# An angle of the WTC collapse I'd never seen
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 19, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182 "2010-07-19T01:39:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 33
### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/641 "2010-07-28T01:05:50Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> > [@ivan\_astikov](#):
> >
> > You mean to go with the rubbery irony and steely stuff that failed so spectacularly on 9/11?
>
> I presume you’re trying to be clever, but it sounds like you’re disavowing belief in the notion that steel gets softer when subjected to heat.
I’m sure that he will claim that since he is not a metallurgical expert, he is only asking questions.
---
### Author:  [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/642 "2010-07-28T01:23:58Z")
There’s more evidence that Black 13 took down the towers than a controlled demolition.
Truthers make me laugh.
---
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/643 "2010-07-28T01:34:21Z")
> [@rolandgunslinger](#):
>
> There’s more evidence that Black 13 took down the towers than a controlled demolition.
> Truthers make me laugh.
Black 13 couldn’t find their asses with a flahslight and a roadmap.
Green 71… those guys are caaarrrrazy.
---
### Author:  [@Gregg64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gregg64)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/644 "2010-07-28T01:40:46Z")
> [@ignoranceaintbliss](#):
>
> After reading up on many 9/11 sites and watching many videos, I was not fully convinced by the conspiracy theories. However, the theories did make me doubt the Pentagon attack. I couldn’t find enough evidence that a plane hit the pentagon. Does anyone have a link to footage of the pentagon attacks?
I don’t have any pictures, but I was on US 1 that morning and I saw the plane…it was a plane.
---
### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/645 "2010-07-28T02:09:30Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> > [@Lute Skywatcher](#):
> >
> > > [@begbert2](#):
> > >
> > > JAQer
> >
> > Something tells me if this were the Pit, you’d have appended that with a certain three-letter word instead.
>
> If you mean “off”, then you’re wrong - I suss that “JAQing off” is an acceptable phrase in GD, as it refers to the argumentive tactic of asking endless questions, not taking answers for an answer, and then pretending that there’s something meaningful about all the ‘unanswered questions’. (The manner in which the activity satisfies nobody but the questioner is another layer of meaning behind the term.) Regardless, the reason I did not say “JAQing-offers” was merely because it sounded dumb, not becuase I thought it was unacceptable.
>
> If you meant “ass”, then you’re simply wrong - that’s not the term.
Lose the “ing”.
---
### Author:  [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/646 "2010-07-28T06:12:18Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Because the only thing I’ve got to go on in this case is my imagination and the shadiness of governments in general.
No, you’ve also got common sense.
Common sense says that if the government had undertaken something of this kind, the person they would have framed was Saddam Hussein, not Osama bin Laden. Common sense says that, though the government may be shady, killing thousands of its own citizens to get an oil pipeline built is beyond the pale. Common sense says there’s a way al Qaeda could have put a bunch of its operatives on those planes, but no way the CIA could have. Common sense says that, if the CIA planned to scotch WTC 1 and 2, there’s no reason to further complicate the mission with WTC7 and the Pentagon. And were they really going to fly a plane into the White House? Common sense says that blasting WTC 1 and 2 with airplanes was plenty, while bringing them down with explosives was superfluous and risky (detectionwise). Common sense says that if al Qaeda was willing to take credit (accept responsibility) for the attacks - thereby validating the invasion of Afghanistan - they were behind the attacks. Common sense says that the CIA couldn’t have pulled off an operation of this complexity, nor kept it secret. This isn’t a Hollywood movie. And so on.
Further, like others, I’d like to comment on your apparent assumption that we’re a bunch of Bush toadies. I notice you only joined the Board about two years ago. As a consequence, you missed most of the Bush-bashing that went on here. Not all of us were anti-Bush but (to my perception) most of us were. Certainly I was. I opposed the invasion of Iraq, the Patriot Act, the warrentless wiretaps and even the invasion of Afghanistan. I’m neither a toady nor a sheep. But it was obvious to me from the first time I met the 9/11 conspiracy theory (via the Loose Change video) that it was a crock. A couple weeks of research confirmed that view in spades. If you’d take off the “government is shady” eyeshades and actually look at the evidence - all of it, not just the open questions (there are always open questions) - you’d realize the same thing. Honest, there’s plenty of real work to be done in dealing with shady governments. This is a dead end.
---
### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/647 "2010-07-28T06:19:01Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> > [@ivan\_astikov](#):
> >
> > Of course it has negative connotations. It’s discussing something that if true would turn all the skeptic’s worldviews upside down and would likely divide your country irreparably. I understand why it might be upsetting to even contemplate, so leave it to people who don’t mind facing such a nightmare scenario and carry on in your WOW threads.
