9-11 the free-fall argument

I have to admit, I have no patience for 9/11 conspiracy theories.

The first explanation from the government was awful. It was unscientific and just terrible.

However, the Purdue Dept of Engineering nailed the explanation and I’ve been satisfied ever since.

It’s just unfortunate that the govt was in such a hurry to put out any explanation that they put out a crap one that fuels conspiracy theories to this day.

Several major problems with the Truthers’ argument. But just from a method’s pov, they didn’t follow the scientific method at all, and should have done what troubleshooters do. Collect the variables, do process of elimination, find the culprits. Do this in context, noting how the variables interact with one another. Instead, they jumped up and down because they found an “anomaly” or two — which, btw, generally exist in all of these situations — and stopped there. A good troubleshooter never stops with an anomaly. He or she tries to find out if it’s relevant, or active, or cancelled out by other variables, etc.

Kinda like, “Well, Ike couldn’t have caught that touchdown pass in the playoffs cuz he was wearing red socks that day. It’s impossible!” Um, well, he also had on white shoes, and Warner was in sync with him cuz he had on red socks too. You need to account for those things as well.

But on the larger picture, Matt Taibbi did the all-time best debunking of the truthers, and I was most of the way there before I read him. Main thing: You don’t do “false flags” in your own backyard, in key centers of power, if you’re the powerful. You do them elsewhere, especially overseas, where it’s a lot easier to hide your tracks and you don’t destroy ruling class assets along the way.

Beyond that, if the goal was to go to war with Iraq, America is an easy date for that sort of thing. It’s never taken much to make the beat of war drums take hold. There’s no reason for ruling class folks to undertake a “conspiracy” of an elaborate form to make that happen. A few well-placed bombs — rhetorical or real, particularly in Iraq — would suffice.

None of it Truther narrative ever added up — not scientifically, or politically, or common-sense-wise. And given that the Truther in Chief was Alex Jones . . . . I have no idea why anyone jumped on that bandwagon, evah.

Yeah, I agree with Billy there. You don’t do False Flag operations in New York City destroying the assets of the economic elite when it is far easier, safer, and cheaper to do them overseas.

Moreover…and this is to me the trump card argument…if you want to go to war with Iraq, and you had this big complex, tricky stunt to pull off…you would use Iraqi pilots. Compared to the difficulty of the rest of that operation, getting Iraqi pilots and money trails would have been comparatively simple, and made a much, much better case for the invasion.

wv wrote:

Zn trusts the ‘peer review’ system much more than i do. I cant tell how much of it has been tainted now by the Monsanto’s and mega-corpse.

That taints the entire peer review process as a process? How?

I don’t believe in conspiracy theory btw because I believe in ideological theory, which is its opposite.

From the point of view of ideological theory, conspiracy theory is just an effort to reduce and simplify and come up with reductive answers.

There’s a concept for example in ideological theory called “uneven developments.” In this view, you never look for a complete and unitary world—there’s different processes and stages at work, and you can have progressive threads mixed in with regressive ones in any kind of thing. So for example all the CEOs who resigned from Trump councils were appalled by his overt sympathy for confederate nostalgia. But you can bet those same people aren’t all good on gender at work, universal health care, citizens united, and foreign policy…though some of them may be good on some of those things.

The point being, any sloganistic approach that reduces it all to a couple of simple black n white formulas are just in advance going to be insufficient. From my point of view, conspiracy theory does do that.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I honestly can’t think of any instance in American history where it was necessary.

Well they faked the moon landing to distact attention from the recognition that the world is actually flat.

So it’s not like they’ve NEVER done that.

Oh, you’re just saying that cuz you were wrong about the White Walkers.

Ah, wait a second. That was me being wrong. Um, never mind.

wv wrote:

When i used the term “corporotacracy” though, i am not thinking of a simplistic, black and white, static, model of the situation. Its much more like a corporate-kaleidoscope. Er somethin. I do think there is enough of a ‘fluid form’ to go ahead and use a term like corporotacracy, conceding that its just a word. A label. The map is not the territory. The menu is not the meal.

Okay fair enough.

On conspiracies. If you just mean that all the time groups of people unite and try to accomplish something as a group, sure. Whether or not they accomplish anything depends on whether or not (to sound circular) they CAN. So for example there was only a handful of Cuban revolutionaries but their time was right. Same can’t be said for all revolutionaries in history, like the assassins of Julius Ceaser, who lost. But that’s not the basis of conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory says that large groups of people in positions of power manipulate the entire system at a level of cooperation and collusion that is, when you look at it, impossible. So for example could the Bush government get away with planning a massive attack on its own infrastructure without someone figuring it out? Do all scientists from related fields throughout the world agree to lie about climate change because they have a secret agenda? I think the word changes when you go from “conspiracies” to “conspiracy theory.” We know for example that the small group of Capone gangsters conspired to take out their rivals in Moran’s north side gang, and that was the Valentine’s Day Massacre. But a “conspiracy theory” would say something like this–the Capone gang conspired with the entire government to take advantage of the temperance movement to push prohibition so they could profit from illegal liquor sales. In other words, the term “conspiracy theory” does not literally refer to theories about conspiracies, with the word “conspiracy” here having its ordinary meaning (groups agree to do something.) It’s actually a pejorative used to label ideas of social manipulation at a massive level that goes beyond ordinary criminal action by an actual tight-knit group. So for example, flat earthers genuinely say that scientists–basically, all of them–conspire with NASA to deny the flat earth reality because they profit from the lie.

