Jim talks with BJ Campbell about the ideas in his Substack essay "On Cops, Belief, and Chainsaw Faced Robot Dogs." They discuss forms of social control, absolute police states vs. belief states, the role of belief vs. actual enforcement in maintaining order, the noble lie concept & Plato's original formulation, the 2020 crime spike & "defund the police" movement, the history of police forces & alternative methods of maintaining order, the "God-shaped hole" concept, membranes & group coherence, anthropological research on fairness, non-supernatural belief systems, marketing challenges for new social systems, money as a noble lie & coordination signal, Saudi Arabian social control methods, and much more.

Episode Transcript

Handwaving Freakoutery (Substack)

JRS Currents 090: BJ Campbell and Patrick Ryan on Egregores

JRS Currents 024: BJ Campbell on the Woke Religion

"On Cops, Belief, and Chainsaw Faced Robot Dogs," by BJ Campbell

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett

BJ Campbell is a licensed professional civil engineer and practicing hydrologist who consults in the land development and environmental industries. In addition to his Substack Handwaving Freakoutery, he writes for Open Source Defense, Quillette, and Recoil Magazine.