UAP disclosure won’t collapse society

Robin Hanson argues that telling the public some UAPs are extraterrestrial is unlikely to trigger mass panic, riots, or market crashes because people are mostly focused on their daily lives, large‑scale conceptual shocks (e.g., relativity) didn’t cause social breakdown, and any visiting aliens appear to have long declined to meaningfully intervene. The principal disruption from disclosure would fall on elites and institutions who used secrecy to preserve reputation or political advantage, not on ordinary citizens. — This reframes policy debates over UAP secrecy from a public‑stability calculus to one about elite incentives, transparency, and institutional accountability.