Our minds on media.

Musings on the effects of media on cognition.

9/11 Truthies are Hurting Themselves

Now and then I have to steer myself over to the conspiracy wing of the Internet. There are so many conspiracy theories out there that you have to assume some of them are true—if only in part. Some part of me has no question that our government is nefarious enough to act out covertly against its own citizens, but when the facts start becoming visibly distorted—look at the domain on that link again, because the report is not coming from Ananova—you have to question the motives of the conspiracy theorists themselves. Worse still, rather than present coherent data or evidence, they point to the fact that Hollywood stars are asking the “same questions.” I don’t know if they are fair-minded enough to post my comment to their article, but here’s what I had to say about it:

Mark Ruffalo and Martin Sheen and George Carlin are all men that I respect and admire for their talent. But they are not engineers, architects, and physicists. I respect your right to question the government’s investigation, but where here on your site are the opinions of professionals with valid arguments against the facts as they currently stand?
I really don’t think the 9/11 truth movement does itself any good at all by trying to change the physical facts of what happened. If you believe that someone was behind it, pursue who you think was responsible; but stop reducing the travesty of the event by claiming that it was something other than what it was. Calls came off those planes—to friends and loved ones. There were witnesses to these crimes who testified just before losing their lives. There were men on those planes who steered them into the towers. If you believe those men were paid by our government or secretly given access with weapons to the planes, that’s one thing. Publishing nonsense about missiles and cockpits being empty or how Hollywood stars don’t understand structural engineering isn’t helping your cause any.

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