What? I get browbeaten any time I've mentioned the MSM doesn't do its job.

Pretty sure it's only a small minority that thinks the MSM does a 'good' job. (It probably does in fact do 'its job', its job being to pat the status quo back into place.)

I felt like I was taking crazy pills in 2002-2003. "Hello? Are we really going to do this? This seems like a horrible idea." And it's not like I had some special insight or wisdom. But even some pretty liberal friends of mine were convinced, in part, I'm sure, because there was so little dissent aired in the mainstream media.

There was indeed little dissent aired, and most of the vociferous dissent was abroad. (Democrates, especially in the Senate, failed to do their duty.) The worst of it, imo, was the almost non-existent fact checking done. If you were paying reasonably close attention it simply was not possible to believe there was a preponderance of evidence that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. What 'evidence' was offered was entirely on the order of "see? Here's a building with the kind of fencing around it you'd use if you wanted to manufacture weapons of mass destruction."

RE: 34, "Truthers" and the like aren't skeptics. They believe hard in their conspiracy theories. Very few consipiracy theorists will accept any evidence that contradicts their beliefs, no matter how massive or convincing. They are the very opposite of skeptics. Otherwise, I agree that skeptics are a good thing.

I did spend a little over an hour researching one evening after coming across a couple of 9/11 'truthers'. Some of them really do work the science, and one of their main assertions is that jet fuel can't burn at hot enough temperatures to melt steel, ergo explosives were required to bring down the towers, ergo explosives WERE used.

What that doesn't account for is that you don't need to actually melt steel in order to weaken it enough to bring down a building. Unless you're aware of that, it's easy to see why someone credulous could be gulled into believing the planes alone weren't enough to bring down the towers.

I did spend a little over an hour researching one evening after coming across a couple of 9/11 'truthers'. Some of them really do work the science, and one of their main assertions is that jet fuel can't burn at hot enough temperatures to melt steel, ergo explosives were required to bring down the towers, ergo explosives WERE used.

What that doesn't account for is that you don't need to actually melt steel in order to weaken it enough to bring down a building. Unless you're aware of that, it's easy to see why someone credulous could be gulled into believing the planes alone weren't enough to bring down the towers.

That's a pretty weak defense. If you're taking the position that the steel has to melt in order to bring down the towers and jet fuel doesn't burn at a hot enough temperature to melt steel so GOTCHA!, you're not really "working the science." It's also not merely ignorance of science, but ignorance of logic.

9/11 truthers are worthy of contempt for their lack of intellectual rigor, if nothing else.

Jett fuel can indeed get hot enough to melt it. But for hem thwy mean melt as in take it down to a liquid form which would be impossible even if you used explosives. Also love this thread. Sam even you drive me nuts i really enjoy reading what you have posted here.

Snapper's problem is that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. (Joe's problem is that he doesn't care what he doesn't know.)

I know. If only I was a liberal …

***

For better or worse, a lot of these types of conversations take the form:

{A, B, C..., Q} debate grand, arching narratives for three pages.
X stops by and drops detailed, rigorous knowledge in a post.
None of {A, B, C..., Q} have a better response than the knowledge post, so it goes "ignored."

This is often exacerbated by the fact that more often than not I am one of the primary interlocuters in the initial debate, and my style is generally brutalist and unrigorous (less charitably, lazy and sloppy), but usually in line with what MCoA will eventually post. MCoA is rarely if ever lazy or sloppy, so there's a standard process of sorts where I'm the bruising blocking back making a hole and then he comes dancing through as the star RB and gets all the glory. Or, again less charitably, that I'm a bull in the china shop and he has to come in occasionally and sweep up my messes. — Sammy The Neck-Stabber

Before that last paragraph, I didn't know a barf bag was needed when reading BBTF. Now I know better.

Hey Joe. Learn some new shtick. Your entertainment is lacking at the moment.

Hey Joe. Learn some new shtick. Your entertainment is lacking at the moment.

Ironic complaint, coming from someone whose main shtick is to nip at my heels.

Ironic complaint, coming from someone whose main shtick is to nip at my heels.

How about this for a nip at your heels, Kehoskie. Remove the bit you added to the quoted text @354 or have me get it removed for you. We've had this ####### conversation, son.

LOL. It's too late for me to edit #354 — which you knew when you posted your comment — but I wouldn't do so even if I could. It's really comical watching you spew invective at this site but then whine about innocuous jabs and jokes sent your way. Are you now pretending that "neck-stabbings" hasn't been one of your recurring jokes/threats here?

No, you simpering ########, there's simply a basic standard of behavior anyone with any knowledge of internet debates abide by, and the primary one is you do not modify quoted text. But you're incapable of basic standards, aren't you Joe. Useless sack of ####.

No, you simpering ########, there's simply a basic standard of behavior anyone with any knowledge of internet debates abide by, and the primary one is you do not modify quoted text. But you're incapable of basic standards, aren't you Joe. Useless sack of ####.

