I learned about stochastic terrorism yesterday.
I was yesterday old.
But I also learned another word yesterday and wrote about it. That word is heterodox, which is another word for douche. (Hence I call them the Hetero Movement).
It took me a whole day to learn more about stochastic terrorism. I maybe would have written about that yesterday if it wasn't for the Heteros.
Anyway,
I used to think divisive rhetoric was just uncomfortable noise. Annoying to hear, corrosive in conversation, but basically more hot air in an already overheated culture war. Then I learned about stochastic terrorism, and I realized this kind of talk is not only harmful, it is predictable.
Stochastic terrorism is a term that comes out of critical terrorism studies. A 2024 paper by James Angove in Critical Studies on Terrorism explains it clearly: when public figures demonize or dehumanize groups, they create an environment where violence against those groups is statistically predictable, even if you cannot say which individual will act or when. The lone wolf is unpredictable, but the violence is guaranteed.
This means the harm caused by certain kinds of rhetoric is not hypothetical.
It is measurable.
It is not simply that listeners get their feelings hurt, or that the culture feels coarser. It is that the language itself sets in motion a cycle where someone, somewhere, will lash out violently.
The pattern is visible and repeatable.
There is a repugnant gut feeling humans get when something makes them feel unsafe. Not the sting of immediate harm, but the spectre of the world shifting darker. It is not about anything they did as individuals. It is their identity, their community, that suddenly feels unsafe. Sometimes it comes from words in the media. Sometimes it is a loser coworker making a comment nobody should feel okay saying, and they get away with it.
Ever know of someone quitting on the first day, right after lunch?
"They didn't say anything! "Nobody knew why! What a weirdo!"
Now you know.
Think about what that means for our current discourse. When people who label themselves as heterodox thinkers treat systemic critique as excessive, or when Charlie Kirk casts structural reformers as dangerous radicals, they are not just expressing opinions. They are policing the boundaries of conversation in ways that delegitimize dissent.
They are reinforcing a frame where advocates for change are painted as threats. According to Angove’s analysis, that kind of framing reliably produces violent consequences.
There is no innocence left here. You cannot say, “Who could have known that speaking the truth would be harmful?” because now we know. The evidence shows that demonization and dehumanization, even when wrapped in clever language or technically factual statements, make violence predictable. And once something is predictable, choosing to do it anyway is not harmless. It is culpable.
That is why words like “woke” matter so much. The way the term is deployed today is not descriptive, it is demonizing. It paints whole groups of people as dangerous to society.
It strips them of legitimacy and humanity. Every time it is repeated, it feeds the statistical machine Angove describes. It adds to the pile of predictable violence. So yes, every time you call someone “woke,” someone else pays the price. Maybe not directly. Maybe not immediately. But the pattern is clear.
Stochastic terrorism is real. And now that we can name it, there is no more hiding behind the idea that words are just words. Divisive rhetoric does not only shut down conversation. It manufactures violence.
And once we admit that, we can no longer treat this kind of talk as edgy, contrarian, or harmless.
It is not brave. It is not clever. It is predictable harm.
Understanding stochastic terrorism can make debate sharper, not weaker. It helps separate questioning ideas from attacking people. It shows why slurs like “woke” land differently than arguments about policy.
And it leaves us with a simple test: are we debating issues, or are we demonizing groups? It's up to us, not the Heteros ("Heterodox", relax.) to make this happen.
We need to call it out when we see it and demand that the voices calling for radical change are heard instead of this cosmetic - and now clearly harmful - mainstream rhetoric. The managed spectrum where debate is curated so it feels lively, but only over superficial points that won't threaten the systems of power that are the actual problem.