Fight fire with fire, or idiocy with logic: JREF project?

The Doc said:
It could have interviews and all that too :)
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Gravy from behind his web cam!

I was thinking along the lines of splicing that Leslie Robertson interview with Stephen Jones alongside some images of the mechanics of collapse but done by a

Granted reality believer, we don't want to turn into the Loose Change camp, which produces another awful film right after the other by fame-crazed fans (Pentacon etc). Thus why it would have to be a massive thud of heads from all in the JREF camp, a bit like us all playing naked in the mud and sticking all the ideas together.
 
T.A.M. said:
I wish I had your faith in joe public, but if you read the polls, and watch Jay Leno, you get a much different picture.
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Well, all the polls I've seen indicate that "9-11 was an inside job" lags far behind "aliens live among us" and "Elvis is alive" as a credible belief system.

My position isn't based so much on faith in Joe Public, but rather that Joe Public already believes so many different forms of easily disprovable idiocy that throwing 9-11 Truth onto the pile wouldn't change things much.
 
Reality Believer said:
Pardon my noobness to this forum, but I am not a stranger to critical thinking and the scientific method.

In my view, the CB's (conspiracy believers) are leading you (us) down the garden path. They are fabricating ridiculous scenarios and coercing us to responding to the fantasy. WTF? It is like teasing cats to swat the feather on a stick, when in reality, we should be the ones holding the stick, forcing the CB's to respond.

What happened to holding them accountable to rebutting the "official story" , line by line? They are playing the "Jedi Mind Trick" and we are falling for it.

I know about the videos out there that professing the "inscrutable detail smoking gun", but that is the ploy, to present a stupid scenarios, that forces an extraordinary amount of research to prove them wrong. 10 minutes behind a video editing machine requires 100 hours of research to debunk. This isn't argument ,THIS is stupidity.

Challenge the CB's to refute the NIST, NTSB, & 911 commission conclusions, don't twist to their demands! Stand your ground and challenge them to refute reality.
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Welcome to the Forum.

With respect to the normal rules of debate and investigation, you are of course completely correct. The "Truth Movement" refuses to play by these rules, however. This is why the "Movement" is ultimately quite limited in influence, and hasn't made even the slightest dent in real scientific discussions, instead being satisfied to remain confined to chat rooms and "underground" media populated by those with no relevant expertise and pronounced allergies to critical thinking.

Some of us chase that rabbit anyway, the idea being to educate one at a time. Others respond to satisfy their moral outrage at the lies and slander coming out of the "Truth Movement." Still others dig deeper out of personal interest and share what we find. And there are a few of us who are just cranks in our own right. ;)

I followed the tactic you describe in my Victory Thread last year. Ever since this and other studies revealed the shallowness of the "Truth Movement," I've scaled back my rabbit-chasing activities considerably, but not all the way to zero. Once in a while there's a legitimate question raised.

Also, there are a few within the "Truth Movement" who actually attempt a response to the NIST / 9/11 Commission studies. They're completely off-the-wall, of course, but some try. At present I'm still preparing a writeup showing why David Ray Griffin's Debunking 9/11 Debunking is about as right as a left-handed corkscrew... it's way more effort than we should have to perform, true, but it may prove educational in its own right. And I only have to do it once. :D
 
R.Mackey said:
This is why the "Movement" is ultimately quite limited in influence, and hasn't made even the slightest dent in real scientific discussions, instead being satisfied to remain confined to chat rooms and "underground" media populated by those with no relevant expertise and pronounced allergies to critical thinking.
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I fear you underestimate their influence.

Go to a highschool classroom and ask the students what they think happened to the WTC towers. Many of them will say they think the government did it and that bombs brought them down. Ask them why and they will point to some of the many "films" the *truth* movement have put out as youtube videoclips. Unfortunately, that is where many in the next generation are getting their perception of the world. And those perceptions will influence the next generation's behavior and voting patterns.
 
Triterope said:
I'm with Reality Believer on this one.

I can't seem to find it in the search, but we've had this discussion before, and somebody made a great post with the theme of "who's going to kiss this pig?"
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I think that might have been me. Was it this post?

