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That sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would say... TRAITOR!
I wouldn't really think it's that damning. People do it all the time. I mean, look at it from their view. People's lives are generally mundane. Then they watch something like loose change and bam, they're the minority in the know of a huge government conspiracy, and on top of that, their claims are backed by several 'facts'.
It's not hard at all to imagine why they would cling to the idea so vehemently. They want to believe the world is really that exciting.
Sorry, Tarranon, but I just don't buy the idea that people can suspend disbelief to that degree. I just don't believe it! And I never will!!!
I can't believe that you can't believe this!
See, I thought you might have been going this way. I wanted to respond in kind. But then I wasn't sure.
What? I'm being 100% serious and I can prove it beyond the merest whisper of a shadow of an inkling of doubt. Try doing a Lexusnexus search to see if I'm joking. Go ahead. I just did one: 0 results.*
*Lexusnexus search terms: "drez AND joking AND zeigeist AND thread AND pennyarcade"
Think of Britain during World War 2. They refused to acknowledge for the longest time that they were living in a period past the Inudstrial Revolution. They'd send wave upon wave of men up against Nazi machine gunners, with 0 chance to live. They did it because that's how wars used to be fought. By the bravery and perseverance of the soldiers. But the British refused to see how one machine gunner with no training could stand against hundreds of trained soldiers. And other modern weapons.
They saw war as sport still, and fought it sportingly, as such. They viewed the Nazis as especially barbaric because they took advantage of the newer technologies.
Imagine how shorter World War 2 would have been, how fewer soldiers would have been killed, had European forces realized this so much sooner, and just used the goddamn machine guns. It's just people. They aren't typically malevolent. Just silly. Stubborn?
Slightly unrelated. I don't believe it, but it's not totally unbelievable that Cheney or Bush or whoever made one phone call to Osama or one of his whoevers. Just one phone call, and only one person in all of America would know about it. In fact, only two living people would have to know. One, assuming whoever was told wasn't killed.
Eh? Eh? :winky:
You're thinking WWI, not WWII.
It really wouldn't take that many people to to be in on a plot to hire plane hijackers and tell them to fly planes into buildings.
Using my Phoenix online university degree in Structural Engineering, I have concluded that only a ford driving into a crucial support beam could cause such a catastrophic failure. I am now going to make a documentary and using smart and scientific sounding words convince everyone that such a event happened. I will also fabricate some facts, to help people see the reality, just like the genius Micheal Moore.
I'm almost certain this was the case for WWII.
I stress almost, however.
[EDIT]: Oh crap, it was WWI!
Dammit....
My memory fails me, again. And I'm still sure that sometime later this month I'll tell someone of Britain's stubbornness for World War Two. Or god knows what else.
/frustrating rants
Yes, WWI - not Nazis :roll:
And it was pretty much common to all sides: German, French, Russian even American when they joined in at the end, everyone decided that walking into a hail of hot metal moving at supersonic speeds was a good way to wage war - everyone not actually walking into said hail, that is.
...and the machine gunners were rather well trained, certainly in comparison to standard infantrymen without a key piece of platoon-level kit.
My problem isn't that they are at a borderline retarded level of dumb, but rather that they think I am, since I don't buy in to their "It's common sense, you don't need education on the subject!" approach to things like crash analysis and structural engineering.
The United States Government is likely the most bureaucratic organization on Earth. You'd be suprized what organizing an operation like 9/11 would take, even if it was "hire hijackers to kill themselves" as opposed to the more popular "controlled demolition" conspiracy theory.
The SPP is an "agreement" between the governments of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It seeks to improve competitiveness of the North American economy, and also to further bolster continental cooperation with regards to security (NORAD, etc). Part of what the agreement involves is increased harmonization of regulation, as well as (potentially) law. One of the largest issues with the SPP is that, at least in Canada, it has been denied the status of a treaty, and as such, is not subject to Parliamentary review. Indeed, two successive governments (Martin, Harper) have argued that legislation is not needed, nor is any consultation with the public (re: Charolettetown Accord) in the form of a referendum required because it is distinct from a treaty, and other forms of governmental agreements that would usually warrant such things.
On top of this lack of legislative or public accountability, you have an extremely secretive and nebulous process - the goals are very poorly defined, and it's not very clear what does and does not fall under the scope of the SPP. Just look at what happened at Montebello, Quebec. The SQ (Quebec Provincial Police) sent in three undercover agent provocateurs to disrupt the peaceful nature of the protest, and (most likely) discredit the majority of the protesters. This was a pretty big thing in Canada, and it turned into a full-fledged scandal in the days following the posting of the video on YouTube (linked above), when the SQ publicly admitted to sending in the three officers to disrupt the protest.
