It wasn't the first conspiracy theory I had swallowed, either. In retrospect, it is obvious that every time I've fallen for one it was primarily for emotional reasons rather than rational ones. A conspiracy theory doesn't stick unless it has some kind of emotional appeal.
Neither does a governmental lie
The second thing that drew me to the theory was the whole "action flick" aspect of the story. The story really does read like a movie, with missiles and explosives and a super-secret government plot to fool the public, which would have to be defeated by an impassioned popular movement to expose the truth. That's exciting stuff, if you believe it.
Funny because it's the official story that makes you suspend your disbelief with fundamental laws of science and reason.
You suspend it to believe the comic book villians. That 19 men in a cave led by a man on Dialysis outsmarted the CIA, FBI, MI-6, ISI, and every other acronym for intelligence in the world.
Not to mention the aluminum going through steel and success in which they hit their targets and the top gun piloting by a guy who couldn't even fly a Cessna.
Not to mention the comic book way in which they knew who the bad guys were on television within an hour of the attacks.
Yeah OS is like a freaking movie. Especially with the dramatic end with the towers collapsing after the attack and even though we can't find the enemny and his elaborate hideout we can somehow find the tape of him conveniently left in a cave confessing and bragging.
And the third thing that I liked about it was the feeling of being "in the know".
Chances are if you follow politics outside of what you see on TV you are in the know. Most people can't even tell you where the Declaration of Independence was even signed. There are people who don't even remember what year 9/11 was.
The American public values entertainment over politics.
The masses are very dumb.
When you start to believe in the conspiracy, you see the world divided into the following three groups:
1) The evil conspirators. People with no conscience, of pure evil, who will do anything for personal gain. They thirst for money and power, and if it means murdering thousands of people, that's just fine. They are also extremely good at keeping secrets. They are very competent at staging fake displays to fool the public, yet they are also such bumbling fools that evidence of the conspiracy is so obvious and plentiful that it is irrefutable
2) The dupes. These are the mindless drones who go about their daily lives believing whatever the media and the government tell them, i.e. pretty much everybody on the planet, including all the structural engineers and firemen with their so-called "evidence" (though some of them might be in the first category).
3) The freedom-fighting conspiracy theorists. These are the people who, from the comfort of their computer chairs, have seen through the veil of secrecy and lies. They have seen the videos and read the websites. They have filled their heads with so many half-truths about the events of that day that they feel the conspiracy theory is rock-solid. If anyone disproves one of their half-truths, there are thousands more to fall back on.
Here's your flaw. When it comes to accepting a conspiracy theory it isn't about your mental capacity as much as it is about your ability to be a free thinker and suspend your emotions in the way for science, logic, and reason.
When you take out the credulity there is substantial circumstantial evidence in many cases that people just look past. But in many cases it's not even credulity it's just plain uninformity of these anomalies that are unexplained
Eventually, however, I decided I couldn't only read conspiracy theorists anymore. I had to at least look at the claims of the opposition in detail, to see if I could refute their arguments and to see if maybe possibly I might be mistaken. Before that I was afraid of doing that, fearing that I might be sucked into being a government dupe again.
Well, that's exactly what happened. When I looked carefully at the conspiracy debunking sites, they made a lot of sense. I couldn't refute their arguments after all. And it seemed so much more plausible, once I actually saw that the "holes" in the official story weren't what I thought they were. Looking back, it seems absolutely crazy that I could have bought it hook, line and sinker like I did. I try to be skeptical and to not let my emotions get in the way of analyzing the facts wherever possible, but apparently I failed at that. Luckily I got better and with a dose of rationality I've been cured of the conspiracy delusion.
It is possible to change people's minds. Don't give up hope, guys.
WHat more than likely happened was those cognitive biases kicked in.
You accepted it because it made since but didn't use the same critical analyzing that you used when you analyzed the official story.
You wanted to accept that account which is what many did when that famous Popular Mechanics article came out.
But if you're not afraid to analyze it you can see the many flaws it has.
It's classic Hearst yellow journalism with the way the sophist use informal logic.
The entire investigative movement is treated straw man.
They basically assert
1)Here is the fundamental beliefs of those who believe in CTs
2)(Insert) Straw man, ad hominem, argument from ignorance, ad lapidem, ad populum
3)State that entire movement is debunked
It takes on the amateur theories instead of the heavy weight big time analogies that require explanation beyond structural engineers could even pretend to offer
