101–110 of 201 posts
The letter is great, but it doesn’t have the same impact Buzz Aldrins reaction to the skeptic had.
For those who haven't seen Aldrin punching a conspiracy theorist in the face: https://youtu.be/jc7gsdonMHw
What gets me most about these fools is they completely ignore how much such a huge fake job would cost. It would be so expensive that you could cut the budget in half and just...go to the moon.
I read it somewhere that the best way to respond to conspiracy theorist is to make a more outlandish claim: - Moon landing was fake. - You believe in the Moon?!
- the earth is flat! - what earth ?!
Armstrong's exact argument about the vast numbers conspirators that would be required to keep perfect secrecy is exactly what I use when people try to claim that the coronavirus is some kind of hoax or that there's some kind of conspiracy about vaccines. Have you ever tried to get thousands of people to cooperate on anything, let alone perpetuate a massive lie, when they have nothing to gain personally from doing so?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not the point though. If Aldrin's implicit argument is the US government would never try and defraud its citizen, then any example of such a fraud disproves him.
The fact that it’s the US government isn’t the important bit; Armstrong isn’t asking you to trust the government, and his entire argument is explicit, no reading between the lines required. What’s important is the “gigantic fraud involving 400,000 people” part -- clearly establishing that it would have had to be a pretty extreme effort. And rather than just saying “trust us”, he explicitly suggests asking people outs…
You can create that kind of group think were many do believe in what they are doing.
Armstrong's exact argument about the vast numbers conspirators that would be required to keep perfect secrecy is exactly what I use when people try to claim that the coronavirus is some kind of hoax or that there's some kind of conspiracy about vaccines. Have you ever tried to get thousands of people to cooperate on anything, let alone perpetuate a massive lie, when they have nothing to gain personally from doing so?
How do you even reason with those people?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/homeopaths-sell-inje...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mention flat earth and anti-vax, because they are conspiracy theories that are not obviously driven by the government's behavior.
I am not too familiar with either, but in my view they are definitely associated with ‘authority’ whether then be mainstream media, government, institutions, etc.
Perhaps I should have made clearer that it was in particular the word "direct" that I was responding too, not the fact that unethical or shady behavior from a government can trigger long-lasting distrust.
Thousands of people saw the Apollo rockets take off. They would have had to do that part anyway, and that was the most expensive part of the mission.
If Elon can't get us to the Moon by 2030, I'm putting my tinfoil hat on. Does this sound like a group of guys who just accomplished the most impressive feat of human innovation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeAGGpRYmKY