Why do truthers espouse such an out-there theory?

[AndrewL]

@split_p_j

The whole subtext of the article is that they mixed in radioactive elements to see the effect. The whole point is that they lied about it right from the start. It’s only now, almost 60 years later, that people are actually taking a closer look at it.

If they were willing to do this, back then, I don’t find it to be that hard to believe they would murder people in 2001.

Actually, according to the article, there’s no proof of radioactive elements being mixed in. There’s suspicion, but it’s not proven.

More importantly, it’s the kind of conspiracy that at the time would have been plausibly completely harmless to the conspirators. They could have and almost certainly did convince themselves that the material they were spraying was only a tracer and would cause no injury to everyone. Nothing to really cover up there - even if there were radioactive tracers in the mix, at the time it really wasn’t known how dangerous that could be. This wasn’t a case of ‘Let’s spray stuff on civilians and see if it hurts them!’. This was a test of dispersion of a tracer believed to be harmless of a time as a study of how well biological weapons would spread if an enemy used them on a US city.

Furthermore, it took a long time for harm to become apparent - it wasn’t like people were dropping dead the next day. This would continue to make it easy for the people responsible to convince themselves that no harm had been done. Actually, it’s still not proven that the health problems in the are even were due to the spraying. It certainly might be, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it was, but it’s not a clearly proven cause and effect. This is why it took so many decades to be revealed, and it’s still not clear how big of a deal this was.

No conspiracy to commit harm beforehand, at at best a reluctance to admit what they had done when possible health effects showed up decades later.

Very different from 9/11, where the conspirators would have no possible way to believe that they were doing anything other than crashing airplanes into buildings full of people.

[AndrewL]

@split_p_j

The whole subtext of the article is that they mixed in radioactive elements to see the effect. .

Are we reading the same article? http://news.yahoo.com/secret-cold-war-tests-st-louis-raise-concerns-214608828.html says that they fully admit there is no proof of radioactive elements being mixed in. Furthermore, even if they were mixed in, that doesn’t mean the people doing it were intending or expecting health effects on the population. Trace amounts of radioactive tracer are routinely used to test how material spreads. Radioactivity makes an excellent tracer because it is detectable at levels far below those that will cause health effects, so adding a small amount of radioactive material lets you see how far a material has spread quite conveniently.

[Shagnasty]

@AndrewL

Are we reading the same article? http://news.yahoo.com/secret-cold-war-tests-st-louis-raise-concerns-214608828.html says that they fully admit there is no proof of radioactive elements being mixed in. Furthermore, even if they were mixed in, that doesn’t mean the people doing it were intending or expecting health effects on the population. Trace amounts of radioactive tracer are routinely used to test how material spreads. Radioactivity makes an excellent tracer because it is detectable at levels far below those that will cause health effects, so adding a small amount of radioactive material lets you see how far a material has spread quite conveniently.

You might as well give it up. Everything you say makes sense to a rational person but these types of arguments don’t ever seem to work on a small subset of people. It is like arguing with a color-blind person about which colors on a color wheel are similar. You can’t ever convince them because they aren’t working with the same same set of tools that other people are.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done about as far as I can tell and they absolutely cannot see what so obvious to other people. I believe it is like dyslexia for rational arguments. It probably isn’t intentional but it is irritating to those who can’t understand why they can’t see what other people can effortlessly.

[split_p_j]

No proof except that most people from that neighborhod have or died from some types of cancer, but ignore that proof right?

It’s the same thing I hear from people that believe the official 911 story. I’ve more than proved my point. There is plenty of evidence to doubt the 911 story.

I never said anything about needing thousands of people to conspire, that’s all you. You are stating what you think, what you imagine it would take, as facts.

I’ve seen compelling evidence that it would really only take a squad of operators to wire the WTC in the time that was known to have been had. That time being the weeks before 911 when the buildings were shut down at night for about 3 hours for construction. No workers, no janitorial staff, known blackouts in the buildings. That’s 8 guys that could have placed nano-thermite charges every 3rd floor or so.

