Not being too rich or too poor allows engineers to become identity conscious, and being engineers they have enough analytical mind (plus time) to think & plan ways to attack the 'enemies of their religion & culture'. Remember that for bright kids in immigrant families and in developing countries, career in engineering is an easier path for upward mobility.
So many Antarctica expeditions were carried out by various countries but when you read English language dominated internet, you get the impression that only Anglo world had explorers. Shackleton tried and failed to reach south pole but there are more books and articles on his failed expedition than the guy who actually succeeded―Norwegian Amundsen.
People can't verify all the info they come across and start trusting some sources as reliable. Many Indians used to trust facts/opinions from Western media as reliable and neutral but after the arrival of social media, lot of prejudices and fake news from the same sources are exposed so the trust deficit makes almost all the opinions questionable. There is also a section driven by ideology or biases due to past history.
>>While Hindus described this state as basically "everything", buddha and later many prominent buddhists described it as "nothingness" which appears as inconsistent with each other
Similar are thoughtless (awareness) and mindfulness. Both may appear contradictory on the first glance but are same thing. These concepts are not easy to describe so often they are expressed multiple ways.
> People waking up to the fact that the West and the East are equally bad
The West has resources and well-oiled propaganda machinery in place to control the dissent that's why they don't need to use violence as openly as not-so-rich countries. When their monopoly is threatened, they act equally ruthlessly.
It's not about countries with 5% Muslim population and I am not talking about minor ghettos in European urban areas. Look at non-Islamic countries with 20%-25% or more Muslim population. Look at how India got partitioned based on religion and how Hindu population in Pakistan (+ Bangladesh) shrunk while Muslim population flourished in India. Look at how Muslim majority area in India like Kashmir wants to separate (and they don't want Hindus there).
It is not about plain fertility rate but tipping of demographic balance between communities by various means. It can create pockets of Muslim majority in countries where they are minority and then "right to self-determination" means partitions.
>>Just my humble opinions, most human beings have remarkably similar values across different culture, we all want paradoxically to belong to the herd and also distinguish ourselves from the herd.