I suspect that the democrats thought that 2016 was going to be the last (real) election. Let that sink in.
Obama carefully moved radicals into the top leadership of the important federal agencies.....Justice, FBI, CIA etc. these agencies became appendages of the Democratic Party. They already controlled the rest of the government.
Concurrently, there was a quiet takeover of big business......leftist CEO’s and board of directors in all major corporations. Corporate media was already dominated by the left.....with the exceptions of talk radio and the internet.
Right before the 2016 election, social media began the censorship of Republicans and conservatives (which has led directly to the Covid censorship).
Add to the above that the left also dominates the NGO’s.
When you put it all together you have a recipe for a society-wide coup. Hillary’s election was to be the final act. From then on the dims and the ‘expert class’ were supposed to take over. Future elections and therefore policies were to be carefully managed for society’s benefit (that’s what they told themselves). Riches and power beyond belief. And the long sought ‘Social Democracy’ would finally come to America.
It's been pointed out that the reason Clinton and her sycophants were so surprised that she lost in 2106 was because she'd "secured" the election (a.k.a. had everything in place for it to be stolen.) Wouldn't surprise me at all.
As you say, I'm sure it's nothing more than a "silly" conspiracy theory.
Aug 20, 2022·edited Aug 20, 2022Liked by Rudolph Rigger
Good essay.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, and Sam Harris suffers from it. It is a "sickness unto death" for Sam and tens of millions of others, apparently.
Looking back, it's clear that the first psy-ops campaign run against a mass population was not Covid-19, but the response to Trump's 2016 victory. After the tears dried at Democratic Nation Committee's HQ in the winter of '16, I expected the dems to undergo a serious period of soul-searching as to why their former base of white, working class voters turned their backs on them. It turns out, the party of the self-righteous is not really into self-reflection.
They immediately went on the attack. Trump, and his voters were racists and misogynists. and Trump was a stooge of Putin's, who stole the election via $70k worth of Facebook ads. And don't forget the Russian prostitutes and Pee Tapes! The media bombardment (all in lockstep--hmm) was unrelenting and everywhere. That no one could be found claiming that Trump--a man not known to be reticent about expressing an opinion--ever used the N-word was a bit suspicious for someone accused of being a racist. But, just as the relatively mildness of Covid-19 was brushed aside in favor of "Bubonic Plague 2.0", the narrative of the presidency falling into the hands of the worst person alive went on, despite the paucity of evidence bolstering the claim.
And millions upon millions of people bought into it. It would be interesting to see the Venn diagram overlap of those who fell prey to both propaganda campaigns.
I honestly find Trump shockingly innocent. Given the incredible power, pervasiveness, zeal, and willingness to corrupt their own processes, that NO evidence- real or convincingly fabricated- can ever seem to be found for ANY of the "kill shot" accusations against him continues to amaze me. If the entire power of the mainstream media, a corrupted Justice Department, and half the legislators in the country can't make ANYthing stick...? This is The Machine, they can nail anyone, they don't have to be actually guilty at all. They can't nail supposedly the guiltiest, most hated guy in the country?
I generally imagine anyone of a certain age who has been around a certain amount of money is probably guilty of something, and that this is how politics work- knowing that basically everyone has skeletons in closets that you can whip open and pretend to be shocked by.
It has been remarkable to watch. Despite the propaganda and (no doubt) spying into his personal life, absolutely nothing incriminating has been discovered. That doesn't stop the narrative, though. That a huge number of people have tuned out the hysterics points to the diminishing influence of the MSM and the complete disgust many Americans have for our so-called elites.
Agreed. It’s amazing that they haven’t found anything...... they can’t even do a credible job making something up. You had to be a moron if you believed the Russia fraud (hoax is far too tame a word for what they tried).
Of course they are trying again.
I’m actually impressed by how ‘clean’ Trump is.....
As your business grows so too does its complexity. The tax code is literally tens of thousands of pages. Many pages and diktats contradict others. It is virtually impossible, no matter how clean you are, to not be in violation of something. I do agree with you too. 150 agents working for three years with an open order to find anything and they found nothing. The guy is squeaky clean.