The construction in the WTC in the month leading up to 911 is a fact. We can’t inspect the steel, since most of it was carted off and melted down rapidly. What little wasn’t is locked away, not even the ex governor can get to it.

Theseguys have found a bit of evidence however. Kind of reminds me of the cancer in people from that neighborhood in St. Louis.

[split_p_j]

@Shagnasty

You might as well give it up. Everything you say makes sense to a rational person but these types of arguments don’t ever seem to work on a small subset of people. It is like arguing with a color-blind person about which colors on a color wheel are similar. You can’t ever convince them because they aren’t working with the same same set of tools that other people are.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done about as far as I can tell and they absolutely cannot see what so obvious to other people. I believe it is like dyslexia for rational arguments. It probably isn’t intentional but it is irritating to those who can’t understand why they can’t see what other people can effortlessly.

That makes sense to a rational person? Even if you believe AndrewL’s handwave of radioactive tracer, are you telling me that it is rational to believe that spraying that shit in St. Louis would not cause any deaths?

[Leaffan]

@split_p_j

No proof except that most people from that neighborhod have or died from some types of cancer, but ignore that proof right?

I may have missed that. Can you please point out where that is stated?

[AndrewL]

My point was that you can’t use the St. Louis military spraying as proof of an admitted conspiracy to do harm, when there was no admission of a conspiracy to do harm. There was an admitted conspiracy to spray some tracer chemicals that they claimed they believed to be harmless at the time. There is no admission of an intentional conspiracy to harm people beforehand, so it’s not comparable.

@split_p_j

I’ve seen compelling evidence that it would really only take a squad of operators to wire the WTC in the time that was known to have been had. That time being the weeks before 911 when the buildings were shut down at night for about 3 hours for construction. No workers, no janitorial staff, known blackouts in the buildings. That’s 8 guys that could have placed nano-thermite charges every 3rd floor or so.

You have failed to provide a cite for the WTC being shut down at any point.

‘Nanothermite’ is a fantasy invented by conspiracy theorists.

Thermite is never used for demolitions, being completely ill-suited for the job.

More importantly, you’re jumping headlong into the absurdly and unnecessary complex conspiracy theories - exactly what the OP of this thread was talking about.

Let’s say hypothetically that you’re an evil shadow government overload type guy. Let’s say that you’ve decided to fake an attack on the WTC by terrorists for whatever nefarious reasons - excuse to stage a war in Iraq, or to crush civil liberties, or to score some lucrative insurance money for their destruction, whatever.

Now, even a shadowy government conspiracy guy needs to worry about being caught. If you’re too careless, some independent journalist might find put together the details and expose you. This will get you thrown in prison for the rest of your life, or possibly executed. You don’t want that. So, not being stupid, you will design your hoax to achieve the desired goal with the minimum risk possible.

Every additional person or operation needing to be done adds more risk to the plan and increases the chance of your being caught. You therefore won’t add anything to the plan beyond what is needed for your goals.

The simplest and safest way to fake a bunch of terrorists flying hijacked planes into buildings is to arrange for a bunch of terrorists to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Very low risk for our shadowy conspiracy overlord guy that way. If you can’t get actual terrorists, have some of your disposable brainwashed minions do it instead.

Wiring the buildings with explosives? That’s absurd. No need for it. Crashing the planes into the buildings will alone be sufficient, even if the buildings somehow don’t collapse. Adding explosives would tremendously increase your risk due to the increased chance of explosives being found beforehand, or the remains of detonators and other hardware being found in the rubble afterwards, or even live explosives being found if they don’t all go off. Wiring the buildings with explosives would never be part of a hoaxed attack, it makes no sense.

And yet, truthers come up with bizarrely and unnecessarily complex theories involving planted nanothermite charges and other details that wouldn’t even make sense if their fundamental starting claim (that the government was responsible) were true.

[split_p_j]

@Leaffan

I may have missed that. Can you please point out where that is stated?

