ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: Peter B on January 23, 2014, 06:35:09 AM
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I see from http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/ that he hasn't produced any more written articles about Apollo for a few years, but there's a relatively new YouTube posting from him at (it seems to be a recording of a radio show)
I could only listen for a couple of minutes...
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I could only listen for a couple of minutes...
Heroic... i already stopped at the eighth word of his website... "disinformation"
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Heroic... i already stopped at the eighth word of his website... "disinformation"
Stupendous. I stopped looking at his web page with just a glance.
Yet another FUD monger that uses run on web pages full of stale dated crap.
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What an awful looking website. It's like the internet version of green ink.
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Heroic... i already stopped at the eighth word of his website... "disinformation"
Seems like a remarkably accurate description:
Welcome to the Internet's best source for disinformation-f. Free news and commentary!
There, fixed the punctuation.
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What an awful looking website. It's like the internet version of green ink.
LOL. That or finger-painting!
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The last post was in jest.
I took a brief look at his "exposé" of the Boston bombing. What sort of sick f*&k can pour over pictures of human suffering, with blood and shattered bodies and then try to hand-wave that suffering away in the vain attempt to try and find "clues" to support a sick fantasy?
Some of these conspiracy theorists are so far removed from other human beings that they defy explanation. Truly they are the product of spending too long on the Internet in a bedroom in their Mom's house and too little time interacting socially with other people.
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I don't know if you can blame this on the Internet. Conspiracy theories have been around for a long time, even before JFK was murdered by a cabal of three letter agencies, organized crime, various Communist governments and LBJ. The Internet just gives them a chance to connect with like-minded individuals who reinforce their existing delusions. The term "echo chamber" really is apt.
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The Internet just gives them a chance to connect with like-minded individuals who reinforce their existing delusions.
And the Internet is much more convinient than standing in the cold, carrying a shield with your conspiracy and shouting to the masses.
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Yeah. The net sometimes reminds me of New York when I lived near there in the 1980s. I used to go in for concerts and to buy CDs and books afterwards. Tower Records is long gone, but now I can get my music online any time of day -- and the variety beats even what the two big Tower stores in Manhattan once had to offer.
And when they started to clean up Times Square, it seemed that all the crazies who used to hang out there also moved online. Again, an even bigger variety, available 24 hours a day.
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The last post was in jest.
I took a brief look at his "exposé" of the Boston bombing. What sort of sick....
There simply are times when ridicule is the appropriate response to the perversely ridiculous. Now if he wants to show up and defend himself here, I am sure we can give him a serious and critical response.
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Every major event is subject to some kook's conspiracy theory. But the Apollohoax has introduced a new element. The kooks fell in love with pouring over photographs and footage and crying fake over the slightest imagined "anomaly".
For the Apollohoax that passable. The events took place far far away from anyone else's eye. While we know there is independent evidence, the pictures and eye witness accounts themselves can be claimed to be purely from the gubmint.
But when they start pulling this on events that happen in front of thousands of people, it doesn't work. Claim Bush orchestrated 9/11 by all means, but to say that the planes didn't really hit the towers and the footage is all fake despite thousands, millions of people seeing it for themselves? That's a whole level of crazy our scientists hadn't even theorised yet.
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Glom - that's a good point.
It is theoretically conceivable that a government might create fake photographs of a Moon landing, because they're the only ones there. But as you say, the conspiracists have taken the arguments from there (and, I suppose, the Kennedy assassination), and started to apply the obsessive search for "anomalies" to every single occurrence, even when there are hundreds of sources for the pictures. And when they find those anomalies, they proclaim that "everything's a fake!" rather than "hmm, anomalous things show up in photos all the time, so I guess they don't mean that a photo is fake."
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The Internet just gives them a chance to connect with like-minded individuals who reinforce their existing delusions. The term "echo chamber" really is apt.
It's folie à plusieurs.
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It's folie à plusieurs.
Absolutely. I'm fascinated by this phenomenon. I call it folie à N, with N >> 1.
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If you are looking for sciency terms, I think that "communal reinforcement" is closer to what you need.
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Ah, the magic of the Internet, bringing people together from all around the world with common interests, for good and ilk.
