That’s what I’m aiming at. They only believe to be rational, when in fact they are as ideological and misguided as everybody else, although not as obvious. That’s mostly owed to the fact that they’re only two people, since the risk increases with every conspirator they would add. So they form an echo-chamber of their own, eventually spiraling off…
I’m outlining some posts on memetic infections which might be highly apposite. This may be extremely good for ideas too—statistically, jihadis tend to be engineers and appear to have decompartmentalised badly. (Making your protagonists engineers? See also RW: Engineers and woo—most engineers are perfectly normal geeks, but there’s a long and venerable history of engineers turning into complete cranks about non-engineering matters.)
Fiction would, however, be an excellent place for cautionary examples of getting it badly wrong.
That’s what I’m aiming at. They only believe to be rational, when in fact they are as ideological and misguided as everybody else, although not as obvious. That’s mostly owed to the fact that they’re only two people, since the risk increases with every conspirator they would add. So they form an echo-chamber of their own, eventually spiraling off…
I’m outlining some posts on memetic infections which might be highly apposite. This may be extremely good for ideas too—statistically, jihadis tend to be engineers and appear to have decompartmentalised badly. (Making your protagonists engineers? See also RW: Engineers and woo—most engineers are perfectly normal geeks, but there’s a long and venerable history of engineers turning into complete cranks about non-engineering matters.)