THE ODDS OF THAT by LISA BELKIN
Here’s a trick: if you could fold a piece of paper in half 50 times, how thick would it be? First of all, you can’t fold any piece of paper more than 7 times (12 if it’s a mile long piece of toilet paper).
(The view from my roof on Sep 11, 2001)
THE ODDS OF THAT by LISA BELKIN
Here’s a trick: if you could fold a piece of paper in half 50 times, how thick would it be? First of all, you can’t fold any piece of paper more than 7 times (12 if it’s a mile long piece of toilet paper). Secondly, if you could, the thickness would be about 600,000 miles. If you tell this to your roommate he will not believe you. However, if you point out the numbers in 9/11 (9 plus 1 plus 1) add up to 11, and American Airlines Flight 11 was the first to hit the twin towers (which are shaped like 11), and there were 92 people on board (9 plus 2) he will concede there is something very rotten in the state of Denmark.
New York Times staffer Lisa Belkin clearly articulates what anyone who took math past Junior High has been trying to figure out since High School. The biggest problem with Americans today is they don’t do the math. They don’t do the math because they don’t take the math. Boomers turned our education into a “New Math” world where everyone gets a gold star and there’s no right answer. The result is a generation of people that are simply wrong. This numerical naiveté has permeated young activists like a plague and is primarily responsible for how fucking annoying they’ve become.
PULL QUOTE: “This seeming numerical message is not actually a pattern that exists but merely a pattern we have found. (After all, the second flight to hit the towers was United Airlines Flight 175, and the one that hit the Pentagon was American Airlines Flight 77, and the one that crashed in a Pennsylvania field was United Flight 93, and the Pentagon is shaped, well, like a pentagon.)”
PS: Speaking of 9-11. We didn’t include this checkmate of a conspiracy theory article in the top 6 because we already plugged it here.
See this, this makes me feel good. Usually I get down on the “other” publication for its fallacies when it tries to be a legitimate news source, because I imagine I’ll have to explain things to dumb hipsters in greenpoint who take its word as a bible and try to argue with me. But this is good. I’m sick of having to tell these truth movement idiots about the popular mechanics article. Hopefully now most of them will shut the fuck up.
I can’t believe they canceled the tv series based on kitchen confidential. that show was great.
To point out that it was YOUR ROOF, landowner Gavin.
where’s part I? this is great
matt taibbi wrote a great article debunking 9/11 conspiracy, not on technical grounds, but by simply asking – “why the hell would they make it so complicated even if they did it?” I.e., if the plan was to invade Iraq and take the oil and 9.11 was a subterfuge – then they would have had three fake “Iraqis” fake shoot the president or something – small controlled and actually points the finger in the right direction. I never understood why its so hard for some people to believe that people who hate the US and talk about it all the time – salafist extremists – put their words into action. Oh no..it must be Bush…ridiculous
I have an idea: if you want to invade Iraq, invade Iraq. No need to make up assassinations or talk about WMDs or even invent supercalifragilistic missile planes that blow up the World Trade Center. Just say there is a bad man there who committed genocide and may be a threat to America so we’re going to make a pre-emptive strike.
By the same token, now that we’ve done that how about just declaring victory, having a huge parade, and leaving?
By the way, nobody owns their own roof in lower Manhattan and if they do it doesn’t look like that. I’m sure the author meant the roof of the building in which he was renting an apartment…duh.
i know spouting this kind of crap tastes like drinking vomit when you read / hear it, but im not gonna go along with this article just because you sound like an absolute fucking moron if you dont.
i think if you look at human history and especially politics, its full of super-shitty murder and backstabbing and gangsterism, nepotism & double-crossing. i dont think thats gonna go away anytime in a hurry.
the deal is this: you cant believe in any conspiracies because you have to show up at work and try and somehow get your credit card debt down. thats it.
[...] tutelage of Adam Moss. He was the editor at the New York Times Magazine in 2002 where we got parts two and three, and after he moved to New York Magazine, we got parts four and five. You know what that [...]
dumbass. arithmetic doesn’t make you smart. take it from a guy who tutored dozens of 2nd generation asian immigrant kids who don’t need calculators but don’t seem to know (yet) what it’s like to have an original thought.
absolutely agree on the asian/numbers/iq thing. i live in korea whee every adult citizen has a firm grasp on economics, most university students study science, and every man, woman and child is aware of the fact that one study declared them to have the highest average iq of any nation. that last bit is the telling one. they all swallow the same info. one sort-of persuasive source on any subject that is broadcast or published by a major mass media outlet will reach enough people, who’ll tell all their relatives, that it becomes accepted very quickly as the “truth” about something. the whole beef protest thing was sparked by a 60 minutes style program containing a wack of false info. so while koreans are able to competently perform very difficult cognitive tasks, they lack a fundamental freedom to think for themselves. creativity is suspect; the one who stands out gets knocked down.
[...] [Ed note: For more on coincidences and people who don't get math check Lisa Belkin's "The Odds of That."] [...]
I love this site and I think your really smart and truly funny. Why would you plug that popular mechanics article? I’m not all fuck the world lets burn down the Capitol and I’m also not going to preach about a bunch of stuff I learned second hand from a video online, but a plug for the official story? Just kind of bummed to see it.
fuck (you’re)
No worky anymo’
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