The Failure of AE9/11T

[Scott Sommers]

Over on this thread discussing AE9/11T, Oystein reported some really interesting calculations about the growth of the organization.

All of this got me thinking about some of the themes I have been posting about recently that concern the motivations of AE9/11T members.
Why There Are Truthers
Do You Really Think They're Lying?

As I pointed out to Oystein,

One thing this points to is the lack of organic growth among the target audience. So what you say? Everyone knows that 9/11 Truth is for the mental rejects of our world. But it means more than that. It also means the existing members are not involved in internal discussion inside the profession.

This is a significant point, and I would like to hear what Gage has to say about it. Why is it that his 1500+ licensed landscape architects and mechanical engineers are not involved in or able to convince their peers? Why is it that only Gage with his ppts, speaking in church basements and coffee shops, is able to turn the minds of free?

So what are AE9/11T members thinking when they sign the Gage-thing? Sure I can understand they're thinking they agree with Gage because the facts point a thermite explosion that dustified the buildings like a nuclear bomb. But in my profession, if I thought there was huge government interference resulting in death and destruction, the first thing I'd do is go tell my colleagues. I'd be addressing this every chance I got. In fact, I can say that, like many professionals, I do I spend much of my working time trying to deal with the mistakes and miscalculations that government has made. So why not the members of AE9/11T? Why do even the signed members increasingly leave this up to others who are not even members of the organization?

 

[Oystein]

A loooong time ago - I am not even going to try to find and resurrect the thread(s) - there was some talk about actually writing to randomly selected signers and asking them directly: When did you sign? Did you believe in inside job then? Do you still? Do you even remember you ever signed this? Would you sign it again?

I am sure Orphia remembers.

 

[Scott Sommers]

A loooong time ago - I am not even going to try to find and resurrect the thread(s) - there was some talk about actually writing to randomly selected signers and asking them directly: When did you sign? Did you believe in inside job then? Do you still? Do you even remember you ever signed this? Would you sign it again?

I am sure Orphia remembers.

I remember something about this, although it may have been the memory of the event you're talking about.

I like this idea. I have written to many of the signatories of other 9/11T petitions. It has been very interesting for me, although the response rate is very low.

How would imagine introducing yourself?

 

[LSSBB]

I remember something about this, although it may have been the memory of the event you're talking about.

I like this idea. I have written to many of the signatories of other 9/11T petitions. It has been very interesting for me, although the response rate is very low.

How would imagine introducing yourself?

I say it should be set up professionally and polite, and state that you are doing an independant audit.

 

[Oystein]

I remember something about this, although it may have been the memory of the event you're talking about.

I like this idea. I have written to many of the signatories of other 9/11T petitions. It has been very interesting for me, although the response rate is very low.

How would imagine introducing yourself?

Well, there was no event, only talk of a potential event. We kinda forgot about it.

First of all, the truthers are reading JREF. So as soon as we reveal our game plan here, there is the chance that they will warn and instrucht their members

In that context, I believe openness and honesty about identifying where I come from will be the best approach. Just tell them plainly that I have been studying AE911T and have been wondering how their "membership" base is at all involved in the processes and supportive of their mission.

As you surely have experience, it is not easy to motivate people to respond to unsolicited questionaires. So you'd have to make sure you meet them where they are, recognize their expertize, respect their opinion, and display honest curiosity and an openness to accept any answers they might give.

Don't ask too many, and too complicated questions.
This poses a problem if we do this jointly: You, Scott, probably have other objectives than I have, Orphia may have still others, etc. So how do we agree on objectives, and consequently on what to ask?

Off the top of my head, I think my objectives are:
- Are they real?
- Are they current?
- Are they sufficiently informed?
- Are they active?

You might add objectives such as
- Are they motivated mainly by engineering concerns, or political or moral convictions?
- What social (political, religious...) background do they come from?
- Are they successful in their profession?

Pretty tough to organize all that in one simple, easy questionnaire...


In practice, once we know what to ask, we need to contact them. So we need contact information on a representative number of them. For most of the licensed guys, their street addresses can be looked up on the states' license lookup pages (I have links to those pages for engineers in several of the larger states, like CA, NY, TX). But sending paper letters costs MONEY.
Researching email addresses is a lot more time-consuming and often not possible.
We'd like to get replies in the form of e-mails.
Replies will probably biased towards the emotional expremes: Those most motivated will reply, those how care less will more likely not care.




Sooo in summary: Looks like a bit of work...

 

[Scott Sommers]

It's not too bad. I wrote several dozen signatories of 9/11T Lawyers, 9/11T Scientists and 9/11T Medical Professionals. I didn't get a lot of answers, but it was informative.

