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NancyLebovitz comments on Are Your Enemies Innately Evil? - Less Wrong
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An interesting (and in my opinion daring) point, Eliezer, although I'm not sure if it's true or not, because I'm not sure about the degree to which genetics, etc. plays a role in creating "evil mutants". After all, people who commit 9/11 type acts ARE rare. The 9/11 participants in my understanding included people with masters degrees and people with long periods of exposure to the West, and that even enjoyed Western comforts immediately prior to their act. I'm not sure if they're representative of "muslim males" as much as they're representative of people that belong to death cults. Just because they're widely admired in some parts of the world doesn't mean that they'd have many imitators. It defies most forms of "selfish gene" logic to kill onesself prior to procreating, particularly if one is a young healthy male. I do think it's possible that the actual 9/11 participants were deviant in all sorts of ways, rather than representatives of people that grow up culturally non-western and muslim rather than culturally western (muslim or not). However, I think you still make great points about the not-always-utilitarian human bias of picking a side and then supporting all of its arguments, rather than focusing on what mix of policy is actually best.
From what I can gather suicide bombers and the like are pretty normal people. Part of what makes normal people normal is that they're relatively easy to influence.
If you want to find something like evil mutants, try looking at those who recruit suicide bombers. On the other hand, it's probably harder to study them, and even they may not be as alien as we hope.
Well, suicide bombers are more likely to have engineering degrees than the general public. There's also some evidence that engineers are surprisingly likely to be creationists. I don't think engineers are evil mutants, but it does suggest that there are certain modes of thinking that are likely to have bad results. To repeat fairly standard speculation in this regard, engineers aren't taught critical thinking and are taught to not tolerate uncertainty. This is not a good combination.
Full disclosure: I am (almost) an engineer.
I don't think that's quite correct (uncertainty is a huge concern of engineers), although it's getting there. I would speculate as follows:
Something I've wondered about in re the high proportion of engineers among suicide bombers-- I'd have thought that engineers would be last people in the world to think that you can improve things by giving them a good hard kick. Any theories about what I'm missing?
It's not that Muslim engineers have a special tendency to become jihadis. But engineers do stuff. They solve problems, they act. So when an engineer does join the jihad, they won't be half-hearted about it, and they'll probably be good at it. And in this regard, the jihad is exactly the same as all modern war: educated people who know something of physics and problem-solving always play a large role. That's my theory.
http://www.slate.com/id/2240157
And if someone is good at making bombs (which is the role I would have expected for engineers) that's precisely the sort of person a terrorist organization wouldn't want to die.
I think.
One thing I've noticed is that everyone (ok, some huge proportion of people) thinks they're an expert on how to do effective terrorism.
Guilty as charged:
Gomen!
Making perfect, evil plots can be a great conversation starter.
More coverage: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html
My impression of engineers is that they're more apt than the general population to invent, tinker, and adjust, but this is specifically about the sort of physical stuff where they have some knowledge. They aren't especially apt to go into politics.
This doesn't stop them. c.f. the nascent RW article on engineers and woo. Stereotypical engineer arrogance comes from assuming one's tested competence in one's chosen field carries through to fields outside one's tested competence. Engineers can get away with all manner of gibbering delusion as long as the stuff they design still works.
I'd believe that. Systematic overconfidence when it comes to things outside of their field is ubiquitous across experts of nearly every kind. Experts also systematically overestimate the extent to which their expertise happens to be relevant to a given context. (Thankyou Ericsson).
I've got a sneaking suspicion that another factor that contributes to said stereotypical arrogance in engineers is their relatively weak social competence (and orientation) compared to others of equivalent levels of skill. Most of what makes use judge others as arrogant seems to be the force with which they present their position as compared to the level of status that we believe it appropriate for them to claim. Insufficient submission to the social reality makes being perceived as arrogant nearly inevitable. Engineers (and other nerds) tend to do that more due to attitude, ability or a little of both.
Working engineer here. A lot of social ineptitude throughout the industry, at least with respect to interaction with non engineers. Certainly can't help the arrogance thing.
However I think assumed confidence outside of one's field is a result of what an engineer should be. Engineers solve problems with incomplete information regularly. So when approaching a field he knows little about, an engineer will not hesitate to be as confident as he is in his normal field. Business as usual. I don't think it would be hard for that to come across as arrogant.
My impression is that we tend not to participate in the political structures and organizations that non-engineers set up. We are more likely to try to reinvent the whole concept of political action. And, in doing so, to draw our inspiration from science fiction.
JoshuaZ:
I would be really curious to see the evidence you have for this latter claim. Could you give some concrete examples from engineering education or actual practice where, according to you, intolerance of uncertainty is taken to unsound extremes?
As for "critical thinking," well, that's a highly subjective category. Where you see a scandalous failure of critical thinking, someone else might see a relatively insignificant and excusable human error, and vice versa, even if you're both in complete agreement that the belief in question is factually false.
But in any case, could you point out an example of some actual educational program that teaches critical thinking in ways that engineers supposedly miss? I honestly can't think of what exactly you might have in mind here.
It isn't a great way of phrasing things and may just be wrong. Simplicio's description seems like a better guess for what is going on. The article I linked to also suggests a few other possibilities.
I said suicide bombers seem to be normal people, not that they seem to be typical people.
Also to be libertarians, I suspect.