AE911 Speaking engagements

[ProBonoShill]

Originally Posted by ergo

They encountered a complaint from one malcontent.

No ergo, once again "academic staff" doesn't equate to one person.

Nor does "professors"

and the headline states

"UQÀM staff denounce 9/11 Truthers speech"

It's clear to anyone with a functioning brain they are referring to multiple people.


Maybe you should attend a remedial English class, it seems you have trouble understanding the language.

Quote:

Pretending that there are more of them than there are.

Gee I know people who do that very thing, they live in their parent's basements and hang out at youtube, can you guess who they are?

Quote:

If there were more than one, they could probably get a quote from more than one. They wouldn't have to go outside the university to get other opinions.

Yes we know ergo, everyone is part of the huge conspiracy including the CBC.

[ergo]

Originally Posted by ProBonoShill

No ergo, once again "academic staff" doesn't equate to one person.

Nor does "professors"

and the headline states

"UQÀM staff denounce 9/11 Truthers speech"

It's clear to anyone with a functioning brain they are referring to multiple people.

You don't know much about news writing, do you?

[triforcharity]

Well, if it was one person on staff, I would think the title would read something like "UQAM staff member denounces 9/11 Truth speech".

But, that is logical......

[ProBonoShill]

Originally Posted by ergo

You don't know much about news writing, do you?

How does my knowledge of "news writing" pertain to this thread?

Are you implying the CBC is making things up?

[ProBonoShill]

Originally Posted by triforcharity

Well, if it was one person on staff, I would think the title would read something like "UQAM staff member denounces 9/11 Truth speech".

But, that is logical......

Yeah or maybe "UQAM staffer denounces...", I don't know how a singular staff (it hurt to type that) could "denounce" anything.

I guess ergo has his very own language where "into" and "onto" mean the same thing and "academic staff", "UQAM staff" and professors equate to a single person.

[ozeco41]

Originally Posted by ergo

I can be serious.....

I doubt it.

[Scott Sommers]

Originally Posted by ProBonoShill

Yeah or maybe "UQAM staffer denounces...", I don't know how a singular staff (it hurt to type that) could "denounce" anything.

I guess ergo has his very own language where "into" and "onto" mean the same thing and "academic staff", "UQAM staff" and professors equate to a single person.

This is very interesting. First we have a physics and chemistry that were derived not by an empirical method but by are based on made-up rules that allow the observed events of 9/11 to be proof for some sort of government conspiracy. You need a squib for a demolition? Then that thing becomes a squib. So what if it doesn't look like a squib? It's a squib.

Now we have a new kind of English being invented to handle 9/11 based on the idea that any post about a 9/11 conspiracy can not contain a mistake. So even if there's a grammatical error, that becomes the new grammar for this new kind of 9/11 Truth-type English.

I guess is how ergo and these guys end up defending their friends for associating with Holocaust Deniers. Whatever a 9/11 Truth hero says or does is by definition correct. It's the creation of a whole new world of ideas and words where even accidents and mistakes have important meaning. Nothing is random. Nothing is wrong. If one the Truther heroes said it, then that's what's true.

I guess that's why they're heroes and anyone who disagrees with them, just a normal human.

[sylvan8798]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

If these speeches were being given at public events for any layman to attend I would not care less, for the very reason you just stated; average public people are gullible. But following from your above point, if they were to ask the audience at each of these universities if they agree that god exists they would not get a positive response. These are educated people at university.

I don't know where you are from or if you have attended university, but there are plenty of "educated" people who hold religious beliefs. In fact at many schools religious studies is a recognized major and most campuses have Newman Centers (Catholic), Hillel (Jewish), and other interfaith groups for the benefit of students as well as faculty and staff.

[ergo]

Originally Posted by ozeco41

I doubt it.

So answering the question here is beyond your grasp? How many words would it require?

[Grizzly Bear]

Originally Posted by ergo

You don't know much about news writing, do you?

We may need to take this to the history, literature, and the arts section if this needs to be comprehensively covered, but most news papers are written at a 6th grade level to make it accessible and understandable to a wide reader-base.

""UQÀM staff denounce 9/11 Truthers speech""

Is singular in the sense that it refers to one organization. The UQAM represents an adjective that modifies the noun, "staff".

In the above, the adjective refers to a group of people that comprise the staff roster. Much like "Obama administration," for example refers not to simply Obama, but Obama and his staff members. I would personally suggest that you study the function of basic grammar components such as noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, and so forth. Continuing this sort of thing without being familiar with basic grammar is something I wouln't personally recommend you attempt, but whatever.

[DGM]

Originally Posted by ergo

So answering the question here is beyond your grasp? How many words would it require?

Actually he did adress your question. The fact you're too lazy to read it and want everything "spoon fed" in not our (or his) problem.

