Inside the Truther Mind

[Tippit]

That's the good thing about reality. You don't have to make stuff up!

As to it being complete and truthful...I made no requirement that it be complete in every detail. Just that it be consistent with the facts and internally consistent. It also helps if it is simple and straightforward.

What do we do when we don't agree as to what the "facts" are, and don't trust the integrity of those conducting the investigation? Simple and straightforward are great things, but just because you'd like the world to be simple all of the time doesn't mean that it is.

What you presented is not a narrative that explains 9/11. Such a narrative would sound like this:

In September, 2001, powerful people covertly caused four planes to be hijacked. The hijackers successfully crashing three of them into buildings that symbolized US economic and military power. A fourth airliner crashed into an empty field after an apparent attempt by the passengers to gain control of the plane.

Does this represent your position?

Lets be honest, the narrative offered by any "truther" will be summarily rejected by you as paranoid speculation. Simple doubt and/or disbelief of the official narrative, or the veracity of the official storytellers cannot be tolerated. Essentially we have according to you two options: believe the official story, or be labeled a crazy person.

No, I presented a simile to make a point, which is that truthers avoid stating a theory out loud because it would make them sound crazy.

Just like you are avoiding stating a theory.

If you assume anyone who doesn't believe the official story is crazy, then what's the point of compelling them to generate a narrative? You might as well jerk-off into a moist rag, or pursue some other form of entertainment.

 

[Tippit]

For skeptics, the burden of proof is always on the claimant. That is, we don't believe a claim unless there is proof.

Re: the mindset of CT believers, they seem to have their minds on "auto-believe", which is to say they'll believe any claim which fits, emotionally, how they wish to see the world, and they don't require credible evidence. They place no burden of proof on claimants.

Yet, you reserve skepticism for the official story, and assume that it must be accurate, and that the mainstream media (and the ones feeding them information) are beyond reproach.

There is a problem here, and that problem is that human beings have a tendency to want believe things with certainty. We want to believe with certainty that we know what happened on 9/11, one way or the other. We hate the idea of accepting the fact that we may never know, and therefore we decide to choose. This tendency causes human beings to have a distorted view of truth, because there are many things which simply cannot be proven. Remember that you have accepted a claim and believe it is true, it's been "proven" beyond reasonable doubt in the court of your mind.

 

[Tippit]

The global warming deniers have always interested me. I feel they fall into two camps:

1. I don't want to believe in global warming because it is too frightening.

2. I don't want to believe in global warming because the steps needed to head it off/minimize it will negatively affect my quality of life, the amount of money my company makes, etc.

What about people like me, who believe global warming is quite real, but who don't believe in material anthropogenic global warming? That is, I acknowledge that human beings contribute to the greenhouse effect, but not in a material way. I hold this belief because I've seen the deception in government documents about AGW. For instance, the idea that CO₂ is the greenhouse gas with the most warming potential - it's not. That gas is H₂O. If AGW were true, the government wouldn't have to lie so blatantly in this manner. For me AGW is an open question, and I'm not ready to mortgage our collective economic future by jumping on the fear and doom bandwagon.

 

[JohnG]

What about people like me, who believe global warming is quite real, but who don't believe in material anthropogenic global warming? That is, I acknowledge that human beings contribute to the greenhouse effect, but not in a material way. I hold this belief because I've seen the deception in government documents about AGW. For instance, the idea that CO₂ is the greenhouse gas with the most warming potential - it's not. That gas is H₂O. If AGW were true, the government wouldn't have to lie so blatantly in this manner. For me AGW is an open question, and I'm not ready to mortgage our collective economic future by jumping on the fear and doom bandwagon.

No offense, but I think that sort falls into my second category "2. I don't want to believe in global warming because the steps needed to head it off/minimize it will negatively affect my quality of life, the amount of money my company makes, etc."

Don't take my word on AGW, I'm about as far away from an authority on the subject as is possible. Certainly don't blindly trust "The Government" (whatever that means). But when the majority of experts in the field who make a career out of studying climate all agree that AGW is real and can provide evidence to support their theories, maybe it's time to start considering you may be mistaken.

