Offer to the Truth Movement: Let's Settle It

[R.Mackey]

The simple fact of the matter is, you don't know what happened on September 11th. You only think you do. And what you think you know is limited by what you've been told, and who you've decided to trust. Most people can't live with uncertainty. You are one of those people.

It may interest you to know that, as a trained experimentalist, I not only live with uncertainty, but it's my job...

If you do not wish to propose a question, then I'm afraid I don't see the point of your posting in my thread. Please post elsewhere, and best of luck to you.

 

[Tippit]

The conspiracy liars are the hypocrites. They make slanderous, wild charges and produce zero supporting evidence.







Ryan Mackey is 100% sincere, i.e., he is as sincere as you are dishonest.

You have a pattern of calling everyone who disagrees with you on this issue a liar, over and over. If you really believe that we're all charlatans, with some ulterior motive, then what do you think it is? What do we have to gain by "lying"?

And what would be the point of even engaging us at all, if you believed we were liars? You're a tiresome man who finds it inconceivable that anyone sees the world differently than you do. I suggest that if you truly believe that anyone who has doubts about what happened on 9/11 is a liar, that you simply don't communicate with them anymore.

 

[1337m4n]

There you have it folks. From Tippit's own words, he refuses to look at anything that contradicts his fantasies. He will forever believe that there was "something suspicious" (he refuses to say WHAT) about 9/11, because...well, just because.

What scientific minds these Truthers have.

Tippit why are you posting in this thread when it is clearly not directed at those unwilling to post critical questions?

 

[1337m4n]

So where I can see NIST demolish a steel-frame high-rise with impact damage and fire? It doesn't necessarily have to be a perfect re-creation of the 9/11 attacks. If NIST science is applicable to the real world then this can be demonstrated in many ways. Take any steel-framed high-rise and demolish it with impact damage and fire. The dynamics of its destruction need to look similar to either WTC 1,2 and/or 7, but it doesn't need to be done on buildings of the same size and scope.

The scientific method is meant to be fairly rigorous. This is so because it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between correlation and causation. We should not lower our standards to accommodate government propaganda.

As well, if NIST science is applicable, then those who believe in it should at least be able to provide a method/technique for demolishing steel-frame high-rises with impact damage and fire.

Will this do?

 

[Confuseling]

You'll note that you are not alone in your doubt, but yes, this will settle it -- IF you participate. You are not. You have not provided me your critical questions.

Your gigantic ego is really on display here. IF we would only recognize that you are the gatekeeper of 9/11 truth, and that you know everything about what happened on 9/11 with authority, then we would resort to smacking ourselves and wondering how we could have ever been so silly!

I don't have any questions for you, because you're not capable of answering them authoritatively.

The other way to look at it, of course, is that a NASA scientist attempting to aid popular understanding of science, in his spare time, and maintaining restraint and civility despite provocation, is actually being remarkably down to earth, in the face of a pontificating ideologue bent on externalising his fears about his own sorry predicament.

The nuance you haven't grasped here - despite Mackey having explicitly said it - is that he isn't claiming to have all the answers. He's trying to drag you, screaming and kicking, through a process.

Once you formulate falsifiable views about a situation, more or less however trivial it may be, the process infects the rest of your thinking. Your world view is a vast mosaic of interrelated assessments; akin to a hologram, each part contains the germ of the whole. No thought exists in isolation from your ideology, and if you examine one in complete dispassionate honesty, the rest will probably follow.

If you can't think of a question, then you aren't playing the game. You play the game, and you will understand, eventually, that you don't disbelieve the 'official' narrative about 911 because of its own inadequacies, or the earth-shattering fruits of so many hours of precocious internet sleuthing, but because you don't want to believe it.

It's not that you don't understand the physical science of it - you arbitrarily cram 'anomalies' into any cracks that will bear the strain. The truth is you willfully misunderstand the politics of it, because you don't understand your own psychology.

[Sorry, rant over, I realise you intend this thread not to degenerate into mudslinging, but that just annoyed me]

 

[Patriot4life]

Ok, I will play.