Question. Why should anyone give a crap what you want? How many words will that take?

[ozeco41]

Originally Posted by DGM

Actually he did adress your question. The fact you're too lazy to read it and want everything "spoon fed" in not our (or his) problem...

Easily explained if we refer to horses, water, leading, drinking.

[sheeplesnshills]

Originally Posted by catsmate1

You obviously have no experience with such speakers; they routinely ignore contradicting points, avoid difficult questions and 'Gish Gallop' their way to a superficially plausible story.

No. You have provided no evidence that the audience was entirely, or even significantly, composed of university students. Furthermore even if it were this would have no effect on the utter lack of evidence for any of Gage's nonsense.


First you should establish that Gage has done so.


As I said above it is quite easy for someone like Gage to create asuperficially plausible story. This have no effect on the story being wrong.


Sigh. Yet again you haven't established that Gage is convincing "educated people". Have you any evidence that Gage's sermons aren't open to the public? Most universities allow their facilities to be used for public lectures and are undiscriminating in who is allowed to do so.

My local Liberal arts school (UNC Chapel Hill) is often in the news because some controversial speaker of another is invited by some student group.
The young Republicans invite some racist, the Liberals invite a communist, someone invites a radical muslim and the right wing christians protest etc etc

In any case students are not necessarily "educated"......they are there to be educated and for many its the first time they have come across folks with different ideas. In many schools they are not studying engineering, physics etc and what education they are getting in art history etc is not really much use in detecting Gages woo.

[kmortis]

Keep to the topic. The topic is neither squids nor the other posters.

Posted By:kmortis

[beachnut]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

...
Considering that these speeches were made at various top universities and engineering venues, why are we seeing such figures?

99.9 percent of people can read Gage's claims, figure out he spreads nonsense, and not attend an hour of delusional claims. Believing the squib claims presented by Gage is a sign of a weak mind, and that is not one of his biggest lies people who agree and raise their had have to believe. In Gage's presentation, he calls the WTC tower steel an incredible heat sink. Why does my computer have a copper heat sink? I would be tempted to stand up and call Gage a nut when he says heat sink. Gage's presentations are so stupid, so dumbed down, it hurts my head to watch the idiot speak. The only thing you can learn from Gage is how to raise money from fools too lazy to think for themselves.

If you want to see the personification of stupid, watch this video.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?doc...97765360042032#
Warning, this could hurt your head...
2 hours of stupid. This could be torture if forced to watch. How can people agree with Gage after he presents nonsense like this?


Gage presents Robertson explaining he designed the WTC towers to sustain an impact of a 707 flying SLOW, lost in the fog (180 mph) 45:50. Gage then says the 707 has the same kinetic energy as the planes on 911. OOPS, the connect energy of the design was equal to 187 pounds of TNT for the 707 design impact, and the kinetic energy of 11 and 174 were 1300 and 2000 pounds of TNT, 7 to 11 times greater than the design. Gage lies and does not pay attention to his own facts.

Gage says a 707 flies much faster than the 767/757. Not much faster, at sea level the 707 is slower at 339 knots, and the 767/757 are faster at 350 knots. At altitude the 707 has a max MACH of .88, and the 767/757 is .86. The 707 is not much faster. Gage is fraud. Gage says 500 mph for a 707, and 400 mph for the 767/757, out of thin air and exposes his ignorance as he sells lies. Agreement with Gages at the end of the talk exposes ignorance and fools. These are examples of false information Gage spreads, and why agreeing with Gage is a failure in logic and research.

[Zeuzzz]

Interesting how its perfectly acceptable to rip into "truthers" credibility here yet one rather tepid comment from me gets this thread split into an abandon all hope thread.

Why was ergo suspended too?

Anyways, this thread has been hilarious. And when I have the time I hope it will continue to be.

I think we need to have a system set up here where we "truthers" and people that disagree can only post alternate posts, that way there is no swamping of the facts by either side, rather a post by post debate.

[Oystein]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Interesting how its perfectly acceptable to rip into "truthers" credibility here yet one rather tepid comment from me gets this thread split into an abandon all hope thread.

ergo had moved goal posts away from the topic of Gage's persuasiveness as a speaker and towards the merely technical issue of squibs. That's why that derail was cut and sent to AAH.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Why was ergo suspended too?

That has nothing to do with this thread.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=222366

Originally Posted by Darat

ergo has been suspended for 24 hours for ignoring an in thread warning.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Anyways, this thread has been hilarious. And when I have the time I hope it will continue to be.

We hope you will continue. You have several points to reply to that have been raised by several posters.

