The reason why we have terrorism is because we don't have a moral consensus that labels killing people as bad. The US does a lot to convince Arabs that killing people is just when there's a good motive.
Switching to a value based foreign policy where the west doesn't violate it's moral norms in the mind of the Arabs could help us to get a moral consensus against terrorism but unfortunately that doesn't seem politically viable at the moment.
I'd find this pleasant to believe, and I've been a longstanding critic of US foreign policy, but:
Terrorism isn't a big problem, it should be a long way down the list of problems the US needs to think about. It's interesting to speculate on what would make a difference to it, but it would be crazy to make it more than a very small influence on foreign policy.
Terrorists are already a long way from the moral consensus, which is one reason they're so rare.
It seems incredibly implausible to me that they're taking their moral lead from the US in any case.
In this video, Julian Savulescu from the Uehiro centre for Practical Ethics argues that human beings are "Unfit for the future" - that radical technological advance, liberal democracy and human nature will combine to make the 21st century the century of global catastropes, perpetrated by terrorists and psychopaths, with tools such as engineered viruses. He goes on to argue that enhanced intelligence and a reduced urge to violence and defection in large commons problems could be achieved using science, and may be a way out for humanity.
Skip to 1:30 to avoid the tedious introduction
Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction - PART 1 from Ethics of the New Biosciences on Vimeo.
Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction - PART 2 from Ethics of the New Biosciences on Vimeo.
Well, I have already said something rather like this. Perhaps this really is a good idea, more important, even, than coding a friendly AI? AI timelines where super-smart AI doesn't get invented until 2060+ would leave enough room for human intelligence enhancement to happen and have an effect. When I collected some SIAI volunteers' opinions on this, most thought that there was a very significant chance that super-smart AI will arrive sooner than that, though.
A large portion of the video consists of pointing out the very strong scientific case that our behavior is a result of the way our brains are structured, and that this means that changes in our behavior are the result of changes in the way our brains are wired.