A chance remark [/URL]I made to Scott Sommers some time ago in another thread has led me to wonder whether there isn't an element of cognitive dissonance to the behaviour of debunkers in this forum, not least myself. It's not what the truthers like to think it is; they have a typically half-formed belief that cognitive dissonance is responsible for the conclusion that 9/11 was not an inside job, even though that belief more or less contradicts any rational definition of cognitive dissonance.
The definition of cognitive dissonance is pretty simple: stress or discomfort caused from holding two conflicting or contradictory ideas simultaneously. What you say is most certainly not true of everyone. Otherwise people would never say: 'even if that were true I wouldnt believe it." -which Ive heard.
You may believe that fire and gravity alone can explain the events in lower Manhattan but the laws of physics clearly disagree.
It's more to do with how we engage with truthers, and how that relates to our belief systems concerning evidence, rationality and human behaviour. We're all familiar with the pattern of posting on a typical thread here. A truther makes a claim that appears on the face of it to support a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Several regulars point out internal inconsistencies within the claim, inconsistencies between the claim and other related claims made by the same truther, inconsistencies between the claim and the evidence, and inconsistencies between the claim and any possible rationally constructed narrative. As we can all predict, the truther will then handwave away any responses on the flimsiest of pretexts, will rapidly change the subject to a completely different claim, will misrepresent all the responses so as to construct spurious counter-refutations, or in some other way avoid addressing the objections raised to his claim. Having done so, at some point he will declare himself unconvinced by the objections, and imply that an inside job is proven. We all know it's going to happen, and it almost always does.
Nonsense. No one has satisfactorily explained why wtc7 should so suddenly into symmetrical freefall! In fact nISt told us it was impossible:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3mudruFzNw (it is)
You believe the failure of one column is a satisfactory explanation for what happened to wtc7, fine But the rest of us have to live in the real world where we have 120 years of hi-rise engineering history as precedence and, without needing to be hirise architects, know there were a lot of other columns in WTC7 and they would not all have failed simultaneously in a large skyscraper with scattered office fires. [You also also havent explained: the 100 days fires with temps as high as 2800f a week later. the molten metal, fema bpat appc.. the explosive nature of the destruction the Towers which blasted apart the entire buildings, even the superstructure..pulverized most of the concrete in them and left no genetic trace of 1100 people, -All in 15 seconds each...supposedly from gravity and the upper 'pile driver' -when anyone [most anyone, sorry] looking at it can clearly see they were systematically blown up with explosives: (unless u'r blind I guess)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JnZbYXcbqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSApOavkHg8
The Harrit study (Oh right,, those are highly energetic paint chips that leave elemental iron as a by-product when burned. excuse me)
There are, as far as I can see, only three reasons why we do it. One is that "almost always"; every now and then a truther is intellectually honest enough to re-examine his claims in the light of counter-arguments, and finds them to be untenable. We have a few posting here who have made that leap, and no longer believe in the conspiracy theories.
There is nothing theoretical about the facts that reveal the use of explosives on 9-11. Call them what you will. You cant explain it any other way and remain reasonable. WTC7 alone proves the use of explosives. NIST could not even get a computer model to mimic what it did and they refuse to release the data inputs they used to make it! So what good is the report ? its meaningless if no one can even verify what they did. This is not how science is done. NISt said releasing that data could 'harm the public" heh
It is beyond absurd.
Another is the commonly voiced argument that we're only doing it for the lurkers. Again, now and then we see a post from someone who was initially swayed, whether completely or partially, by the conspiracy theories, but on seeing debunkers' responses was able to recognise the flaws in them.
That you even use such terms as 'conspiracy theorists' and 'truthers' shows the level you are operating at. At least with regards this issue. Whatever one believes about 9-11, a conspiracy it most certainly was. What u'r doing here is spreading propaganda and/or revealing your own ignorance of the subject. It could only impress someone as badly informed or as deceptive -I dont know which you are but it is one or the other.
The third, then, is this: we are, in some sense, trying to reconcile the deeply held belief that all reasonably intelligent people are capable of rational analysis of evidence, with the obvious observation that some truthers, intelligent enough to frame grammatically correct sentences and post them on a discussion forum, are nevertheless completely unable to see beyond their prejudices, however glaringly obvious they may be to the rest of us.
what condescending claptrap bs. They are not our 'prejudices' but the well established features of the events that make the official explanations impossible -to say the least.
We are confronted with information that is inconsistent with our beliefs, and we respond by trying ever harder to convince truthers, who almost by definition cannot be convinced.
Minor things,, like physics and reality, make it impossible to agree with you.
For the most part, it's futile and unrewarding. There is little new material of interest available to debunkers, because there is little or nothing new from the truth movement (see R.Mackey's "
Lost in Space" thread for a justification of this assertion). So we find ourselves repeating the same explanations to the same people who have repeatedly rejected them for inadequate reasons, and perhaps wondering why we bother.
-while u'r a it, read this:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/b/MackeyLetter.pdf
If this is true, I'm not sure exactly what the solution is, other than simply ignoring the 9/11 truth movement, a solution most of the world has adopted quite successfully.
It is clear you dont get around much. (or you wouldn't sound like such a propaganda victim) Some people -mostly Americans who believe only what they see on TV, will not believe this until their TV's tell it to them.
Yes, u'r definitely right. If you have looked at these issues and anomalies and still think office fires and gravity were to blame then move on. This forum is for people looking into these issues but it seems to have become the online home of people with too much time on their hands who do nothing but attack skeptics of the official explanation when the official explanations so obviously cannot begin to account for the events as the occurred.. (kind of ironic considering this is a place for skeptics) Otherwise NIST would have explained wtc7 in some satisfactory way instead of their BS 'noise threshold, so we did not test for explosives.' and 'a new phenomenon" of column 79)
Not seeing or agreeing with the truth, nor attacking it..is gonna make it any less so.
