BJ Campbell is the author of the Handwaving Freakoutery Substack and a systems engineer with deep experience in data analysis. His writing explores media dynamics, gun policy, polarization, and the complex incentives behind cultural panic, follow BJ on Twitter
We talk about how freakouts form, how institutions lose trust, the mechanics of mass persuasion, and what we can do when truth breaks down. Topics are outlined in the timestamps below.
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Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
02:29 – The origin of “freakoutery” and viral moral panic
05:04 – How trust breaks and narratives take over
07:31 – Role of experts and institutional decay
09:58 – Why media can’t afford to be accurate
12:23 – Gun violence, data misuse, and tribal conclusions
14:50 – BJ’s breakdown of CDC messaging failure
17:18 – Do both sides cherry-pick gun data?
19:46 – Why no one really wants an honest debate
22:12 – The incentive systems of media and politics
24:39 – Are we already in a soft civil war?
27:06 – Public health as a rhetorical weapon
29:33 – How memes win and outcompete facts
31:59 – Algorithms and narrative feedback loops
34:26 – Chaos as performance and control
36:52 – Information overload and digital stress
39:19 – Epistemology and the limits of modeling
41:46 – Collapse of authority and search for coherence
44:13 – How to rebuild trust without central control
46:40 – Models, culture, and long-term thinking
49:07 – What optimism looks like under breakdown
51:34 – Freakoutery, faith, and the next wave
54:01 – Final thoughts on rebuilding rationality
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