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I think it's telling that said panic was short-lived, and to anyone watching the video, laughably silly. Unless you're a psychologist studying the dynamics of d

I think it's telling that said panic was short-lived, and to anyone watching the video, laughably silly. Unless you're a psychologist studying the dynamics of digital crowds, it probably isn't very interesting at all. By contrast that same "panic" would probably have been framed as UFO's and an alien invasion pre-smartphone era.

lxgr 2y ago
I personally really wouldn't bet on there being less UFO believers these days than before the ubiquitous availability of cameras.
- EA-3167 2y ago
  I wouldn't bet on that either, but they're less mainstream, less respected, and most of us no longer feel a particular urge to humor them. Every passing year makes them less relevant, and more like the sort of people who believe in any other conspiracy theory or magical belief system. Which is frankly where they always belonged.
  - mrandish 2y ago
    > magical belief system. To be fair, if one includes religions this is significantly more than half the population. Add in astrology, psychics, ghosts, crystals, auras and other common 'woo' and it gets higher still. Sadly, HN is not a representative population sample. Skeptical non-believers are still a minority in the modern world.
  - _ea1k 2y ago
    At the other end of the spectrum, the belief that the moon landing was faked seems to be steadily increasing in popularity. I don't get it at all.
    - EA-3167 2y ago
      We made some fundamental mistakes when it comes to the subject of why people believe what they believe. The polite and intellectual answer to that has a lot to say about evidence and reason, replication, publication, review... but that simply doesn't move most people. That isn't how most people live their lives. MOST people operate on networks of trust, because they lack the interest or the capacity to make informed decisions about many things. They don't know how a nuclear power plant works, they don't know anything about monoclonal antibodies, but they know people and places they trust. Their "smart" and "informed" social networks, their doctor, their priest, etc. Unfortunately those networks of trust are easy to corrupt, not for everyone, but for a large number of people.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > the sort of people who believe in any other conspiracy theory or magical belief system Bad news: this has gone completely mainstream. We're deep into government by conspiracy theorists.

lxgr 2y ago

I personally really wouldn't bet on there being less UFO believers these days than before the ubiquitous availability of cameras.

EA-3167 2y ago
I wouldn't bet on that either, but they're less mainstream, less respected, and most of us no longer feel a particular urge to humor them. Every passing year makes them less relevant, and more like the sort of people who believe in any other conspiracy theory or magical belief system. Which is frankly where they always belonged.
- mrandish 2y ago
  > magical belief system. To be fair, if one includes religions this is significantly more than half the population. Add in astrology, psychics, ghosts, crystals, auras and other common 'woo' and it gets higher still. Sadly, HN is not a representative population sample. Skeptical non-believers are still a minority in the modern world.
- _ea1k 2y ago
  At the other end of the spectrum, the belief that the moon landing was faked seems to be steadily increasing in popularity. I don't get it at all.
  - EA-3167 2y ago
    We made some fundamental mistakes when it comes to the subject of why people believe what they believe. The polite and intellectual answer to that has a lot to say about evidence and reason, replication, publication, review... but that simply doesn't move most people. That isn't how most people live their lives. MOST people operate on networks of trust, because they lack the interest or the capacity to make informed decisions about many things. They don't know how a nuclear power plant works, they don't know anything about monoclonal antibodies, but they know people and places they trust. Their "smart" and "informed" social networks, their doctor, their priest, etc. Unfortunately those networks of trust are easy to corrupt, not for everyone, but for a large number of people.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > the sort of people who believe in any other conspiracy theory or magical belief system Bad news: this has gone completely mainstream. We're deep into government by conspiracy theorists.