How do Truthers explain the cooperation/coordination needed within the US govt...

[beachnut]

short on fact, long on woo

...

And what evidence is there that some government did not make 9/11 happen? Zero evidence, right? We're going in circles here.

lol, gee, the fact 19 idiots fooled by UBL did it?

What are 19 failed UBL followers? Evidence!

9/11 truth, no clue what evidence is - the failed 9/11 truth still born movement, based on ignorance, failed research, paranoia, and gullible, continues to find cult like followers.

 

[caveman1917]

Also, it has been pointed out to you that making up fuzzy **** "50% chance someone, I won't go into detail, MIHOP" and then demanding evidence for the negation is disingenuous.

That's yet anther disingenuous lie as anyone can easily verify. You understand that this thread is public record and can be checked by anyone, right? Here is what actually happened and what I demanded evidence for:

None of those incidents was initiated by a cabal.

Prove it.

Apologize for lying.

 

[Axxman300]

Apologize for lying.

Apologize for not studying history.

 

[pgimeno]

Allen claimed that both

P can be proven

and

~P can not be disproven

are true. This is an obvious contradiction, any proof for P is necessarily a disproof of ~P.

No, that's not how things were framed. Logic lesson part 2:

Let P(x) = "x is participating in a covert operation". Then:

a) ∃xP(x) is an existential (∃) statement. Asserting this means you can show a proof, otherwise the statement is as empty as "invisible pink unicorns exist".
b) The negation is ¬∃xP(x) ≡ ∀x¬P(x). This is an universal (∀) statement. This can be both true and unprovable at the same time.

Take for example Goldbach's conjecture. This is an universal (∀) statement: for all natural numbers greater than 5 there's a decomposition of each into the sum of three primes. The opposite is an existential (∃) statement: A number greater than 5 exists such that it's not the sum of three primes.

Now, whoever asserts that Goldbach's conjecture is false can just show a counterexample and settle the question. But the assertion that it's true may be unprovable. I learned that here: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/goedel-vs-goldbach.476633/ (unfortunately the reference link in matforum.org that explained the above is now dead). As indicated there, a delicious corollary is that if Goldbach's conjecture is unprovable, then it's true.

Allen went a bit far saying that you can't prove a negative, but I understood it as "you can't always prove a negation of an existential statement" and it was unreasonable of you to ask for a proof of such a statement because it's clearly impossible in this case to prove it.

Now, we can say with a very high degree of confidence that Goldbach's conjecture is probably true. The probability that Goldbach's conjecture is false is not 50%. There are heuristic arguments supporting it, and several conjectures which were supported by heuristic arguments turned out to be true and are now theorems, like the four colour map theorem or Fermat's last theorem.

Likewise, we can say with a very high degree of confidence that there were no covert operations in 9/11, and there are heuristic arguments supporting it. I gave you one, that there's no precedent in history for such a mass killing of own people.

 

[beachnut]

burden of proof is not a 9/11 truth skill

I anticipated it because every pseudo-skeptic refuses to abide by the basic rule that the burden of proof is on the claimant.

I did not make any claim that the CIA manipulated 19 jihadists to pull of 9/11. You, on the other hand, did claim that the CIA did not do this. Your claim, your burden of proof. It's that simple.

You offer no proof, for 50/45/5? thus others have to prove your claim wrong? Don't worry, "burden of proof" is already a term 9/11 can't grasp, and never will.

You made no claims of the CIA (it was a fuzzy who knows MIHOP BS claim based on woo?), only BS percents to support essentially a nothing claim.

Rather something like 50% mainstream, 45% MIHOP, 5% everything else.

For some reason it reminds me of Balsamo math in a don't show your work way, unlike Balsamo who was dumb enough to show his work. Doubt if there is anything resembling facts to support the 50/45/5 claim.

It is simple, you have no evidence for the percents claim you are not making, and the burden of proof for your non-claims is on others? Math in action.

I prefer physics, Got Physics to go with the non-claims of 50/45/5?

No evidence for MIHOP?
What about the 5 percent? Nope - can you define the 5 percent? No? Why not?

 

[Oystein]

That's yet anther disingenuous lie as anyone can easily verify. You understand that this thread is public record and can be checked by anyone, right? Here is what actually happened and what I demanded evidence for:
Originally Posted by caveman1917 View Post
Originally Posted by Axxman300 View Post
None of those incidents was initiated by a cabal.
Prove it.
Apologize for lying.

