Posted on 11/16/2001 1:05:35 PM PST by MindBender26
This entire series of posts and threads on the loss of the AA flight is an amazing display of 2001 sociology. If we thought the internet was going to change people’s commercial activities but not our core behaviors and underlying thought process, we were certainly wrong.
Many of us have been following the crash aftermath here in FR. This is not an indictment or criticism of any one poster, not will this post attack anyone. It will ask the question, who are these internet people, and what are we all becoming because oft hem. Even more, it is certainly not a criticism of FR itself, JR, etc. He has done great work for America.
There is a certain suspension of rational thought process going on here. People are making, defending and angrily supporting crash theories based on some rumor someone else says a friend told them was heard on the radio. People are angry because others seek to apply basic rules of physics to an argument. Others propose the wildest theories, and defend them ad infinitum. Last year, some poster claimed TW800 was caused by ghosts of a 1948 Navy electronics experiment gone wrong, and other chimed in to agree!
At least eleven mutually exclusive theories as to cause of this week’s accident have been proposed, and if one is determined to be the real cause, the proponents of the other ten will all probably cry "foul" and "government cover-up."
People are accusing the government of fraud and murder because they haven't yet determined the cause of the crash, or grounded the Airbus fleet. Others demand an answer right now, before any laboratory testing is complete. This failure to deliver a verdict before bedtime is taken as further proof of negative government intervention.
This post is certainly NOT directed as criticism at any one person, but rather as an amazed wonderment of what is going on in supposedly Conservative society. Does the anonymity of the internet encourage people to suspend the rational judgment process? Did Clinton and Clintonism so skew American thinking on the issue of government dependency that anytime our government does not give us what we want, and deliver it to us gift wrapped and right now, we begin to have our little internet temper tantrums?
Another amazing observation is how there is little attempt to understand who is posting fact and who is posting mental masturbation stories. In ordinary conversation, there is a constant "reality checking" processing going on in our minds. It seems absent here. If we were down at the Grange Hall, high school homecoming, or even Harvard, we would be using all our senses to help us understand what is going on here. If some person joined the conversation and began to blame the crash on a weight and balance problem or wake turbulence, we might listen for a moment. But when we saw he was 9 years old, wearing adult diapers and had a throazine bottle in his hand, we might tend to discredit his theories! On the net, he will have a brigade of followers within the hour.
Old pilot's ditty: "Fish gota swim, planes gota fly; and sometimes they crash when they try!" Crashes occur, but this one seems to have brought out a demonstration of a change in the way we think.... or don't think. What do these post crash threads say, not about the crash, but about us
Again, certainly not a criticism of anyone, just a wonderment, that with all the technology in the world, have we again become the Clan of Grug, Druhr, Mogor and Allihia arguing by grunting over our cave fire, while the Cave Bear waits in the near distance recovering from his wounds of 1992?
Problem is the echo effect ref. elsewhere here.
Writer creates story (for example ) "AA crash could be linked to dynamite missing from Miami construction site." Is that the truth. Of course it is. In fact, the crash could be linked to my Aunt Tillie's garter belt. The opertive word is COULD.
Soon, some poster is replacing COULD BE with IS. Within minutes, another poster is repeating it. Soon, another poster is speculating that FBI, FDLE, NTSB and others are covering up terrorist link to crash, and we are off on another cycle of rumors pretending to be fact.
Specualtion is fine, as long as it is cleraly identified as such.... and the reader has the brains to understand thatis simply guesses and rumors comming from someone who might be typing in the Rubber Room at the State Home for the Bewildered! :~)
It's like so-called "health food" claims. CAN help cure cancer. ASSISTS in lowering blood pressure. Proven effective in clinical research to WORK WONDERS in the fight against fat..... If you want to see this done at its best, go to an MLM meeting!
It can all be BS is the wording is right.
Hale-Bopp? That would be silly...
It's clear that 587 was taken down by an early Leonid meteor.
More seriously, I think it's mean spirited to pick on "conspiracy types" for the end of rational thought. Conspiracy people _like_ thinking. Conspiracy people are bored and put off by the media & Establishment constant stance of "Turn off your mind and let an 'expert' tell YOU what you think..." Conspiracy people, rather, should be praised for keeping the art of thought alive and dynamic in a world of sherpas and gate keepers.