I fall somewhere between a 7 and 8 on the scale I proposed in my op. That being said my basic stance is that of a LIHOP stance . I would throw in the towel and not really think(as I don't actively debate here) about this anymore if adequate evidence exists that disproves a LIHOP. I guess I should propose a scenario instead of just referring to it as LIHOP.

So, Certain Individuals(I really don't want to accuse any specific people) were weary of Al qaeda operations and informed of possible impending attacks. These warnings were ignored or decepetively played off as non significant. I would speculate that there was a possible intel leak, which informed al qaeda of the war games that would be occurring on 9/11.( I think this is contrary to the more prevalent idea that it would be the other way around, and al qaeda would leak info to the US that the attack was planned for 9/11 and the US conspirators would plan around them.) Basically I think that more than one cabal each with their own interests were operating in respect to the events of 9/11. I am open to discussion regarding a possible third party such as an international drug smuggling cabal's implication or significance in the scheme of 9/11. I don't entertain the idea of a worldwide coordinated conspiracy, although i do aknowledge human nature in that it is definitely a possibility that certain indivivuals or a small group(s) of individuals acted in self interest or percieved interest of the greater good with regard to 9/11.

Therefore I aknowledge the fact that al Qaeda perpetrated the hijackings, and eventual flying of aircraft into US buildings. I can't rationalize the idea of the buildings being rigged for demolition or planes being driven by remote control.(many of those biases were quashed through objectively reading threads and posts here at jref)Those theories just don't add up as far as I can see. However, just as you have stated, I am willing to scrutinize a coherently proposed hypothesis of how that might have happened from an objective standpoint.

It seems like ideology was a key player in the motive for al qaeda. Could neo conservative ideology be a key player in a LIHOP theory?

So my critical question to you,

Is there any evidence that supports the idea of a small(less than ten people) or more than one small cabal taking part in the events of 9/11?

Would you be able to put together a coherent hypothesis from a LIHOP believer's perspective? if so what would it be using available evidence?

 

[Confuseling]

I'll take a stab at this one.

I'm in a position in some sense sympathetic to yours - I don't think LIHOP is in any way impossible.

The problem, though, is that all political decisions, including those related to security, are fine balances based on a preponderance of factors. Consider - if a security operation, whatever its nature, reacted constantly to all possible threats, it would probably become incapable of carrying out its own direct objectives (for one thing it would be entirely predictable, and therefore weak), quite apart from the fact that it would strangle the thing it was trying to protect. Interrogating and then cavity searching every airline passenger entering your country will have a marked effect on your tourism industry.

Now it is distinctly possible that a group of high level people, at some point, actively lowered the responsivity to terrorist threats, whether deliberately or subconsciously, in order to bring about an attack. But you would likely never be able to distinguish that as the motive - they could equally have been concerned about the policing budget, or facilitating business and enhancing the perception of America as an open and friendly place. Motives are opaque - sometimes even to the people involved, and all will have used some degree of professional instinct to come to the decisions they did, and will likely be unable to provide a forensic breakdown of what shaped their thinking. You could present a document proving that a videotape of the Hamburg cell's late planning had landed on Cheney's desk, and it wouldn't prove he'd let it happen - he might have thought it forged or bluster, or he might simply have forgotten about it.

Even if somebody 'blew cover' and claimed that they had been part of a cabal, you would have to suspect their motives - one could claim such a thing through malice or insanity, and it would be almost impossible to disprove.

So unfortunately, without wiring our leaders up to polygraphs (themselves highly suspect) day in, day out, or recording all of their private conversations, we will likely never know, unless one of them was stupid enough to write it down; you simply can't distinguish willful negligence from incompetence, or plain old fashioned bad luck.

 

[gumboot]

So, Certain Individuals(I really don't want to accuse any specific people) were weary of Al qaeda operations and informed of possible impending attacks. These warnings were ignored or decepetively played off as non significant. I would speculate that there was a possible intel leak, which informed al qaeda of the war games that would be occurring on 9/11.