Uh, I didn't "modify quoted text." Your comment was quoted verbatim, with only an attribution added at the end (as has been done here countless times before).

But anyway, it's funny watching you lecture others about maintaining a "basic standard of behavior" while repeatedly using profanity that Jim has specifically requested not be used at his site, including the use of profanity in the course of launching ad hominem attacks that don't move the conversation forward.

But what you're doing here is distinct and different, entirely, than Snapper's previous line of argument that paraphrases to "Muslims lost power in the world because Islam's a deficient and blasphemous religion that fails to allow full human growth in Providence."

EDIT: and to follow on, the single worst way to address this problem is to acquiesce to the barbarians' definition of terms and wage a "clash of civilizations" against "Islam," rather than engage in a cooperative campaign with all of the elements of Islam that aren't barbarian to isolate and defang the Dark Ages hangers-on.

Nice to see you completely misrepresenting my positions while I'm off living my life.

My theological objections to Islam are no different to my theological objections to Calvinism or Buddhism. I think they're all deficient as religions. That doesn't mean they don't contain some truth, but they all lack something. But that's not the discussion we were having.

Neither Calvinism nor Buddhism has proven an obstacle to economic progress, scientific innovation, and individual liberty. Islam has.

To be perfectly clear, the area first conquered by the Arabs/Muslims was the richest area in the western world for at least a thousand years before the conquest. Anatolia/Syria/Egypt/Mesopotamia were richer than Europe under the Greeks, richer under the Romans, richer under the Byzantines. But under Muslims rule that ceased to be true, fairly rapidly. By 1000 AD, Western Europe was able to have a good deal of success invading and occupying areas in the Arab/Muslim heartland, where 250 years earlier they couldn't keep Muslim pirates from raiding near Rome, and a Moorish army reached central France.

The long term decline of Islamic areas versus Western areas, economically and scientifically is a fact. Given that fact, the supposition should be that culture has a major impact on that.

Now, I'm off to Church and to my parents, so you can continue to misrepresent and slander me unabated.

Neither Calvinism nor Buddhism has proven an obstacle to economic progress, scientific innovation, and individual liberty. Islam has

This would be news to the many Muslims who teach at American universities and make good money, invent stuff, and are as free as anybody else.

If your point is that a nation like Iran features a weak economy, bad universities, and a repressive government, fair enough. But I don't think that has much to do with religion per se. You could have said the same thing about Protestant Alabama 50 years ago.

Have you done calculus recently? Astronomy?

Can you provide a citation for the Islamic invention of calculus? Because nowhere in any text have I ever seen this.

Can you provide a citation for the Islamic invention of calculus? Because nowhere in any text have I ever seen this.

I always thought it was Indian. Though as implied several times in this thread that does not necessarily mean it wasn't Muslim.

Indian and Indonesia *are* Muslim cultures.

A few hundred million hindus might take exception to that characterization. The Moghuls may have conquered, but they were also, in their way, assimilated.

Or was it simply luck and geography?

Actually, they do play a role. The political and geographic fragmentation of Europe was helpful in allowing divergent views to arise.

I always thought it was Indian. Though as implied several times in this thread that does not necessarily mean it wasn't Muslim.

Other forms of mathematics, yes. But calculus, while it had some forebears and hints in earlier works, does not really come to full invention and fruition, as near as I can tell, until Liebniz and Newton.

I mean, everything derives from what came before it, but if you reach the point of ascribing string theory to the Caliphate, then invention means nothing.

Actually, they do play a role. The political and geographic fragmentation of Europe was helpful in allowing divergent views to arise.

I've been thinking this whole thread, Niall Ferguson's "The West and the Rest" addresses these issues.

But I haven't up to this point, mostly because I don't find Ferguson to be the most convincing historian around.

If I recall correctly I think political fragmentation is one of Ferguson's (ugh) "killer apps" that allowed the West to be dominant after 1500.

Neither Calvinism nor Buddhism has proven an obstacle to economic progress, scientific innovation, and individual liberty. Islam has.

Islam has not. This is why I feel comfortable referring to your position as bigoted.

The long term decline of Islamic areas versus Western areas, economically and scientifically is a fact. Given that fact, the supposition should be that culture has a major impact on that.

And this is why I feel comfortable referring to your position as bigoted. You have a bee in your bonnet about Islam in a way you don't have a bee in your bonnet about other religions.

Now, I'm off to Church and to my parents, so you can continue to misrepresent and slander me unabated.

I have been quite clear when I paraphrase and summarize your positions to state that I am doing exactly that. And it's not like the debate disappears into the ether such that you can't come back in a day or so later and continue to represent your side in your own words. In fact, you've just done as much. Please get off your martyrdom complex.

Otherwise, enjoy the theater. Is it a musical this week?

This thread is closed to commenting. You can continue spinning on the merry go round over in the dedicated OT-P thread.