*** OFFICIAL BREXIT SUNLIT UPLANDS and #MEGA THREAD ***

[CoccoBill]

So the measures we take can almost wipe out flu, but can't touch covid? It's this kind of logic that takes me into paranoid territory.

Pretty much, yes. The reproductivity, R0, of influenza strains is usually between 1-2, whereas SARS-CoV-2 is suspected to be around 3.5 without any countermeasures. The number means how many others an infected person will spread the virus to on average. This means that COVID spreads massively faster, which is why it's a problem in the first place. The R0 needs to be below 1 for the epidemic to slow, at over 1 it accelerates. The measures are enough to take care of the flu, but haven't been enough for COVID.

It's easier to believe the people who control the world are corrupt as fuck and have no regard whatsoever for the lives of ordinary people. What's ridiculous is we all know that those in power are corrupt, that's not something I believe we disagree on, yet you still trust them. I don't.

There are degrees to this. If by corrupt you mean they're willing to do backdoor deals to get a legislation to pass, or agree to vote on a bill to get some other favors in return, yeah, they're all corrupt. If you mean they might lie in public, pretend to support a cause knowing they won't, sure, most of them are probably guilty. But, if you mean they embezzle, extort, are only in it for themselves, well, if you scratch my idealism a bit you'll find a cynic, but I 'm still pretty sure that's a very small minority.

[CoccoBill]

Who here thinks 9/11 was an "inside job" or whatever?

I read a lot about it back in the day, watched Loose Change etc. I was convinced that the official narrative wasn't true, or at least not complete. However, the more I studied it, the less I believed the theories.

Was it an inside job, that is, organized by the US government? No, I do not believe so. Were they aware of what was going to happen and let it? I think to an extent that might be possible, they were warned quite specifically well in advance. Still, I'm not sure that's likely, however convenient it was for them with growing domestic issues and Dubya's falling approval. Were they grossly incompetent and unprepared? Hell yes.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Just a quick question and not something I want to start a discussion on for obvious reasons, but...

Who here thinks 9/11 was an "inside job" or whatever?

The reason I ask is because I think this is a defining moment in my life when it comes to "conspiracy theories". That changed the way I saw the world forever. From that moment, I never trusted government, never trusted the media, never trusted the system we live in. If they can do that, they can do anything. That showed me these people aren't made of the same emotions as I am. And this comes from someone who believes himself to be a sociopath. The world is run by psychopaths, not sociopaths.

But if you believe what they say about 9/11, I get why things like covid hoax seem ridiculous. You didn't have that moment where you lost all faith in the people who control our societies.

The difference is that you put away your science hat when you want to find a conspiracy.

I can't say with any certainty that 9/11 was not an inside job, but what you've put forward as evidence is easily shown to be the scientifically predictable outcome, given the circumstances. Passports and jet fuel... so easily shown to be spurious distractions from any real conspiracy. It has nothing to do with whether or not the terrorists were known about ahead of time or even put up to the task by someone inside the US.

Maybe it was a conspiracy, but ignoring the rational, scientific explanations for the things you find implausible is not healthy skepticism.

***
As for COVID.... there are freezer trucks in the alleyways behind hospital morgues and have been for most of the past year because the death rates are off the charts high. The US lost more people in the past year than we did during combat operations in WWII. Healthcare workers have vlogs on many platforms describing their daily interactions with fighting the pandemic. It's happening like this all over the world, and the chain of events that got us to this point are full of incontrovertible facts about death rates and viral spread.

Just WTF conspiracy are you on about? The entirety of the world's governments have finally come together in an act of unity to not stop the spread of a deadly pandemic? All those nations that would love nothing more than to lord over each other how they solved this problem and the infidels are only facing the wrath of God upon them?

I'm all about healthy skepticism, but there's a limit where it becomes unhealthy skepticism.

[Poopadoop]

I like how you add the caveat "managing a pandemic". You didn't say that before.

Yeah actually I did. Try reading what I said before u answer.

[OngBonga]

The difference is that you put away your science hat when you want to find a conspiracy.

I don't think so, and I think it's dubious to say this comes down to science. When it came to 9/11, my paranoia was 100% science based. I didn't, and still don't, understand how a building can turn entirely into dust and collapse at near freefall speed without strategic explosives taking it down. The only explanation that made sense was the professional demolition idea. But that means it wasn't the planes that brought them down, and once I come to that conclusion, the official narrative, or even the Pearl Harbour style "eyes closed" theory, become untenable.

But away from 9/11, the conspiracies I flirt with are not the ones that are contrary to science. They might contradict scientists, but they don't contradict science. There's a big difference between the two. I mean, let's say there are freezer trucks behind the morgues. Is it scientifically impossible they are there for show? Of course not. Is it scientifically impossible for governments to convince sincere scientists that there is a legit viral pandemic? This is a better question, and one I don't know the answer to.

I mean, there's a risk here that you guys think I'm 100% behind the covid hoax idea. I'm not. I just don't rule it out, and at the very least I suspect our government, and probably every government in the world, are exploiting it. Perhaps the conspiracy is that it was lab created. Emphasis on "perhaps". This isn't contradicting science. This stuff is possible. We're not into 5G territory here.

I don't think my skepticism is unhealthy. I don't rant about this on Twitter, or any other internet platform. I might discuss it with friends casually, but I'm not trying to convince anyone not to take the vaccine, or to go out and party. And I'm not losing any sleep. So I don't see what's unhealthy about my skepticism.

[OngBonga]

Yeah actually I did. Try reading what I said before u answer.

You're right, well done. Mark your calendar.

[OngBonga]

Is that it poop? You're going to focus entirely on the "gotcha" and ignore the rest? That's worse than banana debate. At least he engages. You're not interested in debate, just point scoring.

[Poopadoop]

if you are capable of fooling the nation into think Dominic Cummings went to "test his eyesight" next to GSK two days before GSK announced a vaccine deal,

1. They didn't fool anyone with that lie. That's a sign of incompetence if you can't even come up with a better fib than that.

2. lol at bolded

while getting away with enormous corruption, I think that's highly competent. They might not be competent at doing what we the people expect them to do, but our expectations don't match reality.

How do you imagine they've gotten away with it? There's not been a chance to hold them to account yet, the election's not for another three years.

You completely imagined hypocrisy. This claim is based purely off me calling the EU "incompetent". I didn't say we're not at this stage. And since then I've clarified that I don't think our govt is incompetent, just very corrupt. You disagree, you say we're incompetent, which makes me a hypocrite. I might talk out of my arse, but I don't do what you're doing here. This is bad form. I am not a hypocrite simply for calling the EU incompetent. Banana got banned for this kind of debate.

Fine, you're not a hypocrite, you're just biased.

Banana got banned for this kind of debate.

I thought he got banned for being a serial douchebag to everyone. At least the first five times.

Nice veiled threat there btw.

You do not argue in good faith, poop. I do.

I guess the above is your idea of arguing in good faith. Making a veiled threat that if someone keeps arguing with you, that they could be banned.

I'm calling them incompetent because they took three months longer than the UK to place their orders.

Source?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but three months seems like a bit of a stretch. All I could find is that they've ordered 5x as many doses overall as their population. Not sure how that compares to the UK.

And they still haven't cleared it for us yet.

For us? What are you talking about?

maybe they're highly competent and very corrupt too, perhaps this is all part of their plan to make more money.

Who's making all this money? How?

See, there's a problem here with how you connect the dots. You start from a conclusion and look for premises. The conclusion is: "They're all evil and corrupt and ready to let their citizens die to line their pockets." What you forget is that being in gov't is a nonstop opportunity to line your pockets. You don't have to kill your own citizens to do it, and give yourself a good chance of getting voted out.

They're competent because they get away with their corruption while maintaining a society that is wealthy enough to be happy. They are far from stupid. Incompetent governments get overthrown, or voted out.

No real democracy has been "overthrown." We'll see if Britain Trump manages to even make it to the next election as PM, never mind win it. The smart money says he's not going to finish the year as PM.

It's more believable than someone actually taking the time to send a bomb or anthrax or whatever to a vaccination centre. If you're that kind of messed up, you pick a better fucking target than that. Such as the government.

Uh, ok.

[Poopadoop]

Is that it poop? You're going to focus entirely on the "gotcha" and ignore the rest? That's worse than banana debate. At least he engages. You're not interested in debate, just point scoring.

Lol, you misread what I said, call me a liar, then when I point out your mistake, you accuse me of "point scoring."

Well played, sir.

[Poopadoop]

You're right, well done. Mark your calendar.

Nice apology there, btw.

[Poopadoop]

And why are you breaking your own rule which was not to talk about banana? Or was it just the rest of us that rule applied to?

You really need to take a timeout, or at least stop and think before you start banging away at your keyboard.

[Poopadoop]

They are competent at one thing though: somehow convincing a sizable minority of the population they're not incompetent. Like, how many people will look at this photo op and think Boris is personally involved in making the vaccine?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...P=share_btn_tw



Edit: And here's some of Britain Trump at his Trumpiest.

I quote verbatim: “If [the vaccine is] approved by the MHRA then we will have 60m doses of it by the end of this year for the whole of the British people. And so it’s a success for Scotland. Uh, it’s a success for, uh, Britain and, uh, it’s a success for Britain because it is a success for Scotland. It’s a success for Scotland because it’s a success for Britain.

“So, uh, I’m, uh, you know, it was very, very encouraging to see it. That’s, that’s … I may have done some other things as well while I have been here although I can’t immediately recollect what they are. It’s been an action-packed day and always a joy to see you.”

