In which I rant about physics, psychology, and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
zaarwin_devolve and I are on very much the same page about 9/11 conspiracies. In his recent entry, he quoted at least one source so crazy that I HAVE to reply, or the effort of suppressing my rage will cause me to split in two.
From this synopsis, which posits that there were no planes used in the attacks, and the planes were digitally added for the news...EVERYWHERE:How does an aluminum plane and aluminum wings slice through a steel building?
How does the plane "melt" into the building with zero impact visibile?
How does the aluminum nose of the plane come out the other side of the building INTACT?
How can a Boeing 767 fly at speeds several hundred miles faster than is possible at such a low altitude?
What really drives me insane is the lack of a basic understanding of physics inherent in these questions. Point by point:
In response to the first question: the same way pine-needles get driven through oak boards during a hurricane (a verified phenomenon.) The question here is one of momentum, not of the durability of the materials involved. You can put a wet clay pellet in a superconducting mass-driver gun and drive it through concrete. Or, to use a somewhat closer-to-home metaphor, I guess the authors of this particular conspiranoiac missive don't believe in a little thing called...bird-strike. After all, if you gave me a piece of the glass windshield, I could easily carve that crane up for dinner, and birds have HOLLOW BONES, so there's NO WAY one could penetrate a military aircraft's windshield.
Momentum: P = M x V. That's Mass Times Velocity. Density doesn't come into it. It's as simple as that.
What makes me froth at the mouth about the second question is its inconsistency with the previous question. First, aluminum is too soft to penetrate the building. Now we want to know why the aluminum plane crumpled up on impact. Again, basic Newtonian physics:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
All that momentum used to destroy the building affects the plane equally, and it is, as already noted in the text of the previous question, considerably less able to endure such forces. Asking this question is like asking why the bird in the picture linked to above is DEAD.
...Not to mention that the idea of a "steel building" is kind of misleading. Sure, the WTC might have been made of nice, sturdy steel beams, but it's not an artillery pillbox. Architecture simply isn't designed with the idea that huge flying objects are going to collide with the building. Girders might be rated not to shear during an earthquake, a hurricane, etc., but that simply IS NOT THE SAME THING as having a @#$%$ING AIRPLANE HIT YOU.
Now, my answers to these questions involve a little more speculation, but the questions are both phrased in terms of "how could this possibly happen?" as if to imply that it couldn't, and this should make me suspicious, so if I can offer a reasonable explanation, we can all go home, right? Right.
I'm not someone who sits around freeze-framing videos of a tragedy, because watching the planes hit again and again would probably make me heave up my lunch. So forgive me if I can't offer a blow-by-blow replay, here, but it seems to me that if the plane hit at even a slight angle, rather than dead-on (which seems pretty likely, considering that they were being deliberately crashed by adrenaline-fueled lunatics with only a basic understanding of piloting) the nose would snap off and be sent flying for pretty much the same reason that ramming a pencil into the sidewalk at an angle will throw the broken tip into the air.
The second question hardly deserves my time, because it contains its own answer. By definition, a plane can't fly several hundred miles faster than is possible at low altitude. I presume that the question here is one of maximum velocity with regard to air-resistance. This means one of four things, and you can decide how ominous these things are for yourself:
I can't help but wonder to what extent our fascination with conspiracies stems from a childish mixture of insecurity and arrogance. We are frightened of the complex, chaotic implications of the idea that this kind of brainless, hail-Mary attack might yield actual damage to our fortified, invulnerable nation. (Read this article at Slate.com for an analysis of why we aren't simply bombarded with terrorist attacks, all the time, including the fact that 9/11 was more about balls than brains.) We find it easier to say that someone sold us out, rather than to admit that the fundamental reality of our national security, like everyone else on Earth's, is simply imperfect, and that we are not (and have not ever been) "safe." Safety is illusory, and addictive, and, like any addictive substance, it's astounding the lengths people will go to in order to get more of it, and what basic dignities and freedoms they will give up. And, look, I know: soberly facing an unsafe world is hard. It's the hardest thing any of us have to do. But it's also the basic qualification for being a human being that can make a difference in the world.
