Its a conspiracy

[nilsigma]

I made the mistake last night of watching a documentary about the third tower to collapse at the World Trade Center. Much of the programme was devoted to discussing the conspiracy theories attached to this event. Almost all of this was new to me, it was presented intelligently and with a good balance, and yet it left me twitching

Comments

[kloroform]

The method of presenting 'arguments' as 'conclusive' is the very heart and soul of a good conspiracy theory, just like it's the heart and 'spirit' of religion. Without conjecture, contradiction and simple wish-fulfilment, it would all fall apart and no one would have any fun.

In order to make yourself and others to believe in a lie, you have to make your arguments evasive, so they won't end up being shot down with something as dangerous and dissecting as logic.

Now, having said that, I must admit that I'm also a conspiracy groupie and would've absolutely loved to see that documentary, and happily swallow all 'arguments' of sinister plots...

[nilsigma]

Warning!!! Spoiler!!!

The government did it, for reasons that remained unclear. It was also unclear whether the plot was hatched and executed after the twin towers fell (they had 7 hours) or whether it was all just part of an even bigger conspiracy (it was suggested that the explosives might have been planted when the building was constructed in the 1980's. Wow!). But as you say, all arguments must be left open. To quote Douglas Adams - "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty".

You need to get yourself a nice UK ISP and then you can watch all this stuff on the BBC I-player. And 'Dr Who'.

[davmoo]

After I typed the rest of this reply, I felt a need to come back and put in a new first paragraph. This is going to sound like I'm going for a laugh and/or being sarcastic. I swear I'm not, and I'm being totally serious with the rest of this reply

[nilsigma]

I was not convinced by the conspiracy theory for many of the reasons you state. Lets face it, government and secrecy go together like macaroni and custard.

I you were looking for a conspiracy it might lie in the fact that the building collapsed after 7 hours of fire, when really it should not have done. An awful lot of buildings all over the world are built to the same safety standards. But any comment of mine on that issue would be total speculation.

[davmoo]

For the idea of the moon landings being faked, I listened to an interview with some of the surviving astronauts last week, and one of them (wish I could remember now which one) had the perfect statement for dealing with those who think the moon landing was fake. If we faked it the first time simply in order to make the Russians think we beat them, why would we do it 6 more times after that?

[nilsigma]

The moon landings were real (I remember seeing them on TV!) but the 'real' conspiracy is over the shape of the earth, which is not spherical but like a convex lens. Nasa can only take pictures at certain times to give the impression of a sphere. Oh, and the composition of the moon. I have seen a sample of so-called moon rock (they had so much they were practically giving it away) and it is clearly terrestrial. The moon is made out of cheese. Everyone knows that.

Right up until the first landing, astronomers were arguing about how dusty it was going to be. As it turned out it wasn't very dusty at all, which I think surprised a lot of them, although the soil samples they are currently analysing on Mars do have very fine particles and water ice. Space is getting to be quite interesting again.