，譯得唔好請大家屌細力啲
It’s about the mindset more than the attack itself.
911事件影響人嘅心態多於件事本身。
Imagine that the economy is doing fine and growing decently year on year and unemployment is down. Computers are appearing everywhere, there’s this new internet thing and there’s a feeling of being in the edge of world-changing evolution.
試諗下，經濟大環境都算係唔錯，保持到年年嘅增長同失業率亦都跌緊。電腦一街都係，互聯網（56k夠曬啦屌）都開始普及，好似大家生活喺一個世界蜕變緊嘅時代咁。
Imagine that urban violence is down from the 80s, and cities start to feel safer. New York isn’t the gritty place from Taxi Driver anymore, it’s the cool city from Friends.
試諗下，暴力犯罪率比起80年代有所下跌，而各個城市開始愈黎愈安全。紐約唔再係好似羅拔·迪尼路嘅的士司機（Taxi Driver，1976）裏面咁，而係變到the Friends咁。
Imagine that politics are pretty tame, there are political news and scandals and such but things feel orderly. Not much extremism, and candidates from both parties actually don’t appear that different from each other. Just watch an early episode of West Wing to see what I mean.
試諗下，政治局勢比較溫和，就算有啲政治新聞、醜聞同花邊新聞都非常有序。冇乜極端主義，兩黨候選人好似都差唔多咁。你去睇集白宮群英（West Wing）就明我點解。
Imagine that the international situation is the best in ages, there’s no Soviet Union and threat of nuclear war anymore, Russia is a joke country with a joke drunk president. Terrorism is a thing that happens in far away places, and when something actually happens in America it’s just a homegrown nutjob.
試諗下，國際形勢係有史以來最穩定，蘇聯解體後冇咗核戰嘅危機。俄羅斯加個醉酒佬總統（葉利欽）只係一個笑話。恐怖主義遙不可及，就算喺美國發生都淨係喺屋企自製嘅傻閪。
Imagine that escaping the boredom of your everyday life is a cultural theme. When movies want to show a threat to your way of life, it isn’t democracy going bad, or terrorists, or disease. It’s a giant meteor, or aliens, because the only credible menaces can only come from space.
試諗下，文化創作嘅靈感來自逃離日常生活嘅苦悶。電影中威脅我地生活嘅唔係民主崩壞、恐怖分子或者瘟疫，而係巨型隕石或者外星人。因為唯一有可能嘅威脅來自外太空。
Now fast forward 10 years and everything has gone to hell in a handbasket. The economy has just had the worst crash in 80 years, people are poorer and losing their houses, politics become full of radicals, there are whole states sponsoring terrorism and China is a new rival, and everything feels much gloomier.
時間快轉十年，所有嘢都變得非常之閪。經濟上硬食咗80年嚟最大嘅金融危機（08金融海嘯），好多人輸到一無所有，政治變得越來越激進同分化。國家恐怖主義抬頭、中國成為新嘅競爭對手。前景好似唔多樂觀。
What 9/11 did, beyond shattering the sense of security coming from post-Cold War peace, was to become a symbol of a turning point where things seemed to get worse.
911嘅發生，唔單止粉碎咗冷戰後嘅和平同安逸，仲成為咗一個時代變差嘅轉捩點。
The economy wasn’t perfect back then, social media would disrupt politics anyway and the rise of terrorism was set to happen even before the 90s.
You can’t make a modern 9/11 equivalent because to do so, you have to imagine not only an event like someone dropping a nuke on Washington DC but also the following decade being so worse that it makes us nostalgic for the good days of the 2020s.
宜家回望返90年代經濟環境唔係話完美，社交媒體嘅興起亦注定會顛覆政治生態，恐怖主義其實喺一早90年代就醞釀緊出嚟。
但係你係冇可能再整多單911事件，因為你唔單止要掉粒核彈炸落華盛頓，仲要之後嗰十年所有嘢都閪到令你可以懷念到2020年代嘅日子。
