Why are conspiracy theorists intolerant of dissent?

[Pasi Nurminen]

So I registered at the Loose Change forums, and to be honest I fully expected to be banned quickly for presenting a dissenting viewpoint that questioned that forums Official Explanation for the events of 9/11. Turns out, I was right.

Here's a select few posts of mine that apparently were in violation of the forum rules.

I should note that really the only rules the forum specifies are "we reserve the right to moderate any content we find extreme." Apparently, intelligent skepticism is extreme to those people.

Also FYI, they deleted many of my posts, leaving some that could be construed as trolling in nature, some that were quite solid, including the posts below. They seem to tolerate much worse conduct from their own.

You're entitled to have your own opinion, and I respect that.

If it is your opinion that the world is flat, that doesn't change the fact that the world is round. It's very important to have your own opinions, and to not let others decide on your opinions for you. At the same time, it's also important to base opinion on fact, rather than just going with what your gut instinct tells you, because gut instincts are often wrong. I know that my gut instinct has been wrong on numerous occasions in my life, and I've learned, to some degree, to temper my gut instinct as a result.

I have offered my opinion, and defended it from unfounded personal attacks by others. What I mean to ask you is do you have any evidence that this was part of some conspiracy to get you? If so, how much does resetting video counters hurt you? Should they not just take the videos off altogether, citing some obscure legal mumbo jumbo in the process?

I apologize if I did not state this clearly earlier, and if my earlier posts in this thread conveyed an intent to confront, when that was not my intent at all. I shall work most diligently to avoid such conduct in the future.

In a topic discussing the Google Video reset of all video counters on its web site, which some forum members took as an effort by The Man to suppress The Truth. Naturally, resetting video counters is much more effective than removing the videos altogether, citing some legal mumbo jumbo and removing a few other non-conspiracy theorist videos to cover their asses.

Is this evidence of a bomb or something?

Ignoring Kevn Ryan's complete lack of expertise for a moment...

You need thousands of explosive charges and months to set up a controlled demolition on a modestly sized tower. For comparison, the Landmark Tower used 30,000 explosive devices and took seven months to set up. That was a 30 story tower with a lot less floor space. For the WTC twin towers, you'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of explosive devices, and probably upwards of a years worth of work setting them up. Tens of thousands of people, upwards of a hundred thousand IIRC, worked at the two towers, and not a single one of them saw anything suspicious? Were they all paid off by the government?

Besides, when a building is being demolished, you would see these hundreds of thousands of explosives go off in the span of just a few seconds. You'd see thousands of flashes of bright lights, starting at the base and moving up the tower. There would also be thousands of distinct bangs, and thousands of corresponding squibs shooting out of the tower on every single floor, and thousands of spikes on seismographs, all this BEFORE the towers collapsed. Not four or five as the tower was collapsing as Loose Change shows.

None of this was present at the WTC.

Can I authoritatively say it was compressed air? No, but I can say that it wasn't bombs.

In a thread "debating" the nature of matter ejected from the buildings during the collapse.

Well you see NORAD previously only could track and intercept aerial threats outside North American airspace; it's primary job was intercepting Russian/Soviet bombers intending to strike American soil. It simply wasn't equipped to intercept the aircraft on 9/11.

More to the point, the hijackers switched off transponders and stopped answering radio hails. A transponder is a device that identifies a flight as what it is; without it, all you have is a tiny blip on radar. The Northeastern United States is the busiest air corridor in the world, and before all aircraft in the USA were grounded, there were over 4,300 aircraft in that airspace. Trying to find four planes without their transponders on was literally like trying to find a needle in a haystack. FAA operators had to manually scan each and every radar scope looking for the four flights.

There was also no hotline between the FAA and NORAD, nor the USAF, so that means someone at FAA had to literally pick up a phone and call NORAD front desk. That takes a lot of time.

Besides which, there were only 14 fighters capable of intercepting the aircraft, as there were only 14 on alert status. Alert status means that an aircraft is fueled, armed, and ready to go, with a pilot sitting in a ready room ready to scramble within seconds of receiving the order to do so. Combat ready status means that the plane can be made ready for combat within 24-72 hours. There were many aircraft on combat ready status, but only 14 on alert, which was normal after the cold war.

Just because there were air force bases along or near the flight path of hijacked jets does not mean any aircraft were capable of scrambling.