In a nutshell, these mostly revolve around five rather obvious observations:

1. You have no idea what the qualifications and prior state of informedness of the attendees were. The venues on campus suggest an acedemic audience, but don't guarantee such. For example, many of the students in attendance were not students of engineering or science.
2. Persuasiveness often lies more in the rethoric abilities and attractiveness of the speaker than his arguments
3. The audiences were often, if not always, dominated by truthers, or people leaning the truthy way, so there was a great deal of possible peer pressure, even intimidation.
4. Audiences that are fed with FALSE claims that they can't check there and then can be expected to draw INVALID conclusions
5. Once there is a debate between Gage and a well-prepared debunker, the situation suddenly changes, and more change from twoof to the common story than vice versa.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

I think we need to have a system set up here where we "truthers" and people that disagree can only post alternate posts, that way there is no swamping of the facts by either side, rather a post by post debate.

Which facts? The statistics that demonstrate the effectiveness of propaganda? These are sociological facts, not facts about 9/11.

[NoahFence]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Interesting how its perfectly acceptable to rip into "truthers" credibility here yet one rather tepid comment from me gets this thread split into an abandon all hope thread.

Why was ergo suspended too?

Anyways, this thread has been hilarious. And when I have the time I hope it will continue to be.

I think we need to have a system set up here where we "truthers" and people that disagree can only post alternate posts, that way there is no swamping of the facts by either side, rather a post by post debate.

It would be pretty groovy too, if we could get a thread that sends electrical shocks into truther's fingers when they ignore simple questions, but that won't happen. You can't have a post-by-post debate when your side constantly ignores inconvienent questions.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Interesting how its perfectly acceptable to rip into "truthers" credibility here yet one rather tepid comment from me gets this thread split into an abandon all hope thread.

Why was ergo suspended too?

See, it's this wilful blindness to reality that gets truthers a bad rap. That split was caused by Scott Sommer's post, not yours. Yours got swept up as well, since it would make no sense without the context of his post.

And ergo's reason for suspension is right there in the announcement.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by NoahFence

It would be pretty groovy too, if we could get a thread that sends electrical shocks into truther's fingers when they ignore simple questions, but that won't happen. You can't have a post-by-post debate when your side constantly ignores inconvienent questions.

Also, such a debate style would give truthers the appearance of having a disproportionate number of supporters (1-to-1), as opposed to their real level of support, which is apparently being outnumbered by UFOnauts about 110-to-1.

[Grizzly Bear]

Zeuuz, do you mind me asking? Have you actually crosschecked the information or Gage's claims with real research material? Are you famliar with how architects and engineers practice research in a professional environment and compared with Gage's speaking rounds?

The reason I state is you've claimed:
- venue indicates high credibility
- number of people "converted" = credibility

In other words, the venue and conversion rate somehow gauges the credibility of what he lectures? Mind explaining?

[Zeuzzz]

Originally Posted by NoahFence

when your side constantly ignores inconvienent questions.

Why is everyone here so machiavellian? Black white. Chalk cheese. I don't even consider myself to really have a side in this debate, so far I've seen many more ridiculous posts here from "truthers" than from the people arguing with them, so would consider myself anti-"truther" more than truther at the moment, but I still have a fair few unanswered questions.

[NoahFence]

Quote:

I think we need to have a system set up here where we "truthers" and people that disagree

Quote:

Why is everyone here so machiavellian? Black white. Chalk cheese. I don't even consider myself to really have a side in this debate

I have no idea why I lumped you in with truthers. I guess I shouldn't do that whole "reading" thing.

[Zeuzzz]

Ever watched devils advocate? Hell of a film.

[Grizzly Bear]

Don't really care what you consider yourself... another member, tmd_21 said in his Al Queda thread something to the effect that there's some loyal dogma following among Jref members to see them line up and swamp a guy with responses telling him he's wrong... Yet I see examples like this thread and others where statements like

"These architects and engineers of 9/11truth put their real names and reputation on the line to question NIST"

"Gage speaks at prestigious university and converts the crowd"

"That it takes place on a University campus must mean his theories are acceptable and worth considering"

"The audience must be students educated and thinking independently and if they're convinced Gage's arguments must be convincing"

are flogged around in order to lend weight to a competing theory. I can understand some of the sentiment behind getting overwhelmed by a page full of angry responses, but basing your conclusions on a following rather than evidence is - to me at least - indicative of some serious ideological weaknesses or insecurity. Gage's topics are engineering and design, they aren't politics... relying on ideology, sheep following, and low standards of skepticism is practically begging for harsh critique. Assumptions you make about venue and audience don't address anything on being skeptical of what Gage offers for an argument.

[NoahFence]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Ever watched devils advocate? Hell of a film.

...

