Bigger event in our lifetimes?

[Calthrina950]

My God, there are actually people who think that COVID is going to go down in history as more important than 9/11.

Yes, there are.

I would say that it's still to early to say in regards to the after effects, but I wouldn't be saying what isn't obvious.

This is like asking whether WWI or the Spanish Flu was the bigger event of the 1910s.

I actually discussed this earlier. The two World Wars continue to have a major impact on international politics, society, and technology in the modern era, even though they've been over for 102 and 75 years respectively, while the Spanish Flu was largely forgotten for decades until this current pandemic. We could very well see the same happen with 9/11 and coronavirus.

[darklordoftech]

The public and political reaction towards this outbreak is actually largely the result of the culture of paranoia 9/11 created.

9/11 definitely wasn’t the beginning of the culture of paranoia. Columbine, kidnappings, crime and drugs in the 1960s-1990s, McCarthyism, Japanese Internment, Prohibition, the First Red Scare, the League of Nations debates, Wilson’s policies during WWI, the Civil War and the events leading up to it, the Know-Nothings, the Anti-Masonic Party, the “corrupt bargain”, the Salem Witch Trials, the Black Plague, etc.

[Blue3]

9/11. I just don't see COVID-19 changing the nature of society substantially, except that we'll be better prepared for the next pandemic. 9/11 defined a decade of politics and culture. I don't think COVID will at all.

Why don't you think it will?

I'm kind of tempted to do another version of this thread, but 4 choices, so people can identify if they were actually old enough to remember and understand 9/11 when it happened, and see where thoughts fall that way.

I don't see what would change and I tend to think people want things to be exactly as they were. What do you expect? A slightly higher Zoom userbase?

Not to get more people, but to know the ages of people currently voting which way. I've seen people who didn't experience 9/11 tend to think it's more impactful than the coronavirus, and I want to see if that's true here too.

[bagelman]

My God, there are actually people who think that COVID is going to go down in history as more important than 9/11.

Yes, there are.

I would say that it's still to early to say in regards to the after effects, but I wouldn't be saying what isn't obvious.

This is like asking whether WWI or the Spanish Flu was the bigger event of the 1910s.

9/11 was a petty car accident compared to WWI. COVID-19 isn't even over yet.

You think it's so obvious because you're read textbooks about "post 9/11 society" but for real people far more are going to be effected by COVID-19. If the pandemic magically ends tomorrow, then you may have an argument, but we can't actually have an intellectually honest debate about the significance of an ongoing event. It's like trying to talk about how 9/11 will effect the 2004 Presidential race while the towers are burning in real time.

[Beet]

Let's see, covid-19 lasts far longer, kills far more people, and effects the whole world rather than just a handful of office buildings, but 9/11 had a big, fiery explosion. So 9/11.

[Sumner 1868]

The public and political reaction towards this outbreak is actually largely the result of the culture of paranoia 9/11 created.

9/11 definitely wasn’t the beginning of the culture of paranoia. Columbine, kidnappings, crime and drugs in the 1960s-1990s, McCarthyism, Japanese Internment, Prohibition, the First Red Scare, the League of Nations debates, Wilson’s policies during WWI, the Civil War and the events leading up to it, the Know-Nothings, the Anti-Masonic Party, the “corrupt bargain”, the Salem Witch Trials, the Black Plague, etc.

Yes, but it hit a peak point after 2001. Can you imagine convincing the masses to essentially shut down virtually everything over a single virus in 1995? I can't.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

the answer to the poll is obviously 9/11. It set the stage for so many facets of the 2000s and 2010s and its aftershocks remain with us to this day.
Meanwhile coronavirus is just a mere epidemic that people will not want to remember and will instead try to forget. Sure, it disrupted life for about five months or so, at most? But who wants that to be their main memory of life in the first half of the 21st century?

I don't really think it matters what people "want" to be their main memory: I highly doubt people were that thrilled that 9-11 was their big cultural touchstone of the new millennium or that the assassination of JFK was so important for the early 60's.

Regardless, we are barely out of the woods of this pandemic. Even if the lasting impact on culture and society is less than the sudden impact of the Twin Towers (which is itself an assumption and a half; even if we ignore the fact that there is a world outside America), we haven't even begun to think about what the total geopolitical impact of the propaganda disaster this has been for the Chinese, what regimes are going to survive intact, the political effect on the democratic countries, the massive coming impact on the economy and so on. This isn't going to be like "wow remember when the Premier League was cancelled and we had to quarentine for ages"; this is going to have huge lasting impacts on almost all aspects of life.

