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. 
Engineers are vastly over-represented among extremists
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
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.
so is the assumption here ISIS or whatever is gonna turn down your application if you’re an accountant or something
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
well at least they’re not ghosting me. seems like a bunch of upstanding lads
That is not the assumption. You’re obviously less likely to be involved any crimes labelled as ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’ if your skills lie in accountancy.
Well yes, all the position get filled by engineers apparently. I just don’t think it’s because they’re more useful, I don’t think the ISIS recruitment program is that sophisticated
one guys dad had a restaurant and he was relegated to cook and very salty about it. They probably would have loved an accountant tho, actually an useful skill as an terror org.
The article provides a rebuttal to this:
deleted by creator
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
mindset for those who rise to the top.
Turns out the ideal engineer who just builds shit no questions asked is also gonna do this for bad people, who’d’ve thunk
“Once the rockets are up who cares where they come down? That’s not my department.”
IME engineers are very individualistic people (may not apply to these examples of organizations) who are good at focusing on their range of practice and disregarding the wider consequences that come out of it. Usually comfortable enough not to ask any awkward big-picture questions, and often just apathetic about the big picture to boot.