Debating Mainly on Trutherism, part I, in which I presume to Teach Logic to Non-Truthers, Without Fully Supporting Truthers as Being Right

ML

And they are off and running. Truthers are named after the thing rapidly retreating in their rear view mirrors.

AO

Most of these comments are about what the topic isn't about. Can someone provide something constructive please, or at least elucidate what Chomsky was saying with Truthers? I'd like that. This is 9/11 we're talking about, in this case. Pretty important stuff. I'd like to hear what people think about that. Thank you.

EY

AO, I think the "Truthers" bring up some great points as far as the freefall of the buildings, and the melting points of the steel. I am not qualified to give definitive statements on the matter, but would like to see more of scholarly investigation.

SSm

The problem is that such research needs significant funding as well as the backing of the academic establishment which are now being controlled corporations that control the message. Even Prof Chomsky knows that point and talks about it all of the time.

SSt

The tests that some of the truther scientists proclaim to prove their case have not been able to withstand the rigors of the scientific method. Other scientists have attempted to duplicate and as of yet been unable to. Red flag. It is not science, it is a conspiracy theory.

TW

I have one "truther" friend, and I used to discuss the issue with him on occasion, after reading some of his suggested materials. I quit debating the issue with him because no matter how I countered his various points, his constant default position was that "the truth" would never be proven because "they" control all the venues of research, communication, and any means of objective discourse or adjudication. Variations on this notion play out in discussion of any number of issues, and it pretty much eliminates any hope of rational conclusion. I have learned to save my breath for more important things...like laughter.

AC

I would just ask one question: does anybody believe that the Bush administration was capable, or that any administration would be capable, of pulling off such a huge conspiracy without a single credible leak?

SSm

The American government has done a lot of nasty things and covered them up. I don't think we have even exhausted the tip of the iceberg on that topic. I am not a truther as I think many of them are nutters. I am more interested in how 911 is used to justify all kinds of human rights abuses by state actors all over the world and not just in America.

EY

Good point AC. That would be quite the conspiracy and so improbable. One thing is to overlook a plot that they new of, but to orchestrate the plot and prepare the building with explosions does seem highly improbable.

LLAD

The dread lock man seems bitter that Chomsky doesn't agree with him. I do believe there was a cover up on the negligence of the US govt The Bush admin was warned via intelligence memos but they didn't implement a strategy to stop it.

CM

I'm weirdly hoping Chomsky becomes a vegan...

AO

I lived in New York. I had friends who actually saw what happened. I become livid when the true idiots say the planes didn't crash into the Twin Towers (don't know about the other WTC buildings). Um, how many witnesses were there? How many people lost loved ones on those flights? As for the Bush Administration, I hated them, but I don't claim to be privy to what they knew and didn't, only the wars they caused.

HGL

AO "Can someone provide something constructive please, or at least elucidate what Chomsky was saying with Truthers? I'd like that. This is 9/11 we're talking about, in this case."

He was taking 9/11 as an example. I quoted what he said about some physicists quoting truthers. I also refuted the principle he gave, which is obviously applicable to other topics as well.

He says truthers should be trying to publish their physical reasoning against two towers genuinely collapsing after touch by plane (huge plane going fast) on top floors in PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS and that sort of thing.

I said the usual peer reviewers by now know the arguments too well to not to have had a possibility to go out with a lots better and more to topic refutation than "why don't they do it properly in peer reveiwed journals".

As I entitled the blog post, Chomsky is suspect of using up his credibility points, on this one.

EY, "AO, I think the 'Truthers' bring up some great points as far as the freefall of the buildings, and the melting points of the steel. I am not qualified to give definitive statements on the matter, but would like to see more of scholarly investigation."

So would I.

I am not qualified enough in physics to definitely decide. BUT, I am qualified enough in logic to know one thing : either one or other of two physics is the real one, the one in which a very huge smash on top can and the one in which it cannot topple all floors below it too.

If it cannot, we have the question who did the sabotage, which Truthers have more than once pointed out.

