Diary of a Psychosis

📖 The Scoop

New York Times bestselling author and Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award winner Tom Woods, in his first book in nine years, delves into the psychosis that made millions of Americans, even as Covid restrictions were ruining their lives, impervious to the evidence that they were doing no good.In 2021, and for once in his life, Biden White House Covid adviser Andy Slavitt was asked a challenging question.How was it possible that all the sacrifices being made in places like California appear to have been for nothing? Adjusting for age, restriction-free Florida had about the same numbers.(And as of 2023, Florida had even done better than California in all-cause mortality.)He had no answer, as you'll see in this book. And yet he proceeded as before, demonizing critics and doubling down as if nothing had happened. The message was: Covid is your fault! If you selfish people would listen to us and stay home, or put on a mask when you go out, we'd be over this thing!And so it went, even though absolutely nothing in the data supported this moralistic conclusion.The numbers went up and down in neighboring places in exactly the same pattern no matter what the people in each place were doing.So long as you didn't have a television for a brain, with each passing day it became clearer and clearer that the results were random and had nothing to do with our behavior.But some people loved -- even craved -- the restrictions, because they made them feel useful, even morally superior, without actually having to do anything. They could be heroes on the cheap, "saving lives" by staying home and living like vegetables.Diary of a Psychosis isn't a mere summary of what happened, with a chapter on masks and a chapter on lockdowns and a chapter on suppression of dissent. Instead, it takes the reader through the experience, diary-style, as the official guidance kicked in over time.No matter how closely we followed the news during those dark years, we've forgotten central parts of the story. This book hasn't.

Genre: Health & Fitness / Diseases & Conditions / General (fancy, right?)