I’ve got an otherwise intelligent friend who, it turns out, buys into some conspiracy theory or other based on concerns about how building seven collapsed.
“Why did building 7 fall into its own footprint at free fall speed? That building was not hit by an airplane. How many other times have you seen a building 47 stories high collapse from fire?”
Can you link me to a facebook-digestible response to this kind of concern?
Thanks
WTC 7 was hit by debris from 1 and 2 as they fell. This damaged the building and combined with unchecked fires fueled by diesel for generators inside the building, it collapsed. “Near free fall speeds” is a meaningless term. How fast should it have fallen?
I’m curious, would a reasonable explanation of 7 cause your friend to not believe in a conspiracy? It seems the big towers are a bigger obstacle.
Well like I said he’s an otherwise intelligent guy, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that since his whole argument is based on building 7, then if I could offer him the correct explanation of building 7’s collapse, he might concede he has no good reason to buy a conspiracy theory.
The argument is that it is far different from the towers yet fell similarly. The airplane fuel burning super hot was a tower explanation. No airplane fuel in bldg .7. Diesel was not as hot and not on the top floors. They got hit by airplane., Bldg. 7 did not. It did not have the same construction. It was less than half as tall. Similar bldgs have burned a long time without collapsing.
I can see why the curiosity.
He pointed me here (see esp the right-hand column).
I don’t really have the time for this anymore.
Try posting this link here.
Bldg 7 was the real target all along. The planes crashing into the WTC were just a cover. “They” knew that having the towers come down was not enough of a statement so they planted explosives in Bldg 7 to really make the American public squirm.
Ask him, “How many times have you seen a building 47 stories high of similar construction NOT collapse after being set on fire in a similar way?”
The issues surrounding WTC 7 have been argued lots of times on the SDMB.
Here is a thread (including the comments of the usual Troothers and CT fans, but it also including a link to the actual NIST study and commentary by several well-informed Dopers), devoted to it, exclusively:
New NIST Report On WTC 7 - Change Anybody’s Mind?
Please do not post to that thread, as it is quite old, by now, and several key posters are no longer among us.
Also, recall that THIS thread is in General Questions, so please refrain from attempting to debate any issues in this thread: open a new thread in Great Debates for that purpose.
Sorry to hijack…
I just saw this building 7 conspiracy thing somewhere else earlier and the first thing that came to mind was that I seem to remember them talking about how damaged that building looked and worrying that it might collapse all day long on TV on 9-11. Then when it fell, they basically said “Yep, it finally went” and more or less forgot about it since it was obviously no longer a pressing matter. Maybe I’m crazy, does anyone else remember that?
It just struck me as odd that it became a conspiracy theory because, the way I remembered it, they were worried about it falling all day.
Yeah, I’ve already gone down that path with him since last I posted.
We (other friends of ours) have pretty much given up. We showed him the basic logical errors in his arguments, and the meaninglessness of his “evidence.” That’s all we could do.
Great link. I hadn’t seen that before.