this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Some of the very worst of the worst liberal takes, apologia for fascist shit, and of course cryptobro grifts and even Tesla worship keep coming from there. It's fucked.

I don't want to say all programmers or tech workers are like that, but I don't like what I've seen so far from people with a .programming suffix on their names. disgost

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Engineers are vastly over-represented among extremists

The researchers found that the over-representation of engineers held true in other contexts. Of the 40 jihadists who studied at universities abroad, 27 were engineers. In another data set, comprising 71 extremists who were born or grew up in Western countries, 32 were engineers.

The relationship extended beyond Islamist movements to other extremist groups. Violent neo-Nazis and neo-Stalinists in Russia and neo-Nazi and white-supremacist groups in the United States also showed disproportionate numbers of engineers.

The article lists some possible theories for why this is: distaste for ambiguity, certainty thinking, etc.

Here's an earlier version of the paper

Here's a later version of the paper

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think this probably vastly overcomplicates the issue. 'extremists' in this article seems to refer mostly to terrorists or terrorist group members/leaders.

Why would engineers be overrepresented in terrorists or terrorist groups? Because they have the engineering knowledge to make bombs, tell others make bombs, or to do infrastructural damage. It seems a fairly straight forward mechanism of causation.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Because they have the engineering knowledge to make bombs, tell others make bombs, or to do infrastructural damage. It seems a fairly straight forward mechanism of causation.

so is the assumption here ISIS or whatever is gonna turn down your application if you're an accountant or something

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dear 7bicycles,

Thank you for your application to ISIS. We appreciate the time and effort you put into your application, but we regret to inform you that your application has been declined.

After careful consideration, we have decided that your background and experience as an accountant do not align with the specific requirements of ISIS at this time. We are looking for candidates with a strong engineering background, and as an accountant, you do not have the necessary qualifications for this position.

We understand that this news may be disappointing, but we hope that you will not be discouraged from pursuing your goals. We encourage you to continue to apply for other opportunities that may be a better fit for your skills and experience.

Thank you again for your interest in ISIS, and we wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,
Bruja
ISIS Recruiting Team

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

well at least they're not ghosting me. seems like a bunch of upstanding lads

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

As an engineer i've been thinking about this article , and this one about why engineers are caught between labour and capital . I think the distaste for ambiguity, the degree of certaintity is definately a thing. I can also say from personal experience that the length of the "effort to reward" loop on your discipline ( design of a successful bridge takes years, running the compiler to get no errors found takes minutes) tends to make people more reliant on people and more socialised the longer and larger in scope it is ; most importantly people are part of the solution and not part of the problem. Software guys always think its the client is the problem and Software work can turn into a professionalised freeze-gamer mindset for those who rise to the top.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Turns out the ideal engineer who just builds shit no questions asked is also gonna do this for bad people, who'd've thunk

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Credit where it's due. Most people don't even acknowledge their programming, much less embrace it

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i have to assume it was people who got banned from hackernews

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

As a programmer, I've honestly met about one colleague who was actually reactionary. The rest have been pretty much fine and on the level. I don't know if it's just American programmers or I'm just a massive outlier, but I've never seen justification for this labelling in my own experiences.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh I've met more than one, and I'm from Europe. They're not as prevalent as OP is making them out to be but they definitely exist.

Most are just extremely milquetoast liberals.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're not as prevalent as OP is making them out to be

I wasn't even talking about programmers in general in this thread; I was talking about the federated community, here, with the .programming suffix.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah fair enough, small online tech-oriented communities tend to be complete garbage because of loose moderation policies, I'm not surprised at all.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Most are just extremely milquetoast liberals.

I'm a code monkey and that's my experience. Then again, I live on the opposite side of the country from silicon valley.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I've met a ton of left leaning tech workers, but also a lot batshit libertarians, people extremely trusting of propaganda, and people completely ignorant about history, even pop stuff like the national guard opening fire on students at Kent State.

I think it really depends on organization to organization. Sometimes people are just so passionate about programming that it eclipses any deep thought outside of programming and they'll have shit takes out of ignorance.

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