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."
Obvious answer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be that engineering degrees are a dime-a-dozen in oil-rich countries where middle-eastern terrorists usually originate? How many people in these countries don't have engineering degrees?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Nah. It's just that those terrorists without engineering degrees won't even make the news due to ineptitude. See this [wikipedia.org] for further studies on the topic.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's just that those terrorists without engineering degrees won't even make the news due to ineptitude.
Given the (thankful) ineptitude of some of those who do make the news I wonder if they would not have been more effective as terrorists if they had stuck to being engineers and built a few bridges or buildings.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real answer to this is that if you actually want something done, get an engineer. Or a mathematician. Or a physicist. If you want to write tracts, pamphlets, get media attention, or anything like that, then you go prospect the philosophers and the liberal arts folks.
But if you want to build something, you find an engineer. Especially as the math/physics guys are likely to spend an infinite amount of time trying to figure out how to do it right rather than just getting it done. ;-) Why is this newsworthy, again?
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.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh, news to me.
Signed,
FatAlb3rt - BSME, MSCompE
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The terrorist actions we have seen have all been high profile - intended to make the most of the headlines in newspapers and TV news.
If the TV and newspapers hadn't reported a crap about the WTC attack then the intended result had failed. For the terrorists even a failed result is a success since the step up in security will cause a lot more harm and annoyance to people than what a single terrorist could do.
Not that I'm advocating censorship here, but I'm just presenting the reasoning from the terrorist lea
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Informative)
Could it be that engineering degrees are a dime-a-dozen in oil-rich countries where middle-eastern terrorists usually originate? How many people in these countries don't have engineering degrees?
Hmm... some googling:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed got his engineering degree in North Carolina.
Mohammed Atta got an engineering degree in Cairo (and studied English and German there), but his PhD in Hamburg, Germany.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab studied mechanical engineering in London, UK. It's unclear whether he graduated.
Speaking of degrees being a dime a dozen: In the United States, almost 30% of the population has at a Bachelors degree or higher, and again that many have attended university but only have an associates degree or nothing. In other words, unless wikipedia [wikipedia.org] is wrong, two thirds of the population has attended college. According to the Unesco website [unesco.org], the situation is similar in Western Europe. According to that same website, "23% attended college in the Arab States, 11% in South and West Asia and, despite rapid growth, only 6% in Africa"
Google is refusing to specify these statistics to engineering degrees, but the numbers above suggest that degrees are actually a dime a dozen in "the west", and not in the oil rich countries where middle eastern terrorists usually originate.
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.
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.
Parent's Stats Are Not Accurate (Score:4, Informative)
The "Insightful" parent's stats are not reflected in the link that he provided. Here's quoting directly from Wiki:
"The 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau found that 19.5 percent of the population had attended college but had no degree, 7.4 percent held an associate's degree, 17.1 percent held a bachelor's degree, and 9.9 percent held a graduate or professional degree."
Re: (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
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:4, Funny)
Blame the widespread acceptance of altruism, by far the unquestionable default morality of the world, which promotes a "greater good" or "brother's keeper" value that supersedes one's own life and personal value system.
Ayn Rand, you're alive and posting on slashdot!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Children should not be allowed to read Ayn Rand until they clearly understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Funny)
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny!
Lots of people (especially engineering types and other nerds) go through an Ayn Rand stage in early adulthood. Most of them get over it, though.
Easily the most ridiculous author in post war literature. "Selfishness is the only virtue" - the philosophy of a 6 year old.
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: (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
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Easily the most ridiculous author in post war literature. "Selfishness is the only virtue" - the philosophy of a 6 year old.
I think that's a little unfair, even though I've had some unflattering things to say about Rand's writing elsewhere in this thread. Her work is just very much "of its time." If Rand hadn't said it, someone else would have -- it makes a certain amount of sense as a reaction to communism, and it does successfully point out some of the key ways that communism falls down in practice.
It d
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By "get over it", of course, you mean, "compromise their principles out of convenience, instant gratification, or short-term benefit."
No, I'm pretty sure he meant that they grow up and realize that the world is more complicated. They come to realize that people don't divide nicely into white-hat noble genius captains of industry and black-hat greedy communist do-nothings. They may come to understand that people who disagree with them simply have different priorities and probably aren't mustache-twirling c
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the terrorist recruiters are specifically seeking out Engineering students.
