Well, here lies the difference between US and EU.
In US, you try to reason with lunatics who believe the earth is flat and other nonsense.
In EU, we treat lunatics like lunatics.
Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
171–180 of 201 posts
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
The WMD claim had plenty of holes poked through it even at the time . There were constant stories making it clear the inspectors in Iraq were not finding anything, and whistle blowers like Valerie Plame who directly contradicted the White House claims. Today, less than twenty years later, it's no longer a question that there weren't any WMDs. The fraud Armstrong is pointing out isn't really comparable.
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.
No, that kind of is the point. The analogy doesn't work because the US put out all the evidence transparently - it was their conclusion that didn't make sense.
...so it's nothing at all like faking a moon landing.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't the wmd not a fraud? It was just overselling a truth. IIRC the claim was that Saddam Hussein had ceased reporting the location of stockpiles of nuclear material that the UN used to keep track of. The sin of the bush administration was that they sold it to the public that this was a national security threat even though they knew it was very lightly enriched and counted on the public not knowing or caring (remem…
They not only sold lie to the US they sold it to the world. Colin Powell stood up at the UN to present the world his Power Point of lies: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/06/lie-after-lie-what-colin...
Right - but the world looked at the evidence and said "sorry, that's not a strong case." ...and then the US invaded anyway.
So it's really nothing like a fake moon landing.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#174Armstrong'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?
They don't have to lie. You can have 90% of those 400k people do legit work, but still fake the landing. Maybe they built the rocket but encountered some technical bottleneck and had to fake the landing. Not a skeptic myself, but the argument that 400k people needed to keep a secret is pretty weak.
The argument still holds because you'd need to keep 40K people silent - which is impossible.
There are single individuals that even the President of the US cannot keep silent.
A democratic country has no ability to keep monumental secrets like this.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
They not only sold lie to the US they sold it to the world. Colin Powell stood up at the UN to present the world his Power Point of lies: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/06/lie-after-lie-what-colin...
I guess the question could hinge on if yellowcake is truly wmd or not, but regardless the administration openly claimed it was, and that's what they based their argument on, and iirc that yellowcake was found.
Don't let a few facts get in the way of that good story:
The yellowcake removed from Iraq in 2008 was material that had long since been identified, documented, and stored in sealed containers under the supervision of U.N. inspectors. It was not a “secret” cache that was recently “discovered” by the U.S, nor had the yellowcake been purchased by Iraq in the years immediately preceding the 2003 invasion. The uranium was the remnants of decades-old nuclear reactor projects that had put out of commission many years earlier: One reactor at Al Tuwaitha was bombed by Israel in 1981, and another was bombed and disabled during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Moreover, the fact that the yellowcake had been in Iraq since before the 1991 Gulf War was plainly stated in the Associated Press article cited in the example above:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/have-your-yellowcake/
No. Uranium recently shipped from Iraq to Canada was left over from Saddam Hussein’s defunct nuclear weapons program and had been in sealed containers, under guard, since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. Claims that this material is "vindication" for President Bush’s WMD claims in 2003 are completely false.
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/uranium-in-iraq/#:~:text=%...
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
They not only sold lie to the US they sold it to the world. Colin Powell stood up at the UN to present the world his Power Point of lies: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/06/lie-after-lie-what-colin...
Right - but the world looked at the evidence and said "sorry, that's not a strong case." ...and then the US invaded anyway. So it's really nothing like a fake moon landing.
The US never convince the rest of the world their evidence was strong even though Powell tried his best.
That is why the United Nations Security Council never past a resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion and instead the US had to settle for the "coalition of the willing" as the their base of support.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#177I 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 best way is to use the Socratic method, if you have a lot of time. If you throw enough wilful ignorance, compliments, kindness, genuine interest and an endless amount of questions at someone, you’ll eventually get them arguing with them selves. It’s really the only way to move someone, because you’re not really convincing them of anything, they are doing that themselves. Of course in the modern day and age, such…
...obviously this isn't scalable to do one-on-one. That's why it's better to broadcast it. Have a televised debate where you convince someone with this method - so you can link-share to anyone online you meet with the same idiocy.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right - but the world looked at the evidence and said "sorry, that's not a strong case." ...and then the US invaded anyway. So it's really nothing like a fake moon landing.
The US never convince the rest of the world their evidence was strong even though Powell tried his best. That is why the United Nations Security Council never past a resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion and instead the US had to settle for the "coalition of the willing" as the their base of support.
right... which is why this entire line of the thread is worthless because it's nothing at all like a faked moon landing.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#179Earlier 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…
And I completely agree with all of that. That doesn't change the fact that "the government wouldn't defraud you" is a horrific argument. And that is one of his points.
Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Did you try to establish a new religion? L. Ron Hubbard. Church of Latter Day Saints. There have been major religions established in the last 2 centuries in the USA alone.
Those are not major enough, not billions. 2 centuries are longer than Moon controversy, though not by much.
Adding a new qualification of "not major enough" is a no true scotsman argument, which is not compelling. They are religions by any measure but your arbitrary goalposting.
>> people have been selling an invisible product since thousands of years (religion), so it is quite possible to get billions of people to lie to themselves and to others.
The "billions" qualification comes from your specific interpretation of this statement to mean a single religion. This is not the assertion. Nor is the specific count relevant to the point, as billions can be read to mean all relgions combined. Large groups of people can deceive each other and themselves. Full stop.