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Blair was all about following the lead of the US - here we had officials claiming the hijackers were meeting with Iraqi intelligence agents. I doubt that argument would mean much to UK folks but you are close enough to Iraq that a flimsy story about being in missile range makes sense on a basic level.
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Sep 21, 2013 15:40
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Just because there was a plane that hit the buildings, doesn't mean there weren't explosives in the building that helped bring it down. Your 2nd example really isn't "mind blowing".
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Sep 21, 2013 18:52
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Bulls Hit posted:Just because there was a plane that hit the buildings, doesn't mean there weren't explosives in the building that helped bring it down. Your 2nd example really isn't "mind blowing". Logically this is true, but it's kind of like saying "This man was shot multiple times, but we can't rule out cancer as the cause of death".
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Sep 21, 2013 19:02
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Bulls Hit posted:Just because there was a plane that hit the buildings, doesn't mean there weren't explosives in the building that helped bring it down. Your 2nd example really isn't "mind blowing". So did you ignore the whole thread and just reply to the OP? I guess you are anecdotal evidence to my point that facts don't matter - people will just insist on their interpretation of events.
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Sep 21, 2013 19:47
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The easiest counterargument against it all is just following conspiracy theory logic itself, which is that whatever benefits someone, was done by that someone. If it's all a setup to Iraq, why did they make the hijackers our "allies" in Egypt and Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq then? Which doesn't even get into the whole issue of how come this incredibly competent evil Neocon machine behind it all was such a huge rolling clusterfuck once they got to Iraq. How exactly did loving up Iraq and Afghanistan for years benefit us? Come to think of it, from our present perspective where Afghanistan and Iraq were both monumental fuckups, conspiracy theory logic of the benefitors did it ironically means that it must have been Islamic extremists. Full circle.
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Sep 21, 2013 23:34
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It also ignores that Bush had to spend months building a case to invade Iraq that involved exaggerating lovely intelligence about WMDs and only occasional linkbacks to 9/11. If it was specifically about a Iraq there were a million ways they could have made that link more direct. And I don't for a second believe that it was to setup a war with Afghanistan. Bush forgot that war was even happening once we rolled into Iraq, how could it have been important enough to do a ridiculous false flag op for?
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Sep 21, 2013 23:39
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It's so frustrating that many conspiracy theorists, crowing about seeing through government lies, don't actually care when they are lied to. Sure the last five Kenyan birth certificates Alex showed were hoaxes, but I won't bat an eye when he shows the next one!
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Sep 22, 2013 02:32
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Most conspiracy theorists don't even have a coherent idea as much as they assume. They just know the official story is wrong and will look for anything to prove that fact. If the brand of conspiracy they don't believe in turns out to be bogus, they'll look for another. They'll even believe contradictory theories. Just anything that goes against "the official story".
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Sep 22, 2013 02:52
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I thought the most pervasive truther rant was in relation to the Pentagon, claiming that nobody ever saw a plane there or something. To me the most absurd argument is that the twin towers were rigged to fall. As if being struck by a jumbo jet wouldn't be enough to bring down any office building. I guess in answer to the OP, my real answer is, I can't explain them to you. :P But I'd love to see someone really carefully outline their arguments and either debunk them or explain where there are reasonable question marks.
