Economist Alan Krueger‘s excellent work on terrorism — which we’ve discussed before — comes to the conclusion that suicide bombers tend to be surprisingly well-educated. They are not generally the poorest of the poor; in fact, they are more likely to be middle class members of society.
Now it turns out that further support for Krueger’s assertions is coming from an unlikely source: the video game Halo 3.
Clive Thompson, extremely well-educated and certainly middle-class at the least, describes in Wired how Halo 3 turned him into a suicide bomber.
(Hat tip: Ravin Pierre.)
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Really well written article. Unfortunately, among the many “unreal” aspects was the rather transcendent fact that Clive does not actually die, and thus does not actually move beyond assuming a strategy. The only strategy with which he can destroy his tormentors. In reality, he would simply not play, given his inability to survive a war, and his knowledge aforethought.
An evolutionary psych paper by William Trivers, investigating reciprocal altruism, illustrated how trust, empathy, and gratitude could have acted as social cement, casting out non-cooperators, and creating a human nature, based on mutual trust, compassion, and empathy based entirely on self-interest. Unlike kin selection, members of a pack would help each other as long as rewarded, in a prisoner’s dilemma of sorts where each party is aware of what transpired the last round, and therefore knows whom now to trust.
This may not have a lot to do with suicide bombing, but group dynamics have been defined with the purview of evolutionary psych. So what creates the non-depressed, non-mentally ill suicide bomber. Believing in his brethren’s cause is sensible, but dying with such methodical planning seems to indicate that these insurgents are truly at the mercy of religious fanaticism that may obviate the natural human desire for life.
Unbelievable.
Really well written article. Unfortunately, among the many “unreal” aspects was the rather transcendent fact that Clive does not actually die, and thus does not actually move beyond assuming a strategy. The only strategy with which he can destroy his tormentors. In reality, he would simply not play, given his inability to survive a war, and his knowledge aforethought.
An evolutionary psych paper by William Trivers, investigating reciprocal altruism, illustrated how trust, empathy, and gratitude could have acted as social cement, casting out non-cooperators, and creating a human nature, based on mutual trust, compassion, and empathy based entirely on self-interest. Unlike kin selection, members of a pack would help each other as long as rewarded, in a prisoner’s dilemma of sorts where each party is aware of what transpired the last round, and therefore knows whom now to trust.
This may not have a lot to do with suicide bombing, but group dynamics have been defined with the purview of evolutionary psych. So what creates the non-depressed, non-mentally ill suicide bomber. Believing in his brethren’s cause is sensible, but dying with such methodical planning seems to indicate that these insurgents are truly at the mercy of religious fanaticism that may obviate the natural human desire for life.
Unbelievable.
Nubs who routinely get pwned often resort to suicide, in both real life and video games.
Nubs who routinely get pwned often resort to suicide, in both real life and video games.
This guy is just awful at Halo. Running towards your enemy while shooting them is a viable tactic, except when he gets close, he should be attacking them with a melee attack instead of the grenade. By using the grenade, which takes a few seconds to explode, he solidifies his own (virtual) death. If he just used a melee attack, which is essentially a pistol whip (or a machine gun whip, or a rocket launcher whip… you get the idea), he’d probably not only survive most encounters, but come out victorious as well.
This guy is just awful at Halo. Running towards your enemy while shooting them is a viable tactic, except when he gets close, he should be attacking them with a melee attack instead of the grenade. By using the grenade, which takes a few seconds to explode, he solidifies his own (virtual) death. If he just used a melee attack, which is essentially a pistol whip (or a machine gun whip, or a rocket launcher whip… you get the idea), he’d probably not only survive most encounters, but come out victorious as well.
That suicide bombers come from the middle-class suicide bombers makes a kind of sense: they have been educated enough to know they will probably be deprived of the fruits of their labors, denied a fair chance to achieve their full potential, and acutely aware of their humiliation. The poor and the ignorant are too busy just trying to stay alive to have much sense of injustice. The middle class have climbed high enough up the social ladder to see how things work, but not high enough to see a way to fix things.
That suicide bombers come from the middle-class suicide bombers makes a kind of sense: they have been educated enough to know they will probably be deprived of the fruits of their labors, denied a fair chance to achieve their full potential, and acutely aware of their humiliation. The poor and the ignorant are too busy just trying to stay alive to have much sense of injustice. The middle class have climbed high enough up the social ladder to see how things work, but not high enough to see a way to fix things.