7 ms·

I’m not sure at all the pandemic is going to be more significant historically. The 9/11 attacks did what Al-Qaeda intended them to - got the USA mired in an exp

I’m not sure at all the pandemic is going to be more significant historically. The 9/11 attacks did what Al-Qaeda intended them to - got the USA mired in an expensive, unwinnable war, which ultimately broke the US will to fight and seems to have resulted in a major reconfiguration of US foreign policy.

teawrecks 5y ago
I believe a lot of the phenomena we see today, rampant conspiracies, misinformation, distrust in govt, political divisiveness, willingness to support a demagogue, rise in nationalism and domestic terrorism, can all be linked back to 9/11. The goal of the attack was to strike fear into the hearts of Americans on a level that we simply couldn't comprehend, a lasting fear that fundamentally changes our society, a fear that individuals in the war-torn middle east had already lived with for decades up to that point. And I think it's clear that they accomplished their goal. Unfortunately, I also think it's clear we haven't seen the end of it.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  All those things you write in the 1st paragraph, I wonder if it's 9/11 or the continued spread of Internet access. Previously if you thought the earth was flat, your friends in school or work would laugh at you. Nowadays you can google anything and find a community totally into that idea, and they are indeed communities because they'll quickly indoctrinate that the rest of society/big government/the secret elite cabal are prosecuting them for their beliefs, so they'd have to support each other..
  - teawrecks 5y ago
    Oh yes, definitely the internet plays a huge roll in the world we have today, probably a bigger roll than 9/11. Humanity has seen and adapted to large scale tragedies before, but this is the first time we've had the internet. But of all the variables, 9/11 is a big one in the US. It also showed the media and advertisers how much more money there was to be made from these events. Ever since 9/11 the news media has been hard at work developing new ways to milk sensationalism junkies the same way that mobile companies milk gaming addiction whales.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Worth noting: most of us belong to several such communities, but we tend not to realize or consider it, as flat earthers do not realize what they do.
telesilla 5y ago
Let's wait a while. The long term effects of the pandemic are yet to set in.
- SilasX 5y ago
  There’s the joke that you can say the same thing about the French Revolution (“too early to tell”).
- rebuilder 5y ago
  I see your point, but I have a hard time imagining how, 20 years down the line, we could point to the SARS-COV2 pandemic as a principal cause of historic change the way the 9/11 attacks were. Contributing factor? Sure, I'm sure it'll have all kinds of downstream effects.
  - ls612 5y ago
    Imagine masks, distancing restrictions, etc becoming the knee jerk response every year there’s a bad flu scare or something like the Ebola cases in 2014 happens. This pandemic will be remembered not for the virus but for the massive and permanent social changes it brought to the west.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Also: Home office, redistribution of wealth, climate impact and not to forget the financial impact. Plus possible long covid problems in a large share of people. There's a lot we will 'enjoy' for a long time.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      If people, post-pandemic, would (voluntarily) mask up and distance when they're not feeling well, I think it would reduce flu and common-cold transmission quite a lot throughout the year. This sort of thing is already common in some places and I'd be thrilled if it became a thing in the US. (But agree that knee-jerk mandatory restrictions would be a terrible outcome.)
farmerstan 5y ago
This. Al qaeda won. They destroyed the way of American life before 9-11. We are a different country now. So much government control over the last 20 years because of the 9-11 like TSA, Patriot act, massive government surveillance all in the name of “Homeland Security”. Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers exist precisely because of 9-11. The distrust from all of the secret government acts is only part of the equation. The trillions funneled into the military complex has starved the education system. We have literally produced idiots across the US because of a horrible educational system. They can’t think critically because they don’t have to. So 20 years of this, and you have a large percentage of the population that are literally stupid and can’t think critically. They would rather die than take a vaccine or wear a mask. This is what happens when you spend money on the military and illegal wars than the education of your population. The pandemic is terrible. But 9-11 destroyed the US and put us on a horrible path that we may never recover from.
- IAmGraydon 5y ago
  I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted. What you’re saying is accurate. I don’t think the terrorists had the foresight to predict this kind of fallout from 9/11, but it has certainly happened none the less.
  - rebuilder 5y ago
    Bin-laden directly stated Al-Qaeda's goal was to bankrupt the USA. [1] Now that's not what literally happened obviously, but adjusting for propaganda hyperbole and considering he went on to elaborate that they intend to do to the USA what they did to the Soviets - make the war too costly to be worth fighting - it seems their strategy panned out pretty well. Of course, I don't know that they could have predicted the US invasion of Iraq, for example. On the one hand, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but OTOH Al-Qaeda might have foreseen that the US leadership would not let a good crisis go to waste. Maybe the main plan was just to fight in Afghanistan, where they know they can carry out guerilla warfare indefinitely, and whatever else shakes out is probably going to play into Al-Qaeda's pocket anyway. Really the main victory Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups have won is being able to frame the discourse around their atrocities as Islamic terror. It creates tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, which leads to oppression of Muslims, which increases recruitment. In this dynamic, the worse the terror groups are, the more adherents they gain. 1: https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/ https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape...
hnbad 5y ago
> The 9/11 attacks did what Al-Qaeda intended them to - got the USA mired in an expensive, unwinnable war, which ultimately broke the US will to fight Citation very much needed. Al Qaeda is a religious fundamentalist group that wants to bring about the Islamic caliphate under theocratic rule. As I understand it, their plans with the US were primarily to get rid of the US and US influences. Destroying the US was more of an indirect long-term goal as a consequences of establishing a global Islamic hegemony. I also don't think you can talk about "breaking the US will to fight". Post-9/11 saw the transition from US soldiers to military contractors and drone strikes but also no reduction in US military bases. The influence of the US is led by its economy but reinforced by its military. If anything, the wars increased the US population's aversion to "boots on the ground" but arguably that was already on the way out ever since the traumatizing defeat in Vietnam. The US continues to be interventionalist and it continues to engage in military operations outside formal declarations of war. It also continues to maintain a massive global network of military bases and an oversized arsenal of nuclear weapons. None of that has changed. I think there's an observation to be made how the short-lived grief on 9/11 rapidly developed into a thirst for revenge and retaliation, and how computer games influenced the initial coverage of the wars (I distinctly remember the spinning 3D renderings of the missiles used in the initial attacks on Iraq) or how the US military at first embraced embedded reporting and then reporting became increasingly abstract as the wars dragged on and journalists were prohibited from showing the coffins of fallen soldiers. Twenty years later it now seems that what remained is mostly the dehumanization. I distinctly recall US politicians demanding the assassination of "traitors" like Snowden or Assange during the Obama years but even today the illegal act of war of assassinating an Iranian military official in Iraq hardly raised any eyebrows (except for people worrying about whether this would be followed up by an invasion of Iran or Iran retaliating by attacking someone else like Skinner's pigeon impotently hacking at its cell mate after an electric shock). The US hasn't lost its will to fight, but it has lost all pretense of its moral high ground. The US government being the hero in Hollywood movies was a bit quaint in the 90s but after 9/11 it's become increasingly uncomfortable to watch for non-Americans.
thrownaway810 5y ago
Yeah, either your world view is pretty closed or you’re trolling. I hope it’s the latter. The world trade centre attacks caused about 3000 deaths, and ongoing military action impacting a few countries around the world. The US makes up roughly 5% of the worlds population. The pandemic has so far killed over 4 million people. It has created lockdowns in thousands of cities you’ve never heard of and forced the scientific community of the world to work together on common problems. It has affected every government and billions of people around the world, rather than the few hundred million in the US. The pandemic is orders of magnitude more significant than the singular terrorist attack the US experienced 20 years ago. For billions of people in the world, the US and it’s foreign policies have little to no significance.

