9/11 Truther Building 7 Argument

[GrandizerII]

True to that. I now have personal experience outside of the forums to back this up.

And they don't even give you space and time to answer.

[Iroscato]

You are staring into an infinite pit of madness, my friend. Pull back before you lose your sanity forever.
Replace "9/11" with "creationism". It's every bit as futile arguing with them.

[LostLocke]

The nice thing about living in Chicago is that, due to that little "incident" we had 140+ years ago, there are an abundance of museum exhibits, displays, lectures, classes etc... about structural engineering.
I'll give your 'friend' 2 guesses as to what they all have to say about the towers, and the side buildings, coming down on 9/11. 

[paulpablo]

I had an argument recently with a close friend about 9/11 Building 7, and how he believes there was no way a big building with steel frames could've collapsed by a small fire, coming up with what was clearly pure ad hoc to me dressed in pseudoscientific jargon and embellishments. Not knowing what else to say at the time, I just pointed out that the science suggests it did, which he simply handwaved by saying that's not true. I had no laptop in my hand, and not enough knowledge to counter what he said with all the technical stuff one should know in response to those claims (which I stupidly told him only to be used against me), so what do you reckon I should've said in response as a layman without access to photos, videos, and publications at that time?

Argument ended quite sourly and got a bit too personal by the way. Not too happy about it. Maybe I should stop getting myself into such debates for next time and just quickly agree to disagree before things escalate for the worse.

I know how you feel, I work with 1 conspiracy theorist and 2 African Christians. 

 I can have fun with the conspiracy theorist because he seemingly has little emotional attachment to what he's talking about and we joke about our differences of opinion but it's not the case with the Christians.

 For example today while me and the conspiracy theorist were talking about evolution today the African Christian overheard us and after that, what ensued was basically just a one sided conversation of the Christian telling us about how the bible is clear, no one knows if dinosaurs do really exist, science isn't that good because god is still more intelligent than us.... None of it made much sense it was just rambling basically. 
 He was acting more like he's just encountered someone taking a shit on his front doorstep while calling him a pussy, rather than encountering and joining in with 2 people who were having a discussion about biology.
None of his opinions would be a problem in work if there were quietly and politely talked about in a way that's acceptable in work but it was more like a one way rant from a Nigerian evangelical minster.
I shut my mouth ultra fast as soon as he started talking because I like my job there
We've been told to not talk about try and not talk about anything that might be offensive (these are the most interesting, funny things to talk about in my opinion)  but it's difficult to remain sane while sticking to mundane topics of football and weather all day, maybe I should just give in and go insane, smashing my head repeatedly against the brick walls and hope I don't get fired for damage to company property.

I don't understand why your friend would be attached certain ideas surrounding 9 11 to the point of your argument getting personal though, as other people on this thread have mentioned there are other buildings that fall down due to fire, the bottom line is that's what the convo is about.  You're not calling his wife a bucket vagina while bitch slapping him, it's just a conversation about bricks, steel and fire.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] he believes there was no way a big building with steel frames could've collapsed by a small fire [... ] what do you reckon I should've said in response as a layman without access to photos, videos, and publications at that time?

It wasn't a small fire; the building was fully involved for hours, and the weakening of the steel members of the building was to be expected.

Now, you specified "without access", but I wanted to put this pic up:



The fact that the smoke is black tells me that there are hydrocarbons involved in that fire -- probably plastics, in this case, rather than liquid fuel. Plastics are very nasty to fight, aside from the fumes which produce too many victims for your truck to rescue, because they burn at high temperatures, typically.

Clearly seen in this photo, too, is the fact that the worst of the fire is near the base of the building, meaning that the weakened areas of the building frame are supporting more weight.

Hot fire runs for hours in the worst possible spot for such to occur? Anyone who expected that building to survive would have to be called an optimist. Having been a firefighter myself at one time, I hold no such illusions.

[vorlon13]

WTC #7 was built directly over a Commonwealth Edison electrical substation. The substation fire by itself would have been a very vigorous conflagration on it's own.

WTC #7 also had an enormous steel truss structure supporting it over the substation, and it would have been directly cooked by the substation blaze.

[Jackalope]

The simple beauty of this sort of conspiracy theorist is this - you know not to argue with them, as they have abandoned all reason and are incapable of rationally addressing anything contrary to what they already think.

[Fake Messiah]

Guys, Robert Zemeckis tried to warn us about 9/11 but we didn't listen!!!

[ignoramus]

FM. That's very clever!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

The simple beauty of this sort of conspiracy theorist is this - you know not to argue with them, as they have abandoned all reason and are incapable of rationally addressing anything contrary to what they already think.

Yup.

Point and laugh and make a reference to their tinfoil hats. Riles them right up ^_^