"They can't nail supposedly the guiltiest, most hated guy in the country?" - My thoughts exactly. Pretty sure this whole FBI raid nonsense is a giant nothing-burger, too.
"It turns out, the party of the self-righteous is not really into self-reflection." - It was both amusing and pitiful to watch them point fingers at everyone and everything but themselves.
TDS, a "sickness unto death." Since they're probably the majority of the people who took the clot shot, can't they please just give up on hanging on and just go already? I'm too old to have to deal with this many narcissists. 🤢🤮
This was a great read. I have often wondered what TDS looks like to people outside the US, or if it even reads as the same thing.
I think you're reading too much into the motives or social origins stochastic terrorism. I've been peripherally aware of the existence of the phrase since before it became a trendy term of the left, and it was often used ironically. I think it was an entirely cynical creation by completely knowing individuals- it doesn't speak to some new depth of timidity or cowardice but of social engineers who know exactly how to control people by merely implying risk.
Initially, back in 2016, back when I was somewhat more naïve and before I'd really begun to notice things, I was largely taking the 'media' on board. My focus was really on my own little bubble of physics squiggles and I thought "how on Earth could they elect that clown?"
As I became more aware of the various trends - at the universities to begin with (Yale, Evergreen etc) and I began to hear about things like 'microaggressions' and 'safe spaces' and 'trigger warnings' I realized something was going really, really wrong.
I started watching 'alternative' media, mostly people analysing stuff on YouTube, and it was clear there was a significant fraction of people, including the media, who had perspectives on stuff that appeared to be batshit insane. Once you open up that Pandora's box you begin to question everything. Might the portrayal of Trump be similarly skewed, for example?
Of course, Trump has his faults, but when I started to read what he ACTUALLY said and what was being reported in the media, it was very, very clear there was a deliberate smear campaign going on. My brother is still very anti-Trump and I've asked him several times to justify some of his comments. A dictator you say? How so? A threat to democracy? Why? A fascist? How do we come to that conclusion? etc. No answers are forthcoming.
My brother is a smart chap and I respect him enormously, but he has the same media-driven blind spot with regards to Trump that many have.
As for stochastic terrorism - I might well be reading too much into the term, but I've only known what it means for a couple of days. It is, however, being used, very unironically, to attack various people at the moment.
"A dictator you say? How so? A threat to democracy? Why? A fascist? How do we come to that conclusion?" - Perhaps what he's thinking (but won't readily admit?) is, "Because the media told me so." I say that because I also have family members who, before covid, I regarded as intelligent, until I watched (in bewilderment) them drink all the media koolaid. Over the past 2+ years I've often wondered what separates them from the (seemingly) minority of us who can more clearly see through the bullshite, and I've come to the conclusion that we just operate on a different (perhaps higher?) level of consciousness. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. ;)
Exactly. The first time I learned about the term, my first thought was, "Here we go again with yet another social engineering strategy." Good god, will it ever end?
Thank You for this. All of these new terms are made to sound ‘intellectual’ and scientificiky. They sound like they may have a connection to psychology.....and of course that is done on purpose. And yes, these terms are always uni-directional to be used by the left against those on the right....or even those with common sense.
I heard part of the Sam Harris interview. What a piece of sh**. And people wonder why such a large percentage of the public think that the 2020 election was fraudulent. The ends justify the means....any means ( in his own words). Those who haven’t heard the interview really need to. He speaks for himself.
When it comes to Trump, he’s no threat to democracy.
I wonder whether this Sam Harris is being wheeled out to say those things, and if so, why? Is the evidence of fraud and the willingness to believe there was fraud pervasive enough that the media and powers that be can't hide it anymore? Have they moved on to the "it's good for you" stage? (Something along the lines of "Inflation won't happen. Inflation will be transitory. Why inflation is good for you!!! No, really!!!")
When the fraud can’t be ignored their next stage will be ‘okay, that was wrong but seriously...the nation could not risk another disastrous four years of Trump. It was bad medicine but necessary.’ Every media outlet. Every pundit. All will agree on a set of talking points.
