Forgotten Public Panics

[fizzymoon86]

Does anyone remember when the Large Hadron Collider was switched on and the world was going to be swallowed up into a black hole? I honestly thought the world was going to end and I didn’t sleep that night.

Also I clearly remember when Harold Camping predicting the end of the world in 2011 and people were actually flocking to hill tops so they would be saved in the rapture.

Swine flu pandemic was a big one for my health anxiety!


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[Lencoboy]

Does anyone remember when the Large Hadron Collider was switched on and the world was going to be swallowed up into a black hole? I honestly thought the world was going to end and I didn’t sleep that night.

Also I clearly remember when Harold Camping predicting the end of the world in 2011 and people were actually flocking to hill tops so they would be saved in the rapture.

Swine flu pandemic was a big one for my health anxiety!


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Strangely enough I don't remember the original Hadron Collider events back in 2008 as they happened, though of course I do vividly remember the news headlines at the same time being full of hysterical forecasts of economic Armageddon, obviously due to the GFC at the time.

Swine Flu I definitely remember, and the accompanying forecasts of Armageddon yet again, but as it happened, it turned out to be a mere walk in the park, especially compared to obvious events since the start of 2020. Ditto for the GFC.

I vaguely recall some kind of EOTW scare around May 2011 (I think) of which no such things actually happened, and likewise the big one at the end of 2012, which again, proved to be a load of old pony!

The late 2000s and the whole of the 2010s was most certainly a vintage period for conspiracy theories and moral panics, and such phenomena seems to be showing little signs of slowing down so far into the early 2020s!

[Lencoboy]

We barely seem to hear about Operation Yewtree these days. Back in 2013-16 people were coming out en masse over instances of historical abuse as children (particularly in the wake of the JS scandal back in late 2012), but the big panic stations over it all mostly appear to have died down now.

I may have already covered this earlier in this thread, but we don't seem to hear as much about crimes committed by persons on mini-mopeds and acid attacks lately, both of which were a big thing back around 2016-17.

[NoraB]

Does anyone remember when the Large Hadron Collider was switched on and the world was going to be swallowed up into a black hole?

The way things are going, it would have probably been for the best.

I watched the Panorama artificial intelligence programme the other night and I wished I hadn't...

[Lencoboy]

The way things are going, it would have probably been for the best.

I watched the Panorama artificial intelligence programme the other night and I wished I hadn't...

Blimey Nora, you sound a bit on the morbid side there!

[NoraB]

Blimey Nora, you sound a bit on the morbid side there!

Well, we are doing a great job of buggering the planet up aren't we? As for those prats who continually deny global warming, don't start me!

Did you see the Panorama programme? I'm already semi-paranoid about Alexa listening to me talking to myself (I have her on mute most of the time which annoys Hubs as he says it defeats the object )

[Lencoboy]

Well, we are doing a great job of buggering the planet up aren't we? As for those prats who continually deny global warming, don't start me!

Did you see the Panorama programme? I'm already semi-paranoid about Alexa listening to me talking to myself (I have her on mute most of the time which annoys Hubs as he says it defeats the object )

I think we're all to blame for buggering up the planet, Nora, as most of us have been blasé about it all for far too long now

Far too many self-centred barstewards who are blatant non-believers in climate change/global warming who think it's all a big con and also assume that it's the govt out to 'control' us and turn us into a 'fascist' state!

In fact, I've even heard of such people literally emigrating to Spain to circumvent the tax rises on petrol and diesel here in the UK, and playing the 'hard done by' card, especially back when Blair and Brown were in power, simply because they have a 'god-given right' to drive just around the corner to the Co-op or to drop the kids off at school without being unjustly penalised by rising fuel duties.

They also have the nerve to bellyache endlessly about our poor summer weather but they're very much part of the problem jetting to and from countries like Spain several times per year (at least pre-pandemic), thus causing a vicious circle of climate change-fuelled poor weather in this country vs escaping to warmer climes and inadvertantly rubbishing this country all the more. A real self-inflicted, self-fulfilling prophecy in the extreme! (really makes me so cross)!!

Having said that, going back to the excessive road traffic situation in this country, my dad told me yesterday that he has noticed more electric vehicles on the road than ever before over recent months, in which there was previously much hesitancy over.

That certainly can't be a bad thing.

[NoraB]

Having said that, going back to the excessive road traffic situation in this country, my dad told me yesterday that he has noticed more electric vehicles on the road than ever before over recent months,

Yeah, I've noticed that too...

[Lencoboy]

I haven't heard of any May Day riots in this country for donkeys years now, which were a big thing back in the early 2000s.

They still remain very much an annual ritual in much of mainland Europe though.

[Lencoboy]

Music piracy was a big thing back in the 2000s, with file-sharing and CD-Rs being the 'pariahs' of the major labels back then.

Back in the early 80s it was blank cassette tapes and the 'Home Taping Is Killing Music' blurb on the rear sleeve of some LPs.

Strangely by the mid-80s, when double cassette decks had become more commonplace, which easily facilitated copying of pre-recorded cassette albums even in portable boomboxes, the scare mostly seemed to had died down.

Added to that, CDs became the norm from about 1986 onwards, which of course facilitated near-perfect cassette copies of material of sound quality equivalent to the original studio master tapes.