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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