8 ms·

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 rioti

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unr...

lupire 2y ago
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.
- astrange 2y ago
  You can tell from France that French people just naturally like rioting. (Americans have a highly mythologized idea of protesting based on misunderstanding the Civil Rights movement, so they think that 1. all protesters have strong morally correct political causes and 2. protesting does something good for those causes, and therefore think the French are noble workers fighting for their rights here. In fact they don't accomplish anything, the government just ignores them and are never voted out for this, and they're mostly advocating for wild conspiracy theories anyway.)
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    That's a not widely held belief of the French protesters in America. I suspect most of us (certainly most of the people I know) see the various strikes in the news and are happy we don't live there. On a personal anecdote, I recall a French student who attended my university in America comment at one point how surprised he was by the amount of content our courses got through, since we weren't frequently interrupted by strikes of one sort or another. That said, I do agree with the most of the rest of your points. Plenty of people here have overly romanticized views of protest and civil disobedience.
    - jfengel 2y ago
      Even Duolingo repeatedly cites French workers being on strike (en grève) in its examples. They sound peaceful, but inconvenient.
  - hobs 2y ago
    The same America that's legalized hitting protestors with your car?
    - astrange 2y ago
      The protestors are there because they think they have an effect. The people trying to legally kill them want to stop them, because they also think they have an effect (and oppose it). Both of them are wrong. (I should say this also comes from a misunderstanding of Vietnam War protests. Namely, they think they stopped the war, when in fact they didn't do nothin.)
      - drewcoo 2y ago
        Those protesters are clearly being noticed. That is the intended effect.
        astrange 2y ago
        Being noticed isn't the same as changing anything. They may have lowered their expectations, but I think they mostly want to actually change things. (Though like anything else with a lot of young people, some of them just want to get laid, and it works for that.)
amadeuspagel 2y ago
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?
- throwup238 2y ago
  > Who do you expect to appoint intellectuals? I figured it was the magic dragon MENSA keeps in their vault.
lisper 2y ago
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.
- Lammy 2y ago
  News media made that happen by putting the idea in peoples' heads via telling them not to do it.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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.
    - YokoZar 2y ago
      Demand did change though - people weren't pooping as much at offices, restaurants, and retail stores. All those places tend to use "commercial" toilet paper that is not available in your average grocery store. If you looked at commercial suppliers during 2020, you were much more likely to find available supply, though it may be a bit awkward using one of those giant rolls at home when it won't fit on a standard dispenser.
      - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
        In more ways than one. All my friends just installed bidets instead. Now we need far less toilet paper. It started as a bit of a joke but we're now believers. Try it.
EdwardDiego 2y ago
My experience of a natural disaster confirms this from the article: > He concluded that disasters “result however temporarily in what may be regarded as a kind of social utopia.” “While the natural or human forces that precipitated the disaster appear hostile and punishing,” Fritz observed, “the people who survive become more friendly, sympathetic, and helpful than in normal times.” In disaster scenarios, shared fear and suffering create “an intimate group solidarity among the survivors.” When the world suddenly falls apart, people do not grow more selfish, violent, or irrational, but more altruistic, caring, and calm. After the Christchurch earthquake of 2011, killed 185 people, devastated large sections of the city [0], suddenly everyone was nicer, for about 3 months - giving way more in traffic, smiling more at strangers, checking on neighbours they'd never spoken to before. Then one day, an old lady starts ramming my shopping trolly at the supermarket checkout because she thought I was going too slow, and I thought to myself, "Ah, Christchurch is getting back to normal". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Was the arson and looting because the power outage provided panic, or because it provided opportunity? Same question about the police strike. If you're living in a state where the social contract is not functioning and people's behavior is constrained by some other thing, then their behavior will change when the constraint goes away. That's different than panic.

lupire 2y ago

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.

astrange 2y ago
You can tell from France that French people just naturally like rioting. (Americans have a highly mythologized idea of protesting based on misunderstanding the Civil Rights movement, so they think that 1. all protesters have strong morally correct political causes and 2. protesting does something good for those causes, and therefore think the French are noble workers fighting for their rights here. In fact they don't accomplish anything, the government just ignores them and are never voted out for this, and they're mostly advocating for wild conspiracy theories anyway.)
- zdragnar 2y ago
  That's a not widely held belief of the French protesters in America. I suspect most of us (certainly most of the people I know) see the various strikes in the news and are happy we don't live there. On a personal anecdote, I recall a French student who attended my university in America comment at one point how surprised he was by the amount of content our courses got through, since we weren't frequently interrupted by strikes of one sort or another. That said, I do agree with the most of the rest of your points. Plenty of people here have overly romanticized views of protest and civil disobedience.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    Even Duolingo repeatedly cites French workers being on strike (en grève) in its examples. They sound peaceful, but inconvenient.
- hobs 2y ago
  The same America that's legalized hitting protestors with your car?
  - astrange 2y ago
    The protestors are there because they think they have an effect. The people trying to legally kill them want to stop them, because they also think they have an effect (and oppose it). Both of them are wrong. (I should say this also comes from a misunderstanding of Vietnam War protests. Namely, they think they stopped the war, when in fact they didn't do nothin.)
    - drewcoo 2y ago
      Those protesters are clearly being noticed. That is the intended effect.
      - astrange 2y ago
        Being noticed isn't the same as changing anything. They may have lowered their expectations, but I think they mostly want to actually change things. (Though like anything else with a lot of young people, some of them just want to get laid, and it works for that.)

amadeuspagel 2y ago

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?

throwup238 2y ago
> Who do you expect to appoint intellectuals? I figured it was the magic dragon MENSA keeps in their vault.

lisper 2y ago

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.

Lammy 2y ago
News media made that happen by putting the idea in peoples' heads via telling them not to do it.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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.
  - YokoZar 2y ago
    Demand did change though - people weren't pooping as much at offices, restaurants, and retail stores. All those places tend to use "commercial" toilet paper that is not available in your average grocery store. If you looked at commercial suppliers during 2020, you were much more likely to find available supply, though it may be a bit awkward using one of those giant rolls at home when it won't fit on a standard dispenser.
    - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
      In more ways than one. All my friends just installed bidets instead. Now we need far less toilet paper. It started as a bit of a joke but we're now believers. Try it.

EdwardDiego 2y ago

My experience of a natural disaster confirms this from the article: > He concluded that disasters “result however temporarily in what may be regarded as a kind of social utopia.” “While the natural or human forces that precipitated the disaster appear hostile and punishing,” Fritz observed, “the people who survive become more friendly, sympathetic, and helpful than in normal times.” In disaster scenarios, shared fear and suffering create “an intimate group solidarity among the survivors.” When the world suddenly falls apart, people do not grow more selfish, violent, or irrational, but more altruistic, caring, and calm. After the Christchurch earthquake of 2011, killed 185 people, devastated large sections of the city [0], suddenly everyone was nicer, for about 3 months - giving way more in traffic, smiling more at strangers, checking on neighbours they'd never spoken to before. Then one day, an old lady starts ramming my shopping trolly at the supermarket checkout because she thought I was going too slow, and I thought to myself, "Ah, Christchurch is getting back to normal". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

Was the arson and looting because the power outage provided panic, or because it provided opportunity? Same question about the police strike. If you're living in a state where the social contract is not functioning and people's behavior is constrained by some other thing, then their behavior will change when the constraint goes away. That's different than panic.