Oh -really?

Indeed, anyone can check the context. Here is some more:

Ok, I’ll bite. I’m willing to examine evidence of covert US government involvement in 9/11; even the smallest amount will do. Let’s see it. Provide something circumstantial or even merely suspicious pertaining to possible covert US government involvement in 9/11, and I’ll be happy to discuss it with you and anyone else.

You're the one who claimed that there is no covert involvement by the US government (or at least claimed the notion is absurd). The burden of proof is on the claimant, not upon others to disprove your claims. If you have evidence for the lack of covert involvement by the US then you should present it, otherwise it is just that, an unsupported claim - aka an opinion. And remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

and

If you understand that you can't prove your claim, then why make it? Does making claims while being unable to prove them sound more like CTism or skepticism to you? Perhaps the following will help:

CTist: "There was covert US government involvement in 9/11"
Pseudo-skeptic: "There was no covert US government involvement in 9/11"
Skeptic: "We don't know whether there was covert US government involvement in 9/11"



Except that only happened in your imagination, as neither I nor anyone else in this thread claimed there was covert US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Here's how this actually works:

Person A: "There was no covert US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks."

Person B: "Where's the evidence for that claim?"

You are Person A. Here's what Person B has to provide evidence for: Absolutely nothing.

and

The principle of maximum entropy.



And what evidence is there that some government did not make 9/11 happen? Zero evidence, right? We're going in circles here.

and

...
Blah blah blah. The simple fact of the matter is that there is neither evidence for covert involvement nor against covert involvement, giving us 50/50 as the maximum entropy distribution.

Seems to me like you claimed 50:50 that 9/11 was a MIHOP by some unspecified agency, and demanded that your opponents provide evidence for the negative "no such unspecified agency involved in MIHOP of 9/11".

Disingenuous.

 

[smartcooky]

I anticipated it because every pseudo-skeptic refuses to abide by the basic rule that the burden of proof is on the claimant.

I did not make any claim that the CIA manipulated 19 jihadists to pull of 9/11. You, on the other hand, did claim that the CIA did not do this. Your claim, your burden of proof. It's that simple.

That is a load of horse-cock - its not how burden of proof works. What you are trying to do is use one of the classic methods that CTs use to shift the burden of proof - The Argument from Ignorance, A.K.A. appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence")

The established, observed facts are the null. The burden of proof is on the claimant of the positive claim; the claim that something happened against the null. The negative claim carries no burden of proof as its proof is the absence of evidence. This is a technical way of saying that you cannot prove a negative.

Person X claims the the CIA was behind 9/11, it is their burden to prove, and they will require evidence to support their claim.

Person Y claims that the CIA was NOT behind 9/11, that is the null, the absence of evidence supports their claim.

Until Person X comes up with evidence of CIA involvement, Person Y's claim, the null, stands as established fact.

 

[Robin]

Why?



P->Q

P

therefor Q



is valid inference irrespective of whether the law of non-contradiction holds or not.

But the above argument does not rule out that ~Q is also true unless the axiom of contradiction is assumed.

Because you can have:

P->Q
P->~Q
P
Therefore Q & ~Q

The above is valid if non-contradiction is not an axiom of the system..

You can't derive anything in an axiomatic system where the contradiction axiom is not included because any conclusion cannot rule out that the negation is also true.

Paraconsistent logics where it is ignored in some cases can be useful in some cases, but can't actually prove anything in a consistent logic.

Inconsistent logics are just toys for logicians.

 

[Fonebone]

[FONT=&quot]

Betraying my country and soiling my good name.... 100 Mill US

[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Some would betray their country for less.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]

One hundred MILL equals ten cents US

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Fonebone, this is a serious question. If you had been a part of a plot to kill about 3,000 of your own countrymen

[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]and start unlawful wars in Asia and the Middle East, how much money would have persuaded you, personally, to remain silent about it for at least the next two decades?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Dave[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]An American citizen that participated in a plot to "kill about 3,000 of his own countrymen
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]and start unlawful wars in Asia and the Middle-East" would be ever petrified with fear and terror of discovery. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The thought of prison or firing squad would supply ample incentive for eternal silence.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Additional persuasion to protect their sorry tuckus would arise when they come to realize [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the upper echelon
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]of the plot perpetrators might sleep better at night knowing loose-ends[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]were neutralized.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]An extra ten cents (0.10 U.S.) wouldn't translate to very much extra motivation to [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]remain silent IMO.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

[beachnut]

An American citizen that participated in a plot to "kill about 3,000 of his own countrymen
and start unlawful wars in Asia and the Middle-East" would be ever petrified with fear and terror of discovery.
The thought of prison or firing squad would supply ample incentive for eternal silence.