The letter I sent was,

I am an independent journalist writing about the 911 Truth Movement. Your name is on the membership list of Medical Professionals for 911 Truth. I'm looking for members of this group that I can ask a few short questions about their impressions of 911 and the current state of the government explanation of the events.

Thank you for time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Scott Sommers.

Although this is no longer true and to say this now would be a lie.

First of all, the truthers are reading JREF. So as soon as we reveal our game plan here, there is the chance that they will warn and instrucht their members

I have not found this to be true. In fact, I have never overestimated how informed Truthers of any sort are. They appear to be reading JREF, but that's probably only a dozen or so of all the thousands of people in these groups and forums that we're talking about.

In that context, I believe openness and honesty about identifying where I come from will be the best approach. Just tell them plainly that I have been studying AE911T and have been wondering how their "membership" base is at all involved in the processes and supportive of their mission.

But I do agree with this.

Don't ask too many, and too complicated questions.
This poses a problem if we do this jointly: You, Scott, probably have other objectives than I have, Orphia may have still others, etc. So how do we agree on objectives, and consequently on what to ask?

Off the top of my head, I think my objectives are:
- Are they real?
- Are they current?
- Are they sufficiently informed?
- Are they active?

You might add objectives such as
- Are they motivated mainly by engineering concerns, or political or moral convictions?
- What social (political, religious...) background do they come from?
- Are they successful in their profession?

Pretty tough to organize all that in one simple, easy questionnaire...

I think this is way too ambitious. It's got to be 2 or 3 key questions. Maybe no questions and just an inquiry about whether they'd be willing to answer some questions. I don't think of it as a questionnaire, as much as an e-mail inquiry. If it's anything other than short, even the interested ones will loose interest. As much as we want to make fun of these people, they are working professionals with families.

...sending paper letters costs MONEY.
Researching email addresses is a lot more time-consuming and often not possible.
We'd like to get replies in the form of e-mails.
Replies will probably biased towards the emotional expremes: Those most motivated will reply, those how care less will more likely not care.

It has to be e-mails. No one will answer a questionnaire and mail it back. Even with pre-paid postage, it's really hard to get cooperation with this sort of thing.

Soooo...if you could only ask 2 or 3 things, what would most want asked?

 

[carlitos]

Whatever you decide to ask, I'd recommend using a free online survey vs. an email. That way, you won't have to manually sort through open-ended responses. I have in the past used surveymonkey.com for things like this, but maybe there are others.

 

[Sabretooth]

So what are AE9/11T members thinking when they sign the Gage-thing?

I'd venture a guess that some of the signatories have not put in much effort to really grasp the wares that Gage is pushing.

The signers may only agree with Gage in a sense that a new investigation is warranted...but maybe not for the reasons Gage outlines.

Sure I can understand they're thinking they agree with Gage because the facts point a thermite explosion that dustified the buildings like a nuclear bomb. But in my profession, if I thought there was huge government interference resulting in death and destruction, the first thing I'd do is go tell my colleagues. I'd be addressing this every chance I got. In fact, I can say that, like many professionals, I do I spend much of my working time trying to deal with the mistakes and miscalculations that government has made. So why not the members of AE9/11T? Why do even the signed members increasingly leave this up to others who are not even members of the organization?

I couldn't agree with your assessment more. It is downright frustrating to listen to truthers back Gage when there is such gross inaction from the "members" of AE911. I'd be embarrassed to link my name to a group who's only accomplishment in 6 years is a few youtube videos.

"It doesn't look right" is not a scientific argument...and repeating it over and over just makes you look inept.

I'd be willing to wager that the vast majority of the signers to AE911 are rather eccentric individuals.

 

[Scott Sommers]

Whatever you decide to ask, I'd recommend using a free online survey vs. an email. That way, you won't have to manually sort through open-ended responses. I have in the past used surveymonkey.com for things like this, but maybe there are others.

My feeling is that there won't be any meaningful number of AE members who will fill out a survey. You can try, and maybe I'm wrong, but guess is you'll get a 0% return rate.

These are the Facebook Truthers that I know who are so starved for attention, they'll post semi-nude pictures of themselves. Or the JREF Truthers who think it's some kind of rebellion posting about their mental health problems. These are people who are deliberately not talking about their belief in conspiracy. They're not going to be filing out on-line surveys from some guys at the JREF. And even if they did, the meaningfulness of what you could draw from this would be very limited. You're going to have to look for much deeper contact with these guys to even get them to reply.

Or that's how I see. You can try. But if I do do this, I'm writing personal letters and asking people to relate to me about their feelings.

 

[Scott Sommers]

I'd venture a guess that some of the signatories have not put in much effort to really grasp the wares that Gage is pushing.

A point I've made about many of what I call 'Hollywood Truthers' is that they all seem to have gone silent once that African-American got in the White House and started talking about health care. There were hoards of them. Michael Moore was making videos and giving statements to Infowars. Where is he now that Obama's firing his Truther advisers?

I couldn't agree with your assessment more. It is downright frustrating to listen to truthers back Gage when there is such gross inaction from the "members" of AE911. I'd be embarrassed to link my name to a group who's only accomplishment in 6 years is a few youtube videos.

"It doesn't look right" is not a scientific argument...and repeating it over and over just makes you look inept.

I'd be willing to wager that the vast majority of the signers to AE911 are rather eccentric individuals.

It's hard to tell what kind of person this'll be. Eccentric is probably a good enough term. I can imagine that back when Gage first started gathering signatures, there were interior designers who thought this was a good way to oppose Bush. I keep stressing this idea that some of these people probably don't even have a clear memory of what this is, who Gage is, or what he said that made them sign his thing. It's even possible that some have completely forgotten they ever signed it.

As much as this correct, these kinds of signatories are not going to be giving you any kind of meaningful data from an on-line survey. You're just going to have to find deeper ways to contact with them.

 

[carlitos]

Perhaps by googling individual signatories, you could open your email with a note along the lines of "did you realize that when people search your name, they find this insane petition?"

 

[ergo]

Gosh, here I thought I was going to read another damning expose by some anonymous internet debunkers about AE911truth and what a failure it is, since of course the 9/11 Truth movement is also failed and dead -- very, very dead, SO very dead -- as we've been hearing for several years now.

But actually, it's just a repeat of this thread.

Yawn.

 

[NoahFence]

lol...

he said "debunkers"

It IS dead, ergo.

When your largest proponents do nothing, it's over.

 

[carlitos]

I think this is an interesting topic, and would appreciate if folks could ignore the trollery past and future.

 

[cjnewson88]

Gosh, here I thought I was going to read another damning expose by some anonymous internet debunkers about AE911truth and what a failure it is, since of course the 9/11 Truth movement is also failed and dead -- very, very dead, SO very dead -- as we've been hearing for several years now.

But actually, it's just a repeat of this thread.

Yawn.

The inactivity of the movements most fundamental members, and the movements diminishing public support is enough to warrant a description of 'dead'.

Unless you would care to prove otherwise? What factor do you believe makes your 'truth movement' alive and well?

 

[beachnut]

Gosh, ...

Yawn.

"Yawn", all the action 911 truth can handle.

The lies of 911 truth will always find fertile ground in those who refuse to think for themselves. The gullible.

The only difference between 911 truth and Bigfoot. Bigfoot is more respectable, there were no murders associated with the delusion of Bigfoot. But 911 truth has to be as disrespectful as possible, making fun of the dead by adopting brain-dead delusions Gage is selling for donations to his travel club.

Be all you can be, join Gage's nuts on 911, be gullible.

 

[ergo]

The inactivity of the movements most fundamental members, and the movements diminishing public support is enough to warrant a description of 'dead'.

Unless you would care to prove otherwise? What factor do you believe makes your 'truth movement' alive and well?

That would be like trying to explain to you why and how "the peace movement" is alive and well. Do you think the peace movement has died?

 

[beachnut]

That would be like trying to explain to you why and how "the peace movement" is alive and well. Do you think the peace movement has died?

Faulty comparison, a common trait of those who support 911 truth.

Peace movement is rational based on values, 911 truth movement is irrational, based on lies and fantasy about the murder of many people.

Peace movement is to save lives, 911 truth movement is to disrespect the dead. Gage sells lies, only a few fringe paranoid conspiracy theorists join Gage, they can't figure out 911.

 

[Oystein]

I think this is an interesting topic, and would appreciate if folks could ignore the trollery past and future.

It's useless

 

[Sabretooth]

That would be like trying to explain to you why and how "the peace movement" is alive and well. Do you think the peace movement has died?

The truth movement is dead. There's nothing happening. It's over.

It's been the same old claptrap from truthers since 2002. The world has moved on, while truthers are ignored as if they were lunatics drooling in the corner. Nobody cares.

Most dedicated truther sites have been abandoned...ghost towns on the electric highway.

Firefighters for Truth - (last update Aug/2008)
Lawyers for Truth (No dates, zero activity)
Scholars for Truth (last update Sep/2011)
Veterans for Truth (domain suspended)
Political Leaders for Truth (last update Mar/2009)
Military Officers for Truth (last update Sep/2010)
Medical Professionals for Truth (last update Dec/2010)
World for Truth (last update Sep/2011)
Scientists for Truth (last update Jul/2011)


The only ones still updated daily get by because their members believe in every CT known to man. It's pathetic.