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Principles of Applied Epistemology (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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It's clear who was behind 9/11.

See War on Terror thread.

Unpicking the Moscow Apartment Bombings is proving interesting.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/nov/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/

Their suspicions were intensified by a strange incident that occurred on September 22 in the city of Ryazan, about a hundred miles southeast of Moscow. Residents of an apartment complex had reported unusual activity in the basement and observed that three people in a car with partially papered-over license plates had unloaded sacks whose contents they couldn't make out. A professional bomb squad arrived and discovered that the sacks contained not only sugar but also explosives, including hexogen, and that a detonator was attached. After the sacks were examined and removed, they were sent by the local FSB to Moscow.

The entire apartment building was evacuated. Local authorities found the car used by the three who had planted the explosives, a white Zhiguli, in a nearby parking lot. To their astonishment the license plates were traced to the FSB. And when they apprehended two of the suspects, it turned out that they were FSB employees, who were soon released on orders from Moscow.

After a day and a half of silence, Patrushev announced on television that the apparent bomb had been part of a 'training exercise' and that the sacks contained only sugar. The local Ryazan FSB and regular police, who had been combing the city for more explosives, expressed outrage. In the words of one police official: 'Our preliminary tests showed the presence of explosives... As far as we were concerned, the danger was real.'

If this incident was in fact just an exercise, it is difficult to understand why Vladimir Rushailo, the Russian Minister of Interior, who headed an anti-terrorism commission, knew nothing about it beforehand. Shortly before Patrushev's announcement, Rushailo spoke publicly about the terrorist act that had been planned in Ryazan and praised the people of that city for thwarting it. As Dunlop and many others have concluded, the materials discovered in Ryazan were the makings of a real bomb, and the FSB was caught in the act. In the light of this evidence, Dunlop writes, it has become all the more likely that the September terrorist attacks were also the FSB's work.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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So who started the fire?

Was it Nero or was it (heaven forbid) the Christians?

Was it the Nazis or was it the Commies?

Why is it always the capital........?
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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To conspire against the outsider to protect "the group" is a natural human condition.

To try and preempt threats from outsiders is a natural human condition.

To, therefore try and predict/ imagine (sometimes illusory) threats from outsiders is a natural human condition.

Still if you believe in a big happy world where all the animals love each other, Wile aint gonna disabuse you. He aint out to eat you... Really.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Brian Ambrose wrote:
...but are there any independent engineers who have tried to explain it?


Many.

...a tree is known by its fruits. What were the fruits of 9/11? How many people dead? Who benefitted? Obvious, init?


Really? Enlighten us.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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These threads are always the most popular. Persons incapable of contributing to any other matter always think themselves fookin geniuses about 9/11.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I entirely share Ishmael's frustration. I find it incomprehensible that anybody who aspires to any degree of AE-ness (or just plain common-senseness) can believe in any conspiracy theory.

It might help were I to analyse the parallel belief -- that of alien visitation and/or abduction. It is perfectly true that evidence in support of these events is apparently overwhelming. We have thousands (it must be millions by now!) of eye-witness reports from quite reliable people so why is it that any sensible person dismisses the whole thing tout court?

Well, it is because of the sheer unprecedented nature of the event -- people from outer space visiting earth -- and the fact that the evidence is always equivocal. Remember, it would require just one (really, just one) bit of physical evidence to make the case and given that there have been thousands/millions of events, it passeth all understanding that no such physical evidence is available.

Of course there are compelling reasons why this evidence is always unavailable but, like urban myths, these compelling reasons always turn out to be part of the story! Do any of you believe in alien visitation or, for that matter, any particular urban myth?

The same pattern holds true of conspiracy theories. We do not have a single piece of physical evidence (or even bona fide testimony from conpirators) to set against the sheer unlikelihood of various governments/organisations planning and carrying out these often mind-bogglingly large-scale deceptions.

For instance, if we assume there are, say, fifty bona fide conpiracy 'events', and twenty conspirators in each, that means a minimum of a thousand people keeping deathly quiet even though a million pounds is on offer for anybody spilling the beans. And it only takes one. Surely by now many of them have been on their death bed with loved ones just ready and waiting to be told something that would allow them to pay for the funeral and have plenty over besides.

So, come on, chaps. Remember that AE says that human beings believe something because it makes them happy rather than because it is true and (God knows!) it is enjoyable believing in conspiracy theories. But try doing what I do (and probably Ishmael does) which is to interest oneself in conspiracy theories for intellectual and sociological reasons without believing the conspiracy theories themselves. You know somewhere in your addled brains this makes sense.

Hands up anybody who is prepared to come to the front and say, "I repent!"
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Brian Ambrose



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Grant wrote:
Would you say "Now, we're going to blow up two of the world's tallest buildings in full view of billions of people. But I don't think that's enough. We need to find a cunning way to blow up WTC 7, you know, that building no-one's ever heard of. Oh, and we'll do it after the two main towers have gone so it won't even be noticed."


LOL, I agree, it makes no sense (although it may or may not be worth pointing out the coincidence that it was an FBI/CIA building). On the other hand, a steel-core building which evaporates into a dust cloud doesn't happen, er, except three times on the same day? Which is the easier to accept, a thrice contradiction of the laws of physics, or an as yet unexplained human activity?

