Generally speaking, your attitude towards anything depends on your assessment of what will happen in the future if it is unchecked.
If you see a crack in a dam, and a rivulet of water coming through, you base your actions on whether you think it's going to become larger.
If a person is pretty certain that the dam is about to collapse, then talking about the water coming through right now seems palpably absurd, but reverse the assumptions and taking drastic action seems equally absurd.
There's no neutral way based on facts and independent of opinions to decide what's absurd, extreme, or hysterical. But at the same time, different views are different, and some are going to be severely wrong about anything controversial and important.
I don't know how you make a generic framework that tells you the right thing to do when people are talking about invading Iraq, and also tells you the right thing to do when people are talking about shutdowns for covid.
If you see a crack in a dam, and a rivulet of water coming through, you base your actions on whether you think it's going to become larger.
If a person is pretty certain that the dam is about to collapse, then talking about the water coming through right now seems palpably absurd, but reverse the assumptions and taking drastic action seems equally absurd.
There's no neutral way based on facts and independent of opinions to decide what's absurd, extreme, or hysterical. But at the same time, different views are different, and some are going to be severely wrong about anything controversial and important.
I don't know how you make a generic framework that tells you the right thing to do when people are talking about invading Iraq, and also tells you the right thing to do when people are talking about shutdowns for covid.