The thread it came from is here.

There were some very good responses to my post, as well as good points raised earlier in the thread. Both points of view should be carefully considered.

9-11 conspiracy has all the mass-market appeal of cactus-skin coffee mugs. The conspiracy stories go against every rational interepretation of the event, and basically tell the viewer they were stupid for believing all that nonsense about Arab hijackers, and buildings falling down due to planes crashing into them. It's something of a tough sell.

The 9-11 conspiracy filmmakers don't have much of an audience, and the alternate theories they propose are so absurd they're practically self-defeating (as MRC_Hans observes). As much I hate to put my faith in the intelligence of the average person, I think this is a case where it is warranted. If the average person can't see this for the obvious tripe it is, then our society has far greater problems than silly conspiracy stories.
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Though I generally agree, I would still support some sort of project along the lines being discussed here. I'm considering the hypothesis that woo pseudohistory is in some ways more problematic than woo pseudoscience, and some of those problems might develop without requiring the revision to be widely accepted or believed.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
T.A.M. said:
Agreed...however, there is joe public to think about. We are dealing with an "instant gratification" nation, so to speak. The majority of the naive, or "not in the know" people out there, when asking or having doubts about 9/11, would much, MUCH rather watch a video about it, than have to wade through even well organized literature. It is from this perspective, that I agree that a video showcasing the research Debunkers have done, would be a great idea.

TAM:)
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Would this even help. It's not like the magic bullet rational dissapeared after they duplicated Oswald's shot.
The 9-11 conspiracy filmmakers don't have much of an audience, and the alternate theories they propose are so absurd they're practically self-defeating (as MRC_Hans observes). As much I hate to put my faith in the intelligence of the average person, I think this is a case where it is warranted. If the average person can't see this for the obvious tripe it is, then our society has far greater problems than silly conspiracy stories.
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:Redited because I realized I had a better point:
There reach is pretty far. I just saw a book on display in my local Borders bookstore that was written by a truther which was titled Debunking 9/11 Debunking. Pissed me off to no end.
 
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I suggest a rough sketch on windows media of certain ideas by those who wish to indulge in this idea in free time. I certainly have this, I only work three days a week!:D

Edit: Crikey. 800 posts in two months.. I really do have a lot of time on my hands....
 
BeAChooser said:
I fear you underestimate their influence.

Go to a highschool classroom and ask the students what they think happened to the WTC towers. Many of them will say they think the government did it and that bombs brought them down. Ask them why and they will point to some of the many "films" the *truth* movement have put out as youtube videoclips. Unfortunately, that is where many in the next generation are getting their perception of the world. And those perceptions will influence the next generation's behavior and voting patterns.
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It's difficult to say for sure, but this is a considered position. I've looked in depth at the evidence of popularity for the "Truth Movement," and found it to be nothing unusual, as described in this post. Those same high-school students are probably just as likely, if not more so, to believe in psychic phenomena, ghosts, coverups of alien landings and UFOs, spontaneous combustion, Bigfoot, and The Secret.

Our mandate, in my opinion, is to serve as an educational resource. No missionary work is required. The Human Race has withstood all kinds of insanity, and by contrast -- popularity as well as content material -- the "Truth Movement" is not in the least unusual. I have faith that your dire predictions will not come to pass.
 
Those high school students will grow up. The majority of them will actually learn about the real scientific world and change their opinion, the rest will stay conspiracy theorists.

...and the wheels on the bus go round and round...

I used to think when I was a child that the world would change when the teenagers of my generation (hippies) grew up and became adults and ran the place.

There is an old saying: if you are young and not a liberal then you have no heart. If you are old and not a conservative then you have no brain.

That perhaps applies to conspiracy theories as well.
 
For me doing something like this started seeming important a few weeks ago when I went in for my physical with my doctor. Somehow we ended up on this subject and he seemed to have bought into some of the Truth stuff. He particularly seemed to believe in the NORAD stand down and I spent the better part of twenty minutes explaining why such a thing was impossible, how the exercises assisted the effort and all the stuff NEADS did and went through. He accepted my explanation but questioned, "why didn't they put any of that stuff into a documentary?"

