Recent self-exile from academia

Hello,

I've decided to write an introduction--more for myself than anything since this appears to be lightly trafficked (but be the change you want to see, right?).

I grew up on web forums, and they were a lifeline for me in the lonely days of high school and college. But then "Web 2.0" (remember that?) and social media came along, and suspiciously so too did Chiptole's and Starbucks. Just as the latter sterilized and homogenized the shopping centers and main streets and weird neighborhoods and college towns, the former did so to the web culture -- and I checked out.

I spent the last 10 years or so in academia accumulating graduate degrees (hard science, full rides and stipends, so I managed to avoid the debt slavery) and performing research drugery. While I wasn't 99-100% brainwashed like my colleagues, looking back I can definitely see the pod-person growing and preparing to replace the shell of the authentic me that had already largely been hollowed out (if you haven't seen the 1970's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", do). Sure, I shared the 2017 UFO NYT article and New York Mag pilot interview, or the Joe Rogan - Dave Faber interview with some colleagues. [Of course, if it hadn't been from the canonical Grey Lady, I wouldn't have dreamed of sharing it beyond the few closer compatriots I was comfortable sharing the --ghasp!--Joe Rogan interview with.] And the university/medical school I worked at has one of the few paranormal research departments left. I was tempted to get involved over there and reignite some of my passionate love for the Fortean -- but the strange, ambient reverse gravity of such topics and places among "respectable" academia is very, very real.

I was an aspirant to that respectable academia, and about as well positioned to succeed there as anyone is these days. Then the "pandemic" happened.

Like most people, I was not particularly concerned about the disease until early March, when the tone of the establishment suddenly and dramatically shifted. I had been busy with my own teaching and research and having lived through the 2009 swine flu, figured it was all media hype. But then the institutions which are nominally outside of the media --universities, local governments, corporations--started to seem to panic. I naively assumed this must be grounded in some kind of reality, that the disease must be much worse than initially thought. When "two weeks to flatten the curve" came down, it had my acquiescence. About a month into the "2 weeks", facts started accumulating that made me more and more suspicious that something was off.

During a raging pandemic, the hospital I worked at was so short for customers that it was losing scores of millions of dollars a month, and we all had to take pay-cuts or furloughs. The Mercy and Comfort ships were empty despite NYC supposedly being a raging death cauldron. 2 weeks had already become 1 month and it was becoming clearer and clearer that for many there was the intention of it being prolonged indefinitely--despite the empty hospitals whose capacity it was supposedly put in place to preserve. The evening news consisted of scrolls of the dead and their pictures (remember those?)--which were entirely octogenarian+ or even just nice black-and-white portraits of them in their Korean War service blues.

It didn't add up. I started looking into the data myself-- and my specialty is dynamic systems modeling, almost perfectly parallel to the "SIR" models which were used to convince the UK and US to lock down. It was, in polite terms, unvalidated dog shit. The most basic level critical, scientific appraisal was totally absent, wild speculations were passed off as established fact, and worst of all, it all went in precisely one direction---a mammoth overestimation and exaggeration the dangers of the disease. There were no voices of reason in the scientific community, a basic consensus had been established which was almost entirely divorced from the facts on the ground and unvetted by even a simulacrum of the scientific method I had learned.

Then came the masks.

That was the breaking point for me. Everyone in the scientific community knew masks don't work to control respiratory diseases in the general population--they said as much, glibly and confidently, early on. But what changed? I looked for any scientific data to back up the new push for mandates and nothing which objectively was even remotely approaching the scientific standards which had been in place up until April 2020 was present. It was obviously political. They needed to keep the "pandemic"-- which needed its own PR department for anybody not working in a hospital to know it happened-- to stay in the front of the broad popular consciousness.

The thing is, my coworkers, other doctors and scientists, they knew this, when I brought up my qualms and the lack of a rigorous scientific basis they didn't even try to refute or challenge them, but they went along anyway. And not even begrudgingly, but enthusiastically?!

It became very clear to me this was about some form of social control and reformation. And those within academia started saying as much out right, especially after the George Floyd riots ("peaceful protests").

I realized I was in a cult. A very subtle, very materially comfortable cult (no ascetics they). But literally a death cult intent on taking over and reshaping the world. I became disillusioned, reconnected with the world outside the cult (which included stumbling upon this podcast).

Listening to the Alison McDowell interview on here sealed the deal to me. What she says is not only true, but I realized it was largely what my research and the lab I worked for were ultimately trying to bring about. I decided to quit the lab and exit the rat race and break from the cult.

I took a while to set myself up to make an exit, but I am out. I'm hoping to set up a place where I can be as disconnected as possible from the cult, but I'm aware of the limitations. I'm lucky. I don't have many of the obligations and debts many do, and I have a family who I have been able to bring to at least see the light is there, even if they don't see the light yet. They thought I was crazy initially, now they are in basic agreement on the facts, if not 100% aligned with what the best course of action is. The irony is they probably trust me as much as they do precisely because I have the PhD from the death cult I'm warning them about.

Anyway, I enjoyed writing this and getting it out of my system, even if nobody else in the world ever reads the wall of text, let alone sympathizes. I'd like to be able to establish some new, interesting contacts and friendships, even virtually. Especially as I am basically facing something analogous to an old school religious ostracism from my former cult.

Kind regards,
jh