So, quick question?

[Keith&Co.]

Y'all think we'd have invaded Afghanistan if we looked at the lives lost on 9-11as an acceptable percent of the population of NYC (~0.01%), and just considered being on, say, the 20th floor to be a preexisting condition?

I mean, i have a partial amputation of one hand. It's just about .01% of my household, and we're fine. Plus, on that day, i was working on the first floor of a two-story building.

So, really, it's how you choose to look at things....

 

[Torin]

I'm terribly sorry to hear about your hand.

Regarding your political question, I think the reason 9/11 led to war in Afghanistan was to eliminate a potential source of future attacks and to show other countries that it was not a good idea to attack us. If our enemies saw us getting attacked and not really doing anything about it, it might have led to more severe attacks in the future.

I'm not a political scientist or anything, though, so this is really just a surmise on my part.

 

[Angry Floof]

I'm terribly sorry to hear about your hand.

Regarding your political question, I think the reason 9/11 led to war in Afghanistan was to eliminate a potential source of future attacks and to show other countries that it was not a good idea to attack us. If our enemies saw us getting attacked and not really doing anything about it, it might have led to more severe attacks in the future.

I'm not a political scientist or anything, though, so this is really just a surmise on my part.

I think what he's getting at is what scale of lives or harm warrants a response. For example, how many lives must be lost or affected by COVID to warrant acting aggressively to stop it?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Pretty much.
I mean, if people had donned masks in March the way they waved US flags in Sept, after the attack, we'd be thousands fewer dead. It was all about the visible display of patriotism that year. Now, not wearing a mask us the visible display of macho.
Because not that many people get it, and not that many die...
And we can pretend they're somehow at fault for being older, or weaker, or liberals, or something.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I'm terribly sorry to hear about your hand.

Oh, you're probably not.

We were watching Saturday Morning Cartoons. There was an argument about whose turn to pick the channel (Sister picked an hour-long show, _I_ deserved two half-hour shows after that. Simple math, here!).
I was winning the debate...straddling my sister, beating her head into the carpet.
I shifted my grip, and a finger stuck into her mouth. So i essntially used her teeth to guillotine my middle finger on the next beat.

Dad heard a scream, came in. I've got a bloody fist cradled to my chest, sis has blood running out of her mouth, and all over her chest.

Dad took her to the ER. About two blocks away, she finally convinces him it's not her blood.
Came back for me.

Dad was the pharmacy dept head at our small town hospital, dropped me in one of the two ER rooms, went to look for a doctor.
A nursing student came in, found me, 11 years old, alone, towel wrapped around my hand. Asked what was wrong.
I got cut. (Not yet being comfortable with "partial amputation' that came later)
Well, how bad is it?
Pretty bad, i said.
Well, let's have a look.
She started to unwrap the towel. I said 'pretty bad' once more.
She got to the last flap of towel and had to tug it off, it was snagged on the jagged edge of what was left of that knucle bone.
Blood spurted. I got her hat, her hair, her blouse, her face... she screamed and ran.
The next nurse had been in Nam, IIRC. Maybe Korea?
She snapped, "stop bleeding on my floor!" And i remember saying, yes, ma'am. I believe i stopped bleeding, too.

8 stitches later, now every time i say anything like 'four more' and gesture, my coworkers lovingly say, "three and a half!"
And i flip them off, and they say, "why you shake your fist at us?"

Fuggheads....

 

[Angry Floof]

Pretty much.
I mean, if people had donned masks in March the way they waved US flags in Sept, after the attack, we'd be thousands fewer dead. It was all about the visible display of patriotism that year. Now, not wearing a mask us the visible display of macho.
Because not that many people get it, and not that many die...
And we can pretend they're somehow at fault for being older, or weaker, or liberals, or something.

Well, somewhere around 60% of us are aware that the other 40% or so don't actually care about human lives but they do very much care about exacting revenge and going to war with perceived enemies. It's a sickness of humanity.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If 180,000 people died in one place on a single day there’d be a massive response. But apparently 180,000 people dying over six months all across the country isn’t as big of a deal.

People deal with emergencies, not smoldering crises. Hence why people smoke until they lose a lung, or eat poorly until they have a heart attack, and why we won’t deal with climate change until it is far, far too late.