[Animal]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Bear

Don't really care what you consider yourself... another member, tmd_21 said in his Al Queda thread something to the effect that there's some loyal dogma following among Jref members to see them line up and swamp a guy with responses telling him he's wrong... Yet I see examples like this thread and others where statements like

"These architects and engineers of 9/11truth put their real names and reputation on the line to question NIST"

"Gage speaks at prestigious university and converts the crowd"

"That it takes place on a University campus must mean his theories are acceptable and worth considering"

"The audience must be students educated and thinking independently and if they're convinced Gage's arguments must be convincing"

are flogged around in order to lend weight to a competing theory. I can understand some of the sentiment behind getting overwhelmed by a page full of angry responses, but basing your conclusions on a following rather than evidence is - to me at least - is indicative some serious ideological weaknesses or insecurity. Gage's topics are engineering and design, they aren't politics... relying on ideology, sheep following, and low standards of skepticism is practically begging for harsh critique. Assumptions you make about venue and audience don't address anything on being skeptical of what Gage offers for an argument.

I think some of the sense of being ganged up on here is that most of us have expertise in a narrow field.....you and I in architecture (and a few others), trifor in fire fighting, several engineers, a few pilots, law, telephone systems, etc. Troofers come in here with little knowledge and make broad based claims that are then picked apart by the various individuals with backgrounds in parts of the broad based claims. The beat down is pretty severe, so all they have left is the "sheep followers" type comments, or they put everyone on ignore

[LSSBB]

Originally Posted by Animal

I think some of the sense of being ganged up on here is that most of us have expertise in a narrow field.....you and I in architecture (and a few others), trifor in fire fighting, several engineers, a few pilots, law, telephone systems, etc. Troofers come in here with little knowledge and make broad based claims that are then picked apart by the various individuals with backgrounds in parts of the broad based claims. The beat down is pretty severe, so all they have left is the "sheep followers" type comments, or they put everyone on ignore

Well, why don't all those 1,500 (+/- Sigma) Architects and Engineers from AE911 come here and join in on the fun?

[sheeplesnshills]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

I think we need to have a system set up here where we "truthers" and people that disagree can only post alternate posts, that way there is no swamping of the facts by either side, rather a post by post debate.

No need. Twoofers are yet to get one fact right so we are in no danger of being swamped by them.

[sylvan8798]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Why is everyone here so machiavellian? Black white. Chalk cheese. I don't even consider myself to really have a side in this debate, so far I've seen many more ridiculous posts here from "truthers" than from the people arguing with them, so would consider myself anti-"truther" more than truther at the moment, but I still have a fair few unanswered questions.

Your entire opening argument has been slain in the past 3 pages of posts. Rather than focusing on how many posters contribute to each side, why not retreat to consider whether you will cling to the argument despite the faulty logic, or whether you can move on to get answers to your other questions?

[ProBonoShill]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Why is everyone here so machiavellian? Black white. Chalk cheese. I don't even consider myself to really have a side in this debate, so far I've seen many more ridiculous posts here from "truthers" than from the people arguing with them, so would consider myself anti-"truther" more than truther at the moment, but I still have a fair few unanswered questions.

LOL, yeah okay.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Sorry to say but the more that I listen to Mr Gage the harder I find it to disagree with what he says.

[chrismohr]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

Why is everyone here so machiavellian? Black white. Chalk cheese. I don't even consider myself to really have a side in this debate, so far I've seen many more ridiculous posts here from "truthers" than from the people arguing with them, so would consider myself anti-"truther" more than truther at the moment, but I still have a fair few unanswered questions.

Zeuzzz.

Wish you'd try to watch my video rebuttals. You rejected them out of hand because I'm no scientist, but I did talk with specialists in every field before putting together my presentations. I also ran rough drafts of everything I said before these experts: structural engineers, about 20 physicists, foundry workers, fire safety experts, chemists, metallurgists, engineers and scientists of all stripes. My ethos is one of mutual respect and respect for the intelligence of the laypeople asking these questions. I sometimes asked myself if Gage was right (as many intelligent laypeople have). You don't have to be an idiot, just scientifically untrained, to believe his misstatements. It takes some 3 1/2 hours to go through and answer pretty much every claim Gage makes in his video Blueprint for Truth. 9/11 Truth people have caught some minor mistakes but I stand by all the major points I made. You just won't find a clearer explanation of why Gage is wrong. Sorry to boast but there you have it. I made these videos for you. Enjoy!

[Grizzly Bear]

chrismohr, unfortunately what you encounter with most of the arguments in the conspiracy camp is precisely what you're bringing up. To be credible in their eyes you have to be degreed and named in the profession, and the content of what the person provides doesn't fall under scrutiny.

As you point out, this isn't necessarily the case; to be be credible one must demonstrate knowledge that is either associated with a full education, or with a consultation with professionals, or even if you've done your own independent work to learn the concepts. It's pretty rare to find a conspiracy argument however that considers the latter.