Remembering Building 7

[Physics Guy]

Yesterday's 911 Truthers and today's Q-Anons all seem the same to me. Recent American culture seems to have more than its share of these folks, but I guess every society has them and always has.

I don't know all the reasons why this might be. One cause that I can maybe see from my own little corner is the kind of popular science that has been spread, in the western world, over the past few generations. It probably started in the big Cold War drive, after Sputnik, to pump up public enthusiasm for science. Even now there's still a lot more emphasis on cheerleading for science than on explaining it.

Startlingly implausible conclusions are too often presented as gee-whiz wonders of science that every right-thinking person should've course accept, even when no lay person can imagine any kind of evidence that could possibly support such conclusions. That's even the great thing about science, popular media often seem to imply, that it somehow proves such amazingly crazy things to be true. Since the actual evidence for the bizarre conclusions is never explained, though, the implicit message in all the cheerleading for science is violently anti-scientific.

Recounting gee-whiz scientific conclusions without explaining how they are reached says that science is a magical way of knowing things. How exactly do we know that these bizarre things are true? To judge from what is shown on our screens of all sizes, the process only needs a white coat, maybe some glasses, and some gray hair—except of course for the eye-candy girl genius who has somehow attained middle-aged competence in her photogenic twenties. Whatever this wonderful scientific way of determining truth is, it never takes more than a few minutes on screen. If any explanation is needed, a few magic words will suffice.

Even earnest educational programming tends to devote more time to what theologians would call dogmatic teaching (explaining what the theory says) than to the analog of apologetics (explaining why one should believe the theory). The implicit message-by-omission, that sticks long after the details are gone, is that there is nothing to be said about why we should believe such strange things. They're true because they are Science!

Small wonder, then, that people can nod through a handful of videos and think that this has been research. That kind of quick and thoughtless absorption is exactly what people have been led to think that research is—even by the stories that purport to support orthodox science.

[Gadianton]

Yesterday's 911 Truthers and today's Q-Anons all seem the same to me. Recent American culture seems to have more than its share of these folks, but I guess every society has them and always has.

I don't know all the reasons why this might be. One cause that I can maybe see from my own little corner is the kind of popular science that has been spread, in the western world, over the past few generations. It probably started in the big Cold War drive, after Sputnik, to pump up public enthusiasm for science. Even now there's still a lot more emphasis on cheerleading for science than on explaining it.

Startlingly implausible conclusions are too often presented as gee-whiz wonders of science that every right-thinking person should've course accept, even when no lay person can imagine any kind of evidence that could possibly support such conclusions. That's even the great thing about science, popular media often seem to imply, that it somehow proves such amazingly crazy things to be true. Since the actual evidence for the bizarre conclusions is never explained, though, the implicit message in all the cheerleading for science is violently anti-scientific.

Recounting gee-whiz scientific conclusions without explaining how they are reached says that science is a magical way of knowing things. How exactly do we know that these bizarre things are true? To judge from what is shown on our screens of all sizes, the process only needs a white coat, maybe some glasses, and some gray hair—except of course for the eye-candy girl genius who has somehow attained middle-aged competence in her photogenic twenties. Whatever this wonderful scientific way of determining truth is, it never takes more than a few minutes on screen. If any explanation is needed, a few magic words will suffice.

Even earnest educational programming tends to devote more time to what theologians would call dogmatic teaching (explaining what the theory says) than to the analog of apologetics (explaining why one should believe the theory). The implicit message-by-omission, that sticks long after the details are gone, is that there is nothing to be said about why we should believe such strange things. They're true because they are Science!

Small wonder, then, that people can nod through a handful of videos and think that this has been research. That kind of quick and thoughtless absorption is exactly what people have been led to think that research is—even by the stories that purport to support orthodox science.

I dunno. I think you're probably right that science popularizing tends to be showy, and also there's some legacy teaching styles that could be updated, but even if all that were fixed, I think there's a lot more to it. I think as a physics professor, you're being too humble and open about the mistake being on your end.