>
> ivan, I fully realize that I’m wasting my breath here, because I know I’ve told you this before, and I know you’ve seen other people say it, and I’ve known dozens of other people who’ve acknowledged the same, but just for the record:
>
> By 2003/2004, when I started hearing the first stirrings of the “truth” movement, I hated the Bush administration so bad that I wanted it to be true. I wanted BADLY for it to be true. I would lie in bed and imagine those fuckers riding lightning, and the whole country learning a lesson to never let this happen again, and a new era of peace emerging from this whole nightmare.
>
> The teensy little wrench in my gears was that I bothered to take 2 seconds to critically examine the evidence. There’s just nothing to it.
>
> And I’ll even grant you this: There MAY HAVE BEEN inside knowledge. It MAY HAVE BEEN a US plot. But, in the very remote circumstance that this is true, the “truth” movement is nowhere near uncovering it. They’re hunting penguins at the North Pole. Everything they’ve posited is demonstrably wrong, and damn near all of it is demonstrably a bald-faced lie.
>
> That enough to take the jam out of your “you guys just don’t _want_ it to be true” donut?
Crickets. Why am I not the least bit surprised.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/648 "2010-07-28T07:31:40Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> > [@Cisco](#):
> >
> > ivan, I fully realize that I’m wasting my breath here, because I know I’ve told you this before, and I know you’ve seen other people say it, and I’ve known dozens of other people who’ve acknowledged the same, but just for the record:
> >
> > By 2003/2004, when I started hearing the first stirrings of the “truth” movement, I hated the Bush administration so bad that I wanted it to be true. I wanted BADLY for it to be true. I would lie in bed and imagine those fuckers riding lightning, and the whole country learning a lesson to never let this happen again, and a new era of peace emerging from this whole nightmare.
> >
> > The teensy little wrench in my gears was that I bothered to take 2 seconds to critically examine the evidence. There’s just nothing to it.
> >
> > And I’ll even grant you this: There MAY HAVE BEEN inside knowledge. It MAY HAVE BEEN a US plot. But, in the very remote circumstance that this is true, the “truth” movement is nowhere near uncovering it. They’re hunting penguins at the North Pole. Everything they’ve posited is demonstrably wrong, and damn near all of it is demonstrably a bald-faced lie.
> >
> > That enough to take the jam out of your “you guys just don’t _want_ it to be true” donut?
>
> Crickets. Why am I not the least bit surprised.
What, did you think I’d scuttled off with my tail between my legs? Because Big, Bad Cisco pop’s up with a personal anecdote?
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/649 "2010-07-28T12:05:59Z")
Ya know you have to ask yourself the questions why, and how.
These are not strawmen rather they go to the core of any conspiracy.
Why did the shady government want to bring down WTC7? What was in WTC7 that had to be destroyed via a collapse. something that was so important that a burglary would not do, they had to nuke the building.
The other question is how did they do it. Explosives you say. Leaving out the impossibility of teams of demo engineers climbing all over the building for a couple of months and not being noticed, and the fact that no explosions were heard right before the collapse. We will ignore that for now. How begs the question, how were they going to cover it up? What were they going to use for a cover story?
If you admit that hijacked airplanes took down WTC1 and WTC2, and yet maintain that the shady government took down WTC7 you have to tell me how did they know that the hijackers were going to take over the planes on 9/11? What if the hijackers had decided to go visit a few more strip clubs and didn’t make their flights that day? What would the shady government use as an excuse for WTC7 falling to the ground that day?
Without the damage, fires started, and lack of water pressure caused by the collapse of WTC1 and 2 what was going to be the cover story?
**So why WTC7?
What was going to be the cover story?**
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/650 "2010-07-28T14:23:33Z")
> [@PBear42](#):
>
> I’m neither a toady nor a sheep. But it was obvious to me from the first time I met the 9/11 conspiracy theory (via the Loose Change video) that it was a crock.
_Loose Change: So Full of Errors, We Need to Keep Making More Videos to Correct Previous Versions!_ They’re up to, what, version #5 now?
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/651 "2010-07-28T14:42:01Z")
Re: _Loose Change_, there was the first, then a second came along to back-pedal away from some of the most egregious claims, for example that there were “pods” under Flight 175 which shot a missile at the building.
Then there was a third edition, which I never saw, but from discussions I gather that it pretty much backed off all the more tangible aspects and was a fuzzy, vague implication of conspiracy. The third version was not popular at all AFAIK. After that, Dylan Avery kind of fell off the radar. I wonder myself whether he believes it all still, or he’s just locked into the franchise and doesn’t know how to break out.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/652 "2010-07-28T14:58:36Z")
So it’s up to [version #4](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1394268/) then.