Additional persuasion to protect their sorry tuckus would arise when they come to realize the upper echelon
of the plot perpetrators might sleep better at night knowing loose-ends were neutralized.

An extra ten cents (0.10 U.S.) wouldn't translate to very much extra motivation to remain silent IMO.

Projection.

 

[Axxman300]

Being Person Y in this case let me 'splane myself.

It's not that I can't prove the CIA had nothing to do with the attacks of 911 because there is nothing to prove.

I can prove the CIA bungled the intelligence on Al Qaeda's movements because this has been documented by the 911 Commission, the CIA-IG, and almost a dozen books written by the men and women who worked at CIA and FBI.

I can prove the FBI bungled their end of the Al Qaeda intelligence for the same reasons.

The time-line involved runs from 1991 through 2001. Ten years and two different White House NSC's. After Iraq invades Kuwait Al Qaeda offers its services to the Saudi government to lead the resistance to drive the Iraqi's out and are told thanks but no thanks. The WTC was bombed on February 26, 1993 by men trained by Al Qaeda. On October 3, 1993, 19 US Soldiers were killed and two MH-60's were shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia by local militia trained by Al Qaeda who had been laid up in neighboring Sudan. On August 7, 1998 the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were hit with Al Qaeda truck bombs. Finally, on October 12, 2000 the USS Cole was hit with a suicide bomb attack by Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Ten years. The CIA and the US Government and the Clinton and Bush Administrations had ten years to deal with Al Qaeda. Terrorism was always a back-burner issue for the US prior to 9/11/2001. The CIA spun up Alec Station to solely focus on Osama bin Laden in 1996, but the problem was that it quickly became insulated not only from the FBI but it's own CTC branches. Again, I know this because there are three great books on this particular subject and the 911 Commission reviewed their work. Alec Station was a stove-pipe within a forest of stove-pipes. At the same time the NYC FBI Office had it's own bin Laden desk which was separate from it's own Counter Terror Desk. Both groups were run by ego maniacs who didn't well with others and because they were special groups they escaped management over site until it was too late.

How I know the CIA didn't run the Al Qaeda 911 plot was because they lacked that capability in 2001. They also lacked the guts. I know this because CIA officer Robert Baer detailed the CIA's Middle East operations of the late 1990's. The Middle East was not a central focus for the Clinton Administration and the CIA was dangerously under-manned in the region.

I also know the CIA didn't run the plot because the FBI has been more than happy rat-out the CIA any chance they get (see the Detainee Program). There is a rumor that the CIA had hoped to turn one of the 911 hijackers, or had already turned him, and this is why they didn't tell the FBI he was in the country until mid-August, 2001. The folks behind this rumor are FBI agents.

The final reason I know the CIA had nothing to do with running the 911 attacks is Al Qaeda hates the US and specifically the CIA. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the CIA reached out to bin Laden with offers of training and weapons and he told them to get lost.

I could point out that Wikileaks was gifted a treasure trove of US secrets. Not one of them indicated CIA involvement in running the 911 attacks.

That's how I know.

 

[smartcooky]

Being Person Y in this case let me 'splane myself.

It's not that I can't prove the CIA had nothing to do with the attacks of 911 because there is nothing to prove.

I can prove the CIA bungled the intelligence on Al Qaeda's movements because this has been documented by the 911 Commission, the CIA-IG, and almost a dozen books written by the men and women who worked at CIA and FBI.

I can prove the FBI bungled their end of the Al Qaeda intelligence for the same reasons.

