ahh yes ! The growth and commercialization of
the Internet …coupled with the PC as you suggested.
Funny, sometimes you can be so close to something you fail to see it
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The Soviet Union had an amazing system during WWII they built entire industrial cities on the fly. If they didn’t lose a ridiculous amount of people during the war, history could certainly be different. Don’t want to say that the countries in Europe and Asia destroying each other helped us grab the most powerful position in the world, but it is kind of the truth. I would agree WWII was the most significant event in the last 100 years for the country. Outside of war, the great depression. I don’t think our aftermath of this virus will come anywhere close to that other than for the next quarter, maybe two.
Let’s be honest folks.
Unless you or an immediate family member were in the military on 9/11…or at some point after that…9/11 probably didn’t affect your lives AT ALL.
I venture to say that this COVID19 thing has affected all of our lives FAR MORE than 9/11.
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Besides having to keep our luggage unlocked and taking our shoes off (which actually came later - not a result of 9-11), you are correct. But 9/11 did help elongate the recession along with the financial crisis generated by companies like Worldcom and Enron and others illegal financial tactics. People did lose their jobs and others had financial impacts from the combination of both.
The financial impact of 9/11 came later, not immediately upon the event.
9/11 had a major negative psychological impact on the country. We began to surrender civil liberties, we became more xenophobic, we fought a needless war and also escalated the war on terrorism, a war for which we still have troops in the Middle East almost 20 years after.
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Since I don’t have your military background, I guess
I can’t fully ever understand that experience. Could you elaborate more on that perspective ? Was it knowing that a new and protracted war was coming and it would have personal impact ? The consequences of that disrupting family life with upcoming and anticipated deployments ?
I know 9/11 had a significant psychological impact on me, as Sam previously stated. It is one of a few events that I can precisely remember where I was and what I was doing when learning of it.
Right now Covid would rank below WW1, World War 2 and the resulting cold war. When you think about the number of combatants and civilian deaths it is hard to wrap your head around it. I have traveled Europe and 80% of Germany was destroyed in WW2. If the Marshal plan had not worked more than likely we would have had a resulting WW3 and the end of humanity.
WW2 was one the few times in humanity that it was good versus evil.
Now Covid could rise pretty quickly if this results in a Greater Depression or we in fact do find out that Covid was part of a Chinese bio weapon that got loose. If they find that China was culpable I hope they keep it a secret for the sake of humanity.
how about the invention of the airplane…WWI ams II look much different without it, i’m fact we probably contain the spread of this covid outbreak much easier if we didn’t have air travel
invention of the internet …or television certainly we wouldn’t be having this conversation without it.
how different and more difficult would would this lock down be without either?
What’s the saying? History starts when you’re born and ends when you die? You guys are guilty of this.
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But if neither you, nor an immediate family member of yours, were in the military and had to participate in the wars you mentioned, (only a very small number of people here can say that), then as I said, those wars likely did not affect your lives AT ALL.
They affected MY life, of course, and they affected the lives of my family immediate members, but that’s really pretty exceptional. Most people here can’t say that.
Everybody else pretty here much went on about their lives as normal after 9/11. No change. No effect.
I venture to say that most of Generation Y and most millennials didn’t even experience a “psychological” impact from 9/11; they were either too young or not alive. So I don’t really buy that argument either. Generation Xers and before, sure, but that’s not everyone here.
As for civil liberties, I don’t know of any that existed then that don’t exist today.
At the most, our lives got a little more inconvenient at airports as a result of 9/11; and people that don’t travel much haven’t been greatly impacted by that either.
The Great Recession started mostly as a result of the housing market bubble and sub-prime mortgage collapse…SEVERAL YEARS after 9/11, so 9/11 didn’t really impact that.
The reality is, the lives of most Americans simply didn’t change as a result of 9/11.
CONTRAST that with COVID19, where nearly everyone here and in the country has been in a lockdown for weeks, RECORD numbers have filed for unemployment, everyone is hoarding hand sanitizer and toilet paper, gun sales are up 300%, many are working from home if they even still have jobs at all, and just about everyone here, even people in so-called “essential” jobs are wondering if they will still have them in the near future. Cancellation of entire NCAA and professional sports seasons didn’t take place as a result of 9/11, nor were restaurants, bars, and movie theaters shut down for weeks. School semesters and court dockets weren’t cancelled either, as they have been from COVID19. After 9/11, you didn’t see masses of people walking around in masks, and “social distancing.”
Church attendance SOARED after 9/11. By contrast, it has been FORBIDDEN thanks to COVID19. What were you saying about “giving up civil liberties?”
Sorry Sam, but given those FACTS, you will never convince me that 9/11 had a bigger impact, or even anywhere near as close an impact, on America as COVID19 has.
COVID19 has proven to be FAR bigger and more impactful. It has truly affected the lives of EVERYONE in America, unlike 9/11, and the effects have been far more than merely “psychological.”
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Holocaust and WWII.
For the US, the Great Depression was far worse than Covid. Banking system was altered and wasn’t unemployment installed as a result?
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1968(the entire year but especially the election, Fall of the Soviet Union with the end of the cold war, Vietnam war, Civil Rights Movement, 9/11, Landing on the moon. There are far too many substantial events to state one above all the others.
The Great Depression was far worse than Covid?
You have no way of knowing that yet. We are only in the first weeks and 22 million people are unemployed. lets answer this question in a year.
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Indeed.
Some economists are predicting depression level conditions on top of death and disease. Churches, schools, sports teams, restaurants, and bars are all closed across the county, and people are on lock down; that didn’t happen at any previous time in our nation’s history TO THIS DEGREE.
It’s DAMN significant and impactful.
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What we choose is determined by how we define significant. If it means the biggest event or the one that is seared in your memory then WW II and the Holocaust would be my choices as well. If it’s something that fundamentally alters how we live, I would probably say the computer. And many of us will answer from a Western perspective. Someone in China may view the Taiping Rebellion or the Communist or Cultural Revolution as more significant than the Holocaust. But I think of more universal happenings, generally scientific or technological. JMHO. Really aren’t any wrong answers, except maybe Delmar’s. 
First, it can’t be the Spanish Flu of 1918 unless you’re bad at math.
IMHO…for the US at least
- WW2
- Coronavirus
- Vietnam War
- 9/11
- ?
By the end of this month Coronavirus likely will have killed more Americans than the Vietnam War (1956-1975).
which part of my response would that be Sam.
I think it is just a question that requires many answers
Note the above emoji 
I was playing off of Ryon’s comment about not having to serve in the two wars and the war on terror.
I don’t disagree with most. The initial shock of 9/11 was significant on the nation because we watched 3K of our citizens murdered on national TV. We had to respond to the first war, but we’ve been there at least 15 years too long and the 2nd war should have never been started. The war on terror had to occur and will last a long time in different states and intensity over time.
We definitely have lost civil liverties and for which those laws and rules have been abused. Probably less likey to agree on the xenophobic perspective which if existed, was more focused on Islamic terrorists. I think COVID-19 may have a much bigger impact on xenophobic tendancies. Hopefully not, but this will change our relationship with China for decades to come.
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I saw it personally on the few Muslims at my school. I thought it was pretty clear on the national level, hate crimes on Muslims and people from the Middle East increased and many had some pretty bad situations happen to them. Also have a French friend who owned a bakery here in the US. Never realized the hate that was placed on French people until I talked with him about things after 9/11. His sales plummeted, people telling them to go back to France, even some threats of violence.
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