That conversation with my uncle at Thanksgiving about 9/11 got under my skin

I was at my aunt's house in Cleveland last month and my uncle Bob, who was a steelworker for 30 years, started talking about how Building 7 came down. He wasn't yelling or waving a tinfoil hat, he just calmly pointed out that no steel-framed building before or since has collapsed from fire alone. I've always rolled my eyes at truthers, but he showed me the NIST report contradictions and now I'm not so sure. Has anyone here actually read the full NIST report on Building 7, or just the summaries?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_max14d ago

I've always rolled my eyes at truthers" - that's a good way to approach it, honestly. Uncle Bob sounds like a decent guy but one conversation shouldn't flip your whole world view, you know? The NIST report is thick and technical and people pick out what they want from it.

ericfox14d agoMost Upvoted

That 9/11 Commission Report is something like 600 pages and the NIST one is even longer. Nobody reads the whole thing end to end, they just grab a few paragraphs that support what they already believe. I've got a buddy who spent a week watching YouTube videos and suddenly he's an expert on steel melting points. The thing is, if you actually sat down with those reports, you'd see how much boring engineering detail backs up the official story. But that's the problem, boring doesn't get clicks or make for a good argument at a bar.