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buybuydandavis comments on Open thread, 11-17 August 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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It's a little harder to say about the ISIS guys, but I think personality wise many of us are a lot like the Al Qaeda leadership. Ideology and Jihad for it appeals.
Most people don't take ideas too seriously. We do. And I think it's largely genetic.
Human, All Too Human.
Historically, massacring The Other is the rule, not the exception. You don't even need to be particularly ideological for that. People who just go with the flow of their community will set The Other on fire in a public square, and have a picnic watching. Bring their kids. Take grandma out for the big show.
Excellent point. I wonder if LW readers and Jihadists would give similar answers to the Trolley problem.
I don't think that's the test. It's not that they'd give the same answers to any particular question.
I think the test would be a greater likelihood to be unshakeable according to adjustments along moral modalities that move others who are not so ideological. How "principled" are you? How "extreme" a situation are you willing to assent to, relative to the general population? Largely, how far can you override morality cognitively?
A hundred bucks says the answer is "no". Religious fundamentalism is not known to encourage consequential ethics.
There may be certain parallels -- I've read that engineers and scientists, or students of those disciplines, are disproportionately represented among jihadists -- but they're probably deeper than that.
Also disproportionately represented as the principals in the American Revolution. Inventors, engineers, scientists, architects.
Franklin,Jefferson, Paine, and Washington all had serious inventions. That's pretty much the first string of the revolution.
That might depend on the consequences.
A runaway trolley is careering down the tracks and will kill a single infidel if it continues. If you pull a lever, it will be switched to a side track and kill five infidels. Do you pull the lever?
The lever is broken, but beside you on the bridge is a very fat man, one of the faithful. Do you push him off the bridge to deflect the trolley and kill five infidels, knowing that he will have his reward for his sacrifice in heaven?
I've also read this, but I want to know if it corrects for the fact that the educational systems in many of the countries that produce most jihadis don't encourage study of the humanities and certain social sciences. Is it really engineers in particular, or is the educated-but-stifled who happen overwhelmingly to be engineers in these countries?