Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 02:20 PM Jun 2014

Stochastic terrorism

I first posted this on another thread but decided to make it an OP in order to increase public awareness of the concept. Anyone who does Facebook or Twitter might want to help spread it.

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.

This is what occurs when Bin Laden releases a video that stirs random extremists halfway around the globe to commit a bombing or shooting.

This is also the term for what Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and others do. And this is what led directly and predictably to a number of cases of ideologically-motivated murder similar to the Tucson shootings. As of this writing, there is no evidence to link Jared Loughner to a specific source of incitement; but some of the other cases can be clearly linked.

The stochastic terrorist is the person who is responsible for the incitement. For example they go on radio or television and stir up hatred toward a particular person or group.

The random actor, or "lone wolf" as the term is used in law enforcement and intel, is the person who responds to the incitement by carrying out the violent or terrorist act against the target person or group. For example they shoot someone or detonate a bomb. While their action may have been statistically predictable (e.g. "given sufficient provocation, someone will probably do such-and-such&quot , the specific person and the specific act are not yet predictable.



http://stochasticterrorism.blogspot.com
33 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Stochastic terrorism (Original Post) Jackpine Radical Jun 2014 OP
Kick. Extremely important. Hekate Jun 2014 #1
This message was self-deleted by its author Adam051188 Jun 2014 #2
This message was self-deleted by its author Adam051188 Jun 2014 #4
This post is a kind of stochastic terrorism. JackRiddler Jun 2014 #16
This message was self-deleted by its author Adam051188 Jun 2014 #20
You and the Kellogg Eugenics Board JackRiddler Jun 2014 #22
Protecting free speech is the first priority. JDPriestly Jun 2014 #3
I agree with you to some degree. I also think that 1) No, governments should not be allowed to DesertDiamond Jun 2014 #7
This message was self-deleted by its author Adam051188 Jun 2014 #14
But the average person can't afford to bankroll a TV news channel CJCRANE Jun 2014 #13
It should not be a legal category, no. JackRiddler Jun 2014 #17
I have difficulty seeing the difference between "stochastic terrorism" and "disturbed people do Brickbat Jun 2014 #5
I'm having the same difficulty, plus 1st Amendment concerns. n/t ColesCountyDem Jun 2014 #6
I know, you and others are worried about a slippery slope of free speech. Allowing free speech to DesertDiamond Jun 2014 #9
Who decides? You? Me? Some government agency? ColesCountyDem Jun 2014 #10
Is this "yelling fire"? I'm also opposed to censorship, but I know stochastic terrorism is real. Scuba Jun 2014 #11
No, it isn't. ColesCountyDem Jun 2014 #15
Post removed Post removed Jun 2014 #19
Besides, yelling fire in a crowded theater is not illegal. NYC Liberal Jun 2014 #26
Correct. n/t ColesCountyDem Jun 2014 #28
This message was self-deleted by its author Adam051188 Jun 2014 #18
There are people who stand to benefit from turning us against each other. Divide and conquer. DesertDiamond Jun 2014 #8
some of whom will hear voices regardless reddread Jun 2014 #32
This is important, LWolf Jun 2014 #12
We own the airwaves maindawg Jun 2014 #21
Very interesting. I posted this thread describing stochastic terrorism. Then lots of people Jackpine Radical Jun 2014 #23
The principles on which the Bill of Rights are based... discntnt_irny_srcsm Jun 2014 #24
One can decry a noxious message. Jackpine Radical Jun 2014 #25
I'd like that. discntnt_irny_srcsm Jun 2014 #29
I agree. Uncle Joe Jun 2014 #30
In this society, right-wing stochastic terrorism is as rampant on the airwaves as are guns on the indepat Jun 2014 #27
K & R Shankapotomus Jun 2014 #31
Criminal negligence Livingtree Oct 2014 #33

Response to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Response to Adam051188 (Reply #2)

Response to JackRiddler (Reply #16)

 

JackRiddler

(24,979 posts)
22. You and the Kellogg Eugenics Board
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:52 PM
Jun 2014

should decide who qualifies as stupid and unworthy of their rights, no? How about unworthy of life?