I always get a little suspicious when one of the motivations of Global Warming denial seems to be "I don't believe in X because it's bad for business". Penn & Teller (who I usually agree with) tried to pull the same thing on BS a couple of seasons ago in one of their episodes devoted to environmentalism.

Buying auto insurance may seem like a waste of money in retrospect if you reach the age of 90 without ever having been involved in an accident, but that's not really the point, is it?

This is whole subject however is probably a derail in that it doesn't have much to do with conspiracies. I certainly see no conspiracies on either side in the area of the Global Warming debate...well except for some of the just plain goofy stuff the late great Michael Crichton was going on about in the last few years of his life.

 

[Foolmewunz]

<snip>




Thanks for the link. The forgone conclusion is contained in the first paragraph, namely that the disintegration of the building was due to structual failure and “progressive collapse”, caused by the terrorist attacks (“...the structural failure and subsequent progressive collapse of several World Trade Center (WTC) buildings following the terrorist attacks ...”).

You changed a word.... it wasn't "caused by" it say... "following the terrorist attacks", JJ. That's quite a difference, and if I didn't know you for such a bastion of clear thinking and honesty, why I'd think you intentionally changed that word. Caused by is quite different from following.

The police are investigating a murder in the parking lot caused by the Lakers victory.....

versus

The police are investigating a murder in the parking lot following the Lakers victory.....

Pretty big difference, eh?

Your narrative (on this line of thinking) is also failing.

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced details of its $16 million, 24-month federal building and fire safety investigation to study the structural failure and subsequent progressive collapse of several World Trade Center (WTC) buildings following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City. The study of WTC Buildings 1 and 2 ("The Twin Towers") and WTC Building 7 will focus on the building construction, the materials used and all of the technical conditions that contributed to the outcome of the WTC disaster.

 

[Tippit]

No offense, but I think that sort falls into my second category "2. I don't want to believe in global warming because the steps needed to head it off/minimize it will negatively affect my quality of life, the amount of money my company makes, etc."

Don't take my word on AGW, I'm about as far away from an authority on the subject as is possible. Certainly don't blindly trust "The Government" (whatever that means). But when the majority of experts in the field who make a career out of studying climate all agree that AGW is real and can provide evidence to support their theories, maybe it's time to start considering you may be mistaken.

There is a good possibility that I am mistaken. There is a possibility that you are mistaken too. I disagree with the assertion that the majority of experts in the field of climate science believe that AGW is a big problem. I think it's more of a media consensus than anything else, and we all know who has the loudest voice. Regardless, majorities can be wrong. I have actually studied the issue, I've watched the films, I've read the websites, I've read the websites of AGW skeptics. The CO₂/H₂O global warming potential was just one example of government deception on the subject.

I always get a little suspicious when one of the motivations of Global Warming denial seems to be "I don't believe in X because it's bad for business". Penn & Teller (who I usually agree with) tried to pull the same thing on BS a couple of seasons ago in one of their episodes devoted to environmentalism.

Buying auto insurance may seem like a waste of money in retrospect if you reach the age of 90 without ever having been involved in an accident, but that's not really the point, is it?

Look at it from a different perspective. You are advocating economic changes that are certain to have extremely adverse consequences for all of us, in anticipation of a probabalistic event, based on science which to me seems greatly misunderstood, on both sides of the issue. The only rational way to proceed is to weigh the costs of taking action versus the costs of not taking action by the probabilities of the various outcomes. The problem is that since the science isn't that well understood (in my opinion), the estimated probabilities are virtually meaningless.

 

[JihadJane]

From a position that would offer a narrative. (not that I'm saying you ever had one)

How can I retreat from somewhere I've never been?

I'll let him speak for himself, but it doesn't matter how he used it. A narrative is a story. It describes a sequence of events. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. Yours is and has neither. It's not even a theory, because it lacks specific details.

Fairy tale narratives have nice beginnings middles and ends. Real life is often full of unresolved dead ends.

No! It doesn't matter that I say so, it just is. No explanation of anything whatsoever.

How is it possible to explain something without the having the necessary information to do so?