Based on my experience working in a University (and attending a couple) it seems to me that students who get sent abroad from Islamic countries study Engineering because it's a particularly useful degree back home. Many of these countries are underdeveloped and bringing back good engineering skills is a way to work towards correcting that. You just don't see as many students from the developing world here in the US getting degrees in art, English, or the social sciences.
Now, I if I were an Islamic terrorist recruiter, I'd most interested in finding people who had lived in the target country and could move around comfortably there. But they'd also need to be people who were grounded in Islam and hopefully susceptible to a more fundamentalist point of view. Young people tend to be more "flexible" in their theology than older people. So, who do I look for? Students from my own country who have been or are currently studying abroad and most of them are going to be Engineers. Plus these students have the added benefit of having already gone through the visa process and will probably much easier to get back into the target country.
I really don't think the recruiters and leaders are looking specifically for highly trained engineers so they can be expended on the front-line. If Engineers are actually valued for their technical skills, planning capability, etc, I'd use them for designing IEDs and planning operations. Considering the failures and apparent incompetence so far, maybe they are using the "bottom of the barrel" for the actual operations, since they have the qualifications to reach the target country but are not so capable in an Engineering capacity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think the terrorist recruiters are specifically seeking out Engineering students.
No, they are specifically seeking out Muslims. Or in the case of Northern Ireland, Catholics or Protestants (depending on which side of the divide they are on) and in India, Hindus or Sikhs.
Oddly enough, everyone is recruiting based on religion, almost as if strongly held beliefs for which you have no evidence is a prerequisite for killing lots of people in the name of them.
Which, given what an abysmal record political
And that is exactly the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The article even hits on it.
Who is more likely to commit an act of terrorism:
1) A doctor who works 60 hours a week and golfs with his buddies
2) An unemployed engineer who is socially inept and having difficulties earning a living wage
The article points out that in Saudi Arabia, where the rapidly growing economy has resulted in very low unemployment for engineers, there is no over abundance of engineering degrees in terrorist organizations. But in other countries where grow has been slow or stymied and engineering education has been heavily promoted, unemployment, specifically in the engineering sectors, has been especially high.
The best way to fight against extremist recruiting is to maintain low unemployment and to keep people socially engaged. So long as people are comfortable with their existence and have hope for the future, any extremist group will have a hard time coming up with fresh recruits.
That is why, IMO, the most critical aspect of world wide security is not nukes or armies, not even police or surveillance laws. The most important factor to peace, stability, and security is the Middle Class.
-Rick
Re:And that is exactly the problem (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what you're saying is that neoconservative corporatism is the real terrorist threat?
Re:Obvious answer? (Score:5, Funny)
Are you a anonymously posting-modernist philosopher?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
So a muslim fundamentalist is really an atheist nihilist?
Sexual nihilist. They say that the main causes for suicide bombing is the combination that:
- Islam is a polygamist culture.
- Islam, coarsely described, says Heaven is the sexing up lots of ladies.
Invariably, the suicide bombers are single males who have less a chance of marrying a woman (since the well-to-do's tend to marry more than their share) and see this as their only sanctioned escape of sexual frustration/loneliness. This escape, of course, was designed by men who took the exact words that con
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:Reincarnation: am I me, or some dead guy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I'm aware of the theories. I'm just not buying it. It's a cop out, a trite explanation for the unfair, uncaring and utterly random events of life. It's a means to excuse unfairly gained power and wealth, and a method of severing compassion with the less fortunate. Each 'deserves' their lot in life, and some imaginary cosmic balance is maintained. But all it does is serve to mask the most basic mistake that ego makes: the idea that it is a separate thing to begin with. Forget karma and reincarnation and even free will, it's all a sop to an ego that sees itself as separated from the universe. Balance happens between two separate things. The concept of balance is alien to unity. Without the need for a settling of accounts, there is no need for rebirth. With no need for rebirth, suffering ends.
Re: (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,
EE times came to a similar conclusion (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't the EEtimes come to a similar conclusion last year?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/03/1943247 [slashdot.org]
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=207001533 [eetimes.com]
I recall it had more to do with planning skills than anything else.
Re:EE times came to a similar conclusion (Score:5, Funny)
"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
Re:"Playing Nice" is Not Considered a Virtue (Score:5, Insightful)
Engineers are ALWAYS right. ALWAYS. Even when (especially when?) something is clearly opinion based.
Ask a non-eng what their favorite color is, you get a simple answer.
Ask an eng the same, you get an answer PLUS reasons why it is superior to other colors.
As I said, I am an engineer. It was only after I noticed behavior like this in other engs that I noticed it in myself as well.