It might seem as if I'm confused, here. After all, don't these daring fringe-theorists want to rip AWAY our illusion of safety, and make us face the evil that's taken root in our country? In short: no. Even as conspiracy theorists talk about government corruption, it's kind of like the kid that knows that daddy cheats on mommy...they still want daddy to come home, every night, and keep them safe. They might write "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU" in their spiral composition books, but without him there to hate, their world would turn upside down. How do I know this? Simple. If you really believe that a conspiracy of thousands allowed a disaster of this magnitude on American soil, you have only two rational options as a concerned citizen: 1) Change the system from inside, or, if this is impossible, 2) Radical action, possibly violent, against the parties involved. Anything else is masturbatory. As per my discussion with Josh and Elena, on my farm-work day, conspiranoiacs don't use corruption as impetus to galvanize people to action, they use it to absolve themselves for their own inaction. "I don't vote, because the system is broken." "I won't run for office, because THEY won't let me make any change, anyway." "People are too lazy and complacent for anything I do to make a difference." Simply put, they don't want the responsibility. Their bad daddy does too many things that make their lives easier, and they don't want to have to figure out how to keep the water running and the lights on once he's gone. At most, these people want us to join them in their pathological disillusionment, so they don't feel so alone in their alienation. Interestingly, according to some, this is the same thing that another group of radical thinkers (terrorists!) actually want. Quoting the Slate article, mentioned above:In a 2008 follow-up essay, "What Terrorists Really Want," Abrahms explained that terrorist groups are typically incapable of maintaining a consistent set of strategic goals, much less achieving them. Then why do they become terrorists? To "develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists." It's fraternal bonds they want, not territory, nor influence, nor even, in most cases, to affirm religious beliefs. If a terrorist group's demands tend to sound improvised, that's because they are improvised; what really matters to its members-even its leaders-is that they are a band of brothers. Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former Central Intelligence Agency case officer in Afghanistan, collected the biographies of 400 terrorists who'd targeted the United States. He found that fully 88 percent became terrorists not because they wanted to change the world but because they had "friendship/family bonds to the jihad." Among the 400, Sageman found only four who had "any hint of a [psychological] disorder," a lower incidence than in the general population. Think the Elks, only more lethal. Cut off from al-Qaida's top leadership, they are plenty dangerous, but not nearly as task-oriented as we imagine them to be.
It's also, and here I think we come to the crux of the arrogance/insecurity paradox, easier to think of our bad daddy as being evil than as being weak and human. A powerful but wicked government is, on a Freudian, subconscious level, easier for many people to live with than a flawed, incompetent one. It can provide, if not bliss, then at least stability. On the other hand, a weak father, one with lapses in judgment, proclivities he doesn't have the will to control, etc. is unpredictable, unsettling, complex, and implies that we must participate in the world, that we might not just be taken care of.
That's why I don't have the same problem with people who are bitter about our government's failure to prevent 9/11 that I do with people who try to say that the government was complicit in the attack. Absolutely, in an event like this, we should be trying to find out what went wrong, holding the people in charge responsible, and shoring up gaps, and I can understand the rage of the victims' families when these things didn't really happen (whoever made the remark that the post-9/11 airline carry-on restrictions were like "Odyssey of the Mind for terrorists" was right on target.)
Looking at the Bush administration as critically careless and, subsequently, cynically opportunistic seems like a simple application of Occam's razor, to me, and I feel like people who want to make more of it than that are practicing their own brand of opportunism, exploiting the victims of 9/11 just as callously as the corporate contractors in Iraq, taking advantage of feelings of vulnerability to promote their own ideologies. It's like having Mormons accost you right after your wife was hit by a car. (On a related note, though this could easily be an essay all on its own, I am severely disappointed by the fact that many Democrats are guilty of this very thing, when in reality the best that we can claim is that we weren't in charge when 9/11 happened.)
I would love to hear anyone and everyone's thoughts on this.
From this synopsis, which posits that there were no planes used in the attacks, and the planes were digitally added for the news...EVERYWHERE:How does an aluminum plane and aluminum wings slice through a steel building?
How does the plane "melt" into the building with zero impact visibile?
How does the aluminum nose of the plane come out the other side of the building INTACT?