[OngBonga]

1. They didn't fool anyone with that lie. That's a sign of incompetence if you can't even come up with a better fib than that.

I just searched Twitter for "cummings" and found one tweet that mentioned GSK and two that are calling Boris' recent trip to Scotland a "Cummings moment" or words to that effect. The lie certainly did not fool everyone, but it definitely fooled enough people for it to not be a problem for them, and for those who mention GSK to be branded "conspiracy theorists".

2. lol at bolded

I'm sorry, the joke went over my head, can you spell out what's funny? Maybe this will help...

https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/pres...ight-covid-19/

And this link so you can quickly compare dates. Cummings went to Barnard Castle on 12th April, the article linked is 14th April. Two days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Cummings_scandal

How do you imagine they've gotten away with it? There's not been a chance to hold them to account yet, the election's not for another three years.

If Labour win the next election I'll send you a fiver via paypal. There is no serious backlash against the government. Their voter base is solid. The people criticising them are people like you, folk who will never vote for them. I'm sure they'll lose some voters, but not nearly enough to swing it in Labour's favour. Starmer is not going to be PM, and there's no other party that are even worth bringing into this debate.

Fine, you're not a hypocrite, you're just biased.

Perhaps, but so too are you, which is why you show outrage when I call the EU incompetent, even though they plainly are because it took them three months longer than it took us to place orders for a vaccine that was clearly needed.

Nice veiled threat there btw.

It wasn't a threat at all. I have never even thought about banning you. I would consider such an act to be an abuse of my position. I said that in the hope you realise that you hold someone in contempt who has the power to boot you but doesn't. I kinda wished you appreciated that just a little.

I guess the above is your idea of arguing in good faith. Making a veiled threat that if someone keeps arguing with you, that they could be banned.

Let me clarify... you're not going to get banned.

Source?

Dude I started this discussion with a link that makes this very claim. Read it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55822602

For us? What are you talking about?

lol are you really that incapable of figuring out my typo here?

*use

Who's making all this money? How?

Really? Anyone with shares in pharmaceutical companies, by selling vaccines to nations by means of tax and austerity. That's just the tip of the iceberg. You can also check out the destruction of the high street while companies like Amazon do really well.

The smart money says he's not going to finish the year as PM

Boris might not remain PM, or he might, idk and don't want to predict either way. But the Torie won't lose the next election because Labour are even more unelectable than the Tories. And one thing I'm sure of is that Boris won't ever be prosecuted for his corruption, just like Blair, Brown, Cameron and whoever else. He'll keep his wealth.

[OngBonga]

Nice apology there, btw.

Apologise? lol I don't apologise just for making mistakes. I apologise if I make mistakes that I regret. Did I hurt your feelings? Why should I be sorry?

[OngBonga]

And why are you breaking your own rule which was not to talk about banana? Or was it just the rest of us that rule applied to?

If this needs to be explained, then fine.

I nipped talk about him in the bud for two reasons... one, because I didn't want to encourage him to create a new account, and two, because it had the potential to be toxic.

Simply mentioning his name is fine. Insulting him and bickering about him immediately after his ban seemed like something I felt we should avoid.

[Poopadoop]

Ong meeting his mates in the pre-covid days.

[Poopadoop]

I mean it's another case we've been through before, Cummings and Barnard Castle, where you connect dots that have no reason to be connected.

Cummings did not have to go to BC with covid and take his family for good measure to secure a vax deal with GSK. They could have done the deal any number of ways that didn't involve a 500 mile car journey, or even Cummings for that matter. The telephone. Email. A fax machine.

I mean FFS.

And let's say he did go there with the express purpose of concluding a deal with GSK. How is that nefarious? There's a pandemic going on. Should they not be making deals for vaccines? You just finished criticising the EU for being slow on that.

Furthermore, he gets caught on his little deal-making trip. So why not say "I was going to GSK to secure the vaccine."? Is that not a better excuse than testing his eyesight? But in your mind, the deal to save lives was somehow shady and therefore he couldn't admit to being involved in it.

I tell you, if he had said that, he'd be a hero right now and the gov't would be bragging about it nonstop, how their wonderful advisor personally went and secured the vax so we could all get past covid sooner

[OngBonga]

How is that nefarious?

This is a good question. Well done.

The question I'd ask in return is... if it's not dodgy, why lie? The problem is that people don't trust pharma companies. If they admitted what he was doing, alarm bells would be ringing. Cummings was disposable.

I mean, maybe it is just one huge coincidence. But two days. That pings my radar like shit pings my nose.

[Poopadoop]

This is a good question. Well done.

The question I'd ask in return is... if it's not dodgy, why lie?

That's my questio for you: why lie? Even if people don't trust big pharma, they know that's who makes the vaccines. The public doesn't expect them to get the vaccines from Boots lol. So why not admit that's why he went up there if that was really why he went up there.

How about he really told part of the truth, that he took his kids to be with his parents in case he and his wife both got sick. He couldn't come up with a better explanation for that trip than the truth, which was more or less forgiveable to most people imo.

The trip to BC was on his wife's birthday, so maybe that was just a little outing for her. But he couldn't admit to that so he made up the stupid eyesight testing thing. I mean what's he going to say: "Oh we just took one little day out on my wife's b-day." That's not going to fly either. The eyesight thing is bullshit but bullshit at least obscures the truth.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I don't think so, and I think it's dubious to say this comes down to science. When it came to 9/11, my paranoia was 100% science based. I didn't, and still don't, understand how a building can turn entirely into dust and collapse at near freefall speed without strategic explosives taking it down. The only explanation that made sense was the professional demolition idea. But that means it wasn't the planes that brought them down, and once I come to that conclusion, the official narrative, or even the Pearl Harbour style "eyes closed" theory, become untenable.

Science: acceleration near the Earth's surface is 9.8 m/s^2
Ong: How can a thing fall down at 9.8 m/s^2 unless it was blown up?
Science: That's how things fall
Ong: I don't trust scientists.

Scientists: We never wanted anyone to take our word for anything: here's the information we heard. Here's the experiments we've run. Here's how to perform these experiments yourself to form your own conclusions. PLEASE don't take our word for it and do test it yourself, and if you can, PLEASE prove us wrong!

Ong: I have better things to do. Still don't trust you.

I mean, let's say there are freezer trucks behind the morgues. Is it scientifically impossible they are there for show? Of course not. Is it scientifically impossible for governments to convince sincere scientists that there is a legit viral pandemic? This is a better question, and one I don't know the answer to.

Is it scientifically possible? Yes, up until the point you check. Then it's no longer scientifically possible, 'cause the accumulation of new information has eroded past ignorance.

The healthcare workers who are actually working in the morgues in tens of thousands of hospitals around the world... are you asserting that they are in on this conspiracy? That they know those trucks are not holding any bodies, and the morgues aren't full, and they are OK with letting the hospital turn away patients on the claims of "Sorry no room 'cause COVID" when there is in fact plenty of room? Is that scientifically plausible to you?

Are you suggesting All those doctors and nurses who swore an oath to "do no harm" are now creating fraudulent vlog channels showing an elaborate Hollywood style set to perpetuate the conspiracy that the hospitals are filled with COVID patients when the truth is that the hospitals are really empty? They're perpetuating a hoax that turns sick people away from medical treatment they need based on the lie that there's no room in the hospital to treat them? That's a scientifically plausible situation to you?

How about the death rates? Those people are verifiably dead. Their families are all just hiding these living relatives to further the conspiracy? Millions of family members of all ages, conspiring to keep their supposedly dead loved ones out of the public eye?
Is that plausible to you?

I don't understand how these few facts can play into the notion that COVID is a hoax. This is a worldwide pandemic. The evidence is literally everywhere. How can you see something on this scale happening - with the millions of voices that have to remain silent in order for this secret to be kept - and not immediately see that is not humanly possible to pull off a hoax of this scale.

The hoax would have to be that the virus is real, but something like - it was a biological weapon that was meant to target one people, but got out of hand and mutated to affect everyone. That is scientifically plausible. The notion that SARS-CoV2 is a myth is not.

I mean, there's a risk here that you guys think I'm 100% behind the covid hoax idea. I'm not. I just don't rule it out, and at the very least I suspect our government, and probably every government in the world, are exploiting it. Perhaps the conspiracy is that it was lab created. Emphasis on "perhaps". This isn't contradicting science. This stuff is possible. We're not into 5G territory here.

I don't think my skepticism is unhealthy. I don't rant about this on Twitter, or any other internet platform. I might discuss it with friends casually, but I'm not trying to convince anyone not to take the vaccine, or to go out and party. And I'm not losing any sleep. So I don't see what's unhealthy about my skepticism.

I meant unhealthy for you, not the world at large.

This kind of science denial is, IMO, unhealthy for the world, but that's not my point, and not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about my friend ongie, and the way I don't understand how this preponderance of information leaves him with any doubt about the pandemic being a real pandemic that is killing millions of people.

[OngBonga]

Science: acceleration near the Earth's surface is 9.8 m/s^2Ong: How can a thing fall down at 9.8 m/s^2 unless it was blown up?
Science: That's how things fall
Ong: I don't trust scientists.

I mean I didn't want to get into this but you're kinda baiting me into it. Things fall at 9.8 m/s^2 when there's nothing stopping it from falling. In the case of a building that got hit at the top, there is the rest of the building stopping freefall. The official explanation is the pancake effect, but that is not freefall, that is a lot slower than freefall. A lot. How can something accelerate to terminal velocity if it is constantly meeting a resisting force? This is scientifically illiterate to me.

