I’ve seen more than a few truthers change their mind, usually over time. Some were borderline neutral at first, some just grew up, a few, in their own words, just ‘stopped smoking so much damn pot’.
THe end of the Bush administration made a lot of folks grow up, the remainder tend to be mpore die-hard CTers.
I’d grant the first three, but the rest of your list betrays your own biases. I’m willing to entertain, though, that while some people who hate Trump and are pro-feminist, etc. take it to an irrational extreme, their basic premises aren’t flawed.
“Bush Derangement Syndrome” isn’t even specifically about Bush - some segment of the American population will always view the president with irrational suspicion, regardless of who the president actually is.
What would it take to convince you otherwise?
Tree fiddy.
I was once a “truther”. I spread the word of how Bush was behind 9/11, how it was all a conspiracy, how jet fuel couldn’t melt steel beams, etc.
In fact, I came to the SDMB to challenge the lot of you to just try to disprove it. After all, I was well armed with my research, and the truth™ was on my side!
Much to my surprise when I got here I found a megathread on the topic already. I decided to read that thread before I made any posts about it.
To my shock, there were actually well reasoned, well thought out arguments rebutting every point I had. Backed up with actual facts and research! I hadn’t seen such things on other boards before.
By the time I had finished the thread, I had stopped being a truther. Logic and science had finally won that battle.
Yes, futile, save for the sake of amusement.
For fun, jump right in and escalate. If they’re on about CGI planes, escalate with “it’s all CGI, even the buildings. The WTC itself is a myth.”
Kudos to Mr. Accident for bowing to logic and reason!
Why were you a “truther” back then?
…Would you care to explain how Trump and Fox News haters belong in the same list as the truthers and birthers? Like, honestly, we had a very long thread about the latter, where the general consensus was, “Yes, Fox news really is that bad,” because it kept doing bad things; and Trump really is that bad, so I’m not sure how this comes from “only hearing what they want”. What, is it wrong to claim that Trump is essentially a racist populist who appeals to and furthers the goals of white nationalists and radical islamophobes?
Yes the insights were very interesting.
Ok, thing is a person can be interested and curious about a subject, and even have some questions about it, and still not be a truther or conspiracy nut. I am such a case. Yes, I know the building fell thru “natural” causes. But I am not a structural engineer or architect so I am, or should I say WAS, unfamiliar with those. But now I’ve gotten more info I know better.
What are you talking about - in English, please.
I think it’s being suggested that you either believe in truther conspiracies or are open to them, given your expressed views that governments do bad stuff, therefore it is possible that 9/11 was the government doing bad stuff, regardless of any physical evidence present or absent at the scene which would support such.
That’s helpful, thanks. Yep, I would classify Iran/Contra, mass surveillance and invasion of Iraq on bogus pretexts as bad stuff. And as conspiracies.
In relation to ‘truther conspiracies’ is that phrase used in a pejorative, catch-all judgmental way, or in a way that acknowledges ongoing intellectually curious?
The distinction is that Iran/Contra, mass surveillance and trumping up evidence to support an Iraq invasion are all based on plausible mechanics, i.e. none of them require purely fictional technologies or thousands upon thousands of conspirators all managing to keep their mouths shut (and obviously someone couldn’t do so, since we heard about them).
Talk to a 9/11 truther for five minutes and you’re likely to hear about untraceable thermite, holographic planes, invisible detonators, and the involvement of virtually the entire staff of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and hundreds of members of the military and executive branch. No matter what you might think the U.S. Government is capable of, what would be required for them to be involved in the attack quickly becomes so massive and convoluted that 19 Muslims hijacking and crashing planes ends up being the only plausible story and insisting otherwise is being determinedly foolish.
So what does any of that have to do with 911 and the discussion here? What is your actual point?
Okay, so proven conspiracies like Iran/Contra, mass surveillance outside the Constitution and WMD are excluded because of plausible mechanics. Plus those conspiracies factually happened, created by elites within the US government. Those are ones we know about.
But then this poster includes me in this ‘truther’ grouping when the exact thing I thought I was pointing out was what you term ‘plausible mechanics’:
I’m just discount that posters view as a bit cranky.
The word ‘conspiracy’ seems to have been used in relation to me as if a label you use to dismiss someone, like ‘witch’ or ‘anti-Semite’.
We don’t really have that here so it’s interesting to understand the dynamics, especially given the recent history of proven, and very deadly, conspiracies.
That last line about the elites appears to be you asking if 9/11 was a conspiracy they concocted. And, unlike the other examples, there isn’t a plausible mechanism by which this is possible.
I was making up a list and try to contain within it both sides.
Like I said, is futile to talk to ANY of those groups, and their supporters.
You can add the group ‘conspiracy deniers’ 