Why Do So Many Terrorists Have Engineering Degrees 736
Socguy noted that Slate is apparently a little desperate for some traffic as they are writing about"Why so many of the terrorists have engineering degrees, and they come to the conclusion that engineers and engineering students are much more likely to hold strong conservative and religious views than a general cross section of the public. Further, engineers tend to hold a particular mind-set that disdains ambiguity and compromise. Terrorist organizations have long recognized that engineering departments are fertile ground for recruitment and have concentrated their efforts there. A 2005 report from British intelligence noted that Islamic extremists were frequenting college campuses, looking for 'inquisitive' students who might be susceptible to their message. In particular, the report noted, they targeted engineers."
Maybe it's the other way around? (Score:3, Interesting)
And there doesn't seem to be a lack of fundamentalism in certain areas so finding them in wide and well adopted fields such as enginering shouldn't be an issue in and of itself.
"Playing Nice" is Not Considered a Virtue (Score:3, Interesting)
So many of the Engineers I have known view "seeing both sides of the story" as some kind of weakness or soft-spined compromise. "Right is Right, Wrong is Wrong, I'm Right, and that's all there is to it. Period. Full Stop. Now If You'll Excuse Me, I've got to get back to My Important Thing."
Of course, more times than not, they ARE right. Just pains in the ass, and living in their Own Private Idaho.
It's not every engineer, of course, but a much larger percentage than, say, the writers or entertainers or sales-and-marketing suits whose company I have frequented over the past few decades. I've never made the connection before, but yes, most of the socially-dysfunctional engineers I know would make really good religious extremists.
Re:Most engineers don't know how to talk to girls (Score:1, Interesting)
In addition, engineers are somewhat exploited in todays society. They usually have a lower pay than others even though they are much more educated.
In conclusion, they are just not as happy as the others and think more critical about human society and political issues.
Parent is right, it's actually pretty obvious.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:4, Interesting)
Another issue is that engineering students are more likely to have enough skills to really pull off a terrorist act.
Many terrorist acts today involves a certain level of technology - everything from flying an aircraft to connecting two wires.
So there is no wonder that the terrorist organizations are targeting engineering students as a first choice. Just imagine how well another type of student would be able to rig an explosive or cause problems.
And there is also something behind the idea that many other societies are pushing hard in the engineering sector. It's only in the western world today that engineers are seen as some kind of low level creep that creates atomic bombs, weapons and biohazards - and that the best and highest rated people are instead working as actors, participate in reality shows like "Big Brother" or focus on essentially non-productive stuff like sociology.
What about rich kids becoming terrorists? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm happy that with this Nigerian terrorist that the media is emphasizing his wealthy and privileged background.
I was disappointed that the wealthy, privileged, backgrounds of Osama Bin Laden and almost all of the 19 9/11 hijackers were not emphasized more.
As with Marxism, Islamic terrorism is not about the poor rising up against oppressors.
It is about is about rich people with unresolved issues telling the poor what to think and egging them on to take actions that really don't help the poor...........exactly the complaint that these self appointed "vanguard activists" have.
Re:Engineering vs science? (Score:2, Interesting)
The most important thing for a successful engineer is the ability to question rules and specifications. Like, "Why do you want me to only use bricks to build this house? Oh, you want it fireproof? Then I will alter your spec and use steel." If the client refuses, the engineer gets frustrated and leaves. Any good engineer knows there better be a damn good reason for the specifications, otherwise you get a suboptimal solution. This has a tendency to drive them away from arbitrary religious beliefs, etc., and results in agnosticism in idealistic engineers.
However, there are many engineers who are not so idealistic, not so critical of their specifications, and more likely to make (invalid) assumptions. These people are more likely to hold conservative religious beliefs, and possibly absorb the beliefs of others, especially when in school. Granted, these are also the least competent engineers, which might explain why so many attacks have been flubbed.
