[HN Gopher] The Myth of Panic (2021)
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The Myth of Panic (2021)
Author : apsec112
Score : 16 points
Date : 2024-05-18 01:59 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.palladiummag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.palladiummag.com)
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Interesting that Fritz already debunked the myth of panic during
| WWII, while rather recently, during the last pandemic,
| governments delayed correctly informing of the crowd, due to that
| myth.
|
| So myths will be myths?
| IcyWindows wrote:
| I can believe it. Despite scientists and politicians saying the
| climate situation is dire, there is no panic.
| lupire wrote:
| Dire is not immediate.
| lisper wrote:
| Wait until we have our first planet-wide crop failure.
| scottLobster wrote:
| I panicked for a few months, as a naive college student in my
| early 20s, then I realized there was no stopping it and decided
| to position my family as best as possible to live through it.
|
| But if you have nothing better to do than panic, then by all
| means do so. At some point I might be able to market you a
| product based on that panic, which will be a few more dollars
| toward building my family's ark.
| hash872 wrote:
| He leaves out examples that contradict his thesis, like the 1977
| New York blackout which lead to widespread arson and looting. (1)
| Plus similar widespread rioting in Montreal in the 60s when the
| police went on strike. (2) Wiki also suggested a page for 'list
| of incidents of civil unrest in the US', which appear to number
| in the hundreds. (3) My guess would be that whether your city
| 'panics' or not just depends on a bunch of different
| circumstances, and that there's no one conveniently pat answer.
|
| I used to follow Tanner on Twitter and he seems like a nice guy,
| but he's definitely part of this new generation of self-appointed
| 'intellectuals' that got famous on social media, have no actual
| subject-matter expertise in any 1 field, and just handwave stuff.
| He is the director of what's apparently a 1 man think thank, and
| he supposedly 'focuses on contemporary security issues in the
| Asia-Pacific and the military history of East and Southeast Asia'
| despite having no graduate degrees or military/intelligence
| record that I'm aware of. (Also has nothing to do with this
| piece). Again, nice guy who I'm sure means well, but basically a
| self-appointed Twitter 'expert'. Call me old-fashioned but I'd
| like to see my experts have some actual qualifications in
| something
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot 3.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unr...
| lupire wrote:
| Your Montreal example is off base. That riot was a planned
| attack as part of a year long civil war in Quebec, not a night
| of panic caused by a sudden emergency.
|
| Civil unrest is not the same as panic.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| The New York City blackout and the Murray Hill riot are
| examples of criminals taking advantage of a situation where the
| police were on strike or unable to respond, not of a panic. I'm
| not going to go through the entire list of incidents of civil
| unrest in the United States, but the first entry is described
| as an anti-government protest, not a panic either.
|
| Who do you expect to appoint intellectuals?
| lisper wrote:
| Another example: the hoarding of toilet paper after the
| pandemic lockdowns. Granted, this was panic writ very small,
| but it was panic nonetheless. Suddenly everyone was hoarding TP
| because everyone thought there wouldn't be any available, thus
| turning the TP shortage into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Not sure what counts as hoarding. I've always bought it in
| bulk and prefer to have at least a 6 months supply, even 12
| months seems reasonable. It does not spoil, I can buy when
| it's on sale, and it's relatively compact and stacks well
| without wasting storage space.
|
| Though, I suppose there were people who were buying it when
| they did not expect to use it personally. Fuck those people.
| lisper wrote:
| When the store shelves are empty for months despite the
| fact that nothing has actually changed in terms of
| underlying supply or demand, that's hoarding.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The bombings of London during WW1 and WW2, and the Allied
| bombings, were attempts to cause panic among the civilians and
| thus the countries to collapse. It never happened.
|
| Although the V1 attacks did not cause panic and caused little
| damage, they were cheap to make and fire, and caused the British
| to divert enormous resources to stop them - resources that were
| not brought to bear on Germany.
|
| On the other hand, while the V2 attacks also did little damage
| and caused no panic, they were terrifically expensive for the
| Germans to make, and was a huge diversion of their resources.
| Since there was no defense against them, they did not divert
| Allied resources away from attacking Germany.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Isn't it amusing that censorship is there to protect the morals
| of civilians, yet the censors are not corrupted by viewing it?
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