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Quora: Is the term (and concept) ‘stochastic terrorism’ new?

Stochastic terrorism” seems to have been made up by a poster on Daily Kos after the Tucson shooting of Giffords. Not that it is not a beneficial concept, but it is not scholarly, as far as I can tell. Depending on your definition of ‘stochastic’, it could also just mean ‘unpredictable random terrorist acts’ - in which case it is useless as ideological condemnation (the most popular use on this newsday).

08/10/16 • 11:22 PM • PoliticsPsychology • (7) Comments

Comments:

Despite knowing we sometimes think we’ve heard such things before, I really do think I’ve heard it before, though I can’t say where. It’s part of the “asymmetrical warfare” crowd lingo, I think.

Posted by Will on 08/11/16 at 01:12 AM

Pseudointellectual claptrap, right?

Posted by Garret P Vreeland on 08/11/16 at 01:30 AM

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221701002296

Probably nuggets of interesting things wrapped in pop science.

Posted by Will on 08/11/16 at 01:49 AM

I would very much agree that randomness and unpredictability have long been baked into terrorism and are in fact part of its point, so I’d have to agree this usage of it probably doesn’t mean a lot.

Posted by Will on 08/11/16 at 01:54 AM

I have scar tissue surrounding terms like stochastic and others from certain portions of my gradual school where we ventured far into French Social Thought and Postmodernism. Ugh. Give me rocks and dirt. I understand rocks and dirt. And 10,000 year old debris….

Posted by Hal B. Rager on 08/11/16 at 02:02 AM

Hal ... that was exactly my impression. Yet even more foolish, laymen trying to sound uniquely sage.

Posted by Garret P Vreeland on 08/11/16 at 01:15 PM

Hey, new name for the blog. StochasticEclectic. Whaddaya think?

Posted by Garret P Vreeland on 08/11/16 at 09:13 PM

 

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