thomblake 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.
This may be entering into dangerous territory but to what extent does the psychology of a suicide bomber differ from that of say a first world war soldier.
In both cases their death is guaranteed, and in both cases they view the justification as being the protection of their community. Would the outcome of losing such a war be bad enough to justify most men risking their lives? Perhaps what is strange is having a society where killing yourself for a cause is rare?
Not so. The soldier can say, there's still a chance (and indeed, many soldiers survived), but the suicide bomber likely doesn't have that option.