I don&#x27;t know why people in general join ISIS but I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if a lot of it does in fact have to do with an &quot;evil&quot; appeal. Darth Vader made some good arguments, too.<p>People love this kind of fantastical good&#x2F;evil stuff. Who&#x27;s good and who&#x27;s evil depends on what side you&#x27;re on, of course. Like that Russian book I heard about that&#x27;s a rewrite of <i>Lord of the Rings</i> from Sauron&#x27;s perspective.<p>Look at what games boys and young men so often choose to play. When I was seven I was out in the forests with my friends with fake guns. It was really fun. Then I put down childish things and got into Counter-Strike. I loved playing the terrorists. The AK-47 was just great and the avatars looked pretty cool.<p>This is kind of off-the-cuff sociological speculation or something, but: religion is a very powerful aesthetic phenomenon. In combination with war, you get a combination of thrills, ecstasy, excitement, danger, meaning, and hope that&#x27;s hard to beat, for certain personality types.<p>Look at the ISIS propaganda videos. They&#x27;re not laying out a rational strategy for improving the world. They&#x27;re presenting an aesthetic image, a very masculine one, full of cars and guns and desert missions and fighting and stuff. Combined with the pious literalist faith that also has its own appeal. They <i>do</i> offer a hope for a future world, a glorious Islamic caliphate and whatnot, probably the deserts will bloom and peace will reign and Muslim Jesus will rise from the dead.<p>They say things like &quot;Are you satisfied with your shitty life in suburban London or Paris? Do you like the way people look at you? Do you feel alive? Do you love your life? ...no? Come here. We not only have an exciting virile lifestyle full of action and terrible sublime beauty, but also we are the true messengers of the true prophet and God is on our side.&quot;