Bigger event in our lifetimes?

[John Dule]

I stand by my comments in this thread.

[wimp]

9/11 is more comparable to the shooting of Franz Ferdinand than it is to WWI itself.

[courts]

covid but more because of the economic/societal costs than death toll

[H. Ross Peron]

I voted for COVID-19 and it's certainly been more impactful on a person-to-person basis, but I've changed my mind.  I think in 100 years people will still be talking about 9/11, but they won't be talking about COVID-19 much.  9/11 was a uniquely impactful event that completely changed the dynamics of middle eastern politics forever.  It was also uniquely horrifying and awful in a way that will likely remain unmatched by history.  COVID-19 will mostly be remembered for the novelty of global shutdowns and the interesting ways different countries and groups chose to handle it.

The cold truth is that lots and lots of people dying ultimately doesn't matter in the course of history.  People die, they are replaced with more people, and the world keeps turning.  It only matters in that it continues to impact subsequent generations.  COVID-19 was so random in who lived and who died that the impact of its death toll will be forgotten in a year to those who didn't lose friends or family.  Unless the cultural changes we made become permanent (remote work is the most likely to stick around) its impact will vanish within the decade.

Contrast this with something like the epidemics that wiped out the entirety of Central America in the 16th century.  We remember these, not because lots and lots of people dying is interesting to history, but because of the geopolitical ramifications of their deaths.  The population collapse in Central America cleared the way for European occupation and exploitation, and the legacy of those lost civilizations remains a source of cultural and historical interest to this day.

How many people remembered the Lusitania (for example) a century later? Even the San Francisco earthquake is probably less remembered than the Spanish flu nowadays. You might point to the Titanic, but that's dependent on multiple films being made about it decades later...

[Schiff for Senate]

Both events were huge and I can see the case for either - but I vote COVID-19.

  9/11 changed airport security forever, boosted a fear/animostity/distrust by some for Islam/the Middle East, and prompted two wars, the impact of which continued long afterword.  It changed foreign policy forever.


   However, I am more biased toward COVID-19, since I wasn't alive at the time of 9/11, while I have seen firsthand the impact of COVID-19. COVID-19 has transformed everyday life completely - it pervades everyday life. 9/11 was a huge event, but its effects didn't impact everything in our lives. COVID-19 did. Schools, businesses, restaurants, and more were closed in an unprecedented government lockdown. The economy tanked to worse than the Great Depression; unemployment soared. Thousands of people (several times as many as died on 9/11) have died from COVID-19 in the US alone. And the long term effect of COVID-19 is yet to be seen - whether things will ever really be able to completely open up without the risk of spreading disease ever again. Yes, COVID-19 is getting better, and likely won't be a serious problem within the next year - but what happened then was still completely unprecedented.

 To put it another way, 9/11 did have an enormous international impact, nearly as big as COVID-19. But in terms of impacting people's everyday lives, COVID-19 does so by a lot more.  True, there was an emotional impact for everyone. But it's not as if it definitively altered everyone's everyday life - it didn't lead to mass firings, the death of loved ones (except in the case of those who died in the attacks or as first responders) and the complete transformation of how you work / attend school / go outside.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

I kinda take umbridge with how the question is phrased since there's a clear age discrepancy in the answers. I mean, most of the folks saying Covid-19 freely admit it's because they weren't old enough to remember life before, during or after Fall 2001. You might as well ask "Were you born before or after January 1, 1992?".

Other than that and despite the changes that've already occurred in response, I'd give it another 3-4 years before fully gauging the societal effects of COVID. It could end up being the most consequential period in global history since WW2 or most folks will keep doing what they're doing as if the last 15 months were one giant blur.

But for the sake of the poll, I voted 9/11.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

In the short term? Covid wins hands down.

In the long term? Unclear, because Covid is still way too recent.

Oh, and I'm old enough to remember 9/11.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Covid isn't that big of a deal we had plagued before and after our lifetimes we will have plagues, everyone knows s gonna to die, during Egyptian empire, they had the black plsgue

We aren't gonna know how we are gonna die, because we don't die from fatal heart attacks or strokes that much anymore that's why our lives have been extended

[John Dule]

I kinda take umbridge with how the question is phrased since there's a clear age discrepancy in the answers. I mean, most of the folks saying Covid-19 freely admit it's because they weren't old enough to remember life before, during or after Fall 2001. You might as well ask "Were you born before or after January 1, 1992?".

Other than that and despite the changes that've already occurred in response, I'd give it another 3-4 years before fully gauging the societal effects of COVID. It could end up being the most consequential period in global history since WW2 or most folks will keep doing what they're doing as if the last 15 months were one giant blur.

But for the sake of the poll, I voted 9/11.

How positively trelawneyous of you.

[Samof94]

I kinda take umbridge with how the question is phrased since there's a clear age discrepancy in the answers. I mean, most of the folks saying Covid-19 freely admit it's because they weren't old enough to remember life before, during or after Fall 2001. You might as well ask "Were you born before or after January 1, 1992?".

Other than that and despite the changes that've already occurred in response, I'd give it another 3-4 years before fully gauging the societal effects of COVID. It could end up being the most consequential period in global history since WW2 or most folks will keep doing what they're doing as if the last 15 months were one giant blur.

But for the sake of the poll, I voted 9/11.

Covid 19 also seemed to be less U.S. centric too. It had hit other countries first.

[Sir Mohamed]

COVID-19 affects almost everyone's social life, almost all aspects of the economy and much more. Some things will have changed forever after the pandemic and its economic outfall will last for several more years. Not to mention about 10% of people that had an infection will have to suffer from Long Covid for many more months, perhaps to the end of their lives. 9/11 was huge, but this pandemic is a much bigger deal in my honest opinion.

[GeneralMacArthur]

COVID-19 affects almost everyone's social life, almost all aspects of the economy and much more. Some things will have changed forever after the pandemic and its economic outfall will last for several more years. Not to mention about 10% of people that had an infection will have to suffer from Long Covid for many more months, perhaps to the end of their lives. 9/11 was huge, but this pandemic is a much bigger deal in my honest opinion.

Even if we have a huge class of people who suffer from long COVID and are a constant feature of our society for the next 50 years, I think COVID will end up being remembered like the Spanish Flu, the polio epidemic, or other epidemics that seriously shook American society.  People will remember the macabre details, the specific iconography around that time period, some specifics of the disease, and some famous people who died, but otherwise it will just be a blur.

9/11 will be remembered like Pearl Harbor.  It's 2020 and everyone's still completely fascinated and horrified by this attack on American soil from 79 years ago.

[Samof94]

COVID-19 affects almost everyone's social life, almost all aspects of the economy and much more. Some things will have changed forever after the pandemic and its economic outfall will last for several more years. Not to mention about 10% of people that had an infection will have to suffer from Long Covid for many more months, perhaps to the end of their lives. 9/11 was huge, but this pandemic is a much bigger deal in my honest opinion.

Even the Japanese had to send people to work from home.