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"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur... Stochastic terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism

concordDance 3y ago
I doubt this CEO had any intent to actually cause harm to these people, which is often what's implied by stochastic terrorism.
- klyrs 3y ago
  Yeah, he merely quoted a diss track that famously escalated a previous grudge to murder. Who could ascribe anything but jovial intent to that? Why should somebody as famous as Gary Tan expect to have unhinged followers who could be inspired to act?
- jmull 3y ago
  Seems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it? Probably receiving death threats causes a lot of real anxiety (not just the PC snowflake kind). That's a lot better than an actual assassination, but it's not nothing either.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    > Seems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it? People often say things just to express themselves rather than for any planned and considered reason. I greatly doubt the plan was to cause harassment. The gains are extremely low and this could cost him his job.
    - jmull 3y ago
      > People often say things just to express themselves rather than for any planned and considered reason. Sure, but you don't have to express yourself on twitter... you do that when you want to communicate something to all your followers. > ...The gains are extremely low and this could cost him his job. That's true of the tweet by itself. If sober reason was going to hold him back there would be no tweet at all.
      - concordDance 3y ago
        > you do that when you want to communicate something to all your followers. Or you do it automatically and habitually. The brain to mouth filter and a brain to keyboard filter are similar, many people don't have either.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > I doubt this CEO had any intent to actually cause harm to these people He expressed a strong desire for these people to die a slow death. How is that not intending to cause harm?
lupusreal 3y ago
"Stochastic terrorism" is just an excuse to crack down on free speech by conflating harsh criticism with violence because deranged idiots exist who might take any criticism of anybody as divine inspiration to commit crimes. The standard for free speech in America is that if you're not calling for imminent and specific violence, then you're in the clear. The stochastic in stochastic terrorism does away with both the imminence and specificity; with a large enough population you'll have enough nuts that some of them may take even the most mellow criticism as a call to action.
- jmull 3y ago
  Calling something stochastic terrorism is speech... by your own logic, shouldn't you be defending their free-speech rights to use the term stochastic terrorism? You say "crack down" but it's just an online comment here, which should be protected, right?
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    I have not advocated for people calling something stochastic terrorism to be brought up on charges, so blow it out your ass.
  - worksonmine 3y ago
    Free speech doesn't imply not being questioned or corrected, but I understand that some have that impression in these times. But that is exactly what free speech is, you speak, someone replies, you may have more to say, and so it goes. "Die slow" or "I hope you die" are not threats. It's unconstructive venting.
    - jmull 3y ago
      > Free speech doesn't imply not being questioned or corrected Right. That's why the post I responded to shouldn't object to calling this "stochastic terrorism" on the basis of free speech. In the immediate discussion the argument is inherently self-contradictory. It also muddies the meaning of free-speech from a profound principle to a cheap argument to club people with online when they criticize something in a way you disagree with.
LudwigNagasena 3y ago
Stochastic terrorism is such a dangerous and nebulous concept. It itself can be considered stochastic terrorism. People become afraid of stochastic terrorism and start to terrorize people whom they don't like. Or can't we say that Garry Tan wrote his tweet only because of what the politicians had done? Aren't they also stochastic terrorists if he is?
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. It's not nebulous at all, it in fact describes a very specific approach, to the point that it might as well be a playbook. Part 1 is a radicalization chain, where you have several layers of public figures with varying levels of public-facing support for your cause, who guide people down the chain by platforming people with more extreme public-facing views. So maybe a talk show host who mostly just points out obvious problems in our society, who occasionally brings on guest speakers who have slightly more specific framings, who themselves occasionally publicly support YouTube channels that pitch potential solutions. Part 2 is consensus building. As people trickle down the radicalization chain, it's important to introduce them to new social spaces that present your ideas as obvious truths. This normalizes your radical ideas in the minds of your newly radicalized cohort. Casual "joking but not joking" comments are a basic staple of this, with guillotine memes and blackpill posting and Boogaloo jokes all serving to make the appearance to their community that their extreme views are normal, acceptable, and widely held. Part 3 (which is somewhat optional) is targeting. Some prominent figure (likely one of those public figures on your radicalization chain) paints a far less vague target than usual: casually calling for people to kill all landlords is one thing, mentioning one specific landlord is a clear escalation from that. Ideally this is done without making any incriminating statements, which at least in the US is easy: as long as your don't make a specific plan, it's typically considered protected speech. Part 4 is, to borrow some specifically leftist terminology, "propaganda of the deed", "direct action", or just "terrorism". With a sufficiently large pool of radicalized individuals, you'll have people all across the radicalization and "unhingedness" spectra. The "extremely radicalized, completely unhinged" corner is where you find your martyrs, freedom fighters, etc. They hear the targeting speech from part 3, and decide to take it upon themselves to do something about it. They commit some act of violence, and probably end up facing some extreme consequences for it, whether that means death, imprisonment, etc. Then, your entire movement needs to achieve 2 things: outwardly distance themselves from the "lone wolf" to avoid unwanted scrutiny or consequences, while privately lionizing them as someone who "did what needed to be done" in order to encourage the next one. The elegant thing about all this is that what it lacks in cohesion, it makes up for in robustness. Since it's not a rigidly fixed organization, individual parts can take a fall without crippling the effectiveness of the whole. One lone wolf doesn't incriminate any other members, except maybe the person who announced the target, if they were sloppy about how they worded it. And if someone along your radicalization chain loses their seat in the public eye for whatever reason, you have plenty of redundancy to fill the gap, and they can probably find a comfortable position somewhere further along the chain once things cool off a bit. Playing whack-a-mole with the people with enough prominence to plausibly select targets is probably the most legally justifiable way of suppressing a standalone complex like this. Most people along the chain, both participants and consumers, are pretty clearly practicing free speech and assembly. They make perfectly legitimate targets for rival radical movements, but the State needs to uphold basic human rights, so it takes a more precise approach. Focusing on the shotcallers, it's easier (not necessarily easy) to get creative with what constitutes a non-protected "true threat", rather than crack down on civil liberties as a whole.

