AIA 2016 Meeting Vote - How Will It Turn Out?

[beachnut]

I think we must face a sad reality: That well-organized and well-presented woo can persuade significant percentages of a casual public, even among academics of a somewhat relevant profession, in this day and age.

Isn't that what the JREF and the ISF are ultimately all about? Educating a public about the folly of woo?

Yes.

I did see when Gage first started, his followers were in AIA chapters, and it reminded by of the BBB. Where the business you complain about is part of the BBB. There is nothing stopping an AIA chapter to be overrun by idiots for Gage.

 

[Oystein]

BBB?
Bakugan Battle Brawlers?
Biotic Baking Brigade?
Bikes Blues and BBQ?
The Bollywood Brass Band?

 

[rwguinn]

Misplaced faith in humanity. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

Dave

That, plus forgetting the fact that even hard-core applied sciency types are like herds of cats. Throw in the artistic bent required to be an architect, and subtract a soupcon of the hard applied science, and it gets more chaotic.

 

[thedopefishlives]

BBB?
Bakugan Battle Brawlers?
Biotic Baking Brigade?
Bikes Blues and BBQ?
The Bollywood Brass Band?

The Better Business Bureau; an American institution ostensibly dedicated to ensuring that businesses are run fairly and decently.

 

[pgimeno]

I wonder how the 50 are going to explain their lack of foresight?
[...]
pgimeno "This year it's only about the donors, not about getting it passed. They gave up on that after the last results."

I thought that exposing themselves for what they are instead of trying to backdoor the proposition, would go against them. I was wrong. I misestimated the capacity of people to accept woo. I admit that I may have been biased by some wishful thinking in my estimation.

I still accepted the "Chinese emperor fallacy" objection, though. And it proved right.

 

[Spanx]

Out of interest, if AE911 truth do get in, what will actually happen ?

Will the AIA investigate the collapse of building 7 ?

Will they read the NIST report ?

Will they donate to Gage and watch YouTube ?


What is the goal ?

 

[Oystein]

I thought that exposing themselves for what they are instead of trying to backdoor the proposition, would go against them. I was wrong. I misestimated the capacity of people to accept woo. I admit that I may have been biased by some wishful thinking in my estimation.

Why are so many of us so biased without (always) correcting for that bias?
Speculation: We think that other rational people will come to the same conclusions that we do. But the problem is, that many of these AIA delegates employed their rational reasoning on severly incomplete information that's misrepresented, if not outright false, and they never took the time, or never had a chance, to find better information. They are not like us.

I kind of think that next year, there should be an effort to spread better information to the leadership of AIA Chapters - about the real facts of 9/11, and about the resistance of Gage to correct his many errors and lies.
A booklet, a website, something the accessibility of which is on par with AE's material.

I still accepted the "Chinese emperor fallacy" objection, though. And it proved right.

That was a good call - I learned something there, too!

 

[TJM]

Could be a faction within the AIA who just wants him to STFU and go away and if that means caving, then so be it.

IIRC, the only reason why he has a booth at all is because the AIA couldn't stop the walking pile of excrement from JAQing off on the public sidewalks in front of their events.

Might be a similar mindset at work here.

 

[Oystein]

Appeasement has historically not always worked to the appeasers' full satisfaction.

 

[pgimeno]

Why are so many of us so biased without (always) correcting for that bias?

I can only speak for myself. I didn't take it seriously, so I allowed myself that bias. If I took it seriously, I wouldn't have voted. The error margins were too narrow.

 

[Ape of Good Hope]

I wonder how many posts we would have seen in the days since the result was first rumoured if Gage had gotten only, say, 1% of the vote - I have a feeling that there would have been three pages from a dozend sneering debunkers.

Yep, and it would have been the most natural response in the world, human nature being what it is.

But while it's true that AE911 did a little better than was predicted here, they did a lot worse than their followers thought they would.

Look at the comments on the AE911 facebook page, there's a lot of baffled disillusionment from rank-and-file followers that the resolution didn't pass with flying colours; a kind of "we failed last time but then we tweaked it and tried harder but we still didn't win" kind of thing.

As it were, 50 of you underestimated AE911Truth by a factor of 3 or more, while Criteria overestimated by a factor of about 4.

Only 5 posters, myself included, had their guess closer to the result - I ticked "5-9%". Unfortunately, I neglected to write a comment in addition to my vote, and I may actually be kidding myself now, but my hunch was that they would improve up to double last year's vote - that would be 8%. Still wrong by a factor of 1.4, but I got the trend right, and so did heymatto70, ozeco41, Richard the G, sts60 (although sts60 commented "less than 10%")

I wonder how the 50 are going to explain their lack of foresight?
DGM ""Truthers" have done nothing over the last year that would warrant them getting more support."
cantonear1968 "Much the same result. Margin of error +/- 3 percentage points."
beachnut "Four to Six percent is a good sign that most AIA members are not insane, not paranoid on 9/11, not irrational on 9/11, not fooled by the fraud of Gage's CD claim."
Ape of Good Hope "The reality is less impressive: [Image 0.06% AE]" (didn't vote though)
Redwood "I doubt it'll get 1% of the vote."; "I'll give 3 to 1 in favor of this year's resolution failing worse than last year's."
DaveThomasNMSR "Mean = μ = 3.3889[%]"
WilliamSeger "I'm an optimist: Will anyone give me odds on an even smaller vote this year? "
pgimeno "This year it's only about the donors, not about getting it passed. They gave up on that after the last results."
Trojan "Gage will have the votes he walks in the room with ... no more than that"

For my part, I feel I demonstrated considerable foresight by not voting

 

[Mark F]

I thought that exposing themselves for what they are instead of trying to backdoor the proposition, would go against them. I was wrong. I misestimated the capacity of people to accept woo. I admit that I may have been biased by some wishful thinking in my estimation.