A purely subjective reason.

I salute your honesty

People who suspect unseen forces behind historical events just seem crazy to me.

It seems pretty crazy to me that you believe that. How much history have you studied?

See? It worked. Cognitive dissonance was reduced.

Sorry, too cryptic. I don't get your reasoning. Are you saying that torturing people reduces their cognitive dissonance?

Then we are 100% in agreement! The leadership of al Qaeda, which includes Osama bin Laden, can certainly be described as being in positions of power, and they certainly acted covertly.

Well, it's a start ... but I wonder how seriously you are taking this. You haven’t answered my question as to how you know your preferred narrative is truthful.

This is exactly what I find so interesting. Despite the fact that this is obviously very important to you, you won't even TRY to speculate as to what happened on 9/11.

I believe that you have some very specific suspicions about who you think is behind it. I also believe that you will throw up all sorts of specious verbal roadblocks to avoid answering any direct questions about these suspicions that you have.

You're doing it as we speak!

I have little to add to Tippit's comments on this.

Your beliefs about what my beliefs might be are simply beliefs.

There are various possible suspects to speculate about but there is not enough information available to form a cosy narrative for a clinical psychologist like yourself to diagnose as the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. My own belief is that we will never know how 911 was orchestrated.

If you want me discuss my specific suspicions then you will have to adopt a more rational position yourself, without the paranoid shizophrenics to help you (your appeal to emotion).

Appeal to emotion noted.

Another common truther tactic.

You appear to be more obsessed with "truthers" than I realized.

Emotion has nothing to do with it. A large number of footnotes in the 911 Commission Report cite information gleaned from torture as their reference. The Commissioners acknowledged the unreliability of this information, which they were unable to substantiate.

You changed a word.... it wasn't "caused by" it say... "following the terrorist attacks", JJ. That's quite a difference, and if I didn't know you for such a bastion of clear thinking and honesty, ... ...

Why don't you give up the silly Bastion Batman and Robin stuff?

why I'd think you intentionally changed that word. Caused by is quite different from following.

If I wanted to be dishonest why would I quote the offending word, Sherlock?

The police are investigating a murder in the parking lot caused by the Lakers victory.....

versus

The police are investigating a murder in the parking lot following the Lakers victory.....

Pretty big difference, eh?

Your narrative (on this line of thinking) is also failing.

The meaning the word "following" is usefully ambiguous. The way it is used suggests a connection between the terrorist attacks that we saw on TV and the “...the structural failure and subsequent progressive collapse of several World Trade Center (WTC) buildings ” (forgone conclusions).

 

[aggle-rithm]

What do we do when we don't agree as to what the "facts" are, and don't trust the integrity of those conducting the investigation? Simple and straightforward are great things, but just because you'd like the world to be simple all of the time doesn't mean that it is.

Here is where you need to focus on more than one thing at a time. I said it helps if it is simple and straightforward. It also needs to be internally and externally consistent.

You can come up with an internally and externally consistent theory that involves sneaking into burning buildings and planting bombs so that Larry Silverstein, in the midst of all the chaos created by the federal government in an effort to implicate Iraq in a terrorist attack carried out by Saudis, can make a quick buck that he must immediately surrender to the Port Authority while he rebuilds the complex with his own money, but that would be needlessly complex.

Lets be honest, the narrative offered by any "truther" will be summarily rejected by you as paranoid speculation. Simple doubt and/or disbelief of the official narrative, or the veracity of the official storytellers cannot be tolerated. Essentially we have according to you two options: believe the official story, or be labeled a crazy person.

No, the options are this: Believe the official story, or come up with another story that fits the evidence better.

No truther has been able to even come close to doing this in eight years. Not one!

If you assume anyone who doesn't believe the official story is crazy, then what's the point of compelling them to generate a narrative?

You're missing the point. I do NOT assume that anyone who doesn't believe the official story is crazy. What I'm saying is that no one in eight years has been able to come up with an alternative theory that doesn't SOUND crazy.

I guarantee that you can't do it either.

You might as well jerk-off into a moist rag, or pursue some other form of entertainment.

Why can't I do both?

