"What about" First time in history?

[Grizzly Bear]

I'm going to to guess that a topic similar to the specific scope of this one probably isn't the most unique idea in the world but I'd like to pose a question directly to those who use the "first time in history" appeal to support the notion that a "controlled demolition" - not fire - was the culprit for the WTC collapses.

First of all a brief summary; the fall of the world trade centers are largely considered by the controlled demolition proponents to be the first time in history in which protected modern steel buildings collapsed in totality due to fire being an instigator in their initiation. Based on this idea they contend by enlarge that the buildings must therefore have collapsed due to another means of intervention (usually referring to thermite/ate, nano-thermite/ate, explosives, or a combination thereof.

I will not expand to the freefall acceleration/jolt/firefighters help explosion x, y, z/SQUIBS!?/where are my pancaked floors/10% of a building cannot crush the other 90%/molten metal x, y, z/etc etc etc...

Now after reading a bit some of you want to actually... know what my point is. It's rather simple really. If the collapse of the WTC is "statistically impossible as the CD proponents contend then I'd like to hear their thoughts on the following:

If this were a controlled demolition, the by the same first in history argument it would have been the first of it's kind:

WTC 1 + 2

• in a building over 100 stories tall
• In a building that was also being hit by a plane
• in a building that has massive (each floor was an acre) multifloor (6+ floor ignited) fires raging concurrently sparked by massive quantities of accelerant.
• with building occupants in it both during the time of implantation and execution.
• The first ever controlled demolition where no remnants of explosive charges were ever found in a debris pile where remains as small as a human thumbnail were identified.

For WTC 7: The first time in recorded history that a controlled demolition had been performed:

• Where the charges survived without a single one detonating during the entire 7 hour period in which a building that has multifloor fires was left to burn unabated by active fire supression systems (sprinklers) or any firefighting
• with building occupants in it both during the time of implantation and execution.
• The first (or third if you want to claim WTC 1 & 2 count as '2') ever controlled demolition where no remnants of explosive charges were ever found in a debris pile during cleanup.

For the termite guys:

• The first time in recorded history where thermite is introduced for applications in controlled demolition.
• in a building between 47 and 110 stories in height
• That was burning
• That was - according to thermite proponents - "snuck in" during broad daylight in a fully occupied building

-----------------------------------------

So let me see if I'm following correctly; According to CD proponents a collapse due to fire alone has never happened before, and according to some, "never will" or is "statistically impossible" - so much so that for it to happen "3 times in a single day" is even more extraordinary....

Just curious to those who make the above argument. By that very logic, shouldn't a controlled demolition also be statistically impossible? If any of the CD proponents would like to interject with any kind of protest about the validity of applying such logic to the CD argument I'd welcome some comments explaining why it applies to the WTC and not to the controlled demolition angle.


Disclaimer: Those of you who have seen me pose this question before should know why I'm asking it... but for those who haven't, one of our residents has already clarified the purpose:

You were attempting to put [CD proponents] in a position where if [they argue] that the collapse hypothesis of WTC 7 could not have been from fire because it's never happened in history then since thermite has never been used to bring a bldg down then [their] argument fails by [their] own logic.

 

[Loss Leader]

I hope you don't expect an answer that makes any level of sense.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

I'm purely curious about how they receive an argument based on the same rational that they base their initial controlled demolition claims - whether they make sense or not I'll deal with later.

 

[ozeco41]

The "first time" argument is a false argument in its own right. It is not a statistical matter.

Truthers' arguments which rest on "first time" are invalid for that reason...

...sadly you cannot legitimately turn the tables on them using "first time" as a premise within a frame of "proper logic' because you build the same false logic of "first time" into your counter argument.

There is one way to progress it - that is to accept the oxymoronic debating frame of "truther logic". Then anything goes - but the answers are not valid in "proper logic" when you try to return to the real world.

So no way to turn...

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Ozeco, the idea isn't specifically to make the same argument as they do. It's to demonstrate where the logic of that argument fails. At the very least if they object to the underlying assumptions that the arguments ultimately lead to, it points out the exact reason why they receive criticism for using it in the first place.

Maybe my wording was off... but again, the purpose wasn't actually use the same argumentative line.

 

[Thunder]

it was also the 1st time in history someone crashed a 757 at full speed into a 110 story building.

lots of 1st timers that day.