If it can, which neither Truthers nor the rest have pointed out, we have the question who was archiect building this stuff and who was city planner authorising this stuff. If a huge smash from a jumbo jet on top floor can topple twenty or whatever floors below it, obviously such buildings are a security menace anyway.

AC "does anybody believe that the Bush administration was capable, or that any administration would be capable, of pulling off such a huge conspiracy without a single credible leak?"

You did not say "without a single leak" but "without a single credible leak". This means that there may have been claimed leaks, as opposed to just the witnesses about how the disaster looked and speculations on whether that is possible just from jumbo jet hit.

Considering how apt certain people are at decredibilising others, where a stunt like "why don't they try to get published in peer reviwed papers" passes for an argument, for a qualitative lecture to the Truthers, and considering how widespread that hobby is (Chomsky does it!) would the Bush administration, supposing they were right, have needed to do the decredibilising themselves?

In a world where Kent Hovind is in prison for "tax fraud" despite his having really had no income personally, but living as a volunteer off his charity, Dr Dino Adverture Land, and other parts of Dr Dino, and where this is being passed off as some kind of decredibilisation of what he has to say on for instance Carbon 14 dating (the standard objection of us creationists, not substantially differring from the take of Tas Walker, who is most certainly a Geologist with undisputed degrees), is a world in which a phrase like "noone of the leaks" (supposing there were any) "was credible" is pretty meaningless anyway.

AO, again: "As for the Bush Administration, I hated them, but I don't claim to be privy to what they knew and didn't, only the wars they caused."

What is most certain is that as far as overtly accessible info goes, there was no sufficient cause for war with Talibans in that attack. On a Crusading view point of Just War - which I recommended Bush in a letter, but which was ignored - there had been a month earlier when 8 volunteers and 8 citizens were tried for mission/apostasy and the volunteers got extradicted after consideration as madmen with insanity excuse (already an insult to Christianity), but we don't know what happened to the 8 Afghans.

Even supposing Osama was behind 9-11 (which his statement US deserved it doesn't substantiate he was, it is not a direct confession), even supposing Taliban were giving him hospitality, and back then I had NO IDEA of the Truther movement, the ultimatum Bush gave them and subsequent declaration of war was not more justified than the ultimatum Francis Joseph gave Serbia after the shots in Sarajevo.

BOTH ultimatums were against régimes not even suspected of having actually ordered the terrorist act, BOTH were about allowing foreign policemen to investigate in the country. in BOTH cases the régime as such was probably not itself even giving hospitality to the terrorist. So, either Bush owed an apology to Austrio-Hungarian Empire for war guilt declarations in the Paris suburbs peace treaties, or he ought not to have done the same move.

EY

DAC would love to see the rebuttals on the physics, if you can message me or direct me.

DAC

HGLthere are still debates about the physics. i know ive seen expert rebuttals to truther claims about the physics and chemistry of the collapse on YouTube and could look for them again. but since im not an engineer, lets turn to a geopolitical situational problem. since you bring up qualifications in logic, could you offer a reasonable and likely answer to chomsky's very good question about saudi involvement in 9/11 as oppposed to the administrations need to justify the iraq invasion.

that is a far harder paradox to address with any rational credibility from a truther standpoint than any problem with, say the melting point of steel.

EY just quickly here is one i had bookmarked...i recall this was quite good, but forgot the arguments. if i get a chance to search for better links, will pm you:

counterpunch: We See Conspiracies That Don't Exist
The Physics of 9/11
by MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. November 28, 2006
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/28/the-physics-of-9-11/print

EY

Thank you DAC

HGL

DAC, first of all, I am neither defending nor opposing truthers on their issue.

My issue with Afghanistan war was different.

And as you brought up Saudi, there is one branch of Truthers who claimed that Osama was seen in NY and flying away same morning (or sth like that) just before the events (a few hours or so), meaning they claim US/Saudi collusion on government level.

Now, my point about logic is not that non-Truthers must be wrong in saying Truthers are wrong. My point about logic is that if non-Truthers are right against Truthers, they are STILL wrong to trust authorities, since a major fault was obviously made in that case when Twin Towers were allowed to be built.