Ok fine. I’m reading between the lines here. They only give two people as examples, both white of course, when the article says the stuff was sprayed in 75% black neighorhoods.

Of the two, one had four siblings die from cancer, and had cancer herself. The other had 4 different types of cancer.

Who knows how many black people have cancer or died because of this, their voices have not yet been heard, but I think they will be.

My point with this link is that the government does not care about the people. 30 or 3000, does not matter, the myth that they could never murder 3000 people is just that, a myth. I stand by that link as proof of that. it’s even worse because some of these people knew something happend to them, but still don’t know the truth 50+ years later.

[Shagnasty]

@split_p_j

Ok fine. I’m reading between the lines here. They only give two people as examples, both white of course, when the article says the stuff was sprayed in 75% black neighorhoods.

Of the two, one had four siblings die from cancer, and had cancer herself. The other had 4 different types of cancer.

Who knows how many black people have cancer or died because of this, their voices have not yet been heard, but I think they will be.

My point with this link is that the government does not care about the people. 30 or 3000, does not matter, the myth that they could never murder 3000 people is just that, a myth. I stand by that link as proof of that. it’s even worse because some of these people knew something happend to them, but still don’t know the truth 50+ years later.

Ok, do you understand how irrational are being here with this line of argument? Yes, there have been some real conspiracies over the years. I even started a thread about them once. I can find that one if you want.

The answer to your question is ‘yes’, doctors and scientists could have believed that radiation was mostly harmless. It is still used to this day for some medical tests. Have you ever heard of a PET scan?

However, showing that there were misdeeds done by some government arm somewhere at any time in the past has no relevance to the 9/11 attacks until any real evidence whatsoever has been given. Spinning that into wild theories about specific actions by someone/somewhere requires exceptional proof because much of it happened on live TV with millions of people watching and the independent engineer studies showed perfectly well how planes loaded with fuel can cause a structural collapse after a huge and hot fire.

Furthermore, it is likely that the Pentagon was not a first choice of a target. The hit to it didn’t even cause as much damage as it could have because they hit a part of the building that was under construction. The White House and/or the Capitol building were almost certainly the 3rd and 4th primary targets but they are smaller than you think when you look for them from the air. Do you really think a U.S. government plot would fail in targeting it’s two most important buildings?

[split_p_j]

@AndrewL

My point was that you can’t use the St. Louis military spraying as proof of an admitted conspiracy to do harm, when there was no admission of a conspiracy to do harm. There was an admitted conspiracy to spray some tracer chemicals that they claimed they believed to be harmless at the time. There is no admission of an intentional conspiracy to harm people beforehand, so it’s not comparable.

You have failed to provide a cite for the WTC being shut down at any point.

‘Nanothermite’ is a fantasy invented by conspiracy theorists.

Thermite is never used for demolitions, being completely ill-suited for the job.

More importantly, you’re jumping headlong into the absurdly and unnecessary complex conspiracy theories - exactly what the OP of this thread was talking about.

Let’s say hypothetically that you’re an evil shadow government overload type guy. Let’s say that you’ve decided to fake an attack on the WTC by terrorists for whatever nefarious reasons - excuse to stage a war in Iraq, or to crush civil liberties, or to score some lucrative insurance money for their destruction, whatever.

Now, even a shadowy government conspiracy guy needs to worry about being caught. If you’re too careless, some independent journalist might find put together the details and expose you. This will get you thrown in prison for the rest of your life, or possibly executed. You don’t want that. So, not being stupid, you will design your hoax to achieve the desired goal with the minimum risk possible.

Every additional person or operation needing to be done adds more risk to the plan and increases the chance of your being caught. You therefore won’t add anything to the plan beyond what is needed for your goals.

The simplest and safest way to fake a bunch of terrorists flying hijacked planes into buildings is to arrange for a bunch of terrorists to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Very low risk for our shadowy conspiracy overlord guy that way. If you can’t get actual terrorists, have some of your disposable brainwashed minions do it instead.

