clocker bob wrote:

And Mr Aneurhythmia if you're still reading I don't understand why you think internet debates are inherantly useless. Are all conversations inherantly useless to you? If anything I would say a forum like this is better than a face to face debate because responses are often (though certainly not always) more considered.

That guy is an idiot who thinks that the way to end one debate is to demand that a different debate take place. And now he's gone. We'll see if he returns, but for now, I'm guessing he was a sock worn by some other forum member.

My intention isn't to end the debate at all. It's to effect a consideration of the format of the debate. Internet forums are great for general discussion or examination of opinion, but to treat them as a functional medium of formal debate or fact-finding is patently ridiculous. It's not totally beyond the capabilities of the technology or the people participating in them. I'm sure there are examples of solid formal debate conforming to proper logic out there, but the trend is stridently against that.

I'm certainly not an alternate for any other user. I'm relatively new and don't participate much, but I read the tech forums a lot because they're pretty damn informative.

Aneurhythmia wrote:My intention isn't to end the debate at all. It's to effect a consideration of the format of the debate. Internet forums are great for general discussion or examination of opinion, but to treat them as a functional medium of formal debate or fact-finding is patently ridiculous.

Whatever. You weren't invited and you're free to go. "Internet forums are great for general discussion"- did you notice where you are? Quit complaining like you're the victim of false advertising, okay, Groucho? You can't find facts because you're too lazy. You'd rather waste five posts making the same exact point- correction, the same tedious point that is of interest only to you.

Aneurhythmia wrote:Internet forums are great for general discussion or examination of opinion,

As Bob has pointed out you're in theGeneral Discussion area of the forum and examination of opinion is exactly what is happening in this thread so where is the problem?

Aneurhythmia wrote:but to treat them as a functional medium of formal debate or fact-finding is patently ridiculous.

Aneurhythmia wrote:I read the tech forums a lot because they're pretty damn informative.

Seems to me you just disagree with one of the most dominant voices on the thread and instead of debating with him you've just decided to attack the format he is using to put his ideas across.

For those with very short attention spans, a nine second video of the southwest corner of WTC7 at the beginning of the demolition. Very easy to see the explosives squibs ( and there is no piston effect here, these are the top eight floors and the squibs shoot from below to above ).

demolition of WTC7

Okay, here's the deal. The original video in question shows nothing related to causality in the events being argued. It shows a possible symptom of a particular hypothetical. This is called circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is explicitly antithetical to the concept of a smoking gun.

Aneurhythmia wrote:Okay, here's the deal.

Does this mean you are finished proclaiming your disdain for the debate within the thread, and you now want to complain about my wording in the thread's headline?

Okay, I'll go along: I don't care. Your turn.

So you don't care that the video doesn't qualify as direct evidence of your theory?

Why represent it as such?

Aneurhythmia wrote:So you don't care that the video doesn't qualify as direct evidence of your theory?

No, it doesn't compute with your theory-of course it serves as direct evidence of my theory. My theory is mine, my interpretation of the significance of the video is mine, and the use of the words 'smoking gun' is my choice. Are you getting this yet? You seem to be operating under some delusion that I can't be partisan.

Then you don't understand what direct evidence is.

Aneurhythmia wrote:Then you don't understand what direct evidence is.

Direct evidence is for a court of law. I don't have subpoena power, so I can't make any more out of what this video shows - the BBC reporting an event before it occured - without using speculation. But if I had the power to force testimony, perhaps I could make direct evidence from it. Until then, I'll make whatever I feel like making out of it with my trusty keyboard, and I hope your eyes burn out if you can't turn away from it.