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Sep 22, 2013 03:07
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I wonder how many people who are really heavily into conspiracy theories actually have some kind of undiagnosed schizoid disorder or are somewhere on the lighter end of the schizophrenic spectrum but escape diagnosis due to the fact that it doesn't noticeably interfere with their lives to most outside observers. Many of the 9/11 truthers that I've known had a parent or close relative with schizophrenia. I've had about 6 different friends/acquaintances in my life who had schizoid/delusional disorders run in their family who were hardcore 9/11 truthers and also 2012 Mayan Calendar fanatics. Two others had severe anxiety/depression disorders, and the last 4 all had a history of severe drug addiction. Also I haven't run into a whole lot of ex-cons but the ones I have generally are very fond of both conspiracy beliefs and Ayn Rand. Oh yeah, and one guy who smoked 1/8 of pot every day and was diagnosed with Mania (who also read some crazy book that merged his hardcore Christian upbringing with conventional conspiracy monomyth) These beliefs seem to be strongly socially infectious and those who strongly associate with them often end up with the same beliefs, the difference being that those who come around to them via social influence eventually stop believing in them after either being presented with enough evidence or cutting off said social influence. There also seems to be a very strong link to conspiracy belief and extreme right-left political ideology. Matter of fact, a lot of extreme ideology relies on conspiracy belief about the Jews, the CIA, 'The West', 'The Muslims', the UN, 'Communists' etc. as part of its core tenets.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:00
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Finndo posted:I thought the most pervasive truther rant was in relation to the Pentagon, claiming that nobody ever saw a plane there or something. That one is kind of weird since it involves some really cherry picked pictures to show that there wasn't any plane wreckage by the Pentagon.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:05
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muscles like this? posted:That one is kind of weird since it involves some really cherry picked pictures to show that there wasn't any plane wreckage by the Pentagon. Yeah people somehow expect that a plane crashing into a massive building at 400 miles per hour would just crumple up + explode exactly like a cartoon or something. It's bizarre.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:08
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Install Windows posted:Yeah people somehow expect that a plane crashing into a massive building at 400 miles per hour would just crumple up + explode exactly like a cartoon or something. It's bizarre. If I remember correctly they were basing it on some low security cam like 30 feet from the point of impact, and all you could see on it was a blur. OMG Missile attack!
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Sep 22, 2013 05:37
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Finndo posted:If I remember correctly they were basing it on some low security cam like 30 feet from the point of impact, and all you could see on it was a blur. OMG Missile attack! There's also the fact that the hole in the Pentagon is circular instead of somehow being like a cartoon cut out of a plane.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:39
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muscles like this? posted:There's also the fact that the hole in the Pentagon is circular instead of somehow being like a cartoon cut out of a plane. Oh... you mean like in this awesome TV show that I really truly honestly did not make up? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_(U.S._game_show) Sorry... couldn't resist the reference, it fits the absurdity of the truther argument though.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:44
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Yea, the Pentagon theories are pretty horrible because it always uses the same cherry picked and cropped photos to support their point. I mean, trutherism is pretty much anomaly hunting at its core. 50 million pictures and frames of video, and of course some weird things are going to show up, especially to those who are looking for said weird things. I once saw a thing on Discovery where they brought in a bunch of truthers, and showed them experiments that proved that jet fuel could weaken steel to a point where it could no longer support any weight and that thermite isn't the magic anti-metal they pretended it is. One of the truthers straight up said "that doesn't disprove my theory". I do love the thermite theory, because its what I call "answer for everything". Explosives would take a lot, and it would be impossible to wire a building the size of one of WTC towers, let alone two, and the crew would have to be huge. Okay so it was termite, a material that melts metal very quickly. Oh that wouldn't even do it? It's microthermite then. Oh you say there isn't enough Microthermite in existence? Well of course they'd say that, that's just what the Lizard Illuminati wants you to think. There was a good book I read about Truthers and the headspace they and other conspiracy nuts are in called Among the Truthers. There is a strange part where the arthur gets weird and starts talking about how Obama is raising taxes on everything more than any other time in history and how the Tea Party is standing up for real Americans, but then the next chapter he realized that conspiracy thinking is so prevalent that he was sucked into stuff about Obama, and the Tea Party was nothing but a bunch of old racists who didn't want their taxes going to brown people. He also talked about attending a few rallies and how often people were not just birthers, but also truthers and those that belived in Ick and other stuff. He also made a point of how many rascals there were, and how the entire front part of the seating area was empty, as it was rascal space.
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Sep 22, 2013 06:59
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What about truthers claiming that there was evidence of molten metal in the towers, is there anything at all that actually suggested there was molten metal?
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Sep 22, 2013 07:07
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ChaseSP posted:What about truthers claiming that there was evidence of molten metal in the towers, is there anything at all that actually suggested there was molten metal? Aluminum melts at a very low temprature in comparison to steel, and there was a shitton of aluminum in the WTC. Not just in the structure, but things made out of aluminum. It's just that saying "there was pooled of melted metal at ground zero" was turned into molten metal = molten steel by the truthers.