Wiring the buildings with explosives? That’s absurd. No need for it. Crashing the planes into the buildings will alone be sufficient, even if the buildings somehow don’t collapse. Adding explosives would tremendously increase your risk due to the increased chance of explosives being found beforehand, or the remains of detonators and other hardware being found in the rubble afterwards, or even live explosives being found if they don’t all go off. Wiring the buildings with explosives would never be part of a hoaxed attack, it makes no sense.

And yet, truthers come up with bizarrely and unnecessarily complex theories involving planted nanothermite charges and other details that wouldn’t even make sense if their fundamental starting claim (that the government was responsible) were true.

The only problem with this is I’m not the one saying explosives had to have been used.
I’m saying that the people in the link I provided say there is no way the buildings could have collasped the way we saw without cutting the main beams in the core of the buildings. You say there is no such thing as nano thermite, these enginners say there is.

Now should I believe you, a random person on a message board, or actual engineers, that are out ther putting their names and careers on the line and have real credentials. Some have even lost their jobs over this.

[AndrewL]

@Shagnasty

Furthermore, it is likely that the Pentagon was not a first choice of a target. The hit to it didn’t even cause as much damage as it could have because they hit a part of the building that was under construction. The White House and/or the Capitol building were almost certainly the 3rd and 4th primary targets but they are smaller than you think when you look for them from the air. Do you really think a U.S. government plot would fail in targeting it’s two most important buildings?

Remember that in the mind of a conspiracy theorist, there are no mistakes. If the Pentagon was hit in a part that was under construction, it’s because the conspiracy wanted it to be hit there. If the fourth plane crashed because the passengers attacked the hijackers, it’s because the conspiracy wanted it that way. When you’re through the looking glass, everything that happened is evidence for the conspiracy. Even evidence against the conspiracy is evidence for the conspiracy.

[Shagnasty]

@AndrewL

Remember that in the mind of a conspiracy theorist, there are no mistakes. If the Pentagon was hit in a part that was under construction, it’s because the conspiracy wanted it to be hit there. If the fourth plane crashed because the passengers attacked the hijackers, it’s because the conspiracy wanted it that way. When you’re through the looking glass, everything that happened is evidence for the conspiracy. Even evidence against the conspiracy is evidence for the conspiracy.

I realized that same thing just after I posted it. True. It makes sense now. Someone at the Pentagon was running the whole show. They had a plane hit their own building deflect suspicion but had the foresight to pick an area of the building where there were few people because any other area would compromise the control center.

[Loach]

@split_p_j

Ok fine. I’m reading between the lines here. They only give two people as examples, both white of course, when the article says the stuff was sprayed in 75% black neighorhoods.

Of the two, one had four siblings die from cancer, and had cancer herself. The other had 4 different types of cancer.

Who knows how many black people have cancer or died because of this, their voices have not yet been heard, but I think they will be.

My point with this link is that the government does not care about the people. 30 or 3000, does not matter, the myth that they could never murder 3000 people is just that, a myth. I stand by that link as proof of that. it’s even worse because some of these people knew something happend to them, but still don’t know the truth 50+ years later.

So you have no idea if cancer rates in the area were even higher than average. Or if the 2 families are predisposed to cancer. Is this your first day here?

And…there is no entity called The Government to care or not care for people. It’s made up of individuals, good and bad. And I’ll let you in on a secret, it’s a different group of people than were there in the 50s. So it doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. Other than to say bad things can be done by people.

I doubt you could prove that both towers were completely shut down for hours prior to 911. Because they weren’t. But you have proven you have no clue what demolition is like. Worse, you have a child’s view of what it is to “wire” a building. Controlled dets take weeks to set up. They half demolish the buildings. The structural steel must be exposed. Steel cutting charges emplaced directly on the beams. All of the beams. Then they were supposed to put the building back together in a couple hours so no one would notice? And they just happened to emplace the demo on different floors in each building because they knew exactly where the planes would hit with precision. It’s laughable. I’m a combat engineer. You should see how long it takes to set up one charge. To do at least three buildings it would take thousands of pounds of demo and god knows how many people. It’s laughable. Unless you think the buildings were built per-wired? I think we might be on to something!

