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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on January 29, 2008, 07:19:37 pm

Title: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Kosh on January 29, 2008, 07:19:37 pm
http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/01/29/1614206.shtml



 :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Nuke on January 29, 2008, 09:45:50 pm
when someone condenses that thesis to about 2 pages then il form an opinion :D
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Dark RevenantX on January 29, 2008, 11:09:33 pm
I KILL YOU!

With my... house drafts?
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Hippy on January 29, 2008, 11:46:14 pm
If I recall my undergrad class on terrorism correctly, the highest proportion of suicide-terrorists that have a university education come from the science disciplines.

Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Kosh on January 30, 2008, 12:50:03 am
If I recall my undergrad class on terrorism correctly, the highest proportion of suicide-terrorists that have a university education come from the science disciplines.




Your university has classes about terrorism? :wtf:
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: NGTM-1R on January 30, 2008, 01:25:23 am
There are stranger classes you can take at a lot of universities.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Polpolion on January 30, 2008, 01:59:47 pm
IIRC there is a class at the University of Michigan about fairy tales.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: CP5670 on January 30, 2008, 02:12:13 pm
If I recall my undergrad class on terrorism correctly, the highest proportion of suicide-terrorists that have a university education come from the science disciplines.




Your university has classes about terrorism? :wtf:

Almost any university does these days. I took one myself a few years ago, since it wasn't too much work and satisfied a requirement I needed.

As others said, there are much weirder classes around.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Hippy on January 30, 2008, 03:08:47 pm

Quote

Your university has classes about terrorism? :wtf:

Yah, Monash University has the Australian Terrorism Research Centre on campus. Fascinating subject and the reading material was hilarious - try sitting on a train reading a book clearly labeled as the collected works of OBL or KSM. Several of the books on the reading list are banned in Oz too which was pretty fun - photo ID required to read that book sorry mate.

Don't start on some of the post-grad courses - several of them would land you in severe trouble in the US.

But yeah, science disciplines seem to be disproportionately represented. The study cited in the article is one I've seen before and is generally accepted as relevant material.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Kosh on January 30, 2008, 06:28:28 pm
If I recall my undergrad class on terrorism correctly, the highest proportion of suicide-terrorists that have a university education come from the science disciplines.




Your university has classes about terrorism? :wtf:

Almost any university does these days. I took one myself a few years ago, since it wasn't too much work and satisfied a requirement I needed.

As others said, there are much weirder classes around.



Like what? I've been out of the loop for a while......

In terrorism class what did they teach you?
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: CP5670 on January 30, 2008, 07:24:59 pm
Not much of anything, really. The professor was an anthropologist who talked about various random topics, some related to terrorism and others not (he spent like three weeks just talking about his experiences on some Pacific islands). I basically had to write one 20-odd page paper on any terrorism related issue I wanted to, and a shorter one devising a workable terrorist plan of attack and how to prevent it. That was actually a fairly interesting course in terms of stuff I learned independently while working on the papers, but the lectures were pretty pointless although fun.

This was one of the honors seminars where I was an undergrad, which were loaded with all sorts of odd topics (http://www.sis.umd.edu/bin/soc?term=200801&crs=HONR). Some of them looked interesting but for the most part, the ones satisfying requirements I needed were the strange ones.

There is no shortage of weird stuff over here either. Here (http://registrar1.princeton.edu/course/upcome/level/details.cfm?dept=AMS&nbr=%20308) is one example.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Tyrian on January 31, 2008, 11:45:54 am
There is a university out in New Mexico (the name escapes me), but they have a full major in counter-terror operations.  One of the classes could be described in a nutshell as Car Bombs 101.

Also, a friend of mine at another university says they have a class called "The Biology of Sex".  Go figure.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: WMCoolmon on January 31, 2008, 06:50:40 pm
That last one sounds similar to a class I took. It was actually pretty informative. :D

It's also not a bad way to meet girls. There were about five guys in a class of 30-40.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Kosh on January 31, 2008, 06:55:40 pm
That last one sounds similar to a class I took. It was actually pretty informative. :D

It's also not a bad way to meet girls. There were about five guys in a class of 30-40.

So that class gives you opportunities for practical application of the learned material?  ;7
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Nuclear1 on January 31, 2008, 07:40:34 pm
If I recall my undergrad class on terrorism correctly, the highest proportion of suicide-terrorists that have a university education come from the science disciplines.




Your university has classes about terrorism? :wtf:
Some of the more specialized universities have them in particular.

Monterey Institute for International Studies out by where I live now, for example.
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: WMCoolmon on February 01, 2008, 05:38:22 am
That last one sounds similar to a class I took. It was actually pretty informative. :D

It's also not a bad way to meet girls. There were about five guys in a class of 30-40.

So that class gives you opportunities for practical application of the learned material?  ;7

 :yes:
Title: Re: Engineers have the mindset of a terrorist?
Post by: Hippy on February 02, 2008, 08:41:08 pm
Quote
In terrorism class what did they teach you?

1. How to define 'Terrorism'
2. Level of threat posed
3. Root causes - alienation vectors etc
4. 'new'-terrorism (Al-Q & the JI mainly)
5. Global War on Terror
6. Psychology of the terrorist
7. Legal
8. Counter Terrorism approaches (suppression, criminalisation, accommodation)
9. Case studies
10. CT Policy formation - Oz context
11. CT Policy formation - international context

There was other stuff too but that's a decent-ish summary.

Course was run by an ex-ONA* expert on the JI.


* Office of National Assessments - an Ozian intel org.