9/11. I still remember the soot from the WTC on the cars in Brooklyn. I still remember having nightmares about being bombed and waking up every night. I still remember yelling "no no no" at the TV when the first building went down. I still remember thinking how the world had changed forever. I still remember, and I'll never forget
I can't believe no one's mentioned the World Wide Web and the personal computer. I'd say this has affected our lives more than anything in the past 15 years.
I think the two events that have had the greatest global impact in my lifetime are- The collapse of the Soviet Union The development of the Internet 9/11 was tragic and important, but it's global impact does not hold a candle to these events.
The Internet and the satellite. They have revolutionized the world in ways that most people don't appreciate. It affects EVERYTHING you can imagine: global economy, politics, science, and societies the world over. True globalization wouldn't be possible without both, and they've reduced distances between people the world over and made this a truly small planet. These technological breakthroughs of the past few decades have literally changed -- and continue to change and transform -- the course of history. As for the most tragic, I think any natural disaster that's taken place just in the past few years would rank right up there in the 'most tragic' category, as well as man-made disasters.
INTERNET, that's the single most significant change has happened to me in life. Seriously, without Internet, any of those disasters would not be drawing so much attention globally, including 911. Without Internet, US wouldn't be in such a superior position in economy and technology, hence militarily. Without Internet, we wouldn't be discussing this topic here
I would have to go with the Tsunami. A close second would be the IRA calling an end to arms violence against London. Another one which prob. affected me the most was the Serbo-Croat War.
For me, it would probably have to be the technological breakthroughs in the past 15 years. Simply mind blowing to think about. How did we live without the internet? How did we live without cell phones? Even something so recent as dial-up internet seems archaic. I wonder where the internet ranks among the world's greatest inventions...
I seriously cannot think of any 'world event' that tops the top dozen or more personal events in my life. Corny...but true.
Yeah...they're pretty seemless. There'll be a digital gold rush that'll make companies today look like the Bronze Age
for me personally? Quitting my cushey and soul-crushing dot com job and moving to Israel to get a masters in Creative Writing, losing 40 pounds, breaking up with my girlfriend there, after getting ripped off by her coke-dealing father, who stole my bicycle that was given to me as a gift by a professional clown from England, moving to a bad (and religiously extreme) neighborhood (Bnei Brak) to live in utter poverty with uncouth russians, sleeping on a bed of blankets I bought from Bedouin, succumbing to the pressures of alcoholism, only to get a second wind after hooking up with a half-Danish, half Israeli 18 year old girl I met years before (who was now legal) and taking her with me to Sinai, where I became friends with the Sudanese refugees there from Dafur that worked in the beach camps on the Red Sea where I dived in the coral and learned that Egyptians make better fuul than Palestenians, but that Palestenians make better humus. I played a song about it in my student reading at Bar-Ilan University just a few hours ago. Getting a room full of middle-aged Orthodox women to tap their feet to my country song about it was probably at least as notable, frankly. Its a tie between that and having my favorite city in America wiped off the map (New Orleans).
Wow! Quiet an interesting life you lead there, Deji. Oh, and I concur, the Egyptians make the best fuul and falafel, but I think the Lebanese make the best hummus, and the Syrians make the best sweats.
wow...when i think personally, 9/11 comes to mind. i remember that morning so well. so intense. NOLA comes to mind as well...Katrina...i can't tell you how much that pains me to see that city fall apart like that. but the tsunami was just ridiculous. incredible number dead. devastation beyond anything i even begin to understand.
I was quite young when JFK got assassinated. How would you compared that to 911, especially wrt how it impacted the American psyche? Methinks they are comparable.
I think they are comparable. What makes it so, in my opinion, is the impact of the aftermath. The assasination and 9/11, in my mind, both created "forks in a road." We could have taken a different path in both cases. The paths that were taken were the ones best avoided... again, in my opinion. To carry the analogy further, Robert Kennedy gave us a way to get back on the right road. His murder ended that. The election in 2004 gave America yet another chance to get on the right road. That road wasn't taken. We see where this road has led us. Keep D&D Civil.
To me, the Kennedy Assasinations affected the American psyche in that hope for improving the country in 1963 and 1968 was destroyed. 9/11 affected the American psyche in that we were no longer safe thinking that since we are on our own continent, events half a world away will not affect us. All three events were huge blows to the American psyche in different ways.
Collapse of the Soviet Union by a mile and a half. 9/11 was intense; the destruction of New Orleans was too; and a number of other things like the African genocides, the tsunami, etc. But, the USSR collapsing was intense and whenever I think of the implications, they're just enormous. Nothing I've lived through can begin to compare. Ended the Cold War. Opened up hundreds of millions of people to capitalism, democracy, travel, corruption, exploitation, political upheaval, war, everything.
