Poll about 9/11

[wolfie]

I'll give you a less common type of comment I found:

"Interracial or interspecies relationships? When animals within a group are determined to be genetically different they are classified as different species. When human's are found to be genetically different within their group they are classified as different races. White is a species as is black, latino, Asian and so on. Race is just a PC terms applied to it to desensitize the whole white/black relationship thing."

It's my understanding that the Biologist's Standard for whether 2 animals are from different species, or from different breeds of the same species, is this: If, when crossbred, they produce fertile offspring, then they are the same species. If not, then they are different species.

By this standard, horses and donkeys are different species (since mules are sterile), but chihuahuas and great danes are the same species (be sure that the male in this pairing is the chihuahua).

By this standard, people of all races are the same species.

[Sapphire Silk]

Main difference: before 9/11, Americans thought of apocalypse as fiction (except for a minority of people who believed so literally in the Bible that they were always expecting it to happen "next week" or "next year").

Now? Now we know these things can happen to us, here. It's no longer fiction. It's no longer fantasy or escapism. It's a potential reality.

Apocalyptic fiction has actually been pretty popular for decades. After WWII, it was nuclear war that was the bogeyman. In the 50's there were books like Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold, and Frank's Alas Babylon. The Godzilla movies of the 50's were a reaction to fears about nuclear weapons. On the Beach is a much more serious film (Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner). In the 80's things got soooo tense that we saw movies like The Day After. I remember how scary things got then; people really were afraid we'd go to war with Russia in the early Reagan days.

Yeah, I can't deny that we like to think of ourselves as the 'protector of democracy' in the world. I think it's because once we successfully revolted, it started a series of revolts in other places (the french revolution was the biggest.)

After that, we got a bit of a big ego. XP

We never took credit for the French Revolution, though the frankophiles among the Founders were delighted by it. We do have a big ego, but Manifest Destiny was a much bigger problem than the Truman Doctrine or "making the world safe for democracy."

The scenario that scares the hell out of me these days would be one of these groups getting thier hands on a nasty virus (or bacteria). And that is even within the realm of possibility. We wouldn't know what hit us until it hit us and even then it probably would look like a nasty flu outbreak.

I'm not worried about this. These morons don't know how to weaponize a disease, and lack the resources to do it. If we end up with another pandemic, it will be naturally occurring.

I'm expecting a bacterial, viral or fungal pandemic sooner or later. More likely sooner, IMO.

Whether it's an apocalyptic scenario or not, I dunno. Humans have recovered from 'known-world' scale pandemics before.

The Black Death had massive repercussions. It ended the feudal system, and laid the foundation for the Renaissance. This was a good thing for Western Civilization, though I doubt the people who died would have appreciated it.

We've had a couple of close calls with things like SARS. The Spanish Flu of 1918 could have been far worse than it was, and we're overdue for another devastating pandemic.

Yeah, politics be crazy.

Thing about the Antichrist is I'm fairly certain it referred to Nero. (This is coming from one class in New Testament of course.) Seeing as the new Babylon was Rome.

Mind you, facts haven't stopped anyone before. XP Especially, as I'm finding, with apocalyptic cults.

There seems to be two responses to failed end-of-the-world predictions:

A: OH! I was wrong! It's really [this date]. (I'd like to note that Jehovah's Witnesses have been doing this for almost exactly 100 years at this point.)
B: Look! You saved us all with your overwhelming faith!

Right. A lot of Biblical apocolyptic theory is based on something called Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is basically a twisting of the Bible inside out, upside down, and side to side. Evangelicals in the late 19th century decided to treat the entire Bible as a massive apocalyptic prophecy, forgetting what apocalyptic really means (it means to reveal, not to destroy). They cherry picked passages out of the Old Testament (especially Daniel) and Revelations to turn the latter into a prophecy when in fact the author was speaking to his own times. That's why Cooper referred to Nero: it is generally believed the Number of the Beast is numerology for Nero, who was persecuting Christians at the time.

Dispensationalism is the backbone of End times, the Rapture, and a lot of other evangelical Protestant thought (not all Protestants, especially the older versions, believe this and Catholics certainly do not). It's why the evangelicals support the state of Israel and why they want to see the Temple of Solomon rebuilt; it is key to their beliefs.

As for the Muslims-are-all-terrorists thing: some of that stuff happened here in Aussieland, I'm sorry to say. Among the worst: a tram (light rail) driver who wouldn't let a Muslim schoolgirl board his tram. Because she was wearing hijab, she was obviously a terrorist.

One of my students made a racist comment regarding another student recently; a flip comment about her "people" and hookah's. Problem is, this other student is not a Muslim, she's not even Arabic. She's a Sikh (who are from the Punjab in India and are completely separate religion).

[lordlundar]

Cooper, check out a miniseries that was Made by National Geographic. It's called The 80s: The Decade That Made Us. It deals with how changes from 1980-1989 that occurred in America from various areas: Media, economics, sociology, politics, etc. A lot, if not most of that stuck around clear through the 90's as well. In fact, had it not been for 9/11, it might still be around. It's a good summation of "life before 9/11".

[Seshat]

The Black Death had massive repercussions. It ended the feudal system, and laid the foundation for the Renaissance. This was a good thing for Western Civilization, though I doubt the people who died would have appreciated it.

We've had a couple of close calls with things like SARS. The Spanish Flu of 1918 could have been far worse than it was, and we're overdue for another devastating pandemic.

A lot of people are likely to perceive a spread of resistant diseases (TB etc) as an apocalypse scenario, too.

Me, my bets for the type of bug is more 'Spanish Flu'-ish. Influenza tends to be incredibly easy to catch, with a scarily long contagious incubation period.

One of my students made a racist comment regarding another student recently; a flip comment about her "people" and hookah's. Problem is, this other student is not a Muslim, she's not even Arabic. She's a Sikh (who are from the Punjab in India and are completely separate religion).

I love it. Racist and ignorant.