Funny you should post this today because I JUST became aware of this bizarre term. (How is it pronounced anyway?) The irony is, the people throwing this term around are doing it themselves when they go after people like "Libs of TikTok" - I was just analyzing a video by NBC that hysterically claims that people who are upset over Boston Children's Hospital performing "gender affirmation" for children are "far-right" extremists who might get violent. https://wholistic.substack.com/p/blatant-media-lies-and-misdirection
I've now posted a follow-up on stochastic terrorism, inspired by this...and linked to your article, which is frankly a lot better than mine. Perhaps it's all your British "wanker" lingo that I can't naturally do without sounding like a wannabe. :-) https://wholistic.substack.com/p/stochastic-terrorism-rules-for-thee
I watched that clip of the Sam Harris interview, and I'm still stunned that a man of his supposed intellectual capacities would honestly think "Trump University" is a bigger deal than the sitting president's son engaging in influence peddling (and possibly selling military secrets) with Ukraine and China...two countries we are close to WWIII over right now.
Trump University could have been the online biggest scam ever, but that's nothing compared to having the son of the vice president of the USA involved in pay-to-play schemes in volatile overseas countries. And what exactly happened under Trump that was so scary? Other than new conservative Supreme Court Justices that would have happened under any GOP candidate?
I just don't get how Trump is this all-encompassing existential fear for these people. I'm going to try to sit through some of the full interview now, wish me luck.
"I just don't get how Trump is this all-encompassing existential fear for these people."
He serves as a focus/outlet for the hate and fear they have been conditioned with their whole lives.
Hating whites, hating rich, hating patriarchy, hating parents and traditions and your own culture and history and hating families are still only hating somewhat abstracted group-definitions; hating Trump (and by extension any "Trumper" or MAGA-cap wearer) focuses this hate and causes it to go from feeling hate to acting on hate, and once action starts, the former condtioning kicks in, causing acts against the aforementioned groups.
It's not like Hitler spoke about "Helmuth Rosenthal", conditioning hate against a specific jew - once the hate against the group is strong enough, it leads to actions against any member of the group. Witness the BLM/Antifa-nazis' actions for a taste of what is to come.
The closest psychological process would otherwise be fetishism, where an objectively speaking unrelated object becomes focus for the sex drive, and is needed for release and satisfaction, eventually becoming the sole focus since like most psychiatric disorders fetishism too is progrsseive unless treated or at least restrained, preferably by the individual in question.
So the Trump-hating persons are now addicted to the rush of ecstacy their communal hate-sessions give them, and as with all addictions, they must evntually have their shot just to avoid withdrawal, and must amp it up to feel anything.
Harris is pretty much as an old pot-head having to have his daily tokes just to feel right, though much more dangerous.
"I just don't get how Trump is this all-encompassing existential fear for these people." - My (conspiracy) theory is two-fold: 1) He was a wildcard that threatened to pull back the curtain and reveal the deep state operatives (the "swamp"?). And 2) He wanted to improve relations with Russia and North Korea (i.e. "enemies" we needed in order to justify the ever-growing Pentagon budget).
Once again, you have tackled another English language idiom that does what it describes (is stochastically terroristic to whom it is used as a label) and made me laugh out loud (truly) with your houmous descriptions of the absurdities of modern thought.
Those that "flew from the cuckoo's nest" have landed in the halls of government and academia.
Not only can one side only ever be accused of stochastic terrorism, only the other side benefits when acts of violence are actually carried out. This side can feel noble even as they Jussie Smollett themselves, incite dumb people to do dumb things (see: Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot; of COURSE I speak not of Jan. 6, the darkest day in American history and totally unconnected to this discussion), and seemingly triumph as raped children require abortions and schoolchildren are massacred because it fits their political agenda. Wondrously angelic indeed.
"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.” You know which book it's from.
This quoted part is the whole point of the term stochastic terrorism. Abstracted authority points the finger, and the pack charges. To not charge means being the object of hate.
For real life examples, look up videos from any moslem riot against gays, the west, jews, christians, or people accused of apostasy. They are immersed from birth in 5 daily hate-sessions. Imagine what the woke's all-day every-day sessions via the net, media and schools will result in.
