Facebook Features 9/11 Conspiracy Theory as 'Trending' (slashdot.org)

Facebook is having a tough time with stories that trend on the social network. The company has been accused of gaming what it shows as "trending" on the site, and sometimes favoring things it showed to people. Not long ago, it fired the human editors who took care of it, but then earlier this month, a fake story about Megyn Kelly. It apologized for the slip, but it has happened again. The Hill reports: Facebook is taking heat yet again for its Trending Topics section after featuring a story from a British tabloid pushing a conspiracy theory that the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, because of a "controlled demolition." Facebook users who clicked on the "September 11th Anniversary" trending topic Friday were presented an article titled "September 11: The footage that 'proves bombs were planted in Twin Towers.'"

Comments

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

is trending both on FB and Slashdot

doesn't say true stories

[Anonymous Coward]

It says 'Trending' not 'Trending Truthful News Stories'.

Re: doesn't say true stories

[SuperDre]

Who says it isn't truthfull? It's more likely true than it isn't, especially with builind 7 which wasn't even near the twin towers and was 'pulled'.. now 'pulling' a builind like that with the precision it was demolitioned, takes weeks/months of planning, it just isn't possible to do that in a couple of hours... It really isn't....

Re: doesn't say true stories

[cold fjord]

That is misinformation.

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

In response to comments from the building community, NIST conducted an additional computer analysis. The goal was to see if the loss of WTC 7's Column 79—the structural component identified as the one whose failure on 9/11 started the progressive collapse—would still have led to a complete loss of the building if fire or damage from the falling debris of the nearby WTC 1 tower were not factors. The investigation team concluded that the column's failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events.

You misunderstand the quote:

World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories

In the PBS documentary America Rebuilds, which aired in September 2002, Larry Silverstein, the owner of 7 WTC and leaseholder and insurance policy holder for the remainder of the WTC complex, recalled a discussion with the fire department in which doubts about containing the fires were expressed. Silverstein recalled saying, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it". "They made that decision to pull", he recalled, "and we watched the building collapse." Silverstein issued a statement that it was the firefighting team, not the building, that was to be pulled.[72][78][79]

You might want to look into this:

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Introduction to PM Expanded Investigation

And maybe: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Re: doesn't say true stories

[Anonymous Coward]

None of that explains why CNN reported on Building 7 20 mins before it fell. Plus investigations using computer models only contrive one possible scenario, none of which are likely scenarios. Add alien invasion into the computer model because at this point is far more likely.

Re: doesn't say true stories

[cold fjord]

None of that explains why CNN reported on Building 7 20 mins before it fell.

@@ .... Right, nobody reports major buildings on fire. (especially when part of the complex under a major terrorist attack)

September 11: Chronology...

4:10 p.m.: Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex is reported on fire.

--------

Plus investigations using computer models only contrive one possible scenario, none of which are likely scenarios.

You're kidding. Computer aided design, modeling, and analysis are basic, key tools in engineering these days.
Apparently it is news to you that unlikely events do happen. NIST verified what seems to be a design problem.

Add alien invasion into the computer model because at this point is far more likely.

The problem here isn't "aliens" but trolls.

Re: doesn't say true stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Cold Fjord, got your propaganda roubles from Putin, or from Soros?

"Conspiracy theory"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. 9/11 as false flag is a "conspiracy theory."

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Sique]

It is. It's theorizing about a conspiracy which had two goals: a) killing more than 3000 people. b) blame it on a group of twenty other people who will die during the event. (In fact, it was only 19 people as one of the alleged terrorists missed his appointment.)

So yes, it's a theory about a conspiracy, thus a conspiracy theory.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[ShanghaiBill]

b) blame it on a group of twenty other people who will die during the event.

How do you know they died? Considering all the other things the conspirators had to do, falsifying the flight manifest would not be particularly difficult.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Anonymous Coward]

You foolish Yankee. You believe your crooked government, that they found the passport at ground zero? My goodness, you American innovators should simply build your aeroplanes out of passports!

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Plus1Entropy]

I like how the guys who supposedly pulled off perhaps the single greatest hoax in human history managed to overlook this one detail. Why plant any passports? They would have known who was on the plane from the manifests. This is a classic example of why conspiracy theories don't hold up, because they require the conspirators to be masterminds and complete idiots simultaneously.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[dryeo]

If there was a conspiracy, it was like Pearl Harbor, where intelligence reported an imminent attack, which some higher ups mostly ignored besides making sure the Aircraft carriers were not in the the harbour when the attack happened. (By 1942 it was obvious that the airplane had made battleships obsolete).
The attack was real, but conveniently ignored, which only took a few conspirators.
There's also the possibility of multiple conspiracies. The Americans wanting to get rid of the World Trade Center and have a convenient excuse to go to war and the Saudi's conspiring to take out Saddam by pressuring America, including planting the passport. It was interesting that the first flights allowed were all Saudi's (especially the Bin Laden family members) escaping America. The Bush's and Bin Laden's were very friendly with G.W. growing up playing with the Bin Laden's

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Plus1Entropy]

Holy crap. Look, I fucking hate George W. Bush, and the Saudis even more, but that "they let the Saudis leave the country" thing is just garbage. It simply isn't true.

I have never bought the Pearl Harbor thing either. In fact, there's very little in your comment that I can take seriously.

"The Americans wanting to get rid of the World Trade Center"? That's a new one. Just when I think you conspiracy nuts can't sink any lower, you rise to the occasion.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[rhodium_mir]

You think that's air you're breathing now?

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Gavagai80]

Perhaps we should call it a meta-conspiracy theory. Al-Qaeda plotted an actual conspiracy (a pretty large one at that, and one they continued denying for a couple years after the event before deciding that owning up was better for recruiting), and the people we call conspiracy theorists believe that conspiracy was fictional and replace it with something even more bizarrely inexplicable.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Anonymous Coward]

Anon here:

Your claim is that asbestos wasn't an issue?

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Gavagai80]

It's technically true that Saudis were allowed to leave the country, including members of the Bin Laden family (who had long disavowed Osama), just like all other innocent non-suspects are allowed to go wherever they want. Only in Trumpland can the free movement of Muslims be considered a conspiracy though.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[segedunum]

Why plant any passports? They would have known who was on the plane from the manifests. This is a classic example of why conspiracy theories don't hold up, because they require the conspirators to be masterminds and complete idiots simultaneously.

I'm afraid none of that addresses the suspicious way in which these buildings collapsed. That's why anti-conspiracy theorists are often even worse. They extrapolate their own ideas out of it so they can have a comfort blanket to hold on to and stop looking at what is in front of them.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[segedunum]

Holy crap. Look, I fucking hate George W. Bush, and the Saudis even more, but that "they let the Saudis leave the country" thing is just garbage. It simply isn't true.

I'm afraid it is true. The FBI's own report have clearly implicated the Saudis, yet the media has stayed silent. They all knew each other through a network of interests.

I have never bought the Pearl Harbor thing either. In fact, there's very little in your comment that I can take seriously.

The British certainly kept quiet about Pearly Harbor because they wanted the US in the war.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[PvtVoid]

Perhaps we should call it a meta-conspiracy theory. Al-Qaeda plotted an actual conspiracy (a pretty large one at that, and one they continued denying for a couple years after the event before deciding that owning up was better for recruiting), and the people we call conspiracy theorists believe that conspiracy was fictional and replace it with something even more bizarrely inexplicable.

It was a coverup to prevent development of the EMDrive.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[samkass]

I'm afraid none of that addresses the suspicious way in which these buildings collapsed. That's why anti-conspiracy theorists are often even worse. They extrapolate their own ideas out of it so they can have a comfort blanket to hold on to and stop looking at what is in front of them.

The buildings collapsed exactly how you'd expect a building with strong center and shell supports would collapse, thus there's not much to explain there. Fuel heats cross-beams, steel loses half its strength at those temperatures and they bend in the center, one floor falls down to the next and cascades. The outer shell and inner shell hold it all together as its going down. Every single thing that happened to all three buildings and the field in PA is easily explained by physics, and doesn't need the conspiracy. Nothing that happened that day is "comforting," and insulting people doesn't help your case.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[dbIII]

Holy crap. Look, I fucking hate George W. Bush, and the Saudis even more, but that "they let the Saudis leave the country" thing is just garbage

That bit was true but they were not the only ones flying out while most planes were grounded. "They" let a lot of people leave the country and not just that half a dozen Saudis with strong connections to Bush.

I have never bought the Pearl Harbor thing either

In hindsight a lot of intelligence reports from the lot of sources warned about it but it's likely they just didn't make it up the chain of command in time. The explorer Sir Hubert Wilkes was one who sent a report in from Japan but not being an American he may not have been taken seriously. The conspiracy theory hinges a lot of people having an operation like a well oiled machine and then doing something really stupid with it. Reality looks like a failure to listen and a failure to act.

"The Americans wanting to get rid of the World Trade Center"? That's a new one. Just when I think you conspiracy nuts can't sink any lower, you rise to the occasion.

I agree, it makes me very angry.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Anonymous Coward]

one floor falls down to the next and cascades

The PANCAKE theory? There are people still pushing that? Wow. Even the government had to abandon that laughable attempt at an explanation. Over a decade ago. Do some reading.

Here's a few thousand architects and engineers who disagree with you: http://www.ae911truth.org/

Easily explained, my fucking ass. WTC7 is a classic controlled demo. Asymmetrical fire damage does not remotely explain the symmetrical collapse observed, nor the period of free fall acceleration. But don't let empirical facts get in the way of your denial.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Plus1Entropy]

The Saudi's involvement in 9/11 is not the same thing as saying that they were allowed to fly out of the country when all other planes are grounded.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[segedunum]

Bush, Bin Laden and other suspects all know each other through a network of commercial interests. There is only so many ways you can slice and dice this. All the Saudi suspects now being looked at melted away.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[segedunum]

The buildings collapsed exactly how you'd expect a building with strong center and shell supports would collapse, thus there's not much to explain there.

Nope, that is not how anyone who has even ever built a Lego or Meccano model would expect a structure to collapse.

Fuel heats cross-beams, steel loses half its strength at those temperatures and they bend in the center, one floor falls down to the next and cascades. The outer shell and inner shell hold it all together as its going down. Every single thing that happened to all three buildings and the field in PA is easily explained by physics, and doesn't need the conspiracy. Nothing that happened that day is "comforting," and insulting people doesn't help your case.

Bollocks. In a large building like that there is absolutely no reason for the floors below to be affected. Floors do not cascade on to one another either, which is where you do show your ignorance. When one floor collapses on to another it collapses on to the eighty or however many floors below bound together in one whole structure. Tall buildings have to be built that way, otherwise they would be dangerously unstable.