I actually think Dulles arranged Kennedy’s death. I can’t prove it but if it were true that would have been a conspiracy.

I don’t believe that every scientist in the world cooperates in maintaining a massive lie about the climate. That’s conspiracy theory. The actions of conspiracy theories require a level of cooperation that is telepathic. Otherwise why would a Japanese scientist who works on atmosphere physics know how to lie in harmonious concert with a Swedish meteorologist.

So on that we’re not quite saying the same things.

Billy_T wrote:

1. Is there an existential threat to the participants if they don’t act? As in, if they do nothing, what are the consequences?

I would say that this is interesting discussion. I have hesitations with your #1 though. The issue is not always just threat. Often real conspiracies are based on gain, not threat, real or imagined. So for example CEO Bernard Ebbers who was convicted of using fraudulent accounting to deceive investors about the economic standing of Worldcom. It’s a conspiracy because he could not do that himself–it was a group effort. He wasn’t under threat because of protections for companies like that (golden parachutes, bankruptcy laws)…it was just greed.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

1. Is there an existential threat to the participants if they don’t act? As in, if they do nothing, what are the consequences?

I would say that this is interesting discussion. I have hesitations with your #1 though. The issue is not always just threat. Often real conspiracies are based on gain, not threat, real or imagined. So for example CEO Bernard Ebbers who was convicted of using fraudulent accounting to deceive investors about the economic standing of Worldcom. It’s a conspiracy because he could not do that himself–it was a group effort. He wasn’t under threat because of protections for companies like that (golden parachutes, bankruptcy laws)…it was just greed.

I can see your hesitations. I probably didn’t amplify that aspect enough when I mentioned risk/reward with the second one. That’s about the “gain” part. Bernard Ebbers and his helpers must have calculated that the risk was worth the reward, that the gain they sought, out of greed, was significant enough to warrant the risk.

Though, I’m guessing, plenty of exceptions exist where the greed part and the lust for that gain overwhelm a logical appraisal of risk. Wall Street seems rampant with this. Though I’m also guessing that these guys think they can get away with it, that they’re too smart to get caught, etc. And perhaps the risk may even add to the thrill of it all?

Jumping out of airplanes and rolling the dice on insider trading, perhaps? Though that may be a stretch . . . But I’d also guess that coming up with a group all on the same page with these psychological traits would be rather rare, which would also make the conspiracy less likely to hold together, etc.

wv wrote:

Are we really in Alex-Jones Territory if we wonder about the influence of the Bildergers/Tri-lateral folks? The CIA/NSA folks? The Mega-Corpse? Etc.

Well no, not for most of those, that’s not Alex Jones stuff. You can add the Koch brothers to that. The “mega corpse” one isn’t in that territory because Jones would never go there. I do think that one’s too big though. THe american corporate/business world is just simply not unitary enough to conspire on anything. That’s like saying all scientists lie about climate change. At that point IMO you’re really in the murkier territory of interests and policies. That is, it’s in xyz’s interests to have xyz policies. Even that doesn’t hold as unitary. I mean, is Ben and Jerry’s really the same as Exxon?

Corporate interests aren’t necessarily “unitary” as you mention. You’ve talked about that for some time now. But the capitalist system established itself as the first unified economic system in history. Nothing prior to it ever sought the kind of total legal and social control it now enjoys, and its innate impulses force it to pursue more and more unification. Prior to its destruction of previous economic systems, which were independent of one another, and mostly limited to the local, you actually had, ironically, “free markets.” The whole deal for capitalism is to control those markets under one standardized set of rules, acceptable currencies, trade agreements, international ruling bodies and so on. Again, all of that is unprecedented.

To me, that’s naturally going to lead to a great deal of “same page” decision-making, but that doesn’t necessarily mean conspiracies, which is your point, unless I misread you.

One example of a seeming conflict of corporate interests is the battle against Medicare for All or Single Payer. One would think it would be an awesome deal for most capitalist businesses. The public would pick up the tab for health insurance entirely. No more burden for individual companies. The obvious opposition to that is the private insurance industry itself. But it would seem, at least on the surface, that corporate interests have aligned with the insurance industry, for some bizarre reason . . . I haven’t figured that one out yet.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

. But it would seem, at least on the surface, that corporate interests have aligned with the insurance industry, for some bizarre reason . . . I haven’t figured that one out yet.

Businesses receive subsidies when they pay for insurance for employees. I am not sure of the details on that or how it works.

BUT single payer could not be gathering steam if it were universally opposed by business interests.

And btw a lot of this is just me getting my vote in on this or that topic. If WV wants to talk about the mega-corps that’s fine with me, not that he should care either way if it;s fine with me or not. I was just saying why I don’t use that particular terminology. We’re all allies whatever which way we put it, and purity of terminology is for purists, or for the pure, which actually don’t exist. (Yes I am a pure purist about the existence of the pure.)

More good points. But, in the spirit of just being plain obnoxious, I’m a pure purist about the non-existence of the pure. I don’t think there is such a species seeking that sort of thing. But that’s purely conjectural, I suppose.

I guess that’s one of those Barber of Seville kinds of cone-em-drums . . .

wv wrote:

I cant post anymore. A dragon is dead.

w
v

Ummm, do a guy a solid and post a spoiler alert for a change.

Not all of us can see GOT the night it airs.

So, check your privilege, Councilor.

wv wrote:

I cant post anymore. A dragon is dead.

w
v