To quote/paraphrase an elderly german man I used to meet when walking the dogs 15 years ago: "You must understand. There was only him, everywhere, always, when I grew up. His words everywhere. It was all we knew." He grew up in Hitler's Germany and was old enough to serve on the Eastern Front.
It is no coincidence that Antifa's colours are red-white-black.
Sitting down to re-read your piece, I misread "stochastic" as "scholastic", and realised that, yes, it fits to a T too.
Now, being the kind of person I am, I looked up the etymology of scholastic to make sure I remember correctly, and it seems very apt. Especially when capitalised. Person living at ease devoting their time to study, seems to be the most ur-version of meaning I can glean, and what have been the educational goals of the West been since the 1970s/1080s?
Living at ease, leisure, and time for study - the more time spent studying the better, even. Not learning or amassing knowledge, just studying. I mean, I can study a rock all day without ever understanding what minerals composes it - and to conduct the experiments necessary for finding that out I need not only lots of study but also knowledge and practice and material and locations; all real concrete things that must be manufactured.
But knowledge is a bad word. Skills means anti-equity. Ability is racist, fascist, something else bad-ist. No tall poppies allowed among scholastics. And that word might as well be read as "scholarly spastics" nowadays.
Combining with the etymology of stochastics makes it even more fun: 1660s, "pertaining to conjecture," from Greek stokhastikos "able to guess, conjecturing," from stokhazesthai "to guess, aim at, conjecture," from stokhos "a guess, aim, fixed target, erected pillar for archers to shoot at,".
So basically a fancy way of saying "we put our guesses on the dartboard and threw darts at them to see which one it'd be".
And as terror means something to fear or an object of fear, stochastic terror becomes "fear of the unknown" or "fear of the uncontrolable", since the meaning is boiled down to fearing one's own guesses about what might happen.
Yah, even schizophrenic paranoia I'd say, seeing as it is fear of delusions/halucinations and unreality that is the driving force; fear of the unknown (which was originally called xenophobia).
Xenophobia. When I was taught the meaning of the word (No, I didn't look it up, I believed the professor. I was young, give me a break!) it was fear of people from other countries.
Yes, same here, from xenos meaning stranger as I recall - but in psychology it meant fear of the unknown, unknown strangers being part of it. The greeks didn't fear other peoples, so they never used the word with that meaning; seeing themselves as the pinnacle they instead feared their own degeneration as a people.
The counterpart to to modern xenophobia would be oikophobia, irrational fear of one's own culture/ethnos/race.
I had never heard of stochastic terrorism until I read your piece. I've known since early this year that the Department of Homeland Security considers me a domestic terrorist because I distrust government institutions. Maybe I can add "stochastic" to "domestic" -- that would look great on my résumé.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. I have a friend who is very much a Covid Sceptic like me, but she is also classic Democrat who thinks Trump was the Worst Person Ever and that Biden is a good, unifying figure who is mentally competent. (Full disclosure: I'm an ex-Democrat, so I can understand what it is like being inside the cult. I think Trump is a narcissistic windbag, but the idea that he's a Russian agent is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.)
Speaking of Orange Man Bad, the insanity around our presidential elections is truly mind-boggling. In 2016 the election was stolen (by Putin!), but somehow in 2020 the election was totally fair (and for some reason Putin stayed out of it). It's a bit like how before the 2020 election, Democrats like Uncle Joe and Kamala were saying the spike shots couldn't be trusted because Trump was promoting them, yet somehow after the election the shots were totally great.
Is he vaxed? Has he said so? If so, he is not all there. Single vax, even many double vaxed, seem to get over it. Triple and more? Nope. There is permanent psychological damage. By permanent I mean long term with no current method of healing known. Of course things change, so many might get over it in time. But it will be, if I had to guess, like a traumatic brain injury. Always some vestige left over.
Here’s another ‘conspiracy theory’.
I suspect that the democrats thought that 2016 was going to be the last (real) election. Let that sink in.
Obama carefully moved radicals into the top leadership of the important federal agencies.....Justice, FBI, CIA etc. these agencies became appendages of the Democratic Party. They already controlled the rest of the government.
Concurrently, there was a quiet takeover of big business......leftist CEO’s and board of directors in all major corporations. Corporate media was already dominated by the left.....with the exceptions of talk radio and the internet.
