[singular]

Sigh. No disrespect intended, but you could spend the rest of your life arguing this stuff, just like any other conspiracy theory. But I'll bite this once so it doesn't look like I'm 'ignoring' your 'evidence'. I won't respond beyond this.

You can't argue against the fact of what would be required for this to actually be a conspiracy, that is concrete and vital to the contention that it wasn't what it appeared to be. You have to explain that, or otherwise we have nothing to talk about.

Remember - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 'This is weird' does not count.

But... I'll carry on for the sake of it. Saying things looking 'weird', or 'how do you explain x?' is meaningless - yeah, weird stuff happened, so what? In many scientific experiments 'weird' stuff happens that can't be explained, that's the way it is - nature is just a strange beast and weird stuff happens, despite us being able to determine the truth of the core matter. Ask any experimental scientist about this.

That is, of course, assuming there is any truth or validity in the 'evidence' provided which I really can't be bothered to look at, as I have n number of seconds left to live in my life, 0 of which I want to spend reading crank bullshit.

A brief few seconds of googling got me this - http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/dr-jones-reanimat...

I recommend in future you google both for and against ridiculous claims made with little to no evidence.

The crux of the matter is - did planes strike the buildings and cause them to collapse? The answer is yes, unless you believe the vast majority of competent engineers (note there are many engineers + architects who are also conspiracy theorists - also note my reference to 'competent' - there are plenty of incompetents and nuts in every walk of life, engineering + architecture being no different) and scientists out there who accept the cause of collapse are conspiring to lie too, in which case you may as well abandon any attempt at reason whatsoever because the whole world is just utterly one endless conspiracy.

On a personal note - I am a Civil Engineering graduate from one of the best CivEng departments in the world (Imperial College, London). I remember discussing the collapse with a professor of structural mechanics and he had no problems with the mode and cause of collapse whatsoever. I make this, not as a resort to authority, but rather pointing out that you, yes you have to explain why he could not work out what this internet randomer could.

The simple fact is that you can cling on to all sorts of 'weird' goings on as evidence of all sorts of strange theories, however several points remain the case:-

1. To prove point X, you don't need to explain every weird apparent occurrence Y and Z, you only have to prove point X. If this was not the case, experimental science wouldn't really have made much progress over the years.

2. If you make an extraordinary claim that utterly contradicts point X, you need to provide overwhelming evidence to back that up - saying 'oh isn't Y and Z weird?' isn't really sufficient.

3. Random shit off the internet doesn't count as 'evidence'.

I'd ask you to consider what we're talking about here - the murder of thousands of innocents, and I'd like you to ask yourself whether your not having even bothered to google for opposite points of view (took me all of 10 seconds), or considering whether that evidence is valid or sufficient to discredit the 'mainstream theory' is in good taste, or actually in essence quite offensive.

Note that a hell of a lot of the 'evidence' these sites mention is flatly false. Practical Mechanics gave a good overview - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/122...

Okay, that's it on this subject. I'm not interested in responding further to this.

[wil2k]

I'll keep it short too because I agree that you can keep arguing things for the rest of your life.

- I just find it odd that Dr. Jones doesn't count as some 'internet randomer' for you while someone with an opposing theory with similar degrees does (Dr. Judy Wood).

- If you have to prove point X that was accompanied with weird occurrences X1 and X2 with theory Y. Theory Y is not complete until it can fully proof point X, /including/ its weird occurrences. Until that point, theory Y might be a good explanation, but never a complete one.

- Completely ignoring oddities and weirdness in an event where thousands of innocents died, that's what I call offensive. If things like surviving passports, hijackers that are still alive, engine blocks melting and cars rusting in no-time at blocks away behind other buildings and 100's of other strangeness and coincidents don't give you ANY gut feeling to look beyond the official story then I'm sorry it's not a University course.

- I agree that a whole lot of 'evidence' on alternative sites is false. But I'm not mentioning these sites so don't try to associate me with those. I mentioned a few things that /I/ find odd, nothing more, nothing less.

Two final points:

- I'm not saying that the (US) government did it, but if you have any historical knowledge, you know that governments have and will definitely sacrifice some of their citizens if the things they can gain with it are worth it.

Unpleasant to think about: hell yes!

A reality: very sadly yes!

- You probably have never looked into the more alternative physics and their horrific weaponization potential. Think the work of people like Tesla, the super-classified research done by the Soviets, the Nazi's, etc. Stuff you can find discussed by 'non-kooks' if you look for it.

If you come from this perspective of history and alternative weapons research, the signatures of such technology could fit many of the things seen like a glove..

[ThomPete]

But here is the problem.

Conspiracy theorists are assuming the conclusion before the evidence is in place. You know just like religious people can make anything seem like an act of god. Or believers in Nostradamus make everything seem like he was right. The list of alternatives stories one can make in retrospect is more or less limitless.

If you have already decided that the government are conspiring against their citizens then you will take any weird phenomena and use that as an argument for you case.

But you could might as well make another conclusion far less spectacular yet as horrific. For instance that the US government knew something was going to happen and they let it happen.

This would be a far less outrageous claim to make even though it's really pretty much wrong.

Conspiracies look like those that Wikileaks expose once in a while. They aren't well orchestrated, they aren't masterminded, they are messy, with lot's of potential leak risk and more importantly they are very small in scale.

Yet wikileaks have managed to get a hold of that.

One would think that if there are people who leak videos of US pilots shooting down journalists, there would be people leaking a far greater story, requiring a far larger conspiracy involving thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people.

One would also think that if the government really was that great at covering up something a huge as 9/11 then they wouldn't make stupid mistakes like the ones that the conspiracy theorists seems to attach themselves too.

In fact one would think that if they made such fundamental mistakes as those that seem to be used as a proof for the conspiracy then the likelihood of the conspiracy being leaked would increase by many many factors.

Unpleasant to think about? Yes for the conspiracy theorists.

A reality: Very sadly yes!

[wil2k]

"Conspiracy theorists are assuming the conclusion before the evidence is in place. You know just like religious people can make anything seem like an act of god. Or believers in Nostradamus make everything seem like he was right. The list of alternatives stories one can make in retrospect is more or less limitless."

I completely agree with this.

"If you have already decided that the government are conspiring against their citizens then you will take any weird phenomena and use that as an argument for you case."

I also agree completely with this point. I also want to make it very clear that I have not decided that the government is conspiring against their citizens, nor is it my starting point.

It is however not something that can be ruled out from the start either, as I mentioned, history has proven that too.

"But you could might as well make another conclusion far less spectacular yet as horrific. For instance that the US government knew something was going to happen and they let it happen."

Agreed, there are so many shades of gray between the often official/'truthers' dichotomy that is almost always maintained and promoted.

Once again to be explicit: I'm interested for the correct shade of gray, because the official version doesn't do it for me, but most alternatives are complete non-sense too.

"This would be a far less outrageous claim to make even though it's really pretty much wrong."

At least the government messed up by ignoring too many signals in the months leading up to the day and by acting to slow on the day itself. Having a training with almost the exact same scenario on the same day doesn't help. This also applied to the attack in London. "One would think that if there are people who leak videos of US pilots shooting down journalists, there would be people leaking a far greater story, requiring a far larger conspiracy involving thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people."

Not necessarily. Large groups of people can work on a common goal while still keeping it secret. See e.g. the Manhattan project with 100K people working on it.

"One would also think that if the government really was that great at covering up something a huge as 9/11 then they Unpleasant to think about? Yes for the conspiracy theorists."

As I noted in another reply in this topic: conspiracy theory is also a word that's used to create false dichotomies.

The official version is also a conspiracy, the conspirators being those Arabic hijackers (of whom quite a few are still alive too btw).

So the real issue isn't: is it a conspiracy or not

It's: who are the conspirators and how can everything observed that day be explained.

[ThomPete]

The Manhatten Project wasn't a conspiracy any more than the CIA is a conspiracy. And the Manhatten Project is pretty well documented and would be carried trough with each new president in the know. Plus The Manhatten Project wasn't done against Americans.

If you are comparing those two projects as equals then you are basically insinuating that Obama must know about this project and is keeping it a secret?

Otherwise it's pretty obvious that you are trying to build an argument out of basically nothing.

You are simply proving my point. You are claiming there are conspirators. Unless you are willing to assume the likelihood that there aren't any, that pretty much means end of any meaningful debate from my point of view.

[cakeface]

"The Manhatten Project wasn't a conspiracy any more than the CIA is a conspiracy. And the Manhatten Project is pretty well documented and would be carried trough with each new president in the know. Plus The Manhatten Project wasn't done against Americans."

He was not claiming that the Manhattan Project was a conspiracy, or a conspiracy against Americans. He was only citing it as evidence that a large number of people can work together in secret.

"If you are comparing those two projects as equals then you are basically insinuating that Obama must know about this project and is keeping it a secret?"

Again, not claiming the Manhattan project was a conspiracy. No reason to bring Obama into the argument.

"Otherwise it's pretty obvious that you are trying to build an argument out of basically nothing."

I think that he cited fairly clearly that there is evidence that is not "basically nothing" that he finds suspect. See the links that he posted.

"You are simply proving my point. You are claiming there are conspirators. Unless you are willing to assume the likelihood that there aren't any, that pretty much means end of any meaningful debate from my point of view."

No, he isn't proving your point. What he is stating is that in most explanations, whether the official or the truther's, there are conspirators. In the official version the conspirators are middle eastern terrorists.

[ThomPete]

Only problem is that a large number of people didn't work together in keeping a secret.

Very few knew what it even meant and it was all documented and known by parts of the government. A government in war btw. A secret weapon that was not used against it's own people.

So it's pure brute forcing unrelated events in a attempt to make something completely unrelated look like it's the same.

But I have no doubt that the next time around hitler will be used as part of the argument to show that a leader can blind his people to believe in anything using the news outlets as his propaganda machine.

Only problem is that we don't live in 1948 or 1984 for that matter.