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I've had a few requests at [email protected] to comment on the video, which (like some of you) I can't bear to watch yet. I'm kiester-deep in upgrading the cooling and airflow infrastructure in my downtown data center (which means structural mods to the 100-year-old building), so I'll have to wait a bit to watch it.
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I've had a few requests at [email protected] to comment on the video, which (like some of you) I can't bear to watch yet. I'm kiester-deep in upgrading the cooling and airflow infrastructure in my downtown data center (which means structural mods to the 100-year-old building), so I'll have to wait a bit to watch it.
Trust me, its 24 minutes of your life that you will want back. I could get past the first couple of minutes. I did comment on what I heard, but I expect it'll be removed and I'll be banned, dogpiled on or whatever
Duh! Why are theses dumbass hoax believers so keen on taking data out of context?
von Braun's comments: They were written in 1953! He was talking about what it would have taken AT THAT TIME with the technology available THEN. Its like having the latest available aircraft being a DC-3 and saying that a New York to London trip cannot be made in less than 10 hours. Of course that was true... THEN!!
Lunar dust: The dust only becomes a problem with an EXTENDED STAY! The longest Apollo mission was 74 hours, and the dust was becoming a serious problem. Gene Cernan (A17 Mission Commander) has even stated that the dust would be a problem with longer stays.
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Of all the things that hoaxers say and do to annoy me, I think the single most offensive is to quote reputable, accomplished people out of context with the intent to misappropriate their authority and credibility without earning it for themselves. I.e., quote mining.
To pick a current example over on YT, someone saw the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander challenge and read that as a direct admission that they didn't know how to build a lunar lander, ergo their Apollo Lunar Module didn't work. After all, why would they pay someone else for something they already knew how to do?
Ask for the exact passage in which Grumman said "our Apollo Lunar Module was a fake, it didn't work" and your question goes right through their heads like so many neutrinos.
It's tempting to conclude that they must be trolling because no one could possibly be that stupid or delusional, but I have to be careful not to assume that our minds work the same way. They may well honestly believe what they're saying, but even after years of watching some of these people I still can't decide for sure.
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It's tempting to conclude that they must be trolling because no one could possibly be that stupid or delusional, but I have to be careful not to assume that our minds work the same way. They may well honestly believe what they're saying, but even after years of watching some of these people I still can't decide for sure.
In the case of this guy in the comments, stupidity is the only answer :
Further to the lander only being able to use its engine once, to get off the moon, it was used to land on the moon. So even more trouble is to be seen all over the claims of a lunar landing.
The possibility of two separate engines apparently hasn't occurred to him (that, and he's never even done the most basic research).
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I've had a few requests at [email protected] to comment on the video, which (like some of you) I can't bear to watch yet. I'm kiester-deep in upgrading the cooling and airflow infrastructure in my downtown data center (which means structural mods to the 100-year-old building), so I'll have to wait a bit to watch it.
There's really not much to comment on; it's just a string of false analogies. Starting with von Braun's description of the huge rockets it would take for a direct surface-to-surface mission (which they didn't do, of course) and moving on to why lunar dust wasn't a problem for the Apollo missions (which of course it was) but will be for future missions, and the same old "why is radiation a problem now if it wasn't then?" B.S., without mentioning the difference in length of the missions.
Just goon babble. Not even worth debunking, IMHO.
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I've had a few requests at [email protected] to comment on the video, which (like some of you) I can't bear to watch yet. I'm kiester-deep in upgrading the cooling and airflow infrastructure in my downtown data center (which means structural mods to the 100-year-old building), so I'll have to wait a bit to watch it.
Datacenter cooling is in my wheelhouse. Do tell!
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I've been watching and sparring with the people some of us call "hoaxtards" (I wish we had a somewhat less juvenile-sounding term) and I still can't figure them out. Why does this get them so worked up?
I know why it gets us worked up. I still vividly remember Apollo as a kid, and it helped inspire me into a productive and rewarding career in engineering. Many of you will say similar things. But what about the hoaxers? Obviously it didn't have that effect on them so why do they still get so worked up?