And, when a country is at war, then it is downright rational to look at the deaths of 260 people and _presume_ it was an attack until the evidence persuades you otherwise. (If the current media had been around in 1941, they'd have been falling all over themselves to CONSTANTLY point out that JUST BECAUSE _SOMEBODY_ attacked Pearl Harbor there is NO EVIDENCE to link it to the on-going British/German conflict over in Europe...)
Mark W.
Apparently pretty, as you supply a photo of a plane totally unrelated to what we are talking about. If Im not mistaken this was a Continental or Pan Am flight to Hawaii which was in fact hit by a bomb.
Cars just dont fall apart either but over the millions of miles driven each year you can find many examples of where it does happen.
Your beginning to paragraph four reveal that you don't apply the same standards to your post as you do to those of the rest of the Freepers'.
Apparently you've already concluded that 587 was obviously an accident.
Why don't you present your argument for that conclusion?
Before I comment on my italicized text, I wish to compliment you on your eloquently stated thesis on a very complicated sociological phenomenon that occurs countless times daily on the Free Republic Forum. The insight on the anonymous psyche of "Freepers" could never be gotten in any classroom or textbook, at any seminar or think tank, or from any other vehicle other then what JR has very wisely crafted. Cheers for Jim!!!
Now, to go on with the subject in hand. The irrationality of certain posters whom you refer to very kindly, is yet another example of how democracy works; and why it works. As disturbing as those posters may be to me and many others, (And I always considered myself to be conservative till I got on this board) they are a neccesary ingredient in American democracy. Necessary only so long as they do not exercise their zealousness in other more destructive ways. I'm afraid however, that the anonymity of this board allows a certain small of them, to refuel.
1. That FL800 was not an accident;
2. There's no way the government could tell within a half hour that 587 was an accident; and
3. BOTH engines, in proper working condition, just fell off, along with the whole intact tail.
Worked with someone who was a passenger on that flight. One scary mishap.
Absolutely not. I am saying that, at this point there is nowhere enough information to make any conclusion, initial or final as to the cause. The less valid information people have here, the more likely they seem to be in making a call without any real knowledge. Rumors are not knowledge.
Also distrust anyone who asks questions with an obvious bias going in, such as "parroting whatever is eventually released."
You are mistaken. Please see #40. No bomb.
It's called wide-open, free-flowing discussion in celebration of the First Amendment, and it is what makes FR such an appealing place to visit. Most of us have no problem separating the silver from the dross, and sometimes what appears to be dross just needs a buff-up to show the thread of silver in it.
In a business setting such no-holds-barred discussion is called brainstorming and is a valued problem-solving technique.
Frankly, I'm more disturbed by posters who try to trap the debate and keep it caged within what they a "rational" set of parameters. Lighten up. Loosen your tie and let blood flow to the brain.
I believe the problem for both government and FReepers in this situation is not having the humility to simply say; "I don't know". The government wants to look capable and in charge and most FReepers want to appear to be smarter than the next guy and too sharp to be fooled by anyone, especially government hacks pulling snow jobs.
I find that when you sort through the long threads you'll always find some useful information, some nonsense and a lot of guesses and wild speculation. It's all good but the posters that name-call and rant when challenged on some unprovable assumption with no real basis in fact are what MB26 alludes to and he has a good point. Rational discussion isn't possible with folks who accuse you of being a government lackey/fool simply because you disagree with them or submit that the government may be telling the truth at some point. It's annoying and the suspension of rationality in some threads gives one pause but when that happens I just sigh and remind myself, "it's the internet".
But again, we have to remember these things work just like fire investigations, unless one of the black boxes gives a clear clue (like the pilot exclaiming about somebody with a bomb) you proceed with no pre-suppositions, find the part that broke first, then figure out how it broke, then you've got your base answer: deliberate or accident. If the former you call in the FBI and have them start their thing. And we really need to remember that this takes time, lots of time, it's rare for the NTSB to have answers in less than a month. Planes are big and complicated and crash scenes are a mess, you don't figure out why you have wreckage scatter over a couple of square miles overnight, just doesn't happen.
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