 

[aggle-rithm]

Yet, you reserve skepticism for the official story, and assume that it must be accurate, and that the mainstream media (and the ones feeding them information) are beyond reproach.

You've got it wrong. Skeptics do this: When a reasonable theory is offered that fits the evidence, skeptics accept it provisionally. Until they have a material reason to disbelieve it, they will continue to accept it provisionally.

After a while, two kinds of evidence are offered: Wave after wave of factoids offered by truthers who have no concern about whether the factoids are consistent with each other, and wave after wave of independent investigations by experts in just about every field imaginable that all point to the same conclusion, which happens to be the same as the original hypothesis.

Skeptics, of course, accept the latter. They do not assume anything.

There is a problem here, and that problem is that human beings have a tendency to want believe things with certainty. We want to believe with certainty that we know what happened on 9/11, one way or the other. We hate the idea of accepting the fact that we may never know, and therefore we decide to choose. This tendency causes human beings to have a distorted view of truth, because there are many things which simply cannot be proven. Remember that you have accepted a claim and believe it is true, it's been "proven" beyond reasonable doubt in the court of your mind.

I agree with much of what you say here. If all truthers did was to claim that the US government was somehow involved in the attacks, I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it. What bothers me is their efforts to undermine the "official story" by challenging well-understood concepts such as physics and engineering.

The never-ending sophistry and evasion are also pretty annoying. It's difficult to tell which is more infuriating: The lower-IQ truthers (which are probably the majority) that relentlessly pound you with rich supplies of stupid, or more intelligent ones like JJ that waste their brain power coming up with specious reasoning and bogging discussions down with semantic arguments.

 

[aggle-rithm]

You appear to be more obsessed with "truthers" than I realized.

What do you expect me to talk about in a thread entitled "Inside the Truther Mind"?

 

[Foolmewunz]

How can I retreat from somewhere I've never been?



Fairy tale narratives have nice beginnings middles and ends. Real life is often full of unresolved dead ends.



How is it possible to explain something without the having the necessary information to do so?

I salute your honesty



It seems pretty crazy to me that you believe that. How much history have you studied?




Sorry, too cryptic. I don't get your reasoning. Are you saying that torturing people reduces their cognitive dissonance?








Well, it's a start ... but I wonder how seriously you are taking this. You haven’t answered my question as to how you know your preferred narrative is truthful.



I have little to add to Tippit's comments on this.

Your beliefs about what my beliefs might be are simply beliefs.

There are various possible suspects to speculate about but there is not enough information available to form a cosy narrative for a clinical psychologist like yourself to diagnose as the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. My own belief is that we will never know how 911 was orchestrated.

If you want me discuss my specific suspicions then you will have to adopt a more rational position yourself, without the paranoid shizophrenics to help you (your appeal to emotion).





You appear to be more obsessed with "truthers" than I realized.

Emotion has nothing to do with it. A large number of footnotes in the 911 Commission Report cite information gleaned from torture as their reference. The Commissioners acknowledged the unreliability of this information, which they were unable to substantiate.






Why don't you give up the silly Bastion Batman and Robin stuff?



If I wanted to be dishonest why would I quote the offending word, Sherlock?



The meaning the word "following" is usefully ambiguous. The way it is used suggests a connection between the terrorist attacks that we saw on TV and the “...the structural failure and subsequent progressive collapse of several World Trade Center (WTC) buildings ” (forgone conclusions).

You never cease to amaze and amuse me. Talk about semantic hair splitting!

Complete fail.

 

[~enigma~]

There is a good possibility that I am mistaken. There is a possibility that you are mistaken too. I disagree with the assertion that the majority of experts in the field of climate science believe that AGW is a big problem. I think it's more of a media consensus than anything else, and we all know who has the loudest voice. Regardless, majorities can be wrong. I have actually studied the issue, I've watched the films, I've read the websites, I've read the websites of AGW skeptics. The CO₂/H₂O global warming potential was just one example of government deception on the subject.

Guess the runway global warming on Venus is caused by H20 right Tippet? Do CTist always turn their brains off?