In response to someone asking how NORAD could not "intercept three jets flying clumsily over America."

Discuss.

 

[Stylesjl]

Because your an evil government agent and/or conspiracy denier and you seek out people to destroy with your scientific knowledge evil trolling

Or because they know they are full of it and they just want to get rid of anyone who dissents from the party line? I know plenty of forums that tend to kick out anybody who disagrees with them

 

[Elrohir]

Because to Truthers and the like, their conspiracy theory is as important as any Christian or Muslim fundamentalist's religion is to them. Most people don't like it when their underlying view of "How Things Are" is challenged. We prefer to know how things are, regardless of what those other loons are teaching.

And I'm sure a certain comraderie is created when you think that you're hiding out with someone else because you know some awful secret about the government - "We all know, because we are so smart, so bright, so intelligent, so patriotic that we couldn't be fooled. Aren't we awesome?" - that people don't want to let that go either, so they react violently at any attempt to dispel their pet theory. (Like "New York firefighters blew up the WTC with plastic explosives" or whatever)

 

[Che Guava]

Mostly because they are idiots who need to feel smart by convincing themselves that they are the only ones that have the 'truth', much like fundementalists, scientologists, objectivists, or any other beleif that encourages as little thought as possible. If they let down thier guard for a minute and were open to the possibility that they might be wrong (like any true skeptic), they might have to use thier brains alittle bit to explain things, or, (horrors of horrors) admit that they are not too different from anyone else just trying to live thier life...

 

[JohnRM]

Yeah, in general, these conspiracy theorists are just a bunch of people who want to feel excited about some grand scheme like in a movie that makes them important, because they are one of the few that know about it. Anything that is too simple to them is just too boring and therefor they need to spice it up with a little conspiracy.

HOWEVER...

I will say that the destruction of the twin towers was nothing like a controlled demolition and therefor did not require the hundreds of thousands of explosives nor the year of set-up time. We also know that it was not demolition, because there was no "zipper" boom at the start of the collapse. So, it is somewhat believable that they could have just planted a few high explosives in a few key points and let the thing go.

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

So, it is somewhat believable that they could have just planted a few high explosives in a few key points and let the thing go.

No, that's just not how demolitions work. If you just blow up a few key structural points, you'll weaken it, but it won't come down.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Che Guava pretty much summed it up. Make room for debate, and positions might actually change. That's why you must filter out the 'bad apples', to ensure your message remains unmolested by those sad, misled fools.

 

[Japanrocks12]

I've wanted to do exactly this, but on the stormfront forums instead. any guideline on how quickly I'll get banned?

 

[The Yankee]

Because the people perpetuating these conspiracy theorists are on their own power trips ("I REALLY know all!") and with sunlight being the best disinfectant in such things, exposure to facts means they'll have less followers and more evil, government agent opponents.

But it is a power trip.

 

[Catharsis]

Scientologists, Loose Change theorists... who's getting targeted next on your crusade of skepticism, Pasi?

 

[Amin001]

Im assuming that forum has community moderators "correct me if im wrong" and if thats the case im not sure what else you expected from them hehe


Did a quick google search and it looks like Alex Jones has a forum too

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/

Im sure you can have some fun debates there too and see if they will ban you.

 

[MadScotsMan]

because you are obviously a sheep

 

[wicshade]

that is why i like CFC, there are so many different opinions and mind sets, but we all get along ok, i think. A place like Loose change is for people that just want to fee right and have people agree with them, Maybe because they are so wrong about almost everything in the real world.

I remeber a kid in my chem class last year wearing one of those investigate the truth shirts, he ended up droping the class, he told me that it was because the professor didn't know anything about science, go figure.

 

[JohnRM]

Scientologists, Loose Change theorists... who's getting targeted next on your crusade of skepticism, Pasi?

Haha! Pasi Nurimen, Professional Skeptic!

 

[Photi]

that is why i like CFC, there are so many different opinions and mind sets, but we all get along ok, i think. A place like Loose change is for people that just want to fee right and have people agree with them, Maybe because they are so wrong about almost everything in the real world.

i was just thinking more or less the same thing an hour ago about CFC. What makes it so diff i think is that the game itself attracts all varied sorts of thinking people of all ages from around the world, which then flavors the forums. that's pretty cool.