Some could argue that the impact of COVID-19 will be merely accelerating existent trends: which is fair, but a label that could also be fairly applied to 9/11.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

the answer to the poll is obviously 9/11. It set the stage for so many facets of the 2000s and 2010s and its aftershocks remain with us to this day.
Meanwhile coronavirus is just a mere epidemic that people will not want to remember and will instead try to forget. Sure, it disrupted life for about five months or so, at most? But who wants that to be their main memory of life in the first half of the 21st century?

I don't really think it matters what people "want" to be their main memory: I highly doubt people were that thrilled that 9-11 was their big cultural touchstone of the new millennium or that the assassination of JFK was so important for the early 60's.

Regardless, we are barely out of the woods of this pandemic. Even if the lasting impact on culture and society is less than the sudden impact of the Twin Towers (which is itself an assumption and a half; even if we ignore the fact that there is a world outside America), we haven't even begun to think about what the total geopolitical impact of the propaganda disaster this has been for the Chinese, what regimes are going to survive intact, the political effect on the democratic countries, the massive coming impact on the economy and so on. This isn't going to be like "wow remember when the Premier League was cancelled and we had to quarentine for ages"; this is going to have huge lasting impacts on almost all aspects of life.

Some could argue that the impact of COVID-19 will be merely accelerating existent trends: which is fair, but a label that could also be fairly applied to 9/11.

This will only have a huge lasting impact on almost all aspects of life if the public will tolerate that.
I'm not convinced of that. Socially people will rub it underneath the rug, even if economically the cat will be out of the bag.
Your post is three paragraphs worth of recency bias in Atlas forum post form, overestimating what exactly the overall impact will be.
If anything this virus has been a stabilizer. It has shored up governments, not destabilizing them. In this it has been unusual. Approval ratings of most governments have gone up. Boris Johnson's Tory party is polling in the sky.
And no, it has NOT been a "propaganda disaster" for China. I only wish it was. But they wised up and did lots of effort to repair a situation they helped worsen.
Additionally: even if it was the single most profound event of the 2020s (quite possible), it will not be the only epidemic we have to deal with over the next five decades, and something more important is bound to come along. Even leaving aside 9/11 (9/11 is obviously more influential and traumatic), corona itself will be surpassed by something else.
Remember, Corona is not a lethal disease, by and large, and the vast, vast share of people who get it recover. That might not be the case with some future disease that while spreading less overall is substantially deadlier.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

the answer to the poll is obviously 9/11. It set the stage for so many facets of the 2000s and 2010s and its aftershocks remain with us to this day.
Meanwhile coronavirus is just a mere epidemic that people will not want to remember and will instead try to forget. Sure, it disrupted life for about five months or so, at most? But who wants that to be their main memory of life in the first half of the 21st century?

I don't really think it matters what people "want" to be their main memory: I highly doubt people were that thrilled that 9-11 was their big cultural touchstone of the new millennium or that the assassination of JFK was so important for the early 60's.

Regardless, we are barely out of the woods of this pandemic. Even if the lasting impact on culture and society is less than the sudden impact of the Twin Towers (which is itself an assumption and a half; even if we ignore the fact that there is a world outside America), we haven't even begun to think about what the total geopolitical impact of the propaganda disaster this has been for the Chinese, what regimes are going to survive intact, the political effect on the democratic countries, the massive coming impact on the economy and so on. This isn't going to be like "wow remember when the Premier League was cancelled and we had to quarentine for ages"; this is going to have huge lasting impacts on almost all aspects of life.

Some could argue that the impact of COVID-19 will be merely accelerating existent trends: which is fair, but a label that could also be fairly applied to 9/11.

Your post is three paragraphs worth of recency bias in Atlas forum post form, overestimating what exactly the overall impact will be.

If anything this virus has been a stabilizer. It has shored up governments, not destabilizing them. In this it has been unusual. Approval ratings of most governments have gone up. Boris Johnson's Tory party is polling in the sky.
And no, it has NOT been a "propaganda disaster" for China. I only wish it was. But they wised up and did lots of effort to repair a situation they helped worsen.