Hi, I just want to jump on this, I had a couple of questions I'd like you to answer to clarify your points. I'm aware that you perceive the above as a possible scenario, rather than are fully convinced the above, and only the above, is the actual scenario.

Firstly, given a LIHOP scenario, what would your position be on the FBI and CIA's efforts to thwart terrorism, and in addition the efforts of any other government agency that may or may not have thwarted the attacks?

It seems to me, in a LIHOP scenario, that either those persons inside the US must have either:
A) Taken action to ensure these agencies would not uncover it.
or
B) Simply gone ahead and hoped they didn't uncover it.

Of note is that the above applies both before the attacks took place and after. As I am sure you can appreciate, option B involves significant (and ongoing) risk on the part of the conspirators, as certainly they must know that investigative agencies would put enormous resources into investigation. Alternatively, option A of course involves substantially more people in said conspiracy, as key individuals within each of the agencies in question would have to be involved.

The second is regarding the mention of wargames.

The implication, as far as I can tell, is that the LIHOP scenario above hinges on the notion that these wargames ensured that the attacks would proceed. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you're talking about some sort of NORAD/Air Defense wargame. I'll go further on a limb by asking if you're in fact proposing that these wargames ensured the air defense system would not prevent the attacks, and therefore that if the wargames had not been occuring that morning the attacks would have been prevented.

Can you clarify if the above is correct, and if not what you feel is the significance of the wargames? And further, assuming the above is more or less correct, were it demonstrated to you that the wargames did not hinder a response, and that without the wargames the attacks still could not have been stopped, would that in any way affect your position?

Thanks in advance.

 

[RedIbis]

That’s a good idea. Let’s take it to the relevant thread.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3593817&postcount=33

For someone who is so obnoxiously persistent I would think you'd know how to use the search function. Please do not derail this thread or any other thread any further. This took me about five minutes to find:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3532269&postcount=433

 

[T.A.M.]

my opinion, the difference between believing LIHOP and believing LIHOI (Let It Happen Out of Incompetence/Ignorance) is one of perspective and attitude.

I find those people who are Always suspicious of govt, of "big brother", those who are paranoid that people are out to get them, they tend to fall for LIHOP (or MIHOP). Those who favor LIHOI tend to be those who are suspicious, but require proof before declaring someone as guilty of such. They tend to believe that govt is too sprawled, uncoordinated, and basically stupid, and there fore the incompetence/ignorance factor.

TAM

 

[Travis]

LIHOP fails as a realistic scenario because it is predicated on the fickle mood of the public. The idea behind LIHOP is that you allow the action to take place in order to get the public to react to the attack in a way conducive to your goals. In this case the public remains stoic and then rallies to get vengeance putting their faith in the Government to do so.

But what if the public doesn't react like that? What if they just freak out and start looting and starting fires while lynching anybody they can get their hands on that they dislike which may or may not include government officials?

What if they just decide to concede defeat and convert to Islam?

What if they all convert to some new religion built around the idea of a two headed robotic chicken that lives under Mt Washington in New Hampshire and demands turtles be sacrificed to appease it?

Ultimately these unknowns make LIHOP unpalatable. Only if you absolutely know for sure how the public will react do you go down that path and since the public is anything but predictable proceeding with LIHOP, let alone MIHOP, is foolhardy at best and suicidal at worst.

 

[gumboot]

I think the LIHOP scenario runs into a major hurdle. Assuming it was simple a small group letting the attacks happen, the question becomes "how"?

The entire point of a bureaucracy is that it prevents individual people having too much power. The President or VP or similar cannot just stop the FBI investigating crimes. It seems to me the LIHOP scenario must either assume the conspirators took action to prevent intelligence and investigative agencies uncovering the plot (something that would involve many more people) or that the conspirators simply hoped those investigative and intelligence agencies would simply never find out. Something that really isn't plausible given the massive investigations that occurred post 9/11. The first option brings far too many people into the conspiracy, and the second option requires the conspirators to take an enormous risk - a risk I don't think you'd take if you're committing treason.

