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).
Comments:
Pseudointellectual claptrap, right?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221701002296
Probably nuggets of interesting things wrapped in pop science.
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.
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….
Hal ... that was exactly my impression. Yet even more foolish, laymen trying to sound uniquely sage.
Hey, new name for the blog. StochasticEclectic. Whaddaya think?
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Next entry: WaPo: Clinton’s Republican outreach a step too far for already suspicious liberals. >>
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.