The Atlantic recently asked that we refer to terrorists as nitwits. They illustrate what a hapless group of incompetent, ignorant, three-stooges like people these terrorists are, as well as how there is nothing religious about most of them and how they have even been caught getting intimate with cows and donkeys.
We are happy to read this, first of all because it gives us some comfort, but mainly due to our belief that it is precisely by using these behavioral economics principles that we will rid the world of terrorism (although we recognize that new terrorist groups with new causes keep sprouting up through the ages).
This article applies behavioral economics concepts such as cognitive framing and repugnancy costs and, if such concepts are spread throughout the world when referring to these terrorists, the idea of islamic terrorism will become less and less appealing to its practitioners.
Last but not least, reading this gives us a chance to plug an article we wrote for another publication detailing how to use precisely these concepts in order to rid the world of terrorism.