What would happen is you might possibly get a partial building collapse, but the energy and debris would dissipate outwards lessening as the collapse progressed. A full collapse? No chance. There is no reason for every floor right down to the basement to destabilise.

You're simply repeating the tripe of others I'm afraid and the pancake tripe has been pushed every time this comes up. There is absolutely no way this can happen because this is not the way buildings are built, otherwise they would be dangerous...... Another possibility is that the towers were incompetently and scandalously built. Is that possible? Yer, it is, but either way there is a scandal here.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[cold fjord]

You're neglecting the facts.

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[angel'o'sphere]

The buildings collapsed exactly how you'd expect a building with strong center and shell supports would collapse, thus there's not much to explain there.
Actually, it did not.
On all videos it is clearly visible that the building collapsed story wise, one by one, from top to bottom.
Fuel heats cross-beams, steel loses half its strength at those temperatures and they bend in the center, one floor falls down to the next and cascades.
No. It would tip over and fall to the east. Earth is rotating from west to east, so the tip of a high building is significantly faster than its base. So a building as tall as the WTC would leave a trail minimum half as long as it is hight ...
is easily explained by physics
And said physics (/. and america in general is lacking lots of it) clearly indicate: there is something strange about the collapse.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[NotAPK]

The Brooklyn Bridge was built using inferior wire. I can easily believe that the World Trade Center towers were not built to the standard claimed. In particular, reading the WTC 7 report from NIST even states that pretty clearly: failure of column 79 would result in destruction of the building. It was either architecturally a terrible design, or was not built to specification.

"This is also in spite of the substitution of inferior quality wire in the cabling supplied by the contractor J. Lloyd Haigh—by the time it was discovered, it was too late to replace the cabling that had already been constructed. Roebling determined that the poorer wire would leave the bridge four rather than six times as strong as necessary, so it was eventually allowed to stand, with the addition of 250 cables. Diagonal cables were installed from the towers to the deck, intended to stiffen the bridge. They turned out to be unnecessary, but were kept for their distinctive beauty." Source.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[dave420]

You are usually so logical, but on this subject something seems to have happened to you. I'm genuinely disappointed. A building isn't a solid piece of metal. You can't push hard enough at the top and expect the whole thing to topple over like a felled tree. They are extremely strong in one direction (top-bottom), and relatively weak sideways. So no, it won't topple as it simply isn't strong enough.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[dbIII]

there is something strange about the collapse

Dynamic not static.
Think of impacts
The top floor came down like a hammer on the floor below, those two came down on the one underneath and so on.
Perfectly normal and it happens a lot when buildings fall down.
Watch some demolition videos and you'll see it over and over again. Watch some videos of buildings on fire and you'll see it over and over again.


It just doesn't look right to you because Hollywood is always having buildings fall over like cardboard boxes and that is what you are used to. Like a lot of things in film it's nothing like the real thing.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[dbIII]

In a large building like that there is absolutely no reason for the floors below to be affected. Floors do not cascade on to one another either, which is where you do show your ignorance. When one floor collapses on to another it collapses on to the eighty or however many floors below bound together in one whole structure. Tall buildings have to be built that way, otherwise they would be dangerously unstable.

Dynamic loading not static, just the same as the front of your car can support a lot of weight but it goes squish when you run it into a wall.
If you can't grasp that then picture what happens when you hit things with a hammer.
In this case all the weight of the floors above came down like a hammer - the difference between having a hammer sitting on a glass table and swinging it down quickly.
Pulling a book out of the middle of a tall stack is another example. As the books above drop onto the lower stack it will buckle under the impact and more then just the books above the removed book will fall over. You've seen it yourself haven't you?

and the pancake tripe has been pushed every time this comes up

Because it is not only true and somewhat obvious but has also been very frequently observed. Impact. Squish.


The bits where you called others ignorant are very entertaining considering how badly you have messed it up. Try playing with that lego and meccano with a bit of motion and you'll get things to a high school level.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[strikethree]

Fuel heats cross-beams, steel loses half its strength at those temperatures and they bend in the center, one floor falls down to the next and cascades.

I saw them fall. It was not a cascade event. They fell in essentially free fall. Watch the videos. Count how long it takes the top floor to reach ground level.

Even if free fall does not convince you, such a structure should not fall completely to its foundation cleanly. Not every single piece of steal will heat and melt at the same rate. The building should have toppled if it were completely natural.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[angel'o'sphere]

The top floor came down like a hammer on the floor below,
Yes, and why exactly did it that?
Hm?
The fire was how many stories lower? Thirty? Why did the top story start crashing.

It just doesn't look right to you because Hollywood is always having buildings fall over like cardboard boxes and that is what you are used to.
No they are not. And I'm not used to hollywood stile crashes either.

If you want to see how a building crashes go google, youtube is full with it.

The main problem with the two WTC crashes is: they started both on the top, story wise, for no reason.

Like a lot of things in film it's nothing like the real thing.
Exactly. In the real world both buildings had lost the tip, by the tip dropping to the side of the most damage. Everything below the fire would have survived. The whole tip above the fire had more or less crashed down as one solid block and would have been cracked/scattered on the the ground: not in mid air.

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[angel'o'sphere]

So no, it won't topple as it simply isn't strong enough.
The steel framework of those particular buildings is strong enough.

Also the picture of the top dropping more or less solidly was only to make a point, I don't care if it ripps apart while "toppeling over".

Point is: a building does not collapse story by story from _top_ to bottom. There are only two ways to see a build collapse in this way: earth quakes and controlled demolitions.

If the buildings collapsed by "ordinary" means triggered by the crashed planes, then everyone giving us an explanation failed to give a plausible one :D

Re:"Conspiracy theory"

[Anonymous Coward]

> The main problem with the two WTC crashes is: they started both on the top, story wise, for no reason.

There is a very good reason - the floors that suffered damage from the plane impacts lost their structural integrity, and were unable to hold the weight of the floors above. When you watch the videos, you can see the collapse begin at the level of the plane impacts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5ohCX9JI8#t=40m58s

Elon Musk

[Anonymous Coward]

SURPRISE!!!

This article is NOT about ELON MUSK -- but it might have been. It also COULD have been about Uber or Windows 10.

But somehow it was not..????

My head is spinning!!! Please HELP!!

Jumping the Shark

[sycodon]

It's close...very close

Facebook will go the way of MySpace, AOL, and the rest of the fad social sites.

Re:Jumping the Shark

[Anonymous Coward]

When a thing has been around for 12ish years and is used by millions of people daily is it still considered a fad?

Re:Jumping the Shark

[HornWumpus]

AOL lasted about 10 years before the chumps at Time/Warner (overpaid for it/accepted AOL stock). Millions of users etc.

It took about another year or two before even morons (e.g. Ted Turner) could see how bad a move TW had made.

Re:Jumping the Shark

[Gavagai80]

AOL died because only their dial-up business was ever actually successful, and dial-up went away. Not a comparable scenario.

Re:Jumping the Shark

[HornWumpus]

AOL died because, eventually, even their customers got smarter. The inertia that kept them going for a few last years was that AOLers had their social life on AOL chat rooms.

AOL was a ripoff for the entire time it existed. It's not like the dialup version was a good value.

Competition

[T.E.D.]

They have to compete with Slashdot. If all the birthers and truthers leave, who would be left here to promote stories and moderate?

Zeitgeist

[decipher_saint]

That kind of crap is almost exactly what I associate about a third of my Facebook feed to, people love click-bait garbage and they love sharing it and debating it constantly

Facebook trends actually match what trends on Facebook (and it's terrible,) surprised? No. ...I get a lot of use out of that mute feature...

News that matters for Facebook and Apple fans

[ArtemaOne]

nt

If that is what is popular so be it

[shaitand]

Either we want them to filter and judge or we want them to put what is actually trending which is a purely algorithmic assessment.

Re:If that is what is popular so be it

[MillionthMonkey]

They're not using an algorithm, at least not yet. They just replaced their "liberally-biased" humans with other humans who approve of 9/11 truther stories.

Re:If that is what is popular so be it

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you see what is right in front of you?

This is a conspiracy by facebook to get people begging for them to reinstate human editors with their liberal bias. Stories like this have been made to deliberately trend just to discredit the algorithmic ranking. Its a false flag.

Sincerely,
Nathan Poe

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[easyTree]

When there's overwhelming evidence that something untoward happened as testified to by industry pros - when the mainstream-news-reported-it-before-it-happened thing has blown over and videos of under-wing missiles on the aircraft have disappeared from youtube etc etc etc, what possible reason could you have for (a) not seeing what's clear and (b) being so brainwashed that seeking truth is seen not only as something you'd rather not engage in but you feel must be mocked. Surely noone in your fast-food and talking-head culture is retarded enough to be taken in by this shit?

Do you get increasing rates to shill as the time since the initial wave of cover-ups increases? It must be a pretty niche skill these days so I'm going with yes. What's your take?

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[Plus1Entropy]

something untoward happened as testified to by industry pros

Who? What "untoward" thing happened? Is the hijacking of planes, destruction of landmarks, and killing of 3000 people not "untoward" enough?

when the mainstream-news-reported-it-before-it-happened thing has blown over

Why, if you're the government and you've planned this conspiracy, not just wait for the media to get wind of it the normal way? (I mean, I'm sure someone in the largest city in the country would have noticed the tallest building bursting into flames). Why leak the story to them early? What purpose does that serve in the conspiracy, except to blow it wide open?

videos of under-wing missiles on the aircraft have disappeared from youtube

This one is my favorite. So YouTube, which didn't exist until 2005, had these videos at one point that have since mysteriously vanished. In spite of the government being unable to stop ISIS recruiting people, child pornography, piracy... this is the one thing they've managed to completely erase without a single copy being hosted by anyone, anywhere? Why can't I get a torrent of this amazing piece of media? Julian Assange is really slacking off on the job here...

But let's assume this is true (because it's fun showing how ridiculous this is).

1. These couldn't have been commercial flights with civilians passengers, right? If the missiles were noticeable from the ground while the planes struck the buildings at 500mph, surely passengers with a window seat would have noticed something. Where are the people who died (or rather, didn't die) on that flight? What about the crews, who were United and American Airlines employees? Where did they disappear to?

2. They couldn't have taken off from a civilian airport, or else the ground crew, who spend all day every day staring at the underside of aircraft would have probably noticed a few extra engines that look nothing like engines.

3. The two Boeing 767s, built in 1983 and 1987, didn't come off the factory line with missile mounts on the wings. Either the government seized the planes from United and American Airlines, and then modified them, or they built new planes specifically for the purpose of this conspiracy.

3.a. If the former, that's quite a few people to keep quiet. You'd think someone at AA or UA would be able to put 2 and 2 together ("Gee, that plane just happens to be the one the government seized from us a few months ago..."). At the very least the accounting department is going to want to know why the fleet is suddenly short a 767.