 

[ozeco41]

Ozeco, the idea isn't specifically to make the same argument as they do. It's to demonstrate where the logic of that argument fails. At the very least if they object to the underlying assumptions that the arguments ultimately lead to, it points out the exact reason why they receive criticism for using it in the first place.

Maybe my wording was off... but again, the purpose wasn't actually use the same argumentative line.

Understood. Best of luck.

 

[leftysergeant]

...sadly you cannot legitimately turn the tables on them using "first time" as a premise within a frame of "proper logic' because you build the same false logic of "first time" into your counter argument.

That could be used to show that the basis of the twoofer beliefs is fallacious because there are no prior data on which to model what the collapse should have looked like.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

One of (well... the only) the precedent responses I recieved to a question like this was in the general discussion thread and it was really aimed at another member who invoked the appeal. Although it's nice to have gotten the other one's feedback I'd like to see what other CD proponents would have to say. Seems the interest in it on their part is - as expected - quite low.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm purely curious about how they receive an argument based on the same rational that they base their initial controlled demolition claims - whether they make sense or not I'll deal with later.

"Rational" implies "rational" ("sane"). Good luck with that.

 

[fagin]

For the termite guys:

You might have hit on something here. I heard that it was teams of CIA trained ninja termites that gnawed though the load bearing structures.

 

[twinstead]

Oh, CIA trained ninja termites! They ROCK!

 

[Oystein]

The "first time" argument is a bit different for the two disjoined categories of events (1) Things that happen accidentally, or governed by stochastics and (2) Things that are made to happen by design

If someone reported that humens had been propelled to the moon (and survived) by some sort of freak accident, I would say the argument "this has never happened before, therefore it is unlikely" carries some weight. If however it is reported that humans have been propelled to the moon (and survived) as the result of a multi-billion project involving hundreds of thousands highly skilled people and having exactly that effect as its desired outcome, then the argument "this has never happened before, therefore it is unlikely" would be entirely moot. The moon landings were in part undertaken precisely because it had never happened before. It was the specific goal of the Apollo project, defined by president Kennedy, to make this happen for the first time in history.


It would not be unreasonable that terrorists define their objectives in a similar vein: To make things happen that have never happened before. The 9/11 were so effective not just because of their scale, but because never before in history has anyone used commercial airliners as missiles, hijacker four of them in a matter of hours, attacker the central administration of the mighiest military organisation in the history of the world, or destroyed buildings this tall.



The "never before in history ... due to fire alone" argument backfires on its proponents, because they must assume that the planners of those CDs attempted to achieve two objectives thar are nearly mutually exclusive:
a) make something happen that has never happened before, thus raising considerable attention and suspicion
b) Do it all stealthily and make it appear lie a statistically improbable accident

It is unclear what the reasons could be to chart such a schizophrenic course.

 

[leftysergeant]

Nobody ever saw a steel suspension bridge torn apart by mechanical resonance until Galloping Gertie went diving.

 

[1337m4n]

The goalposts on this one get moved a lot, too. If you present a Truther with an example of a steel-framed building collapsing due to fire, he will object on the grounds that it wasn't a "skyscraper".

They don't realize that they only shoot themselves in the foot with that objection. Logically, a skyscraper should be LESS resistant to collapse than a lowrise of the same design otherwise--more floors mean more weight, more points of possible failure, and more chances for the designers to have messed up somewhere.

I cannot think of one single thing that a skyscraper would be able to resist better than a lowrise of otherwise identical design. The examples Truthers demand are actually weaker than the ones we have provided.

 

[Chorduroy]

The goalposts on this one get moved a lot, too. If you present a Truther with an example of a steel-framed building collapsing due to fire, he will object on the grounds that it wasn't a "skyscraper".

They don't realize that they only shoot themselves in the foot with that objection. Logically, a skyscraper should be LESS resistant to collapse than a lowrise of the same design otherwise--more floors mean more weight, more points of possible failure, and more chances for the designers to have messed up somewhere.

I cannot think of one single thing that a skyscraper would be able to resist better than a lowrise of otherwise identical design. The examples Truthers demand are actually weaker than the ones we have provided.

This is a great point. There was a fire in a small steel framed building in my city which collapsed as a result. Seeing what fire alone did to those steel members really drove home the point that fire CAN and DOES destroy steel-framed buildings, but I've never thought it relevant to the "first time in history" and "fire can't bring down steel buildings" garbage. Might be relevant after all.