concordDance 3y ago

I doubt this CEO had any intent to actually cause harm to these people, which is often what's implied by stochastic terrorism.

klyrs 3y ago
Yeah, he merely quoted a diss track that famously escalated a previous grudge to murder. Who could ascribe anything but jovial intent to that? Why should somebody as famous as Gary Tan expect to have unhinged followers who could be inspired to act?
jmull 3y ago
Seems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it? Probably receiving death threats causes a lot of real anxiety (not just the PC snowflake kind). That's a lot better than an actual assassination, but it's not nothing either.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > Seems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it? People often say things just to express themselves rather than for any planned and considered reason. I greatly doubt the plan was to cause harassment. The gains are extremely low and this could cost him his job.
  - jmull 3y ago
    > People often say things just to express themselves rather than for any planned and considered reason. Sure, but you don't have to express yourself on twitter... you do that when you want to communicate something to all your followers. > ...The gains are extremely low and this could cost him his job. That's true of the tweet by itself. If sober reason was going to hold him back there would be no tweet at all.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      > you do that when you want to communicate something to all your followers. Or you do it automatically and habitually. The brain to mouth filter and a brain to keyboard filter are similar, many people don't have either.
JohnFen 3y ago
> I doubt this CEO had any intent to actually cause harm to these people He expressed a strong desire for these people to die a slow death. How is that not intending to cause harm?

lupusreal 3y ago

"Stochastic terrorism" is just an excuse to crack down on free speech by conflating harsh criticism with violence because deranged idiots exist who might take any criticism of anybody as divine inspiration to commit crimes. The standard for free speech in America is that if you're not calling for imminent and specific violence, then you're in the clear. The stochastic in stochastic terrorism does away with both the imminence and specificity; with a large enough population you'll have enough nuts that some of them may take even the most mellow criticism as a call to action.