Because when a minority defining itself as the elite with superior qualities decides the majority are too stupid or otherwise unqualified for rights, the resulting rule is always wise and just, and not at all self-interested.

It's worked out wonderfully throughout history, no?

Honestly, I think your post is, indeed, evidence of IQ rates falling... somewhere, anyway.

Tangential, but just to highlight the awesome ignorance of what you wrote:

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/26/1245231/are-we-getting-smarter-rising-iq-scores-in-the-twenty-first-century

(IQ rates basically measure not intelligence but conformity to organized education and have been rising constantly, but anyway... intelligence, whatever that is, remains pretty much where it has always been, the species being biologically the same through the millennia...)

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
3. Protecting free speech is the first priority.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 03:51 PM
Jun 2014

Who is to decide which commentators are stochastic terrorists?

That involves a political judgment.

Is it OK for the government to rile people up to fight a war?

How far do you go with prohibiting speech?

What the OP describes is not the equivalent of someone yelling fire in a theater.

What the OP refers to as stochastic speech can be silenced only when the voices of people who advocate for peace are stronger than those who advocate for arms and extremist views. You really can't silence voices through police action or taking them off the radio.

DesertDiamond

(1,616 posts)
7. I agree with you to some degree. I also think that 1) No, governments should not be allowed to
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 04:56 PM
Jun 2014

incite hatred to get us to agree to war, and 2) There are indeed radio commentators who have advocated violence against specific people or groups of people, and that should be most definitely taken off the air.

But yes, ultimately laws and police action cannot solve the root problem. The root problem is the fundamental darkness we all have, and which is beginning to take over in some of us. That is our true battle.

Response to DesertDiamond (Reply #7)

CJCRANE

(18,184 posts)
13. But the average person can't afford to bankroll a TV news channel
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:20 PM
Jun 2014

and media empire.

That's where the imbalance in free speech lies.

Brickbat

(19,339 posts)
5. I have difficulty seeing the difference between "stochastic terrorism" and "disturbed people do
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 04:22 PM
Jun 2014

scary, sad shit sometimes." The idea of inciting people who are mentally unstable in order to wreak some sort of unspecified havoc seems like a mighty big reach to me.

DesertDiamond

(1,616 posts)
9. I know, you and others are worried about a slippery slope of free speech. Allowing free speech to
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:00 PM
Jun 2014

cause harm to others is also a slippery slope, and we're going down that particular slope right now.

ColesCountyDem

(6,943 posts)
10. Who decides? You? Me? Some government agency?
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:05 PM
Jun 2014

These folks are not yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, and until they do, I'm not in favor of censoring them.

 

Scuba

(53,475 posts)
11. Is this "yelling fire"? I'm also opposed to censorship, but I know stochastic terrorism is real.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:18 PM
Jun 2014
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/15/985303/-Glenn-Beck-Why-Buy-A-Gun-then-points-at-Obama-photo

Yet here is is again, blaming Obama again for civil unrest, food shortages, and of threatening to take your guns away. Then he asks his rhetorical question "Why would you get a gun" and guess who pops up on his TV screen but the President and close adviser Cass Sunstein to whom he immediately points with arm outstretched and answers his own question, stating "To prepare for tough times."

ColesCountyDem

(6,943 posts)
15. No, it isn't.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:23 PM
Jun 2014

Yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater is yelling fire in a crowded theater.

I'm curious about what other types of speech you 'know' when you see or hear them? Pornography, maybe?

Response to ColesCountyDem (Reply #15)

NYC Liberal

(20,132 posts)
26. Besides, yelling fire in a crowded theater is not illegal.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 07:23 PM
Jun 2014

Hasn't been in a very long time, since that case was overturned. The current standard for "censoring" speech is that it must pose a direct threat of "imminent lawless action".

