I believe HN User "motogpjimbo"'s point was that it's very likely that groups like ISIS are started by high status men. And now that he got me to contemplate the matter, I think he may be correct. I think it is the high status men and women who generally start the wars, and the low status people who are forced to fight the wars. I think this is how things generally work.

Sure, but probably not led, funded or conceptualised by them. Anyone who is able to accumulate enough power to start a war wouldn't normally be considered a low status male.

Interviews with ISIS fighters struck me strongly with that impression. One man in particular -- in Europe he had been a nobody, but in the Islamic State he had status... and his experience was that this status was absolutely worth killing for.