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Comment by pupdogg | Hacker News Reader

Yet the coalition of 3400 architects and engineers still do not have computer inputs of NIST's mathematical models used for simulating how the buildings were destroyed. As per NIST: "This information was exempt from public disclosure under Section 7d of the National Construction Safety Team Act because it was determined by the Director of NIST that release of the files might jeopardize public safety."

References: 1. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/20-years-later-nis... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiwpj7aa9c8

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May I ask the HN community what your thoughts are om this?

I always felt there are two parts of the “truthers”: the same crowd that is now denying covid and the ones representing this point of view.

The insanity is overshadowing the reasonable people in the truther movement, but in isolation this video (and ones like it) really makes me wonder.

It isn't odd to think that some of the wilder conspiracy theories on this, and other subjects, are seeded precisely to be such bullshit as to tar any discussion of the issue.

Plus the ever present rampant hucksterism that will say anything to sell stuff.

Because they don't want to teach terrorists how to take down skyscrapers?

Two planes are hijacked and then rammed into two of the tallest buildings in the world. Both buildings collapse, while causing another 3rd building to collapse as well. I'm not sure how a mathematical model would help/teach the terrorist any more than the already available public videos of the attacks.

The model may help terrorists destroy buildings without hijacking planes.

Good point but I think the planes were a crucial control for their simulation/modeling.

So could computers. Ban computers?

Using a truck in the garage in '93 didn't work. So they went back to the drawing board.

We all know what happened when the Rebel Alliance got the plans to the Death Star.

Better positioning and it may have worked...

It wasn't just a 3rd building, either - there was a lot that had to be demolished.

It sounds unlikely to me that some terrorists have figured out a secret way to collapse skyscrapers with an airliner that architects and engineers haven't figured out already and which wouldn't be part of the curriculum of becoming an architect or engineer in the first place.

BLS estimates several hundred thousand in directly overlapping professions in the US. I suspect a good number of these 3400 are people who are not even aware their name is being used for this cause.

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