3.b. If the latter, it's even more people to keep quiet. I mean, what happened to the original planes? There aren't 767s with those registration numbers flying around, so where are they? No one at Boeing was suspicious when the Government ordered 2 new 767s, with no paint jobs (or UA/AA paint jobs), no registration numbers (or even more suspiciously, with existing registrations that just happened to be the same as those that would be used on 9/11), and told them to keep their construction off the books?

4. Why bother? If you're going to crash a modified, mostly empty, 767 into a building with missiles under the wings... why not just rip out all the fucking seats and put the missiles inside? Better yet, just pack it full of C4 or dynamite.

There are a ton of other points I could make about how unbelievably stupid this is, but for now I think that's enough.

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[easyTree]

You've implicitly answered my question - the rates have gone down.

Re:If that is what is popular so be it

[shaitand]

I've tuned algorithms like this and results of this kind are pretty normal. After all, being able to come up with relevant results without crap like this is what made Google the massive giant it is. Especially given that computers haven't been trained to have a bias against conspiracies like humans have for the past several decades.

This could be Facebook doing just what you suggest. I am not biased against conspiracies and actually believe people acting shitty in pursuit of self interest is never unlikely. It could also just be growing pains of an algorithm that wasn't designed to be fully automated. If it's the latter FB should probably look toward building a component that weights sources either in a google/academia fashion of how many other sources cite them or in a feedback driven historical mechanism.

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[shaitand]

At the end of the day it doesn't actually matter. That is the point people miss in all this. The results have been everything the government could have ever dreamed of getting from having committed such an act, which is terrible for the people. If those in power did not engage in a conspiracy that doesn't mean they wouldn't have if they'd thought of it, thought they could get away with it, and knew what kind of outcome it would have brought. The government has been caught out in enough conspiracies at this point, arms running, mind control experiments, secret prisons, introducing crack to poor minor neighborhoods in our cities to fund arms running, the Clinton primary election rigging, wave on wave of disclosures about the wars and the NSA.

It isn't like having planned 9/11 would establish the government as being more dirty or not having planned 9/11 means the government doesn't engage in that level of conspiracy. We don't need to be divided over whether the government did this particular shady thing when most everyone can agree at this point that those in power are shady and need tossed out. But there are enough people who DO believe the government did this shady thing, that statistically it might well have been a valid trending news item on FB.

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[Raenex]

And you've just answered a reasonable analysis of stupid ideas with accusations of "shill". Do you know that your dumb conspiracy ideas lead to yet another conspiracy that you're the shill, design to get people to dismiss how the conspiracy "really" happened?

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[easyTree]

The remaining budget is clearly lower than estimated for this mop-up if you believe your response is in any way related to the concept 'analysis.'

If you're going to demonstrate that my points are nonsense, address them rather than asking questions which draw attention away from the issues

Who? What "untoward" thing happened?

Dude, what's this whole post about? Hello? The idea, I believe is that we don't know the truth of 9/11 - that the buildings were demolished deliberately - that these weren't passenger planes - that ... well, I'm sure you're more familiar with the details than most.

Is the hijacking of planes, destruction of landmarks, and killing of 3000 people not "untoward" enough?

Enough for what? It's pretty awful - I'll say that.

Why, if you're the government and you've planned this conspiracy, not just wait for the media to get wind of it the normal way? (I mean, I'm sure someone in the largest city in the country would have noticed the tallest building bursting into flames). Why leak the story to them early?

I have no idea - I wasn't part of the conspiracy - perhaps *you* could enlighten *us* ?

Failure on my part to understand why this would have been leaked before the fact in no way removes from the historical record, the accidental reporting of this event before it happened. History isn't block chain - history isn't a matter of a majority repeating a falsehood which then is considered true - it's a matter of what actually happened.

So YouTube, which didn't exist until 2005, had these videos at one point that have since mysteriously vanished.

They were there; now they're not. Got it in one.

It's kind of you to update us on YouTube's start date. You do know, I presume that YouTube is capable of hosting videos which were recorded before 2005?

In spite of the government being unable to stop ISIS recruiting people, child pornography, piracy... this is the one thing they've managed to completely erase without a single copy being hosted by anyone, anywhere?

Not sure where to begin with this one - there are almost certainly many other removals - how is any one party to know? You appear to imply that I've said that this is the one topic to be removed from YouTube - by casting it into a one-in-a-billion scenario you appear to make it more unlikely. Is that the logic?

1. These couldn't have been commercial flights with civilians passengers, right?

Agreed - that seems plausible but then you go on to say:

If the missiles were noticeable from the ground while the planes struck the buildings at 500mph, surely passengers with a window seat would have noticed something. Where are the people who died (or rather, didn't die) on that flight? What about the crews, who were United and American Airlines employees? Where did they disappear to?

Which passengers? Remember, this wasn't a commercial airliner - also still part of the historical record - eye-witnessed on camera by mainstream new personnel.

2. They couldn't have taken off from a civilian airport, or else the ground crew, who spend all day every day staring at the underside of aircraft would have probably noticed a few extra engines that look nothing like engines.

Again... where to begin? (a) there are private airstrips all over the place (b) a section of a civilian airport could have been cordened off (c) If someone were prepping a non-commercial airliner with underwing rockets, ready for a domestic attack - simply so that your government can then start stomping around the world - why would they choose to take off from a civilian airport? Just a thought - I'm thinking that's not from page 1 of the CIA playbook. I wouldn't really know though - perhaps

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[Raenex]

If you're going to demonstrate that my points are nonsense, address them rather than asking questions which draw attention away from the issues

They were addressed. That you chose to call shill instead of respond with an argument is on you. Responding to the argument now doesn't change that.

Re:If that is what is popular so be it

[CanadianMacFan]

I came here to basically say the same thing. It counts how often something is said and posts the most "popular" items. If it happens to be a conspiracy theory about 9/11 or a politician sharing penis pictures or flat worlders thinking trees used to go into space or some world news event then that's what people are talking about. (Three of those things make me shudder, can you guess which ones?) You can modify things to check to see if people aren't gaming the system (a small group of people posting the identical thing to boost the rating, etc) but if that's what people are discussing then that's your trending topic.

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[easyTree]

Each point was referred to - not the same as addressed.

I responded to point out that you don't have an argument.

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[Raenex]

Each point was referred to - not the same as addressed.

Word games. There was plenty for you to respond/address yourself, as can be seen by your reply when you were called out on your name calling without any counter-argument.

I responded to point out that you don't have an argument.

That was you. Also, I'm not the person who originally responded to you, so if that person wants to take up the argument it's up to them, not me. The bottom line for me is extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.

Re: If that is what is popular so be it

[easyTree]

Also, I'm not the person who originally responded to you

On this point I'm pwnd - I hadn't noticed lol.

This Theory Is Everywhere

[alternative_right]

http://www.wnd.com/2016/08/911...

People are fawning all over it. Of course, some cynics have struck back:

http://www.amerika.org/politic...

Re:This Theory Is Everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

JFK to 911 - Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick

Maybe we're asking too much

[presidenteloco]

of the book of faces.

It's a book of faces after all, not a book of facts.

For that, we have the CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/pu...

which interestingly is now confirming what I always suspected: That we have never been at war with Oceania.

Re:Maybe we're asking too much

[Qzukk]

If they didn't want it on facebook, they'd have put a naked kid on front.

Re:Maybe we're asking too much

[Anonymous Coward]

The CIA factbook is pretty fun. For us non US people it is always interesting how oversimplified their view of other countries are.
It's like they just take some first grade geography text book and cut out the parts that makes the texts true.

For example they list more than 80% of the population in my country as christian.
What they don't list is that the way the data is gathered is that anyone who hasn't explicitly stated their religion is assumed to be christian.

YUO FAIL It!

[Anonymous Coward]

and Michael S8ith while th3 project

Small wonder

[nospam007]

Everybody knows that FaceBook users have no bullshit detector or they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Re:Small wonder

[UnknownSoldier]

n/t -- see .sig

--
FecesBook: where other people's bullshit is posted as "news"

Re:Small wonder

[angel'o'sphere]

Most facebook users I know are there for events (not even for friends).
I doubt anyone I know is going there or is registered there for "news"

So your idea is pretty retarded ...

Damnit, I predicted this.

[SuricouRaven]

When the story broke about the political bias scandal, I posted here a prediction of what a purely algorithmic news feed would look like. This is pretty close to one of my predictions.

Here's the problem: The internet is full of *lies*. It is very hard for an algorithm to tell what is true and what is not. Often the not-true stories are the most popular, because they can play into what people wish to believe. That's why you need human editors.

Now all we need is some nice clickbait. Something like "This housewife makes $120,000 a year from home, see how she does it!"

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lies."

Sure.

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[PopeRatzo]

Trending now:

"The Hidden Connection Between ISIS and the iPhone7's Missing Earphone Jack"

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[alvinrod]

Reminds me of that AI that Microsoft put on Twitter a few months back that got turned into a Nazi within about 24 hours due to people messing with it. Unless you have a really intelligent algorithm, it won't take too long before a person figures out how to manipulate it. Some do so for their own profit like all the SEO stuff targeted at Google's algorithms and others just do it for their own twisted amusement.

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Computer can't understand a news story, but it's going to understand the REST of the world (in 3D no less) and drive safely at speed through the mayhem. All the while goading the passenger to Make Money Fast with click bait ads while they try to change the radio. Awesome!

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem: The internet is full of *lies*. It is very hard for an algorithm to tell what is true and what is not. Often the not-true stories are the most popular,

Then they should be displayed on the top of what's supposed to be a most popular list, true or not.

Trending Topics is supposed to be a list of what's trending. I don't care if it's true or not, just that it's trending. If a lot of people are talking about 9/11 conspiracies than it damn well better appear on the list!

It's "trending topics" not "socially acceptable topics."

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The mainstream media, both printed and broadcast, is full of lies as well. Many of the lies are very popular. They've got human editors, too.

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[Gravis Zero]

Here's the problem: The internet is full of *lies*. It is very hard for an algorithm to tell what is true and what is not. Often the not-true stories are the most popular, because they can play into what people wish to believe. That's why you need human editors.

While this is true, IBM has made some impressive headway during the creation of WATSON in sifting out fact from fiction. They will need to employ the same types of algorithms to judge the truthfulness of things or just give up an go with humans.

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors hate what this man does with systemd, click here to find out why!

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[SuricouRaven]

The IRIS problem also comes to mind. A third-party Siri competitor - it was supposed to be a virtual agent similar in function, but not so tied to apple, and was fed with a knowledge base gathered by natural language processing whatever a web crawler could drag in. Unfortunately the web crawler stumbled upon a few religious sites, and assimilated all the information it found within - which resulted in people asking it for information about contraception and getting back a rambling rant about sin and natural law.

