The Birth of LooFWIRED
markchangizi.substack.com still gets you here, but LooFWIRED is more non-commital
I didn’t know anything about epidemiology before March 2020, but I was very quickly able to find the information needed to determine that Covid was not a risk for anyone but the very old / multiple comorbidities, and that the real dangers were from…us.
And it took me no time to realize that lockdowns, shutdowns and masks could not slow transmission and would have devastating harms.
Meanwhile, Left, Right, and even libertarians were bickering at the edges, but were in agreement that it was time to panic. Covid was life-changing. We had to lock down. To shutdown. And eventually to do so SO much more.
The usual lines of partisanship were crushed and mangled, as I discussed below…
My first compatriots — before I found any of you all — were a couple capital “C” Communists. They understood you can’t freeze an economy. Communists have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about crashing economies, given that they’re so practiced at it with their master planning attempts, and so they were, quite reasonably, crying out with me that freezing them is not an option.
Why did so many public policy “experts” not see this? Why did public intellectuals and academics not see this? And journalists? And politicians?
That, in a nutshell, is what I’ve been on about for the last three years: here at substack, at my Science Moment channel at YouTube and Rumble, at my FreeX Institute, and at Twitter and all the other social media spots.
As I have discussed off and on over the last three years, it was not IQ or intelligence or education. We can make fun of academia (as I do), but, on average, they are smart. They are highly educated.
What really worked against them, and everyone who fell into collective hysteria, was where they sat in the network when collective hysteria got going in early March of 2020.
We all believe what we believe because of what the network around us “says,” all the individuals weighted by their reputations. If I had sat in the usual NPR social pool academics, journalists and high-brow people sat in, I have no doubt I would have been a raging lockdowner.
I escaped because I didn’t sit in those pools. Probably the same for you too.
I escaped because I was aloof…
Now, my iron clad respect for civil liberties also was key, something I talk about all the time.
But… it was supposedly iron clad for loads of libertarians, Leftists, folks on the Right, and the Intellectual Dark Web people. But it wasn’t iron clad. They all fell into group think at the start. And they did so because the mind virus swept through all their movements in early-mid March.
Being aloof was the best protection of all. (And, ultimately, is why federalism proved itself, as it allowed each state to be aloof, something few other countries benefited from.)
Being aloof not only seems especially key to our future, but has also long been part of my personal scientific philosophy, something I discuss here…
And my colleague Dr. Tim Barber (co-author of our Expressly Human) and I even had put together a working book proposal on the topic more than a decade ago, but shelved it.
And that’s why I went with the new title for this substack:
Be aloof. Loofs of the world unite!
Make yourself wired for aloofness.
You get the idea.
This name change is also part of a longer term aim of expanding the content available here. More on that later…
Here’s my video announcement of this…
Here’s a related substack on aloofness I thought I’d just leave here.
It’s an important observation. On my science side, that was indeed the trade-off; I realized I was relinquishing some of the usual power to lead this or that discipline from the inside, for the benefit of remaining aloof and better intellectually set. For science, each group think is WITHIN these disciplines, and so, yup, I had little ability to change their narrative to accept my discovery. I content myself with the long game -- eventually the truth will be accepted, and I have other fish to fry.
But, in this political movement Covid analogy, as it happened, although I was aloof from the usual partisanship, the collective madness wasn’t (initially) within just one side. Situated outside of them all might have happened to be the right place to be for a movement that wasn’t Left or Right, but Covid-freedom-centric.
Very interesting trait characteristic recognition!! I had cause just the other day to contemplate my life choices and why didn't get swept away, which makes the timing of this stack even more relevant for me. My life choices have been largely to experience a great many things, a great many ways of living, circles to be a part of, wanting to learn from and sample as much of the life experience there is to be had across as many socioeconomic and lifestyle varieties as I'm able to. Enjoying some experiences more than a passing exploration, but most just enough to gain understanding, then moving on. A mile wide and an inch deep. A bit aloof. I've not been much of a joiner. Or follower for that matter. If I have joined a group that interested me more than others I've soon found myself in a position of leadership in it, either formally as a board member or president of an organization, or informally as someone who others would see as a leader in a social group.
When 2020 rolled around I wasn't in any formal leadership role. I've wondered what members of an official organization would have thought of me if I had chosen to lead it to oppose the insanity? I know that the informal social group I was in got co-oped quickly by other leaders in it. And they were the loudest, most aggressive and bullying types about it, shouting down others who questioned and demanding all must sacrifice. Reinforced by the TV and the entirety of the world shouting what those other leaders were saying. I tried to influence the conversations, but there were too many of them and too few who shared my understanding. I'd get messages of support from some, privately, telling me that they wish they could speak more freely, valued what I had to say, thought I was brave to say it and made them feel like at least all of society hadn't gone mad. But they had too much to lose if they publicly joined me. It was really disappointing to see the calculated cowardness among so many friends, even libertarian types as you mention.
I suppose if I had been more deeply invested in the groups instead of being a mile wide, inch deep type I might have had more in the group follow my lead. Which then poses its own dilemma, is not being a joiner, and thereby remaining immune to the pressures of the group dynamic that allowed me to step out of groupthink, not get swept up in the mania incompatible with being able to use one's inherent leadership qualities to help lead other group members out of said groupthink and mania? That which allowed us to be able to apply individual reason and study to keep our minds free made us ineffective in leading a counter movement? I imagine if we had realized the stakes early on and studied works and methods of doing that effectively our messages and interactions with those in groups we were seen as leaders of would have been better calibrated and coordinated. Instead of being reactionary and self-defeating at times.
If I knew then what I know now maybe it could've been different. Like a lot of us probably think now. So how do we get ahead of this social phenomenon, remain Aloof to preserve our independent thinking, but become a part of a group sufficiently to lead it against a society-wide mania?