Incidentally, the argument that thousands of gallons of aviation fuel poured down the centre of the towers, creating a fire which melted the steel, is plainly made up. For this, the eyes again come in handy, although we ought not to forget the technical point that neither plane was carrying much fuel, especially the one that hit the south tower. But really, what do people suppose caused the huge explosions as each plane hit? It was the fuel tanks exploding, incinerating the fuel.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Which is the easier to accept, a thrice contradiction of the laws of physics, or an as yet unexplained human activity?

By coincidence, I am currently proposing to contradict the laws of physics over on the Global Warming thread. But of course that is entirely of my own devising. Right or wrong, it will be a contribution to the furtherance of human knowledge.

Ol' Brian (and the rest) simply take their place in lengthy queues of people shouting "'Tis" and "'Tisn't" respectively. I say again, nobody knows for sure what happens when large airliners fly into large buildings. It's just one of those things which are capable of argument every which way.
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N R Scott


In: Middlesbrough
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Mick Harper wrote:
It might help were I to analyse the parallel belief -- that of alien visitation and/or abduction. It is perfectly true that evidence in support of these events is apparently overwhelming. We have thousands (it must be millions by now!) of eye-witness reports from quite reliable people so why is it that any sensible person dismisses the whole thing tout court?

Clearly you haven't seen Shaun Ryder on UFOs.

We do not have a single piece of physical evidence

This is the collapse of Building 7 from various angles;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg

You must admit that it at least looks like a controlled demolition Mick.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Could you let me have pix of other large buildings that stood next to large buildings that have been hit by airliners so I can make a judgement? Obviously not ones owned by the CIA, FBI, NSA or AEL.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Mick Harper wrote:
By coincidence, I am currently proposing to contradict the laws of physics over on the Global Warming thread.


PRECISELY!!!

If we have done nothing in AE (and by "we" I mean mostly "you") it is to expose the immensity of both our ignorance and our pretended knowledge. Time and time again we show that accepted wisdom, regarding what happens when and what follows from what inputs, is just utterly wrong.

But intellectuals---and this is especially true of the Asperger spectrum types drawn to math and engineering (and to conspiracy theories I should add)---find it very difficult to accept reality behaving contrary to the learned cant of theory. What hubris it is to say, "Don't believe your lying eyes; believe my theory, which then requires you to accept ten-thousand-fold improbabilities." Yet they can't help themselves.

But I suppose Aspergers types trust their understanding of math a great deal more than they can trust human beings---so it makes sense---I suppose.

I say again, nobody knows for sure what happens when large airliners fly into large buildings.


WE KNOW NOW!
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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More damage wrought by asperger's types allowed to roam free.

Flight 93 Photo Faked
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I found an interesting source for conspiracy theories here http://skepticalhumanities.com
a site run by Mark Newbrook, a linguist who used to lock horns with me rather ferociously re THOBR. He seems nowadays to be rather more kindly disposed towards me if his latest writing is anything to go by -- scroll down to Linguistic Hall of Shame No 35.

Perhaps he regards me as comparatively sane when placed in with, for example, the following which, for my money, gets Weirdest Conspiracy Theory So Far. (Can anybody beat it? If so, write in.)
:
The Mentalist is not, as most of us had thought, a reasonably proficient prime-time police procedural going out on CBS and Channel Five, but the chosen method of secret communication of a group of Atlanteans. But, and here's the kicker, these Atlanteans are mostly the children of Julius Caesar (which will excite Ishmael no end).


You can read all about it here:
http://www.wireservice.ca/index.php?module=News&func=display&sid=4837
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Tilo Rebar


In: Sussex
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"...chosen method of secret communication of a group of Atlanteans. But, and here's the kicker, these Atlanteans are mostly the children of Julius Caesar."

Not Atlanteans, but reptilian shape-shifters.

Not the children of the mythical Julius Ceasar, rather the interbred descendants of king Aurther...



According to David Icke of course, the uncrowned king of conspiracyists.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Wandering about on this site I made a rather rueful discovery. I am a conspiracy theory virgin. Hitherto I had supposed I was an interested and informed commentator on this phenomenon. Until I dived in to discover the full panoply of what's on offer, I simply had no idea either of the scope or the number of conspiracy theories.

It is worth pointing why, probably, I was so uninformed. Basically I am not an American! In other words I live in a culture and society that generally mediates things (via the class system) so that only the most egregious of stuff ever gets through. And even that is usually reports of what Americans are currently believing.

Which means I -- or rather my fellow-Brits -- tend not to get infected in the first place. We are fish who swim in rather less polluted seas -- though no doubt, as Ishmael will tell us, more stagnant ones.

Thus when you read, say, that fifty-seven per cent of Americans believe in Alien Abduction (or whatever it is) you should not assume that this is part of the human condition. The figure in Britain might be 1% -- mainly individuals who have personally 'experienced' it. The ordinary American cannot help himself since an Alien Abduction is held to be a fairly routine event. Or at any rate a fairly routine belief. A bit like Bible Belt children believing in Alien Visitations to Impregnate Virgin Jewesses.

As AE-ists we know that it is part of the human condition to mostly believe anything that one's peers believe.
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