Don’t be a fool, though.

As I said, I often find myself at home in Uncanny Valley, and as a result have made it a habit to continuously update and reexamine my own responses to various conspiracy theories, especially when “new pieces of the puzzle” are introduced. I don’t buy the Popular Mechanics version of 9/11, but the collapse of the towers is just one part of the larger conspiracy narrative. Here’s a link to a new film called “Fabled Enemies” which focuses on the shady, suggestive relationships between foreign governments, the hijackers, and the CIA and FBI; the undeniable forewarning of our administration as to the imminence of just such an event; and the whitewash of an investigation that was the 9/11 Commission Report:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2144933190875239407&hl=en

For those truly interested in examining their own credibility filters…I’d be interested to hear what yours does with this information. The only references to building collapses concern WTC 7, which is by far the weirdest case of the three.

Unfortunately, widespread agreement as to what counts as “rationally tenable” is no more likely than it is desirable, at least insofar as such agreement would lead to the ideological bullying of still-open minds and the categorical dismissal of compelling information. I’d rather be right and a nutjob than rational and wrong.

There are many differences between the III and IV Reichs, but perhaps the greatest is that in the case of the former, the regime collapsed and the entire documentary record was captured by its enemies and extensively publicized in subsequent show trials; whereas the latter, while arguably somewhat diminished, remains after all the world’s preminent nuclear weapons state, and therefore unlikely to suffer the same fate.

To put is succinctly, in the case of Nazi Germany, we know; whereas in the case of Neo-Con America, we can only surmise.

Fortes fortuna adiuvat

United Shock & Awe is the most powerful state in world history, and we should expect the competition for even narrow slices of that power to be ferocious. To get in on the game, it is not enough to be well-connected or rich; one must also be audacious. Certainly any political faction with the ambition to use that state as the vehicle to establish a permanent military hegemony over the entire world will not be shy about taking chances.

Valley of the Uncannies

As for the public, I think Hitler hit the nail on the head with his observation that the big lie works precisely because the scale of it overwhelms small minds. Say what you will about the man, he saw clearly into the human heart.

My own take on the situation is that the combination of corruption above and stupidity below together form the social basis of the state as an instrument of power to compete with other states to maximumize ‘our’ share of the world’s wealth.

But then I’m so lost in cynicism that I don’t even believe the US is really waging a war on an emotion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

Added 16Oct: Sigh. I must admit that digging a bit more again finds surprisingly persuasive material, moving my estimate up to about 2%, back up into uncanny valley land.

Robin, you pulled those numbers out of thin air. They are not helping you, on the contrary the first provided an anchor that is influencing all your posterior reasoning.

Regarding the outside view, I don’t deny it’s usefulness but it doesn’t work the way you are doing it. The right way to do it is seeing the big pattern, not attributing random numbers to events. It all starts with how you see the government and politics. You can consider this as being your prior. The evidence that comes afterwards will always be interpreted according to the priors. Eliezer has an interesting post about inductive bias that comes to mind.

I think this is what causes so much difference in the opinions about this topic and many others. Where one sees an imploding building another sees a building collapsing due to structurally weakened steel.

The big pattern I see(and others will disagree I’m sure) is:

-America was in need of a new Pearl Harbor as written in 2000.(Project for the New American Century)
-In 2001 a terrorist attack.
-The originator of these attacks happens to be in countries of geopolitical interest.(Afghanistan)
-Shortly after America invades and occupies these countries(Iraq included) according to plans traced before 2001.

There is also the question of how you see the role of the CIA and of terrorism in the political game. There are a lot of books written about this topic.

Also, for the purpose of assigning a probability, one should really make it clear what constitutes a “conspiracy”. Here are some scenarios ranked roughly by degree of culpability of US government (or some part of it), with ties broken by bizarreness:

1. The government orchestrated the attack, faking everything including using missiles or unmanned planes
2. The government orchestrated the attack, using the actual planes but setting explosives to increase the destruction
3. The government knew of the attack, and added explosives to exacerbate the effect using the attack as cover
4. The government instigated the attack but left the destruction to their friends in Al Qaeda
5. The government knew of the attack, and actively prevented other parts of the government from stopping it
6. The government knew of the attack, and did nothing
7. The government was willfully blind to the impending attack due to a desire that the US be attacked
8. The government was negligent with respect to anti-terrorist preparations due to a desire that the US be attacked
9. The government was willfully blind for other reasons
10. The government was negligent for other reasons

Personally I would count the dividing line as 1-7 vs. 8+. Obviously one would not need to believe such bizarre claims as #1, suggested by “loose change”, in order to believe #7.

As far as the conventional approach, there are an overwhelming number of examples where people whom we have no reason a priori to believe are less logical, rational, and intelligent than ourselves nevertheless hold positions that we disagree with – which should cast doubt on the methodology which we and they use to reach the truth. If it worked, we should reach the same truth.

That methodology is objective, unbiased evaluation of evidence and argument. It doesn’t work.

I find it quite ludicrous, because of the confluence of motives and conspiracies. But I think when someone objecting to the standard narrative often claims the other side is lying, highlights they really are not evaluating the evidence in an objective way. Once you truly believe, as these guys do, big groups are lying, well, then everything’s questionable.