Gage and Szamboti to speak at New Jersey Institute of Technology

[DGM]

Apparently your problem asking questions was one of poor presentation. I am sure they have little choice but to discard incendiary or rhetorical questions.

I've had no difficulty getting my straightforward questions addressed.

Have you been to his show? You seem to say we do address your questions, why do you refuse to do so in kind? I'm reasonably sure I have not refused to answer any of your questions presented to me.

 

[JSanderO]

I arrived early when Gage was setting up... distributing his materials to each seat. He recognized me and so I approached him and tried to tell him I had some insight into the collapse of 7wtc... to which he simply said... it was CD it came down at free fall. Refused to even listen to a thing I wanted to say and one of his henchman pulled me aside and told me not to distract him.... and told me he was FBI and of course thought there was evidence of a conspiracy and was not the least bit interested in discussing the actual collapse of the building. What a total jerk!

+++++

Gage is milking his deal for all he can realizing that with his followers he has a little cash cow and they are true believers... simply peddling false hopes that they have the truth about the CD. He knows he is full of it and he also knows no one can prove he is not and that NIST has made errors so they are completely in the tank for the conspiracy. Gage is not dumb. He is laughing all the way to the bank and loving all the adoration he gets. Mini power freak...that he is apparently. Do you blame him? Ethical people wouldn't do what he does. or even HOW he does what he does.

 

[DGM]

Refused to even listen to a thing I wanted to say and one of his henchman pulled me aside and told me not to distract him....

This is the part Criteria has not seen. If you raise your hand to ask a question during Q&A there are people that aproach you first and quiz you to determine if Gage will want to address your question. How you ask is not in question, it's what you are going to ask.

You've been there and so have I. Am I wrong JSanderO about my statement about screening questions?

 

[JSanderO]

This is the part Criteria has not seen. If you raise your hand to ask a question during Q&A there are people that aproach you first and quiz you to determine if Gage will want to address your question. How you ask is not in question, it's what you are going to ask.

You've been there and so have I. Am I wrong JSanderO about my statement about screening questions?

Frankly.. I don't know about screening. I thought he asks for them in advance usually. I've only been to a few events where Gage was one of several presenters and gave a truncated show... But maybe that IS the who show. Dunno. I don't even recall any questions from the past. Sorry. Can't confirm or deny. He's a stubborn person though... refuses to listen to arguments.

 

[pgimeno]

But believe me they did not impress hardly a person... aside from the dyed in the wool supporters who show up for these events again and again... And I ask WHY??

Shills?

Claque^WP?

 

[JSanderO]

Why they show up? Only to be part of the core group... camaraderie type thing. Nothing new so it can't be that.

 

[ozeco41]

Why they show up? Only to be part of the core group... camaraderie type thing. Nothing new so it can't be that.

That is probably true for many of them Sander BUT I doubt that the whole group was like minded.

I would expect attendance of an already pro-Gage contingent from the "general public" plus a token attendance from the academic and student group. Did you get any sense of that two way demography Sander? And any sense of the relative numbers balance? Hard I know in such a forum without much opportunity for the masses to reveal their leanings of opinion.

I would expect most of the academic groups to remain near poker faced unmoved - especially any "ranking" professors along for the school's professional obligations. Unless they had one or two of those outspoken academics who will support controversy for the cause of debate - whether from pure motives or personal ego.

Remember that from the perspective of academia the collapse mechanisms have been explained in the accepted formal manner of reports and published papers which agree as to (a)principal mechanisms and (b) no case for CD. With the expected divergence of opinions over details which is the norm for scientific publishing.

The level of both detailed and strategic discussion we engage in on these forums is - in concept - beyond what most of those academics would have met. Whether or not we handle the discussion well. Plus these informal discussions have no standing in academia. The main issues they are unaware of would include the lack of explanatory publication on the mechanisms of Twin towers "initiation" which leads to that suite of common two way misunderstandings led by "Missing Jolt" and "Axial Contact". And the dominant "fall to impact" model which Szamboti has successfully planted in the mindset of many. I doubt that either MJ or "axial impact" is even on the radar for the general run of academics.

Then there is nothing magic about academia or academic qualifications - if Gage can attract (say) 1% of the normal general public community to his ideas I wouldn't expect engineering academics to be much different. And the "gullible proportion" could very well be higher among those who volunteer to attend such performances.

So - if I was attending - those are three groups I would be trying to identify:
1) "General public" - probably already converted;
2a) Academics and students who were there for professional obligation or curiosity; AND
2b) Ditto who were of the "more gullible" sector of student/staff demography.

