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> Why is this a "pass"? Not the OP but I’m not reading 109 pages of analysis from 9-11 truthers in order to work out whether their conclusions are correct. Tha

> Why is this a "pass"? Not the OP but I’m not reading 109 pages of analysis from 9-11 truthers in order to work out whether their conclusions are correct. That’s not the genetic fallacy either, I’d love someone else who I trust to do it and get back to me with what they find.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
I'd love that, too. The trick is figuring out whether the "trusted" person is really unbiased, or whether they have a bias in either direction. Making it harder, whichever side that the expert disagrees with will claim bias, whether or not there was any...
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > The trick is figuring out whether the "trusted" person is really unbiased It’s impossible to avoid bias, however whether the bias is bad or not depends on the bias and the situation. My go tos are people whose biases I think are either actively helpful (e.g. experts in a field who I’ve previously vetted), irrelevant to the topic (e.g. an NYT journalist talking about cheesecake in pre-war Cambodia), or who have a history of self-deprecating humility to the naked truth regardless of where it leads them but also not incredulous but humble to their intellectual limitations (very rare but occasionally stumbled upon).
3pt14159 5y ago
I studied structural engineering. The 2008 NIST report changed my view. Beforehand I thought the 9/11 A&E for Truth movement may have had some valid points. I suspected it was due to poor construction inspection or possibly corruption but I didn't rule out conspiracy completely. But when I read the report and it explained the mechanisms for failure I was completely convinced. Heat expanded the beams which pushed the exterior columns out of plane which, in conjunction with the heat, caused their failure. I don't know a single engineer that has read the report that disagrees with its findings. All of this to say, there are plenty of engineers that may have signed on to the original pledge that may have read the report and changed their minds. I never signed it, but I don't recommend buying into their claims. We have reasonable answers now.
- jandrese 5y ago
  I thought the “jet fuel can’t melt steel beans” guys were way off base from day 1. You don’t have to get steel fully melted to weaken it. Anybody who has messed around with a blowtorch and a section of rebar knows this. Plus the building had just been hit by a fully loaded jumbo jet and several of the supports were damaged in the impact. The idea that someone snuck in hundreds of explosives and attached them to the building without any of the thousands of people who work in it noticing as a backup to an already elaborate air hijacking plan makes no sense.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    What does make sense is that in an attention economy it is pretty easy to grab people’s attention by taking a significant event and trying to convince people that the common narrative is false is very profitable. You get a lot of attention and if you do a good job the idea grows all on its own and becomes something you can capitalize on the attention for a long long time.
  - dragonsky67 5y ago
    What I don't understand is what value do people get out of promoting this type of conspiracy theory? Who profits? Is it just attention seeking or is there some profit motive? If so what? I'm all for exposing corruption and I think there is enough to keep any anti government person occupied, but why do we get people inventing conspiracies in the most improbable of places? 9/11, Covid19 etc.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      Thinking you've found a hidden truth is unreasonably fun. And then you can form a community and have some fun with your fellow nutbars too. People also want the world to make more sense than it actually does. There being a secret group running things is at least _an_ explanation for the weird shit that happens, even if it doesn't really hold together. There's a bunch of profit motives and politics involved as well usually.
    - jandrese 5y ago
jcranmer 5y ago
I actually did skim the report. I'm not a structural engineer, so I'm not entirely clear on all of the terminology and how reasonable some of the decisions are, but here's the highlights of what I recall. * The NIST report made some assumptions that are not justified by actual evidence. The critical complaints are about the modelling of the exterior wall as a unit (?) that made it unreasonably stiff, and insufficient modelling of the actual joints between structural members. [I can't speak as to this accuracy, this is well beyond my understanding.] * They did their own model of how the structure would behave due to heat and cannot confirm the NIST results. * They also modelled the collapse on their own. I'm not 100% certain how the model works, but it looks like they basically deleted key structural members and observed how the structure would collapse when they did so. * In order to match the recorded evidence, they had to delete key structural members very high up (higher than any floors known to have been on fire) to mirror the observed "penthouse kink", and they had to delete all the columns on an entire floor to mirror the fall. (And of course, no plausible mechanisms for either to occur other than controlled demolition). If I'm following the report correctly--which is a big if--then they have two separate models which aren't used in conjunction with one another, and the first one "overturns" the analysis on how the fire could have caused a key structural member to fail, and the other one "concludes" that the key structural member failing couldn't have caused the collapse. In the latter model, as I understand it, there's no attempt to account for the deteriorated state of the building prior to the final collapse, for example the large gash in the building known to have occurred as a result of falling debris, or any putative (but not confirmed) damage that might have been caused by the long-running fire. Overall, I didn't come away feeling impressed by their analysis.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