For the sake of argument, it is easy to see how an idealistic engineer could be disillusioned by all the arbitrary and f***ing retarded rules in politics and business, eventually leading to extremism against the "broken system". But the same idealist would also be able to see that terrorism would not change the system, thus I believe most recruited engineer terrorists fall into the "incompetent" category.
Engineers make the best soldiers (Score:5, Interesting)
Every serious military fan boy (or whatever) knows that combat engineers are, overall, the most economically effective soldiers.
Take everything you'd want in a grunt, but invest a little more education so they can use more technology, and that is basically a combat engineer. A super-grunt, the grunt of the future ... today.
Per dollar invested by society, per person, per pound, per whatever, combat engineers are simply the most effective soldiers on the planet. There are other groups with "more battlefield power", tac nuke artillery, attack copter pilot, etc, but they invariably require a million to trillion dollar rear echelon and military industrial complex back home, and lack the sustained long term fighting power of a combat engineering group. Anything that can crush ten combat engineering units, has an overall societal cost maybe 1e6 higher than a CE unit, so assuming enough smart enlistees, your overall military power is the highest when you maximize your combat engineers.
The only reason more combat engineers aren't used, is the quantity of enlistees with the required superior brain power is limited.
In the 70s/80s there was kind of a "revenge of the jocks" doctrinal move toward special forces, etc, but that has pretty much failed, fizzled out, and the combat engineers reign supreme on the battlefield once again...
Non-military folks can pretend to be surprised that a military force would try to recruit engineers for pageviews or whatever, but for those in the business, its no surprise at all.
(And, yes, I was in the Army in the early 90s, and no, I was in Ordnance not combat engineering, and as a supplier we were well aware that the combat engineers have by far the most effective armaments)
I'll bite... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a software engineer by trade. Note, I do not call myself a programmer, as that has an entirely different tone to it.
I can see where recruiting young engineers would be best. When I was 20, I was a sharp network engineer (again engineer) working on integrating a section of the Exxon and Mobil servers when they merged. At that time I was also studying several translations of the christian bible trying to find meaning in life.
I can see how someone with an analytical mind, logical training, and a sort of philosophical interest could be of use to nearly any cause.
Quite a few years later I am married, have a good life, and gave up the network bit for my hobby (coding). I am back in college, aiming for a degree that matters to me and now am much less prone to theological stints. Wisdom comes with age.
If you catch the young engineer while he's figuring out the world, yeah, he may just sign on for [random cause].
Insecure personality (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience with people who claim to be nuclear engineers here on slashdot is that they are obsessive to the point of being completely blind to reality. More than once I've said that I hoped the commenter had nothing to do with the running of a nuclear power plant because they were plainly security risks. That is on slashdot. Who know who those people really were. But there is at least an association between threats of violence and claims to be engineers. Insecure personalities could explain that association.
I've also worked with mechanical and electrical engineers who are really great people. Engineering is not a ticket to personality disorder, it just seems to attract and pass through some of that sort.
Re:Engineers make the best soldiers (Score:3, Interesting)
Rome in its heyday is a very good example of the power of (early) combat engineers. The soldiers weren't just soldiers, they had they skills to basically bring Rome to wherever they went as well as being able to build, maintain, transport and use some rather complex weapons (for their time).
Re:Lets see (Score:3, Interesting)
It's amazing to me that anyone with an engineering background could have blind (I.E. without tangible proof) faith in any religion. Agnosticism seems to me to be the viewpoint most consistent with an Engineering outlook (until a religion provides some kind of tangible proof, which goes against what most of them say about faith.)
And yet there are many (non-biologist) scientists who are also creationists in the fundamentalist Christian sense. All you need is the Islamic equivalent.