I still accepted the "Chinese emperor fallacy" objection, though. And it proved right.

That was my thinking too. This years resolution was a lot more up-front about the woo and to me it seemed desperate.

Obviously desperation works!

Or maybe after the experience of last year the AE911T crew were just better prepared and organized this year. It may in fact be possible for them to learn from their own mistakes.

 

[jaydeehess]

. Skeptics were wrong, rather than 4%, AE911T garnered 11%. Still a far cry from 'winning' but AE911T did apply a liberal amount of polish on that result so it looks like a very shiny turd to their followers.

Thread title question has been answered. Why is this thread still going?

 

[Mark F]

The key now is to see if this resounding victory pays dividends.

Does the new investigation begin?
Hundreds of new professionals on the petition?
Millions of dollars flowing in to fund the next fund raiser?

 

[tfk]

I think we must face a sad reality: That well-organized and well-presented woo can persuade significant percentages of a casual public, even among academics of a somewhat relevant profession, in this day and age.

Isn't that what the JREF and the ISF are ultimately all about? Educating a public about the folly of woo?

It was a demonstration of how little architects really know about structural mechanics / structural engineering.

The architects oppose the amendment for the same reason that the public at large opposes it: they mostly trust professionals & disdain "Conspiracy Theorists". (And, no, the official story is not a "conspiracy theory", despite moronic claims to the contrary.)

The architects opinions were stronger than the public at large, because they work closely with structural engineers, & now them to be reasonable, hard-headed, independent, ornery cusses, who would NEVER be intimidated by moronic politicians.

NO amount of smooth talking or fancy packaging turns his crap into gold for structural or mechanical engineers.

If Gage ever has the cojones to bring his crap to a convention of structural engineers, his acceptance level will go down, year after year, not up, as engineers become more aware of the issues.

Although it's tough to go down from 0.01% acceptance...

 

[Oystein]

Yep, and it would have been the most natural response in the world, human nature being what it is.

Sure

But while it's true that AE911 did a little better than was predicted here, they did a lot worse than their followers thought they would.

Look at the comments on the AE911 facebook page, there's a lot of baffled disillusionment from rank-and-file followers that the resolution didn't pass with flying colours; a kind of "we failed last time but then we tweaked it and tried harder but we still didn't win" kind of thing.

Yeah, I noticed. They - espescially the vocal ones who comment - are of course biased the other way and err in the other direction. That shouldn't be satisfying solace to those of us who underestimated the persuasiveness of AE's presentation. I think we should strive to be realistic.

For my part, I feel I demonstrated considerable foresight by not voting

 

[Oystein]

That was my thinking too. This years resolution was a lot more up-front about the woo and to me it seemed desperate.

Obviously desperation works!

Or maybe after the experience of last year the AE911T crew were just better prepared and organized this year. It may in fact be possible for them to learn from their own mistakes.

I wonder how much the emotional aspect, with victim's father McIlvaine and that Vietnam veteran shmoo., swayed a few delegates who otherwise couldn't give a damn.

 

[Oystein]

Thread title question has been answered. Why is this thread still going?

Obviously to assess why we got the answer so wrong!

 

[Oystein]

The key now is to see if this resounding victory pays dividends.

Does the new investigation begin?
Hundreds of new professionals on the petition?
Millions of dollars flowing in to fund the next fund raiser?

Surely you're jesting.
Plausible dividends may come in the form of additional fans, signatures and donations, now that they can point to a result with a respected professional organization that can, with some legitimacy, be construed as "momentum" or a "positive trend". This trend alone may be significant enough to drive itself some distance further.

They'll be back next year with yet another booth and yet another resolution proposal, but that time with lots more confidence. If no one steps up to reveal the fraud to the delegates; as long as the opponents merely point to the very investigations that Gage actively derides, without addressing and rebutting their arguments, they will keep improving on the votes.

No, Congress won't finance another investigation; but in the meantime, the poison that splits society and alienates friends and family keeps spreading.

 

[Oystein]

It was a demonstration of how little architects really know about structural mechanics / structural engineering.

...structural engineers, & now them to be reasonable, hard-headed, independent, ornery cusses, who would NEVER be intimidated by moronic politicians.

NO amount of smooth talking or fancy packaging turns his crap into gold for structural or mechanical engineers.

If Gage ever has the cojones to bring his crap to a convention of structural engineers, his acceptance level will go down, year after year, not up, as engineers become more aware of the issues.

After you, too, were overly optimistic on the architects, I think you should wisen up and reconsider your optimism about structural engineers. Last year, Gage DID go to a convention of structural engineers, and I see no indicartion he was thrown out. Some of these SEs were persuaded and signed the woo:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10906736#post10906736

Although it's tough to go down from 0.01% acceptance...

Almost 5 times that among civil engineers (and structural, too, I am sure). I know, still embarrassingly little. Just didn't like the wrong number.