Whilst it is challenging to think "What strategy could I adopt to pre-warn those academic types who may attend FUTURE such gatherings?" - I doubt anything could have much impact.

Most people - lay or professional - the 99% Gage cannot reach - would not need help to see past the cynical con trickery of the obsessed conspiracy theorists.

And the "gullibles" - less than 1% by most measures - would not be helped by understanding the engineering or argumentation at any level. They are immune to both - that is why they are CT vulnerable.

So the 99% don't need help and the 1% are beyond help.

 

[JSanderO]

That is probably true for many of them Sander BUT I doubt that the whole group was like minded.

I would expect attendance of an already pro-Gage contingent from the "general public" plus a token attendance from the academic and student group. Did you get any sense of that two way demography Sander? And any sense of the relative numbers balance? Hard I know in such a forum without much opportunity for the masses to reveal their leanings of opinion.

I would expect most of the academic groups to remain near poker faced unmoved - especially any "ranking" professors along for the school's professional obligations. Unless they had one or two of those outspoken academics who will support controversy for the cause of debate - whether from pure motives or personal ego.

Remember that from the perspective of academia the collapse mechanisms have been explained in the accepted formal manner of reports and published papers which agree as to (a)principal mechanisms and (b) no case for CD. With the expected divergence of opinions over details which is the norm for scientific publishing.

The level of both detailed and strategic discussion we engage in on these forums is - in concept - beyond what most of those academics would have met. Whether or not we handle the discussion well. Plus these informal discussions have no standing in academia. The main issues they are unaware of would include the lack of explanatory publication on the mechanisms of Twin towers "initiation" which leads to that suite of common two way misunderstandings led by "Missing Jolt" and "Axial Contact". And the dominant "fall to impact" model which Szamboti has successfully planted in the mindset of many. I doubt that either MJ or "axial impact" is even on the radar for the general run of academics.

Then there is nothing magic about academia or academic qualifications - if Gage can attract (say) 1% of the normal general public community to his ideas I wouldn't expect engineering academics to be much different. And the "gullible proportion" could very well be higher among those who volunteer to attend such performances.

So - if I was attending - those are three groups I would be trying to identify:
1) "General public" - probably already converted;
2a) Academics and students who were there for professional obligation or curiosity; AND
2b) Ditto who were of the "more gullible" sector of student/staff demography.

Whilst it is challenging to think "What strategy could I adopt to pre-warn those academic types who may attend FUTURE such gatherings?" - I doubt anything could have much impact.

Most people - lay or professional - the 99% Gage cannot reach - would not need help to see past the cynical con trickery of the obsessed conspiracy theorists.

And the "gullibles" - less than 1% by most measures - would not be helped by understanding the engineering or argumentation at any level. They are immune to both - that is why they are CT vulnerable.

So the 99% don't need help and the 1% are beyond help.

My hunch is that yout breakdown is more or less correct. Of the 2 or 3 profs I spoke with (one left) they did not buy the Gage arguments. But they didn't say why of course... I spoke very briefly with them just exchanging contact info sort of thing thinking maybe more technical discussion might follow in the future.

I think there were the poker faced engineering students who I am guess did not see the sort evidence of how the buildings came apart. You know I've called AE's mechanism black box CD.... here one minute.. apply mysterious CD and the buildings come down and too fast according to AE. I sensed from their faces that they were not sold.

Of course there were the AE followers... seen from previous outings which are not engineers except Wayne Coste who I think is a .... I won't say it. That collection were just in the cheering section and parrot talking points without a clue about the actual event.

Of course there might have been non CE students who might have been swayed. No way of knowing. But it did seem from Gage's show of hands that well over half.. maybe 3/4 didn't even know about 7wtc... and so had no baseline other than the presented NIST summary to build their understanding on by one engineering prof who admitted to me he had not studied the collapse. So he repeated the NIST summary conclusions.

Odd that no one even mentioned the transfer trusses. But they did say that most of the diesel fuel was recovered. But there was no discussion of how much energy the unrecovered contained.

If there is no visual record of something... it did not and could not exist.

 

[ozeco41]

My hunch is that your breakdown is more or less correct. Of the 2 or 3 profs I spoke with (one left) they did not buy the Gage arguments. But they didn't say why of course... I spoke very briefly with them just exchanging contact info sort of thing thinking maybe more technical discussion might follow in the future.

I think there were the poker faced engineering students who I am guess did not see the sort evidence of how the buildings came apart. You know I've called AE's mechanism black box CD.... here one minute.. apply mysterious CD and the buildings come down and too fast according to AE. I sensed from their faces that they were not sold.

