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> anyone living in the west should be shocked by this sort of event I think this is similar to the good old irrationality of the fear of flying in many people

> anyone living in the west should be shocked by this sort of event I think this is similar to the good old irrationality of the fear of flying in many people (including my mom) - it doesn't matter how much cold hard facts are told over and over, some people just freak out and switch to completely different behaviour. I am a bit different (no clue why). Not because I lack emotions or compassion, but emotions generally don't affect my judgement much (call it advantage or disadvantage if you want, but it helped me greatly in life so far). I refuse to be shocked be these kind of things, not more or less than any other mass killings/deaths out there. People are people, we are equal and this is also what true equality means - it really doesn't matter if some indian peasants are killed in flood caused by some dam breaking, or somebody kills white collar people by plane. The true effects of those attacks were really small on global scale. The over-reactions, mainly from US government but not only were disproportionate and will be felt for many years to come. And you know, going with the hysterical flow is exactly what the terrorists wanted to achieve - I think the after-9/11 reality surpassed even their wildest dreams and desires. Again, something I refuse to go along with, it doesn't make a tiniest bit of sense.

leetcrew 8y ago
I think you are missing my point here a bit. 17 year later, there have been no more terror attacks at the same scale as 9/11. in hindsight, it's easy to say that we overreacted to a single very bad event. but this isn't what people were responding to at the time. people didn't believe this sort of thing could happen at all, and the next day they had to start wondering how long until the next one and how often these events would occur. try to imagine living in a world where huge office buildings can just come down at any time on a yearly, monthly, or weekly basis. I feel like the "rationals" underestimate just how destabilizing that would be.
- throwaway413 8y ago
  > try to imagine living in a world where huge office buildings can just come down at any time on a yearly, monthly, or weekly basis. I feel like the "rationals" underestimate just how destabilizing that would be. So, like in Syria, or Palestine?
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    yeah, these are very unstable places. it should be shocking to imagine the west devolving into that.
ereastman 8y ago
this might be the worst take ive ever read in my life The fact you can't understand how people could be shocked by one of the most unexpected, deadly terrorist attacks in history is scary. Of course people will be shocked, they saw themselves in the victims, they saw their family, they saw their neighbors. Not only that but it was completely unexpected which makes the pain even worse - something clearly mentioned in the article. Humble bragging that your 'emotions don't affect your judgement' and that it has 'helped you greatly' in life is just incredible. Have some empathy one time for me
chris_wot 8y ago
I was trying to place what makes me so uncomfortable with your comments. I think I know why I have a problem with them now. Basically you consider emotional responses to be irrational and illogical. By your argument, the death of your son should not affect you because there are thousands of people who die every day and you don’t feel anything for those people. Basically what you are standing in judgement of is that because life is tragic everywhere, you should not feel the tragedy of any individual event if you don’t feel the tragedy of every terrible event. Which ironically seems to have made you come to the conclusion that you shouldn’t feel emotion to any event because there are so many of them. You definitely fail to understand that people react to events differently, and the closer to the event you are the more tragic it seems. And in fact, that’s really the way it should be. As tragic as the death of a child in Africa (and it is tragic) it can in no way ever compare to my own son or daughter dying. At least to me. And there is nothing wrong with that, so long as I can acknowledge that there is tragedy everywhere. If I took your logic to it’s most extreme, then I would need to be either a complete basket case (everything produces an equally emotional response) or a total robot who is not allowed to feel anything because it’s unfair to be more emotionally involved in one event than another.

leetcrew 8y ago

I think you are missing my point here a bit. 17 year later, there have been no more terror attacks at the same scale as 9/11. in hindsight, it's easy to say that we overreacted to a single very bad event. but this isn't what people were responding to at the time. people didn't believe this sort of thing could happen at all, and the next day they had to start wondering how long until the next one and how often these events would occur. try to imagine living in a world where huge office buildings can just come down at any time on a yearly, monthly, or weekly basis. I feel like the "rationals" underestimate just how destabilizing that would be.

throwaway413 8y ago
> try to imagine living in a world where huge office buildings can just come down at any time on a yearly, monthly, or weekly basis. I feel like the "rationals" underestimate just how destabilizing that would be. So, like in Syria, or Palestine?
- leetcrew 8y ago
  yeah, these are very unstable places. it should be shocking to imagine the west devolving into that.

ereastman 8y ago

this might be the worst take ive ever read in my life The fact you can't understand how people could be shocked by one of the most unexpected, deadly terrorist attacks in history is scary. Of course people will be shocked, they saw themselves in the victims, they saw their family, they saw their neighbors. Not only that but it was completely unexpected which makes the pain even worse - something clearly mentioned in the article. Humble bragging that your 'emotions don't affect your judgement' and that it has 'helped you greatly' in life is just incredible. Have some empathy one time for me

chris_wot 8y ago

I was trying to place what makes me so uncomfortable with your comments. I think I know why I have a problem with them now. Basically you consider emotional responses to be irrational and illogical. By your argument, the death of your son should not affect you because there are thousands of people who die every day and you don’t feel anything for those people. Basically what you are standing in judgement of is that because life is tragic everywhere, you should not feel the tragedy of any individual event if you don’t feel the tragedy of every terrible event. Which ironically seems to have made you come to the conclusion that you shouldn’t feel emotion to any event because there are so many of them. You definitely fail to understand that people react to events differently, and the closer to the event you are the more tragic it seems. And in fact, that’s really the way it should be. As tragic as the death of a child in Africa (and it is tragic) it can in no way ever compare to my own son or daughter dying. At least to me. And there is nothing wrong with that, so long as I can acknowledge that there is tragedy everywhere. If I took your logic to it’s most extreme, then I would need to be either a complete basket case (everything produces an equally emotional response) or a total robot who is not allowed to feel anything because it’s unfair to be more emotionally involved in one event than another.