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Sep 22, 2013 07:35
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twistedmentat posted:I do love the thermite theory, because its what I call "answer for everything". Explosives would take a lot, and it would be impossible to wire a building the size of one of WTC towers, let alone two, and the crew would have to be huge. Okay so it was termite, a material that melts metal very quickly. Oh that wouldn't even do it? It's microthermite then. Oh you say there isn't enough Microthermite in existence? Well of course they'd say that, that's just what the Lizard Illuminati wants you to think. I think the thermite theory is used because it fits 'neatly' with the debris. I mean, OF COURSE there'd be a lot of iron oxide at the site of a collapsed skyscraper.
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Sep 22, 2013 07:36
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twistedmentat posted:Aluminum melts at a very low temprature in comparison to steel, and there was a shitton of aluminum in the WTC. Not just in the structure, but things made out of aluminum. Also, softened steel under tens of thousands of tonnes of debris and lots of heat for extended periods could easily force it to 'flow' like a sped up version of those experiments which make bitumen drop like water (only incredibly slowly).
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Sep 22, 2013 14:55
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^^^ no. At temperatures up to 1369c steel is a solid. At 1370c it instantly turns into a liquid. Duh.
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Sep 22, 2013 17:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think the thermite theory is used because it fits 'neatly' with the debris. I mean, OF COURSE there'd be a lot of iron oxide at the site of a collapsed skyscraper. It kind of illustrates their methodology; they go in with the idea that the WTC was brought down by another means than the "offical story", so they go in looking for things that contradict it. While the offical story is done the opposite, they look at the evidence and make a decision based on said evidence.
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Sep 22, 2013 17:34
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Anyone have any good sources to share about birther-ism? I think it pretty much also qualifies as a conspiracy theory considering the massive amount of mental gymnastics one has to go through to convince oneself that they're after Obama's birth records because there's legit shadowy stuff about that guy and nope, it's not about anything else, honest.
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Sep 22, 2013 17:43
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False-flag attacks and secretive agendas (whether within the CIA, the KGB or even a supra-national entity like 'the West') do happen. With that in mind it's not surprising that people who've accepted this will try to make up the difference between what they are told is happening and what they fear is happening. It's just too bad that almost all of the 'subversive' literature on the subject has been an outlandish mix of Ufology, Christian Millennialism and New Age spirituality - which is where all the craziness comes from.
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Sep 22, 2013 17:44
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gradenko_2000 posted:Anyone have any good sources to share about birther-ism? I think it pretty much also qualifies as a conspiracy theory considering the massive amount of mental gymnastics one has to go through to convince oneself that they're after Obama's birth records because there's legit shadowy stuff about that guy and nope, it's not about anything else, honest. This is probably straying off the topic a bit but to answer shortly is he has shown his birth certificate, multiple times and in multiple forms. Anyone who still doesn't buy it is looking for an excuse and will never be happy.
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Sep 22, 2013 17:55
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Finndo posted:I thought the most pervasive truther rant was in relation to the Pentagon, claiming that nobody ever saw a plane there or something. I had someone use this on me one. I pointed out that the Pentagon is right in the middle of a cluster of buildings run by the military. People scamper back and forth between them all day, so many, many people saw the plane come in. People like my father. Then he asked me if well maybe it could have been a cruise missile that my dad mistook for a plane. I told him my dad was in the military for 20 years and had been working for a missile-related contractor for years since, and could identify every missile the US used. He changed the subject to the moon landing. VVV No. This was a guy in one of my gen ed classes freshman year of college. He was a drama major, and not terribly well read even within his own field. It was really  but he pretty quickly figured out continuing to bring this poo poo up was a bad idea, given that we had no choice but to spend time together and I was totally willing to punch him.