 

[Leviath]

I recently finished Michael Shermer's "why people believe weird things" and I must say it shed some light on how the truther-mind works. He doesn't speak of truthers (for obvious reasons) but I think they fall into the same category as Holocaust deniers and creationists. They seem to not understand the concept convergence of evidence, or they knowingly ignore it.

One good example of this was a discussion about UA93. We got the missing plane, the missing crew and passengers, the eye-witnesses, picture of the plume, debris etc etc. Then a truther jumps in and asks if we got soil samples contaminated with fuel. Since we don't the conclusion is that there was no plane at Shanksville.
Or perhaps more correct: Since the conclusion is that there was no plane, the lack of contaminated soil is considered strong or even crucial evidence for the no-plane hypothesis.

Basically I think the OP is right, ignoring the concept of convergence of evidence fits right in with the idea that truthers only have a conclusion but no theory. You just can't get around the convergence of evidence if you wish to establish a theory.

 

[~enigma~]

I recently finished Michael Shermer's "why people believe weird things" and I must say it shed some light on how the truther-mind works. He doesn't speak of truthers (for obvious reasons) but I think they fall into the same category as Holocaust deniers and creationists. They seem to not understand the concept convergence of evidence, or they knowingly ignore it.

One good example of this was a discussion about UA93. We got the missing plane, the missing crew and passengers, the eye-witnesses, picture of the plume, debris etc etc. Then a truther jumps in and asks if we got soil samples contaminated with fuel. Since we don't the conclusion is that there was no plane at Shanksville.
Or perhaps more correct: Since the conclusion is that there was no plane, the lack of contaminated soil is considered strong or even crucial evidence for the no-plane hypothesis.

Basically I think the OP is right, ignoring the concept of convergence of evidence fits right in with the idea that truthers only have a conclusion but no theory. You just can't get around the convergence of evidence if you wish to establish a theory.

God of the gaps. Whenever a gap in the evidence has been filled, ala Kent Hovind the TM makes new gaps on either side. Come to think of it, just as Hovind was sent to federal prison for tax evasion so was a truther by the name of Brown

 

[JihadJane]

What do you expect me to talk about in a thread entitled "Inside the Truther Mind"?

I expected you to remember that the 911 Commission wasn't an emotional Truther operation.

Talk about semantic hair splitting!

Ha ha! You started it.

If you want to talk about the importance of semantic hairsplitting in the language of propaganda study the subtle alterations that were made to the language of UK Blair’s infamous dodgy Iraq dossier on its way from truth to fantasy.

Here is where you need to focus on more than one thing at a time. I said it helps if it is simple and straightforward. It also needs to be internally and externally consistent.

You can come up with an internally and externally consistent theory that involves sneaking into burning buildings and planting bombs so that Larry Silverstein, in the midst of all the chaos created by the federal government in an effort to implicate Iraq in a terrorist attack carried out by Saudis, can make a quick buck that he must immediately surrender to the Port Authority while he rebuilds the complex with his own money, but that would be needlessly complex.

Forget about the Twin Towers.

No, the options are this: Believe the official story, or come up with another story that fits the evidence better.

No truther has been able to even come close to doing this in eight years. Not one!

I have asked you more than once why you believe that your preferred narrative is truthful. You haven't offered an answer yet.

I have pointed out that a large proportion of the information that informs the official story about the al Qaeda plot was derived from torture and is, therefore, unreliable. This doesn't seem register in your supposedly skeptical mind as important. Why not?

You appear to be using your sounds-like-paranoid-schizophrenia "truthers" as your truth yardstick i.e.: "If they haven't come up with a better story, then my story must be true." Weird skepticism.

...

Skeptics, of course, accept the latter. They do not assume anything.



...

The never-ending sophistry and evasion are also pretty annoying. It's difficult to tell which is more infuriating: The lower-IQ truthers (which are probably the majority) that relentlessly pound you with rich supplies of stupid, or more intelligent ones like JJ that waste their brain power coming up with specious reasoning and bogging discussions down with semantic arguments.

I look forward to your reply to my simple questions.