Right before the 2016 election, social media began the censorship of Republicans and conservatives (which has led directly to the Covid censorship).
Add to the above that the left also dominates the NGO’s.
When you put it all together you have a recipe for a society-wide coup. Hillary’s election was to be the final act. From then on the dims and the ‘expert class’ were supposed to take over. Future elections and therefore policies were to be carefully managed for society’s benefit (that’s what they told themselves). Riches and power beyond belief. And the long sought ‘Social Democracy’ would finally come to America.
And then Donald Trump messed it all up.......
Just a silly ‘conspiracy theory’.......
It's been pointed out that the reason Clinton and her sycophants were so surprised that she lost in 2106 was because she'd "secured" the election (a.k.a. had everything in place for it to be stolen.) Wouldn't surprise me at all.
As you say, I'm sure it's nothing more than a "silly" conspiracy theory.
It definitely did seem that way. But I guess she and the DNC didn't have *everything* in place... until 2020.
100% that was to happen. We were at the abyss. Trump defeated that temporarily, but also revealed the depths they will go to.
Good essay.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, and Sam Harris suffers from it. It is a "sickness unto death" for Sam and tens of millions of others, apparently.
Looking back, it's clear that the first psy-ops campaign run against a mass population was not Covid-19, but the response to Trump's 2016 victory. After the tears dried at Democratic Nation Committee's HQ in the winter of '16, I expected the dems to undergo a serious period of soul-searching as to why their former base of white, working class voters turned their backs on them. It turns out, the party of the self-righteous is not really into self-reflection.
They immediately went on the attack. Trump, and his voters were racists and misogynists. and Trump was a stooge of Putin's, who stole the election via $70k worth of Facebook ads. And don't forget the Russian prostitutes and Pee Tapes! The media bombardment (all in lockstep--hmm) was unrelenting and everywhere. That no one could be found claiming that Trump--a man not known to be reticent about expressing an opinion--ever used the N-word was a bit suspicious for someone accused of being a racist. But, just as the relatively mildness of Covid-19 was brushed aside in favor of "Bubonic Plague 2.0", the narrative of the presidency falling into the hands of the worst person alive went on, despite the paucity of evidence bolstering the claim.
And millions upon millions of people bought into it. It would be interesting to see the Venn diagram overlap of those who fell prey to both propaganda campaigns.
I honestly find Trump shockingly innocent. Given the incredible power, pervasiveness, zeal, and willingness to corrupt their own processes, that NO evidence- real or convincingly fabricated- can ever seem to be found for ANY of the "kill shot" accusations against him continues to amaze me. If the entire power of the mainstream media, a corrupted Justice Department, and half the legislators in the country can't make ANYthing stick...? This is The Machine, they can nail anyone, they don't have to be actually guilty at all. They can't nail supposedly the guiltiest, most hated guy in the country?
I generally imagine anyone of a certain age who has been around a certain amount of money is probably guilty of something, and that this is how politics work- knowing that basically everyone has skeletons in closets that you can whip open and pretend to be shocked by.
Truly the Teflon Don.
It has been remarkable to watch. Despite the propaganda and (no doubt) spying into his personal life, absolutely nothing incriminating has been discovered. That doesn't stop the narrative, though. That a huge number of people have tuned out the hysterics points to the diminishing influence of the MSM and the complete disgust many Americans have for our so-called elites.
Agreed. It’s amazing that they haven’t found anything...... they can’t even do a credible job making something up. You had to be a moron if you believed the Russia fraud (hoax is far too tame a word for what they tried).
Of course they are trying again.
I’m actually impressed by how ‘clean’ Trump is.....
As your business grows so too does its complexity. The tax code is literally tens of thousands of pages. Many pages and diktats contradict others. It is virtually impossible, no matter how clean you are, to not be in violation of something. I do agree with you too. 150 agents working for three years with an open order to find anything and they found nothing. The guy is squeaky clean.
"They can't nail supposedly the guiltiest, most hated guy in the country?" - My thoughts exactly. Pretty sure this whole FBI raid nonsense is a giant nothing-burger, too.
BRILLIANT comment!