Blue Footed Booby fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Sep 22, 2013 |
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Sep 22, 2013 18:22
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Then he asked me if well maybe it could have been a cruise missile that my dad mistook for a plane. Jesus, does he have any idea how small a cruise missile is compared to an airliner? I mean aside from them not looking remotely alike. And lots of people outside the building saw the plane. And the loving remains of passengers in the building. And the knocked down light poles. And and and BLARRRGHHH.
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Sep 22, 2013 18:28
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:Jesus, does he have any idea how small a cruise missile is compared to an airliner? I mean aside from them not looking remotely alike. And lots of people outside the building saw the plane. And the loving remains of passengers in the building. And the knocked down light poles. And and and BLARRRGHHH. Your typical truther's idea of a cruise missile:  Seriously, I've mentioned it before but a lot of the people propagating conspiracy theories rely either intentionally or incidentally on the fact that most people simply don't know some basic facts.
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Sep 22, 2013 18:36
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RagnarokAngel posted:This is probably straying off the topic a bit but to answer shortly is he has shown his birth certificate, multiple times and in multiple forms. Anyone who still doesn't buy it is looking for an excuse and will never be happy. He never should have had to do it in the first place, any requests for it were based solely on racism.
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Sep 22, 2013 18:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:Anyone have any good sources to share about birther-ism? I think it pretty much also qualifies as a conspiracy theory considering the massive amount of mental gymnastics one has to go through to convince oneself that they're after Obama's birth records because there's legit shadowy stuff about that guy and nope, it's not about anything else, honest. Basically conservatives think with their amygdala. They're afraid of the 'other' and feel insecure and need protection. Thusly, they love guns, the military, and authority figures. The president is the ultimate authority figure, yet he is not of their tribe. A black liberal socialist. They must deny the reality of his authority for their worldview to make sense, and so they create a reality where he is somehow fake, illegitimate, not the 'real' president.
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Sep 22, 2013 19:01
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Install Windows posted:Your typical truther's idea of a cruise missile: Of course that's a cruise missile. I mean it obviously can't be a heavy lift vehicle that can land 2 people on the moon and return them safely home right? 
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Sep 22, 2013 19:09
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A Winner is Jew posted:Of course that's a cruise missile. I mean it obviously can't be a heavy lift vehicle that can land 2 people on the moon and return them safely home right? Well no, that's a Saturn IB, it can only put manned craft into Earth orbit. If you look closer you'll see it's missing some of the extra stages that the Saturn V had in order to get all the way to the moon.
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Sep 22, 2013 19:29
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Sergg posted:Basically conservatives think with their amygdala. They're afraid of the 'other' and feel insecure and need protection. Thusly, they love guns, the military, and authority figures. The president is the ultimate authority figure, yet he is not of their tribe. A black liberal socialist. They must deny the reality of his authority for their worldview to make sense, and so they create a reality where he is somehow fake, illegitimate, not the 'real' president. This pathologising of beliefs is about as mystified as David Icke's stuff in my opinion.
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Sep 22, 2013 19:42
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Deep Thought posted:This pathologising of beliefs is about as mystified as David Icke's stuff in my opinion. Well yeah. Someone with an Oedipus Complex would think that. 
