Yellow is the new Green...

[tagryn]

So if the national threat level is never going to go below "Yellow" (elevated) - which is the lowest it has ever gone since the system was instituted, and where we are now - what's the point of having Blue (guarded) and Green (low)? Isn't that just a 3-level system, instead of 5-level, which gives you less wiggle-room in trying to convey different levels of threat, which was the whole point of the system to begin with?

Comments

[foomf.livejournal.com]

The purpose was to increase panic, fear, doubt, and uncertainty, of course.

It's similar to the Nuclear Death Clock, which has never been farther than 20 minutes from total death. Why bother with the rest of the clock?

Because it elevates the sense of urgency.

And the Threat Level (puce, ochre, umber, beige, and taupe) was intended to create a sense of imminent fear so that people would tolerate the power-grabbing and the destruction of laws and rights because OMG TERRORIZT.

Sort of the same way that a certain group of Roman generals (Pompey, Julius, et alia) used the terror-threat of pirates to destroy the Republic and install themselves as emperors.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

It's obviously a scale that starts in the middle, so we have to keep skewing up. I guess we have to work on getting to the invisible threat level, infrared. When you reach level Infrared, it's all around you, but no one can see it. Be afraid, be very afraid. (Especially of the people who created the system.)