Re:Damnit, I predicted this.

[SuricouRaven]

Facebook has their reputation to think about. If the trending list shows things that are obviously wrong, that's going to reflect badly on them. Worse, if the trending list shows things that are highly offensive, that's going to reflect really badly on them. They got off fairly lightly with a 911 conspiracy theory, people will just dismiss that out of hand. There are far worse possibilities.

Re: Damnit, I predicted this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't realise that you're requesting to be protected from "dangerous" stories.

What you're really saying is that you're no longer able to make critical decisions and want someone else to do it for you.

9/11 was quite clearly a false flag, anyone who's looked at the evidence will come to that conclusion. Yet here you are, convinced by ignorance that the opposite is true and demanding that everyone who thinks differently should be barred from speaking. No different from what the mainstream media has been doing and suggesting for decades. In your defense, you probably don't know any better.

And then people wonder why crooks like Hillary and Trump get to be president. People like you not only deserve them, they're asking for them.

Watch "the occupation of the American mind" about the Israeli question, 9/11 was handled in exactly the same way. Not with facts, but with inundating the public with propaganda and lies until gullible fools started believing there was a consensus by the good white coat scientists.

Just look at any thread where people defend the official story. It's completely devoid of facts, because those who know them stop defending the official narrative. It's always "planes *must* have done a lot of damage", fires *must've* weakened the steel. Yet the report that quantifies these things and contradicts these assumptions has been out for a decade. But nobody seems to mind that they're regurgitating falsehoods.

Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Slashdot is now on the team of the west's propaganda machine?

So, Facebook is supposed to censor alternative viewpoints now? I'm not exactly convinced by the "controlled demolition" theory, but I see no reason to censor it either.

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much this. The same applies to vaccines and so many other things.

I understand that in the modern age, popular opinion can be swayed far, far away from the truth. I don't see how closing ourselves off from the ignorance does ANYTHING AT ALL to fix it. We can only learn when ignorance is exposed and dissolved.

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

JEWISH VACCINES DID 9/11

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there it is. Anyone who believes that is true should probably STFU or they're next. The rest of us have nothing to worry about. That wasn't so hard!

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

The general population does not want to admit it, but I have two words that you should really look in to: "Building 7". Why did that one get demolished? No planes hit it. Fireman said they heard controlled explosions as it went down. It contained a lot of information from all the 3-letter agencies. Why did all the evidence get hauled off so quickly? Because some found evidence of thermite. Why did Larry Silverstien say "We already had so much loss of life, we made the decision to pull it" (referring to bldg 7). Face it. We were not told the entire truth about that days events. I suspect that Bush senior has the fully story. Worth asking him.

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone really should watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeuQqP-NLnE

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. The thing that always kills me about that allegation is that he says they decided to pull it.

Implying that they could have decided not to. Further implying they had a contingency plan to leave it standing.

Try this link instead to see exactly how damaged Building 7 was before it fell.

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is crazy how programmed people are to start slinging really severe ad-hominem whenever somebody tries to discuss that. Except for the ones who all say things like, "well, yeah, duh"

Re:Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

^ This.
 
The truth is out there.
 
The biggest conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 was the one perpetuated by the Bush administration.
 
Essentially that radical Muslims who are envious of our freedoms and led by Osama Bin Laden, hijacked four commercial planes and suicide-bombed them into three of their four targets - killing themselves and thousands of innocent people, as well as causing two steel framed 110 story buildings to collapse completely into dust in just seconds."

And yet when you do the research with a critical and open mind, you find that almost nothing about Bush's conspiracy theory can be substantiated.

I don't know the whole truth of 9/11 yet, but i'm calling complete bullshit on the official 9/11 story.
 
Someone has something to hide.

Re: Not verifiably false.

[Anonymous Coward]

That source is notoriously deceptive.

The official report about WTC7 concluded that the damage to the building was superficial and did not have an effect on its structural integrity. Only 7 perimeter columns were damaged by debris from the towers. If you don't want to read the full report, they have a FAQ on the NIST website that clearly states this.

WTC 7 was labeled the first fire induced steel high rise collapse in the history of fire.

Please inform yourself before you decide to defend the crooks that did this.

Re: Not verifiably false.

[cold fjord]

You don't seem to have understood the report. The report says the reverse of what you claim.

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

In response to comments from the building community, NIST conducted an additional computer analysis. The goal was to see if the loss of WTC 7's Column 79—the structural component identified as the one whose failure on 9/11 started the progressive collapse—would still have led to a complete loss of the building if fire or damage from the falling debris of the nearby WTC 1 tower were not factors. The investigation team concluded that the column's failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events.

Was it a crap story, or the very real evidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know what it showed as trending;

- one of the garbage hit pieces with junk science to try and convince people that the very real evidence (to people who understand what the scientific method actually is) is actually nothing to be taken seriously?
- or was it pointing to the very good work of scientists, architects, engineers and other experts who explain what the actual real scientific truth of the matter is?

I hope it was trending the latter and not the former.

solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear what the solution is. Do away with "trending now" entirely.

See only what your Facebook friends share, and their friends...

Re:solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful, that is a slippery slope to people realizing that they don't actually need facebook to exist for that functionality to be possible with the exact same hardware and infrastructure that exists already...

What's the problem?

[Tailhook]

Where is it written that FB must be a paragon of news excellence? Maybe we're better off if the place sinks to the tabloid level that the low-information debris that frequent the place prefer to see?

If the choice is between crap tabloid "news" and left-wing/SJW curated "news" I honestly can't say which is worse or that I care to choose. Fuck it; leave the dunderheads to their poison.

Not surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm born in '86, for reference, and I know more prople that believe it was a plot by Bush Jr. with controlled demolitions than believe than a terrorist plot.

Maybe it was a conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

After watching the collapse of Building 7 I have my doubts: https://youtu.be/Mamvq7LWqRU

Re:Maybe it was a conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

Trending News must have editors

[LeftCoastThinker]

Instead of ignoring the fact that we all have biases, do what Fox news did successfully for a long time and get both viewpoints to weigh in. The happy medium needs to be found. If FB had say 6 editors, 3 liberals and 3 conservatives they could have a voting system. Any topic that the software determines is a trending story goes to these 6 editors. Each editor gets a vote up or down. In theory they are only supposed to vote down click bait, trolling, and false stories. A vote of 4 or more down kills the story. If the 3 liberals cant differentiate between truth or fact, you fire them and hire 3 more liberals until you find 3 that are both liberal and smart enough to be able to differentiate BS from reality. (Say what you will about conservatives, they typically have better BS detectors.)

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Anonymous Coward]

says you...

Re: Trending News must have editors

[Anonymous Coward]

No party has a good bs detector if the story supports their narrow ideology. People want their ideas affirmed more than they want the truth.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

And how many liberal "birthers" have you met?

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd bet you'd suddenly find a whole bunch of them if somebody had an even remotely credible claim against Trump's origins.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think conservatives have better BS detectors. However, I've observed higher numbers of conservatives that have A.) good BS detectors, B.) a willingness to accurately call out the BS they see and C.) the ability to do so a calm, fair and rational manner.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Anonymous Coward]

"(Say what you will about conservatives, they typically have better BS detectors.)" - With the obvious exception being TRICKLE DOWN REAGANOMICS?

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Plus1Entropy]

A "remotely credible claim" would be about 1000x more credible than anything birthers have claimed about Obama.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Plus1Entropy]

Except when it comes to the magical man in the sky of course...

Re:Trending News must have editors

[meglon]

(Say what you will about conservatives, they typically have better BS detectors.)

And if by this you mean so irrationally gullible they fall for EVERY lie that comes along as long as it lines up with their tribal-head-up-ass world view, and actively try to avoid reality at all costs... then yes.

Re: Trending News must have editors

[will_die]

Lots. Don't forget the first lawsuit for the actual records was from a guy with ties to the hilliary for president office.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Hognoxious]

Instead of ignoring the fact that we all have biases

All of your bias are belong to Zuck.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[cold fjord]

Funny thing about that ....

Birther row began with Hillary Clinton - 27 Apr 2011

The lie that Barack Obama was not born in the US has been fuelled by fringe Republicans — but supporters of Hillary Clinton, now Mr Obama’s Secretary of State, are largely to blame for starting it.

Re:Trending News must have editors

[Plus1Entropy]

That doesn't contradict the point I was making. Also, and I know the article is over 5 years old, but one of those "fringe" Republicans is now their candidate for President.

So maybe Democrats created the monster, but Republicans are the ones who keep injecting it with steroids and letting it rampage through major population centers.

Maybe They Should Stay Out of the "News" Biz?

[RobotRunAmok]

Give their users the tools to incorporate whatever mainstream or bizarro feeds they want into their feeds or pages or whatever they call it. They can stick Free Republic or Daily Kos or Medijate or whatever other crazy-ass site they want up there next to Aunt Dolly's pix of recently baked muffins. FB can still sell profiles of their users to their real customers without worrying about pissing off the extremists, because it's 2017 and we're all online and we're all extremists, about one thing or another.

But Facebook won't do this, because it's not about the Money anymore, it's about the Power, and Facebook has something to prove to the Global Playas about their ability to mind-control the masses...

How's the official koolaid story taste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still believe the "official" story? Slurp, slurp, slurp suckers...

Hypocrite Complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

So facebook gets accused of censorship by controlling what ends up as "trending". Now, they scale that back and seemingly don't curate the stories that are trending, and people don't like what shows up and want facebook to censor it. I'm not fan of facebook, but come on... they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Analysis of the videos

[lkcl]

"Trending" means it's popular. People won't watch (and share) something that they don't actually want to watch. Here's the thing though about those WTC and Building 7 videos: a simple analysis of any of the off-the-street real-time videos - of which there were several so it's not like they could all be faked - by using simple equations of motion from O'Level Physics it is undeniably obvious that the tops of all of those buildings are in free-fall, accelerating at 9.8 metres per second squared.

Now, if a building is hit two thirds of the way up and becomes damaged, you would expect that damage to cause the top to fall over. Maybe some of the outer walls would fall off, but there would be a central core at least 1/2 to 1/3 of the height of the building sticking up. Bits would hit other bits, and it would take a long time and there would be rubble strewn out across a wide area, damaging the surrounding buildings and killing or injuring the people in them. You certainly would not expect it to collapse in a tidy heap at the speed of gravity where the entire building becomes a neat pile of rubble without any kind of significant damage to surrounding buildings.

For a quite insightful analysis which goes beyond the above brief invitation to use simple physics equations, logical analysis and reasoning, you might want to read this: https://steemit.com/tyranny/@b...

Bottom line is: not everything that "trends" under automatic algorithms (which would be filtered out by humans too scared of what they're seeing) is bullshit.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

If you post on Slashdot and don't think that 9/11 was an inside job, then get out, you're too stupid to be here!
Get off my lawn!