"It turns out, the party of the self-righteous is not really into self-reflection." - It was both amusing and pitiful to watch them point fingers at everyone and everything but themselves.
Thank you, TeeJae.
TDS, a "sickness unto death." Since they're probably the majority of the people who took the clot shot, can't they please just give up on hanging on and just go already? I'm too old to have to deal with this many narcissists. 🤢🤮
Oh, you'll outlive most of 'em, Bandit. (insert thumbs-up emoji)
This was a great read. I have often wondered what TDS looks like to people outside the US, or if it even reads as the same thing.
I think you're reading too much into the motives or social origins stochastic terrorism. I've been peripherally aware of the existence of the phrase since before it became a trendy term of the left, and it was often used ironically. I think it was an entirely cynical creation by completely knowing individuals- it doesn't speak to some new depth of timidity or cowardice but of social engineers who know exactly how to control people by merely implying risk.
We got infected with it here too.
Initially, back in 2016, back when I was somewhat more naïve and before I'd really begun to notice things, I was largely taking the 'media' on board. My focus was really on my own little bubble of physics squiggles and I thought "how on Earth could they elect that clown?"
As I became more aware of the various trends - at the universities to begin with (Yale, Evergreen etc) and I began to hear about things like 'microaggressions' and 'safe spaces' and 'trigger warnings' I realized something was going really, really wrong.
I started watching 'alternative' media, mostly people analysing stuff on YouTube, and it was clear there was a significant fraction of people, including the media, who had perspectives on stuff that appeared to be batshit insane. Once you open up that Pandora's box you begin to question everything. Might the portrayal of Trump be similarly skewed, for example?
Of course, Trump has his faults, but when I started to read what he ACTUALLY said and what was being reported in the media, it was very, very clear there was a deliberate smear campaign going on. My brother is still very anti-Trump and I've asked him several times to justify some of his comments. A dictator you say? How so? A threat to democracy? Why? A fascist? How do we come to that conclusion? etc. No answers are forthcoming.
My brother is a smart chap and I respect him enormously, but he has the same media-driven blind spot with regards to Trump that many have.
As for stochastic terrorism - I might well be reading too much into the term, but I've only known what it means for a couple of days. It is, however, being used, very unironically, to attack various people at the moment.
Far more sinister to me was the equally-unironic "malign creativity." It sounds a heartbeat from "unsanctioned happiness."
Give up waiting for an "are we the baddies?" moment. It's clearly not happening.
"A dictator you say? How so? A threat to democracy? Why? A fascist? How do we come to that conclusion?" - Perhaps what he's thinking (but won't readily admit?) is, "Because the media told me so." I say that because I also have family members who, before covid, I regarded as intelligent, until I watched (in bewilderment) them drink all the media koolaid. Over the past 2+ years I've often wondered what separates them from the (seemingly) minority of us who can more clearly see through the bullshite, and I've come to the conclusion that we just operate on a different (perhaps higher?) level of consciousness. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. ;)
Exactly. The first time I learned about the term, my first thought was, "Here we go again with yet another social engineering strategy." Good god, will it ever end?
Thank You for this. All of these new terms are made to sound ‘intellectual’ and scientificiky. They sound like they may have a connection to psychology.....and of course that is done on purpose. And yes, these terms are always uni-directional to be used by the left against those on the right....or even those with common sense.
I heard part of the Sam Harris interview. What a piece of sh**. And people wonder why such a large percentage of the public think that the 2020 election was fraudulent. The ends justify the means....any means ( in his own words). Those who haven’t heard the interview really need to. He speaks for himself.
When it comes to Trump, he’s no threat to democracy.
But he is a threat to ‘Social Democracy’ ........
I wonder whether this Sam Harris is being wheeled out to say those things, and if so, why? Is the evidence of fraud and the willingness to believe there was fraud pervasive enough that the media and powers that be can't hide it anymore? Have they moved on to the "it's good for you" stage? (Something along the lines of "Inflation won't happen. Inflation will be transitory. Why inflation is good for you!!! No, really!!!")
When the fraud can’t be ignored their next stage will be ‘okay, that was wrong but seriously...the nation could not risk another disastrous four years of Trump. It was bad medicine but necessary.’ Every media outlet. Every pundit. All will agree on a set of talking points.
