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gwern comments on Terrorism is not about Terror - Less Wrong
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People like belonging to tribes. They like believing that the tribe to which they belong is powerful and can exercise its influence.
Isn't it possible that many terrorist acts are really for the purpose of making the terrorists feel better about themselves and their in-groups? Like teenagers playing pranks, only with often-lethal consequences.
Another question: how well would you say the movie Fight Club demonstrates this hypothesis in action?
I'd say Fight Cub illustrates it very well. Just compare the protagonist's social life before the movement (he knows no one, he's doing very strange things for companionship), and all the friends/followers he has during it.
As for the in-group: I'm not sure it fits. The surveys cite friends, remember, not specific grievances. And the waves of recruitment to al-Qaeda such as the 9/11 one seem to follow humiliation of out-groups. This fits with the social model - al-Qaeda has become of higher social status, and possibly safer to join - but not with the feel-better model. 9/11 made them feel better! Why would they join after feeling better, instead of joining before to contribute to feeling better?