I don't like having that trait (flaw?) and have had to make a conscious effort to be less judgmental. (Yet remaining critical.)
So, yeah, as RobotRunAmok pointed out - engs tend to think/say "Right is right - AND I'M RIGHT" even when it isn't a correct/incorrect discussion, sometimes when they are clearly incorrect (they defend what they've said, clearly wrong.)
Also, and again this is something that I've caught myself doing, is that these personality types can and do play the Devil's Advocate rather well - up to a point. There is a difference between seeing the other side of a discussion and being contrarian for the sake of "being right."
The above may not be worded all that well, but I need my morning coffee. Besides, it hardly matters if you disagree with me, since I KNOW that I am correct.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Playing Nice" is Not Considered a Virtue (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why science reporting is so crap - no, saying that the LHC will create a black hole the will destroy the earth is not an 'equally valid viewpoint' that the BBC should report in the interest of balance.
Re:"Playing Nice" is Not Considered a Virtue (Score:5, Insightful)
As a CS grad from a liberal arts school, I got to deal with the liberal arts types that parent is referring to quite a bit.
There were generally 3 modes of thinking for the less bright liberal arts students: ..." These folks are easy to find in the English or psychology departments, and by avoiding ever drawing any conclusions avoid having their conclusions being demonstrated incorrect. Often, they were extremely good students in high school, because their high school classes emphasized memorize-regurgitate over critical thinking.
1. "I'm right, because I'm morally right, and anyone who disagrees with me is mysogynistic / racist / classist / homophobic." This would be found most commonly in the [insert historically disadvantaged group here] Studies departments. They also tend to join up with identity-based groups on campus.
2. "On the other hand
3. "These 'facts' make me feel like I'm right" This is where truthiness trumps facts. You find these people in the political science and history departments. They also spend a lot of their time in on-campus activism, and are often humorously misinformed.
All of them have real trouble in fields like math and science because in those fields there are correct and incorrect answers, and incorrect answers cannot be met by "that's just, like, your opinion, man". Of course, xkcd [xkcd.com] shows it far better than I ever could.
Worth mentioning is that the smarter liberal arts types aren't like this at all. For instance, smart English majors can point out the structures of literature that make it all tick, or exactly how a sentence can be better phrased. Smart history majors can provide all the major sources for a historical event, explain what biases each source had and how that affected their description of the event, piece together what probably actually happened, and are probably some of the best BS detectors out there.
Thomas Jefferson (Score:3, Insightful)
Inventor and engineer, also a revolutionary. Lucky for him (and us), a successful one.
Wonder what names the British called him and his compatriots? Blow the dust off your history book and find out.
Boy did I ever post this anonymously.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Doing bad things is fine, just so long as you don't do them the worst.
Lets see (Score:5, Insightful)
From my engineering degree
Chemical explosives - check
Electronic devices - check
Radio communications - check
Problem solving techniques - check
Analyzing systems for failure modes/exploitation - check
Nah .. can't see why an engineering degree would be useful to a terrorist at all
What was really fun was that the US Green card application specifically asks you if have had training in a lot of the above techniques. and I had no idea what sort of red flags sent up by me truthfully answering the questions
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot:
Awkward around girls - check
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Funny)
The problem is that if you had two such engineers, they're compete to see who could get his 72 virgins stacked to make the strongest bridge.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly what I was thinking. What good is 72 women going "Oww, oww. Wait...slow down. Are you sure your doing it right. It hurts." or "Eww, you want me to put that in my mouth" or "balls are funny looking" or "OMG, you can make it MOVE".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Insightful)
Chemical explosives - check
Electronic devices - check
Radio communications - check
Problem solving techniques - check
Analyzing systems for failure modes/exploitation - check
Same here, but:
...Ability to blindly swallow what religious authorities tell me? Uh oh. We're a "no-go" on that one, Houston.
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.)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If I were to claim to have a device that could solve any problem in linear time, or that produced more energy than it consumed, or that nullified gravity, any engineer worth the title would be highly skeptical and would demand to see hard data before believing such a claim.
It doesn't make sense to me that most people with this sort of engineering mindset could blindly accept extraordinary claims (made by whichever religion.) I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong -- just that they are very difficult to believe without strong evidence.