The time-line involved runs from 1991 through 2001. Ten years and two different White House NSC's. After Iraq invades Kuwait Al Qaeda offers its services to the Saudi government to lead the resistance to drive the Iraqi's out and are told thanks but no thanks. The WTC was bombed on February 26, 1993 by men trained by Al Qaeda. On October 3, 1993, 19 US Soldiers were killed and two MH-60's were shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia by local militia trained by Al Qaeda who had been laid up in neighboring Sudan. On August 7, 1998 the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were hit with Al Qaeda truck bombs. Finally, on October 12, 2000 the USS Cole was hit with a suicide bomb attack by Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Ten years. The CIA and the US Government and the Clinton and Bush Administrations had ten years to deal with Al Qaeda. Terrorism was always a back-burner issue for the US prior to 9/11/2001. The CIA spun up Alec Station to solely focus on Osama bin Laden in 1996, but the problem was that it quickly became insulated not only from the FBI but it's own CTC branches. Again, I know this because there are three great books on this particular subject and the 911 Commission reviewed their work. Alec Station was a stove-pipe within a forest of stove-pipes. At the same time the NYC FBI Office had it's own bin Laden desk which was separate from it's own Counter Terror Desk. Both groups were run by ego maniacs who didn't well with others and because they were special groups they escaped management over site until it was too late.

How I know the CIA didn't run the Al Qaeda 911 plot was because they lacked that capability in 2001. They also lacked the guts. I know this because CIA officer Robert Baer detailed the CIA's Middle East operations of the late 1990's. The Middle East was not a central focus for the Clinton Administration and the CIA was dangerously under-manned in the region.

I also know the CIA didn't run the plot because the FBI has been more than happy rat-out the CIA any chance they get (see the Detainee Program). There is a rumor that the CIA had hoped to turn one of the 911 hijackers, or had already turned him, and this is why they didn't tell the FBI he was in the country until mid-August, 2001. The folks behind this rumor are FBI agents.

The final reason I know the CIA had nothing to do with running the 911 attacks is Al Qaeda hates the US and specifically the CIA. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the CIA reached out to bin Laden with offers of training and weapons and he told them to get lost.

I could point out that Wikileaks was gifted a treasure trove of US secrets. Not one of them indicated CIA involvement in running the 911 attacks.

That's how I know.

I agree.

All that is required to debunk any claim based on an argument from ignorance is to show there is an absence of evidence - if there is no evidence to support the claim against the null, then that alone, prima faci, debunks the claim. What you have done here is to go way beyond the minimum necessary to debunk any claim the the CIA were behind the 9/11 attacks - effectively showing that not only is there no evidence, but that it highly unlikely that there can be any evidence!

Essentially you are ramming the point home with a piledriver!


ETA: I think the late Christopher Hitchens said it best....."That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

 

[Axxman300]

[FONT=&quot]An American citizen that participated in a plot to "kill about 3,000 of his own countrymen
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]and start unlawful wars in Asia and the Middle-East" would be ever petrified with fear and terror of discovery. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The thought of prison or firing squad would supply ample incentive for eternal silence.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Additional persuasion to protect their sorry tuckus would arise when they come to realize [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the upper echelon
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]of the plot perpetrators might sleep better at night knowing loose-ends[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]were neutralized.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]An extra ten cents (0.10 U.S.) wouldn't translate to very much extra motivation to [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]remain silent IMO.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

Golly, if it was only so simple.

"They" forgot to frame Iraq for 911. There was no Iraqi passport found, no fuzzy photographs of the hijackers meeting with Iraqi secret police, and no "captured" Iraqi government documents proving Saddam was behind 911?

"They" went to all the trouble to run a false flag operation using hijacked jumbo jets and secret demolition charges but then don't hunt down and kill bin Laden, and forget to plant WMD's in Iraq for our forces to "find" and parade in front of TV cameras to make the "illegal" war legal?

Okay...

 

[caveman1917]

No, that's not how things were framed.

Yes it was:

The negative — that there was NO covert US government involvement in 9/11 — is not possible to prove or disprove, because you can’t prove a negative.

Logic lesson part 2:

Edited by zooterkin: 

<SNIP>
Edited for rule 0 and rule 12.

 

[caveman1917]

Oh -really?

Yes, really:

Also, it has been pointed out to you that making up fuzzy **** "50% chance someone, I won't go into detail, MIHOP" and then demanding evidence for the negation is disingenuous.