Apollo is nearly half a century old, and all too many of the people involved have passed on. I haven't checked the population figures but it's probably safe to say that for most people alive today, Apollo is ancient history -- if I define "ancient" as anything that happened before one was born, or when one was too young to remember. Most people don't have particularly strong feelings about ancient history, one way or the other.
Is it because they hate the US Government? Okay, but it's not like there's a dearth of more recent, bigger and more relevant government activities to criticize. And many of them (like the Iraq war and NSA mass surveillance) have the advantage of having plenty of real evidence of real wrongdoing.
Yes, there's crank magnetism, and most Apollo deniers do subscribe to many other government conspiracies. But NASA still seems to engender a special fear and loathing all out of proportion to its actual size, budget and influence. Even if I wasn't a self-confessed "space nut" I think I would still see NASA as one of the most benign entities in the federal government. It spends only 1/2 of 1% of the federal budget. It has no significant rule-making or law enforcement authority. It has almost no effect on the everyday lives of most people. Even if one thinks NASA's budget is money down the drain, surely there are much bigger targets for one's ire about government waste, no?
So I can't figure it out. What is it about NASA that gets certain people so upset? Is it just the symbolism? NASA does symbolize American intellectual achievement, and Congress funded Apollo precisely for its contribution toward the "soft power" of the United States, i.e., the respect and admiration people (used to) have for this country and its achievements.
Many conspiracists do seem to view the US as an evil monolith. They can't see it as a large and diverse group of individuals with different motives and goals (to say nothing of official job descriptions). They simply can't accept that such unmitigated evil could ever do anything really cool -- and if you press them on the point, many will grudgingly admit that landing humans on the moon was pretty damn cool, uh, or it would be if anybody ever actually did it.
I've been at this a long time and I feel like I'm still no closer to really understanding these people. It's frustrating. Any thoughts or comments?
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I've been at this a long time and I feel like I'm still no closer to really understanding these people. It's frustrating. Any thoughts or comments?
I think it's because they view it as the ur-conspiracy, the Rosetta Stone that defines everything else. They get angry because it's so 'in your face' and unquestioned by the mainstream. Unlike the '60's assassination conspiracy theories, which have garnered a whole host of respectable books, documentaries, movies etc, belief in an 'Apollo Hoax' is still widely viewed as the province of nutters and tinfoil hat wearers.
That pisses them off because they think if that particular edifice crumbled then everything else would come down with it - pull on the 'Apollo' string and everything from JFK to the Gulf of Tonkin to 9/11 to the Boston Marathon Bombing and beyond would be revealed for what they believe it to be : a succession of hoaxes and 'false flags' designed to facilitate whatever end the individual hoaxers believe in - usually a gun-grab, FEMA death camps, martial law, Illuminati-Zionist takeover scenario (interestingly, that seems to be the same vision of the future whatever the politics of the individual HB).
They get angry because the majority of people still don't believe their claims about Apollo, and therefore don't accept the Unified Conspiracy Theory, hence the constant cries of 'sheeple' and 'shill'.
I think their anger at NASA stems from the belief this can only be happening because NASA is a far more powerful and secretive organisation then most people believe.
That's my take on it, anyway!
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Apollo is nearly half a century old, and all too many of the people involved have passed on. I haven't checked the population figures but it's probably safe to say that for most people alive today, Apollo is ancient history
And that touches upon what I have considered one reason for the hoax beliefs. I think most HBs are too young to have experienced the Moon landings and some feel they missed out on something very special. But if it never happened, they might still get to enjoy watching the first humans set foot on the Moon.
I doubt that's the main motivation but it may be part of it.
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For some, maybe. I am far too young to have seen it personally. Heck, I am too young to have even been a zygote when Challenger and her final crew met their fate.
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Is it because they hate the US Government? Okay, but it's not like there's a dearth of more recent, bigger and more relevant government activities to criticize. And many of them (like the Iraq war and NSA mass surveillance) have the advantage of having plenty of real evidence of real wrongdoing.
I've always found this one strange. If the objective is to bitch about the US government, it's not like there's a shortage of real things to complain about.
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I think of it as nerd envy.