I'm sorry, but this post is delusional. If you really think the entire global economy can be stopped for half a year and everybody to be like, ah well, big deal, afterwards you aren't paying attention to anything. The fact that most leaders have good approval ratings means precisely jacksh**t - we are still in the end of the begining of this crisis, and we have literally no idea to what extent institutions can survive. Geopolitically we have a massive flare-up between the US and China that could very well be the impetus for a renewed Cold War; we have even more strain that could have unforseen effects on the Eurozone; a gigantic oil glut that is going to cause an unprecedented wave of deflation; massive disruption to global business that could obliterate weaker firms in certain sectors and so on.

The relatively unimportant matter of the fataility rate of the disease itself is small potatoes; the downstream effects are going to dwarf it.

[Person Man]

I really want to see what happens in the next couple of years. If you were to tell the average person during the Spanish Flu that the 1920s would be remembered as "the roaring 20s", they wouldn't believe you.

[darklordoftech]

Can you imagine convincing the masses to essentially shut down virtually everything over a single virus in 1995?

Yes. The era of viruses without vaccines was already a distant memory, so the shock and lack of preparation would still be there.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Bump, to see what people's perspectives are now.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

My God, there are actually people who think that COVID is going to go down in history as more important than 9/11.

Yes, there are.

I would say that it's still to early to say in regards to the after effects, but I wouldn't be saying what isn't obvious.

This is like asking whether WWI or the Spanish Flu was the bigger event of the 1910s.

I think it's fairly obvious that WWI was orders of magnitude more impactful than 9/11, whereas a reasonable case can be made that COVID-19 is at least as impactful as the Spanish Influenza, and quite probably more. So your comparison is junk, even if you consider only political fallout.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My God, there are actually people who think that COVID is going to go down in history as more important than 9/11.

Yes, there are.

I would say that it's still to early to say in regards to the after effects, but I wouldn't be saying what isn't obvious.

This is like asking whether WWI or the Spanish Flu was the bigger event of the 1910s.

I think it's fairly obvious that WWI was orders of magnitude more impactful than 9/11, whereas a reasonable case can be made that COVID-19 is at least as impactful as the Spanish Influenza, and quite probably more. So your comparison is junk, even if you consider only political fallout.

Dule's post from back in 2020 is still right in terms of what matters for the validity of the comparison. Also. really the only reason that Covid is held in this stature as of right now is because of contemporary bias. It also undersells the relative importance of the Spanish Flu in fields like medicine.

[Calthrina950]

My God, there are actually people who think that COVID is going to go down in history as more important than 9/11.

Yes, there are.

I would say that it's still to early to say in regards to the after effects, but I wouldn't be saying what isn't obvious.

This is like asking whether WWI or the Spanish Flu was the bigger event of the 1910s.

I actually discussed this earlier. The two World Wars continue to have a major impact on international politics, society, and technology in the modern era, even though they've been over for 102 and 75 years respectively, while the Spanish Flu was largely forgotten for decades until this current pandemic. We could very well see the same happen with 9/11 and coronavirus.

More than a year on, and I've come around to the viewpoint that the coronavirus pandemic has probably been the most significant event of the 21st century thus far, even though the importance of 9/11 cannot be understated.

[Ferguson97]

I was holding my answer until we saw how the pandemic ended and the answer is now clearly 9/11. Much of the effects of covid will be forgotten in a year or so (by that I mean a time traveler from 2019 would not notice anything off if they went to 2022/23).

9/11 and it’s succeeding events completely turned the perception of American intervention and foreign policy, and paved the way for Muslims to be a boogeyman.

9/11 is absolutely the answer here.

[fluffypanther19]

covid-19 personally but thats because i was too young to remember 9/11

[LAKISYLVANIA]

I was holding my answer until we saw how the pandemic ended and the answer is now clearly 9/11. Much of the effects of covid will be forgotten in a year or so (by that I mean a time traveler from 2019 would not notice anything off if they went to 2022/23).

9/11 and it’s succeeding events completely turned the perception of American intervention and foreign policy, and paved the way for Muslims to be a boogeyman.

9/11 is absolutely the answer here.

Lol

Covid-19 is literally a 100 times more impactful than 9/11.

It will take years to recover from covid19. 9/11 didn't cause an economical crisis FYI if you look it that way.

But 9/11 didn't impact me, didn't impact my parents, didn't impact all of my family, didn't even impact 99% of American families. Covid-19 changed life for almost one and a half year with events being cancelled and impacting our lives that way, and infected many people, caused much more lives.

