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I need some good resources on 9/11, whether online or book. A friend of mine has gotten quite a bit into the conspiracy side of things, and is convinced that 9/11 was an inside job. My basic knowledge of 9/11 is horribly out of date, and the bunch of research and fact-checking that I did like 7 years ago is all fuzzy (and, again, probably out of date). So for all intents and purposes I'm starting from scratch with the popular narrative - planes flown by terrorists hit the WTC, the Pentagon, and one was brought down (permanently) by the passengers upon learning of what had happened (or alternatively was blown out of the sky by one of our planes/missiles/etc...). Unfortunately, it seems most Googled 9/11 sites, whether asserting some version of this storyline or the inside job variety, all generally look the same and seem to have the same level of uncertain credibility. Thus I'm looking for assistance in getting familiar with and figuring out what the general most-likely-to-be-the-real-story of 9/11 currently is. Thanks in advance for any help.
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Oct 9, 2012 00:52
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Appreciate the link, but unfortunately it seems that experts of all kinds have come out of the woodwork since then to claim one thing or the other. Have their been any other credible studied into this since 2004?
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Oct 9, 2012 02:59
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Golbez posted:A friend of mine says the fact that many engineers putting their careers on the line to challenge the "official story" means that maybe they're right, since why would they risk their career over nothing that involves them? Referring to ae911Truth. What's a good way to counter that reasoning? This is sort of the thing I'm dealing with as well. Along with stuff about FEMA "conveniently" being there the night before (they were - reportedly for training exercises, although I guess there's some controversy regarding what the then-director said about them being there); claims about FEMA generally preparing for some disaster that the government is going to cause; and so on. Also, what are some good sources on the history of Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, US involvement, etc...?
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Oct 9, 2012 04:47
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Install Gentoo posted:One of the key features of the World Trade Center design, since they were going to be built so tall, was that they were designed to collapse downwards in case of catastrophic damage. Instead of falling over and wiping out a third of Lower Manhattan. I hadn't heard this before - is it sourced somewhere?
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Oct 9, 2012 05:57
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That's very interesting, thanks to both of you. I've finally talked my friend into revealing his entire point of view, sourced and everything, in a few days when he gets it all organized. Should be interesting.
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Oct 9, 2012 20:14
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computer parts posted:Nope, literally 99% of the outrage over drones are either because it's a shiny new military toy or that people think it's exactly like playing a video game. Functionally it's exactly the same as our current pilots except there's no chance that they'll (the pilots anyway) get shot down. I think you're glossing over the difference that that "chance they'll get shot down" element makes. It's just one more step back on the impersonality spectrum, and it has every chance of making our foreign policy even more gung-ho if we're not careful. That said, it is the next logical progression in warfare, and it's hardly unheralded given how much has been written on the topic over the decades, so accepting it shouldn't be an issue.
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Oct 19, 2012 18:35
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So this is taking us back a bit, but I just had an acquaintance argue that instead of bailing out the numerous financial institutions in 2008/09, or letting them fail, we should have put them through a managed bankruptcy. Now, I'm familiar with the arguments as to why the auto companies weren't allowed to go the private bankruptcy route - not enough capital was available to prevent them from going straight through and into liquidation. Is this also the situation in the case of the financial giants, or (I know Lehman ended up being allowed to go to BK) was there some other reason for it?
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Jan 8, 2013 17:50
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Install Gentoo posted:I'm already proved right by the fact that at least one person in the world rejects privacy and he seems to be doing pretty OK. Most people would consider it pretty uncontroversial that some people don't need or want the same things as everyone else.
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May 31, 2013 01:03
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Install Gentoo posted:That would indeed make them not fundamental human needs. The only 'fundamental human needs' by this reasoning are eating and drinking (and peeing and pooping) because they are literally the only things that you won't find some people somewhere electing not to do. Every other basic human need as generally characterized is something that you could technically do without if you really wanted. 99% of people just don't want to because they're basic needs. This argument is stupid. But your argument is bad.
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May 31, 2013 04:20
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Install Gentoo posted:Yes that would in fact be the difference between fundamental human needs and fundamental human rights. What exactly do you not get here?
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May 31, 2013 07:45
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shrike82 posted:Yup, considering that Australia is closer to a lot of the Asian exporters, attributing price differentials to physical distance doesn't really make much sense. You realize, of course, that America produces and grows far more domestically than does Australia, and doesn't need to import nearly the same quantity or variety if goods?
