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 tha

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.