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

Updated news:
"Slashdot comments Features 9/11 Conspiracy Theory as 'Trending'"

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Fish (David Trout)]

Bottom line is: not everything that "trends" under automatic algorithms (which would be filtered out by humans too scared of what they're seeing) is bullshit.

Quite right. The twin towers and building 7 were all brought down by controlled demolition, and anyone who believes otherwise has either: a) not bothered to look at the overwhelming evidence supporting the theory, or: b) has looked at the evidence but is in self denial over it due to the extreme cognitive dissonance that frequently results in people who attempt to seriously entertain such a belief.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Dr. Evil]

"You certainly would not expect it to collapse in a tidy heap at the speed of gravity where the entire building becomes... "

And I know a guy who doesn't wear a seatbelt because he thinks his arms can keep his face from going through the windshield in a car accident.

Your intuition about physical processes is meaningless when dealing with materials and processes at these scales.

Without getting into the stupidity, the utter, mindblowing, holy-crap stupidity of the idea that hundreds of people sitting in offices throughout the WTC wouldn't say "HEY, you had a maintinence guy deliver a giant package and install it in the HVAC two months ago? me too! Maybe it was so that when the guberment crashed the jets into the building, it would make sure that the evacuated buildings blooo flat down! As opposd to havign the tops slide off or sides crumble like they were supposed to!"

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Mike Van Pelt]

Maybe some of the outer walls would fall off, but there would be a central core at least 1/2 to 1/3 of the height of the building sticking up.

I don't know why I'm attempting the hopeless task of trying to educate a "loose change" type person, but this shows you don't know how the Twin Towers were constructed. The outer walls were the structure. It was not hanging off of a central core. And before you do the tired old "fire can not soften steel" thing, google "Sherman's Neckties".

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

More idiots extrapolating from what they know about six-story brick and concrete buildings to 120-story steel-framed buildings. Folks, if you start with inaccurate assumptions it doesn't matter how logical your arguments are. Logic is a data processing technique and Garbage In, Garbage Out still applies.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

And you think this of Tower 7? Please continue explaining.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Carewolf]

"Trending" means it's popular. People won't watch (and share) something that they don't actually want to watch. Here's the thing though about those WTC and Building 7 videos: a simple analysis of any of the off-the-street real-time videos - of which there were several so it's not like they could all be faked - by using simple equations of motion from O'Level Physics it is undeniably obvious that the tops of all of those buildings are in free-fall, accelerating at 9.8 metres per second squared.

Now, if a building is hit two thirds of the way up and becomes damaged, you would expect that damage to cause the top to fall over. Maybe some of the outer walls would fall off, but there would be a central core at least 1/2 to 1/3 of the height of the building sticking up. Bits would hit other bits, and it would take a long time and there would be rubble strewn out across a wide area, damaging the surrounding buildings and killing or injuring the people in them. You certainly would not expect it to collapse in a tidy heap at the speed of gravity where the entire building becomes a neat pile of rubble without any kind of significant damage to surrounding buildings.

For a quite insightful analysis which goes beyond the above brief invitation to use simple physics equations, logical analysis and reasoning, you might want to read this: https://steemit.com/tyranny/@b...

Bottom line is: not everything that "trends" under automatic algorithms (which would be filtered out by humans too scared of what they're seeing) is bullshit.

You literally have no idea what you are talking about? Have you have seen video of building collapsing? They ALWAYS collapse straight down. There is rarely any overengineered piece that can withstand forces this far outside its design paramenters, so when good chunk in middle collapses, ALL of it collapses straight down.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

Citations, please.

Respectfully,

AC

Re:Analysis of the videos

[hey!]

Well, here's the thing: so much of what we take on faith as solid hangs on the slender thread of engineering. None of this kind of "it stands to reason" bullshit really stands to reason, because it's based on a false and shallow understanding of how the built world behaves.

It might look believable for Godzilla to pick up a ship and use it like a club in a movie, but a real ship would tear like tissue paper. Likewise buildings don't fall over because they have nowhere near the strength it would take to resist the kind of sheering forces involved. A massive structural failure like the WTC collapse consists of millions of extremely rapid, sequential failures; once the building is no long in static equilibrium, it might as well be made of smoke.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYSV2OxAvZE

Bull, they were designed to withstand a greater impact than they recieved as the WTC buildings were designed to handle a 707 at full speed which had a greater kinetic energy than a 767 at full speed.

http://www1.ae911truth.org/faqs/655-faq-9-were-the-twin-towers-designed-to-survive-the-impact-of-the-airplanes.html

Re:Analysis of the videos

[GoChickenFat]

Insightful? Apparently Slashdot "human editors" are no better at calling bullshit than a facebook algorithm.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

Any constructive or relevant input, or are you trolling? I see a lot of unanswered questions between the "bullshit"s around here. Maybe try addressing a few, sans ad hominem.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

You nailed it.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[nickmalthus]

2626 professional architects and engineers want an independent investigation of the events of 9/11. The 9/11 commission was only created after the strong insistence of the 9/11 victims families over a year later after that tragic event. It was initially going to be led by the politically polarizing figure Henry Kissinger and two of the co-chairs claim the commission was setup to fail. A new independent investigation is required to address the deficiencies of the original 9/11 commissions report.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, what about the BBC stating the building 7 fall half and hour earlier?

Re:Analysis of the videos

[dbreeze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... The outer walls were NOT the structure. The outer walls supported 30-40% of the building. The central core supported 60-70% of the weight. Please stop spreading misinformation. The 9/11 psyop is being used to this day to kill innocent people and enslave the weak-minded. You're part of the problem.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[dbreeze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... at about 8:30 into this video Mr.Gage touches on the elevator renovation that would have provided cover for setting of demolitions.
I would also contend that intuition is not meaningless. Even a layman can often observe a process and make reasonable conclusions about that process. Rather, I would caution any observer to beware of a government who tells you "Don't believe your lying eyes, trust us instead."

Re:Analysis of the videos

[dbreeze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I dare say you've never built anything for a living. Please, stop being part of the problem.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Plus1Entropy]

I like how you equate 40% of the structure as "not the structure". Also, you're only accounting for the weight load of the building. The outer walls were responsible for supporting 100% of the lateral load.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[dbreeze]

Another wannabe construction expert... even when no longer in "static equilibrium" a building is still composed of steel and concrete girders, trusses, beams, joists, columns, etc. all tied together with connections designed to be stronger than the materials being joined. Definitely not "smoke". Once the top of the first tower to fall tilted over the side of the tower there is no explanation for it's disintegration while falling other than explosives/demolitions. Building 7's collapse defies physics outside demolitions being placed inside.
Explain this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and my favorite question is this... Why the hell would Atta carry with him to the airport luggage containing all the items needed to confirm the official story when he should have only reasonably expected it all to be destroyed in the coming collision? How convenient that his bag didn't make the transfer at Boston and was there to confirm the official story.... Get real people... every day innocent people are being killed as a result of this lie. What part are YOU playing in this criminal tragedy?

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

HEY, you had a maintinence guy deliver a giant package and install it in the HVAC two months ago?

On or shortly after 9/11, I actually recall someone online saying there was some sort of shutdown of certain areas of the building with crews doing "something". The details are very faint now and I don't know if it's true or false, but if you're expecting something like this to be reported in (or even investigated by) mainstream media, well, that's never gonna happen.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

I respect your sincerity and share your suspicions, but please be informed that the 47 second video of T7 is severely faked. As proof, see here. I fell for it at first until I looked a little further. Of course this hardly detracts from the mainstream legitimate footage which is in itself more than ample reason to be suspicious. I don't know why the prick bothered to add to the already festering mire of 9/11 disinfo, but he's certainly not alone. It's these sort of pricks and the "dr" Judy Woods that do much to stigmatize the subject.

Perhaps the following is more pervasive than anyone could expect: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/internet_disinf.html

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

id10t

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew a fluid dynamics physicist who refused to go on record for fear of lowering his reputation who studied all the videos of the towers burning. He said the fires were nowhere near as hot as was claimed and continues to be claimed. He also said the fires were not jet fuel and that eventually came out that it was materials in the building that contributed most to the fire-- but it took a while before that came out. The jet fuel was almost all gone less than a minute after impact.

This was a guy who built rockets that ran on sawdust not just one of those physicists who only plays with plasma trying to discover affordable fusion reactors (which he also worked on.)

That said, the temperatures reached still could have been high enough to half the strength of the steel. Study of the steel would have shed light on this area but of course no attempt to do so was allowed.

As far as conspiracy; well, that is impossible to avoid because all versions involve conspiracy-- including the official conspiracy. The (should be) obvious cover-up going on reminds me of JFK on multiple levels. FYI, Johnson's tapes have come out admitting a conspiracy; he said he did it out of fear of what might be uncovered which could lead to WW3. He clearly didn't know from the tapes and didn't want anybody to know! He created the tape recording policy which Nixon blindly continued.

Re: Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but, before 9/11, not a single building had collapsed due to fire. In fact, I can't recall seeing any building collapse completely unless it was a controlled demolition.

Are you sure you're not thinking of movies instead of real life? Care to give us an example of a building completely collapsing?

Re:Analysis of the videos

[segedunum]

They ALWAYS collapse straight down. There is rarely any overengineered piece that can withstand forces this far outside its design paramenters, so when good chunk in middle collapses, ALL of it collapses straight down.

Nope, you haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. The debris and energy would dissipate outwards, lessening as it progressed. The central core of the building is bound together as one solid whole, not as separate floors - rather sensibly. There is no reason whatsoever for the buildings to have become unstable from top to bottom. Partial collapse, possible. Full collapse? Absolutely not.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[hey!]

Putting scare quotes around "static equilibrium" doesn't change the fact that those very impressive structural members can't resist the force of collapse to any significant degree. It doesn't matter how strong a structural member looks, what matters is its strength relative to load.

The problem with your folk-engineering conspiracy theory is that if buildings naturally toppled, then getting the building to act unnaturally would have taken weeks of physical preparation. Don't you think people would notice crews cutting beams and laying explosive charges?

Skyscrapers are extreme engineering. When a practicing structural engineer working on tall buildings says the collapse was a result of deliberate engineering, then I'll listen. Until then it's just more Internet hogwash.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand the free-fall argument. Video clearly shows fragments in the debris cloud falling down past static parts of the building that haven't collapsed yet.

If the top of the building is in free-fall, such that it is falling as fast as gravity will take it, how could any of the debris fall faster?

Your argument is like saying that something is moving at the speed of sound, when you can clearly hear it coming -- if you can hear it coming, the sound must be moving faster than it! Similarly, if the top of the building is in free-fall, there's no way that the debris could be moving faster than it!

dom

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Dr. Evil]

Somebody crashed planes into the buildings.