This is the actual sequence of events:
On 25/3 7:15 Axxman made the first claim in this thread as to what happened regarding 9/11:

None of those incidents was initiated by a cabal.

On 25/3 8:18 I demanded evidence for his claim:

Prove it.

On 26/3 4:47 I posted (in another thread) the skeptical position on matters for which there is no evidence either way, namely 50/50% chance either way:

As my contribution on this thread was requested in another thread, here goes.

Let E be the set of relevant empirical observations. Then by the principle of multiple explanations what I think happened is a probability distribution over the set H, where H is the set of hypotheses consistent with E, weighed by complexity and my own gratuitously chosen prior probabilities. In particular the probability mass is concentrated about equally among the "standard" hypothesis and the hypothesis of a minimal MIHOP (ie MIHOP by getting some jihadi's to crash planes into buildings), but of course including every hypothesis consistent with E, such as a small probability that there is no such thing as 9/11 because I'm dreaming right now and I'll wake up again soon in the "real" world.

You got caught lying yet again. Own up to it and apologize. Or keep digging, your choice.

 

[caveman1917]

That is a load of horse-cock - its not how burden of proof works. What you are trying to do is use one of the classic methods that CTs use to shift the burden of proof - The Argument from Ignorance, A.K.A. appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence")

Projection much?

The established, observed facts are the null. The burden of proof is on the claimant of the positive claim; the claim that something happened against the null. The negative claim carries no burden of proof as its proof is the absence of evidence. This is a technical way of saying that you cannot prove a negative.

 

[caveman1917]

But the above argument does not rule out that ~Q is also true unless the axiom of contradiction is assumed.

And?

Because you can have:

P->Q
P->~Q
P
Therefore Q & ~Q

The above is valid if non-contradiction is not an axiom of the system..

And?

You can't derive anything in an axiomatic system where the contradiction axiom is not included because any conclusion cannot rule out that the negation is also true.

That's not how logical derivations work. The derivation:

P->Q
P
Therefor Q

derives Q from the given premises, irrespective of whether ~Q may also be derived in a paraconsistent system.

Paraconsistent logics where it is ignored in some cases can be useful in some cases, but can't actually prove anything in a consistent logic.

Inconsistent logics are just toys for logicians.

Paraconsistent logics prove tons of theorems that are also in consistent logics.

 

[Robin]

That's not how logical derivations work.

It is exactly how logical derivations work. If the conjunction of an argument with the negation of its conclusion is consistent then the argument has not proved the conclusion.

Without the axiom of contradiction every set of well-formed propositions is consistent and so nothing can be proved.

The derivation:

P->Q
P
Therefor Q

derives Q from the given premises, irrespective of whether ~Q may also be derived in a paraconsistent system.

So what, we are not talking about paraconsistent logic.

In propositional calculus you cannot claim to have proved that a conclusion is true in a given axiomatic system if you can't rule out that it is not false in the same system.

The axiom of contradiction is right at the base of logic

 

[Oystein]

Yes, really:


This is the actual sequence of events:
On 25/3 7:15 Axxman made the first claim in this thread as to what happened regarding 9/11:

On 25/3 8:18 I demanded evidence for his claim:

On 26/3 4:47 I posted (in another thread) the skeptical position on matters for which there is no evidence either way, namely 50/50% chance either way:


You got caught lying yet again. Own up to it and apologize. Or keep digging, your choice.

Thanks for providing the time stamp that on 26/3 you claimed a 50% that some unspecified agency MIHOP 9/11.

Because a day after that ("then") you demanded of others top prove the negative:
On 27th March 2020, 07:57 PM

And what evidence is there that some government did not make 9/11 happen? Zero evidence, right? We're going in circles here.

Yes, we are going in circles - because that's what Truthers have been doing for 18 years and counting. You did not break the cycle. You demanded evidence for "no MIHOP" after you had claimed MIHOP (a whopping likelihood thereof).

Disingenuous, as I said.

What is more disingenuous is that you claim there is "zero evidence" when of course there is boatloads of evidence of what the CIA and others have been doing and none of it points to MIHOP. Which is a fact that of course you must have known for many years.

 

[caveman1917]

...

You got caught lying yet again. Own up to it and apologize. Or keep digging, your choice.

I see you chose the latter. Don't expect any further responses from me.