How can a Boeing 767 fly at speeds several hundred miles faster than is possible at such a low altitude?
What really drives me insane is the lack of a basic understanding of physics inherent in these questions. Point by point:
- How does an aluminum plane and aluminum wings slice through a steel building?
- How does the plane "melt" into the building with zero impact visibile?
In response to the first question: the same way pine-needles get driven through oak boards during a hurricane (a verified phenomenon.) The question here is one of momentum, not of the durability of the materials involved. You can put a wet clay pellet in a superconducting mass-driver gun and drive it through concrete. Or, to use a somewhat closer-to-home metaphor, I guess the authors of this particular conspiranoiac missive don't believe in a little thing called...bird-strike. After all, if you gave me a piece of the glass windshield, I could easily carve that crane up for dinner, and birds have HOLLOW BONES, so there's NO WAY one could penetrate a military aircraft's windshield.
Momentum: P = M x V. That's Mass Times Velocity. Density doesn't come into it. It's as simple as that.
What makes me froth at the mouth about the second question is its inconsistency with the previous question. First, aluminum is too soft to penetrate the building. Now we want to know why the aluminum plane crumpled up on impact. Again, basic Newtonian physics:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
All that momentum used to destroy the building affects the plane equally, and it is, as already noted in the text of the previous question, considerably less able to endure such forces. Asking this question is like asking why the bird in the picture linked to above is DEAD.
...Not to mention that the idea of a "steel building" is kind of misleading. Sure, the WTC might have been made of nice, sturdy steel beams, but it's not an artillery pillbox. Architecture simply isn't designed with the idea that huge flying objects are going to collide with the building. Girders might be rated not to shear during an earthquake, a hurricane, etc., but that simply IS NOT THE SAME THING as having a @#$%$ING AIRPLANE HIT YOU.
- How does the aluminum nose of the plane come out the other side of the building INTACT?
- How can a Boeing 767 fly at speeds several hundred miles faster than is possible at such a low altitude?
Now, my answers to these questions involve a little more speculation, but the questions are both phrased in terms of "how could this possibly happen?" as if to imply that it couldn't, and this should make me suspicious, so if I can offer a reasonable explanation, we can all go home, right? Right.
I'm not someone who sits around freeze-framing videos of a tragedy, because watching the planes hit again and again would probably make me heave up my lunch. So forgive me if I can't offer a blow-by-blow replay, here, but it seems to me that if the plane hit at even a slight angle, rather than dead-on (which seems pretty likely, considering that they were being deliberately crashed by adrenaline-fueled lunatics with only a basic understanding of piloting) the nose would snap off and be sent flying for pretty much the same reason that ramming a pencil into the sidewalk at an angle will throw the broken tip into the air.
The second question hardly deserves my time, because it contains its own answer. By definition, a plane can't fly several hundred miles faster than is possible at low altitude. I presume that the question here is one of maximum velocity with regard to air-resistance. This means one of four things, and you can decide how ominous these things are for yourself:
- The author of this document is incorrect about what speeds are possible at low altitude.
- The source the author cites is incorrect about the speed of the plane.
- This is a completely fabricated idea, with no basis in fact.
- The "maximum speeds" he is referring to are quoted with the idea in mind that the plane and the passengers are supposed to SURVIVE. After all, land vehicles have been able to break the sound barrier since 1948, and the planes weren't moving at supersonic velocity. It seems silly to say that they CAN'T fly that fast at low altitude, they just SHOULDN'T, for obvious reasons.
I can't help but wonder to what extent our fascination with conspiracies stems from a childish mixture of insecurity and arrogance. We are frightened of the complex, chaotic implications of the idea that this kind of brainless, hail-Mary attack might yield actual damage to our fortified, invulnerable nation. (Read this article at Slate.com for an analysis of why we aren't simply bombarded with terrorist attacks, all the time, including the fact that 9/11 was more about balls than brains.) We find it easier to say that someone sold us out, rather than to admit that the fundamental reality of our national security, like everyone else on Earth's, is simply imperfect, and that we are not (and have not ever been) "safe." Safety is illusory, and addictive, and, like any addictive substance, it's astounding the lengths people will go to in order to get more of it, and what basic dignities and freedoms they will give up. And, look, I know: soberly facing an unsafe world is hard. It's the hardest thing any of us have to do. But it's also the basic qualification for being a human being that can make a difference in the world.
