necessary technical knowledge, there is one more reason: most radical social movements has often started on technical universities.
Reason for this is simple. Technically oriented people tend to underestimate how society works, and believe that it is possible to change it easily. This attitude was also seen in XIX century, when mathematicians tried to apply mathematics rules to social problems. It should mention that this never worked. Not because mathematics is wrong, but society is simply too complex to be modeled that way. (Or, it could be modeled mathematically, but results would not be spectacular.)
Or to say it in other words: you have an intelligent but socially incompetent person, who believes that everything is easy to fix (hey, there was no WinXP that he could not attach a SATAII disk to!). He is highly dedicated, he believes that his position in society won't be appreciated as it should, and he believes that one bomb could actually solve something. Doesn't this sound like a good candidate for a terrorist?
No sig today.
Definition of "had sex with"?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Your siting an article that is 2 years old, let it go.
Only an engineer would recognize that absolutely everybody is living in wanton error, and then settle on the decision that blowing them to smithereens is the most efficient solution.
I take offense to OPs stance that the IEEE is in any way wrong. All engineers are terrorists. Respectful citizens like me changed our title from Software Engineer to Software Developer. Now we are safe from any urges.
"hey, baby, I could take this building down with two paper clips and that jar of hand soap in the rest room. so you should go out with me."
it is patently false to assume little kiddies who aspire to be murderous international criminals take engineering classes to learn how to be successful terrorists.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
> (lack of job opportunities for engineers despite a relatively high social status) :-(
I am sorry, but I think the author lives on a different planet to me
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...the REAL reason terrorists tend to be engineers is because we get so damn frustrated with the way people outright REFUSE to give us the level of respect (and wealth) that our superior intelligence warrants.
You small-minded bastards deserve what you get!
is not an engineer.
New Economic Perspectives
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2008/02/18/enginneers-vs-sociologists/
They know where the red wire and blue wire are supposed to go.
Have gnu, will travel.
it looks like the unidentified 'enemy', terrorists, who, incidentally, were also adolf hitlers' favorite 'enemy', ends up having to be 'engineered' into a fauxking war/holycost, that includes inventing 'enemies' as needed, even if the 'enemy' becomes US. gooed luck with that. it won't go on this way much longer as most of our resources, & ALL of our desire to destroy stuff/people is waning rapidly, which would indeed render many of US as the 'enemy' of choice (if you're not my friend...). so, the real source of the ongoing/building terror is?????, that's right unidentifiable. no wonder it's so scary. on the flip side, the so-called 'enemies' know exactly whois trying to kill them, &/or US.
just that the islamist organizations have a habit of raising educated followers in order to implant them in important positions in business world and governments where they are, or use them in their own financial ends and businesses. therefore a lot of islamist zealot upbringing youth are being sent to higher education. naturally, some of them are used in terrorism.
you have to live in a country which is plagued by such organizations, to understand how it works.
Read radical news here
Because they solve problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipYkuCZ2IYI
Maybe we should ask Temple Grandin what she thinks of this theoretical relationship, given her comments during her TED talk?
Its a much broader degree than in the USA, including many business, science, and vocational majors. Parents pretty much expect their sons in college study engineering. Colleges comply by calling more subjects engineering.
A similar misconception arises when with the saying "China [or India] graduates many more engineers than the USA". When you normalize for the fact that engineering Asia covers things not considered engineering in the USA, then the difference is not that great.