That caused me to reflect on that most of the documentaries to date have focused either on the rescue efforts at the WTC, the reaction of various people to the attack or on United 93. Most people I've talked to didn't even know what NIST was let alone that it did a huge investigation into the collapses.

So I feel that the path to take is to lay out what happened on that day with a particular focus on the key areas that people seem to have troubles with. Education is always the way to battle ignorance.
 
It seems that the best way to get these guys is to let them speak. Let them hoist themselves on their own petards.

As it were. Because I really don't know what that phrase means.

Anyhow, it seems that the most convincing things I've seen (to those on the fence/in the "movement") are the 911 Denier Speaks paper and video.
 
Abbyas said:
It seems that the best way to get these guys is to let them speak. Let them hoist themselves on their own petards.

As it were. Because I really don't know what that phrase means.
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Not sure what it means either, but I suspect that it will make you go blind.
 
R.Mackey said:
It's difficult to say for sure, but this is a considered position. I've looked in depth at the evidence of popularity for the "Truth Movement," and found it to be nothing unusual, as described in this post. Those same high-school students are probably just as likely, if not more so, to believe in psychic phenomena, ghosts, coverups of alien landings and UFOs, spontaneous combustion, Bigfoot, and The Secret.

Our mandate, in my opinion, is to serve as an educational resource. No missionary work is required. The Human Race has withstood all kinds of insanity, and by contrast -- popularity as well as content material -- the "Truth Movement" is not in the least unusual. I have faith that your dire predictions will not come to pass.
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It is actually scary to think that the 9/11 truth movement and its theories have gained status in keeping with ET, ghosts etc...

The difference, is the innocence, or lack of harm that goes with belief in ET's, ghosts, psychics, astrology, etc...

9/11 truth however, has a more dangerous, a more sinister component. Not only does it OPENLY accuse the USG of murdering thousands of its citizens, but in some cases they name individuals such as Dick Cheney. As well, many of the loose cannons in the movement have at various points called for armed revolution. Then we have the "truth squads" who go around harrassing, for now, public officials, but in the future I see them going door to door to harrass people into listening to them...

TAM:)
 
Abbyas said:
It seems that the best way to get these guys is to let them speak. Let them hoist themselves on their own petards.

As it were. Because I really don't know what that phrase means.
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To be hoist by one's own petard means to be harmed by your own plan to harm someone else, or to fall into your own trap.

Shakespeare coined the phrase in Hamlet:

There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
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A petard was a small bomb used in medieval times to breach gates and fortifications.

In medieval and Renaissance siege warfare, a common tactic was to dig a shallow trench close to the enemy gate, and then erect a small hoisting engine that would lift the lit petard out of the trench, swing it up, out, and over to the gate, where it would detonate and (hopefully) breach the gate. It was not impossible, however, that this procedure would go awry, and the engineer lighting the bomb could be snagged in the ropes and lifted out with the petard and consequently blown up. Thus to be 'hoist with his own petar' is to be caught up (and destroyed) by his own plot. Thus, Hamlet's actual meaning is "cause the bomb maker to be blown up with his own bomb", metaphorically turning the tables on Claudius, whose messengers are killed instead of Hamlet.

Source
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-Gumboot
 
And the Lord sayeth, I'm interested in some sort of project like this, aye. Let it be known that ye shall PM me if anyone has any really cracking ideas and we shall feast on a burnt offering on something else really righteous.

And it will be good.
 
Mobyseven said:
And the Lord sayeth, I'm interested in some sort of project like this, aye. Let it be known that ye shall PM me if anyone has any really cracking ideas and we shall feast on a burnt offering on something else really righteous.

And it will be good.
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Indeed. It will be good, regardless of teh cynics (Who may be quite legitimate in their beliefs...but, meh...)

I would welcome a volunteer for a voiceover artist, preferably who sounds nothing like Charlie Sheen.

And Gumboot, dont worry about any costs, it would be my pleasure, but how do I get these MPG files onto disk?
 
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