I recently finished Michael Shermer's "why people believe weird things" and I must say it shed some light on how the truther-mind works. He doesn't speak of truthers (for obvious reasons) but I think they fall into the same category as Holocaust deniers and creationists. They seem to not understand the concept convergence of evidence, or they knowingly ignore it.

One good example of this was a discussion about UA93. We got the missing plane, the missing crew and passengers, the eye-witnesses, picture of the plume, debris etc etc. Then a truther jumps in and asks if we got soil samples contaminated with fuel. Since we don't the conclusion is that there was no plane at Shanksville.
Or perhaps more correct: Since the conclusion is that there was no plane, the lack of contaminated soil is considered strong or even crucial evidence for the no-plane hypothesis.

Basically I think the OP is right, ignoring the concept of convergence of evidence fits right in with the idea that truthers only have a conclusion but no theory. You just can't get around the convergence of evidence if you wish to establish a theory.

Things must be getting a bit quiet if 911 debunkers are now reduced to accusing the people they have been taunting for years as "Conspiracy Theorists" of not having ever had any theories after all!

What took you so long?

All these years they've been playing with your mind and you never noticed.

Aren't they sly?

 

[Foolmewunz]

<snip>
Ha ha! You started it.

No, you made a statement based on your mindset that the NIST went into their investigation with an a priori set of conclusions based on instructions from the administration.
This was in the midst of much talk about credibility of made-up narratives. I challenged you to proove that statement and even provided you with a link to the press release.
Your best argument is now to try to twist the meaning of the word "following"? The entire document and the mandate from Congress give no credence whatsoever to your contention.

If you want to talk about the importance of semantic hairsplitting in the language of propaganda study the subtle alterations that were made to the language of UK Blair’s infamous dodgy Iraq dossier on its way from truth to fantasy.

irrelevant dodge

<snip>



Things must be getting a bit quiet if 911 debunkers are now reduced to accusing the people they have been taunting for years as "Conspiracy Theorists" of not having ever had any theories after all!

What took you so long?

All these years they've been playing with your mind and you never noticed.

Aren't they sly?

Well, JihadJane, seems that you represent truth and honesty. So what's your theory? Or do you want to join Russell Pickering and the CIT crowd in the group that are just pointing at holes in what they refer to as the OCT, yet providing no actual theories of their own?

Would you like to get Tweeter's theory about what actually happened? RedIbis? Galileo?
Heck, go for the big boys.... What does Jim Fetzer think really happened? Stephen Jones? David Griffin? Richard Gage?

For the most part all any of them do is JAQ. Give them another five years and they'll be JFK conspiradroids - what's the count now? 64 individuals who've been named by one or another JFK writer/investigator as the person who did it? That's where the career 911 theorists are going - just throwing ◊◊◊◊ against the wall and hoping that something sticks.

So give us one (just one) credible theory that makes more sense than 19 Islamist Terrorists working in conjunction and likely financed and driven by AQ hijacked four planes, flew three of them into buildings, and crashed the other when it was in danger of being retaken.

No - don't start trying to pick miniscule little hanging threads from the narratives of the four planes. Give us a single all-encompassing narrative from any TMer anywhere that explains - better - the events of that day.

This thread is on getting some insights into the thinking of members of the TM. If you have something to add, that would be fine, But if you wish to just turn the tables, please go start a thread on the debunker mindset. But in this one, we'd kind of like to discuss what makes truthers think the way the do in the face of so much evidence that contradicts what they are claiming.

 

[Leviath]

Things must be getting a bit quiet if 911 debunkers are now reduced to accusing the people they have been taunting for years as "Conspiracy Theorists" of not having ever had any theories after all!

You are probably clever enough to understand the point, but choose to play with words. How about proving me wrong?

 

[tuc0]

I think this will be my last reply to you (at least in this thread). Talking semantics to a wall isn't my idea of a productive discussion.

How can I retreat from somewhere I've never been?

I see what you did there. I didn't say anything about where you retreated from in the original post, just where you retreated to. But english isn't my first or even second language, so maybe it was a bad choice of words. Let's rephrase it then: Replace "You have retreated as far as you can, so that you..." with "You have set up such a position, that you..."