but technical intelligence is not the same as social intelligence
it takes a lot of technical intelligence to create an altitude sensitive bomb from scratch
it take only an average amount of social intelligence to understand a carrot works more than a stick
this is not to say social intelligence and technical intelligence are the only types of intelligence, nor that they are contrasting types. there are people who are both socially and technically intelligent, only socially intelligent, only technically intelligent, and some who are bereft of both intelligences
but for those without much social intelligence, who can't express themselves socially, but can express themselves technically, then throwing a temper tantrum (which is what terrorism is, emotionally) with a bomb might make sense
some people just don't have much experience with social situations to understand there are much better avenues to express themselves. so they blow shit up or shoot people
additionally, some people have a horrible poverty of the soul, never mind a low social iq: besides intelligence, there is also the measure of somone's empathy: affinity with other human beings. no matter what your social or political frustration, the willingness to hurt another human being for selfish reasons belies a horrible lack of basic human empathy
even someone completely bereft of any form of intelligence understand hurting someone else is wrong. to be devoid of that basic empathy is a special form of hell, and, for lack of a better word, is simply evil
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just look at Faisal Shazad, the guy from Connecticut who tried to blow up Times Square. He tried to build his bomb with a toy clock and M80 firecrackers. He had a business degree.
Thing is, I *know* that I don't have bomb-making skills. (And since I don't want to make one, I won't learn - i.e I don't want to dabble in knowledge of the dark arts in this case.)
Idiot trying to do something he didn't really know how to do (and failing) is a fairly standard storyline.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Engineers have a valuable skillset, which can be used for good or evil, and here we're seeing the latter.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
As a student in a well known university for engineering, I can tell you 80% of my classmates are of Middle Eastern / Indian heritage and maybe 99% of them hate engineering. It's something they have to do because their parents, family, friends all expect it.
Out of 2 years of doing this I've met 3 students who were actually passionate for engineering and were pursuing it out of personal interest.
Engineering happens to be the most popular profession for Indians and Middle Easterners. If the most popular profession for them was to be a brain surgeon, we'd wonder why all terrorists were brain surgeons instead.
I remember that some of the nabbed terrorists in India were software engineers who were leading normal successful lives
"Do not confuse the unusual with the impossible" - Psmith
http://xkcd.com/793/
That group of bovine standing over there appears quite portentous. That's right it's an ominous cow herd.
Engineers are highly educated in a tightly-focused field, and that field does not include the kinds of "why" critical thinking skills that are developed by a liberal arts or scientific education. Just as English majors, musicians, and philosophers aren't qualified to build a subway system, engineers aren't trained to consider or respect questions like "who are we," "why are we here," or "how should we get along with one another."
Smart people who are educated in one field of thought tend to think they're experts in all areas of thought (hell, plenty of people who aren't smart or educated think they know everything about every subject). So when engineers have an idea, or are fed an idea, like "blowing up this building will help bring about justice in the world" they don't have the critical training to unpack whether the idea is actually true. Lacking a rigorous way of coming to correct judgments about nontechnical ideas, they go with their guts, perhaps backing their impulses up with ill-informed or ill-reasoned justifications that nevertheless sound fine to them. Thus they're able to come to the same dumb conclusions as the totally uninformed, but to follow through in ways that most aren't equipped to pull off.
So by eliminating the intelligent and convincing most of the populous that engineers and technologists are evil, it makes it a lot harder for the intelligent to unite and inform the stupid as to what's going on. It also gives engineers the reputation of being eccentric, monstrous lunatics so most things they say are never given the thought that it deserves. Most attitudes from upper management and the government towards engineers is that they're really smart but "just don't get it".
Want to make sure your populace never realizes what you're doing? Get a publicly known "crazy guy" to say EXACTLY what you're doing.
The most powerful terrorists are in government, aren't they?
I think you are getting closer to the real reason here. I think that what everybody else above seems to be skirting around is that perhaps there is actually something in the psychological makeup of the average person who becomes an engineer that also makes him or her more susceptible to extremist ideologies than the rest of the population.
I recall reading someone say how engineers tend to be more rigid in their beliefs than other people. It seems that engineers can have a "there is only one correct answer or absolute truth, and I know what it is" type of mentality that is different from your average artist for example, who would tend to think in a much more nuanced way about the world and be more open to other possibilities or "truths", and thus less likely to buy into extremist ideas.
Combine that type of predisposition and the discipline and training to become an engineer with being raised in a very radicalized environment and you can have a dangerous combination.
Fixed that for you. Slow day, eh?
a brilliant moron in any area outside of that which can be easily mathematically defined (e.g. Aesthetics, spirituality, philosophy, emotions, politics).
