The poster claimed panicing is rational, the other poster responded (correctly) that it's an emotion and therefore is not, definitionally, rational.

reasonable != rational.

But here's the thing.

If your house is on fire, do you want a firefighter who is panicing or one who isn't? panicing may be reasonable, but that doesn't make it the best course of action.

What I said, to be precise, is "Panic is the rational reaction [edited from "response"] to a near term extinction level threat that not enough people are taking seriously"

You want a firefighter at a house fire because they've have trained for a long time to manage the instinctual panic. Panic or fear in emotional response to extreme danger is rational. It is completely distinct from what is a good plan, which requires time to develop and practice.

My precise point is that - because the critical from global warming is longer term and more abstract - it requires a certain about of effort to understand how incredibly bad the situation is. Most people here, not even the general public, have dangerously stupid and shallow understanding of the issue. The are frequently off by many orders of magnitude, or mistake hypothetical technologies that do not exist as actual solutions.

That is here. The general public is much worse.

You had a front row seat to how non-resilient society is to even small perturbations. Covid and a supply shortage in toilet paper caused actual panic in the general population. Wait until we have our first large North American crop shortfalls this decade. The more you learn about this topic, the more dead you feel inside to how intractable it is. Good luck.