In response to some comments from someone else who seemed really anxious to be able to argue, on no sound or sensible basis whatsoever, that the whole thing's absurdly overblown and no one should be taking it seriously as the danger to life and health that it was, which is something I've seen a frankly bewildering number of people on HN this week put effort into doing.

I wasn't really replying to your comment at the head of the subthread I was replying to. But, fair: if I'd considered the context a bit more thoroughly, I'd have picked some other metaphor than a movie plot for the unrelated kind of confabulation I was complaining about.