I went back to find this video about families falling apart over politics; not for the video, the video is okay, but one of the top comments on the video I found mind-blowing:

So basically QAnon did to our parents what our parents thought gangsta rap, the internet, and heavy metal music would do to us.

[Physics Guy]

Yeah, it seems clear that the main attractions in the fantasy world are things like reassurance and belonging. But it seems that there are also some impulses to question glib conclusions and dig for evidence. So it seems to me as though some people thrashing around in the fantasy quicksand are actually reaching for the lifesaver ring that could pull them out, only to find that it's been greased.

I wonder whether a good analogy for this mental sluggishness might be physical obesity. It's a whole syndrome in which a lot of different parts of your life work together to keep you trapped. To get healthy you need to eat healthy food and get regular exercise. People that look the part of experts on TV, but give you the impression that healthy food is a drink box and exercise is a five-minute walk, are doing more harm than good.

[BeNotDeceived]

I spent 7 years researching the events of 9/11 after it was rather obvious that both WTC's and building 7 were brought down via controlled demolition and it culminated into a 2 hour documentary film I put together. In a nutshell:

The twin towers were incinerated from the top down with highly engineered military ordnance called thermite and nano-thermate, the former helped weaken the corners of the building while the nano-thermate (with sulfur added for increased explosive power) peeled them open like a banana from the top down, effectively reducing them to dust at free fall speed. The motive: they had become financial liabilities for the NY Port Authority and were full of asbestos. The city of Manhattan had mandated the removal of asbestos from commercial buildings in 1999 and it was going to cost more than the towers were worth to remove it all. So the NY Port Authority tried to obtain a permit to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor but were denied and then they actually tried to get a permit to demolish the buildings but were denied again owing to extreme height of the towers (110 floors) and the expected collateral damage to surrounding structures below in such an undertaking. So, the NY port Authority ended up selling the WTC complex lease to billionaire tycoon Larry Silverstein in the spring of 2001 who immediately took out a massive insurance policy against terrorism and so when the planes hit the buildings (acting as the cover for the demolitions) and were completely destroyed, he went to court to collect double the payout saying two planes constituted two acts of terrorism and he won, walking away with $4.5 billion in insurance money while the billion it was going to cost in asbestos abatement disappeared. Quite the trick ay?

Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon, the section that was struck by something loaded with military-grade ordnance when it hit the building (white fireball on impact), just so happened to be occupied by about 100 civilian Accountants and Auditors and an investigative branch of the Navy (NCIS) who were investigating $2.3 trillion dollars that had gone ‘missing’ from Pentagon coffers (announced by Rumsfeld a day earlier) – all were killed upon impact and the computers and servers all the evidence was being kept on were all destroyed as well. Those dastardly terrorists knew right where to strike.

And flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania as plane debris was found scattered over a 17 mile area and it has become common belief that it was meant to hit building 7 in New York City in order to justify its demolition as well.

Building 7 just so happened to contain 3 primary tenants on most of the floors… financial institutions, most of which were tied to Wall Street banks, government and insurance companies, all of which were tied and/or connected to the $63 billion Enron and $11 billion WorldCom scandals as there were hundreds of ongoing investigations into both companies that were pending public disclosure which led to Wall Street and even the White House itself which could have done untold damage to and wreaked carnage upon the financial system and fed gov. Furthermore, back in 1997, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney spearheaded the creation of a Washington, DC think tank called the Project for a New American Century whose mission was to figure out a way to drastically increase military spending while taking out multiple Mideast nations who had become hostile to U.S. energy corporations and the U.S. dollar. After the so-called ‘war on terror’ began, Cheney’s personal income went from $3 million to $34 million thanks to stock he owned and held in his old defense contracting company, Halliburton. So the whole thing was about covering up massive financial criminal activity, the largest case of insurance fraud in world history and blank checks going out to defense contractors connected to politicians in the Bush admin.