The Council of Canadians, a group founded to oppose NAFTA when it was originally under discussion, is vehemently opposed to the SPP. They claim that the SPP is the first step in allowing bulk water exports from Canada to the United States and Mexico, which is currently illegal. Obviously, such a move would be extremely unpopular with Canadians, but part of the issue is that we don't even really know what the SPP is supposed to do - the CoC could be crying wolf, or they could be telling the truth. The lack of information regarding the SPP really prevents the average person from knowing such things, and is definitely part of my problem with the whole agreement.
The funny thing is, I remembered it as Germans, but substituted Nazis in, just because Nazis sounds eviler!* Secondly, yes, it was both sides. But the Germans were the meanest bad guy. Hell, they alone were constantly keeping their allies supplied on all fronts. And Britain took much less to the weaponry. It was the British who lost some 60,000 in one day for around 100 yards of ground. And it was British generals who most compared war to games, used soccer balls to kick off trench charges, carried swagger sticks to lead men, and a British general who said the effects of bullets against horses were "exaggerated."
Lastly, I didn't mean to imply the gunners weren't trained, I said they didn't have to be. And they didn't. The machine guns were easy to use. The rate and cone of fire was substantial.
But this is just my opinion. I could be wrong about the facts. Unimportant, though.
*I know, I'm kidding. It was just my shitty memory, social branding and the transplantation between the two words. Also, The large condemnation of the Germans led to more conflicts later, anyhow.
That is to say, the extremists really hates the following:
1. The United States stationing troops on what they view to be holy ground.
2. The United States' unwavering, blind support of Israel.
3. The United States overthrowing governments across the globe and putting into place something they see as being more appropriate.
I'm not *justifying* these beliefs, just pointing them out.
The United States government's official statement on why terrorists do what they do seems to be "they hate liberty." If that's what they want us to believe and they are willing to kill 3,000 civilians and cause many billions of dollars in damage to make it happen, why haven't we heard Osama say that? In comparison to orchestrating 9/11, it seems pretty easy to fake an Osama Bin Laden tape of him saying exactly what the US government wants him to say.
In conclusion, there is no logical evidence that the US government had any role in carrying out 9/11, aside from the well-known complacency regarding Al Qaeda, which was a mistake and not a calculated move.
Good conspiracy films are very good with selective information and brain-washing. They very carefully choose what information to provide without making it clear that you're only getting half a story, and then they back their own agenda without analyzing it's faults with the same degree of scrutiny as they did with reality.
The end result is a film that seems completely accurate. It shows very clearly, with experts, facts, demonstrations, that reality is not as it seems, and is in fact completely different. And the evidence seems irrefutable, and so you can't help but accept it.
Three problems. First, the claims conspiracy theories make are usually more impossible than the reality they criticized -- 9/11 required the silence and cooperation of thousands of people and they pulled it off, yet our president can't get a blowjob? Not likely.
Second, conspiracy theory films can be made in every direction. For 9/11 is real, for 9/11 is fake and done by the government, for 9/11 is fake and done by aliens, etc. It'll always sound accurate, it'll always sound convincing.
Third, there are too many convincing conspiracy theories. JFK was assassinated, we never landed on the moon, banks are evil, 9/11 is fake, rap is made to keep black people down, etc. Even a rabid fanatic would agree some or most (or all) of these theories must be false. So whose to decide which? They all seem equally convincing.
So ultimately, just because you're convinced doesn't mean it's accurate or even a well-produced argument, just good brain-washing.
"No steel-framed skyscraper had ever before or since collapsed due to fire or other local damage, yet it occurred three times on September 11, 2001."
This is the bullshit that I'm talking about. Having a motherfucking 767 jumbo jet fly square into the side of a building is not "local damage."
uh...
Even if they don't intend to commit evil, they are committing evil.
If I ever win the lotto, I'll use the money to either open a bank or invest in a casino. Those have got to be the two best ways to make a lot of money into a LOT of money.
Only to Mexico, it's already fine with the US seeing how we share the Great Lakes. Overturning that would require overturning a Canadian and US treaty involving pissing off some fairly important states, Mayors, and Governors. I doubt you have much to worry about with regards to that. Well, beyond EPA easing regulations on polluters in Indiana to poison us all.