Exactly so.
If you see a stochastic terrorist on your random walk, put him in Markov chains.
haha - brilliant
And then analyze that.
Funny you should post this today because I JUST became aware of this bizarre term. (How is it pronounced anyway?) The irony is, the people throwing this term around are doing it themselves when they go after people like "Libs of TikTok" - I was just analyzing a video by NBC that hysterically claims that people who are upset over Boston Children's Hospital performing "gender affirmation" for children are "far-right" extremists who might get violent. https://wholistic.substack.com/p/blatant-media-lies-and-misdirection
I've now posted a follow-up on stochastic terrorism, inspired by this...and linked to your article, which is frankly a lot better than mine. Perhaps it's all your British "wanker" lingo that I can't naturally do without sounding like a wannabe. :-) https://wholistic.substack.com/p/stochastic-terrorism-rules-for-thee
I watched that clip of the Sam Harris interview, and I'm still stunned that a man of his supposed intellectual capacities would honestly think "Trump University" is a bigger deal than the sitting president's son engaging in influence peddling (and possibly selling military secrets) with Ukraine and China...two countries we are close to WWIII over right now.
Trump University could have been the online biggest scam ever, but that's nothing compared to having the son of the vice president of the USA involved in pay-to-play schemes in volatile overseas countries. And what exactly happened under Trump that was so scary? Other than new conservative Supreme Court Justices that would have happened under any GOP candidate?
I just don't get how Trump is this all-encompassing existential fear for these people. I'm going to try to sit through some of the full interview now, wish me luck.
"I just don't get how Trump is this all-encompassing existential fear for these people."
He serves as a focus/outlet for the hate and fear they have been conditioned with their whole lives.
Hating whites, hating rich, hating patriarchy, hating parents and traditions and your own culture and history and hating families are still only hating somewhat abstracted group-definitions; hating Trump (and by extension any "Trumper" or MAGA-cap wearer) focuses this hate and causes it to go from feeling hate to acting on hate, and once action starts, the former condtioning kicks in, causing acts against the aforementioned groups.
It's not like Hitler spoke about "Helmuth Rosenthal", conditioning hate against a specific jew - once the hate against the group is strong enough, it leads to actions against any member of the group. Witness the BLM/Antifa-nazis' actions for a taste of what is to come.
The closest psychological process would otherwise be fetishism, where an objectively speaking unrelated object becomes focus for the sex drive, and is needed for release and satisfaction, eventually becoming the sole focus since like most psychiatric disorders fetishism too is progrsseive unless treated or at least restrained, preferably by the individual in question.
So the Trump-hating persons are now addicted to the rush of ecstacy their communal hate-sessions give them, and as with all addictions, they must evntually have their shot just to avoid withdrawal, and must amp it up to feel anything.
Harris is pretty much as an old pot-head having to have his daily tokes just to feel right, though much more dangerous.
"I just don't get how Trump is this all-encompassing existential fear for these people." - My (conspiracy) theory is two-fold: 1) He was a wildcard that threatened to pull back the curtain and reveal the deep state operatives (the "swamp"?). And 2) He wanted to improve relations with Russia and North Korea (i.e. "enemies" we needed in order to justify the ever-growing Pentagon budget).
Once again, you have tackled another English language idiom that does what it describes (is stochastically terroristic to whom it is used as a label) and made me laugh out loud (truly) with your houmous descriptions of the absurdities of modern thought.
Those that "flew from the cuckoo's nest" have landed in the halls of government and academia.
Not only can one side only ever be accused of stochastic terrorism, only the other side benefits when acts of violence are actually carried out. This side can feel noble even as they Jussie Smollett themselves, incite dumb people to do dumb things (see: Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot; of COURSE I speak not of Jan. 6, the darkest day in American history and totally unconnected to this discussion), and seemingly triumph as raped children require abortions and schoolchildren are massacred because it fits their political agenda. Wondrously angelic indeed.
"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.” You know which book it's from.
This quoted part is the whole point of the term stochastic terrorism. Abstracted authority points the finger, and the pack charges. To not charge means being the object of hate.
