A 9/11 Lesson

I lived in NYC on 9/11. My mom worked at WTC & was rescued by a guy who pulled her into a subway station as the first tower was collapsing. She was missing for 10 hours. We feared the worst. Cell towers were down. She trekked through subway tunnels to Brooklyn.
🍡
The heaviest relief came when we finally reconnected. It never came for so many.

As the smouldering stench that permeated the city for months subsided, so did their hopes.

You'll hear plenty of platitudes today. But I try to take one lesson from that experience each year...
This year, that lesson is "freedom", but not in the way you think...

The same people who created the Taliban & Al Qaeda manipulated an emotional nation into a preposterous idea: imposing our definition of freedom on others - with war.

War is big business for very powerful interests. So first, I want to thank Presidents Trump & Biden for finally ending a war in a place where "freedom" wasn't the problem. We were.

It ended as ugly as it began. We knew better. Freedom cannot be imposed.
What saddens me today is how we fail to apply Afghanistan's lesson to ourselves.

Our fights are failures to recognize we have wildly different definitions of freedom. And some, rank freedom far below other priorities, like safety or comfort.
We (mostly) seem to get that when it comes to TV shows.

"Why doesn't SpongeBob ever address cancel culture or the Armenian genocide??"

That sounds just as insane as a New Yorker telling someone in Texas how they should live. And vice versa.
This country can accommodate many definitions and prioritizations of freedom, but it must remain free to do so.

That is our great irony - and the beauty of federalism - we have the capacity to do this, if not the will.
The sooner we acknowledge we need each other, the sooner we can have that kind of freedom once more.

This demands rebuilding trust in our leaders and institutions.

As we saw in Afghanistan, mandates are met with resistance, when authority is illegitimate.

Legitimize our authorities and we can have freedom again, however we define it.

Be well. Be free.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Steve Faktor

Steve Faktor Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ideafaktory

7 Sep
In the last few years, journalism has failed is in so many ways.

A big part of the problem is expectations...
We are not on the same page as to what journalism should be - and need to decide soon. It might be too late, as the market has decided for us...

...and we need to adjust.

Many already are.

Read 8 tweets
6 Sep
Are friends and allies one and the same, or mutually exclusive?

Genuine question.
This is relevant but I'd distinguish between nations & individuals. I agree with de Gaulle not because France was unique but because nations can't be "friends". Too much personification. Allies is the best they can hope for. Thinking through individuals...
Analogously, I think of fans as allies. People who listen to my podcast, subscribe on Patreon, read my articles, share, comment, review - are allies in my mission to grow my voice. Few are friends. I don't hold that against friends - or expect to plan a vacation w/my patrons.
Read 6 tweets
29 Jun
It's wild that 800K voters decide who's mayor of a city of 8.4M.

Since there's no viable opposition party in NYC, the Democratic primary is the election.

What if @KGforNYC and/or @AndrewYang decided to mount a GOP or 3rd party campaign for November...?
gothamist.com/news/first-uno…
Bloomberg did this. His first win was as a Republican, then Democrat, then Independent. Some of his people are working w/Andrew Yang, so it's not inconceivable.

I'd say this shuts the door to a future in the Democratic party, but so does being an outsider or becoming NYC mayor.
Read 5 tweets
27 Jun
MUSIC & INFLUENCE

Ever wonder how strange it is that most music that shapes our lives was written by 20-somethings?

An age that's decades before creatives truly develop a distinctive voice & depth of experience.

So why is this the case?

A hypothesis in 4 parts...
4 reasons most impactful music is created by 20-somethings

1) Selection
2) Genius
3) Universality
4) Consumption age

1) Selection: the arts are brutal careers, esp. music. Odds of success, tiny. If you don't make it by your late 20's, you age out of young fans who control cool.
2) Genius: The people who do succeed are likely to be standouts, if not geniuses. If not as songwriters, then performers or determined success-seekers. They have an unstoppable quality that will break through quickly.
Read 6 tweets
18 Jun
This is not how innovation works.

Looking at # of transistors (Moore's Law) or crop yields is linear and ignores the networked, ecosystem-driven nature of innovation.

Short thread responding to this research.

1/9

mattsclancy.substack.com/p/innovation-g…
Yes it's true, most technologies plateau. We've seen that w/smartphones, computers, apps & all consumer tech.

Similarly, entire industries plateau & consolidate. How often do you think about your electricity or water supplier?

These become platforms on which others build.

2/9
Innovators move on to surrounding challenges. Take water for example. They figure out better filtration methods, taste for drinking, ways to economize for showers, flushing or lawn care.

But looking at water supply companies won't give you that data.

3/9
Read 10 tweets
5 May
This is a harbinger of things to come, some already here.

On the surface, Epicurious eliminating beef recipes is like when CVS stopped selling cigarettes, cutting off some recurring (addicted) foot traffic.

Just a calculated business decision?

No.
👇🏼
nationalobserver.com/2021/05/05/opi…
Whatever you think of the urgency of climate change, the best solutions, or effectiveness of this specific move (⬇️ beef), this move is the product of powerful climate narratives manifested in the real world by adherents (Epicurious employees/mgmt).

This is just the start.

2/5
I suspect it's just a matter of time before Google adjusts its algorithms to make finding beef recipes as hard as they did to find funny photos of portly people (to make fun of myself).

3/5
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(