24 Years After 9/11: The World Still Running the Same Security Theater, Now with NFTs and Drones
The Twenty-Fourth Time Around
September 11, 2025 – A Planet Still Trying to Read the Safety Card in the Dark
By the time the sun clawed its way over the International Date Line this Wednesday, the Earth had already logged its 24th consecutive orbit since passenger jets became improvised cruise missiles. From Auckland to Anchorage, the ritual unfolded with the mechanical precision of a frequent-flyer lounge: moments of silence, rolled-up sleeves, hashtags that trend in 42 languages before breakfast. If grief were a loyalty program, we’d all have platinum status by now.
In Nairobi, commuters queued for security frisks at the Village Market mall, where a brass plaque lists 32 Kenyan victims who never made it to conference rooms in the towers. A guard—earning roughly what a New York barista tips away in a week—waved a metal-detecting wand that blinked “Made in Shenzhen.” The irony was lost on no one: the same global supply chain that once shipped box-cutters now ships the plastic wands meant to detect their spiritual descendants.
Meanwhile, at NATO’s new “Resilience Hub” outside Warsaw, officers from 34 nations watched a PowerPoint titled “Twenty-Five Emerging Threat Vectors.” Slide 17 warned that the next 9/11 might arrive via deep-faked airline reservation systems, a prophecy delivered in Comic Sans—proof that even the apocalypse can have poor graphic design. A Swedish colonel confessed over filter coffee that every year they run the same simulation: planes, skyscrapers, cyber-hijacked autopilot. “We keep moving the buildings higher,” she sighed, “but gravity refuses to negotiate.”
Over in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford conducted “Remembrance Maneuvers,” steaming in circles so tight they resembled a donut of patriotic angst. Sailors in color-coded jerseys spelled out “9-11-25” on the flight deck for the drone cameras, the aerial selfie instantly uploaded to the Pentagon’s TikTok clone, “MilTok,” where it competed for eyeballs with cat videos and influencer meltdowns. Engagement metrics were classified, but rumor had it the algorithm favored the cats.
Brussels, ever the continent’s bureaucratic heart, replaced its annual candlelight vigil with an “immersive experience” in the metaverse. Europeans who still remember actual candle wax donned headsets to wander a photorealistic Twin Towers plaza, now sponsored by a Belgian fintech startup. Users could purchase NFTs of the memorial fountains—because nothing says “never forget” like a non-fungible souvenir that appreciates 3% annually. One German MEP was overheard asking if the victims’ names came in serif or sans-serif blockchain font.
Down in Buenos Aires, President Mileni—part libertarian, part performance artist—marked the day by auctioning off the federal government’s last surveillance drone. Bidders paid in pesos pegged to the dollar, which is itself pegged to a vague sense of American invincibility. The drone was finally won by a tango instructor who plans to use it to drop roses on wedding parties, proving that every tool of empire eventually becomes a party favor.
Perhaps the most honest commemoration took place in Kabul, where a handful of teenage girls—barred from real classrooms—gathered in a basement to read poetry about towers that fell before they were born. No press releases, no hashtags, just the soft thud of American-made ordnance still buried in nearby fields, occasionally remixed by the wind. Their teacher, a woman who once translated for U.S. troops, closed the lesson with a line from Auden: “Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.” The girls nodded, already fluent in the algebra of consequence.
Back in Manhattan, sunset painted the new One World Trade the color of a healing bruise. Tourists paid $38 to ride elevators that promise “an experience beyond time,” which is marketing-speak for “we hope you won’t notice history rhyming.” At the gift shop, snow globes sold out first—tiny silver flakes swirling around plastic skyscrapers, a soothing blizzard you can turn upside-down whenever reality feels too stable.
And so the planet spins, 24 years deep into the long aftermath. We’ve learned to pronounce “jihad,” “forever war,” and “algorithmic radicalization” in the same breath. We’ve installed bulletproof glass in kindergartens and called it peace. Every September we press play on the same somber playlist, convinced that memory alone is a firewall against the future. Meanwhile, somewhere in a server farm cooled by Arctic water, the next idea that will age us another decade is already loading—buffering, buffering—waiting for its turn to fall from a clear blue sky.