Better?

Fairy tale narratives have nice beginnings middles and ends. Real life is often full of unresolved dead ends.

So what? We're talking about your (and the whole TM's) inability to come up with a rational narrative. The "OCT" could be one big fat lie, it would still be a narrative.

How is it possible to explain something without the having the necessary information to do so?

Creating an internally consistent hypothesis that takes into account the information that is available is one possibility. There are others.

It seems pretty crazy to me that you believe that. How much history have you studied?

I see what you did there. This is probably another poor choice of words. Rewrite: "People who suspect Them (and I mean the paranoid Them) behind historical events just seem crazy to me."

Better?

(This is an interesting question however; you could start a thread over in the History forum and when you manage to convince anyone a certain historical event was the work of "unseen forces" I will concede you this point)

Sorry, too cryptic. I don't get your reasoning. Are you saying that torturing people reduces their cognitive dissonance?

This is where you go badly off the tracks. I was refering to your position, that the the "OCT" is invalid, just because somewhere someone was tortured, which I see as a way for you to reduce the cognitive dissonance of denying quite a big pile of evidence that doesn't fit with your ideology.

I don't want to start being insulting, so I'll just stop now.

 

[JohnG]

There is a good possibility that I am mistaken. There is a possibility that you are mistaken too.

Trust me, nothing would please me more than to be mistaken about AGW. If it's OK with you, I'd prefer to agree to disagree on this subject as it really does feel like a derail of the OP.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I expected you to remember that the 911 Commission wasn't an emotional Truther operation.

Non-sequitur.

Forget about the Twin Towers.

Non-sequitur.

I have asked you more than once why you believe that your preferred narrative is truthful. You haven't offered an answer yet.

I have said that when there is only one reasonable explanation that fits the evidence, then it is most rational to provisionally accept that explanation until a better one is offered. That is the case with the 9/11 attacks.

When I first made the conclusion that the attacks were carried out by al Qaeda, it was based on several pieces of circumstantial evidence: That it had all the earmarks of a terrorist attack, that al Qaeda is one of the few groups worldwide capable of carrying out such an attack, that al Qaeda had in fact attempted to destroy the World Trade Center in an attack a decade earlier, and that al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, had proclaimed publicly that we wanted to bring down the World Trade Center.

Since then, more and more evidence has become available. Some of it is from truthers, some from US government investigative agencies, some from independent investigators in a wide variety of disciplines from engineering to aviation. The "evidence" from truthers has been almost universally of very, very poor quality, while the evidence from all other sources is consistent with the facts and consistent with the theory that al Qaeda carried out the attacks.

THAT is why I believe the preferred narrative is truthful. If anyone can come up with another one that fits the evidence better, then I would love to hear it.

I have pointed out that a large proportion of the information that informs the official story about the al Qaeda plot was derived from torture and is, therefore, unreliable. This doesn't seem register in your supposedly skeptical mind as important. Why not?

Because I don't believe that it's true. Can you tell me specifically which pieces of information were derived from torture, and how you know it was derived in that manner?

You appear to be using your sounds-like-paranoid-schizophrenia "truthers" as your truth yardstick i.e.: "If they haven't come up with a better story, then my story must be true." Weird skepticism.

No. Until anyone comes up with a theory that fits the evidence better, I will continue to believe that al Qaeda carried out the terror attacks, because that is the only theory that makes sense.

Once again: If you know of another one that makes sense, please present it now.

I look forward to your reply to my simple questions.

That I seriously doubt.

Things must be getting a bit quiet if 911 debunkers are now reduced to accusing the people they have been taunting for years as "Conspiracy Theorists" of not having ever had any theories after all!

What took you so long?

All these years they've been playing with your mind and you never noticed.

I've known it from the beginning. Here is an article I wrote for SkepticReport over five years ago where I said:


Here we have a defense of what is perhaps the most ubiquitous tool of the conspiracy theorist - the "fuzzy assertion". The conspiracy theorist suggests, infers, tantalizes, and quotes others out of context, but refuses to commit to a solid, defensible hypothesis supported by evidence. He leaves that up to other, more respectable parties.