These guys are used for their technical expertise in getting certain things done, but their handlers depend on their total inability to adequately evaluate situations that don't lend themselves to formal systems reasoning. I'd bet, if I had to bet, that these guys were pretty high up on several Asperger's syndrome indices. Actually that may be a better predictor for terrorism than an engineering degree.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
That step features prominently in the SAP implementation flowcart ... just learning about that monster with simple examples makes it look like a huge mess.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Engineers seem to have emotional difficulties - a poverty of emotion at times and excess emotions at other times. They also aren't great communicators, so the feelings they do have aren't expressed clearly, or at all. This leads to frustration and isolation. When you present a flat personality most of the time, people disregard you as an emotional being. When you then develop strong feelings about something, you don't have the usual outlets for them, as you haven't cultured any. You can only stew about it and resent the people who "don't understand you." Without others to help mirror and redefine your feelings, they can only be chewed over and warped within.
A terrorist act (or suicide, murder) is an exertion of those warped emotions, and a way to communicate. It's done for an audience, as a statement. It forces people to "feel your pain" and appreciate/validate your emotions.
Engineers never get married. Engineers are all living in isolated shacks. Engineers are all young-Earth creationists. On and on and on from the peanut gallery.
What is with the ever enduring anti-engineering sentiment?
Are we not making enough cool toys and gadgets?
We should just take our transistors and go home. Try updating your little MyFaceSpaceBork profiles or tweeting your next solid morning dump or think you are rocking out with that Justin Beiberboy... (that is a boy, right?) thing without transistors, you wankers.
Feh... you people sometimes...
Society (including terrorist society) needs Alphas *and* Epsilons in order to function for its intended purpose.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
the Art students could be talking about design aesthetics atleast.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
...is the Anonymous Coward on slashdot!
The Tea Party is just the GOP with a bag over its head.
Both grossly oversimplify...
So are you the engineer or terrorist?
Seriously, it's like one of them killed your parents *and* your dog with the level of bigotry you exhibit.
And you're pretty mean to engineers, too.
(rimshot)
Hey-yo! Thank you very much! Good night!
It is also known that a disproportionate percentage of autistic people pursue careers in science and engineering. Perhaps these people are more vulnerable to ideological manipulation because they already struggle to some degree with the difficulty of understanding and interacting with human systems.
Engineers have the information (the knowledge of "how" and "what").
Politicians/Business folks exploit this, aka the engineering in order for themselves to gain power or money.
Politicians create a society that pigeon-holds the engineer. Engineer realizes he is the source of information, aka knowledge, thinks he has the power, and hence, rebels.
Hollywood figured this out years ago.
I mean, seriously, is it because they are the only ones that can do it? or IEEE is mostly interested in these articles? did IEEE become IEEE with the idea/hope of carrying such articles? Is it because printing such articles became lucrative?
You get the idea? IEEE should stick to what they know and stop spreading nonsense like this, with a loaded question such this.
Maybe they took the old joke too seriously:
What's the difference between a Civil Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons -- Civil Engineers build targets.
A comparison of the number of engineers as a percentage of the general population to the percentage of engineers who are terrorists would be useful. When I was at University, the majority of students from the Middle East, the Far East and South America were in the Engineering disciplines.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
The engineers got tired of hearing how "the place wouldn't run without the salesmen, and the salesmen are the bread and butter of the organization, they deserve the big money, blah blah blah"
Could it be due to the founder of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat of PLO, being an engineer? May be he selected similar people in the new enterprise and the culture and know how dispersed from PLO.
I think that the FA on purpose makes an assimilation between "revolutionary" and "terrorist". That's a political statement, an incorrect one. Not every person (engineer or not) involved in political or social activism is a terrorist, not even when there is a war between official or regular forces and revolutionary ones. Propaganda uses this re-categorization to establish the notion that _every_ person who is against abuses from corporations and governments, is a terrorist and should be shoot down summarily. Please don't get into that trap, there are terrorist, but the war on terror is not against them. Is against freedom, our freedom. Fer
True, Intellectuals tend to be depressed because they spend most of their time in their heads, absorbed in thought. Thinking is a great thing, but it's only a simulation created by your brain. You simulate some other place, some other time, some other reality, etc. These simulations can be valuable, but they also take you out of present-day reality.