Maybe its because of the place I see most of the hoax these days (Godlike Productions), but the tenor among most of the people who post on the subject (not the same as the people who post most on the subject) is anti-science. They come across a lot like the similar low-end rabble of Creationism; a very strong undercurrent of, "Oh, you educated people think you are so smart! Well let me tell you something..!"
Particularly for the Apollo Conspiracy theory, it is the most easily accessible one for science-oriented arguments. Or to put it more properly, over-generalizations and poor models presented as if they were solid science-based arguments, allowing the poster the illusion that he is standing up to all those bullying nerds by using their own weapons back at them.
If you plumb all the way through the argument it looks very silly indeed; "Science is all wrong and you are stupid to believe it. I'm going to prove how stupid you are by doing science better than you." But since they don't see the contradiction, it leaves them free to hop back and forth over the fence; one moment presenting a conclusion based on available data, the next eschewing the data inconvenient to that conclusion with the hand-wave, "It's all fake anyhow."
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I've been watching and sparring with the people some of us call "hoaxtards" (I wish we had a somewhat less juvenile-sounding term) and I still can't figure them out. Why does this get them so worked up?
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I've been at this a long time and I feel like I'm still no closer to really understanding these people. It's frustrating. Any thoughts or comments?
Your post really set me to thinking about this phenomenon. I've never really considered the point before, but the moon hoax believers do seem to be some of the most zealous of the CTs.
I really have no idea why that is, but in pondering the question one point came to mind. Of all the events (real or imagined) at the center of wild theories, the Apollo missions are the only thing I could think of that represent a positive accomplishment. All the other CTs that I could think of seem to center around tragic or at least negative events: 9/11, JFK, the Boston Bombings, mind control, Sandy Hook, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, AIDS, and so on ad nauseam.
Is it plausible that this topic attracts so much attention simply because of the sadly all too human impulse to try to build yourself up by tearing others down? i.e. mock a great accomplishment because you'll never accomplish anything yourself?
Just food for thought.
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I heard it described on SGU quite nicely: it doesn't matter if your theory won't work, it doesn't matter if your theory and mine are mutually incompatible; as long as the theory is "anti official history" then it is acceptable.
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I heard it described on SGU quite nicely: it doesn't matter if your theory won't work, it doesn't matter if your theory and mine are mutually incompatible; as long as the theory is "anti official history" then it is acceptable.
That reminds me of something Peter "Ratbags" Bowditch wrote about cancer quacks on his website (http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/cancercurers.htm). These people all have mutually incompatible theories about what causes cancer. But that doesn't stop them celebrating their individual wins, even though those wins would imply the others are all wrong.
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Your post really set me to thinking about this phenomenon. I've never really considered the point before, but the moon hoax believers do seem to be some of the most zealous of the CTs.
With the possible exception of Birthers.
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I think of it as nerd envy.
Personally, I don't think that's it at all, although this explanation will be an extremely easy sell to people who identify as nerds. But I see some of the same behaviour from some 'nerds' whenever they leave the areas of their own expertise. When I see people with a certain level of science knowledge at CosmoQuest publicly humiliate themselves with pompous and empty-headed declamations about history, law, economics, sociology, or some other topic, is this because they secretly envy historians, lawyers, economists, or sociologists? I suspect not.
Contempt for other people's knowledge seems to be a very common trait, and I don't find the nerds to be immune from this tendency.
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Your post really set me to thinking about this phenomenon. I've never really considered the point before, but the moon hoax believers do seem to be some of the most zealous of the CTs.
With the possible exception of Birthers.
Which, now that you mention it, is another case of trying to tear down a great accomplishment. Or, at least, an historic occasion - the election of the first black US president.
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I've always found this one strange. If the objective is to bitch about the US government, it's not like there's a shortage of real things to complain about.
Exactly. I'm continually accused (by the hoaxers) of blindly believing everything the US government tells me and of thinking that they can do no wrong. They don't stop when I express my opinions about Watergate, Vietnam and Iraq, not even when I label Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld as war criminals. Without exaggeration, I point out, because torture is formally classified as a war crime.
But no, they've already decided that I believe everything the government tells me, so I guess that clears things up.