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Sep 22, 2013 20:09
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Deep Thought posted:This pathologising of beliefs is about as mystified as David Icke's stuff in my opinion. Oh yes, how could I forget how easy it is for a perfectly logical and rational person to believe the president of the United States is not a genuine US citizen despite the fact that he has released all of his birth certificates openly to the public. Silly me. Doesn't have anything to do with authoritarian personalities being deeply racist. They must have weighed the evidence and come to their conclusion based on intelligent and thoughtful criteria. EDIT: I don't know if you read this thread all the way through where literally somebody was a hardcore conspiracy theorist whose conspiratorial thoughts went away when they started taking anti-psychotic medication. I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for being snarky towards you because I went through your post history and read that your "go-to news source" is Russia Today, which means that you likely harbor conspiracy beliefs and probably are taking it personally when I pathologize certain beliefs. Sergg fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Sep 22, 2013 |
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Sep 22, 2013 21:42
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gradenko_2000 posted:Anyone have any good sources to share about birther-ism? I think it pretty much also qualifies as a conspiracy theory considering the massive amount of mental gymnastics one has to go through to convince oneself that they're after Obama's birth records because there's legit shadowy stuff about that guy and nope, it's not about anything else, honest. It's not even mental gymnastics - it's just a simple matter of believing what they want to believe and assuming that any official paperwork or witness statements that contradict this are fakes cooked up by bribed authorities. It's not too different from Syria denialism - people don't trust what the government says, so it doesn't matter what evidence the government produces because they won't believe it, especially in the face of "well, it's awful convenient for the government, isn't it, that reminds me of that other time they faked evidence". The only part that even takes the slightest mental leap is the sheer extensiveness of it - the idea that literally every relevant authority figure is in on it, as well as everyone else in the world except for their favorite talk radio host and a few people desperate for fringe notoriety. But it doesn't really matter, because they can say "but, Iraq!" and forget the difference in the standard of evidence as well as the fact that evidence is coming from non-governmental sources too. The problem with conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists can point to the ones that turned out to be true (NSA backdoors, for example). Main Paineframe fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Sep 22, 2013 |
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Sep 22, 2013 22:56
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Deep Thought posted:False-flag attacks and secretive agendas (whether within the CIA, the KGB or even a supra-national entity like 'the West') do happen. With that in mind it's not surprising that people who've accepted this will try to make up the difference between what they are told is happening and what they fear is happening. It's just too bad that almost all of the 'subversive' literature on the subject has been an outlandish mix of Ufology, Christian Millennialism and New Age spirituality - which is where all the craziness comes from. Thing is, False Flag attacks that are verified as that are not on the scale of "guy shoots a bunch of kids to get gun control enacted" but more just making up poo poo up that never happened. The Gulf of Tonkin is the best example, as there is no primary evidence it actually occured. It's like MK Ultra. Yes it happened, but it was rather wacky, and mostly resulted in giving people LSD without their knowlage, and not really resulted in any actual mind control techniques. US Goverment did a bunch of other illegal poo poo like spraying microbes into SF to see what happened, and similar things on the NYC subway (i think). But again that is a long, long way from FEMA death camps, 9/11 inside jobness, UN Controlled Russian tank in salt mines ready to take American's guns and so on. Why are they different? Well, for one thing there is evidence, solid, primary sources about this stuff.
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Sep 23, 2013 00:06
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I personally cannot blame anyone for questioning the official story, or any official story. We are constantly lied to and manipulated explicitly, nobody can argue the propaganda machines that run 24/7 do not promote an agenda, strangely similar to the agenda of the richest and most exploitative elements in the international stage. Furthermore; the intelligence services of the world knew 9/11 was going to happen and gave warnings which were not heeded, but lets not forget that the eventual boogeymen in all of this (bin laden, saddam) worked directly for the USA. On a personal note, I dont give a gently caress who did it, the problems with this world were the same before the towers came down - a broken global economic system, an archaic ideology of nations and borders, the wealth and resources of the world are used for the benefit of the few and until those are fixed we will just continue to kill each other until the party is over. /rant
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Sep 23, 2013 02:07
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Questioning is fine. Questioning is good, even. What isn't good is continuing to believe demonstrably false theories just because you desperately want to believe the truth is a lie.
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Sep 23, 2013 02:31
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theworstname posted:Conspiracy theories regarding stuff like 9/11 fit into a narrative in which America is an evil, money-grubbing bully. Controversies like the recent Snowden scandal adds strength to that assertion. The actual events support that narrative as well though. So we were attacked by a bunch of Saudi nationals funded by a dude in Afganistan... so let's attack Iraq for reasons! I'm not sure why people feel the need to invent bizarre theories when the actual truths are bizarre. It's like the vaccine guys complaining about how vaccines are some conspiracy by big pharma to do, something something, ignoring the actual evidence of Big Pharma essentially bribing doctors with kickback/reward schemes to over prescribe other forms of medicine because they make more money. I just don't get it - there is bad stuff happening right under people's nose, but they invent this entire other set of bad stuff instead.
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Sep 23, 2013 02:48
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