It might seem as if I'm confused, here. After all, don't these daring fringe-theorists want to rip AWAY our illusion of safety, and make us face the evil that's taken root in our country? In short: no. Even as conspiracy theorists talk about government corruption, it's kind of like the kid that knows that daddy cheats on mommy...they still want daddy to come home, every night, and keep them safe. They might write "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU" in their spiral composition books, but without him there to hate, their world would turn upside down. How do I know this? Simple. If you really believe that a conspiracy of thousands allowed a disaster of this magnitude on American soil, you have only two rational options as a concerned citizen: 1) Change the system from inside, or, if this is impossible, 2) Radical action, possibly violent, against the parties involved. Anything else is masturbatory. As per my discussion with Josh and Elena, on my farm-work day, conspiranoiacs don't use corruption as impetus to galvanize people to action, they use it to absolve themselves for their own inaction. "I don't vote, because the system is broken." "I won't run for office, because THEY won't let me make any change, anyway." "People are too lazy and complacent for anything I do to make a difference." Simply put, they don't want the responsibility. Their bad daddy does too many things that make their lives easier, and they don't want to have to figure out how to keep the water running and the lights on once he's gone. At most, these people want us to join them in their pathological disillusionment, so they don't feel so alone in their alienation. Interestingly, according to some, this is the same thing that another group of radical thinkers (terrorists!) actually want. Quoting the Slate article, mentioned above:In a 2008 follow-up essay, "What Terrorists Really Want," Abrahms explained that terrorist groups are typically incapable of maintaining a consistent set of strategic goals, much less achieving them. Then why do they become terrorists? To "develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists." It's fraternal bonds they want, not territory, nor influence, nor even, in most cases, to affirm religious beliefs. If a terrorist group's demands tend to sound improvised, that's because they are improvised; what really matters to its members-even its leaders-is that they are a band of brothers. Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former Central Intelligence Agency case officer in Afghanistan, collected the biographies of 400 terrorists who'd targeted the United States. He found that fully 88 percent became terrorists not because they wanted to change the world but because they had "friendship/family bonds to the jihad." Among the 400, Sageman found only four who had "any hint of a [psychological] disorder," a lower incidence than in the general population. Think the Elks, only more lethal. Cut off from al-Qaida's top leadership, they are plenty dangerous, but not nearly as task-oriented as we imagine them to be.
It's also, and here I think we come to the crux of the arrogance/insecurity paradox, easier to think of our bad daddy as being evil than as being weak and human. A powerful but wicked government is, on a Freudian, subconscious level, easier for many people to live with than a flawed, incompetent one. It can provide, if not bliss, then at least stability. On the other hand, a weak father, one with lapses in judgment, proclivities he doesn't have the will to control, etc. is unpredictable, unsettling, complex, and implies that we must participate in the world, that we might not just be taken care of.
That's why I don't have the same problem with people who are bitter about our government's failure to prevent 9/11 that I do with people who try to say that the government was complicit in the attack. Absolutely, in an event like this, we should be trying to find out what went wrong, holding the people in charge responsible, and shoring up gaps, and I can understand the rage of the victims' families when these things didn't really happen (whoever made the remark that the post-9/11 airline carry-on restrictions were like "Odyssey of the Mind for terrorists" was right on target.)
Looking at the Bush administration as critically careless and, subsequently, cynically opportunistic seems like a simple application of Occam's razor, to me, and I feel like people who want to make more of it than that are practicing their own brand of opportunism, exploiting the victims of 9/11 just as callously as the corporate contractors in Iraq, taking advantage of feelings of vulnerability to promote their own ideologies. It's like having Mormons accost you right after your wife was hit by a car. (On a related note, though this could easily be an essay all on its own, I am severely disappointed by the fact that many Democrats are guilty of this very thing, when in reality the best that we can claim is that we weren't in charge when 9/11 happened.)
I would love to hear anyone and everyone's thoughts on this.