Stochastic Terrorism

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126. Nadin is right about the origin in social sciences of the term stochastics. It's a branch of

statistics that deals with complex, large number sets where the extreme ends of the phenomenon aren't consistent with what would be predicted for the rest of the curve.

Stochastics is a branch of numbers theory and nondetermininistic social science related to Chaos Theory that has been proven widely useful in the last 30 years or so in studying complex phenomena such as stock markets, social media, weather patterns and such. Jared Diamond, a professor at UCLA, popularized it in describing, explaining and predicting the sudden collapse of states and societies. His best known works are Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and Guns, Germs, and Steel. These are very good and accessible reads for people who think they hate statistics and applied social sciences, but you will end up really enjoying these books and the numerous examples of societies he gives of societies that fail, and his explanations, are clear and compelling.

Nadin's basic point, if I understand it, is that things that happen at the outlying extremes -- like the Batman shooting -- can't really be accurately predicted by the same relatively simple explanations that encompasses the mainstream activity at the center. Thus, social processes that start out being fairly predictable at their inceptions appear to become unpredictably complex within a short period of time. Even a small change that occurred long ago, can have enormous and violent results at their farthest ends. But, as Chaos Theory shows, contained in the complexity and seeming chaos are amazing regularities that show up at all levels of examination.

The concepts behind "stochastic terrorism" are pretty well established social science. It isn't just something a blogger made up.