Using your example : You think you'll be screwed at some point in the future. There's a possibility that simulation could actually happen, but it's not happening right now. Sadly, if you believe these thoughts, then your body reacts to the the simulation as if you really are screwed right now. From that reaction springs things like fear, anxiety and depression.
The key is to learn to step back a bit and not get so absorbed your thoughts, because they really are just simulations.
(former depressed intellectual who learned to meditate)
When I studied Arab culture the most prominent point was that being an engineer is a high water mark for many. EVERYONE is an engineer (or claims to be). It's part of the culture.
The fact that many terrorist are also Arab is probably why many terrorists are engineers.
Because they've been moved into a country (probably ending in "an", "aine" or "ia") where the belligerent wogs who live there won't let us look. Which is understandable. Belligerent wogs tend to be surrounded by other belligerent wogs. And their woggish belligerence is generally aimed at all the neighboring belligerent wogs, in an N-plus-N-squared belligerent wog network. And if there's one thing that makes belligerent wogs shit their pants, it's the fear that the bunch of belligerent wogs just down the road have big magic balls of instant sunshine and bangbang..
My personal opinion is that he didn't in fact have any usable WMDs, but that he didn't know that he didn't. Most of the yoghurt huggers, tree knitters, and wannabe cockchoppers knew all along (because Ishmaluna down at the organic couscous shop read it on a biog). And yet you only see posts on the usernetz and stuff long after the invasion was over.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Dam it feels good to be a gangster......
Engineers don't become terrorists, terrorists become engineers. And that makes them more successful unfortunately.
maybe it's just cultural. middle eastern people as well as asians are always encouraged by their parents to take practical or prestigious, respectable, honorable jobs. doctors, lawyers, etc. and also engineers. it just seems to be a cultural thing. it's really that simple. this is a bullshit article to waste time & sell ad space.
I don't know why the hell I belong. OK, so I got $100 off an order of $600 worth of books yesterday... but why the hell do they hit me with a paywall every time I try and click on an article. Really... what's the point!!
Do they just want their members to increase their hatred level... and maybe start calling in bomb threats or something?!
Whew... that felt good.
Compared to those liberal-arts and blue-collar man-whores.
Speaking as a student mining engineer one of our subjects is based around the right and wrong ways to blow stuff up. From packing ANFO to wiring up detonators.
It's probably just because engineers can more easily get a visa to the US, so they're targeted for recruitment (or a budding terrorist is taught enough engineering to be categorized as an engineer for emigration purposes).
searching for anything deeper is probably mistaking a data selection issue with causality.
-1, Flamebait = Truth told.
I don't know; why does the IEEE endorse software patents?
Nathan's blog
Well, I saw this as someone who used to respect IEEE, and even has some articles published in their magazine...
Lately they have been talking about politics when they should be talking about technical things. The "They took our jobs..." whining, I had hoped they would be above. If you're American, you took their LAND... (the red people), so .. stop whining.
Anyway if they say "Engineer = terrorist", then of course that means only foreign engineers, right? Since foreign engineers are likely to be terrorists, you have to keep them out. That just happens to dovetail nicely with IEEE's recent political agenda.(But obviously, bomb-making required technical skills...)
Just a quick look around any high-tech company makes this pretty obvious.
read the paper by the sociologists.. they specifically considered the "skills" aspect... doesn't hold up
It's the Revenge of the Nerd, a variant of the quiet nerd who, after passively enduring the ridicule of his classmates for years, snaps one fine day and goes Columbine. Ideological terrorists (especially the how-dare-you-insult-my-religion-die-die-die types) are often driven by uncontrolled rage. Nerds who've taken the brunt of their classmates' humor with no emotional outlets usually accumulate a good supply by the time they hit 20.