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I think of it as nerd envy.
Personally, I don't think that's it at all, although this explanation will be an extremely easy sell to people who identify as nerds.
Well, I am admittedly one of those people who find it an easy sell, but I still think there's some truth in it. Apollo was the ultimate nerd stunt. I thoroughly enjoyed the Apollo 13 movie not only because it was about Apollo, but because the nerds on the ground got to be the heroes for a change. For a long time, Apollo was a symbol of human intellectual achievement; hence the cliche "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we..." I don't apologize in the slightest for saying that we should celebrate intellectual achievements of all kinds, not just those in space. Without intellect, humans are pretty unremarkable animals.
And a lot of Apollo deniers do seem to resent all kinds of intellectual achievement, not just Apollo. So I think there's some validity to the claim, though it's probably safer to call it "nerd resentment" unless we can get some actual evidence (rather than wishful thinking) for an 'envy' element.
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I've always found this one strange. If the objective is to bitch about the US government, it's not like there's a shortage of real things to complain about.
Exactly. I'm continually accused (by the hoaxers) of blindly believing everything the US government tells me and of thinking that they can do no wrong. They don't stop when I express my opinions about Watergate, Vietnam and Iraq, not even when I label Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld as war criminals. Without exaggeration, I point out, because torture is formally classified as a war crime.
But no, they've already decided that I believe everything the government tells me, so I guess that clears things up.
That comes from an inability to see the world as anything other than black and white.
If you choose the path where you don't trust the gubmint then everything they say must be a lie. You must either have blind faith in their fidelity or blind faith in their ignominy. There is no middle ground.
It's also related to this New World Order type stuff as well. The notion of random enemies all over the place is too colourful. There must be a singular enemy, that being the Illuminati/Masons/OWG. Only that perspective is permitted in the binary world of the tin foil.
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Rather than targeting the nerds themselves, how about considering it's what the nerds have that the conspiracy theorists dislike - knowledge: the hard-won intellectual experience both from extended study and extended work experience, and what the people had to do and give up in order to achieve it.
Over on the UM forum Ove in the Moon Hoax thread metaphorically waves his hand and magically geologists know nothing about what a Moon rock would look like. Just like that 10, 20 or 30 years of study and hands-on work experience counts for nothing.
On what basis does Ove say this? None that I can see, but what power does he wield! With a mere assertion of ignorance on the part of geologists he can now claim the field is level and that he knows as much as they do. Gee, that was a lot quicker and cheaper than going to university and working your way up through the ranks of your chosen profession, and it works a treat on the Internet.
I probably haven't reached the right conclusion, but I'm fairly sure the underlying thought process is right: it's not nice being factually smacked down, even by someone who knows a lot more in the topic of discussion than you. So if you can't argue the facts, and you can't straight ad hom the other guy, then just denigrate his profession/knowledge.
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I can't really add much about what exactly makes hoax-believers tick, but over the years have noticed four particular qualities in most of the vocal ones who put up a fairly good fight:
Young
Smart
Undereducated
Arrogant
Naturally there are variations and exceptions – we've had some who are old, smart, undereducated and arrogant. Some HBs obviously have an above-average IQ, but not the education to back it up so it works properly, such as the having ability to think and debate logically. More often than not, their under-education applies to Apollo – they don't know much about it, don't understand it, and so they rubbish it. Some of them might be quite smart, but they have much more ego than brains – a very poor combination.
Fifty years ago I had all of the first three qualities and, thankfully, not much of the fourth, but I sometimes decided some procedure needed changing and bumbled in before I fully understood exactly why things had been done a particular way for a long time. Got into trouble a few times before I understood the understanding part.
I left school aged 15 in 1964 and went to work in a world that was heavily populated by old, vocal Victorians (the era or state of mind, not the State in Australia) and to whom modern-day PC-Brigaders are very similar. I didn't know how to best handle them.
