proudfootz wrote:Nope. Everybody can read the post. You embarrassed yourself and now try to blame
me for your foolishness.
I really didn't think you'd be obtuse enough to carry on your lies to this extent.
Given that I said:
tolman wrote:The childishness
and lack of inventiveness of your post is noted, albeit without any surprise.
I suspect it was clear to most people from the start that I was perfectly aware you were simply repeating what I had said, and that that was what was childish.
But if you want to keep pretending otherwise, I doubt you'll surprise many people now.
proudfootz wrote:That's a complete logic fail.
You were accusing me of having a black and white view (which I don't have, and which, indeed, I had earlier suggested was one of the failings of the nuttier conspiracy nuts).
Then you try and defend your comment by saying I wasn't equally criticising ignorant people who use bogus arguments when arguing with ignorant conspiracy theorists.
Firstly, that's a fail since the point I was making was regarding ignorant people criticising people who do have a clue, not ignorant people arguing with each other. The latter wasn't obviously an issue of debate.
Secondly, it's a fail since even if I had done exactly what you claimed in a situation where it was relevant, and indeed even if I had denied the existence of ignorant people who didn't believe in conspiracy theories (which I obviously didn't), that would pretty obviously not be an instance of 'black-and-white thinking', but of one or other form of bias, which would be an entirely different sin.
Could you be any
more vague?
The post I responded to was so empty of
content it could easily apply to the anti-conspiracist kooks. Which I did.
Vague?
You accused me of 'black and white thinking', and your 'evidence' for that was that I failed to condemn something which wasn't the subject of the thread, which I hadn't denied happened, and which even if it happened wouldn't be a mirror-image of what I was talking about.
And where failing to condemn it even if it was a live issue would be nothing to do with 'black and white thinking'
That is to say, your 'evidence' was bugger-all to do with what you were accusing me of.
But that you lack the decency or honesty to acknowledge that seems pretty typical.
Hardly 'eeerily alike', as far as I can see.
The main WTC conspiracy theories are essentially that a great conspiracy organisation secretly and carefully and elaborately planned to make everyone believe something happened, the impossibility of which is claimed to be obvious even to people of limited education and intelligence.[/quote]
Is that right?[/quote]
Looking at the theories presented here and elsewhere, it appears to be.
Most of the people making the arguments that events were impossible seem to be neither particularly qualified nor especially bright.
proudfootz wrote:And, of course, the choice of the supposedly 'impossible' targets then necessitated large-scale cover-ups, the involvement of numerous people unlikely to remotely share the aims of the conspiracy, and hope that of the large number of people qualified to say 'that's bollocks', very few people would say anything critical of an obviously bogus explanation.
Is there any way to know how many people you mean by 'numerous' or a 'large number' etc? is it ten? One hundred? A thousand?
Well, if you're so clueless regarding what would be necessary at minimum to pull off the various alleged conspiracy scenarios, maybe you shouldn't pontificate about conspiracies and attack people questioning them as if you
did actually have a clue.
proudfootz wrote:Yes, one of the plans in Northwoods was to fake the destruction of an airplane that was supposed to land safely. Our boys at the Pentagon were confident they could pull that off, no problem -
despite the fact that the fucking plane would be right there for everyone on base to gawk at.
And did the plans go into
details about how such a thing could be pulled off
in the long term with either:
a) people still alive who were supposed to have died, or
b) people supposed to have died who never existed?
proudfootz wrote:But of course, the reason why conspiracy nuts have to argue that the events of 9/11 were 'impossible' is because that's essentially the only argument they have.
Really? Now do you get all this insider info on these 'nuts' through your Ouija board? Or is Tarot more your style?
It's quite clear that the basic argument of most 9/11 conspiracy theories is that
it must have been a Great Conspiracy because what is supposed to have happened couldn't actually have happened.
That is why so much effort seems to go into making claims regarding the impossibility of the basics of the official explanation.
Without that, there seems to be little other than arguments built around sparse and weak circumstantial evidence.
Which seems to be why people try to defend the basic assertion at all costs even when their arguments are useless.
proudfootz wrote:There would seem to be a fairly low limit to what someone would need to know to see the flaws and ignorance in most of the conspiracy arguments that get presented here.
I see - so one need not be an 'expert' to be an anti-conspiracist nutter.
Well, obviously you're trying to shittily misrepresent what I said, though I suppose history suggests you probably couldn't be trusted to do anything else.
Getting back to what I
actually said:
One certainly doesn't need to be a certified structural engineer to see that psikeyhackr's arguments are a pile of crap, since the flaws in his arguments are very basic, and likely to be visible to many people with high school physics and a popular-science-level comprehension of engineering.
That's surely one of the important things about objective/scientific arguments - if an argument is demonstrably bollocks, it doesn't actually take a professor to point it out, just someone with a possibly limited yet correct understanding.
That's even leaving aside the fact that he continually and deliberately avoids answering clear and simple questions regarding claims he makes which are fundamental to his argument.
And I don't think people need advanced qualifications in psychology or psychiatry to understand what
that means.
They just need to understand that when people have an argument they can't rationally defend, some choose to simply avoid the issue even when it's obvious to any rational observer that that is what they are doing.
I would have thought
that's something that most people learn just from growing up.
Yes, you are, but not with any obvious justification.
proudfootz wrote:For example, I would expect that quite a few of the people I studied physics with at high school would see the flaws in psikeyhackr's attempts at arguments.
Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't.
That would require not only mind reading, but the gift of prophecy as well.
No, it simply requires an understanding of how fundamentally retarded his arguments are.
What a pity that appears to be something which you lack.
proudfootz wrote:People capable of such heinous acts (assuming for the sake of argument that 9/11 was an 'inside job') might have the advantage of controlling the evidence, much like when a corrupt police force plants incriminating evidence or suppresses exculpating evidence.
No,
not much like that, since faking evidence in a police investigation is something which can be done by a small number of people or even a single person either planting it for others to find or claiming to have found it, quite possibly with one piece being enough.
And typically with few other official people around who would have any particular reason for doubting that evidence.
Removing evidence from a large and complex scene is quite different, since if there will be many people present, no-one knows in advance who might find it.
proudfootz wrote:Suppose someone who 'does have a clue' objects - the evidence they'd need to make their case is in the hands of the criminals.
Not if the conspiracy claimants are to be believed -
their major claim seems to be that the official explanation is demonstrably impossible, even
obviously impossible.
Were that claim actually true,
the official explanation itself would be the evidence anyone should need to show that at the very least, something was Deeply Wrong.
I don't do sarcasm smileys, but someone as bright as you has probably figured that out already.