I think we might be reading the numbers back to front, perhaps there isn't some magical feature of an engineering degree that causes people to want to blow things up, but instead a less magical feature of wanting to blow things up that causes people to get an engineering degree. If you want to be a terrorist but you dont know anything about it, and you have a university handy, there are only two real choices. Engineering and chemistry. And chemistry only teaches you to make more specialised explosive compounds, whereas engineering will give you a range of skills about how to construct the entire device and also how best to use its effectivenes. Engineering degrees probably also cover enough basic knowledge to make an explosive compound from fertiliser anyway.
I think honestly the whole premise is flawed, the idea that terrorists are often engineers doesn't seem to necessarily be true whatsoever.
Look at attacks in the UK in recent times- the Glasgow bombers were all involved in the medical profession, or had medical qualifications. Of the 7th July 2005 bombers, one was a youth worker with a GNVQ in business, another was a youth worker, another seemed to have no real qualifications but worked in local government temporarily, another studied sports science and worked in a fish and chip shop.
Outside of the UK, we've got the shoe bomber who was another bum with no real prospects and who was involved in muggings and petty theft, the fellow you mention as you say, studied business.
Where are all these engineer terrorists exactly? Even if there's a few out there they don't seem disproportionately represented.
I had a look at the original article and the sample they used seems far from reliable. It mentions that of 404 records they could only ascertain the academic records of 178 of them, and that some areas are underrepresented including places like Iraq, and most of Asia, as well as North Africa.
Until they can actually demonstrate that terrorists really are oriented more towards engineering, there seems little point even trying to figure out why. They have not demonstrated this yet. There probably is a slant towards engineering because it offers the required skillset, but is it really significant? Is it significant enough to try and draw a conclusion that there's a link between the mindset of an engineer and a terrorist? absolutely not.
One word makes the whole difference - why most _successful_ terrorists are engineers? Because in a developing country most smart people go to engineering professions and being smart makes you much more likely to be successful at carrying out a terrorist act, especially when chemicals and bombs and/or air planes are involved. A pretty simple explanation that does not make all engineers terrorists.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo
They're heavily into creationism too. To the point where if a creationist says "we have scientists", they usually mean engineers. This is called the Salem Hypothesis.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
>I work with dozens of, if not over 100, fellow engineers. The marriage rate is well over 80%, including myself.
Hey, I have a B.S. in Computer Science, and I'm married, too. Of course, I was 27 before I lost my virginity.
I'm sure there are lots of people who don't fit the stereotypical Dilbert Engineer. Nonetheless, there is a reason why the stereotype exists, and why Dilbert is truthily funny.
Perhaps you and your enclave of 100 fellow engineers are the epitome of coolness. My experience is that most of my fellow engineers are not.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Gee, I dunno. Why did so many engineers firebomb the living crap out of Dresden and Tokyo? Not to mention...
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
A lot of us around here work in IT and have provided tech support long enough to have generalizations about various groups and their relative computer literacy. Executives are among the dumbest computer users I have ever had to support. The older ones still can't figure out the difference between email and a mouse. By contrast, people involved in art in a corporate environment are invariably the most advanced computer users, often able to diagnose their own problems and only bother the IT people when they need something replaced.
Given that numerous studies have found correlations between people who are good at art or music and people who are good at technical/scientific matters, this should surprise no one.
I know this seems unrelated, but your post suddenly made me think of that.
The way we in the US say "chief" or "boss" many folks in the MENA (Middle East Northern Africa) region refer to each other as the "Bash Muhandis" or "Head Engineer". Just like you refer to your friend saying "what's going on boss-man" they would say Bash Muhandis. So, being an engineer is a well respected job. Sadly, there are only so many engineering jobs. And even though your course of study may bring honor to yourself and your family, it may not bring bread to the table. So you have disaffected youth wanting to bring honor to themselves and their families. Sadly, a way to bring "honor" is being involved in a jihad/crusade against the West. The Jihad is always hiring.
Does anyone have a cached copy of that comic?
Terrorists study engineering because the best way to take things apart is to learn how they were put together.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano