4 ms·

I think you naively underestimate the value of such skills and how easy it is to do this for some actors like terrorist groups. They do not have easy access to

I think you naively underestimate the value of such skills and how easy it is to do this for some actors like terrorist groups. They do not have easy access to people like maybe you who are interested in it and internally motivated to do it. Because people at some intelligence, education and skill level are much less likely to join terrorist organisations. People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that do not have many other options. The government knows they are fighting a loosing battle but the idea is to make it harder and delay development, not necessarily ensure the knowledge is not available at all.

hobs 4y ago
I read multiple times during the invasion of Iraq that the opposite was true, that engineers greatly were over-represented in terrorist cells - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  Man, that's an interesting read > For their recent study, the two men collected records on 404 men who belonged to violent Islamist groups active over the past few decades (some in jail, some not). Had those groups reflected the working-age populations of their countries, engineers would have made up about 3.5 percent of the membership. Instead, nearly 20 percent of the militants had engineering degrees. When Gambetta and Hertog looked at only the militants whose education was known for certain to have gone beyond high school, close to half (44 percent) had trained in engineering https://web.archive.org/web/20220106004629/https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220106004629/https://www.nytim...
- ksidudwbw 4y ago
  If a foreign country invades you it pisses allot more than radicalists off
- MSFT_Edging 4y ago
  I mean consider how many engineers in the US work for either the government or a contractor for the government. Folks who studied Computer Engineering or electrical engineering, especially things like RF, control systems, high speed embedded systems, etc work mostly in the government space, as the private space has a small portion hardware/embedded and a large portion of web technology. Many of those engineers create weapons. Deadly missiles, jets, drones, robots, and other tools to maintain military superiority. And many of those completely ignore the implications of their career.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hcrean 4y ago
  Engineers are people who are driven to find and implement solutions. Sadly we don't always agree with the correctness of the chosen solutions.
- HillRat 4y ago
  There seem to be two concurrent drivers there -- first, that Mideast terrorism tended to attract young men who lacked economic and social opportunities despite being credentialed, and, second, that engineering disciplines are overrepresented amongst persons holding rigid and authoritarian beliefs (a replicated finding, but it should be stressed that this does not indicate that most engineers are authoritarians!). See, e.g., Gambetta and Hertog, "Engineers of Jihad" (2018: Princeton University Press).
aksss 4y ago
When you have to denigrate your opposition to understand why they think differently than you do, you are understanding nothing.
q-big 4y ago
> Because people at some intelligence, education and skill level are much less likely to join terrorist organisations. > People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that do not have many other options. Don't you rather believe that if the government makes life hard for engineers (legal redtape etc.), it makes such people who, as you claim, have many options more likely to choose the "become a terrorist" option because of their increased hate for the government?
- paulmd 4y ago
  > Don't you rather believe that if the government makes life hard for engineers (legal redtape etc.), it makes such people who, as you claim, have many options more likely to choose the "become a terrorist" option because of their increased hate for the government? no, I'd imagine that mostly it's things like religion, having a foreign power occupy and invade your country, or having a military junta seize control of your government and displace the democratic processes. like we even have statistics about this stuff, it's measured and we know what the answers are here. domestically it's alt-right extremism (neo-nazis and associated ideologies, with some religious extremism rolled in), followed by religious extremism, everything else is a rounding error. Internationally, true terrorism is pretty much only religious extremism. In cases like the iraq war or myanmar, it's people fighting the junta/occupying power. https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/terrorism-in-america/what-is-the-threat-to-the-united-states-today/ https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/te... https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-u... like jeez what a HN answer that is... thinking that insufficient libertarianism and "too much red tape" is the cause of terrorism. absolute rorschach blot moment, those are the causes that YOU think could radicalize YOU. Which is kinda sad, like, really? You could see yourself (ok, not "you" but hypothetically you could see ""other people"") killing over red tape? seriously? in the most libertarian nation on the planet? man we live in a fucking society, don't we. one where people low-key think actual civil war, neighbor against neighbor, is better than red tape...
  - akimball 4y ago
    Correct. This is the original American ideology, persisting since the declaration of independence. If it seems absurd, you may wish to recalibrate your notions of absurdity to the prevailing reality.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Sirened 4y ago
> People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that do not have many other options As the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Being an engineer doesn't make you apolitical or free of ambition.

hobs 4y ago

I read multiple times during the invasion of Iraq that the opposite was true, that engineers greatly were over-represented in terrorist cells - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....

Firmwarrior 4y ago
Man, that's an interesting read > For their recent study, the two men collected records on 404 men who belonged to violent Islamist groups active over the past few decades (some in jail, some not). Had those groups reflected the working-age populations of their countries, engineers would have made up about 3.5 percent of the membership. Instead, nearly 20 percent of the militants had engineering degrees. When Gambetta and Hertog looked at only the militants whose education was known for certain to have gone beyond high school, close to half (44 percent) had trained in engineering https://web.archive.org/web/20220106004629/https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220106004629/https://www.nytim...
ksidudwbw 4y ago
If a foreign country invades you it pisses allot more than radicalists off
MSFT_Edging 4y ago
I mean consider how many engineers in the US work for either the government or a contractor for the government. Folks who studied Computer Engineering or electrical engineering, especially things like RF, control systems, high speed embedded systems, etc work mostly in the government space, as the private space has a small portion hardware/embedded and a large portion of web technology. Many of those engineers create weapons. Deadly missiles, jets, drones, robots, and other tools to maintain military superiority. And many of those completely ignore the implications of their career.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hcrean 4y ago
Engineers are people who are driven to find and implement solutions. Sadly we don't always agree with the correctness of the chosen solutions.
HillRat 4y ago
There seem to be two concurrent drivers there -- first, that Mideast terrorism tended to attract young men who lacked economic and social opportunities despite being credentialed, and, second, that engineering disciplines are overrepresented amongst persons holding rigid and authoritarian beliefs (a replicated finding, but it should be stressed that this does not indicate that most engineers are authoritarians!). See, e.g., Gambetta and Hertog, "Engineers of Jihad" (2018: Princeton University Press).

aksss 4y ago

When you have to denigrate your opposition to understand why they think differently than you do, you are understanding nothing.

q-big 4y ago

> Because people at some intelligence, education and skill level are much less likely to join terrorist organisations. > People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that do not have many other options. Don't you rather believe that if the government makes life hard for engineers (legal redtape etc.), it makes such people who, as you claim, have many options more likely to choose the "become a terrorist" option because of their increased hate for the government?

paulmd 4y ago
> Don't you rather believe that if the government makes life hard for engineers (legal redtape etc.), it makes such people who, as you claim, have many options more likely to choose the "become a terrorist" option because of their increased hate for the government? no, I'd imagine that mostly it's things like religion, having a foreign power occupy and invade your country, or having a military junta seize control of your government and displace the democratic processes. like we even have statistics about this stuff, it's measured and we know what the answers are here. domestically it's alt-right extremism (neo-nazis and associated ideologies, with some religious extremism rolled in), followed by religious extremism, everything else is a rounding error. Internationally, true terrorism is pretty much only religious extremism. In cases like the iraq war or myanmar, it's people fighting the junta/occupying power. https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/terrorism-in-america/what-is-the-threat-to-the-united-states-today/ https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/te... https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-u... like jeez what a HN answer that is... thinking that insufficient libertarianism and "too much red tape" is the cause of terrorism. absolute rorschach blot moment, those are the causes that YOU think could radicalize YOU. Which is kinda sad, like, really? You could see yourself (ok, not "you" but hypothetically you could see ""other people"") killing over red tape? seriously? in the most libertarian nation on the planet? man we live in a fucking society, don't we. one where people low-key think actual civil war, neighbor against neighbor, is better than red tape...
- akimball 4y ago
  Correct. This is the original American ideology, persisting since the declaration of independence. If it seems absurd, you may wish to recalibrate your notions of absurdity to the prevailing reality.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Sirened 4y ago

> People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that do not have many other options As the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Being an engineer doesn't make you apolitical or free of ambition.