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September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

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Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to all the conspiracy-fueled madness that led to 1/6/21, which is the only other day that began to feel like 9/11. THAT is an interesting, and wildly speculative, take.

The Daily from the NYT had an episode a few days ago precisely on this idea. Very interesting. So not totally far fetched I'd say. [1] https://pca.st/episode/6deccd04-ca45-404b-8537-c4bbe73fedb9

Interesting. I have to check this out. The description clocks to me as making perfect sense. I usually find that podcast insultingly reductive, hypersensitive and whiny, but put me in a room with anyone who remembers the Bush administration and I guess I'm still a liberal yet. The premise at least is solidly grounded in the effect I've witnessed. Thanks.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#512

I sometimes forget how surreal that day was. Was in high school at the time and sort of at “that age” where the world was still pretty small and revolved around me. Mom waking me up to say “you need to watch this,” with the TV on and both towers are on fire. The morning variety newscasters breaking their household familiarity speaking in a frightening shock that was so out of character. Still went to school that day…

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.

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.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#513
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite an answer to your question, but in the 60s and 70s hijackings were quite common (86 hijackings in 1969) and weren’t seen in the way they are now. The common understanding was that the hijackers wanted to re-route the plane somewhere else, and that everyone would end up alive but inconvenienced. It’s also one reason why only the passengers in United 93 fought back; the idea of a plane as a missile wasn’t wid…

Wow 86 hijackings and nobody in intelligence could ever conceive of how that could go horribly wrong

Most people survived them though so there wasn't a huge reason to do anything particularly drastic, using planes as a suicide missile was basically entirely new. Even on the day of there was speculation about why the planes 'messed up' and flew into the WTC buildings which shows just how unusual it was. Most hijackings were essentially mass kidnappings for ransom to get money, release prisoners or get promises of policy changes and ended with a negotiation or storming the plane.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird. I lived in LA at the time and I was in my early 20s. I remember my gf waking me up at 6:30am to go look at the TV. It doesn't feel like an historical or far-away event to me. It seems like the most pivotal moment of my life, when this country changed and everything changed. We were worried about LA being attacked, worried about bio/chem attacks. Suddenly there were no-fly lists, and things called TSA and…

> to all the conspiracy-fueled madness that led to 1/6/21, which is the only other day that began to feel like 9/11. THAT is an interesting, and wildly speculative, take.

PBS Frontline had documentary outlining this exact path. Would recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5iBxva_pm8

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#516

Unpopular question, how did a plane and jet fuel burn down a steel reinforced building? I believe in the entire history of buildings built as the world trade centers were, the only ones ever that burned down and collapse are these. The only way as civil engineers have explained it to me, that the buildings structural qualities could have been compromised, are with additional heat sources besides a jet and jet fuel. I…

> I believe in the entire history of buildings built as the world trade centers were, the only ones ever that burned down and collapse are these. How many of the other buildings were struck head-on by fully loaded 767s traveling at 400+ mph? Is there any real-world example to compare?

Great question., In 1925, the Empire State was struck by a b-25 bomber. It did not collapse.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you made it abundantly clear that the mere prospect of contributing to saving hundreds of thousands of lives means nothing to you, so I’m wondering what your motivation is to continue spreading your propaganda.

As an engineer, I'm not concerned with "mere prospects". I'm concerned with what is actually effective.

Wow, what kind of work do you do if you are unable to ever act without having 110% of the information? You can't be building anything, that's for sure.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#518
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several hundred thousand people could have been saved in the US if these measures had been taken seriously, early enough, compared to other first world countries. Social distancing, closing schools, etc. were proven methods that showed the difference between cities with horrible losses and much better outcomes for the Spanish Flu. (Edit: Washington had his troops in the revolutionary war quarantined, separated, and i…

> Several hundred thousand people could have been saved in the US if these measures had been taken seriously That is baseless speculation. > Social distancing, closing schools, etc. were proven methods that showed the difference between cities with horrible losses and much better outcomes for the Spanish Flu. Where is the source? And that was a completely different disease, which had the worst outcomes for young peop…

With a world population of 7.9 bio, global COVID deaths of 4.55 mio, a U.S. population of 328.2 mio, and U.S. COVID deaths of 661 k, the U.S. has ~4.4% of the world population, yet >14% of the COVID deaths.

Even if the U.S. had managed to simply reach the average of the world of 0.058% mortality, i.e. competing against such beacons of healthcare and wealth as the Congo, the U.S. outcome would have been a mere 190k, i.e. 470k souls saved.

Unless you're suggesting that U.S. Americans are somehow inherently inferior to people in other countries, or that the health care system is the world's worst, one would think that the differences will lie in policy and different measures would have changed the outcome.

I'll leave it as an exercise to you to draw a fairer comparison, maybe by comparing to OECD countries rather than all of them.

Astounding, how generous you are with other people's lives. Dogmatism is overlooking the data and holding on to your misbelief. You will know more about that than I do, I am afraid.

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#519

When reviewing 9/11 attacks (likely the biggest and most disastrous intelligence failure in U.S. history, give or take Pearl Harbor), it's worth remembering that it could have been much worse. If the first plane had hit Indian Point nuclear reactor what, 30 miles from NYC and upwind? It's likely a Chernobyl/Fukushima disaster would have resulted with an exclusion zone well into NYC. That was reportedly part of the pl…

Pearl Harbor was unforeseeable. We knew the range of their planes and did not remotely expect that they would come anyways, when a return trip would be impossible. 9/11 on the other hand, was deemed a real threat during Clinton's administration.

Actually Pearl Harbour WAS forseeable; it was attacked/chosen because the Japanese saw the US dismiss the results of two war game tests on the exact site. The Japanese also waited for similar conditions to those used in the war games tests for maximum effectiveness.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27345075

Re: September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time

#520
post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pearl Harbor was unforeseeable. We knew the range of their planes and did not remotely expect that they would come anyways, when a return trip would be impossible. 9/11 on the other hand, was deemed a real threat during Clinton's administration.

This sounds like old information. Things have been declassified since then.

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