‘Nudge’ Has a New Evil Twin: ‘Stochastic Terror’

Antisemitism has grown unchecked in the UK, stoked by a Labour Party trying to retain its relevance with the Muslim vote in British cities. Given the prevailing atmosphere is anyone surprised that a man, euphemistically described as ‘of Syrian descent’, attacked and killed Jews in Manchester on Thursday?

Deputy PM David Lammy accused Nigel Farage of flirting with the Hitler Youth. Sir Keir Starmer accused the Reform leader of racism. From September 1st, it was reported by Reform’s Zia Yusuf, that Farage had had his state-funded personal protection scaled back by 75%.

The term ‘stochastic terrorism‘ (or assassination, or murder) has come into common usage since Thomas Crooks shot President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024. In this context, ‘stochastic’ refers to the creation of a public mood or environment where something that might happen becomes more likely to occur. It was always likely that Trump would be the target of a would-be assassin, but by repeatedly identifying him as a putative fascist dictator, so the theory goes, such an assassination was made more likely. Couple that, with a B-team security detail, and the chances of a successful attack are increased all the more.

Is this what we’re seeing in the case of Nigel Farage? Whether the answer is yes or no, it’s undoubtedly true that the current Government appears to be encouraging political polarisation rather than diminishing it. Someone with a pre-existing disposition to try his hand at political assassination isn’t going to be much discouraged by recent events.

Governments have always tried to influence the public; just think of Lord Kitchener’s ‘wants you’ poster from 1914. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s there were a variety of live action and cartoon characters used to promote various good causes in government information films. However, in recent years that overt promotion seemed to largely have disappeared.

Roll forward to 2017 and we saw Richard Thaler winning the Nobel prize for economics for coming up with the concept of ‘nudge’, and it’s ‘nudge’ that seems to have been adopted by governments around the world as their preferred tool to influence the public without having to bother overmuch with winning an argument.

‘Nudge’ isn’t so very different from subliminal influencing, a kind of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, except rather than experiment with LSD, as it was alleged that the Beatles were trying to get Britain’s youth to do, ‘nudge’ was sold as nudging people to do ‘good’ things. Apples rather than Mars bars were placed at supermarket checkouts. Grim pictures of smokers’ hideous teeth or diseased lungs replaced cool branding on cigarette packets to dissuade us from smoking.

Perhaps ‘nudge’ really came of age during the madness of the Covid period. Governments around the world created ‘nudge units’ to persuade their populations to follow the questionable diktats of temporarily, totalitarian governments. Tellingly, their totalitarian tendencies are still very much in evidence.

Some people began to complain that they were being manipulated and didn’t like it. The widespread disenchantment and loss of trust in institutions that we see across the West is in large part attributable to governments and their nudge units overplaying their hand. That said, it’s remarkable how many are still blind to the difference between information and propaganda.

‘Stochastic’ is the ugly sister of ‘nudge’. It’s all about creating an environment where a desired outcome becomes more likely but with no direct link between the initiator and the perpetrator. The murder of Thomas a Becket was arguably an example of a stochastic murder. Henry II was able to ‘plausibly deny’ responsibility, he hadn’t ordered it, the four knights had merely overheard him wishing for it.

In the case of Butler, various actions are pointed out as contributing to a mood that increased the chances of an assassination. Trump was repeatedly labelled a fascist or Nazi. The security team was scaled back and seemingly deskilled.

In the same way that Henry II mused “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”, so Trump, having overcome his internal Republican challengers, defeated the attempts to impeach him, either won or brushed off countless law suits and finally won in the polls, left his opponents with only one option: to try and foster an environment where a motivated assassin would take some action. Thomas Crooks then Ryan Routh took on the 21st century role of Henry’s four 12th century knights, though conspicuously with rather less success.

Of course, we can see exactly the same dynamic in the murder of Charlie Kirk. The rationale of the Left seems to be that if words are violence, then it’s perfectly justifiable to respond to his words with violence.