Re:Lets see (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Insightful)
and yet my experience in university tells me that the religious social conservatives are concentrated in the engineering college...
why?
because engineering is a world of black and white thinking, and it doesn't challenge their religious dogma like the other departments with their more rounded gen ed requirements do. Let alone the departments in Arts and Sciences like Geology, Biology, Paleontology, etc that the findings of openly challenge their dogma.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
because engineering is a world of black and white thinking, and it doesn't challenge their religious dogma
Knowing a lot of religious social conservatives (being a religious social liberal myself), there's a simpler reason. All the people I know want to get married, have kids, do all the normal socially conservative things, and engineering is the fastest path to all that 'cause it comes with great pay for only 4/5 years of work. The article says as much when it talks about how the countries these people are from were pushing engineering as the stable well paying route to success.
Most other professional degrees t
Re: (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.
Libera
Re: (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.
Blindly swallow authority? That's engineer to a T (Score:3, Insightful)
Engineers not religious? They are more religious than anyone, it's just that the religion is engineering and they take a ton of convincing that engineers they consider to be "above" them are wrong even when the evidence is clear. Absolute obedience to authority comes naturally to an engineer because they spend so much time early on gathering facts from authority figures that over time they lose th
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Funny)
Well, what else is he going to do with all those perfect scale replicas of cows? The trebuchet seems like the obvious choice to me.
Re: Lets see - RTFA? No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so fast ... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I might somewhat agree with the notion that engineers disdain ambiguity, I completely disagree with the statement that engineers hate compromise. Im my mind, engineering is the art of compromise, and that is what separates us from "scientists". We crave efficiency, which in turn *requires* compromises. We constantly make tradeoffs between costs, quality and schedule, with the goal of meeting requirements most optimally. Ask any engineer who has designed a product and they will tell you that they could have made it (choose 1): better, sooner, cheaper. Instead, compromises were made along the way to meet some criteria in all 3 of those measures.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I always heard "You can have it fast, good, or cheap, pick two"
Also there is compromise "Yes we can use X material instead of Y, its not as good, but, its within tolerances" and "The project is to build a bridge, the drawing you gave me is for a boat ramp, this isn't going to meet our requirments"
-Steve
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While I might somewhat agree with the notion that engineers disdain ambiguity, I completely disagree with the statement that engineers hate compromise
But does this same hold true when you're idealistic and still in college learning your trade? What I learned in school in no way prepared me for the compromises required by real life... just because you must be able to compromise doesn't mean that you like doing it -- most folks don't (engineers and otherwise).
Necessary skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Necessary skills (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell kind of skills is a Liberal Arts student going to provide them with? But I'm not surprised that the ignorant Liberal Arts majors who wrote this article didn't realize that they're useless to the rest of society. Even the terrorists don't want them.
Re:Necessary skills (Score:5, Funny)
but man, they look really nice when they don't work. I mean, could an engineer really make the colors go together like that? And seriously, who uses red and green wires? Is it Christmas? A nice set of matching mauve is sooo much better at offsetting the grey c4.
Or (Score:4, Insightful)
Or engineers are good at planning, organizing, and building stuff. While in college they're probably most impressionable to joining causes. Every organization on the planet wants eager, smart people working for them.
Why are so many terrorists literate? (Score:3, Informative)
Does literacy cause terrorism? If so, the solution is simple.
Also, this was discussed here on Slashdot twice last year:
Engineers Have a Terrorist Mindset? [slashdot.org] (Jan 2008)
Engineers Make Good Terrorists? [slashdot.org] (Apr 2008)
Re: (Score:2)
Literacy is more of a solution to terrorism then the cause. The problem is is they basing their belief structure on one book. If they were truly literate they would be reading all sorts of books and have a more world view and sympathy to other cultures and religions. Engineers are not necessarily into Literacy (sure they can read, but they are not interested in reading a bunch of books on different topics) which makes it easy. Having them more literate will probably reduce the problem.
They wouldn't be targeting engineers because... (Score:3, Informative)
They wouldn't be targeting engineers because they have skills of getting things done and paying attention to details.
Engineering isn't science. Engineering is using what is known of science to create results. It is one of the few degrees that have that focus. Most of the other disciplines if recruited will spend their time researching and analyzing the problems and probably coming up with the idea it is a bad idea. But an engineer will just go ahead and make it go.
