Creative Speculation
In reply to the discussion: 2335! update: 2416, update: 2444! new update: 2613 and growing! [View all]William Seger
(11,042 posts)That's always a good idea, and I try to do it myself. However, I do have a problem with people who claim to be "just asking questions" but then it turns out they aren't really looking for plausible answers because they believe (in the religious sense rather than the rational) that there's only one answer and they already have it, apparently through some process or source not actually involving the weak or totally invalid arguments they offer to support their answer. And I definitely have a big problem with people who literally peddle bullshit and call it "truth," and occasionally with people who can't seem to tell the difference but then it turns out they really don't want to know the difference.
My position is simple: if you've got a better explanation for the building collapses than the "official narrative," then let's hear it. So far, no demolition theories have even reached the level of plausible, much less substantiated, not by a long shot -- certainly not demolitions with magical silent explosives nor with magical "nanothermite" paint chips that don't contain the elemental aluminum necessary for a thermitic reaction but can nonetheless melt through steel columns of varying sizes with the same timing precision as high-explosive cutter charges. If you speculate that it might be possible to cut through 3000 to 4000 square inches of steel with a series of charges smaller than conventional cutter charges (since even individually those would certainly have been heard for quite some distance away from the buildings), down to and including those final charges, I suggest trying to put some sensible numbers to that hypothesis. Until then, I think I'll keep it in the "not by a long shot" column.
> Because explosives are ruled out a priori, debunkers provide alternative explanations, as the ones mentioned. Again, the most obvious cause, namely explosives, is ignored because it contradicts the official narrative.
Nonsense. I certainly don't agree that explosives are the "most obvious cause" of explosions in a fire, but "obvious" doesn't really matter: You would still need to rule out all the mundane and expected causes, regardless of how obvious, before declaring something extraordinarily implausible to be the most probable cause. But anyway, it's rather disingenuous of you to suggest I "ignored" explosives "because it contradicts the official narrative" after I just gave you a couple of evidence-based reasons why I rule out explosives.
> The same holds true for other strong indicators of explosives such as:
> 1. Lateral ejection of multi-ton steel framing members distances of 600 feet at more than 60 mph;
> 2. Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete, and large volumes of expanding pyroclastic-like dust clouds;
> 3. Isolated explosive ejections 20 to 60 stories below the crush zone;
> 4. Total destruction and dismemberment of all three buildings, with 220 floors each an acre in size missing from the Twin Towers debris pile;
No, those are not at all "strong indicators of explosives." In fact, 1, 2, and 4 cannot be explained by cutter charges. When similar things are seen in a controlled demolition, they are the result of the tremendous kinetic energy unleashed when that much mass falls that far; they are not caused by the cutter charges that initiated the collapse. Suggesting that those were the result of explosives in the WTC is to suggest that the perps loaded the building with an order of magnitude more magical silent explosives than they needed to bring down the building, for absolutely no reason. We don't need such implausible speculation when there was more than enough kinetic energy to explain everything observed, and when nothing that was observed actually requires explosives.
And item 3 is simply wrong: the ejections are pneumatic rather than explosive. When you watch a demolition video and see "squibs," they appear suddenly and then immediately start slowing down. That's because the dust and debris cloud was accelerated by a single impulse from the blast. When you watch videos of the WTC "squibs" the clouds maintain a constant speed and in many cases even speed up. That isn't possible without having a continued applied force, which is the flow of air out of the building.
> Also, you dismiss the nanothermite composites and iron microspheres found in WTC dust samples, as well the thermite incendiaries on steel beams. You also ignore the molten steel & iron found in the debris piles. Ive read the debunking arguments debunking the nanothermite, iron microspheres and molten steel & iron, but I am not convinced.
Yes, I dismiss "nanothermite composites" because: (1) Harrit's paper claiming to have found thermite is junk science that avoided doing any of the tests that would have ruled out thermite, as proper scientific testing should have done, and it drew illogical conclusions from data that actually strongly suggested it wasn't thermite; (2) there has been independent confirmation by a real forensic chemist that the chips are exactly what they look like -- paint -- and are incapable of thermitic reaction; (3) the claim that iron microspheres are a "signature" of themite is totally bogus and a demonstration of the incompetence of the researchers, since they can be produced in incinerators; (4) there is no evidence of any thermite-melted steel; (5) no one has demonstrated a thermite device that could cut through WTC columns; and (6) even if such a thing were possible, doing so with the synchronization required to explain the 9/11 collapses is highly implausible. And yes, I dismiss "molten steel & iron" because molten metals such as aluminum and lead would be expected in a fire like that, and there is no positive identification that any molten metal observed was actually steel. Futhermore, if there was any type of molten metal in the debris weeks after the collapse, thermite certainly doesn't explain why (unless it was the magical variety that could burn for weeks).
Steven Jones came up with the thermite nonsense, not because of any evidence, but as a way around the inconvenient fact that what "looks like a controlled demolition" didn't sound anything like a controlled demolition. Whether you're convinced or not, there's a reason that Harrit and Jones could never get that paper published in a real peer-reviewed journal: it's junk, and you don't need to be a chemical engineer to see why.
> I often hear the incompetent argument: the US government is not competent enough to pull of 911. However, the MIC, the deep state or how you want to call it, is. And it is fact, not fiction that similar plans existed before 911 such as Operation Northwoods.
Regardless of who you speculate the perps were, it isn't just a matter of competence. You are postulating that they were either too insane to realize how little chance they had of pulling off such an unnecessarily complicated and risky hoax and then successfully keeping it covered up after the investigations began, or they were too stupid to come up with a scheme that wasn't so absurdly complicated and risky yet accomplished the same presumed objective. When you add up the improbabilities of successfully pulling it off and getting away with it to the implausibility of such a thing being planned in the first place, then demolition is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Instead, we get fallacious arguments based on dubious and erroneous facts strung together with personal incredulity.