Stochastic Terrorism | Hacker News Reader

Stochastic Terrorism

en.wikipedia.org

56 pointsgarbawarb25 comments

This concept is sophistry when deployed against Democrats just as much as it was when deployed against Republicans.

“Stochastic terrorism” is free speech.

I get it, you don’t like your enemies and you want to find a way to punish them. Maybe even to prevent them from saying things that seem to be increasing their base of support. So you find a few dangerous whackos who also happened to articulate the same points that you’re trying to suppress. Boom, instant justification to suppress that speech! Even if the speech isn’t per se illegal, maybe the fact that both your target and the whackos said the same thing makes it ok to suppress that speech anyway!

No, that doesn’t make it ok. Free speech is free speech. Stop trying to unconstitutionally suppress the rights of your opponents.

In the United States, stochastic terrorism is neither a statutory offense nor a term of art in criminal codes; it is an analytic label used in scholarship and practitioner writing to describe probabilistic risks of violence linked to rhetoric. Recent legal and critical surveys stress that usage is heterogeneous and contested, and that the concept's value lies in describing a structure of communication and harm rather than in supplying a justiciable element test.[7] By contrast, U.S. incitement law is anchored in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), which protects advocacy short of speech that is intended to produce imminent lawless action and likely to do so. Stochastic accounts often concern non-directive, cumulative rhetoric whose effects materialize unpredictably, making the Brandenburg imminence and likelihood prongs difficult to satisfy absent clear exhortation.[2]

The goal of those pushing the “stochastic terrorism” scam has always been either outright criminalization of the speech or (at a minimum) public-private coordinated suppression of the speech. Don’t fall for it.

> “Stochastic accounts often concern non-directive, cumulative rhetoric whose effects materialize unpredictably…”

And it would seem ever more rapidly.

I know I feel enervated by the videos I see from MN. More and more by at the speed of my scrolling.

And, video instances depict the behaviors of agents who, in the moment of encounter, are able to rapidly escalate situations.

I would argue the latter is agents learning tricks and shortcuts from other agents on how to dominate. The more unrestricted and unaccountable they are, the more individuals are emboldened to learn and strive for the approbation of their superiors. They have a quota.

Following my last comment, “You raise your voice; I erase your voice”.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUBV45wkWe_/

What is up with this comment, is it bot-spam? What are the citations [7] and [2] supposed to be?

It's a quote from the submission (Wikipedia article).

the more you don't want somebody to be allowed to say something, the more stochastic it is

From Hannah Arendt's book The Origins of Totalitarianism, first published 1948. She identified what we now call stochastic terrorism but did not give it a name.

Mostly such orders were "intentionally vague, and given in the expectation that their recipient would recognize the intent of the order giver, and act accordingly", for the elite formations were by no means merely obligated to obey the order of the Fuehrer (this was mandatory for all existing organizations anyway), but "to execute the will of the leadership". And, as can be gathered from the lengthy proceedings concerning "excesses" before the party courts, this was by no means one and the same. The only difference was the the elite formations, thanks to their special indoctrination for such purposes, had been trained to understand that certain "hints mean more than their mere verbal contents" -- Arendt, Hannah. 2025. Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism Expanded Edition (LOA #389). Edited by Jerome Kohn and Thomas Wild. New York, NY: Library of America. (588-89)

People are being shot in the face by masked gangs of brown shirts, while they are on the ground after trying to administer aid, we're beyond "stochastic" terrorism at this point.

If someone actually took this idea seriously, they would have to start with data about terrorism and then ask what speech might have inspired them, and they would end up banning pretty much all political expression. The Wikipedia article on Terrorism in the United States lists Attacks by Type[1], two of the types are left-wing and anti-government extremism and right-wing and anti-government extremism. That about covers all political speech.

But for people who refer to this idea, the starting point is always that they want to censor specific speech, and they look for acts of terror to justify that.

There's no advocate for censorship that couldn't make up their own "stochastic something", and I'm sure many have, I'm sure people have argued that porn is stochastic rape or something.

Anyone who has ever advocated for censorship has argued that the speech he wants to censor leads to violence and social breakdown. Do people who consider "stochastic terrorism" a serious concept see themselves in this tradition, just expressing themselves more formally or do they think they've invented something new here?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...

Sometimes it's good to put a name on a nebulous "thing" that we know permeates us.

>elevates the statistical risk of ideologically motivated violence by unknown individuals, even without direct coordination or explicit orders.

This perfectly describes what leftists have done by importing Muslims and the third world en mass to the West. Part and parcel!

For a brain on nationalism, everything is terrorism - mothers, nurses, cars, probability, math, tiny flying drones, physics, 3d printers, the web, software... on and on and on. Just look at what Congers has banned or is in the process of banning or mandating seizure and remote control over people's property.

For a brain on wokeism, everything is racist - mothers, nurses, cars, probability, math, tiny flying drones, physics, 3d printers, the web, software... on and on and on. Just look at what Congers has banned or is in the process of banning or mandating seizure and remote control over people's property.

Nationalism and wokeism go hand in hand. Too bad you're incapable of understanding either or how they relate, that much is clear from the parrot style of your response.

Islam and terrorism go hand in hand. Too bad you're incapable of understanding either or how they relate, that much is clear from the parrot style of your response.

I don't know about Islam in general but fundamentalist Islam is as fundamentalist, oppressive and dictatorial as nationalism. Looks like even a parrot can utter a half-true half-sentence once in a blue moon.

I don't know about nationalism in general but fundamentalist wokeism is as fundamentalist, oppressive and dictatorial as Islam. Looks like even a parrot can utter a half-true half-sentence once in a blue moon.

“Stand Alone Complex”

This the most hokus pokus pseudo-sciency thing I've read on HN in a while.

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