I suspect that the Muslim hijackers, in a strange way, thought they were maximizing human happiness by removing Americans from the world.
I haven't done any studies, but I have a feeling that people attend to authority when it supports their natural biases, and ignore authority when it opposes their natural biases.
Well then, let's take some adults to summer camp!
This post needs to be air-dropped over the world's ten largest metropolitan areas. Actually, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality needs to be air-dropped, with translations where necessary, because it contains the same truths but is more entertaining. I think the same arguements apply to labeling your enemies as insane mutants, which is a somewhat gentler, more politically correct way of demonizing them. We tend to assume that the enemy is insane because we could not imagine doing such a thing, and are therefore Surprised by Reality. It might make sense to update our idea of "sanity."
Most religions believe that the escape option is reversible - otherwise there wouldn't be much point.