It may be argued that stochastic influencing is just another conspiracy theory; however it doesn’t require a conspiracy. There’s no controlling mind; it’s merely the consequential outcome of a set of wholly unrelated policies. Intent can’t be proved.

Of course, it can be argued that both ‘nudge’ and ‘stochasticism’ are just fancy words for ‘campaigning’, but there’s a subtle difference: campaigning works in the open, nudge and stochasticism work in the shadows.

If stochasticism is about changing perceptions and mood, then we can see it working in various ways. I would argue that what is termed ‘two tier justice’ is less to do with inconsistent application of fair laws but rather about the correct application of discriminatory laws. I’ve written before about the contrast between the Lucy Connolly and Ricky Jones case. Because the supposed targets of Connolly’s ‘incitement’ were mainly people with ‘protected characteristics, she was guilty by merely stirring up ‘hatred’. Whereas, Jones, because the targets of his invective were mainly people without ‘protected characteristics’ the amount of hatred he stirred up was irrelevant; he would only be guilty if that hatred moved up a notch and resulted in or was expected to result in violence. Their guilt wasn’t determined by the relative degree by which they ‘stirred up’ people, but by the ethnicity of their targets.

The outcome of discriminatory laws, the broadcast of dramas such as Adolescence and the silence on the ethnicity of certain criminals creates a social environment where it appears that whites are a disproportionately racist group. At some point the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction. Evidently many people think this point has already passed.

Another area ripe for stochastic influencing is suicide. We may no longer be much of a Christian country but the sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, still carries some moral weight. Naturally, the state doesn’t want to be seen as encouraging people to commit suicide. Consequently, the Government has done what it can to distance itself from the Bill by making it a Private Member’s Bill and a free vote, but it plainly has tacit approval from the Government.

The Bill makes great play of its efforts to identify and weed out those applicants for assisted suicide where it’s deemed that someone has influenced the applicant’s decision. But arguably the greatest influence on all the applicants is the state.

The Bill is transparently about facilitating the future widening of those qualifying for state assistance in their suicide. The draft Act restricts applicants to be within six months of death. It also precludes anyone from lending a hand with the practical actions required to end a life. But why six months rather than seven months? Why, if you’re blind, or if you lack the necessary dexterity to open the pill bottles should you not be allowed to get help with killing yourself? Adoption of these evident unfairnesses stand at the top of a very slippery slope.

We know that in Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium around 5% of all deaths are now state-assisted suicides, with that number climbing year on year. Is this growth really due to the unfulfilled wish of people to end their own life or is the encouragement coming from the state legitimising and normalising suicide?

Quickly, the argument moves on from the moral case of whether state-assisted suicide is a good or bad thing to arguments concerning its extension to people further from death, or with mental health conditions, maybe 16 or 17 year-olds. Very soon suicide becomes a ‘human right’ from which there’s no going back.

I find these changes sinister. If the state, faced with an ageing population, wants to encourage suicide let it make the case and try to win the argument. Personally, I think it’s exactly the kind of fundamental moral question that should be subject to a referendum, but perhaps that’s an argument for another day.

Professor David Betz, an expert in civil strife, has identified that the conditions for conflict are all too evident in Starmer’s Britain. Labelling the 32% or so of the population that support Reform as racists does nothing but make racial conflict more likely.

Throw in ID cards on top of this weapons-grade psychological manipulation and the character of the country becomes very different to what it was only five years ago. The disingenuousness of the Government in selling electronic ID as a measure to stop illegal working is truly breathtaking. ID cards stand atop yet another slippery slope. Waiting for us further down that slope will be shopping centres where we’ll need to show our ID to allegedly keep out shoplifters; sports stadia where for ‘security reasons’ you’ll need to prove your identity; airports, hospitals, schools, no end of venues and situations, not necessarily government-controlled, where ID cards will be required to be shown.

The danger is that Britain increasingly feels like China. While China famously adopted ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’, we’re in danger of being ‘nudged’ into accepting Chinese social credit control with Silicon Valley characteristics.