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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

This July will be the fiftieth anniversary of the NASA moon landing. Over the years, there has grown a conspiracy theory that the moon landing was faked. This nonsense has only become more widespread during the age of the Internet.

The video I am linking to HERE explains the origins of this hoax.

In the video, the host says something that I've been saying for years whenever someone questions whether the moon landing ever happened. That being that if the landing had been faked, Russia would have done everything it could to expose that. After all, especially in the midst of the Cold War and the Space Race, the chief competitor to the U.S. in reaching the moon surely would have done all it could to prove the thing was a hoax were that actually the case.

Anyway, I thought the video was interesting and wanted to share it with the board.

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John Byrne
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

One of my closest friends has a boyfriend who’s a Moon landing denier. Remaining civil is... difficult.
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Brian Miller
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Welcome to living in the middle of MAGA country, JB...
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I agree that the most convincing argument I've been able to provide to a "soft" Moon denier I know (one of those "there's moon than meets the eye here" type people) is much the same: there were multiple countries and independent agencies tracking the Moon landing. If the US hadn't really unambiguously landed people on the Moon in 1969, the whistle would have been blown within days by Russia.

Mike Collins (crew member Apollo 11) has also alluded to the fact that the Moon landing involved thousands of people within NASA - highly unlikely that all of them would have kept this major conspiracy a secret. As he said in the documentary movie In The Shadows of the Moon:

 QUOTE:
I don’t know two Americans who could have a fantastic secret without one of them blurting it out to the press. Can you imagine thousands of people being able to keep this secret?


The Apollo 11 landing, as impressive as it was, also needs to be seen in the context of there being ten prior practice missions which went as far as Apollo 10's Lunar Module coming within 47,000 feet of the Moon's surface (but it was short-fueled precisely to prevent the pilot from being tempted to land!).
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John Byrne
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

NASA spent a lot of money trying to make the Apollo XI mission foolproof. They came pretty close. Of course, they could not anticipate the fools who would try to prove it didn’t happen.
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Conspiracy theories prosper because people who lack knowledge, but nevertheless want to appear highly knowledgeable, can summarize complex events in a much more memorable and impressive form, while simultaneously demonstrating their unique insight above and beyond those eggheads who only have "book smarts".

I was talking to a bartender friend who lives in Los Angeles the other day, and I mentioned 9/11 in passing, to which she confidently replied "it was an inside job anyway". When I tried to explain to her some of the pertinent facts regarding the Saudis, Bin Laden, the history of the Middle East, etc. she zoned out. I could tell she had absolutely no idea about any of the actual facts behind the occurence, nor any interest. Clearly she was drawn to the simple dramatic conspiracy theory, and was satisfied with it as the explanation, because the tedious alternative would be to spend time and effort learning about a complex set of relationships and events that lead inevitably to 9/11.

Same reason why the religious explanation for life, the Universe and everything is so much easier to understand and much more appealing than the far more complex scientific one.

Back to the Moon Hoax theories, and what really angers me is that it basically waters down what was a genuinely amazing achievement for the human race, reducing its ability to inspire a new generation, because there will now always be this doubt in the back of some minds.
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Neil Lindholm
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

They left reflectors on the Moon so lasers can bounce off. I wonder how they hoaxers explain that?

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Brian Hague
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

One of the maxims by which I live my life: "To every complex problem, there is a simple solution. And it's wrong."

Everyone wants that simplicity, though. Everyone wants to jump to the end and claim an unwarranted, unearned victory. "That was fake" is so much easier than trying to understand and worse, credit, the vast complexity of the machine that sent capsules to the Moon with men inside. It's just... easier... to posit an even bigger monstrosity of lies that is keeping the "actual truth" from us. No need to explain the mechanism by which that conspiracy exists. It just does. Because it does. Why are "they" doing this? Because they are. To keep us weak. And stupid. Which you are. But I'm not. Because I'm on to them, see? I get it. You don't. You're sheeple. I'm done with this. If you can't see how evil the world truly is, you deserve to be taken advantage by it. I don't. Whatever happens to me is truly unfair. Whatever happens to you is something you deserve. You're asking for it. I'm the victim here. Because I'm so damn smart. But I'll come out on top eventually. Fox News is on my side, and together, we're going to expose the corruption of the conspiracy. "NO SPIN!!" I live with the truth, see? The rest of you can't handle it.

And so on and so on. There is no end to the self-justification and self-gratification these morons can provide themselves with this sort of worldview. Accept the moon landing and you have to give credit to people smarter than yourself for accomplishing something extraordinary. Deny it and the smartest person imaginable is you. Just you. A few others know what you know as well, and they're pretty smart, too. Together, you're all just about as smart as anyone can be.

Oh, and Russia? They were in on it too, see? You people just don't understand how the conspiracy involving science works. It's international. Those thousands of people working on the project? The mathematicians, computer programmers, and all the rest of those types? Most of them were lied to as well. And bought it! Because "smart" people... are really the most stupid. Am I right? Here, have another brew. A toast then... To those of us who really get this world. We'll be running it one day. Hey, one of us is already President. Won't be long now. (Clinks bottles together.) Damn straight.

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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Wonder how many of the Moon Landing deniers are also Flat Earthers?


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Shane Matlock
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Posted: 18 June 2019 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Brian, I would say most. Any time I've heard one nutjob saying there was no moon landing, they will also rant about the Earth being flat.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 19 June 2019 at 4:59am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Just to add to the idiocy, the flat Earth is a fairly recent invention. It gained most of its traction in the 18th century, according to what I’ve read, and at that time it wasn’t from people advocating a flat Earth, but from intellectual snobs claiming this was something our stupid ancestors believed.

That Columbus set out to prove the World was round is something that attached to his (largely fictional) story long after the fact. People, especially maritime cultures, knew the Earth was a sphere. Columbus claimed it was smaller than had been estimated.

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James Woodcock
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Posted: 19 June 2019 at 7:16am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I don’t know if moon landing deniers are flat earthers but they do tend to be anti vaccine idiots (@ least from my experience as I do know a couple). 

They also believe the whole mainstream news is fake, regardless of whether they agree with Trump or not. 

So it’s a pretty complex group. Just a complex group of idiots
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