teawrecks 5y ago

I believe a lot of the phenomena we see today, rampant conspiracies, misinformation, distrust in govt, political divisiveness, willingness to support a demagogue, rise in nationalism and domestic terrorism, can all be linked back to 9/11. The goal of the attack was to strike fear into the hearts of Americans on a level that we simply couldn't comprehend, a lasting fear that fundamentally changes our society, a fear that individuals in the war-torn middle east had already lived with for decades up to that point. And I think it's clear that they accomplished their goal. Unfortunately, I also think it's clear we haven't seen the end of it.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
All those things you write in the 1st paragraph, I wonder if it's 9/11 or the continued spread of Internet access. Previously if you thought the earth was flat, your friends in school or work would laugh at you. Nowadays you can google anything and find a community totally into that idea, and they are indeed communities because they'll quickly indoctrinate that the rest of society/big government/the secret elite cabal are prosecuting them for their beliefs, so they'd have to support each other..
- teawrecks 5y ago
  Oh yes, definitely the internet plays a huge roll in the world we have today, probably a bigger roll than 9/11. Humanity has seen and adapted to large scale tragedies before, but this is the first time we've had the internet. But of all the variables, 9/11 is a big one in the US. It also showed the media and advertisers how much more money there was to be made from these events. Ever since 9/11 the news media has been hard at work developing new ways to milk sensationalism junkies the same way that mobile companies milk gaming addiction whales.
- mistermann 5y ago
  Worth noting: most of us belong to several such communities, but we tend not to realize or consider it, as flat earthers do not realize what they do.

telesilla 5y ago

Let's wait a while. The long term effects of the pandemic are yet to set in.