Maybe the ones with drama degrees not so good? (Score:2, Insightful)
Could be just the engineering degree ones that are successful in blowing things up. Perhaps the ones who took degrees in fine art are busy in mountain retreats sculpting models of the end of world in matchsticks and bat guano, the ones who took degrees in drama are creating avant-garde absurdist plays and presenting these to goats in small rural farming communities, and the ones who took degrees in philosophy are arguing whether their enemies actually exist in complex latin tracts that nobody understands a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps the students who put some effort into studying pointless subjects like history, philosophy, politics, sociology, psychology, and whatever other underwater-basket-weaving people who aren't engineers take, might have learned enough to say "Hey, you know what? This has all happened before and it didn't work then. This is the wrong way to do it. Have you considered an alternative to blowing things up?"
The students who only studied engineering never learned what the right questions were, let alone
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.
Wait (Score:2)
I think you answered your own question.
Yes, there's correlation ... (Score:2)
Okay, there's an issue of being more conservative to a certain degree, but I can come up with lots more reasons that might give a bias to engineering:
Engineering vs science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better question (Score:2)
Ease of travel? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps another reason engineers predominate is because it is easier to get a visa, or otherwise travel, to Western countries if one is an engineer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps another reason engineers predominate is because it is easier to get a visa, or otherwise travel, to Western countries if one is an engineer.
I suspect it's sortakindof like that, but in reverse. Engineering is probably regarded as a respectable profession, so the kids get sent off with a visa to schools abroad.
Fairly common attitude across Eastern Europe, so I'd expect the Arab world would be little different. What's respectable? Studying to become a doctor, lawyer or businessmen or somebody who b
Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
Must have been bottom of the class engineers who barely passed at all. All of the terrorist attacks carried out (all 5-10 of them over two decades) against the U.S. were poorly planned and poorly executed. Even the September 11 attacks could have been 10 fold more deadly had they been timed and executed better.
And don't get me started on the shoe and underwear bombers. Evidently, the "engineers" who plotted those attacks didn't think that maybe they should build a foolproof electronic detonator for their bomb rather than rely on the skillz of someone who is willing to blow himself up.
Why am I harping on this? It pisses me off that as a result of the actions of a few idiots, a TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS (that is, the life's work of at least a million people) has been blown reacting to these idiots. The terrorists have WON. They've caused grievous damaged to the United States thanks to the response of the U.S. government and it's sheeple.
Had we done NOTHING at all in response to the attacks (except for maybe giving the FBI a billion dollar budget increase or something cheap like that) it would have cost us far less treasure and lifetimes of labor. Those freaking towers were only insured for a couple of billion, tops.
If we're going to spend a trillion dollars fighting a few evil individuals, they better be a Lex Luther...not Cletus.
You're talking about bankers, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
Goddam bankers, they're almost as bad as terrorists.
Re:Eh (Score:4, Insightful)
s a result of the actions of a few idiots, a TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS (that is, the life's work of at least a million people) has been blown reacting to these idiots
Taken out of context, that could apply to the bankers on Wall Street.
Re:Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
100% incorrect. Look at the "broken window fallacy". All that trillion dollars (I am talking about Iraq, Afganistan, Homeland Security, and other waste...more than a trillion, actually) is pissed down the drain. See, the same money could have been used to create new wealth instead of being expended. Iraq and Afganistan expend men, ammunition, vehicles, and so forth. Those same people could have been working in the U.S. and have created a trillion dollars worth of wealth, such as a trillion worth of consumer goods or nuclear reactors or wind and solar panels and so forth. And we'd still HAVE that wealth.
Instead, to illustrate : we are bringing shrink wrapped helicopters over to Iraq and Afganistan that are fresh from the factory. Those helicopters will never be brought home. We are building special armored vehicles that consume too much gas and are too slow to ever be used again. And so forth. Every round of ammunition fired, you can't get back. Every soldier who loses his life or limb you can't get back. And so on.
and how it started.... (Score:2)
I suppose English/Classics students argue, but they know its all futile in the larger scheme of things, as Cicero said "we're all dead, get over it losers".
Maths students argue, but only over dividing the bill.
Humanities/Politics students argue over everything, but that's all - they have no ability to do anything practical.
Engineering students, they're different. From arguing over Emacs or Vi, its no wonder they're seen as the most promising ones for a career in terrorism.
Maybe it's just because... (Score:2)
...*successful* terrorists are more likely to have engineering degrees--'cause the ones who don't blow themselves up trying to make the bomb.
