Having fallen prey to these in the past, it’s very intoxicating and even comforting to possess “secret knowledge”. That the chaos of the world can be attributed to a cause, even an evil one, is better than the idea that it’s all just random.
It’s a religion, just like all the others.
So “the terrorists are going to hit them with planes anyway, we might as well take the opportunity to bomb it like we’ve wanted.”
That is some galaxy brain shit 
It’s an offshoot of the "jet fuel can’t melt steel beams meme. They had to use explosives to bring the towers down but the evidence of the planes hitting the buildings is irrefutable so they have this bizarre franken-theory to account for it.
A truther reconsidering his starting principles is unheard of, even in the light of overwhelming evidence. It’s simply not possible that their kneejerk first guess was wrong. They’re never wrong about anything.
I still don’t follow. If they knew someone was going to crash airplanes into the buildings then what’s the point in rigging them with explosives?
That’s like saying “the CIA knew about Oswald’s plan to shoot Kennedy, which is why they also positioned their own entirely unrelated assassin to shoot at exactly the same time from a different location just in case Oswald missed.”
Then again I’m not up to speed on all the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories either so it’s possible some nutjobs are hawking that would one too.
If the towers had continued to burn for additional hours or days and never collapsed, leaving behind even more horrific images of doomed people on the levels above the flames facing drawn-out agonizing deaths, followed by the imagery of the charred steel framework of the towers looming over the city for months afterward as crews tried to figure out how to safely tear them down, yes, I do think that would be sufficient to provoke a pretty substantial government response. I suppose the death toll among firefighters would have been a bit less in that scenario, but pretty much everyone else who was able to clear out of the area was already gone before the towers fell.
The explanation I heard (in the show I mentioned elsewhere) was that there had been prior terror plots targeting the WTC, with American fatalities, but they didn’t change public support for wars and invasive national security apparatus. To achieve the goals of the hypothetical conspirators, it had to be an unforgettable catastrophe that clearly drives xenophobic paranoia & the idea that anyone could be next.
The logical error that always boggled my mind was that these hypothetical conspirators supposedly got hundreds of people to coordinate this elaborate attack and maintain perfect silence for years, but couldn’t send one CIA dude with a briefcase of WMD components into Iraq to justify the war.
Not to mention the massive attack on the freaking PENTAGON, or the hundreds of dead passengers on all the planes.
But again, you’d still get the spectacular tragedy whether you used planes or bombs. So why mix & match?
You could also ask “You’d still get the spectacular tragedy if you used two planes, why use four?” I think trying to attribute rational motives to this irrational act of violence is not how I want to spend my afternoon, I just don’t have the energy.
The actual terrorists’ planning was sound given their goal (to murder a bunch of Americans in a horrific act of terror).
The convoluted plans that conspiracy theorist attribute to shadowy government operatives make no sense regardless of their supposed goals.
“Let’s piss off America, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Nearly 20 years later and, well. You know.
This sounds almost identical to the stories spun by those who insist Covid-19 must have been deliberately engineered and purposefully released, in order to do this much damage.
In both cases, the actual event is surprising enough to catch even experts off their guard. But conspiracy fans would have to take the time (and posess the humility) to learn something new that they didn’t know before.
While the building 7 collapse did confuse the hell outta me, once I learned that the fire department had abandonded their effort to save the building, it stopped being mysterious at all.
I regard them as a disgrace for my profession.
And I as a disgrace for my alma mater! Different department, but still, damn, UAF!
Of course, Fairbanks collects more than it’s fair share of kooks, academically as well as culturally, apparently. But that’s one thing that made it a fun place to live.
I would love to see a social graph of all of the conspiracy nutjobs sometime. I imagine the GRU and others have them.
Because they had four teams and not three or five. Funding, personnel, operational security, time, etc. Mundane reasons. Just like with any other project.
Irrational motives? Depends in no small amount on one’s point of view, but that’s neither here nor there.
The act in itself was entirely rational, that is why it worked so well.
No plan survives contact with reality, and the more complex, the more brittle it is.
Atta had a degree in city planning. They teach you to think large in scale and long on time.
And he did what every city planner dreams of: change the face of a metropolis for good.
Which is why I’d bet good money that plane #4 would have been crashed into the Capitol dome.
And all the conspiracy theories surrounding 2001-09-11 are what I’d like to call the conspiracy theory+, because other than the usual ingredients they also contain a heavy dose of American exceptionalism. A couple of Johnny Foreigners hatch a plan, get the funding, and attack the richest nation with the biggest military might behind it on its home ground? Nah, that can’t be, therefore it must be a huge conspiracy involving really powerful adversaries.
It was also ridiculously simple.
Hit something with an aeroplane. The rest is physics.
Once that plan starts it is impossible to stop without large loss of life. Even if they were “unsuccessful”, they wouldn’t be, as far as hurting and scaring people.
Horrific from step one, no matter what happened next.
not to mention that none of the New World Order / invading countries / police state type things that Bush did 9/11 in order to make happen, actually happened.
Well its a classic single point of failure, but I had the impression that Building 7 had a more conventional construction, with multiple columns throughout the building.
Have heard alot of conspiracy nonsense playing online games. I can say I’ve heard this from multiple people. Other conspiracy theories I have heard:
global warming is caused by the magnetic poles shifting
the deep state is at work in the government
the cia is hacking my computer
We had a PhD at work who (based on his calcs) insisted that a “certain event” (contrary to physical laws, I must add) would occur during a test. (One of the acceptable reasons why techs tend to despise scientists and engineers.) Ever the diplomat 
I let one of his confidantes deliver the counter argument.
What happens when your nose remains a fraction of an inch from your excel macro.