More or less what I would expect. I've done occasional presentations to staff and students both undergrad and post-grad level over many years and don't see how US groups would be much different to their AU counterparts - other than slight accent/language idiom usages and some cultural aspects.

Of course there were the AE followers... seen from previous outings which are not engineers except Wayne Coste who I think is a .... I won't say it. That collection were just in the cheering section and parrot talking points without a clue about the actual event.

The claque/cheer squad.

Of course there might have been non CE students who might have been swayed. No way of knowing. But it did seem from Gage's show of hands that well over half.. maybe 3/4 didn't even know about 7wtc... and so had no baseline other than the presented NIST summary to build their understanding on by one engineering prof who admitted to me he had not studied the collapse. So he repeated the NIST summary conclusions.

Odd that no one even mentioned the transfer trusses.

Because the NIST conclusions align well with professional and academic opinion. If you do get future opportunities for discussion take care that you don't lead off with your favourite theme of "NIST is wrong - it was transfer trusses". Your objective should be to share understanding - not make instant enemies who would put you straight into the CT camp.

But they did say that most of the diesel fuel was recovered. But there was no discussion of how much energy the unrecovered contained.

Those are secondary issues - if the opportunity for rapport with professionals ever arises I recommend starting from the key "big picture issues" and progressing from there AND only as long as they are interested. Don't force debate or "overwork the friendship". On the two or three occasions I've discussed WTC collapses at technical big picture level with current active academics I have PRAISED Bazant's work and denounced the common misunderstandings resulting from Szamboti's misapplication. "Knocking" - putting down - the academic club would be fatal. In conciliation process it is using "Yes AND...." which moves forward rather than 'Yes BUT..." which raises an immediate barrier to ongoing co-operative discussion. "AND" says "I'm with you" whilst "BUT" says "I'm against you". AKA "let's work from the bits we agree on rather than putting main focus on areas where we differ".

If there is no visual record of something... it did not and could not exist.

That is a whole topic in itself. The fairly common "If it didn't happen in view it didn't happen at all" is relatively easy to deal with. The harder one - happens here quite often - is "If we cannot see it we cannot reason what happened..." Bull Faeces. Provided you can address ALL the possibilities and account for all you do not need the visual evidence. You have seen me explain that one "a few times" over the years.

Thanks for the additional feedback.

 

[JSanderO]

My over arching impression of what went down was that this is a cynical attempt by AE to get credibility by doing their dog and pony show... in an engineering school allowing the presumption that they engage with technical experts who disagree with their position and can support the collapses with engineering and physics.

The engineers were ill prepared... the so called "debate" was a farce... that is NO DEBATE... no points were discussed or debated. Gage gets to say FF means CD and gets away with it almost as if this is not refuted and becomes a "de facto" truth so he gets to continue to make this stupid claim. And he will.

His presentation is a litany of false claims... Tony makes his as well about missing jolts and so forth. To counter and discuss these claims would take more time and require graphics and so forth which was not available. The "debunker" position comes of sounding like disagreement of interpretation... as if science / engineering and physics is a subject for interpretation.

AE will march off and claim a "victory" of the NISTians and OCT "believers" having battled in the belly of the beast and come out to standing.

This mess was because the sponsor was a truther and made sure that the engineering school was ill prepared and left to simply put up a NIST slide of their summary points. The engineering presenter admitted to me he was ill prepared... I should have made the presentation. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I clearly was more conversant with the technical issues having read the www boards for years. But I would not represent NIST. I believe this a false dichotomy. For sure NIST is way more correct than AE.... but I have problems with NIST too. NIST should represent themselves and we were told they declined.

It's much like... I suppose... a debate between Scientology and christianity... kinda...

 

[ozeco41]

My over arching impression of what went down was that this is a cynical attempt by AE to get credibility by doing their dog and pony show... in an engineering school allowing the presumption that they engage with technical experts who disagree with their position and can support the collapses with engineering and physics.

The engineers were ill prepared... the so called "debate" was a farce... that is NO DEBATE... no points were discussed or debated. Gage gets to say FF means CD and gets away with it almost as if this is not refuted and becomes a "de facto" truth so he gets to continue to make this stupid claim. And he will.

The tactical basis of Gage's dishonesty is well established.

His presentation is a litany of false claims... Tony makes his as well about missing jolts and so forth. To counter and discuss these claims would take more time and require graphics and so forth which was not available. The "debunker" position comes of sounding like disagreement of interpretation... as if science / engineering and physics is a subject for interpretation.

