Drive-by-contrarianism is just another form of nihilistic discourse. Low-brow practitioners (aka trolls) say outlandish, puerile things to get a reaction, then

Drive-by-contrarianism is just another form of nihilistic discourse. Low-brow practitioners (aka trolls) say outlandish, puerile things to get a reaction, then come back with "whatever, I'm just for the lulz" when challenged. Drive-by contrarians say outlandish, vaguely smart-sounding things, then come back with, "Oh, we're just raising questions and pushing back against groupthink." Or they just ignore the pushback, of course, as in the Freakonomics case.