alt Hacker News> I’ve worked in a place like this that was well past its prime and though uncanny, it’s certainly not creepy.
That's kinda more what the german concept of "unheimlich" is like. Even though it usually gets translated to English as "uncanny", it's more literally "un-homelike", when the familiar (home) turns unfamiliar (un-homelike) in an unexpected way. A common idea in that would be something like the discovery of a hidden room in your house, especially in some weird non-euclidean way ("it's bigger on the inside" for example, like a tardis).
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layer8 • today at 5:41 PM
“Eerie” would be a good translation in the quoted context.
I think this whole genre flirts with Capgras Syndrome, the basic identity perception malfunction behind concepts like changelings and many other "exact duplicates" or "tampering" scenarios which have malice as an optional component.
I think it is something that people are aware of, perhaps subconsciously, from cultural exposure. But, I also think many (most?) people have at least some personal experience of a similar sort. Not the full-blown delusional state, but an anxious moment of having feelings of recognition or safety turn inside-out as they realize things are not as they first appeared.