That's right : if non-Truthers are right, don't trust the next mayor or governor who grants permission to build a skyscraper!

I can even add one here, whether Truthers are right or wrong, they probably rely on physical calculations made beforehand, before buildings were made. Calculations which must have said that a jumbo jet crashing onto top won't topple all the floors down to the bottom. Those would give them an incitement to say if all floors toppled down after only top was hit, there must have been something more than just the jumbo jet crashing.

Oh, I got to look at your link:

MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. wrote:

"Half a century ago, public anxiety about the danger of atomic energy and the terror of thermonuclear war exhibited itself in sightings of flying saucers, and a fad of monster movies. C. G. Jung wrote about flying saucer sightings as an instance of "mass psychosis": a "psychological infection" that spreads among people who lack sufficient understanding to rationalize fearsome political forces and unstable social conditions (Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth, 1958). Jung was sensitive to any indication that another "psychological epidemic" might erupt, as Nazism did, among a population whose government possessed awesome military power. Mass psychosis is a myth held in common, which releases the population from the "normal" restraints of rationality and international social conventions, so they can pursue their mythical vision. The ignorance — and the fears that spring from it as prejudices — of the entranced population is "projected" onto "enemies" whose destruction is sought in the irrational effort to eliminate the actual problem of psychological tensions, (1)"

• 1) Not ONE word, so far, about the physics of the events.
• 2) One analysis offered by Jung, who considered Flying Saucers were a "mass psychosis" - totally incredible, I'd far liefer go with Rob Skiba II on this one.
• 3) He also considered the so called "mass psychosis" as triggered by fears about nuclear power. Presumably not quite rational ones. BUT since then we have had Harrisburg, Chernobyl, Fukushima.

Reality - Jungian analysis : 3-0.

Now, for specifics about the physics:

"A hijacked airliner was crashed into each building about 10 or 20 stories down from the top. The columns along one face of the building were sheared for a height of several floors, as were many of the columns at the core."

News reports were perhaps a bit sketchy on the part of "about 10 or 20 stories down from the top." I had gotten the impression, and I suppose so had quite a few hard core Truthers, that it was further up, near top.

[When I got further into the matter I realised that 20 stories down is relatively "near top" on a building 110 stories high. I was pretty outside Truther debate and thus unaware of most details pertaining to physics. I was not unaware of debate, but had stayed outside it.]

The rest of that report is a fine illustration of what I mean by the building companies and the city planning authorities back decades before 9-11 being a bunch of nincompoops.

And it's sad that non-Truthers have not been seeing this.

As for Truthers, supposing they are wrong, at least on the physics part, it's sad that their over trust in by now outdated physics of Babel Tower Building should push them to see more conspiracies than there are.

So, when will the non-Truthers who trust this report get out of their houses and say "stop" to the next plan of an airport (the hijacked jumbo jet came from one) or of a skyscraper?

That would be a much better security investment than the War on Terror.

AO

DAC that is a great article. I'm not a physicist, but it makes sense. I actually had a temp job in the WTC, and I also traveled there every day from New Jersey on the PATH train when I lived there (for 3 years). Basically the building was an exoskeleton. The "bones" were the pillars on the outside, and a few on the inside. The impact caused the pillars to sever. That's my basic take. Here's proof. Check into the NEW World Trade Center, the Freedom Tower. It was built like a fortress, because THEY LEARNED FROM THE HORRIBLE TRAGEDY. They analyzed the hell out of it. I saw an entire PBS Nova special as they completed the building. Again, the world and Bush after 9/11, whole different topic, and I won't go there.

Here is the PBS special I just mentioned. It's powerful. It's mainly about workers completing the building out of love and a tribute to New York City, the US, and those who were lost. It's not cynical. It's beautiful, and a testament to the good in us.

NOVA
Ground Zero Supertower
Aired: 09/11/2013
52:52 Rating: TV-PG
We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region [=France] due to right restrictions.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365076006/