But it seems that people believe they had secret agents install some super-resillient, ultra-compact, undetectable explosives which would not detonate when a 250,000 lb aircraft hit it at 400 miles an hour, nor from the fire from 10,000 gallons of aviation fuel, but would be wired for a controlled demolition so as to flatten buildings which contained people who were evacuated except for people already dying from smoke and fire?

Whatever.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[powerlord]

The towers were detonated by a shot from the second gunman on the grassy knoll.

I thought everyone knew this already.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[dbreeze]

"When a practicing structural engineer working on tall buildings says the collapse was a result of deliberate engineering, then I'll listen."
You may want to consider giving these individuals some of your precious time...
http://www.ae911truth.org/abou...
http://www.ae911truth.org/news...

Re:Analysis of the videos

[hey!]

Those people are architects -- and one Mechanical Engineer. No structural engineers.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

A new independent investigation is required to address the deficiencies of the original 9/11 commissions report.

Well, it's a good thing that the debris was shipped out of the US as scrap to China and India as quickly as possible. Let's see you independently investigate evidence that no longer exists! Even the truss on display at NIST is a phony.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[cold fjord]

Building 7's collapse defies physics outside demolitions being placed inside.

That is false.

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

In response to comments from the building community, NIST conducted an additional computer analysis. The goal was to see if the loss of WTC 7's Column 79—the structural component identified as the one whose failure on 9/11 started the progressive collapse—would still have led to a complete loss of the building if fire or damage from the falling debris of the nearby WTC 1 tower were not factors. The investigation team concluded that the column's failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events.

Re: Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but, before 9/11, not a single building had collapsed due to fire. In fact, I can't recall seeing any building collapse completely unless it was a controlled demolition.

Are you sure you're not thinking of movies instead of real life? Care to give us an example of a building completely collapsing?

Couldnt help but comment on your assertion that not a single building had ever collapsed due to fire... I think you meant "steel-reinforced building"

Re:Analysis of the videos

[angel'o'sphere]

You are mixing stuff up quite wildly.

The main argument of the "non conspiracy" people is: the whole building is made of steel, and the floors are hanging on that steel core.

There is no outer shell stabilizing it.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[angel'o'sphere]

You literally have no idea what you are talking about? Have you have seen video of building collapsing? They ALWAYS collapse straight down.
Yes we have plenty.
And all the videos we see were a building is collapsing is a video about a planned demolition. So, the building does not really collapse but ends up in a neatly pile of rubble.
For some strange reason: that is exactly how the two towers of WTC ended. That is what you are referring, to. right?
In other words: collapsing buildings by natural causes are extremely rare on footage. Probably that explains your strange view.

Unfortunately, due to earth rotation and the height of the buildings, the buildings would topple over east ward. The stuff atop of the impact would be more or less intact stories that just dropped down from 100m height, and not "rubble".
The stuff below the impact of the plane would not even collapse, there is no reason for it.

so when good chunk in middle collapses, ALL of it collapses straight down.
No, it does not. See above. That is physically impossible.

Next time you have the opportunity: drop a stone into a deep well. It hits the wall before it hits the ground. Every child knows that. But well, you likely never were a child. Hitting the wall with the stone is due to earth rotation, I believe something like 25 meters is deep enough to hit the wall before the ground.
In the same way everything taller than 25 meters, significantly collapses in direction of the earth rotation.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[angel'o'sphere]

There were a few air plane crashes into buildings.
None of them collapses, except the two WTC towers.
Go figure.

The stuff you say makes no sense anyway so I don't comment on it.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[dave420]

Read the list of occupations of those "experts" and soon you'll realise that a list of realtors and school drop-outs isn't probably the best source to cite if you want to look like you have a clue.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the thing... it was not undetectable.... It showed up everywhere. In all steel tested. That is the reason why so little steel was tested and the rest of it carted off and recycled.

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

doubleplusgood news from cold fjord propaganda agency

Re:Analysis of the videos

[Anonymous Coward]

unstable from top to bottom. Partial collapse, possible. Full collapse? Absolutely not.

The suggestion was that the top floors simply collapsed on the bottom part once becoming unstable. Nobody suggested that the bottom part of the structure became unstable before the top part and the plane collapsed over it. Also this was a building from the happy 70's New York. Who knows what compromises was passed by bribing the officials of the time and by not being able to model the structure as well as in today's world.

next month

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably have to wait for the ads at the bottom of every site to rotate out so the new ones can trend. This set is all worn out ;p

How to hide inconventient ideas

[Alain Williams]

If I wanted to stop people taking alternative explanations to an event seriously I would find convenient nutters to add their wacky ideas to the list of explanations and get them onto talk shows, lecture circuit, etc. The more outlandlish the better; aliens - even better; new physics - great; the proposer have a checkered past and outlandish hairstyle - just who we want. The result is a couple of dozen of competing ideas for people to read; they will, rightly, dismiss many of them as cranky, and, by association, this reduces the credibility of the more considered explanations.

The ideas become hidden because mainstream media can ignore them by labelling them 'conspiracy theories'.

I'm not saying who/what caused the 3 buildings to fall on 9/11, but the official story has questions in it that it's authors don't answer; some alternative stories seem to have good evidence behind them.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[TechyImmigrant]

If I wanted to stop people taking alternative explanations to an event seriously I would find convenient nutters to add their wacky ideas to the list of explanations and get them onto talk shows, lecture circuit, etc. The more outlandlish the better; aliens - even better; new physics - great; the proposer have a checkered past and outlandish hairstyle - just who we want. The result is a couple of dozen of competing ideas for people to read; they will, rightly, dismiss many of them as cranky, and, by association, this reduces the credibility of the more considered explanations.

The ideas become hidden because mainstream media can ignore them by labelling them 'conspiracy theories'.

I'm not saying who/what caused the 3 buildings to fall on 9/11, but the official story has questions in it that it's authors don't answer; some alternative stories seem to have good evidence behind them.

I thought the planes flying into the buildings were a pretty good explanation for why they fell down.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some questions the "controlled demolition" conspiracy theorists don't answer:

How much thermite (or other explosive) would be needed to do the job?
Where was it purchased?
How was it placed throughout the buildings with no one noticing?
Who placed it there?
Why haven't any of them been caught, or admitted their guilt?
What was their plan if the explosives had failed to do their job?

All of it is conjecture and circumstantial "evidence," because "truthers" don't actually do any investigation to confirm or deny their pet theories - they just know the truth.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the emails right. Almost every one of your points are easily explained. #TheSystemIsRigged

It's not your Government, you're the Government's, get it?

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

How much thermite (or other explosive) would be needed to do the job?
> Probability lots but alot less than jet fuel
Where was it purchased?
> So you're telling me the US govt cannot get their hands on thermite without leaving a papertrail? This isn't you or me, you're talking about a fairly powerful entity here.
How was it placed throughout the buildings with no one noticing?
> There are many reports of people on the ground reported seeing things including explosions on the ground at the time, do your research.
Who placed it there?
> Inside job was the name of the article.
Why haven't any of them been caught, or admitted their guilt?
> Derrrrrp
What was their plan if the explosives had failed to do their job?
> Derrrrrp

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical fact-free rectally-ejected "Truther" reply. You don't have ANY actual answers, just more hot methane.

"How do you know they didn't...?" "What makes you think they couldn't...?"

The word "investigate" is truly foreign to you, isn't it?

"I have a possible explanation" != "my explanation is correct."

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the planes flying into the buildings were a pretty good explanation for why they fell down.

That's the thing. Everyone knows the US has plot armor, so how do mere planes cause damage?

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, not at one point did I claim the last bit of wisdom you stated. And because I don't respond to paid trolls since Slashdot I'd say without a doubt is run by Clinton foundation recipients. I will say just this.

You're on the losing end. Look at even this story alone and you'll start to see the bigger picture. Facebook stopped intervening on trending topics and the topics of the masses bubbled to the surface. The true popular topics came to light.

If you refute this you're not looking at the true argument in the first place. Research building 7 and go from there. God bless ðY

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[dryeo]

2 Planes managed to take out 3 buildings, with the third containing much interesting paperwork that conveniently burned up..

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you _do_ question 9/11, you'll get a Bill Clinton type response: "How Dare You!" We'll have to wait for the emotional connotations to subside and current power brokers to die off in 100 years before a real, unbiased investigation can begin.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Gavagai80]

I think the more fundamental point for a sane person to consider would be this: no conspiracy would've changed the method used to bring down the buildings. If the CIA (for example) decided to take out the WTC with explosives and blame it on Al-Qaeda, they'd obviously accuse Al-Qaeda of planting the explosives by sending their operatives into the building or getting them jobs as window washers or whatever. All goals would be accomplished by that, and with less economic collateral damage too since it wouldn't have temporarily depressed plane travel. The only reason for the CIA to use hijacked airplanes would be if they felt that was the most effective way to take down the buildings, in which case they would've gone ahead and done it that way.

Whether it's a conspiracy has nothing to do with the method selected to destroy the buildings. Heck, if one doubts how they were destroyed, one could much more plausibly argue that it was Al-Qaeda who rigged explosives and then pretended the planes did it because they wanted to scare people into thinking they could blow up buildings with just airplanes.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

All of it is conjecture and circumstantial "evidence," because "truthers" don't actually do any investigation to confirm or deny their pet theories - they just know the truth.

You don't know the "truth" either.
Let's look at the data. Ow, wait we can't because... you can't look at the data (see NIST, ...)

You might be right and I can be right. And we'll never know.

How is it when company X uses obfuscation to hide its data (m...) all of slashdot jumps in says they are evil, but when Y hides its data then its ok.

Could we at least look at the data which you used to draw your conclusions?
Off course not.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Ol Olsoc]

If I wanted to stop people taking alternative explanations to an event seriously I would find convenient nutters to add their wacky ideas to the list of explanations and get them onto talk shows, lecture circuit, etc.

I see - you ascribe to the conspiracist conspiracy conspiracist conspiracy conspiracist conspiracy conspiracist conspiracy theory. 8^&

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Ol Olsoc]

2 Planes managed to take out 3 buildings, with the third containing much interesting paperwork that conveniently burned up..

And O'bama and Hellary were seen running out of the area right before they fell. A coincidence? I don't think so!

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[segedunum]

I thought the planes flying into the buildings were a pretty good explanation for why they fell down.

Then you don't know much about buildings, which thankfully, most people don't.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[segedunum]

It also meant, conveniently, insurance could be claimed in the event that the WTC buildings were lost. All of them.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, if you want to convince me or anyone else, answer the questions.

Don't pretend to answer with supposition and hand-waving. We don't need more "what ifs," we need evidence.