PLEASE don't take our word for it and do test it yourself

What test can I do to prove that a building offers no resistance to the top part falling? What test can I do to prove covid is real? What test can I do to prove it's not a lab virus?

The healthcare workers who are actually working in the morgues in tens of thousands of hospitals around the world... are you asserting that they are in on this conspiracy?

Probably not. I mean, if you're pushing me to say what I think is most likely, assuming some sort of conspiracy, it's that we have either a lab virus deliberately released, or we have a natural virus being exploited. But thinking that maybe we're being fed lies about what's happening at hospitals and morgues isn't scientifically illiterate.

This kind of science denial...

Dude, you're a scientist. This isn't science denial. I'm not making scientifically illiterate claims. This has nothing to do with science. Nothing at all.

[OngBonga]

That's my questio for you: why lie? Even if people don't trust big pharma, they know that's who makes the vaccines. The public doesn't expect them to get the vaccines from Boots lol. So why not admit that's why he went up there if that was really why he went up there.

If there's corruption going on, then they're going to attempt to cover their tracks. Maybe I'm wrong, but you can see from those links that at the very least we have a coincidence on our hands. You can't blame people for thinking something fishy is going on.

[OngBonga]

I meant unhealthy for you, not the world at large.

Oh and this... it's not unhealthy for me. I'm not so deep down this rabbit hole that I'm losing sleep. Like I said earlier, I talk about this casually with friends. Poop mocked that with Millhouse in the treehouse, but actually you guys are the friends I was referring to. I've got better things to talk about with my IRL friends other than geopolitics and conspiracies. I try to avoid these subjects IRL because politics in particular has become very divisive, and it often descends into shit slinging. That's fun online, and not fun IRL.

[OngBonga]

I probably can do an experiment. It'll have to be a thought experiment though. Let's take 50 thin sheets of glass, stack them somehow so they have a gap of, say, 10cm, and drop a big fuck off boulder on the top one. The boulder breaks the glass, and continues falling to the next sheet, breaking it and continuing to fall. How fast does the boulder fall? As fast as it would in air? Nearly as fast as it would in air? Or a lot slower?

My guess is a lot slower.

Shame I can't actually do this experiment.

[OngBonga]

I mean I can already see this experiment is flawed. The boulder needs to get heavier as it falls. But at the same time, the top sheet of glass need to be thicker than the lower ones, since the building offers more resistance while more of it is intact.

Bed time. I'm never going to be sold on the official narrative for 9/11 without physical proof that near-freefall speeds can be achieved in such circumstances. It's a pintless discussion really.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I mean I didn't want to get into this but you're kinda baiting me into it. Things fall at 9.8 m/s^2 when there's nothing stopping it from falling. In the case of a building that got hit at the top, there is the rest of the building stopping freefall. The official explanation is the pancake effect, but that is not freefall, that is a lot slower than freefall. A lot. How can something accelerate to terminal velocity if it is constantly meeting a resisting force? This is scientifically illiterate to me.

You're assuming a lot about the way the building's integrity failed. You're assuming that the fall started at the top because that's where the plane hit. That's probably not the case. As you later note, the bottom of the building has to support everything above it.

Prior to the collapse of one of the towers, extremely loud pops were heard. If you're claiming those were explosives, then I have a whole slew of other questions. I claim they weren't, as was indicated by the investigative reports that detailed the collapse. Those were commissioned by Congress, so grain of salt. Whether or not those were demolitions explosions or simply stress fractures of structural supports will never be known more than it is today, but that is enough to explain the way the building fell.

If the structure broke at the bottom, then it falls at free fall, if it broke at the top and it was an avalanche of continuing failures all the way down, then it should fall more slowly... but how much more slowly? Not much, actually. The inertia of the falling building landing on and breaking already weakened supports that were failing soon, anyway is not going to be slowed much.

All I'm saying is that it's plausible the building was not demolished with explosives. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your argument is that it's not plausible, and therefore conspiracy. I've explained that it is plausible.


How many civil engineers had to keep quiet and not shout from the rooftops that this was 100% not a plausible way those buildings could have collapsed?
Too many. And for too many years, now.

What test can I do to prove that a building offers no resistance to the top part falling? What test can I do to prove covid is real? What test can I do to prove it's not a lab virus?

You could create a series of scale models of the structure from the blueprints on file, and demolish them in various ways, finding the ways in which you demolished them that most accurately resemble the video recordings of the collapses, and drawing your conclusions based on the data you acquire. Then you publish the data so other scientists can look over your work, criticize it for faults, recreate it on their own, improving upon your methods if possible, and the cycle goes on until there is consensus.

Probably not. I mean, if you're pushing me to say what I think is most likely, assuming some sort of conspiracy, it's that we have either a lab virus deliberately released, or we have a natural virus being exploited.

IF those are the 2 options of conspiracy you see w.r.t. COVID-19, then I take back my criticism.

Both require a far fewer number of people "in the know" about it.

But thinking that maybe we're being fed lies about what's happening at hospitals and morgues isn't scientifically illiterate.

It really is. The information is out there for you to observe. If you're choosing to ignore it exists and draw conclusions antithetical to that evidence... that is science denial, IMO.

OK, OK... is it possible there are lies coming from hospitals? Yes, absolutely. 100%.
Is it possible that the death rate from COVID is a hoax perpetuated by tens of thousands of healthcare workers, many of whom swore an oath to "do no harm?" No, it absolutely is not. 0%

Dude, you're a scientist. This isn't science denial. I'm not making scientifically illiterate claims. This has nothing to do with science. Nothing at all.

You are making claims in denial of published, scientific findings.
If that's not science denial, then what is?

[Poopadoop]

But the Torie won't lose the next election because Labour are even more unelectable than the Tories.

You might have a point, considering the populace here seem to consider the likes of Boris Johnson, Andrea Jenkyns, John Redwood, and a former member of the Monkees electable.

[OngBonga]

Whether or not those were demolitions explosions or simply stress fractures of structural supports will never be known more than it is today...

I disagree. I believe supercomputers will solve this problem in time. It might be a long time before normal people have access to such computers, as in not during our lives, but this isn't the kind of thing that can remain a secret forever. Once AI becomes more intelligent than humans, we're in a different world altogether.

If the structure broke at the bottom, then it falls at free fall...

If it breaks throughout the entire building, not just at the bottom, then it falls at freefall. The bottom breaking simply allows the top part to fall at freefall until a not-broken part his the ground. At that point, resistance happens, and acceleration is delayed.

The inertia of the falling building landing on and breaking already weakened supports that were failing soon, anyway is not going to be slowed much.

What about the inertia of the bulk of the building? At the beginning of the fall, the not-falling part of the building has a great deal more inertia than the falling part of the building.

All I'm saying is that it's plausible the building was not demolished with explosives. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your argument is that it's not plausible, and therefore conspiracy. I've explained that it is plausible.

Well I'm not qualified to correct you. I can only express my opinion. Perhaps there is another viable explanation, but what you've said is not satisfying me at all. You are assuming the non-damaged part of the building has no inertia, which is ludicrous. It has massive inertia.

How many civil engineers had to keep quiet and not shout from the rooftops that this was 100% not a plausible way those buildings could have collapsed?

I mean I seem to recall a lot of civil engineers saying exactly what I'm saying at the time... that this isn't possible given the explanation. I also recall firemen saying they heard a series of explosions as the building fell, consistent with controlled demolition. But that's speculative. The time the building took to fall is not speculative.

You could create a series of scale models of the structure from the blueprints on file, and demolish them in various ways, finding the ways in which you demolished them that most accurately resemble the video recordings of the collapses, and drawing your conclusions based on the data you acquire. Then you publish the data so other scientists can look over your work, criticize it for faults, recreate it on their own, improving upon your methods if possible, and the cycle goes on until there is consensus.

This is great, but it's no more a thought experiment than my sheets of glass idea. I can't actually do this is the real world. I don't have the resources.

IF those are the 2 options of conspiracy you see w.r.t. COVID-19, then I take back my criticism.

The thing with the outright hoax idea is that, at least as far as I'm concerned, there is a precedent for such a large conspiracy to take place... 9/11. Like you say, civil engineers and other science-based people have to accept what they're being told. But there are much more viable explanations in this case, such as lab virus or mere exploitation. With 9/11, no such alternative exists. Either what we're told is true, or lots of people supported the lie.

It really is. The information is out there for you to observe. If you're choosing to ignore it exists and draw conclusions antithetical to that evidence... that is science denial, IMO.

Science denial for me isn't calling scientists liars. Science denial for me is to make claims that science can prove wrong, and still believing these claims. Show me were science actually proves the covid conspiracy claims are false, and I'll reconsider my position.

You are making claims in denial of published, scientific findings.If that's not science denial, then what is?

There's a difference between consensus and proof. Denying consensus is no science denial, not in my book. Denying proof is.

[OngBonga]

I mean, I don't consider climate change denial to be "science denial". Climate science is 100% consensus. It's not the kind of science that is subject to hypothesis and testing. It's all theory.

If I reject string theory, am I denying science?

[Poopadoop]

Show me were science actually proves the covid conspiracy claims are false, and I'll reconsider my position.

I haven't heard the covid conspiracy theory laid out in any specific detail. Is it actually a theory or just a bunch of people who want to go out to the pub again?