jmull 3y ago
Calling something stochastic terrorism is speech... by your own logic, shouldn't you be defending their free-speech rights to use the term stochastic terrorism? You say "crack down" but it's just an online comment here, which should be protected, right?
- lupusreal 3y ago
  I have not advocated for people calling something stochastic terrorism to be brought up on charges, so blow it out your ass.
- worksonmine 3y ago
  Free speech doesn't imply not being questioned or corrected, but I understand that some have that impression in these times. But that is exactly what free speech is, you speak, someone replies, you may have more to say, and so it goes. "Die slow" or "I hope you die" are not threats. It's unconstructive venting.
  - jmull 3y ago
    > Free speech doesn't imply not being questioned or corrected Right. That's why the post I responded to shouldn't object to calling this "stochastic terrorism" on the basis of free speech. In the immediate discussion the argument is inherently self-contradictory. It also muddies the meaning of free-speech from a profound principle to a cheap argument to club people with online when they criticize something in a way you disagree with.

LudwigNagasena 3y ago

Stochastic terrorism is such a dangerous and nebulous concept. It itself can be considered stochastic terrorism. People become afraid of stochastic terrorism and start to terrorize people whom they don't like. Or can't we say that Garry Tan wrote his tweet only because of what the politicians had done? Aren't they also stochastic terrorists if he is?

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. It's not nebulous at all, it in fact describes a very specific approach, to the point that it might as well be a playbook. Part 1 is a radicalization chain, where you have several layers of public figures with varying levels of public-facing support for your cause, who guide people down the chain by platforming people with more extreme public-facing views. So maybe a talk show host who mostly just points out obvious problems in our society, who occasionally brings on guest speakers who have slightly more specific framings, who themselves occasionally publicly support YouTube channels that pitch potential solutions. Part 2 is consensus building. As people trickle down the radicalization chain, it's important to introduce them to new social spaces that present your ideas as obvious truths. This normalizes your radical ideas in the minds of your newly radicalized cohort. Casual "joking but not joking" comments are a basic staple of this, with guillotine memes and blackpill posting and Boogaloo jokes all serving to make the appearance to their community that their extreme views are normal, acceptable, and widely held. Part 3 (which is somewhat optional) is targeting. Some prominent figure (likely one of those public figures on your radicalization chain) paints a far less vague target than usual: casually calling for people to kill all landlords is one thing, mentioning one specific landlord is a clear escalation from that. Ideally this is done without making any incriminating statements, which at least in the US is easy: as long as your don't make a specific plan, it's typically considered protected speech. Part 4 is, to borrow some specifically leftist terminology, "propaganda of the deed", "direct action", or just "terrorism". With a sufficiently large pool of radicalized individuals, you'll have people all across the radicalization and "unhingedness" spectra. The "extremely radicalized, completely unhinged" corner is where you find your martyrs, freedom fighters, etc. They hear the targeting speech from part 3, and decide to take it upon themselves to do something about it. They commit some act of violence, and probably end up facing some extreme consequences for it, whether that means death, imprisonment, etc. Then, your entire movement needs to achieve 2 things: outwardly distance themselves from the "lone wolf" to avoid unwanted scrutiny or consequences, while privately lionizing them as someone who "did what needed to be done" in order to encourage the next one. The elegant thing about all this is that what it lacks in cohesion, it makes up for in robustness. Since it's not a rigidly fixed organization, individual parts can take a fall without crippling the effectiveness of the whole. One lone wolf doesn't incriminate any other members, except maybe the person who announced the target, if they were sloppy about how they worded it. And if someone along your radicalization chain loses their seat in the public eye for whatever reason, you have plenty of redundancy to fill the gap, and they can probably find a comfortable position somewhere further along the chain once things cool off a bit. Playing whack-a-mole with the people with enough prominence to plausibly select targets is probably the most legally justifiable way of suppressing a standalone complex like this. Most people along the chain, both participants and consumers, are pretty clearly practicing free speech and assembly. They make perfectly legitimate targets for rival radical movements, but the State needs to uphold basic human rights, so it takes a more precise approach. Focusing on the shotcallers, it's easier (not necessarily easy) to get creative with what constitutes a non-protected "true threat", rather than crack down on civil liberties as a whole.