How much thermite? You don't know? Why not? Surely that must be relevant.
Where did it come from? You don't know? Of course not.
Who placed it there? You're really not interested in finding out?
Armchair quarterbacking is much easier.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[dbIII]

Well I do know a bit and I can tell you that buildings on fire tend to fall down.
Dumbed down enough for you?

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[dbIII]

How much thermite (or other explosive) would be needed to do the job?

Why bother when you can use hundreds of tons of aviation fuel and paper?

There is no point following these losers down a rabbit hole because they have no clue about any of the questions you have asked.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Research building 7 thats all I ask.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

A hundred tons of aviation fuel? Do you hear yourself.? You are the one that sounds 10 karat stupid.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Foo Ken]

That's not an explanation, that's a narrative that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Even the evidence in the official report doesn't support that theory.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... citation needed.

Please provide a list of steel framed highrises that have suffered total collapse from fire damage.

Because you know, it's super fucking easy to find examples of buildings that burned like a torch and stayed standing. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[segedunum]

Complete collapses? Nope. Especially of buildings of that size - which is why firefighters were comfortable going up. There is no reason for the floors below to be affected. A partial collapse is possible, a full one, not a chance.

There are two possibilities - either something nefarious caused those buildings to collapse, or they were built like the Towering Inferno and incredibly shoddily built, which is certainly possible. Either way, it's a scandal.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[cold fjord]

2 Planes managed to take out 3 buildings, with the third containing much interesting paperwork that conveniently burned up..

There is no genuine mystery here, the facts are available. Perhaps that is inconvenient for you?

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

In response to comments from the building community, NIST conducted an additional computer analysis. The goal was to see if the loss of WTC 7's Column 79—the structural component identified as the one whose failure on 9/11 started the progressive collapse—would still have led to a complete loss of the building if fire or damage from the falling debris of the nearby WTC 1 tower were not factors. The investigation team concluded that the column's failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events.

9/11 "Truthers" are one of the ugliest plagues to curse Slashdot.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[cold fjord]

Knock yourself out.

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[TechyImmigrant]

>Whether it's a conspiracy has nothing to do with the method selected to destroy the buildings. Heck, if one doubts how they were destroyed, one could much more plausibly argue that it was Al-Qaeda who rigged explosives and then pretended the planes did it because they wanted to scare people into thinking they could blow up buildings with just airplanes.

This is where Occam's razor comes in handy.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[TechyImmigrant]

That's not an explanation, that's a narrative that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Even the evidence in the official report doesn't support that theory.

OK, let me fill in a little more detail in words you might understand, since you've chosen to ignore the detailed explanations in the NIST report.

A) Building: A very tall, very heavy thing, supported by a metal framework with lots of vertical bits.
B) Plane: A very heavy fast thing, full of fuel.
C) Plane hits building in the middle of its rise, destroys many vertical bits by virtue of being heavy. The fuel fuels a big hot fire that compromised the rest.
D) The heavy bit above the bit the plane hit is then not supported sufficiently and falls down, taking out the parts below.

Burning buildings that caught fire from an errant cigarette are not the same as a burning building that has been mostly sliced in half by a plane and filled with jet fuel.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Building 7?

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[TechyImmigrant]

Building 7?

What of it? Are you saying the twin towers were downed by aliens because of building 47?

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

If terrorist did the job, they would plant bombs on one side of building to attempt to make the building fall over to maximize damage. This was done by our own guys, they minimized collateral damage by using explosives and the planes. The thermite reaction from the aluminum bodied planes would burn the steel beams and at the point of failure, explosives were fired off dropping the building into it's own footprint...teamwork in action.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Jet fuel cant reach a temperature high enough to melt steal.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[TechyImmigrant]

Jet fuel cant reach a temperature high enough to melt steal.

Stealing melts wasn't in question.

Re: How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect, your answer should be in the form of:

"x lbs/kilograms/tons"

Basic questions one should ask when testing a theory, and you have no idea.

Research "crime scene investigation," that's all I ask...

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[strikethree]

If I recall correctly, in August of 1998, Bill Clinton sent tomahawk cruise missiles to Afghanistan to take out terrorist training camps. He eventually admitted it was done on the basis of spying through satellite phone conversations.

Osama bin Laden's reply was (roughly, not exactly), "We may not be able to afford 5 million dollar cruise missiles but we can use your airplanes against you as guided cruise missiles."

Not being aware of the suicidal nature of those people at the time, I could only think of remote control since parachuting out of passenger jets was made impossible after D B Cooper's famous escape.

It was not until 11 September 2001 that I recalled in horror what was said... and now I can find no trace of it anywhere.

Regardless, it was bin Laden that perpetrated the attacks. The CIA or other government agencies may have suspected and a few individuals may have been certain that it was going to happen, but it certainly was not a US Government plot.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to keep my nose out of all this, but never before in the history of tower building has a tower come down because of fire. None since either. I'm sure you are smart enough to find multiple tower building fires on YouTube and none of them came down. None.

As for an airplane bringing down a building, explain to me how an aluminum aircraft can bring down a concrete steel reinforced building. If you want to say that the airplane was flying at 580 mph at sea level, then you have zero grasp on physics and zero grasp on fluid dynamics because that airplane could not possibly fly that fast at sea level. You would have zero grasp on aerodynamics.

If it were that easy to bring down a building in such a neat pile with just an airplane and nothing else, demolition companies would no longer need to spend months on damaging a building enough for it to come down with explosives. They would be using airplanes to bring down buildings in less than an hour with out the months of planning, and the exorbitant costs.

I'm ready to be dazzled with your "BS" and lack of knowledge. (Grabbing popcorn and ready for a face palm)

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey cold fjord.
Got yor daily propaganda money? 50 cents for a post?

Remember this.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Bin Laden newer admitted that he was behind the attacks.
He sayd, that he approves the attack, but does not have nothing to do with it.

And Bin Laden was a CIA asset. An "old boys club" member, probably a mason.

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that is something like the "Ruling Party gives doubleplusgood letters from friendly government"

Re:How to hide inconventient ideas

[TechyImmigrant]

Feel free to put forward your own hypothesis that isn't crackpot.
I put forward mine.

Until then your are just trolling.

9/11 Trillions: Follow The Money

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-308-911-trillions-follow-the-money/

Re:9/11 Trillions: Follow The Money

[dbreeze]

Mr. Corbett did an outstanding job of tying together many obscure connections and influences of 9/11.

Yea, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is full of fucking retards. So what? Find a way to make money off of them.

How did WTC7 collapse? ..and other resources

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.corbettreport.com/how-did-wtc7-collapse-video/

https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-the-911-whistleblowers/

https://www.corbettreport.com/nsa-whistleblower-supports-911-truth-william-binney-and-richard-gage-on-grtv/

https://www.corbettreport.com/how-to-steal-an-airplane-from-911-to-mh370/

https://www.corbettreport.com/who-was-really-behind-the-911-attacks/

https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-741-jeremy-rys-identifies-the-real-911-suspects/

https://www.corbettreport.com/the-nsa-and-the-911-deception/

Interview with Loose Change maker

[Anonymous Coward]

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

PS: Finally, for the first time, Facebork does something right and people complain. You fastidious clods!

Not long ago, Slashdot fired human editors

[Anonymous Coward]

who took care of it, but then earlier today, an incomplete run-on sentence.

Re:Not long ago, Slashdot fired human editors

[Anonymous Coward]

AC's comment is because the summary contains this sentence:

Not long ago, it fired the human editors who took care of it, but then earlier this month, a fake story about Megyn Kelly.

Posted in case editors fix their mistake.

Here is what you have been told

[Anonymous Coward]

The Official Story is a crock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZV510yUpCk

aol?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone really expect a group of retired military generals to know dick about running a computer service company? It was surprising that they lasted as long as they did. They were able to scam the analysts for a while by lying about their subscriber numbers. Got their money and ran.

Danny Jowenko Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

A professional opinion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2oZpXVOvdE

Celebrate !

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy 9/11,
Happy 9/11,
Happy 9/11, Slashdot cocksuckers
Happy 9/11 !

Things not Going Well at The Ministry of Truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubleplus ungood!

Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[MrKaos]

An "Official Report" is not a Forensic Investigation that conducts various scientific analysis of the crime scene. The very fact that there has been no formal Forensic Investigation with evidence given from structural engineers and scientists on what was the biggest crime scene in U.S is evidence enough of some sort of conspiracy, regardless of how it was achieved.

The laws justified after 9/11 were the very ones that enabled the type of police state monitoring of citizens that not just US, but many other countries like the UK, Canada, Australia and, others all endure today. Before 9/11 western governments had not passed laws to remove our freedoms (that terrorists hated) because adequate laws were already in place to deal with terrprism. Those laws were based on what was learned by the UK government dealing with the IRA's terrorism.

Those two very obvious facts often go unacknowledged by 9/11 theorists and denialists because that allows them to (understandably) ignore the frightening reality that the laws justified by 9/11 moved western societies to an overt surveillance state. These two facts show us how and why, just not who could create such a conspiracy. Since time has revealed these laws to be in-effective at stopping terrorism that shows us who ever wants these laws to monitor us is very powerful indeed.

I don't know the specifics of how the towers were destroyed, but I do know that the laws passed because of 9/11 left us in a police state.

Re:Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

> Since time has revealed these laws to be in-effective at stopping terrorism that shows us who ever wants these laws to monitor us is very powerful indeed.

What's the point of monitoring if they can't stop shit?

Re:Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[MrKaos]

> Since time has revealed these laws to be in-effective at stopping terrorism that shows us who ever wants these laws to monitor us is very powerful indeed.

What's the point of monitoring if they can't stop shit?

Exactly.

Re:Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know the specifics of how the towers were destroyed, but I do know that the laws passed because of 9/11 left us in a police state.

All I needed to be convinced was seeing the live television broadcast of the incident which started 15 minutes after the first plane hit. What came after was beyond the laws enacted. It was the way many people reacted to stimulus and to foreign influences (ironic in the country like the US). This psychological change was a very important factor in pushing the US a little bit towards a police state. Fortunately not every school kid is guided to report politically wrong speech of their peers to the teachers and political officers in schools, leading, of course, to the disappearance of the parents. Yet.

Re:Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

The feeling that they're in control.

Re:Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[strikethree]

I saw the towers drop live. It appears to be clear that they were intentionally dropped. I would have to guess that they were dropped to prevent more death and destruction, such huge structures falling uncontrollably would cause amazing amounts of damage... but how can you explain a decision like that to the public; ergo, the secrecy around it.

Missiles, duplicate planes, etc all seem crazy, but I can see how such conspiracy theories start: Those buildings did NOT fall naturally. They were intentionally dropped.