 

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Can't they just make a computer model of a twin tower?

Once they had the model, couldn't they release that to the public?

Couldn't you then run various simulations on that model?

Didn't Purdue make a model of a plane hitting a tower? Isn't that released to the public?

 

[gumboot]

Can't they just make a computer model of a twin tower?

Once they had the model, couldn't they release that to the public?

Couldn't you then run various simulations on that model?

Didn't Purdue make a model of a plane hitting a tower? Isn't that released to the public?

A single run of the Purdue simulation took about 80 hours of high performance computing on very powerful custom-built machines - and that was only for the impact itself over a 20 storey WTC model.

I doubt the average person has a PC even remotely capable of running a simulation like that, and according to NIST it was impossible even with their computing power to create a realistic simulation of the collapse itself.

 

[Travis]

Didn't Purdue make a model of a plane hitting a tower? Isn't that released to the public?

It was and it was dismissed, as any future simulations would be, by Truthers since the results didn't conform to their preconceived idealogical notions. Remember that Truthers assumed the Government was guilty then went looking for evidence of it not the other way around.

 

[DC]

A single run of the Purdue simulation took about 80 hours of high performance computing on very powerful custom-built machines - and that was only for the impact itself over a 20 storey WTC model.

I doubt the average person has a PC even remotely capable of running a simulation like that, and according to NIST it was impossible even with their computing power to create a realistic simulation of the collapse itself.

will just take a huge amount of more time.

 

[gumboot]

will just take a huge amount of more time.

Not necessarily... it might not run at all.

 

[R.Mackey]

The nuance you haven't grasped here - despite Mackey having explicitly said it - is that he isn't claiming to have all the answers. He's trying to drag you, screaming and kicking, through a process.

Well spoken. I'm glad to see that, despite my limitations, some of what I hoped to accomplish is shining through.

 

[R.Mackey]

So my critical question to you,

Is there any evidence that supports the idea of a small(less than ten people) or more than one small cabal taking part in the events of 9/11?

Would you be able to put together a coherent hypothesis from a LIHOP believer's perspective? if so what would it be using available evidence?

Your post is pretty reasonable. My personal take on LIHOP was expressed here. In summary, we know that certain individuals in the FBI and CIA came dangerously close to figuring out the plot as it was. If there was a concerted LIHOP effort, whoever was responsible was either taking a heck of a chance, or was such a consummate master of bureaucracy that they managed to just barely frustrate these agents, and did so with such skill that even now they've never found traces of such tampering.

I don't believe a "small cabal" could have enough influence to make a difference. Give al-Qaeda the motivation? They didn't need it. Front the money? The operation was cheap. Stymie investigation and block the military response? No way ten people can do that -- our agencies are simply far too cumbersome.

Regarding the war games, gumboot and others can give you more detail, but from what I understand such wargames happen all the time, and they actually improved the NORAD response. Because those drills were scheduled, all the key decision-makers were at their posts, rather than at a conference or playing golf. The reality is that the attack was well conceived, simple, and very difficult to defend against. The only real line of defense is in the aircraft themselves, and that just wasn't our doctrine prior to September 11th.

 

[R.Mackey]

Can't they just make a computer model of a twin tower?

Once they had the model, couldn't they release that to the public?

Couldn't you then run various simulations on that model?

Didn't Purdue make a model of a plane hitting a tower? Isn't that released to the public?

You can get the NIST models, though there is a handling fee. As others have noted, most of them are too complicated to run on home computers. The SAP2000 models of the structures, I know for certain, were acquired through FOIA, put on a server for public use, and even run by a poster here.

Also, you don't need the NIST models to do your own research. Purdue, Arup, and Weidlinger Associates all made their own models from scratch. Dr. Quintiere and U Maryland actually built a physical scale model of WTC 1 Floor 97 and set it on fire... There is actually more value in making a different model, because it reduces the chance that we all get a wrong result due to an error in the model itself. This is what we call "common mode failure" in the fault protection community.

I don't know if Purdue's models are public, but they've published on it extensively.