We Live in an Illogical World (Score:3, Insightful)
Engineers crave logic. Logical people are all driven somewhat crazy by the world we live in. That will manifest itself in all sorts of strange ways. This time, it manifested itself in exploding underwear (not a very smart engineer, judging by the design). As a kind of engineer myself, I look at how limited the damage would have been, if he had blown up the plane, versus the cost of going all ape-shit over it and I naturally come to the conclusion that people need to chill the fuck out. Even if they made airport security perfect, I can think of at least a dozen non-airplane ways to kill just as many people, without the terrorist(s) even having to sacrifice his life. The way to reduce terrorism is to stop creating new ones by stop bombing their families and stop manipulating their governments.
I've heard... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Whole sale Vs Retail terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Quick responses to common /. responses (Score:5, Insightful)
1) It has nothing to do with technical abilities. Terrorists don't attempt to recruit people by technical ability, they just take whoever they can get.
2) It has nothing to do with ease of immigration as a skilled migrant. The paper cites studies on American religious terrorists (the nominally Christian far-right) and concludes that the unusual tendency of engineers towards right-wing radicalism seems universal.
3) The paper argues that the 'styles of thinking' that predispose people towards engineering, also predispose them towards right-wing radicalism. Engineers are more reliably right-wing than even economists! (who are the second-most reliably right-wing academic group). Likewise, a liberal arts education is correlated with left-wing radicalism (e.g., communist bombing campaigns [wikipedia.org] in postwar Western Europe). But there have been relatively few left-wing bombing terrorist acts after the end of the Soviet Union, while right-wing radicalism is on the rise. Hence mad engineers rather than mad Marx-spewing liberal arts graduates.
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)
Re: (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).
jounalism degrees don't enable you to make bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
The obvious point: Terrorists need people with money and people with the skills to make bombs.
Not much room for English or Journalism majors at the Al Quedia training camp.
The communication skills from those disciplines are useful, but the Islamic terrorists already have the SUV/Saudi Arabian funded clerics taking care of brain washing and recruitment.
The Best and The Brightest (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, can you think of any recruiter in any field and any country who isn't out to snag the best and the brightest?
Wouldn't it be recruiting malpractice so not do so?
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.
First rule of engineering: (Score:3, Insightful)
Never blow yourself up!
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are on to something but then totally miss it: titles are big in Egyptian Arabic, not the profession itself.
Speaking as someone born and raised in Egypt, Arabic being my mother tongue, the society there is very large on titles. If you are writing a letter to an official in the USA, you address it to "Dear Sir/Madam" or to "Mr. John Doe/Ms. Jane Doe". In Egypt, you are asked to address the official with all the titles that he/she got. For example "Al Sayed Al Ostaz Al Doctor Al Kimya'ee John Doe" (Mr ? Dr
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hey what can I say (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Surprise! Competent people get things done! (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that they were "engineers" is not surprising. Look throughout history at the people who may have gotten engineering degrees, if such things had existed then:
* Thomas Jefferson (who was something like a surveyor's assistant, and a botanist of sorts)
* Michelangelo (who was a tinkerer and inventor, making new things)
* Edison (of the lightbulb)
* Ford (of the automobile, was known as a self-taught watch repairman as a youth, and once even held the title 'engineer')
Problem is, in today's society, an "engineer" is a really wide definition. If you're getting a useful 4-year technical degree, it's an engineering degree or a technology degree. Getting a "civil engineering" or "mechanical engineering" degree would be the most likely means to gainful employment, regardless of where you live.
And in reality, many men are well suited for the role of "engineer". They're tinkerers, problem solvers, and fixers. If a man is generally competent, he's more likely to make a decent engineer - and by association, is more likely to go into that field. ...
As for the implications of the article, I am keenly aware of the disturbing social implications resulting from widespread dispersal of this "study". I can easily see security theater like the TSA moving to profile against, say, "religious technical people", making sure to adjust their procedure to not "unjustly discriminate against Islamic engineers with one-way tickets and no luggage.
The only thing this study really tells me is that men who are of a regimented mindset and/or an engineering background are more likely to become successful terrorists when coming from an Islamic culture. To read anything more into that is foolish, but we should at least heed that correlation.
Re:Engineers are more effective at destroying thin (Score:4, Insightful)
The article didn't say scientists, it said engineers. Why did you throw scientists in? Apples and oranges.
My observation is that few of them hold hard and fast convictions about anything they cannot measure or mathematically derive.
My experience differs greatly. And one problem is a lot of engineers think you can measure or mathematically derive things you really can't. And I think there is a reason a lot of the more prominent creationists are engineers.
Except possibly when it comes to debates about beer of the best editor to use.
Or the federal reserve or the gold standard or welfare or income tax or flat taxes or open source or...