He’s also in “9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction” saying the collapse of Seven took “18 [seconds] if you count the penthouses.”
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/653 "2010-07-28T16:11:02Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> What, did you think I’d scuttled off with my tail between my legs? Because Big, Bad Cisco pop’s up with a personal anecdote?
No, I thought it was a case where you would have absolutely no choice but to man up and reevaluate your position. Obviously I was giving you too much credit.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/654 "2010-07-28T16:49:07Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#):
>
> Lose the “ing”.
That’s still not the term, though. It’s “JAQing off”.
I can’t help it, I’m a word purist. It’s a curse.
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> What, did you think I’d scuttled off with my tail between my legs? Because Big, Bad Cisco pop’s up with a personal anecdote?
I see you as scuttling away from _everything_ you conspicuously refrain from replying to, looking for a dark corner where ther facts won’t get you.
Yeah, that stuff you said about rubber steel? That stuff you said about objects falling straight straight down? Hello?
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### Author:  [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/655 "2010-07-28T16:54:02Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> > [@Valgard](#):
> >
> > > [@ivan\_astikov](#):
> > >
> > > Notice that it comes down in an almost perfectly straight line until it reaches the level of the white building on the left. Does that seem normal for a building asymmetrically damaged by fire and slight structural damage?
> >
> > I can’t watch the video here at work but let’s get a few concepts in order.
> >
> > First of all, barring things like wind and seismic conditions, the vast majority of the load on a building is vertical - plain old “dead load”, the weight of the structure plus contents. It all wants to go straight down and there’s a lot of it.
>
> Except for the parts of the building that fell away from the main structure and landed way across the street! Make your minds up; it either falls straight down or it can sometimes fall at an angle…which one is it? When you’ve cleared this up, I’ll read the rest.
That’s odd, I thought that you read the rest when we discussed this in the previous thread you participated in when this particular report was released the other year.
So your serious question is whether I said, meant or implied that when a massive building collapses, 100% of the material will fall perfectly straight down with no deviation by any part for any reason (other than explosives, nanothermite or flying monkeys)? Really? The answer of course is “no”; if you take thousands of tons of construction material and drop it, gravity pulls it down, stuff hitting each other will result in random interactions, some bits will have horizontal velocity, etc.
Now that I have cleared that up go ahead and read the rest (again?).
ETA - When I said that the material “…wants to go straight down…” I was not saying that steel, concrete and other stuff is actually conscious and has expressed a mental desire to descend downward. Just want to clarify that in case it was going to be your next question. 😃
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/656 "2010-07-28T17:17:38Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> What, did you think I’d scuttled off with my tail between my legs? Because Big, Bad Cisco pop’s up with a personal anecdote?
I dunno about Cisco, but I’ve asked a number of questions and raised a number of points that have gone unanswered. If you’re scuttle-free, how about giving them a shot?
---
### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/657 "2010-07-28T19:13:06Z")
Yes, **Bryan** , I’ve been ducking your questions all along out of fear of being exposed as the uneducated “twoofer” I really am. :rolleyes:
Truth is, I don’t find your posts very interesting, so I tend to move onto the next poster.
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/658 "2010-07-28T19:17:58Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Yes, **Bryan** , I’ve been ducking your questions all along out of fear of being exposed as the uneducated “twoofer” I really am. :rolleyes:
>
> Truth is, I don’t find your posts very interesting, so I tend to move onto the next poster.
And that only _just happens_ to resemble a person who is trying to change topics than ever admit he might have been mistaken about something.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/659 "2010-07-28T20:41:05Z")
> [@CurtC](#):
>
> Re: _Loose Change_, there was the first, then a second came along to back-pedal away from some of the most egregious claims, for example that there were “pods” under Flight 175 which shot a missile at the building.
>
> Then there was a third edition, which I never saw, but from discussions I gather that it pretty much backed off all the more tangible aspects and was a fuzzy, vague implication of conspiracy. The third version was not popular at all AFAIK. After that, Dylan Avery kind of fell off the radar. I wonder myself whether he believes it all still, or he’s just locked into the franchise and doesn’t know how to break out.
Dylan Avery _never_ believed it. _Loose Change_ started off as a fictional movie, using edited news footage to create the illusion of a massive conspiracy. When his demo reel failed to get him any job offers in Hollywood, he redited it and published it on the web as a documentary.
---
### Author:  [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/660 "2010-07-28T21:11:28Z")
I pulled this quote about the Truther movement from Wikipedia; I thought it was funny:
> [@MIT engineering professor Thomas W. Eagar](#):
>
> …adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement …use the reverse scientific method to arrive at their conclusions, as they determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn’t fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion.
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