Looking back now, I can see that school was too boring, not practical enough and not interesting enough. A lot of useless facts were rammed into my head and I was supposed to regurgitate them, but I certainly didn't get an education for living, and my parents hadn't helped either. There was nothing about relationships of all kinds, professional and personal, nothing about how and why things were done in the business world, and more importantly, nothing about logical thinking which I only learnt here and at the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board in the 1990s, thanks to JayUtah and others. And the biggest thought I have about that is, “Why the hell wasn't I taught that valuable stuff at school, before I was old enough to leave?” I firmly think the world might be a better place if many more people were taught basic practical and logical thinking at an early age.
Because of the above, I often see my if-I-had-run-off-the-rails young self in some HBs, and feel sorry for them.
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All in all, I see them as not too much different from many of the "ists" and "ers" that I run into elsewhere. "Ists" being followers of an ism and "ers" being those part of a belief group, broadly speaking. They are people who develop an identity based on a ideological, political or social theory that is divorced from any testable or objective reality, Yet insist their theory has great explanatory power or if implemented will yield the most desirable results. It is all too common. With moon HBs we at least have objective evidence to beat them down with.
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My theory is a lust for secret knowledge and drama.
The truth is, they are more than happy we don't agree with them.
It wouldn't be the same if all the 'sheeple' believed, as they wouldn't be the only ones 'in the know' any more. The exclusive club wouldn't be exclusive.
Furthermore, disinfo agents give add a sense of empowerment. "Haha, I am enough of a thorn in their side that they send actual people to try and refute me!" In a world where one is lucky to get any kind of interaction with a person when talking to large entities like governments and big business, the idea that they are getting such a personal response just adds to the thrill.
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My theory is a lust for secret knowledge and drama.
The truth is, they are more than happy we don't agree with them.
It wouldn't be the same if all the 'sheeple' believed, as they wouldn't be the only ones 'in the know' any more. The exclusive club wouldn't be exclusive.
Furthermore, disinfo agents give add a sense of empowerment. "Haha, I am enough of a thorn in their side that they send actual people to try and refute me!" In a world where one is lucky to get any kind of interaction with a person when talking to large entities like governments and big business, the idea that they are getting such a personal response just adds to the thrill.
Agreed. There seems to be a lot of narcissism involved as well as copious amounts of drama and a huge deficiency in critical thinking. When I saw a certain hoaxer dressed up as a secret agent in his videos, I knew right there that it was not about Apollo or any kind of truth, it was about him. Cleverness is no substitute for true awareness.
I'm considered an expert in my field of work and I can usually tell in about 15-30 seconds if a person actually knows what they are talking about. I suspect it is very much the same for aerospace engineers when they hear Moon hoax arguments. I don't understand the science behind Apollo much more than a layman, but I took the time to actually learn why/how things work in order to develop a better, though limited understanding.
I also find that the people that do the most finger pointing usually have the most to hide.
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Like the old saying goes, one finger forward, three fingers back. Or as wise person said, watch for the plank in your own eye when picking at the speck in others.
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I have to disagree. It's probably because I am a cranky, cynical old man but I believe that although many of the Ct people are simply ill-informed, the majority of the 'vocal' CT'ers are malcontents. If government were incredibly open, if businesses and financial institutions were the most altruist organisations on the planet, if armed conflict between nations / religions / groups were a distant memory, these people would still be complaining, still be claiming a cover up somewhere. And to boot, they normally embody all the worst traits they would claim to reject.
One only has to look at places like Pilots for 9-11 Truth; dissent is not tolerated: they are the very definition of dictatorship.
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That doesn't contradict what I said. After all, they are more than willing to make stuff up if no secret knowledge exists. It is the want that is important, to be inducted into the Mysteries.
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I have to disagree. It's probably because I am a cranky, cynical old man but I believe that although many of the Ct people are simply ill-informed, the majority of the 'vocal' CT'ers are malcontents.
I don't think there's any contradiction here. All these things are true to varying degrees in different hoaxers.
If government were incredibly open...
It's hard to find a branch of the US government more open than NASA. As I said, it's about the most benign federal agency there is, and the worst accusation anyone can level at them that isn't laughably false (because it's just an opinion) is that they waste 0.5% of the budget. Yet it draws a special ire from these people. So yeah, at least some of them are certainly malcontents. At the very least they seriously resent the accomplishments of others.