9/11 is a nutshell.

[Marcus]

What is it with this place? Do we look like some shiny bauble that conspiracy nut dingbats just can't resist?

You'll have to do better than that, BnutDeceiver. Some of us are New Yorkers, and this New Yorker, at least, is NOT amused by your conspiracy crap that dishonors those who lost their lives. Peddle your factfree "documentary" elsewhere.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

What is it with this place? Do we look like some shiny bauble that conspiracy nut dingbats just can't resist?

You'll have to do better than that, BnutDeceiver. Some of us are New Yorkers, and this New Yorker, at least, is NOT amused by your conspiracy crap that dishonors those who lost their lives. Peddle your factfree "documentary" elsewhere.

These guys see a sort of vainglorious end game where their conspiracy gnosis is something they figured out, while the rest of us are dupes. For example, once you start getting down to the nuts and bolts of, say, executing a black ops controlled demolition that requires massive coordination across all federal agencies that’s so sophisticated only ‘independent researchers’ will be able to figure it out, well, there you go.

They also never really think about the new set of problems that arise out of their solution set, in that if the “deep state” was willing to kill thousands of Americans to enact their, I dunno Satanic Jewish takeover Christian America, why are they still alive? BeNotDeceived doesn’t really think this through. How so?

Well. The NSA now monitors the Internet since the Patriot Act was enacted. They’d pick up key words from people posting on sites like this. This would kick in a flag, and a spylord would review his post, see that he figured it out, and kick it up the chain of command for review and action. Some higher ups tasked with quieting sleuths would coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security, and create an op where a task force would be put together to take him out. Using his IP address they’d figure everything about him and his identity and they’d set up surveillance, an information gathering team, and then eventually pick a way to kill him. Heart attack injection, botched robbery, car wreck, sniper, whatever. He’d be dead.

But for some reason working out the details of their reality never really seems to interest them..

- Doc

[Dr. Shades]

I spent 7 years researching the events of 9/11 after it was rather obvious that both WTC's and building 7 were brought down via controlled demolition and it culminated into a 2 hour documentary film I put together.

Is your documentary online somewhere? If so, will you please post a link to it?

[BeNotDeceived]

What is it with this place? Do we look like some shiny bauble that conspiracy nut dingbats just can't resist?

You'll have to do better than that, BnutDeceiver. Some of us are New Yorkers, and this New Yorker, at least, is NOT amused by your conspiracy crap that dishonors those who lost their lives. Peddle your factfree "documentary" elsewhere.

That was the truth, you don't want to believe or accept it, fine, just don't call me a nutjob or tinfoil hat wearer because you can't handle the truth.

[Marcus]

What is it with this place? Do we look like some shiny bauble that conspiracy nut dingbats just can't resist?

You'll have to do better than that, BnutDeceiver. Some of us are New Yorkers, and this New Yorker, at least, is NOT amused by your conspiracy crap that dishonors those who lost their lives. Peddle your factfree "documentary" elsewhere.

That was the truth, you don't want to believe or accept it, fine, just don't call me a nutjob or tinfoil hat wearer because you can't handle the truth.

Lol. You need an asterisk after the word truth when you use it, to remind people it's YOUR conspiracy-nonsense-based "truth*" alone. As in, NOT TRUE. : D

[BeNotDeceived]

I spent 7 years researching the events of 9/11 after it was rather obvious that both WTC's and building 7 were brought down via controlled demolition and it culminated into a 2 hour documentary film I put together.

Is your documentary online somewhere? If so, will you please post a link to it?

The rough draft was on You-Tube for a while but they took it down recently as they seem to be purging videos they don't want to be viewed or which might bring the wrath of the fed gov down upon it. Facebook is doing the same thing as is Twitter. Free speech in this nation is slowly being eroded.