And if it is a theory and it involves some secret shenanigans amongst world leaders, the illuminati, or whoever, then what evidence would ever be able to prove it false? Being unfalsifiable is kinda what gives a lot of these theories legs amongst those who don't really understand how science works. Being unfalsifiable also makes it a bad theory, cf. Popper.

It's kind of like your Cummings-Barnard Castle-GSK-vaccine-Milhouse theory. How would someone disprove that? I'm not (just) being glib here, I'm pointing out that in order to be a good theory there has to be a way to test it and potentially prove it wrong. How would the Cummings-GSK theory be shown to be false?

[Poopadoop]

I mean, I don't consider climate change denial to be "science denial". Climate science is 100% consensus. It's not the kind of science that is subject to hypothesis and testing. It's all theory.

Well, there are certain factors that influence the overall temperature of the Earth. One of these is CO2 in the atmosphere, which retains heat. We have a lot more CO2 than we did before the industrial revolution. Temperatures have been going up since then. Seems pretty logical to me.

If you mean it can't be tested, well, no we can't do a controlled experiment with different planets, where some have more CO2 than others. But we don't need to do that to know that more CO2 = higher temperature. They even know why that is true, the same way they know that a glass greenhouse keeps your plants warmer than no greenhouse by trapping the heat. That's a provable scientific fact, not a theory.

[Poopadoop]

In science, it's not always possible to be 100% certain about something. But just because you're only 99.9% or 90% certain of something or whatever doesn't mean you should act like it's therefore false and you can ignore it. On the balance of probabilities you're better off acting as if it's true and taking the appropriate measures.

Like if you're playing poker with someone you're never ever 100% certain of what is in their hand. But that doesn't mean you call a shove on the river with the second nut-low because there's a chance they could have the nut low and you can't "falsify" a theory that says they do, until you see their cards. That would just be dumb, right?

[Poopadoop]

I actually have a theory that Dominic Cummings is in cahoots with the Ford Motor Company. The trip to BC was all just a clever ploy to get the press to congregate around his house later on for several days and film him getting into and driving a Ford Discovery SUV. Product placement, that's what the whole thing was about. Ford got free advertising and in return they sent a bunch of money to Cummings' untraceable offshore bank account.







Prove me wrong.

[OngBonga]

I haven't heard the covid conspiracy theory laid out in any specific detail. Is it actually a theory or just a bunch of people who want to go out to the pub again?

I can't speak for other people, but I'm not motivated by a desire to go to the pub.

Being unfalsifiable is kinda what gives a lot of these theories legs amongst those who don't really understand how science works.

This statement is evidence that you don't understand how science works. Even mojo is falling into this trap. The only "proof" we have is what we're being told. You can't prove to me this isn't a lab virus. People who think the world is flat don't understand how science works. People who think 5G causes covid don't understand how science works. People who think climate change is a political hoax, they might or might not understand how science works.

I get the scientifically illiterate people are more likely to accept conspiracy theories because they are less capable of applying critical thought. But in the case of covid, at least when it comes to the idea it's a lab virus or being exploited by the powers that be, we're not talking about things that can be proven right or wrong by science. This is politics, not science. Science can prove 5G doesn't cause covid. Science can prove the earth isn't flat. Science can't prove that we're not being told a pack of lies.

Being unfalsifiable also makes it a bad theory

So string theory is a bad theory? Nice.

It's kind of like your Cummings-Barnard Castle-GSK-vaccine-Milhouse theory. How would someone disprove that?

The same can be said about anything like this. How can someone prove that this isn't a lab virus? And if they seem to "prove" it, how can someone like you or I verify this proof? You're as much relying on faith as I am. The only difference is that in your case, you're with the majority. That doesn't mean you're right though. You might be, but you might not. Consensus isn't proof.

I'm not (just) being glib here

I actually appreciate the fact you're discussing this sincerely.

I'm pointing out that in order to be a good theory there has to be a way to test it and potentially prove it wrong.

This is not true, and it's not how science works. There are lots of theories that are currently untestable. That doesn't make them fringe, or conspiracies. It makes them unproven.

Well, there are certain factors that influence the overall temperature of the Earth. One of these is CO2 in the atmosphere, which retains heat. We have a lot more CO2 than we did before the industrial revolution. Temperatures have been going up since then. Seems pretty logical to me.

Agreed. But this isn't proof. It seem logical that masses attract each other, and for a long time we considered that to be fact. Now we know different. So logical theories can still be misleading.

But we don't need to do that to know that more CO2 = higher temperature.

Do we know this? Or do you just accept it?

the same way they know that a glass greenhouse keeps your plants warmer than no greenhouse by trapping the heat.

It's not the same though. Greenhouses aren't made of CO2.

I'm not even suggesting that CO2 doesn't heat up the atmosphere. I'm saying that I don't know this for a fact. I can't verify it, and there's no evidence I can consider to be conclusive. There's no way to test it. The supposed effects take so long to take hold, that in the meantime our ability to measure global temperature improves. 100 years ago, global temperature data is unreliable by today's standards. This is a problem.

In science, it's not always possible to be 100% certain about something.

Of course.

But just because you're only 99.9% or 90% certain of something or whatever doesn't mean you should act like it's therefore false and you can ignore it.

This is fine. But at the same time, it doesn't mean you should treat is as fact. If there's 100 theories with 99% accuracy, chances are one of them is wrong. That's one theory that is "fact" that isn't actually fact.

On the balance of probabilities you're better off acting as if it's true and taking the appropriate measures.

I agree, which is why I'm not complaining about measures being taken to stop covid, and why I'm not suggesting we should ignore climate change. I'm just saying that there is at least a reasonable chance that we're not being told the full story, that we're being fed lies. The political motivation exists, and I believe the political will exists too. 9/11 showed me that.

Like if you're playing poker with someone you're never ever 100% certain of what is in their hand.

The difference between poker and science is poker is entirely probability. Science isn't. If you repeat the same experiment in identical conditions 1000 times and get the same result, you can call that conclusive. You can't apply this thought to poker because the conditions cannot be assume to be identical. People never act with 100% consistency.

[OngBonga]

Prove me wrong.

This isn't science denial, is it?

[Poopadoop]

This statement is evidence that you don't understand how science works.

Ok, but please don't tell my philosophy of science lecturer this - he gave me an A.

You can't prove to me this isn't a lab virus.

And you can't prove to me that Cummings wasn't in cahoots with the Ford Motor Company in a product placement campaign. Therefore I'm going to continue to speculate along those lines.

[OngBonga]

And you can't prove to me that Cummings wasn't in cahoots with the Ford Motor Company in a product placement campaign. Therefore I'm going to continue to speculate along those lines.

I'm not suggesting I can prove it wrong. But there's no basis to this theory at all, whereas the GSK one does have basis. It's not just that he was in the vicinity of their plant, it's that GSK then announced a vaccine deal two days later. There's cause for alarm here, while you're just plucking a theory out of your arse, which of course you'll freely admit, in an effort to mock conspiracy theorist thought processes. But what you're doing isn't what I'm doing. And I tell you what, if there was reason to believe the govt could make a fortune from product placement of Fords, then I'd give it more serious attention. Of course, the govt isn't running a youtube channel here. The money made from product placement is fuck all to these people, which is why your theory is less viable than mine.

[Poopadoop]

Nope, I'm just connecting dots the same way as you are. Cummings did something that he knew would gather him a lot of publicity, and at the same time he drives a Ford SUV. You can't pretend that's just a coincidence. I also think Ford is bent on world domination, and have evidence for that too.

https://auto.economictimes.indiatime...in-uk/76624476

So it seems Ford is conspiring with Vodafone and China to put a surveillance network across the UK. Another step in the plan. Cummings is certainly helping them with that too now that's he no longer a gov't adviser. What else could he be doing?

It all fits together.

[OngBonga]

Nope, I'm just connecting dots the same way as you are.

No you're not. You're being ridiculous, as you know. You just think this is what I'm doing, but you're wrong. There's a big difference between the two. I mean, so Ford agreed a deal with Vodafone for a private 5G network. Why does Cummings need to drive a Ford for that? What you're doing here is making up conspiracy theories because they can't be proven false, and you think that's the same as thinking something dodgy is going on with Cummings visiting BC days before GSK announce a vaccine deal.

So it seems Ford is conspiring with Vodafone and China to put a surveillance network across the UK.

I mean it seems like you didn't even read a three-paragraph article. This Ford-Vodafone deal is not relating to a UK-wide 5G network, it's a private network for one single facility. And you just plucked "China" from nowhere. That's not what I'm doing at all.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Not gonna quote the dozen plus things that have been said that I'd like to get in on.

Re 9/11: You're putting a lot of assumptions in my mouth about what I've said. I have an engineering degree, and I'm not calling on my authority, but stating that I understand things like structural integrity in a much more thorough way than can be easily stated in a FTR post. Things like: that's not what inertia is - your use of inertia in this context is probably momentum. The buildings' structural integrity was assaulted in many ways. The initial crash of the airplane weakened things. The hundreds of gallons of jet fuel igniting and spreading downward through the building further weakened things. The momentum of the falling top of the building is immense, and the structure below it is incapable of expressing even a small fraction of the force it would take to stop it, and the amount the falling is slowed is not significant. The falling starting at the bottom means that the entire building gains downward momentum at once, and the rate of falling is now just increasing mass slamming down into already broken, twisted, failed support with do next to nothing to support it.