[Shagnasty]

@split_p_j

The only problem with this is I’m not the one saying explosives had to have been used.

Listen, this is enough. You are not thinking like a rational person. I know a whole lot of people who think that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as humans and many more that believe that the reason people people float on the space shuttle is because there is no gravity in space. Neither one is remotely true and profoundly ignorant. Appeal to (insane or ignorant) authority will never get you anywhere.

[AndrewL]

Also, Thermite is not an explosive. Not at all. Thermite when it burns gets very hot and makes molten iron. It’s used to weld railroad rails together. It’s also used to destroy classified computers by burning holes through them. It’s never been used as a cutting charge, because it would be terrible at that job, and there are much better methods for cutting steel beams.

[Loach]

@split_p_j

The only problem with this is I’m not the one saying explosives had to have been used.
I’m saying that the people in the link I provided say there is no way the buildings could have collasped the way we saw without cutting the main beams in the core of the buildings. You say there is no such thing as nano thermite, these enginners say there is.

Now should I believe you, a random person on a message board, or actual engineers, that are out ther putting their names and careers on the line and have real credentials. Some have even lost their jobs over this.

You do understand that there are many many more engineers who say they are full of shit.

I don’t know for sure but I believe nanothermite is still experimental. Not really my area. I do know that thermite is destructive but not controllable in a way to use in demolition. It burns. That’s not what you want. They were looking into nanothermite to have more effective thermobaric explosions (fuel air). Not for demolition. Makes no sense.

[split_p_j]

The real problem is that both of those planes should have been shot down by that point. Both WTC towers had been hit, it was known the country was under attack.

I already explained that both airliners could have been found by fighters, if they were flying in the right direction. They were flying away from the threat, which was known to be coming from the land, not the sea.

Even if you believe all the nosense about transponders, you have to know ATC lost contact with the planes when the were well inland. I mean point blank, how hard is it to advise the fighters that the airliners were last seen in eastern Ohio, western PA. Not out over Long Island sound or Cheasapeake Bay.

They even had pilots from other planes spotting them.

[Shagnasty]

@AndrewL

Also, Thermite is not an explosive. Not at all. Thermite when it burns gets very hot and makes molten iron. It’s used to weld railroad rails together. It’s also used to destroy classified computers by burning holes through them. It’s never been used as a cutting charge, because it would be terrible at that job, and there are much better methods for cutting steel beams.

Interesting. What if a bunch of terrorists hid thermite in their undwear and snuck into the building (how big is that stuff)? They could potentially sneak into the service areas like the heating vents and elevator shafts and reach the exposed steel beams. They could secure the thermite to the beams and wait for the planes to hit as a diversion and start a huge fire that distracts everyone from the important part of the operation. After waiting for 40 minutes or so, they could ignite the thermite to cut all all the critical beams at the same time and bring the building down.

Wow, I am not sure what I think now.

[split_p_j]

@AndrewL

Also, Thermite is not an explosive. Not at all. Thermite when it burns gets very hot and makes molten iron. It’s used to weld railroad rails together. It’s also used to destroy classified computers by burning holes through them. It’s never been used as a cutting charge, because it would be terrible at that job, and there are much better methods for cutting steel beams.

Here is a guy in his backyard cutting steel beams with thermite. Also remind of the eyewitness accounts andvideos of explosions well after the planes hit.

[AndrewL]

@split_p_j

Here is a guy in his backyard cutting steel beams with thermite. Also remind of the eyewitness accounts andvideos of explosions well after the planes hit.

Did you notice what the thermite isn’t doing in that video?

It isn’t exploding.

Because thermite isn’t an explosive.

It’s also doing a very poor job of cutting through the steel beam.