It's a cultural thing (Score:5, Interesting)
I studied Arabic in the Army's immersion program and I can tell you that most Arab males claim to be engineers (even if they aren't). It's one of the highest achievements in their culture. Ana Muhandis (I'm an engineer) is a common phrase and one of the first you learn.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the years it has gotten more and more clear to me that (counter-intuitively perhaps) it is entirelty possible for very intelligent, learned and hard working men to be religious fanatics, homicidal maniacs, perverts, terrorists, psychopaths, all-round assholes or all of the above. Moral outlook and intelligence don't seem to be very strongly related at all.
That's true, but I also think that
If you're poor, your overriding goal in life is to survive. You don't have a very "empowered" mindset. Other articles have noted that the terrorists are all from middle class backgrounds. If you're middle-class, you have enough mental breathing room to ask "What do I want to be when I grow up?" and "How can I make the world a better place?" You feel that you have some power or leverage in life and society. You can make choices that can have real impact. In other words, you feel "empowered".
So why do terrorists have engineering degrees? Probably because they are middle-class.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the years it has gotten more and more clear to me that (counter-intuitively perhaps) it is entirelty possible for very intelligent, learned and hard working men to be religious fanatics, homicidal maniacs, perverts, terrorists, psychopaths, all-round assholes or all of the above. Moral outlook and intelligence don't seem to be very strongly related at all.
I think it's more that being very intelligent, you are far more likely to believe in your own understanding of reality and moral system regardless of everyone else. These people probably believed they could see a great conspiracy against Islam, which only they saw exactly because they were intelligent and educated. They could see through the deceptions and coverups and link events together to reveal the master plan while the rest of the world was blind. Everything that speaks in favor of your world view is true, everything that speaks against is a deception - it is the ultimate in confirmation bias. Higher intelligence would not help, it would only reinforce that belief.
One thing that is fairly clear about most of society's rules, it'd be a lot better for me if they applied to everyone but me. Morality aside, you want the others to be hens and you the fox in the henhouse. Now I'm not trying to defend anyone, but practical reality is that many people aren't intelligent enough to be criminals. They get caught, they go to jail, the risk/reward works out in favor of not breaking the law. High intelligence can swing those odds in your favor, and to paraphrase Al Capone: "You can get farther with morality and threat of jail time than you can with just morality." So I don't think it directly impacts morality, but it certainly gives capability to those who are already morally corrupt.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some light reading [harvard.edu] for you:
In this paper we offer evidence based on a unique database constructed from
.....
reports of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA). The data detail the biographies of
Palestinian suicide bombers between the years 2000 and 2005, including detailed
information about the targets they attacked, and number of people that they killed
and injured. We nd that the suicide bomber’s age and education and the impor-
tance of the target are strongly correlated; older and more-educated suicide
bombers are assigned to attack more important targets. Older and more-educated
suicide bombers kill more people when they attack more important targets. We also
nd that more-educated and older Palestinian suicide bombers are less likely to fail
or to be caught during their attacks, emphasizing the importance of human capital
in the production of killing and terror.
Our paper also contributes to the debate on the relation between educa-
tion, poverty, and terrorism. While suicide bombers are on average more
educated than the general Palestinian population, our estimate of higher
education among suicide bombers is lower than the gures reported by Berrebi
(2003) and Krueger and Maleckova (2003). Berrebi (2003) nds that 55 percent
of the suicide bombers for whom he was able to nd information on education
had or were persuing higher education. Berrebi’s gure is more than three
times our estimate of 18 percent.7 We suspect that selection bias may drive these
differences in the estimates of education among suicide bombers. For example,
Berrebi’s (2003, footnote 36) data do not include suicide bombers who were
caught or failed in their mission, or suicide bombers that did not succeed in
killing others—who tend to be less educated than those who do not fail in their
missions.
Re:Lets see (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually find, Engineers to be the most "well rounded" of disciplines. WHY? Because they have to incorporate all sorts of other disciplines into whatever they design and build.
Additionally, they tend to always be learning. And not just about Engineering, but across a very broad scope.