Your claim that you're not interested in performing any science to determine anything about what happened is fine. Your claim that your own choice means that no one in the world could do or has done it is spurious.


Re climate change: Decades of science have been conducted since the statements you're claiming have been the current, popular scientific consensus. Climate change is real. No one with any sense of interest in evaluating what is known could draw any other conclusions. Global warming is happening. Period. We can dicker and argue about the significance of human contributions to global warming and climate change, but to deny it is happening at all is just voluntary ignorance - denying that science exists and has a lot to say on the subject.


Re COVID conspiracy: Your choice to not seek data that shows firsthand accounts of the states of hospitals worldwide, then claiming that no one can prove that your ignorance isn't everyone's - that's science denial. You have easy and ready opportunities to observe data yourself that will educate you on these topics, yet you choose to not pursue that knowledge and furthermore to claim the knowledge doesn't exist, or isn't trustworthy. This is science denial.

If you're citing specific scientific findings as spurious, due to your lack of confidence in their methods, that is healthy scientific skepticism.
If you're ignoring the scientific findings, and claiming there is no possible way for you to do any personal observing (science), and further claiming that since you can't do it, no one can - that's science denial.

[OngBonga]

No, I meant inertia. The not-falling part of the building has no momentum, just inertia. It doesn't want to move, and requires a force for it to do so. That force comes from the falling part of the building. But when there is a force applied from the falling part to the non-falling part, there is an acceleration on both parts. The non-falling section increases in speed (from zero to non-zero), the falling part decreases in speed. This decrease in speed is non negligible. You can see the effect of air on a falling object when a skydiver changes his posture. Terminal velocity is highly variable depending on the resisting force. And in the case of 9/11, the resisting force is not air. It is supposedly solid masonry.

I think our disagreement seems to come from the fact you seem to think the falling part of the building is much larger than the not-falling part. This is not true. We can see that's not true when we watch it happen. There is absolutely no reason it would fall from the bottom first, it makes no sense for the falling part to be massively heavier than the resisting part. What we saw was the much larger lower section of the buildings offer nearly zero resistance. That does not make any sense to me whatsoever. That is critical in my belief that what we're told is a pack of lies. The lower section was practically dust before the falling section meets it. I'm open to theories on how this can be, so far in 20 years I've come across one such theory... professional demolition.

Climate change... I feel I need to emphasise I am not a climate change denier. I'm skeptical, but on balance believe it's probably happening. It does make sense, but this is a subject I brought into the discussion because it's highly political and an excellent example of people assuming logic plus consensus equals indisputable fact. This isn't science, it's faith.

And the covid thing, I mean I don't actually think it's a full scale hoax. I would have to question how it would be possible to get health care workers either on board, or fooled. I can get behind the global scale of the conspiracy, in terms of governments, because these people are crooked the world over, but ordinary people on the scale we're talking, it would require a level of control that doesn't seem plausible. But to think that it's possible... it's not science denial. I don't know why you keep saying that. Science denial is to make scientifically illiterate claims, not to dismiss scientific findings. To say otherwise is to say that calling Newtonian gravity wrong or incomplete in the 1600s is science denial. There must be countless other examples I could cite where science got it wrong. What did people think magnetism was before we solved that problem? Witchcraft? Would it be science denial to say magnetism is electricity before we knew that was the case?

[MadMojoMonkey]

You're ignoring the fact that the buildings were weakened by a planes crashing into them, and then further weakened on a much larger scale by the ensuing inferno that engulfed an ever increasing portion of the buildings for something like an hour.

You're describing how a building with uncompromised structural integrity would behave.

The falling bits of the building crashing into soon-to-be-but-not-yet falling parts of the building don't have as much resistance as you posit. The momentum of the falling mass is obscene, and the inertial mass of the not-yet-collapsed building is still being accelerated by gravity. The weakened structure of the entire area of the start of the collapse is going to offer little to no resistance as the momentum first builds. The momentum of the falling bits increases as the square of distance fell. The inertial mass of what it lands on is the same. I.e. the momentum of the falling bits started nearly unopposed, and increased quite rapidly, whereas the stuff it fell into had somewhat compromised structural supports at best, and its inertia was constant.

The outer parts of the building falling are not falling straight down, because the collapse sprays material outward. The most easily visible parts of the collapse are in unobstructed free fall. The dust cloud expands spherically and obscures the visibility of what's deeper inside the cloud.

You're arguing against the conclusions of "experts," but not arguing against the facts that lead those people to their conclusions, nor arguing against the reasoning those people gave for connecting the dots between data and conclusion.

You're denying that there is pertinent science on the subject, and asserting your own conclusions are somehow as valid as those published reports on the basis of your uneducated understanding of physics. You're now discussing this with a trained physicist and engineer. I'm willing to explain the details to why I, in my professional opinion, having seen the videos and read the analysis of the collapses, think it's plausible that they fell without any need for demolitions.

I can't argue that there were definitely not demolitions. I can only say they weren't necessary, and I haven't seen any evidence to suggest the buildings could not have fallen as they did, given the circumstances we know, without speculation.

Climate change... I feel I need to emphasise I am not a climate change denier. I'm skeptical, but on balance believe it's probably happening. It does make sense, but this is a subject I brought into the discussion because it's highly political and an excellent example of people assuming logic plus consensus equals indisputable fact. This isn't science, it's faith.

To the extent that the facts have been obfuscated by politicians for political ends, that much is mostly BS. I wouldn't call it a hoax.

To the extent that there is over a century of research confirming that the climate of Earth has been changing for millions of years, it is not faith by any measure. The fossil record is there for you to analyze yourself. The publications that draw these conclusions are there for you to read, and to argue against their methods or to find logical faults in their conclusions. You're not doing that. You're not denying there were ice ages. You're not denying tectonic plates shifting ocean currents around has a dramatic effect on the overall climate.

The evidence of global climate change is NOT a political question. I don't know of a politician who denies any of these facts.

To the extent that there are decades of research detailing the specific climate change the Earth is now undergoing is a wave of global warming, as has been concluded by hundreds of independent studies by scientists all over the world, with access to constant weather data from global satellites for decades.
To say "consensus is not fact" is great, but literally no one has shown a credible argument that the Earth is not in a period of global warming. This is totes science.

If you're arguing against the data and/or methods scientists used to draw the conclusion, then that is healthy skepticism. To the extent you let a politicians pie hole noise convince you that there is no objectively knowable way to determine the facts, that is science denial.

And the covid thing, I mean I don't actually think it's a full scale hoax. I would have to question how it would be possible to get health care workers either on board, or fooled. I can get behind the global scale of the conspiracy, in terms of governments, because these people are crooked the world over, but ordinary people on the scale we're talking, it would require a level of control that doesn't seem plausible. But to think that it's possible... it's not science denial. I don't know why you keep saying that. Science denial is to make scientifically illiterate claims, not to dismiss scientific findings. To say otherwise is to say that calling Newtonian gravity wrong or incomplete in the 1600s is science denial. There must be countless other examples I could cite where science got it wrong. What did people think magnetism was before we solved that problem? Witchcraft? Would it be science denial to say magnetism is electricity before we knew that was the case?

Re bold: I'm explaining why it's science denial.

If you are poking holes in the way the data was acquired, that's science, not science denial.
If you are poking holes in the way the data was interpreted, that's science, not science denial.
If you are poking holes in the logical links between the data and the conclusions, that's science, not science denial.

If you are ignorant of the science by choice, and you are not criticizing any specifics, but instead insisting there is nothing to criticize, that is science denial.
If you are choosing not to watch any of the thousands of vlogs by various healthcare workers describing how this pandemic is affecting everything they know... that's fine. If you then assert you have no way of knowing whether or not healthcare workers are in on the hoax, that's science denial.
If you are asserting that there have not been over 17 million deaths due to COVID-19, and you're offering any sensible explanation of where all the dead bodies came from, nor even acknowledging that the dead bodies exist, that is science denial.

To the extent that there are facts to be known and you are ignoring them, that's fine.
To the extent that you then assert those facts are either unknowable or untrustworthy, that is science denial.

[Poopadoop]

I mean, so Ford agreed a deal with Vodafone for a private 5G network. Why does Cummings need to drive a Ford for that?

Just to throw us off the trail. Also, as I mentioned, the product placement angle. Since he's already in on the world domination ring with Ford, it's an easy way to secure more funding.

something dodgy is going on with Cummings visiting BC days before GSK announce a vaccine deal.

Now that you mention it, I wouldn't be surprised if GSK was in on the conspiracy too. I'll have to look into that.

This Ford-Vodafone deal is not relating to a UK-wide 5G network, it's a private network for one single facility.

That's what they WANT you to think, just like in your theory they WANT us to believe Cummings was taking his wife out for a birthday drive. That's why they scheduled the meeting with GSK on her birthday.

And you just plucked "China" from nowhere.

5G <---> China. Duh.

That's not what I'm doing at all.

Cummings <---> Barnard Castle <---> GSK

[OngBonga]

You're ignoring the fact that the buildings were weakened by a planes crashing into them, and then further weakened on a much larger scale by the ensuing inferno that engulfed an ever increasing portion of the buildings for something like an hour.

I've ignored this for a reason, and that's because I don't really want to get into 20-year old conversations. I brought this subject up to explain why I have so little faith in the way the world works. But since you've brought this up I'll respond. The buildings were supported by steel columns. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams. The planes weakened the top, not the entire steel structure. The fires can't get hot enough to compromise the entire structure of the building. And here's a problem with this too... if the fire compromised the whole building in this way, we'd have seen criminal negligence charges levied against those that designed the buildings. That would be nearly 3000 people killed by a design flaw. Who's in prison for that?