9/11 didn't make me depressed, covid-19 certainly did.

In fact, i know this was in april 2020, but if this was still competitive, it would be an insult for me.

[Ferguson97]

I was holding my answer until we saw how the pandemic ended and the answer is now clearly 9/11. Much of the effects of covid will be forgotten in a year or so (by that I mean a time traveler from 2019 would not notice anything off if they went to 2022/23).

9/11 and it’s succeeding events completely turned the perception of American intervention and foreign policy, and paved the way for Muslims to be a boogeyman.

9/11 is absolutely the answer here.

Lol

Covid-19 is literally a 100 times more impactful than 9/11.

It will take years to recover from covid19. 9/11 didn't cause an economical crisis FYI if you look it that way.

But 9/11 didn't impact me, didn't impact my parents, didn't impact all of my family, didn't even impact 99% of American families. Covid-19 changed life for almost one and a half year with events being cancelled and impacting our lives that way, and infected many people, caused much more lives.

9/11 didn't make me depressed, covid-19 certainly did.

In fact, i know this was in april 2020, but if this was still competitive, it would be an insult for me.

This is ridiculous. 9/11 shaped the foreign policy of the world's superpower, resulted in far more deaths and displacements globally than covid-19, and we're still seeing its impact two decades later. We're not going to see the effects of covid-19 years later except maybe giving the option of white-collar workers to work from home.

If you're making this completely about you then sure, maybe you could argue that covid-19 had a bigger impact on your life personally, but it makes no sense to say that covid-19 was more influential than 9/11.

[parochial boy]

I mean Covid, apart from the effect it had on everyone's day to day lives, the number of dead, appears to have triggered a major long term overhaul of both the global economy and of the structure of geopolitical power and international relations.

In contrast,9/11 triggered wars in the Middle east and had a traumatic impact in North America, but remarkably little beyond that (for me as a European, 9/11 had essentially zero impact on my life, covid... far more). Any honest analysis is that 9/11 absolutely pales in comparison with the significance that Covid has had

[LAKISYLVANIA]

I was holding my answer until we saw how the pandemic ended and the answer is now clearly 9/11. Much of the effects of covid will be forgotten in a year or so (by that I mean a time traveler from 2019 would not notice anything off if they went to 2022/23).

9/11 and it’s succeeding events completely turned the perception of American intervention and foreign policy, and paved the way for Muslims to be a boogeyman.

9/11 is absolutely the answer here.

Lol

Covid-19 is literally a 100 times more impactful than 9/11.

It will take years to recover from covid19. 9/11 didn't cause an economical crisis FYI if you look it that way.

But 9/11 didn't impact me, didn't impact my parents, didn't impact all of my family, didn't even impact 99% of American families. Covid-19 changed life for almost one and a half year with events being cancelled and impacting our lives that way, and infected many people, caused much more lives.

9/11 didn't make me depressed, covid-19 certainly did.

In fact, i know this was in april 2020, but if this was still competitive, it would be an insult for me.

This is ridiculous. 9/11 shaped the foreign policy of the world's superpower, resulted in far more deaths and displacements globally than covid-19, and we're still seeing its impact two decades later. We're not going to see the effects of covid-19 years later except maybe giving the option of white-collar workers to work from home.

If you're making this completely about you then sure, maybe you could argue that covid-19 had a bigger impact on your life personally, but it makes no sense to say that covid-19 was more influential than 9/11.

The foreign policy of the world's superpower had always been like this. It's exactly why 9/11 happened.

And sorry, but there have been 4M deaths by covid 19 unless you argue the US foreign policies after 2001 caused more lives internationally than the Holocaust? (and at the same time argue trump is worse than dubya)

[SnowLabrador]

COVID. How is this even a question?

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Iraq was also about resources and geopolitical economic power & balances. Not about "revenge for 9/11". The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq + 9/11 in general and terrorist drone hunts didn't cause 4 million lives as well. Of course, every death is one too many if it can be avoided. But it's not on par with covid 19 in any way. Covid 19 is the biggest event since WW2 and will impact people's lives for their entire life. Except for the "digital / social media revolution", and perhaps other evolutions & changes on a relatively longer scale instead of sudden events, in which covid 19 clearly wins.

[GeneralMacArthur]

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.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

9/11 was something I saw on TV. Covid has heavily impacted my personal life for over a year.