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Jun 1, 2013 16:25
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Hey fellas and ladies - I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum, but without a thread-specific search it's tough for me to go back and look for specific stuff that shares keywords with topics being brought up every hour, so: I'm currently discussing the rise of our healthcare costs with my step-dad, a diehard Republican (owns a GBW mug!) who is at least a little annoyed with his party right now (because he's not stupid [graduate of USSR university system as a mathematician], he's just poorly informed and afraid of communism). He is of the opinion that,quote:High health care cost is determined by cumbersome system ,which eliminated any market competition, put severe burden on doctors of paper work and protection from potential litigation. I used to have a whole bunch of links covering how the for-profit insurance system has completely hosed us, but they are all on a laptop that recently died and currently the effort to try and recover them is just not there. On top of general information, I've also been trying to find articles from a couple of years ago showing that despite the number of people purchasing insurance dropping due to the recession, insurers were reporting record or at least record increases in profit (which just logically makes it difficult to believe that the rising costs are a function mainly of care providers, lawyers, etc... But really any assistance on this would be helpful as my entire link library is currently MIA. e: he has some other interesting ideas that I haven't encountered in some time - such as splitting insurance into 'maintenance' and 'catastrophic' and havin g insurance only for the latter (which basically sounds like car insurance for your body - great!). I've asked him if he is familiar with the concept of price elasticity but he hasn't responded about that yet. Habibi fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 22:43
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twodot posted:I think your approach is backwards. I would ask him to back up his assertion since it doesn't seem compatible with how essentially every country with better healthcare than ours functions. I don't think pointing out the for-profit healthcare is screwing us is going to work here, he seems to agree that we are indeed being screwed in the current situation. You can't take the burden of showing the only possible way to avoid being screwed is your solution, you need to instead show why his particular solution doesn't do the thing he wants (or show that the thing he wants is reprehensible). Usually I would agree, but in this particular case, I know that if I ask for proof of his assertions I will get something from foxnews.com or who knows what. Like I said, he's not dumb or unreasonable, he just has some internal fears and views that push him to unfortunate news sources. He even allows that having a public option or a government run insurance company may be a good plan. This conversation grew out of him asking me why I thought a public option would do more to stem the growth of healthcare costs than the status quo or the version of ACA that we ended up with, which is why I am trying to approach it from the 'look what for-profit means for healthcare' angle rather than a 'prove your assertions' angle. Likewise I am not interested in showing that a single payer system is 'the only possible way,' just that it is a better way than what we've been working with. When I tried answering his initial question re why single payer would help reduce costs by explaining the idea of a single negotiator representing an enormous amount of customers...he began comparing it to the system back in the USSR and what is apparently going on now in Venezuela. Mainly, less than trying to prove anything, I want to make him consider the possibility that torts/paperwork/the system (which I am waiting for clarification on, but by which I am fairly sure he means the system of government regulations within which private insurers function.
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Oct 11, 2013 06:12
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e: ^^^ yeah I am not disputing that those are legitimate aspects of the rise of care here. But his position seems to be (awaiting further clarification) that they are the only reasons, and further that they exist in isolation. And yes, I've brought up our lovely health and aversion to preventative medicine. But I also think those things are detrimentally influenced by the for profit system. twodot posted:If the fact that single payer could possibly be better than what we have right now is in dispute, then countries existing that have single payer should be sufficient evidence to prove that is true (since our healthcare is terrible). If it's not, he must have a wrong assertion laying somewhere. Note that this is an entirely different discussion from the cause of our current high costs, which was the subject of your quote. Since I am talking about how a UHC would help reduce costs vs the private system we have now, which is a large part of those extraordinary costs, I don't see why the questions differ? Habibi fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 06:43
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twodot posted:"Would single payer be better for America than status quo?" and "Would a health insurance industry that was properly competitive instead of being basically monopolies be better for America than the status quo?" are entirely unrelated Well, yes, if you change the question from 'would single payer do more to reduce costs' to 'would single payer be better for America,' I can see how it becomes unrelated. But the only time I mentioned the word 'better' was in the context of financial impact, so...
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Oct 13, 2013 00:51
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twodot posted:I addressed this, "do more" is functionally no different from "best" in this conversation. The quote you posted said nothing about the best outcome, just a path to a better outcome. No, I don't think you really did, because "best" never came up except from your end. "Best" is a qualitative judgment, which I am not interested in discussing. All I am interested in are the mechanisms affecting cost, and there's a big gulf between 'do more to reduce costs' and 'best,' the latter of which is being artificially inserted here despite being completely irrelevant. Anyway....
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Oct 14, 2013 05:17
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