Been thinking about the standard scam mechanic - open with a call that only the naive and overtrusting will answer, then exploit the mark’s trust to siphon their money away to you.
I think there are similar patterns that select the overly thoughtful and conscientious to suck away their time and energy - recommending that someone put together a bureaucratic task force to address an issue they find urgent, for example.
today in good wikipedia articles: linguistic example sentences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences
wait a minute ive reinvented whataboutism havent i
but theres another thing where people can juggle so many things at once, and showing them another Bad Thing They Must Pay Attention To can cause them to stop being able to juggle everything
this is probably the best motivational text i have ever read
normal people motivational speeches: "alright i know this is going to be tough but if we work together and do our best, well get this done and have time to go out for drinks"
motivational speeches that work on me: "the task is futile and we may never succeed. let us speak of the horrors that we will encounter. today, we spit in the eye of god, may we will survive"
feels like a lot of people dont know how to deal with multiple things being bad at the same time
"how dare you worry about <bad thing> when <worse thing> is happening" is always an option, especially since what counts as worse varies by person
this might actually just be strategic, people trying to shut down conversations about problems that benefit them