Slashdot Mirror
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."
Not this crap again
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Actually, I don't know who it originally came from. It was scribbled on the bathroom wall in the engineering labs where I earned my degree. It was particularly funny because the building where their "classes" were held was adjacent to our engineering labs, and so they would occasionally wander in and stare dumbfounded at the joke, which just made it that much more satisfying.
:(){