You can have a conversation with an Engineer about anything from Physics, to Ecology, to religion, to even art and design. And you'll find that most of them are able to have a conversation in many many different fields.
Liberal Studies? Not so much. Any topic that ends up with any sort of REAL math or science is quickly met with fierce dogmatic statements made mostly in ignorance. Want to talk about Global Warming, its causes or even the scandal and you're met with a fierceness that matches any number of religious zealots. And the funniest thing is, they tend to claim to have "open minds".
But hey, that is just my observation in my college town. Liberal Arts = boring people who think they are enlightened, and everyone who doesn't agree with them are stupid.
Reincarnation: am I me, or some dead guy? (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'm me, then I'm not some guy who's memories and personality I don't have. If I'm some dead guy in a new body, I'm not me. The concept of reincarnation either requires an idea of 'self' that contradicts everything commonly meant by self, or it is a meaningless semantic exercise used to justify success by evil and the suffering of good.
If you need to redefine self to make it work, then why not be honest and say, (for instance) "Well, lady, your baby died because some old dead guy was evil, his soul needed punishing, and, well, your baby was him. And the guy that killed your baby, well, some guy in the future who has no memory of being a murderer is going to suffer for that!" Yeah, that's comforting.
I suppose for people who need to assign meaning to things, any meaning will do, no matter how meaningless it actually is.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Rand had no royalties at the end of her life. The copyrights had run on her books and plays. She lived on her Social Security check and married a man named O'Connor and the two lived in a rent-controlled apartment on Manhattan's upper west side in the late 1960s-early 1970s. I would see her at the deli on Broadway between 98th and 99th street from time to time.
She was a favorite guest of a conservative club located in the basement of a brownstone at 92nd St. between Broadway and West End Avenue. The area was full of political clubs in those days, I belonged to the Hudson Independent Democrats, a FDR democratic club. When James Buckley was elected NY Senator on the Conservative Party Ticket, it was because the Republican and Democratic candidates split the vote.
I did see quite a few engineering students at NYU (just before NYU dumped its engineering department) in the early 1970s reading Atlas Shrugged - but, they were square in the middle of The Village and such nonsense was acceptable in that free-for-all part of the city.
Re:It's a cultural thing (Score:3, Interesting)
You are generalizing: "Ana Muhandis" is spoken Egyptian.
It's actually Modern Standard Arabic that goes for the entire Middle East/North Africa region. There's nothing in those two words that are specifically Egyptian.
And honestly, how would you know that they claim to be engineers just by being in an immersion program?
By definition...I was immersed with Arabs. Many of them are Engineers. They even teach it in the culture class--how engineering is an important cultural aspect. I've been doing this for 16 years so I know a lot of Engineers.
Appearance of Hypocrisy, due to more irrationality (Score:1, Interesting)
Bomb building skills (Score:3, Interesting)
An artist or a lawyer normally do not have the necessary skills to switch a lightbulb so how could they probably build a bomb. Furthermore lawyers are better in targeting and destroying companies or the legal system. Artists are good in making fun of western symbols and values e.g. ($ EUR YEN). Also engineering students are more likely to be treated badly by others. Hey they are geeks so they respond "good" when they are the target of jokes. They are more likely introvert. The same persons tend to shoot of peoples heads in high schools for the same reasons.
So if someone thinks he is mistreated by all other people he most likely does not have any sympathy left for those jerks. Therefore the best way to prevent terror recruitment is to integrate geeks and even dorks back in society. Also as societies: We should not treat other societies as inferior, which is also a source of terrorism.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've read more lies about Ayn Rand than about any other person. You add to the total.
Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957; the copyright should still be intact. She married O'Connor in 1929, not late in life as your statement weakly implies.
With regard to the Buckleys, Rand thought they were terrible and criticized them very heavily. She urged the defeat of James Buckley.
Why Do So Many Terrorists Have Engineering Degree (Score:1, Interesting)