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Before conspiracy theory culture went mainstream via the last presidential administration, there were the 9/11 truthers, led by orgs like AE911Truth. These orgs

Before conspiracy theory culture went mainstream via the last presidential administration, there were the 9/11 truthers, led by orgs like AE911Truth. These orgs do real damage to peoples' lives, such as convincing surviving family of 9/11 victims that the US govt planned the attacks and covered up a conspiracy to bring down WTC7. It takes slightly more than a casual interest to draw the correct conclusion that WTC7 fell from uncontrolled office fires. In this case, reputable scientists and engineers at NIST did the analysis work for us. One wouldn't be faulted for casually examining a collapse video of WTC7 and preliminarily concluding that the tower fell from some type of controlled demolition. Of course, further examination of the video negates this conclusion. WTC7's collapse could be a project for a critical thinking skills class for high school students.

hindsightbias 5y ago
Many did or would accept the collapse of the towers, but WTC7 people could never be convinced. That was maddening to debate, because there was no there there of a conspiracy. Why create a false flag taking down the towers to start a war for oil to cover up taking down WTC7? Never got even a crazy answer the that question. Just blank stares.
- retrac 5y ago
  > Never got even a crazy answer the that question. Just blank stares. Because it never occurred to them, I suspect. It would only have occurred to them if they were checking the conspiracy hypothesis with reality, trying to poke holes in the claim. That's the very opposite of a conspiracy theorist who already has the conclusion and is now attempting to back-justify it. We all have our cognitive dissonances, but perhaps the hallmark of "conspiracy theory" thought is that it persists despite whatever degree of dissonance it has with the rest of reality (even reality as acknowledged by the believer). Probably because it never gets subjected to such "integration testing" and so exists in its own self-contained universe, free of all the other implied consequences, if it were true. Pointing out such inconsistencies won't do any good. Because such inconsistencies are never seen as actual flaws in their hypothesis (which of course, is correct). At best, you simply don't understand and your argument is seen as a giant fallacy. At worst, well... you're probably in on it, anyway.

hindsightbias 5y ago

Many did or would accept the collapse of the towers, but WTC7 people could never be convinced. That was maddening to debate, because there was no there there of a conspiracy. Why create a false flag taking down the towers to start a war for oil to cover up taking down WTC7? Never got even a crazy answer the that question. Just blank stares.

retrac 5y ago
> Never got even a crazy answer the that question. Just blank stares. Because it never occurred to them, I suspect. It would only have occurred to them if they were checking the conspiracy hypothesis with reality, trying to poke holes in the claim. That's the very opposite of a conspiracy theorist who already has the conclusion and is now attempting to back-justify it. We all have our cognitive dissonances, but perhaps the hallmark of "conspiracy theory" thought is that it persists despite whatever degree of dissonance it has with the rest of reality (even reality as acknowledged by the believer). Probably because it never gets subjected to such "integration testing" and so exists in its own self-contained universe, free of all the other implied consequences, if it were true. Pointing out such inconsistencies won't do any good. Because such inconsistencies are never seen as actual flaws in their hypothesis (which of course, is correct). At best, you simply don't understand and your argument is seen as a giant fallacy. At worst, well... you're probably in on it, anyway.