Response to DesertDiamond (Reply #9)

 

reddread

(6,896 posts)
32. some of whom will hear voices regardless
Thu Jun 12, 2014, 08:01 AM
Jun 2014

Perhaps free speech is just too costly for some folks?
And that purchased megaphone the corporations use to spread their manure accomplishes more damage than any loonie with a gun.
I think the concerns being raised are much larger than any particular example or situation.
I'll keep free speech as an inalienable right.
until you can pry my cold dead hands off of it.

LWolf

(46,179 posts)
12. This is important,
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:19 PM
Jun 2014

even with the vilification of wolves without a pack.

Those of us who have been around since the rise of this kind of talk media have seen people around us get more conditioned, more reactive. The worst part, imo, is that the stochastic terrorist can't be held accountable for causing the act of terror.

 

maindawg

(1,151 posts)
21. We own the airwaves
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 05:37 PM
Jun 2014

The American public owns the airwaves. We used to have good laws.The fairness doctrine assured the American public that all side of an issue got equal time. It was a good law. Reagon destroyed it. A ban on assault weapons was good law. W destroyed it.
All media was once locally owned by law. A good law. Reagon again destroyed good law.
we must work to restore these laws.

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
23. Very interesting. I posted this thread describing stochastic terrorism. Then lots of people
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 06:15 PM
Jun 2014

leaped to the assumption that I was proposing some sort of solution, more specifically a solution that involves curtailing the First Amendment, and then went chasing after that like a pack of hounds on the trail of Harvey the Invisible Rabbit.

Note that I did not propose a solution, involving the First Amendment or otherwise.

In fact, I think the problem is more one of a culture gone crazy than one requiring some draconian Constitutional surgery. We need--somehow--to become the sort of people to whom this sort of incitement is culturally unacceptable. There is nothing in the Constitution that protects people from the consequences of their speech when those consequences involve public opprobrium. That process has to start through increasing awareness of the problem, which was the point of my OP.

discntnt_irny_srcsm

(18,470 posts)
24. The principles on which the Bill of Rights are based...
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 06:41 PM
Jun 2014

...are not negotiable. Those principles are the basis for respect among people. Allowing others their own decisions on what is responsible to say, write and do are part of acknowledging what it means to be one of a free people.

The selective censoring of certain speech is known as prior restraint. Not that a crime can't be committed through expression, but the prohibition of expression is a higher crime and an infringement on basic liberty.

"It must never be forgotten...that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power." - Richard Henry Lee

My wife taught me that there is no greater sign of respect than to listen.

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
25. One can decry a noxious message.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 07:17 PM
Jun 2014

One can choose not to listen to a fat wingnut bloviator on the radio. One can contact advertisers. One can do many things that express one's outrage at a given type of message, with none of those actions infringing on anyone's Constitutional rights. As a case in point, overt racist language is not forbidden, but has become quite unpopular in the dominant culture--to the point that the racists need to conceal their meaning in various code phrases. I seek to establish a change in cultural values, a shift toward peace and mutual respect, not a limitation on free speech.

indepat

(20,899 posts)
27. In this society, right-wing stochastic terrorism is as rampant on the airwaves as are guns on the
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 09:04 PM
Jun 2014

street, both joys of living in a right-wing soused society in which public policy is largely controlled by right-wing elements in government, the media, et al.

Shankapotomus

(4,840 posts)
31. K & R
Thu Jun 12, 2014, 07:36 AM
Jun 2014

Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, etc, blame all the ills of society on Liberals and reduce them to "sub-human" like status in the eyes of their listeners. I've heard Mark Levin call us vermin.

Livingtree

(1 post)
33. Criminal negligence
Mon Oct 27, 2014, 03:10 PM
Oct 2014

There already exists a law which makes this kind of activity punishable.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_negligence

All it takes is someone willing to make a case. It would be so damn easy in virtually every mass homicide case, I find it heartbreaking that no member of any victims' families or employers has bothered to do it yet.

You know if the situation were reversed, if it was a liberal unstable mind that pulled the trigger on a christian/white/conservative target, some well-funded "family-values" organization would be footing the legal bill for this charge.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Stochastic terrorism