For real life examples, look up videos from any moslem riot against gays, the west, jews, christians, or people accused of apostasy. They are immersed from birth in 5 daily hate-sessions. Imagine what the woke's all-day every-day sessions via the net, media and schools will result in.
To quote/paraphrase an elderly german man I used to meet when walking the dogs 15 years ago: "You must understand. There was only him, everywhere, always, when I grew up. His words everywhere. It was all we knew." He grew up in Hitler's Germany and was old enough to serve on the Eastern Front.
It is no coincidence that Antifa's colours are red-white-black.
Thank-you, Rikard.
Sitting down to re-read your piece, I misread "stochastic" as "scholastic", and realised that, yes, it fits to a T too.
Now, being the kind of person I am, I looked up the etymology of scholastic to make sure I remember correctly, and it seems very apt. Especially when capitalised. Person living at ease devoting their time to study, seems to be the most ur-version of meaning I can glean, and what have been the educational goals of the West been since the 1970s/1080s?
Living at ease, leisure, and time for study - the more time spent studying the better, even. Not learning or amassing knowledge, just studying. I mean, I can study a rock all day without ever understanding what minerals composes it - and to conduct the experiments necessary for finding that out I need not only lots of study but also knowledge and practice and material and locations; all real concrete things that must be manufactured.
But knowledge is a bad word. Skills means anti-equity. Ability is racist, fascist, something else bad-ist. No tall poppies allowed among scholastics. And that word might as well be read as "scholarly spastics" nowadays.
Combining with the etymology of stochastics makes it even more fun: 1660s, "pertaining to conjecture," from Greek stokhastikos "able to guess, conjecturing," from stokhazesthai "to guess, aim at, conjecture," from stokhos "a guess, aim, fixed target, erected pillar for archers to shoot at,".
So basically a fancy way of saying "we put our guesses on the dartboard and threw darts at them to see which one it'd be".
And as terror means something to fear or an object of fear, stochastic terror becomes "fear of the unknown" or "fear of the uncontrolable", since the meaning is boiled down to fearing one's own guesses about what might happen.
There's a psychological term for that.
Paranoia?
Yah, even schizophrenic paranoia I'd say, seeing as it is fear of delusions/halucinations and unreality that is the driving force; fear of the unknown (which was originally called xenophobia).
Xenophobia. When I was taught the meaning of the word (No, I didn't look it up, I believed the professor. I was young, give me a break!) it was fear of people from other countries.
Yes, same here, from xenos meaning stranger as I recall - but in psychology it meant fear of the unknown, unknown strangers being part of it. The greeks didn't fear other peoples, so they never used the word with that meaning; seeing themselves as the pinnacle they instead feared their own degeneration as a people.
The counterpart to to modern xenophobia would be oikophobia, irrational fear of one's own culture/ethnos/race.
I had never heard of stochastic terrorism until I read your piece. I've known since early this year that the Department of Homeland Security considers me a domestic terrorist because I distrust government institutions. Maybe I can add "stochastic" to "domestic" -- that would look great on my résumé.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. I have a friend who is very much a Covid Sceptic like me, but she is also classic Democrat who thinks Trump was the Worst Person Ever and that Biden is a good, unifying figure who is mentally competent. (Full disclosure: I'm an ex-Democrat, so I can understand what it is like being inside the cult. I think Trump is a narcissistic windbag, but the idea that he's a Russian agent is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.)
Speaking of Orange Man Bad, the insanity around our presidential elections is truly mind-boggling. In 2016 the election was stolen (by Putin!), but somehow in 2020 the election was totally fair (and for some reason Putin stayed out of it). It's a bit like how before the 2020 election, Democrats like Uncle Joe and Kamala were saying the spike shots couldn't be trusted because Trump was promoting them, yet somehow after the election the shots were totally great.
Is he vaxed? Has he said so? If so, he is not all there. Single vax, even many double vaxed, seem to get over it. Triple and more? Nope. There is permanent psychological damage. By permanent I mean long term with no current method of healing known. Of course things change, so many might get over it in time. But it will be, if I had to guess, like a traumatic brain injury. Always some vestige left over.
I hope he's had all 4 clot shots.