I'd love that, too. The trick is figuring out whether the "trusted" person is really unbiased, or whether they have a bias in either direction. Making it harder, whichever side that the expert disagrees with will claim bias, whether or not there was any...

nyokodo 5y ago
> The trick is figuring out whether the "trusted" person is really unbiased It’s impossible to avoid bias, however whether the bias is bad or not depends on the bias and the situation. My go tos are people whose biases I think are either actively helpful (e.g. experts in a field who I’ve previously vetted), irrelevant to the topic (e.g. an NYT journalist talking about cheesecake in pre-war Cambodia), or who have a history of self-deprecating humility to the naked truth regardless of where it leads them but also not incredulous but humble to their intellectual limitations (very rare but occasionally stumbled upon).

3pt14159 5y ago

I studied structural engineering. The 2008 NIST report changed my view. Beforehand I thought the 9/11 A&E for Truth movement may have had some valid points. I suspected it was due to poor construction inspection or possibly corruption but I didn't rule out conspiracy completely. But when I read the report and it explained the mechanisms for failure I was completely convinced. Heat expanded the beams which pushed the exterior columns out of plane which, in conjunction with the heat, caused their failure. I don't know a single engineer that has read the report that disagrees with its findings. All of this to say, there are plenty of engineers that may have signed on to the original pledge that may have read the report and changed their minds. I never signed it, but I don't recommend buying into their claims. We have reasonable answers now.

jandrese 5y ago
I thought the “jet fuel can’t melt steel beans” guys were way off base from day 1. You don’t have to get steel fully melted to weaken it. Anybody who has messed around with a blowtorch and a section of rebar knows this. Plus the building had just been hit by a fully loaded jumbo jet and several of the supports were damaged in the impact. The idea that someone snuck in hundreds of explosives and attached them to the building without any of the thousands of people who work in it noticing as a backup to an already elaborate air hijacking plan makes no sense.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  What does make sense is that in an attention economy it is pretty easy to grab people’s attention by taking a significant event and trying to convince people that the common narrative is false is very profitable. You get a lot of attention and if you do a good job the idea grows all on its own and becomes something you can capitalize on the attention for a long long time.
- dragonsky67 5y ago
  What I don't understand is what value do people get out of promoting this type of conspiracy theory? Who profits? Is it just attention seeking or is there some profit motive? If so what? I'm all for exposing corruption and I think there is enough to keep any anti government person occupied, but why do we get people inventing conspiracies in the most improbable of places? 9/11, Covid19 etc.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Thinking you've found a hidden truth is unreasonably fun. And then you can form a community and have some fun with your fellow nutbars too. People also want the world to make more sense than it actually does. There being a secret group running things is at least _an_ explanation for the weird shit that happens, even if it doesn't really hold together. There's a bunch of profit motives and politics involved as well usually.
  - jandrese 5y ago

jcranmer 5y ago

I actually did skim the report. I'm not a structural engineer, so I'm not entirely clear on all of the terminology and how reasonable some of the decisions are, but here's the highlights of what I recall. * The NIST report made some assumptions that are not justified by actual evidence. The critical complaints are about the modelling of the exterior wall as a unit (?) that made it unreasonably stiff, and insufficient modelling of the actual joints between structural members. [I can't speak as to this accuracy, this is well beyond my understanding.] * They did their own model of how the structure would behave due to heat and cannot confirm the NIST results. * They also modelled the collapse on their own. I'm not 100% certain how the model works, but it looks like they basically deleted key structural members and observed how the structure would collapse when they did so. * In order to match the recorded evidence, they had to delete key structural members very high up (higher than any floors known to have been on fire) to mirror the observed "penthouse kink", and they had to delete all the columns on an entire floor to mirror the fall. (And of course, no plausible mechanisms for either to occur other than controlled demolition). If I'm following the report correctly--which is a big if--then they have two separate models which aren't used in conjunction with one another, and the first one "overturns" the analysis on how the fire could have caused a key structural member to fail, and the other one "concludes" that the key structural member failing couldn't have caused the collapse. In the latter model, as I understand it, there's no attempt to account for the deteriorated state of the building prior to the final collapse, for example the large gash in the building known to have occurred as a result of falling debris, or any putative (but not confirmed) damage that might have been caused by the long-running fire. Overall, I didn't come away feeling impressed by their analysis.