Also, WTC7 wasn't hit by a plane, and had a minor fire, yet still collapsed at near freefall speed. Most people accept this building was "pulled", yet still trust the official story when it comes to WTC1 and WTC2. It makes no sense to assume one was pulled but not the others.

The falling bits of the building crashing into soon-to-be-but-not-yet falling parts of the building don't have as much resistance as you posit.

You got this the wrong way round. The not-falling bit offers resistance, not the falling bit. Just want to correct that minor error.

I posit the buildings (should) have significantly more resistance than air. Do you disagree?

The momentum of the falling mass is obscene, and the inertial mass of the not-yet-collapsed building is still being accelerated by gravity.

The resistance of the building is also obscene. It's not a gas. Would a stone fall through water at 9.8m/s^2? Even water has significantly more resistance than air. The building is not gas, not liquid, it is solid. If you want to suggest that the steel beams are liquid, then you need to explain why nobody has been held criminally responsible for this. Jet fuel is kerosene. It burns at around 750c. Steel melts at around twice that. So we're talking about a solid here, and it is not falling due to gravity because it is being supported by the lower section which retains at some some structural integrity, due to the fact it is supported by steel beams that cannot melt under the conditions we have present.

Once it's falling, once we have significant momentum relative to the resistance being offered, then yes, I can see the lower section failing rapidly. But at the beginning of the fall... no. A weakened building is still a lot more more resistant than water, let alone air.

I can't argue that there were definitely not demolitions. I can only say they weren't necessary...

I don't mean this to cause offence, but frankly I believe that you are wrong. I appreciate you are a great deal more qualified than I am, but that doesn't mean you're right. We've talked about the Planck length before, and you seemed to think it's not a significant limit of measurement, that it is basically just an arbitrary number that emerges in the maths. I argued that it was the limit at which the meaning of length becomes meaningless, which you disputed. Everything I have watched about this unit of length suggests I am right and you are wrong. This isn't a brag. This is me pointing out that just because you're qualified and I'm not, doesn't mean you're right.

To the extent that there is over a century of research confirming that the climate of Earth has been changing for millions of years, it is not faith by any measure.

I don't disagree entirely here. The faith comes in assuming we can rely on measurements from a century ago to the same extent we can today. We can measure the global average temperature much more accurately today than in 1900. To argue that we can rely on the accuracy of century-old measurements is faith.

You're not denying there were ice ages.

There certainly were ice ages. And natural long-term climate change is certainly not something I'm disputing, at least when we talk about epochs. We're talking here about a century or two, not tens of thousands of years plus. My skepticism arises because we treat old data with the same faith as we treat modern data, and this data is used for political purposes. I'm skeptical because people who attempt to have a sincere conversation about this in public get slapped down with screams of "science denier" and pushed to the fringes.

The evidence of global climate change is NOT a political question. I don't know of a politician who denies any of these facts.

It's political because it influences political and economic decision making.

If you're arguing against the data and/or methods scientists used to draw the conclusion, then that is healthy skepticism.

Thank you.

To the extent you let a politicians pie hole noise convince you that there is no objectively knowable way to determine the facts, that is science denial.

I do not allow politicians to influence my thoughts directly, not positively anyway. I don't trust politicians. They might influence me indirectly, as in their actions and agendas might make me suspicious, but if a politician tells us that climate change is a hoax, I'm not going to start following him on Twitter.

If you then assert you have no way of knowing whether or not healthcare workers are in on the hoax, that's science denial.

No, at worst it's ignorance. To deny science is to reject scientific theories that are founded on repeatable experiments. That is my idea of science denial.

[OngBonga]

I can't be arsed with your post poop. You're not debating, you're mocking.

[OngBonga]

Here's a fact - only three skyscrapers in human history have ever collapsed at freefall speed because of fires. All of them on the same day in the same city.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I've explained why the rate of building fall is both difficult to measure as different parts fall at different speeds, and the cloud of dust caused by the fall extends out in all directions, obscuring the view of the inner collapse. What we can see does fall as physics suggests it should.

You say it's a building, it's not air, not a liquid, but...
The building is mostly air, ong. There are relatively tiny portions that are not air, and those portions stood up for over an hour after a fully fueled jet plane slammed into them. After that hour, they were not as strong as they were the day before. They were significantly weakened, and the redundant loading in the building that held it up had an hour to gain more and more stress due to the other things it was redundant to support having failed.

What I mean about redundancy:
Architects get the luxury of not caring about weight in their engineering designs. They are free to design for a Factor of Safety of typically 50 - 100 as a starting point. Meaning that the actual amount of load the structure can support is 50 - 100 times the expected load that will be applied. That level of redundancy is great for keeping a building standing after it's been hit by a plane and burning for an hour. It also means that huge portions of the structure of the building are interlinked - to offer mutual support in the event that any part starts to fail.

So the fact that any part of the building started to fall isn't only indicative that the structure of the building at that location has failed. It means most of the redundancy of the building has already been activated and now the redundancies are failing.

I.e. the resistance of the uncompromised building was obscene... but after an hour of ever increasing rate of damage being done to it, it was no longer obscene. It was weak enough to let the weakest part fall, and the other parts nearby were nearly as weak to fall already, and that combined mass gained momentum quickly and crashed into other weakened parts that were only barely strong enough to hold themselves up. By the time the collapse has reached a level where the structure isn't "too near" to collapsing on its own, the dust cloud has fully obscured the collapse and all we have to judge for the total fall time is the noise. And there's so much error in that, that we cannot draw any conclusions about the actual fall time. We can only note that what we saw was in line with understood physics.

***
The architect was required by law to design the building to withstand the impact of a plane that is nearly out of fuel hitting it. The only reason the plane is expected to be near the building is because of weather conditions keeping it in a holding pattern waiting to land, and something else is wrong because it should still not be near the city's buildings.
The buildings surpassed every design requirement by not immediately collapsing when fully fueled planes hit them. Then further surpassed any legal regulations by surviving a blazing inferno stoked by that fuel for over an hour. The reason no one went to jail over it is because we'd have been more right to award them medals for over-designing the building to the point where thousands of people were able to evacuate in time to not die.

***
Now you're bringing up the thoroughly debunked sentence "jet fuel can't melt steel beams."
Just c'mon. I've explained this to you before.
Heat weakens metals. It loses structural integrity before it melts. The steel doesn't have to become liquid to be unable to hold up the weight it could when it was "cold."
As if jet fuel was the only thing burning in there.

***
You are denying repeatable experiments. You can go online and do an experiment where you look for a healthcare worker's vlog and you watch it and you observe that vlog and you hypothesize whether or not it was a hoax. Then you repeat that.
To deny that you have that opportunity and to hold the position that science is something that other people do and you don't trust them is a failure of scientists to explain what science is.

You are a scientist. Every human determines their world understanding by observation, hypothesis and testing. Some people are just really bad at the important part of always trying your best to disprove what you think you know, and only when you have thoroughly tried and failed to disprove it, do you accept that your opinion might be more than a pipe dream.

Are you trying to disprove your hypothesis?
Are you diligently working to see if an alternative explanation is at least as plausible as your original hypothesis?

[OngBonga]

The building is mostly air, ong.

Not the part that is supporting it. There's steel support structures, and masonry.

After that hour, they were not as strong as they were the day before.

There is no reason a kerosene fire should cause a massive steel beam to lose structural integrity, especially as catastrophic as this.

Now you're bringing up the thoroughly debunked sentence "jet fuel can't melt steel beams."
Just c'mon. I've explained this to you before.
Heat weakens metals. It loses structural integrity before it melts. The steel doesn't have to become liquid to be unable to hold up the weight it could when it was "cold."
As if jet fuel was the only thing burning in there.

This is hand waving, sorry to be blunt. Weakened metal that is not molten is still solid. Molten steel is still more resistant than air. And the only other things on fire would be office equipment. If an office fire can cause a collapse of this nature, that's even more of a terrible design. Nobody expects a plane to fly into a building. But a designer absolutely has to consider what happens if there is an office fire.

A healthcare worker's vlog is not a repeatable experiment. This isn't science. I can claim to be a healthcare worker on a vlog.

I know I have this opportunity to watch vlogs. If I felt strongly about this I would take that time to do it. But it would be inconclusive.

Are you trying to disprove your hypothesis?

Regarding covid, no. Regarding 9/11, to the extent I think I can do, yes. Talking about it 20 years ago was me doing exactly that. I wasn't trying to convince people I'm right. I was trying to understand why I was wrong. But I never has the satisfaction of being proven wrong. And believe me, I wanted to be proven wrong. This is 20 years ago when I really didn't want to believe what I was thinking.

Show me someone doing an experiment with a scale model that proves me wrong. Please.

[Poopadoop]

Here's a fact - only three skyscrapers in human history have ever collapsed at freefall speed because of fires. All of them on the same day in the same city.

How many have hit been by a plane at 500 mph full of jet fuel and didn't collapse?

[OngBonga]

How many have hit been by a plane at 500 mph full of jet fuel and didn't collapse?

Wrong question.

Try how many were hit by a plane at 500mph full of jet fuel and did collapse?

The answer is two.

[OngBonga]

So ok, what do you guys suppose happened to WTC7?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Not the part that is supporting it. There's steel support structures, and masonry.

