Differentiating stochastic terrorism from normal criticism
Re: Against Stochastic Terrorism
What is stochastic terrorism?
As per Scott’s article:
Some other popular examples of the concept:
“Stochastic terrorism” is the idea that if you spread fear and mistrust against a target, then eventually people will commit violence against that target, and it will be your fault, even if you never specifically said the words “you should commit violence”.
Nativists spread fear and mistrust about Muslim immigrants, and then racists go on shooting sprees in mosques.
The #Resistance insists that Donald Trump would destroy democracy, and then various people try to assassinate Donald Trump.
Conservatives spread fear and mistrust about transgender people, and then bigots commit hate crimes against transgender people.
Woke people say the police are racist and brutal, and then other woke people murder police officers.
Socialists call health insurance companies greedy and accuse them of blocking life-saving treatment, and then Luigi Mangione murdered a health insurance CEO.
AI safety activists say that Sam Altman’s AI could destroy humanity, and then a guy threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s house.
Liberals said that Charlie Kirk was a hatemonger who was driving Americans apart, and then an assassin murdered Charlie Kirk.
The pro-life movement describes abortion as murder, and then pro-life activists assassinated abortion doctors and pro-choice politicians.
A weak post, below Scott’s usual standards.
He begins by tainting the concept by association:
“Stochastic terrorism” mostly gets deployed opportunistically, by people who either are too blinkered to realize that the same argument could be leveraged against their own speech, or who hope you’re too blinkered to realize that.
True, but irrelevant to whether it’s a useful concept.
He then argues no consistent principle can separate normal criticism from stochastic terrorism. He proposes weak candidate principles, knocks each down, and overreaches to the “liberal solution”:
The liberal solution is none of these: it’s that it’s always legitimate to criticize any person or group however strongly, and never legitimate to use extra-state violence against them; if a violent act occurs, it’s 100% the fault of the perpetrator, and 0% the fault of other people who previously criticized the victim.