SilasX 5y ago
There’s the joke that you can say the same thing about the French Revolution (“too early to tell”).
rebuilder 5y ago
I see your point, but I have a hard time imagining how, 20 years down the line, we could point to the SARS-COV2 pandemic as a principal cause of historic change the way the 9/11 attacks were. Contributing factor? Sure, I'm sure it'll have all kinds of downstream effects.
- ls612 5y ago
  Imagine masks, distancing restrictions, etc becoming the knee jerk response every year there’s a bad flu scare or something like the Ebola cases in 2014 happens. This pandemic will be remembered not for the virus but for the massive and permanent social changes it brought to the west.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    Also: Home office, redistribution of wealth, climate impact and not to forget the financial impact. Plus possible long covid problems in a large share of people. There's a lot we will 'enjoy' for a long time.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    If people, post-pandemic, would (voluntarily) mask up and distance when they're not feeling well, I think it would reduce flu and common-cold transmission quite a lot throughout the year. This sort of thing is already common in some places and I'd be thrilled if it became a thing in the US. (But agree that knee-jerk mandatory restrictions would be a terrible outcome.)

farmerstan 5y ago

This. Al qaeda won. They destroyed the way of American life before 9-11. We are a different country now. So much government control over the last 20 years because of the 9-11 like TSA, Patriot act, massive government surveillance all in the name of “Homeland Security”. Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers exist precisely because of 9-11. The distrust from all of the secret government acts is only part of the equation. The trillions funneled into the military complex has starved the education system. We have literally produced idiots across the US because of a horrible educational system. They can’t think critically because they don’t have to. So 20 years of this, and you have a large percentage of the population that are literally stupid and can’t think critically. They would rather die than take a vaccine or wear a mask. This is what happens when you spend money on the military and illegal wars than the education of your population. The pandemic is terrible. But 9-11 destroyed the US and put us on a horrible path that we may never recover from.

IAmGraydon 5y ago
I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted. What you’re saying is accurate. I don’t think the terrorists had the foresight to predict this kind of fallout from 9/11, but it has certainly happened none the less.
- rebuilder 5y ago
  Bin-laden directly stated Al-Qaeda's goal was to bankrupt the USA. [1] Now that's not what literally happened obviously, but adjusting for propaganda hyperbole and considering he went on to elaborate that they intend to do to the USA what they did to the Soviets - make the war too costly to be worth fighting - it seems their strategy panned out pretty well. Of course, I don't know that they could have predicted the US invasion of Iraq, for example. On the one hand, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but OTOH Al-Qaeda might have foreseen that the US leadership would not let a good crisis go to waste. Maybe the main plan was just to fight in Afghanistan, where they know they can carry out guerilla warfare indefinitely, and whatever else shakes out is probably going to play into Al-Qaeda's pocket anyway. Really the main victory Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups have won is being able to frame the discourse around their atrocities as Islamic terror. It creates tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, which leads to oppression of Muslims, which increases recruitment. In this dynamic, the worse the terror groups are, the more adherents they gain. 1: https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/ https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape...

hnbad 5y ago

> The 9/11 attacks did what Al-Qaeda intended them to - got the USA mired in an expensive, unwinnable war, which ultimately broke the US will to fight Citation very much needed. Al Qaeda is a religious fundamentalist group that wants to bring about the Islamic caliphate under theocratic rule. As I understand it, their plans with the US were primarily to get rid of the US and US influences. Destroying the US was more of an indirect long-term goal as a consequences of establishing a global Islamic hegemony. I also don't think you can talk about "breaking the US will to fight". Post-9/11 saw the transition from US soldiers to military contractors and drone strikes but also no reduction in US military bases. The influence of the US is led by its economy but reinforced by its military. If anything, the wars increased the US population's aversion to "boots on the ground" but arguably that was already on the way out ever since the traumatizing defeat in Vietnam. The US continues to be interventionalist and it continues to engage in military operations outside formal declarations of war. It also continues to maintain a massive global network of military bases and an oversized arsenal of nuclear weapons. None of that has changed. I think there's an observation to be made how the short-lived grief on 9/11 rapidly developed into a thirst for revenge and retaliation, and how computer games influenced the initial coverage of the wars (I distinctly remember the spinning 3D renderings of the missiles used in the initial attacks on Iraq) or how the US military at first embraced embedded reporting and then reporting became increasingly abstract as the wars dragged on and journalists were prohibited from showing the coffins of fallen soldiers. Twenty years later it now seems that what remained is mostly the dehumanization. I distinctly recall US politicians demanding the assassination of "traitors" like Snowden or Assange during the Obama years but even today the illegal act of war of assassinating an Iranian military official in Iraq hardly raised any eyebrows (except for people worrying about whether this would be followed up by an invasion of Iran or Iran retaliating by attacking someone else like Skinner's pigeon impotently hacking at its cell mate after an electric shock). The US hasn't lost its will to fight, but it has lost all pretense of its moral high ground. The US government being the hero in Hollywood movies was a bit quaint in the 90s but after 9/11 it's become increasingly uncomfortable to watch for non-Americans.

thrownaway810 5y ago

Yeah, either your world view is pretty closed or you’re trolling. I hope it’s the latter. The world trade centre attacks caused about 3000 deaths, and ongoing military action impacting a few countries around the world. The US makes up roughly 5% of the worlds population. The pandemic has so far killed over 4 million people. It has created lockdowns in thousands of cities you’ve never heard of and forced the scientific community of the world to work together on common problems. It has affected every government and billions of people around the world, rather than the few hundred million in the US. The pandemic is orders of magnitude more significant than the singular terrorist attack the US experienced 20 years ago. For billions of people in the world, the US and it’s foreign policies have little to no significance.