If you're ignoring the rest of that paragraph and the 3 that follow it as though they were not written to debunk what you're still saying after I've written them, then you really should drop the pretext that you are even remotely interested in challenging your prior conclusions and admit that you are in denial of the scientific process as pertains to this subject.

I'm not judging you for your science denial. I'm just pointing it out.

If you're trying to argue in good faith, then you shouldn't just skip over the parts that answered your concern before you wrote it for a 2nd time.

If you're just trolling, then let me know and I'll stop engaging in this conversation.

There is no reason a kerosene fire should cause a massive steel beam to lose structural integrity, especially as catastrophic as this.

SMH.

This is demonstrably false. Heat reduces the strength of metal. Plunge some steel into a forge and pull it out when it's a soft glowing red-orange and it's between 1,000 and 1,500 degrees and a human can pound it into shape with a hammer. This is ancient knowledge. You do not need to melt the steel for it to lose structural rigidity.
Now consider the relative tiny force a human arm can impart to a hammer and compare that to the forces holding up a building.

This is hand waving, sorry to be blunt. Weakened metal that is not molten is still solid. Molten steel is still more resistant than air. And the only other things on fire would be office equipment. If an office fire can cause a collapse of this nature, that's even more of a terrible design. Nobody expects a plane to fly into a building. But a designer absolutely has to consider what happens if there is an office fire.

An office fire that is not further supported by hundreds of gallons of jet fuel being dumped into it at the same time is a totally different story.

You know that, right?

You're not actually suggesting that a toaster fire is the same thing as hundreds of gallons of fuel being lit in an office building are you?

A healthcare worker's vlog is not a repeatable experiment.

The vlog isn't science, it is a firsthand account. Your witnessing of the vlog and evaluating its veracity and compiling that knowledge against all the other knowledge you have is science.

You can choose whether each vlog you watch is authentic or contrived. This is perfectly repeatable.

This isn't science.

I mean... you're telling me and poopy (both professional scientists) that you know what science is better than we do.

I wouldn't ship here. You have no fold equity.

I can claim to be a healthcare worker on a vlog.

Yes. And I can watch that vlog and determine whether I think you are an actual healthcare worker or not, and I can then add whatever knowledge I glean from your vlog to the knowledge I already have.

If I am misled by you, then so be it. At least I'm trying to not be misled. I'm not perfect. I'm certainly wrong about some things. I get misled. That's the whole point of science. To accept those facts and develop a system whereby that pitfall is severely diminished.

I know I have this opportunity to watch vlogs. If I felt strongly about this I would take that time to do it. But it would be inconclusive.

Indubitably, Holmes. That's why it's called "re" search. You have to keep looking.
FFS.

Regarding covid, no. Regarding 9/11, to the extent I think I can do, yes. Talking about it 20 years ago was me doing exactly that. I wasn't trying to convince people I'm right. I was trying to understand why I was wrong. But I never has the satisfaction of being proven wrong. And believe me, I wanted to be proven wrong. This is 20 years ago when I really didn't want to believe what I was thinking.

"I did a science once. It was inconclusive. Thankfully, now I know my inconclusive results irrevocably lead to this conclusion."

Riiiiiiight.

Show me someone doing an experiment with a scale model that proves me wrong. Please.

Oh right. It's my responsibility to do your research for you. If I wont tell you what you want to hear, then I don't know what science is, despite my employer and nation allowing me to teach what science is to other people. Yeah... that's more plausible than a conspiracy that involves tens of thousands of people to keep their mouths shut for 2 decades. You caught me.

Note: It'd be hard to produce because anyone with a civil engineering degree doesn't need a model to know that it's totally what buildings look like when they fall. Funny that. People with doctorates in building making don't seem too fussed about it.

At a certain point, it's either a conspiracy of an entire profession, or it's not a conspiracy. With both 9/11 and COVID, the scale of them are just too big. Too big. Too many mouths have to stay silent. It's opposed to human nature. The more people know a secret, the sooner everyone knows the secret. That's just human nature.

[Poopadoop]

Wrong question.

Try how many were hit by a plane at 500mph full of jet fuel and did collapse?

The answer is two.

Oh sorry, Mr. Science.

So it's 2/2 is it? Big sample you got there.

[MadMojoMonkey]

So ok, what do you guys suppose happened to WTC7?

https://www.nist.gov/topics/disaster...-investigation

[Poopadoop]

So ok, what do you guys suppose happened to WTC7?

I have no idea. What are the dominant explanations from each side?

I'm open to the idea something funny was going on with this building. I'm not convinced that when two buildings get hit by planes full of jet fuel at 500 mph and both subsequently catch fire and fall down that it's some kind of suspicious event.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I mean... I don't think you were talking about WTC7 when talking about free fall, but this is poignant.

"NIST stated that the north face of the building descended 18 stories (the portion of the collapse visible in the video) in 5.4 seconds, based on video analysis of the building collapse. This time period is 40 percent longer than the 3.9 seconds this process would have taken if the north face of the building had descended solely under free fall conditions."

[Poopadoop]

https://www.nist.gov/topics/disaster...-investigation

Hey no fair. You're citing expert opinions here instead of those of laypeople!

[OngBonga]

If you're ignoring the rest of that paragraph and the 3 that follow it as though they were not written to debunk what you're still saying after I've written them, then you really should drop the pretext that you are even remotely interested in challenging your prior conclusions and admit that you are in denial of the scientific process as pertains to this subject.

I'm trying to be concise. Sorry I didn't quote the entire three paragraphs. You said the building is mostly air. Air isn't supporting the structure. Steel is. You keep saying "science denial" but this isn't what I'm doing. Hot steel is not a gas. You know this. It's not even liquid. You know this too. It might be weaker than cold steel, but it is still solid. You're basically arguing that the ENTIRE steel structure is compromised, not just the part exposed to fire. How can that happen? I can hold a steel knife to a flame and not burn the shit out of my hands. I used to do exactly this in my early weed smoking days, we did "hot knives", which involves putting a flame to two steel butter knives and squeezing a block of resin between them when they are red hot, inhaling the smoke. Happy memories. Steel has relatively low thermal conductivity, as you surely know.

and all we have to judge for the total fall time is the noise.

You said this is the part I "ignored". It's like you're unaware that there is video footage of the collapse. We have more than noise. We can literally watch it. The only doubt is the final part of the collapse, but most of the collapse is clearly visible, and its speed is easily measured by anyone with the knowledge and technology to analyse the footage in enough detail.

Heat reduces the strength of metal.

I don't dispute this. But the metal, at 750c, remains a solid. It's not even liquid.

Plunge some steel into a forge and pull it out when it's a soft glowing red-orange and it's between 1,000 and 1,500 degrees and a human can pound it into shape with a hammer.

Ok. What happens if a human pounds water with a hammer? What happens if a human pounds air with a hammer? You're trying to tell me the steel acted like air. Also, kerosene doesn't burn as hot as you cite here. You're going to need more than jet fuel.

You do not need to melt the steel for it to lose structural rigidity.

Ok perhaps I was sloppy in my language when I talk of "structural integrity". I don't expect the building to remain undamaged. I expect the steel to have problems doing its job supporting the building. So I accept the steel has lost "structural integrity". My problem is the total lack of resistance it offered. The steel acted no different to air. This is what you call "science denial"? Stop saying that, it discredits your entire argument, and instead makes you appear triggered. My opinions are formed on my understanding of science, and my understanding is that a stone dropped in water does not fall at 9.8m/2^2. I expect hot steel to act with more resisting force than water, and certainly air.

An office fire that is not further supported by hundreds of gallons of jet fuel being dumped into it at the same time is a totally different story.

All of the jet fuel in the world isn't making the fire hotter. There is a limit to what the kerosene can do in terms of adding heat to a fire. If kerosene burns at 750 degrees, and offices burn at 900 degrees, and you set fire to an office, then add a billion tons of jet fuel, it still won't get hotter than 900 degrees. You know that, right?

You're not actually suggesting that a toaster fire is the same thing as hundreds of gallons of fuel being lit in an office building are you?

No. I'm saying weakened steel is still orders of magnitude stronger than air.

I mean... you're telling me and poopy (both professional scientists) that you know what science is better than we do.


I wouldn't ship here. You have no fold equity.

Fine. I appreciate why, as a scientist, you are triggered by me saying that your statements on this subject seem to me that you lack an understanding of what science is. It's ridiculous to me, too. But you keep saying "science denial" when it is you that seems to be having a problem with the science. You keep telling me, basically, that hot steel is the same as air.

Oh right. It's my responsibility to do your research for you.

I've tried. Not for a long time now, but I've tried. No such evidence exists.

Yeah... that's more plausible than a conspiracy that involves tens of thousands of people to keep their mouths shut for 2 decades.

idk where you get "tens of thousands" from. It only requires a handful of people "in the know". If by "tens of thousands of people" you're referring to scientists and "experts", then you're being selective. Lots of people have a lot to say on this subject, many of them "experts" who refute the official narrative. Many of whom are professional demolition folk, engineers, firemen, people of all walks of life. I don't think you're "in on it", despite you being a scientist who believes what they say.

Note: It'd be hard to produce because anyone with a civil engineering degree doesn't need a model to know that it's totally what buildings look like when they fall. Funny that. People with doctorates in building making don't seem too fussed about it.

Again, selective. There are people with doctorates who were fussed about it. And don't ask me to find anything for you after telling me to do my own research.