One only has to look at places like Pilots for 9-11 Truth; dissent is not tolerated: they are the very definition of dictatorship.
Yup. You can see this very easily by just challenging their claims and using a stopwatch to see how long it takes them to begin the 7th-grade bully tactics.
Back then, that sort of thing bothered me. Now I just find it entertaining.
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...the worst accusation anyone can level at them that isn't laughably false (because it's just an opinion) is that they waste 0.5% of the budget.
This is indeed reasonably true, which is to say that in addition to the malcontents' claims that NASA's legitimate budget is wasted money, the budget is also chock full of special-interest earmarks. I don't know if they're more burdened that way than other agencies, but the most common complaint I hear from inside NASA is how individual congresscritters keep using NASA's budget to hide pork for their district. Sadly, these budget line-items need to be acted upon, whether they contribute or not to NASA's core mission. So you have things like funding for a space-science museum in a county with only 10,000 residents.
But I'll add another legitimate criticism: NASA is a disjoint mess. That comes from its history. Trying to do business with NASA is frustrating and error-prone because each individual center is very nearly autonomous. NASA was formed from all these separate centers that already had an established culture and procedure. They exist under loose national control, but have all different procurement and oversight requirements, standing procedures, and other business processes. This is why, in some cases, I feel private industry would be more efficient at space exploration.
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Then there's nonsense like this. Now our taxpayers have to fund NASA's lawyers to fight this.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/lawsuit-alleges-nasa-failing-investigate-alien-life
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Is that what you may call asking the impossible so one can use it as a "ah HA! I was right......"
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Of course, there's another possibility. They constantly label us shills and disinformation agents, but perhaps they are the ones paid by shadowy agencies to start and spread wacky conspiracy theories in order to deflect focus from what governments are actually getting up to, sometimes in plain sight. Isn't this one of the theories about the Roswell 'incident' - that the military encouraged the story of a crashed flying saucer in order to draw attention away from their efforts to detect Soviet nuclear tests and develop top secret aircraft?
Of course, if you chase that rabbit too much, you can drive yourself mad. Though sometimes I think that this can be the only explanation for some of the more ridiculous things out there. That, or they're are just doing it for the 'lolz'.
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I'd say mostly the latter; there are a couple of posters on JREF espousing some of the more, um, "interesting" theories* who have pretty much admitted to trolling. There is also at least one poster with very CTish theories who has admitted to having been diagnosed with mental issues; that is sad.
* theories as in "wild guess with little or no foundation in this reality or just about any other"
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Well, at least they admitted it. That takes a certain kind of courage.
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Of course, there's another possibility. They constantly label us shills and disinformation agents, but perhaps they are the ones paid by shadowy agencies to start and spread wacky conspiracy theories in order to deflect focus from what governments are actually getting up to, sometimes in plain sight. Isn't this one of the theories about the Roswell 'incident' - that the military encouraged the story of a crashed flying saucer in order to draw attention away from their efforts to detect Soviet nuclear tests and develop top secret aircraft?
Of course, if you chase that rabbit too much, you can drive yourself mad. Though sometimes I think that this can be the only explanation for some of the more ridiculous things out there. That, or they're are just doing it for the 'lolz'.
I have seen it claimed - with complete sincerity - that Oliver Stone is a gub'mint disinformation agent paid to spread the woo in order to distract us from what THEY are Really Up To.
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There is also at least one poster with very CTish theories who has admitted to having been diagnosed with mental issues; that is sad.
Are they mental issues where delusions are a symptom? If not, I don't see how it's relevant.
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Apparently, yes. Although he has posted some details there, I don't feel it's appropriate pass it on, as to me it's a personal matter. In general, though, the point I was trying to get at was that believing in CTs because of such issues - whether directly, as in delusions, or indirectly (perhaps as a matter of lack of trust in the Establishment), is unfortunate, and should not be an object of scorn or derision. Or any other problem arising from illness, for that matter.
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such issues - whether directly, as in delusions, or indirectly (perhaps as a matter of lack of trust in the Establishment), is unfortunate, and should not be an object of scorn or derision.
Agreed, but at the same time it doesn't mean their ideas should be taken seriously...