The obligatory, and the late, 9/11 post.
There has been a vast amount of coverage in the past week and more so this year because it is five years. Five is more special than four or six. Why? No-one really knows.
A lot of the coverage has been about the terrible events of that day, and there is no doubt that they were truly terrible. The most spectacular single crime ever committed - I am discounting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also discounting crimes that cover a period of time or involve a population rather than a small and distinct group, which takes care of many examples of genocide.
Often 9/11 is described as 'The Day That Changed the World' and and I take issue with that.
The world has not changed at all.
Look at how people live their lives and almost nothing has changed. Consumerism is still the biggest religion on the planet, and continues to grow. Within consumer spending there has been no marked shift between categories. Electronics and digital services continue to grow their shares through consumer choice; oil and related products take a bigger cut due to excess demand; otherwise, little has changed.
In commerce, there have been the changes that any five year period would entail, but the biggest companies then are the biggest companies now. China continues to increase its economic power and now owns an ever larger slice of US business. Russia is riding the oil boom, Europe is drifting, Africa is failing.
In international politics, Iran has taken advantage of the falls of Afghanistan and Iraq to become the leader of radical Islam, in the case of the former, and a regional power in the case of the latter. Such power games happen in any period, although Iran got to where it wanted to be a lot faster thanks to the work of its friend and ally the USA.
None of this constitutes a fundamental change in the world. The changes in the five years since 9/11 are no more significant than the changes in the five years before.
On an individual level, somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 people have died in the ongoing wars 'justified' by 9/11. The Iraqi population is living under changed circumstances and a large part of the Afghan population is doing so too. Add those killed and injured in 9/11 itself, plus any relatives; throw in the US and allies military deaths and the families of those service people; the victims and their families caught up of the civilian attacks in Bali, Madrid and London; and if you do an vast amount of rounding up at every stage you might get to 100 million people directly affected by 9/11 and its consequences.
100 million out of 6,000 million. More people have been affected by natural disasters in the last five years, not least the tsunami.
The world hasn't changed at all. It is still a planet full of people just trying to make the best of their lives, while a few hundred individuals play power games that cause death and suffering. All that has happened is that the 20th century forgot to end.