Buildings look like that when they fall if they have been professionally demolished.

https://www.nist.gov/topics/disaster...-investigation

The collapse of WTC 7 is the first known instance of a tall building brought down primarily by uncontrolled fires.

And you think this is going to support your position?

This supports my position...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwgHorgDPGo

You just watched a BBC report they say doesn't exist.

And this totally contradicts that report you link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZlmHvd_RZU

"pull it"

That is the phrase used by professional demolition engineers to level a building. Further, if they did "pull it", then how did they manage to place the explosives in a burning building? Such explosives must already be in place.

[OngBonga]

I have no idea. What are the dominant explanations from each side?

I'm open to the idea something funny was going on with this building. I'm not convinced that when two buildings get hit by planes full of jet fuel at 500 mph and both subsequently catch fire and fall down that it's some kind of suspicious event.

Ok, so let's say we can agree that "something funny" happened with WTC7. Now let's ask the question... why? And if you accept that, then how on earth can you go ahead and believe what they say about the other two buildings that fell that day?

[Poopadoop]

Ok, so let's say we can agree that "something funny" happened with WTC7. Now let's ask the question... why? And if you accept that, then how on earth can you go ahead and believe what they say about the other two buildings that fell that day?

You're getting ahead of yourself here. I said I'm open to the idea, not that I agree something funny happened. My default position is that it wasn't a conspiratorial controlled demolition. Before I agree to something funny being true, I need to see evidence that there was something funny to begin with. A building falling down after a couple of bigger buildings collapsed and threw debris on it is not that outrageous imo.

You have to first convince me of the something funny before we go into who/what/why it happened, and what it implies about the other buildings.

[Poopadoop]

Ong, you know the steel on each floor of the building is only strong enough to hold the weight of it's own level and maybe a couple above it, not the entire 100 floors or whatever, right? It's like your expecting one floor to collapse, the next one to wobble as it tries to stay up, then collapse, and so on all the way down.

btw, this argues it wasn't a free-fall, so there was some resistance on the way down. I haven't read all your arguments, but if this is one of them, it doesn't fly sorry.

https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JO...agar-0112.html

This started the domino effect that caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds, hitting bottom with an estimated speed of 200 km per hour. If it had been free fall, with no restraint, the collapse would have only taken eight seconds and would have impacted at 300 km/h.1

[OngBonga]

Poop, see those two links I posted at the end of my wall to mojo? Try those.

First link is a BBC report, telling us that WTC7 had fallen while it's still standing behind her.

Second link is the leaseholder of WTC7 saying they pulled it.

[OngBonga]

Allow me to clarify one thing... I would not be surprised if the building toppled (rather than fell into its footprint at freefall speed). I recognise that the steel was not going to perform at the level expected of it, and that might even cause collapse. But the manner of the collapse suggests the steel acted like air.

[Poopadoop]

This supports my position...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwgHorgDPGo

They said it collapsed 8 hours after the first plane hit the towers. That's what actually happened.

But, apparently someone posted this video as if it was shot before that happened, and we're supposed to believe they're talking about the future. Or something.

And this totally contradicts that report you link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZlmHvd_RZU

"pull it"

That is the phrase used by professional demolition engineers to level a building.

Is it? I've never heard that before. I could see "pull it down" or something.

But "pull it" could also mean "get the firefighters out", because it looks like it's about to collapse. They just watched WT1 and 2 collapse, so doesn't seem far-fetched to think maybe the same could happen here.

Also he says he said that to the fire dept. commander. Since when does the fire dept. do controlled demolitions?

[Poopadoop]

Oh, i get it, the WTC7 building was supposedly still standing when she said it had already collapsed.

BBC said it was a confusing time and if their reporter said it had collapsed before it did, then she had made a mistake. They also claim not to be in on any global conspiracy with the world MSM and the US gov't. If they had, perhaps they would have waited until the collapse to report it, so as not to arouse suspicion.

Or maybe that's just what they WANT us to think, the 3D chess playing bastards.

[OngBonga]

He said "pull it", not "pull them", otherwise I'd agree with you that was what he meant. You don't call multiple firefighters "it".

And the female reporter was reporting live from NY, supposedly, and turning around to show what was happening. WTC7 stands there while she says it's collapsed.

I guess it's not out of the question she was standing in front of a green screen in London, and they had delayed footage. But given that I already have a huge amount of skepticism for the official narrative, and given that I trust the BBC about as much as I trust politicians, I can find it very easy to believe that the BBC were reporting what they were told to report, rather than actual events as they observed them, and they got the notes early, and jumped the gun. It's interesting the report loses connection. Maybe someone realised they fucked up.

It's also possible that the building with arrows pointing at it is not actually WTC7, but if that's the case it's ridiculously easy to debunk.

[Poopadoop]

But the manner of the collapse suggests the steel acted like air.

Air would freefall. The steel didn't.

[Poopadoop]

He said "pull it", not "pull them", otherwise I'd agree with you that was what he meant.

You're only hearing a retrospective account of the convo. He may have misspoke in the interview or misspoke at the time, and meant "pull them." Or maybe by "it" he was referring to the "fire dept" as "it" or the fire dept. chief was talking about squad 7 or whatever team was there and he said "pull it" to mean "pull squad 7."

You don't call multiple firefighters "it".

You don't tell the fire dept. commander to blow up your building. He's not the demo man.


I mean you would have a case if he had actually said "I told the fire dept. commander to get his men tf out of there and then I called the demo team and told them to blow it up." But he didn't say that, and the best you can do is try to read into his words something that doesn't seem to be there unless you really want it to be there.

[Poopadoop]

There's also the question of why Silverstein would go on tape and confess to insurance fraud. That seems like an extremely dumb move.

[OngBonga]

You don't tell the fire dept. commander to blow up your building. He's not the demo man.

This isn't a planned demolition like when a defunct cooling tower gets pulled. The fire dept commander will likely be the most senior authority on the scene in such an event. You don't have this convo with a demolition engineer and ignore the fire chief. This is not a decision a mere engineer makes. He only pulls the trigger. Oh, and places the explosives where they need to be, which would be very difficult and extremely dangerous in a burning building. I'd go as far as to say Darwin Award level stupidity. I wouldn't be taking thermite charges into a fire, call me overcautious.

But he didn't say that, and the best you can do is try to read into his words something that doesn't seem to be there unless you really want it to be there.

It helps that the building fell like it was actually a controlled demolition. It's not like it's literally just the words "pull it" that ring alarm bells.

[OngBonga]

There's also the question of why Silverstein would go on tape and confess to insurance fraud. That seems like an extremely dumb move.

Yeah, just like it would be dumb for the BBC to report on something yet to happen.

[OngBonga]

Air would freefall. The steel didn't.

I literally have no idea what you're trying to say here. Please rephrase this.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I've explained multiple times how redundancy works in civil engineering. I've explained multiple times how the physical properties of steel (and all metals) diminish as heat increases. I've explained that the appearance of the building in free fall is misleading because we can't see the whole building due to obscuring dust.

I've linked to an extensive scientific study about WTC 7 which you obviously did not read more than enough to find a sentence out of context. If you were to continue reading, you'd find a dozen reasons which explain why that was the case. Including, but not limited to, the fact that the collapse of WTC 1 and 2 took out the city's main water line that fed the fire sprinklers in WTC7's lower floors. Also, the fact that the horizontal supports of WTC7 were not designed to withstand thermal expansion of the steel beams horizontally, which caused significant damage to the vertical columns.

In short, they explain exactly why WTC7 was the only building to collapse due to a fire like that.


I've shown you the path to knowledge on this. If you choose not to walk the path, that is your choice.

[OngBonga]

I've explained multiple times how redundancy works in civil engineering. I've explained multiple times how the physical properties of steel (and all metals) diminish as heat increases. I've explained that the appearance of the building in free fall is misleading because we can't see the whole building due to obscuring dust.

Redundancy doesn't mean steel is air. I'm not disputing the metal was weaker. I'm arguing it's orders of magnitude stronger than air. You haven't directly countered that point once, and instead waved your hand at me over and over again, accusing me of not reading what you post. And we can see the top of the building falling almost right to its conclusion, until that too disappears into a dust cloud. We can see the top falling at freefall speed. From that we can determine that the steel acted like air.

I've linked to an extensive scientific study about WTC 7 which you obviously did not read more than enough to find a sentence out of context.

Dude it was like half an hour of reading. I took the link and started reading. I got bored. Sorry, I'm not much of a reader.

Including, but not limited to, the fact that the collapse of WTC 1 and 2 took out the city's main water line that fed the fire sprinklers in WTC7's lower floors.

I read that and personally thought it was beyond ridiculous to even consider the sprinklers in such a scenario. No fire has ever caused a skyscraper to collapse before. Not every building has sprinklers. Many of them did have steel support.

I've shown you the path to knowledge on this. If you choose not to walk the path, that is your choice.

You've called me a science denier and waved your hand, while posting walls about concepts that seem to me irrelevant, and ignoring what I consider relevant. Sorry but that's what you've done. Showing me whitewashing repots isn't cutting it. I asked for you to show me a scale model proving that this kind of collapse can happen due to the steel becoming weaker (but not molten) and you took a swipe at me, telling me to do my own research. You then post articles that support your claim, like you're suddenly happy to do my research. This has been a most unsatisfying discussion.

[OngBonga]

I think we should drop 9/11. I only brought it up to demonstrate why I am so skeptical. I feel like I'm having the same arguments I had 20 years ago. I've lost interest.