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Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

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Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#31

Post by WalterBright »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #8

Saw a video of him responding to another skeptic by beating the shit out of him [0]. Honestly when people are that deluded a good knock on the head might be a more persuasive argument... [0] https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2019/0... [Edit] Mixed up Neil with Buzz... oops. -_-

I'd imagine Buzz would be pretty mad if he found out you were mistaking Neil for him, given that Buzz has lived most of his life in Neil's shadow.

As for me, I credit them both equally for being the first men on the moon. They both landed at the same moment. Whether the bootheel or the landing gear hit is not relevant.

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#32

Post by jakeogh »

surfpel wrote: post #26
jakeogh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always people that actually believe it, but there are good reasons to suspect it's not entirely organic. If one made a list of times the "fake landing" thing was used, the vast _minority_ would be arguments agreeing with this skeptic; in reality, it serves a different purpose. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21057230

> The most effective way to prevent people from looking into something is to poison the well. Attach the thing to something else obviously false, bonus points if evokes a negative emotional response. But then what is the end goal of all this? Anti-US propaganda?

To cause the desired effect. It's the most effective technique to stop people from looking at something. Consider why this purely technical, on-topic and perfectly NIST sourced comment was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23419760

screenshot: http://v6y.net/1592547475.screenshot.png

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#33

Post by tgv »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #21
mav3rick wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and didn't the WMD fraud come out internally ? Tell me one NASA or JPL scientist officially on the mission who is claiming that it was fake ? Stop being contrarian for the sake of it .

As I said, I’m not defending the moon landing doubters. But it seems obvious to me that the recent increase in conspiracy theories is a direct result of unethical institutional and government actions coming to light.

Like flat earth and anti-vax? To me, it seems more obvious that that's the effect of attention and manipulation in media, both "classic" and social.

A suspicious attitude institutions has always existed: from the government down to the grocer, who pushes the scales down while weighing. The more the attention is drawn towards it, the greater the suspicion gets, and I feel that especially divisive attention feeds suspicion. When behavior of an institution, such as the Trump administration, is not beyond reproach, it feeds the attention cycle.

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#34

Post by gameswithgo »

jwilber wrote: post #7
dreamcompiler wrote: post #5

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.

What it really comes down to is these people severely lack in critical thinking, so while it is surprising that they fail to account for other, seemingly obvious externalities, it really shouldn’t be.

This critical thinking critique is pretty tautological. In effect we are saying "these people with wrong ideas, the problem is they are not good at getting ideas right".

But that isn't useful/actionable knowledge. WHY are they bad at getting ideas right? Is it innate to the average human biology? Is it something that has gotten worse as more people have gotten onto the internet where they are exposed to non-curated data more?

Whatever causes this we need to fight it.

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#35

Post by squarefoot »

Didn't they come back with lunar soil samples? Armstrong reply was brilliant, but I would have also added: "here's some samples we took by ourselves, feel free to meet us at xyz lab and analyze them".

And btw, who the heck allows a negationist like that one to teach children?

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#37

Post by [deleted] »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #21
mav3rick wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and didn't the WMD fraud come out internally ? Tell me one NASA or JPL scientist officially on the mission who is claiming that it was fake ? Stop being contrarian for the sake of it .

As I said, I’m not defending the moon landing doubters. But it seems obvious to me that the recent increase in conspiracy theories is a direct result of unethical institutional and government actions coming to light.

[deleted]

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#38

Post by dnautics »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #16

They would have you believe that the United States Government perpetrated a gigantic fraud on its citizenry. Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that happened, by any government. The “Weapons of Mass Destruction” lie could be described using the exact same sentence, and that wasn’t even twenty years ago. Not defending the moon landing doubters, or conspiracy theorists in general, but: the proper response to…

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 (remember the Chapelle skit about yellowcake). The yellow cake was subsequently located in exactly the location where the un thought it was (Hussein hadn't bothered moving it) and it was likely that he was refusing to let UN inspectors in a misguided attempt to bluff the US into not invading due to deterrence?

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#39

Post by vikingcaffiene »

WalterBright wrote: post #31
vikingcaffiene wrote: post #8

Saw a video of him responding to another skeptic by beating the shit out of him [0]. Honestly when people are that deluded a good knock on the head might be a more persuasive argument... [0] https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2019/0... [Edit] Mixed up Neil with Buzz... oops. -_-

I'd imagine Buzz would be pretty mad if he found out you were mistaking Neil for him, given that Buzz has lived most of his life in Neil's shadow. As for me, I credit them both equally for being the first men on the moon. They both landed at the same moment. Whether the bootheel or the landing gear hit is not relevant.

> I'd imagine Buzz would be pretty mad

He's already knocked one dude out. Might as well add me to the list ;)

I agree with your sentiment. My mind honestly can't wrap itself around the terrifying sense of wonder and vulnerability those guys must have felt being up there and looking back at earth. Incredible.

Re: Neil Armstrong's reply to a Moon landing skeptic

#40

Post by WalterBright »

squarefoot wrote: post #35

Didn't they come back with lunar soil samples? Armstrong reply was brilliant, but I would have also added: "here's some samples we took by ourselves, feel free to meet us at xyz lab and analyze them". And btw, who the heck allows a negationist like that one to teach children?

> who the heck allows a negationist like that one to teach children?

Heh, I strongly disagree with a lot of what is taught in public schools. I even got some Fs in high school for telling teachers they were wrong.

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