That is their dishonest intention - I doubt that we can do anything to "inoculate" future victims against this sort of attack. The questions then become "So what?" In two main areas:
1) what effect if any do they have on the immediate audience? I suggest little for the reasons both of us have already posted. My version is they will only affect the same "less than 1% of gullible" that they meet at any meeting - even if it is somewhat more than 1% of those who attended - it is still numerically an insignificant proportion of the whole population.
2) When (not if) Gage uses the experience in future marketing - it merely adds to the number of incidents like the one where he held a meeting in the AIA Headquarters building. Little real impact - other than on the same <<1% of gullibles.

AE will march off and claim a "victory" of the NISTians and OCT "believers" having battled in the belly of the beast and come out to standing.

This mess was because the sponsor was a truther and made sure that the engineering school was ill prepared and left to simply put up a NIST slide of their summary points.

Yes. Please take care that your animosity towards NIST doesn't create more support for Gage at al. No problem here - there are already several major splits in the "debunker" camp and one more changes nothing other than to reduce credibility of forums such as this as valid sources of opposition to truth movement false claims.

The engineering presenter admitted to me he was ill prepared... I should have made the presentation. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I clearly was more conversant with the technical issues having read the www boards for years. But I would not represent NIST. I believe this a false dichotomy.

Sure - but in that setting you would gain nothing and probably lose ground - give ground to Gage - if you made it a "trichotomy" by inserting your own favoured concepts such as "NIST was wrong - it was transfer truss failure".

For sure NIST is way more correct than AE.... but I have problems with NIST too. NIST should represent themselves and we were told they declined.

They are IMO correct to do so. Remember my history with the Richard Dawkins Forum. Dawkins refuses to debate evolutionary biology with creationists. Logic is simple - they know full well they cannot beat him on science - they merely want to be able to claim they have appeared on the same platform and claim they "beat him". EXACTLY the dishonest tactic Gage and Szamboti are using.

In "Creationism v Evolutionary Biology" it is called "presenting both sides" when there are not two sides. There is no case for creationism just as there is no case - never has been a prima facie supportable hypothesis - in favour of CD or the other two truther false claims about 9./11 events.

It's much like... I suppose... a debate between Scientology and christianity... kinda...

Sort of - both of those are "faith based". A closer analogy is the no-debate between creationism and evolutionary biology. That is a debate between religion - which is faith based - and science - which is based on reasoned argument plus supporting evidence. The very foundation of the opposing belief systems are different - faith versus reasoned argument. Separate "magisteria" if you go along with S J Gould's reasoning - I don't.

I doubt that there is much we can do about it. We know Gage will pull the dishonest tricks. We can also be assured that the "market" of those silly enough to fall for it is <<<1%. And falling - just look at the number of genuine truthers who used to come to these boards - now there are few if any. None currently posting persuade me that they are genuine truthers. We used to differentiate "trolls" from "truthers". We no longer do so - and the need for that is fairly transparent debunker psychology - there is no one left to play tit-for-tat "Whack A Mole" with other than those whose behaviour is clearly trolling.

 

[JSanderO]

Ozzie,
Excellent. Sadly because of the internet the <1% of Americans could be millions of people. THAT is a frightening thought... Gage will pluck money from them for the foreseeable future. I just encountered one of these dopes on Facebook who posted an AE slide about molten metal and false flags...

++++

And we still can't get a decent discussion going about alternate initiation scenarios.

 

[ozeco41]

Ozzie,
Excellent. Sadly because of the internet the <1% of Americans could be millions of people. THAT is a frightening thought... Gage will pluck money from them for the foreseeable future. I just encountered one of these dopes on Facebook who posted an AE slide about molten metal and false flags...

It is still less than the 2-3-4% of cynics or manic fringers most pollsters would expect from the community at large. Gage et al cannot even get a significant proportion of the most likely sector of community he should be able to attract.

And we still can't get a decent discussion going about alternate initiation scenarios.

There is little interest in discussing the more complicated aspects of the actual collapses. IMO it goes outside the comfort zones of many debunkers. The comfort zone most obvious being that debunker arguments only need to be good enough to "beat" truther claims - and "beating" the truther claims doesn't need more comprehensive explanations so why strain the brain.

I've agreed from when you first stated it that the transfer truss alternate for WTC is plausible. IMO it doesn't change anything of importance and WTC7 not my interest area for reasons I've stated many times.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

The tactical basis of Gage's dishonesty is well established. That is their dishonest intention - I doubt that we can do anything to "inoculate" future victims against this sort of attack. The questions then become "So what?" In two main areas:
1) what effect if any do they have on the immediate audience? I suggest little for the reasons both of us have already posted. My version is they will only affect the same "less than 1% of gullible" that they meet at any meeting - even if it is somewhat more than 1% of those who attended - it is still numerically an insignificant proportion of the whole population.
2) When (not if) Gage uses the experience in future marketing - it merely adds to the number of incidents like the one where he held a meeting in the AIA Headquarters building. Little real impact - other than on the same <<1% of gullibles.
Yes. Please take care that your animosity towards NIST doesn't create more support for Gage at al. No problem here - there are already several major splits in the "debunker" camp and one more changes nothing other than to reduce credibility of forums such as this as valid sources of opposition to truth movement false claims. Sure - but in that setting you would gain nothing and probably lose ground - give ground to Gage - if you made it a "trichotomy" by inserting your own favoured concepts such as "NIST was wrong - it was transfer truss failure". They are IMO correct to do so. Remember my history with the Richard Dawkins Forum. Dawkins refuses to debate evolutionary biology with creationists. Logic is simple - they know full well they cannot beat him on science - they merely want to be able to claim they have appeared on the same platform and claim they "beat him". EXACTLY the dishonest tactic Gage and Szamboti are using.

In "Creationism v Evolutionary Biology" it is called "presenting both sides" when there are not two sides. There is no case for creationism just as there is no case - never has been a prima facie supportable hypothesis - in favour of CD or the other two truther false claims about 9./11 events. Sort of - both of those are "faith based". A closer analogy is the no-debate between creationism and evolutionary biology. That is a debate between religion - which is faith based - and science - which is based on reasoned argument plus supporting evidence. The very foundation of the opposing belief systems are different - faith versus reasoned argument. Separate "magisteria" if you go along with S J Gould's reasoning - I don't.

I doubt that there is much we can do about it. We know Gage will pull the dishonest tricks. We can also be assured that the "market" of those silly enough to fall for it is <<<1%. And falling - just look at the number of genuine truthers who used to come to these boards - now there are few if any. None currently posting persuade me that they are genuine truthers. We used to differentiate "trolls" from "truthers". We no longer do so - and the need for that is fairly transparent debunker psychology - there is no one left to play tit-for-tat "Whack A Mole" with other than those whose behaviour is clearly trolling.

Nobody was being dishonest at NJIT. It is honest discussion we seek. The NIST was contacted and asked to have a representative appear. Are you surprised they declined given that it is clear there are serious fatal flaws in the WTC 7 report?

Additionally, I want to make it clear that there was no screening of questions and I am glad Jeffrey at least admitted that much.

 

[DGM]

Nobody was being dishonest at NJIT. It is honest discussion we seek. The NIST was contacted and asked to have a representative appear. Are you surprised they declined given that it is clear there are serious fatal flaws in the WTC 7 report?

What's clear is, why would they want to respond? Is there any professional groups asking them to?

As far as a screening, Gages crew screens every question. I've seen this first hand. Would you like to argue a crew person asking what your question is as not screening?

 

[GlennB]

It is honest discussion we seek.

Really? Then why, when faced with sequential still photos (with provenance) from a helicopter that show bowing of the N Tower face several minutes before collapse (destroying your theory) do you invariably demand "video or it didn't happen" ?

Honest discussion is the last thing you want, and offer.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

What's clear is, why would they want to respond? Is there any professional groups asking them to?

As far as a screening, Gages crew screens every question. I've seen this first hand. Would you like to argue a crew person asking what your question is as not screening?

The NIST WTC 7 report has fatal flaws and the agency has an obligation to discuss it with those who have brought it to their attention.

Saying you think only certain groups should be allowed to show there are problems with the report is surreal.

I said there was certainly no screening of questions at the NJIT Discussion Forum. I have no knowledge of whether or not that has ever happened elsewhere. I was ready and willing to answer any question.

 

[DGM]

The NIST WTC 7 report has fatal flaws and the agency has an obligation to discuss it with those who have brought it to their attention.

Saying you think only certain groups should be given that courtesy is surreal.

So they have an obligation to address any person/group no matter if they feel their claims have merit or not? Why?

 

[Tony Szamboti]

So they have an obligation to address any person/group no matter if they feel their claims have merit or not? Why?

They won't discuss it and they have not shown the issues do not have merit. The omitted stiffener issue is serious and they simply won't discuss it. That is called stonewalling and is usually indicative of a position which can't be defended.

 

[DGM]

They won't discuss it and they have not shown the issues do not have merit. The omitted stiffener issue is serious and they simply won't discuss it. That is called stonewalling and is usually indicative of a position which can't be defended.

You have not shown your "issues" do have merit. They do in the small conspiracy world but that's as far as you bring it.