Re:Forensic Investigation of 9/11

[MrKaos]

such huge structures falling uncontrollably would cause amazing amounts of damage

Back in the 90s I was obsessed with WTC as a place I wanted to visit and possibly work at. For some time there were design documents of WTC was available online and to my fascination and horror, they collapsed *precisely* how the engineering and fire documents said the building would. IIRC one floor was engineered to take the weight of 1-2 of the floors above before it would pancake. It was also designed to take the impact of a fully fuelled 707, so I don't know how that compares to a 767.

The only thing I didn't see in those specs was that one building would fall because another tower did, that does not make a lot of sense. Perhaps a forensic investigation would have had a civil engineer available to answer those questions for us.

Those buildings did NOT fall naturally.

If you mean, the structures were interfered with, then knowing that is the justice that all American and, indeed all people of the world, have been denied.

it IS a controlled demolition

[elcor]

so what's the big deal, false flag has been used for centuries. You think every person in power in the US is so moral they're above that?

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows Porsche did it to sell more 911's.

Europhysics, not a British tabloid

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason why it is taken serious now, is because it has been published in Europhysics. Not "a British tabloid".

It it's 'trending' and is on the social stuff ...

[aglider]

Then it must be the one and only truth!

FFS

[ledow]

God, the sheer fucking waste of human time with amateurs "analysing" this kind of crap.

If this set of comments in any way reflects real-world proportions, we're fucked.

Hey, everyone, Princess Diana was killed in a royal conspiracy! That was 19 years ago, let's continue to make up bollocks about that too!

This is also my biggest problem with YouTube. If you have time to piss about editing hours of video and "analysing" it by looking at blocky MPEG frames, you really need to be given community service to get you doing something more productive.

This site used to be full of insightful and rigorous discussion and technical info. I think I'm done.

Clickbait is trending!

[No Longer an AC]

is this news?

I mean, I really would have thought the 9/11 truthers would have burnt out by now and those of us who don't think it was a conspiracy aren't lured in by such things now but then again I'm not the type of person who uses Facebook so maybe they'll still click on that crap.

Re: Clickbait is trending!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you keep using the word "conspiracy" as a synonym for "something that isn't true", do you expect to ever figure out what really happened?

FALSE FLAG EVENT - WAKE UP AMERICA

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Feith, Zakheim ... the architects of 9/11.

Check out Christopher Bollyn's books. All roads lead to Israel.

Truth fears no investigation.

 

umm..it was controlled demolition

[Anonymous Coward]

buildings don't just collapse into their own footprint without some planning.

there are still people like that?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to tell me there are still people who think controlled demolition isn't what caused the 3 towers to collapse that day?

seriously?

911 Myths debunked

[Martin S.]

Then lets play the same game and see if we can get this trending

http://www.debunking911.com/

Problem?

[SuperDre]

What's the problem? Why is Facebook getting slack because of this story? The story IS trending, and it IS true.... Because some people don't like the story, doesn't mean it isn't "trending".....

Compare It to New York Times

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the poison of the banksters is sold as facts. Much worse. That poison is used to whip up the sheeple into supporting the destruction of entire countries like Iraq and Syria.

Building 7

[PmanAce]

Not to put fuel in the fire but what is the official explanation for the controlled demolition style fall of building 7?

Re:Building 7

[cold fjord]

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

You might want to look into these too:

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Introduction to PM Expanded Investigation

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

two conspiracies, the official one and...

[quantic_oscillation7]

the other that tries to explain that the official one is a joke.

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

and several suspects....
https://www.youtube.com/result...

Look beyond Hollywood

[dbIII]

Instead of making us feel sick here why don't you go watch some Vegas demolition videos or disaster footage.
Buildings don't just have bits fall off or topple like cardboard boxes like they do in the Hollywood movies.

Also you've already seen why this happened you just are not thinking clearly. Surely you've seen at least on TV if not anywhere else a smith heating up steel so it's soft enough to work? Hot structural steel cannot support the weight above so the whole thing collapses - simple as that.

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[Anonymous Coward]

Hot structural steel cannot support the weight above so the whole thing collapses - simple as that.

Collapses in a free-fall? Without any indication of resistance whatsoever? Experts on the subject have something different to say: http://ae911truth.org

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[dbIII]

Please stop trolling.

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[segedunum]

Instead of making us feel sick here why don't you go watch some Vegas demolition videos or disaster footage.

Making you feel sick? It is what it is I'm afraid and I wasn't responsible.

Buildings don't just have bits fall off or topple like cardboard boxes like they do in the Hollywood movies.

I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to tell us.

Also you've already seen why this happened you just are not thinking clearly. Surely you've seen at least on TV if not anywhere else a smith heating up steel so it's soft enough to work? Hot structural steel cannot support the weight above so the whole thing collapses - simple as that.

There is a lot of steel in that building, most of which as on the lower floors was completely intact and had no reason to be destabilised. The whole bottom two thirds of the buildings were solid, intact structures. You're not going to stabilise anything above which will cause all of that to crumble from top to bottom. You'll get a dissipation of debris and energy.

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[segedunum]

Yep, that's about the level of intelligent debate you get on this.

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[dbIII]

Debate? You are just doing a local version of holocaust denial despite things like the report into the building collapse being linked in this very discussion.
Yes you "win" by getting plenty of anger from people who think you are lower than dirt for doing this shit - congrats on your "win". Do you piss on soldiers graves as an encore?

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[dbIII]

You'll get a dissipation of debris and energy.

Bullshit. It's in the report linked else where - buckling and the whole thing came down just like in thousands of fires.

Slashdot - where coder boys spew words they do not understand at engineers and think they should be taken seriously despite not knowing shit about what they are talking about. How about you spend a couple of years reading about solid mechanics and then get back to us when you have finally started to understand that you don't "know about buildings" but you've got a little bit of a grip on the concepts. Then you may be a bit less reluctant to put down those of us in the "reality based community" when we discuss buildings catching fire and falling down.

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[Anonymous Coward]

Also you've already seen why this happened you just are not thinking clearly. Surely you've seen at least on TV if not anywhere else a smith heating up steel so it's soft enough to work? Hot structural steel cannot support the weight above so the whole thing collapses - simple as that.

Again trying to keep my nose out of it.... Yes I have seen that many times. A black smith will often use Acetylene in oxygen with a temp of about 3100 degrees C or about 5612 F. Some can even use Propane with oxygen with a temp of about 2800 C or 5072 F. Yea I get it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_burner

It sure would be a lot cheaper to use JetA to do the same thing.... Oh that is right its maximum temp is about 1000 C if all conditions are perfect. Steel starts to melt at about 1500 C. So no. Not possible. Well you say over time. Well, no to that too because all the JetA would have flowed down to lower floors and would have been put out by the firefighters who made it to the important floors where the airplane hit.

Also remember that it did not collapse from the bottom, it came down from the top where almost no JetA remained. Not even office furniture can burn that hot. The bottom floors not affected by burning JetA and had already supported the building for almost 30 years were completed demolished.

So once again, a no on steel soft enough to collapse.

(some how I feel like I am going to get a response that will remind me of someone from the Westboro Church)

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean by holocaust denial?
Cronology of official numbers in Auschwitz camp in Poland.

The first is the plaque that was on display at the Auschwitz camp from 1948 until 1989.
"Four million people suffered and died here at the hands of the nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945"

The second official plaque on display at Auschwitz. From 1989 to some 2-3 years back (2013 maybe).
" For ever let this place be a cry of despair and warning to humanity where the nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children mainly jews from various countries of europe. Auschwits-birkenau 1940-1945"

The current official plaque on the Auschwits camp wall talks about "thousands of people who suffered there".

So, official numbers are down from 4 million to thousands, but the narrative of 6 million lives on?

Re:Look beyond Hollywood

[dbIII]

Why did you write that utter mess? Instead of making shit up and assuming that a thousand years ago people making horseshoes were using acetylene how about you spend a few minutes getting a clue.

Steel doesn't need to melt to get very soft.
Think of blacksmiths with charcoal making horseshoes many years back.

Jet fuel plus paper plus sawdust is going to burn a bit hotter than that blacksmith would have needed with the horseshoes. Hot steel beams softened, buckled and the building fell down.

Please, not the old crank driven conspiracy theory

[cold fjord]

After watching the collapse of Building 7 I have my doubts: https://youtu.be/Mamvq7LWqRU

Nope. You need to look at this:

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

Just a simple question about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a 'truther' or a 'denier', I'm just someone who doesn't fully understand. I'm hoping someone can point me to available information to help me answer a question I've had trouble answering since 2001.

Set aside for a moment, all of the weird reports of the media being tipped off and announcing that building 7 had collapsed before it did or the military drills that were going on before 9/11 covering a similar scenario as to what actually occurred, or the molten steel they found in the basements of those buildings, or the plane which hit the pentagon leaving a hole the size of the fuselage which cleanly penetrated 6 walls which should have shorn off the wings (and engines) and yet there being no significant wreckage to see, the official explanation for this being that the plane had mostly vaporized, or flight 93 not leaving any wreckage... Honestly its just too messy and I just don't know what to make of it.

My question gets at a relatively non-complex aspect of the events of that day. In regard of building 7 (not the north or south tower) and Citing this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34XrI2Fm6I
The lease holder of the WTC complex says they made the decision to 'pull' the building. Which I take to mean that they were going to actively demolish it. So my question is simple, how did they make this happen? If it was controlled demolition, when was the building prepared for this? If it wasn't, how was it done so cleanly? The building fell into its own footprint and was not hit by a plane. It had some small fires...

Honestly, I'd feel a lot better if I could just get a good answer to this question... I'd really appreciate it!

Re:Just a simple question about this...

[cold fjord]

You seem to be going in a lot of wrong directions. Maybe this will help:

World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories

In the PBS documentary America Rebuilds, which aired in September 2002, Larry Silverstein, the owner of 7 WTC and leaseholder and insurance policy holder for the remainder of the WTC complex, recalled a discussion with the fire department in which doubts about containing the fires were expressed. Silverstein recalled saying, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it". "They made that decision to pull", he recalled, "and we watched the building collapse." Silverstein issued a statement that it was the firefighting team, not the building, that was to be pulled.[72][78][79]

And this:

NIST Releases Final WTC 7 Investigation Report

The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

In response to comments from the building community, NIST conducted an additional computer analysis. The goal was to see if the loss of WTC 7's Column 79—the structural component identified as the one whose failure on 9/11 started the progressive collapse—would still have led to a complete loss of the building if fire or damage from the falling debris of the nearby WTC 1 tower were not factors. The investigation team concluded that the column's failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events.

You might want to look into these resources:

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Introduction to PM Expanded Investigation

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Re:Please, not the old crank driven conspiracy the

[G-forze]

And you need to look at this WTC 7 NIST Model vs. Reality It's a two minute video comparing the real footage of the collapse of Tower 7 to the NIST simulation. Can you tell me with a straight face that they match up? The simulation bends and twists all over, while the actual collapse is so smooth that most of the windows even remain intact until the very end.