Shared water resources are already governed by a number of treaties and joint committees. That's not what they are talking about, however. They are referring to bulk water exports from 100% Canadian sources to places within the United States. Currently, it is illegal in Canada to export water in such a manner, and there are pushes from a number of political parties (including the Bloc Quebecois, the Green Party of Canada, and the NDP) to amend the Constitution to prevent this from ever happening. The fear is that due to climate change, the most important food-growing regions in the US (SoCal, San Joquin Valley, etc) will be facing severe drought in the next few decades, and the only way in which the US will be able to maintain the required level of production is through bulk-water imports; given that Canada has the second largest reserves of fresh water in the world (second only to Russia), there is a rather large possibility that Canada will be pressured in the near future to start providing fresh water to our southern neighbours.
Yeah, I walked into that one
Ok, so here is my probably stupid question, but why would that be a problem? Would there end up being a water shortage for Canadians and Canadian interests if this were allowed to happen? I guess I don't understand what the issue with it is.
I'm not trying to be a disruptive dick, just wanted to share.
In accordance with contributing, I'll say this; having read the Popular Science article (and numerous others over the past half decade), I consider myself reasonably well informed as to what happened, at least as far as a layperson can be.
That said, this has reminded me that I've wanted to watch loose change for a while, just to see what the fuss is about, and further, this thread has introduced me to 'lolloosechange', which I shall also have to watch.
Keep in mind that it doesn't just bend the truth, it tells outright falsehoods at many points.
(ie, the hole in the Pentagon was not a mere 16 feet wide, as the video claims; it was 96 feet wide. And there was identifiable wreckage that came from an airplane, including the black boxes, which were found in the wreckage, but heavily damaged.)
Actually, those shortages are happening RIGHT NOW. Have ye taken a look at Atlanta lately?
Then when I sat back and thought about the fact that because of the way the truth bending and/or blatant lies are presented in the original "documentary" I could easily see people who hadn't looked into 911 in detail at all buying it hook line and sinker and that's just frightening.
Same here. I have seen them all. Terrorstorm, loose change, zeitgeist, and a myraid of others on all kinds of wacked out theories. It is well made propaganda. Nutcases buy in hook line and sinker. Usually if you meet a conspiracy type in person they have no answer for rational counter points to all of their 'theory'. they fall back on lame assed shit like "you are closed minded," "open your eyes." It is the same as a shitty religious person talking down to you- "I'm enlightened and you are not." I call horseshit. Mark it down, horseshit has been called.
I have a consiracy theory to put forth - Some idiots have too much time on thier hands; so these conspiracy theories are spread out to them to keep them busy.
Sizzy, you still here? Or anyone, really, I guess. How can that massively gaping hole gashing across the southwest corner of the building (and it isn't the only damage to WTC-7, just the best photographed) be called a 'small fire' like has been done?
My favorites are when they go against people like prominent structural engineers, seismologists, and various other experts by saying "you have to think for YOURSELF! SHEEPLE!" Uh, I'd rather not spend a month learning how to read seismograph charts, then another eight years learning how to interpret them, then get 20 years of experience in the field so my opionion can be as valid as the expert's, which will be exactly the same as the conclusion I came to anyway. Thanks, though.
Wait, are you refering to lolloosechange or Loose Change itself?
lolloosechange is the counter-point to Loose Change
I'm pretty sure he means he saw lolloosechange, which outraged him because of the outright lies it exposes. He is disturbed by the number of people who see loose change without looking at any actual facts and are taken in by it.
LOLloosechange got me through the first part of today. That was great. And scarey. Im glad to be amongst the Sheeple.
As soon as you start removing substantial volumes of water from any ecosystem, you start running into lots and lots of problems. Just look at the largest network of fresh water lakes in the world - the Great Lakes. Both sides of the border have been using the Great Lakes as a primary water resource for awhile now, including Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. This, along with a variety of other factors related to industrial use of the Great Lakes has lead to a drop in average water levels by 1-2 metres within the last (two?) decade(s). This decrease in water levels has started to affect the coastal ecosystems of the Great Lakes, and the decrease in water level is a contributing factor to the decline in variety and abundance of organisms within the Great Lakes.
That's seriously bad for a number of reasons, but it really just mirrors what is happening to the world's oceans and all that.
Bulk water exports from Canada to the US would undoubtedly cause issues like this; just where would the water come from? Canada has one lake for every two Canadians today - that's a lot of lakes, and a lot of water. But if we have to start providing fresh water for 300+ million Americans, or water for industrial, agricultural use, where will it come from? I and may Canadians view fresh water as a strategic asset that should be kept and protected for the interests of Canadians. As soon as the door opens to bulk fresh water exports, there is absolutely no guarantee that we won't lose control of our resource like we have lost control of many of other resources to the United States and other foreign interests (mining, oil, etc).
Yeah, I completely forgot about Atlanta. Scary stuff.
That makes a lot of sense, I was seeing the same sort of stuff when I started doing a little reading online about it (probably could have done that before I asked).