For me it's all about balance, sometimes the 'world will end crew' might only be frenzied from the frustration of being silenced, one never knows. And I will listen to a 'wacky neighbor' about coffee grounds (in fact I do save mine in my veg garden compost) but also look to old texts and such on subjects. Often a line of consciousness on this mortal coil will stretch from truth to fact to wives tale to oral history and it's for us to piece together our own quilt of 'knowledge' (excuse my mixed metaphors lol)

And I agree, that calm and quiet is always better than panic, as long as one knows 'all the stories' one can feel they can decide which to feel informs more.