Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists | Hacker News Reader

Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

science.slashdot.org

6 pointsdvt6 comments

Terrorist ideologies are absolutist and fundamentalist. The mental habits that engineering cultivates are unfortunately compatible with this way of thinking in political and spiritual/religious realms. There is an absolute truth and an absolute right and wrong, etc.

I've never met a "terrorist" but I have known a surprising number of engineers who subscribe to totalitarian politics and/or religious fundamentalism. At first I found this shocking and confusing.

One of the skills that engineering teaches and/or selects for is something like "taking ideas seriously."

If you take chemistry and conservation of linear momentum seriously, you get rocketry. If you take "America is the Great Satan" seriously, you get terrorism. There's a fundamental similarity between the processes.

One of the skills that engineering teaches and/or selects for is something like "taking ideas seriously."

I respect what you're saying but I think there's room for nuance. They tend to be competitive and driven. In a sense you can't become an engineer without those traits because engineering, or the application of scientific principles in design, is hard. You have to work hard to become an engineer.

Engineers are highly capable of implementing plans because of their method of thinking and acting. Daydreaming about something is different to actual implementation. It's why the phrase Ideas are cheap, execution is everything is a common refrain in these parts.

What about the social components? It seems too obvious a stereotype not to at least investigate whether or not the "lonely nerds" are seeking social identity and belonging in groups like these.

There will be harmony among the engineers as soon as we all agree on the best text editor.

If anyone knows the API endpoint to consult membership details of terrorist organizations, including level of studies of their members, I'd like check myself that we are really "9 times" more likely, and not 8.4 or 11.3.

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