would things be better if 9/11 never happened?

[skykiii]

Just a random thought I had, the theory has been floated that some of our modern social ills all ultimately sprang from 9/11 causing our culture to do a rapid about-face.

I've heard it suggested that some aspects of SJW culture were actually a show of supplication (remember one of the first things they were up in arms about was "Islamophobia"). as sort of some instinctual tendency towards a sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

But I've also heard it the other way around--one person told me they thought 9/11 might've been a blessing in disguise because the afformentioned "Islamophobia" nonsense was the straw that broke the camel's back with regards to PC culture--it's kind of hard to convince people not to hate the nation that literally just attacked them, after all--and this led to a domino effect of people questioning other PC values, and now we're beginning to see a turnaround.

What do you think? How would the world be different if 9/11 hadn't happened?

 

[Bogliacci]

9/11 would have happened in one form or another to justify the patriot-act or something like it.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

Political Correctness existed before 9/11, it would have come about eventually. Some kind of terrorist attack would have happened as Islamic militants wanted to attack the West and there was enough distinction in the national security organizations that something would have slipped through.

Afghanistan would probably be invaded if the terrorists had ties with the Taliban. Iraq would not be invaded depending on the political leaders in the US. Different leaders may influence the resulting Patriot Act, but something would have passed to increase national security.

Even if there is no terrorist attack, there would be a financial housing crisis in the US because 90s legislation caused the crisis.

Ultimately, the US would feel like it was still living in the 90s but something would have forced America into the harsh reality of the 21st century.

 

[The Backwards Man]

Something gayer and glowier probably would have happened.

 

[Shart Attack]

Biden is on record taking credit for the PATRIOT Act, which he claimed was based on equally illiberal legislation he helped write in the 90s after the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings. Congress had been laying the groundwork for something like the PATRIOT Act for years, and it was only a matter of time before some crisis gave them an excuse to roll it out, with their lapdogs in the mass media drumming up popular support for it.

As Imperial Citizen says, the 2008 recession was caused by shitty regulation, poor oversight, and absolute financial retardation, not terrorism.

The US has had designs on the Middle East since before any of us were born, specifically Iran. It's always been inconvenient having a Muslim power like Iran in the region that isn't amenable to American interests and has the strength to oppose them, which is why we've been fucking with them since the 1950s. Plus those brown assholes are squatting on top of a lot of oil, and by golly, Uncle Sam has a mighty thirst for oil. If 9/11 didn't give us a pretense to invade the Middle East, the CIA would've come up with something about protecting Israel from Azerbaijan or whatever the fuck.

I could write an autistic thesis about how I blame smartphones and social media for our current state of permanent social unrest, but suffice it to say, I don't see a link between current SJW madness and 9/11. The lefties in 2001 who wanted to limit the government's power and stop bombing brown people are now considered nazi Republicans by 2023's leftists, who want the government to have limitless power and bomb white people.

We might've been spared some of the more cringe-inducing country music of the early 2000s.

 

[David Brown]

-it's kind of hard to convince people not to hate the nation that literally just attacked them, after all

But antisemitism didn't broadly increase among the population after 9/11, at least not immediately. Americans hated the fall guy Osama Bin Laden who used to be a CIA darling.

 

[Never Scored]

Political Correctness existed before 9/11, it would have come about eventually.

I'd go as far as to say 9/11 actually slowed the progress political correctness was making in the 1990s.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The main issue with modern day USA is rooted in Occupy Wall Street. 9/11 just resulted in a last burst of aggression of a dying rotting empire.

 

[Otterly]

I watched the thing live on TV from the time just after the first one hit. I remember saying to my flatmates at the time that this would be a society defining event with massive consequences.
Would things be better? I don’t know it was the first modern ‘big crisis used to push repressive law’ that I saw (maybe others before? I don’t know but the patriot act was a monster.) when they got away with that it was clear that the same shock doctrine stuff would be part of the playbook forever and it has been . Covid was a huge flex of power like that. There will be more events that lead to laws. Patriot act tied up a lot of surveillance stuff for electronic and physical. Covid has ceded national sovereignty to the WHO and brought in precedent that your civil rights are out the window of there’s a public health issue (and oddly, quite a lot of stuff like racism was redefined as a public health issue before that)
The next steps will be geofencing, travel restrictions, loss of mass travel, and loss of right of movement. You’ve already seen the start of this with covid passports and fifteen minute cities and banning short flights. There will also be digital wallets linked to a social score and possibly rationing of neat or anything else that’s deemed bad.
So think of a crisis that could be used for that amd place your bets.
No, I think the world would be just as bad.