Where Even To Begin?

[gillianren]

From one of my best friends.

today my mother told me the moon is made of plasma, and also that buzz aldrin said they couldn’t actually film on the moon, and all the “footage” is animation. if you were wondering how things are going here.

This is . . . a lot.  My poor friend.

[Peter B]

It's always tough when the person you need to engage is family.

In my case it involves finding other things to talk about, and avoiding contentious subjects altogether. My consolation is that I think their ability and desire to influence others is limited.

In the meantime I try to positively influence as many people as I can, even if that means diving into the debating cess-pit that is YT.

The "moon is made of plasma" argument is a fave of the flat earthers. But I have to say I haven't heard the other two arguments before. I wonder if these have been included in a recently released YT video - YT commenters are predictable in their ability to parrot a video's talking points...

[Ranb]

Does mom even know what plasma is?

[Peter B]

Does mom even know what plasma is?

I'm sure she knows it's that special sort of material which is its own proof:

1. They know Apollo must have been faked because the Moon is made of plasma; and

2. They know the Moon must be made of plasma because Apollo was faked.

[onebigmonkey]

It's always tough when the person you need to engage is family.

In my case it involves finding other things to talk about, and avoiding contentious subjects altogether. My consolation is that I think their ability and desire to influence others is limited.

In the meantime I try to positively influence as many people as I can, even if that means diving into the debating cess-pit that is YT.

The "moon is made of plasma" argument is a fave of the flat earthers. But I have to say I haven't heard the other two arguments before. I wonder if these have been included in a recently released YT video - YT commenters are predictable in their ability to parrot a video's talking points...

There's a cherry-picked clip from a TV interview where Buzz is being pedantic about what was broadcast during Apollo 11. He quite rightly points out that the landing itself was not broadcast live, and that as a result TV stations used animations to fill the gap until live transmissions started.

Naturally people with limited attention spans have put 2 and 2 together and made -7.

[Peter B]

It's always tough when the person you need to engage is family.

In my case it involves finding other things to talk about, and avoiding contentious subjects altogether. My consolation is that I think their ability and desire to influence others is limited.

In the meantime I try to positively influence as many people as I can, even if that means diving into the debating cess-pit that is YT.

The "moon is made of plasma" argument is a fave of the flat earthers. But I have to say I haven't heard the other two arguments before. I wonder if these have been included in a recently released YT video - YT commenters are predictable in their ability to parrot a video's talking points...

There's a cherry-picked clip from a TV interview where Buzz is being pedantic about what was broadcast during Apollo 11. He quite rightly points out that the landing itself was not broadcast live, and that as a result TV stations used animations to fill the gap until live transmissions started.

Naturally people with limited attention spans have put 2 and 2 together and made -7.

It both amuses and disappoints me when hoaxers ask "Why wasn't X done" or "Why are there no pictures of Z" when it's trivially easy to show X was done and there are pictures of Z. And these are the same sort of people who are constantly telling us to "do your own research". If only irony led to insight...

[gillianren]

Does mom even know what plasma is?

Probably not.  All in all, my friend has made the decision that they're not visiting their family for Christmas again.  I can only imagine what their father, the retired science teacher, thinks of all this.  Rowan says that he kind of goes along with things because he likes to keep the peace, but that just means he's damaging his relationship with his kids.  Rowan's sister and her family are apparently planning to move to New York in the knowledge that, unlike their move to Montana, they will not be followed by the parents this time.

[Obviousman]

It both amuses and disappoints me when hoaxers ask "Why wasn't X done" or "Why are there no pictures of Z" when it's trivially easy to show X was done and there are pictures of Z. And these are the same sort of people who are constantly telling us to "do your own research". If only irony led to insight...

For me, when presented with evidence, they just claim THAT has been faked, and images are Photoshopped, etc.

[gillianren]

Animated, ye Gods.

To be fair, we're pretty sure Rowan's mom's got serious mental health problems--my Completely Amateur Opinion is paranoid schizophrenia, honestly.  She definitely has anosognosia, which is the condition where your brain doesn't know anything's wrong with it, which means she's simply never going to get treatment.  My friend's just going to have to live with that, which is painful for them.  Their mom has always been odd, but the slope into Seriously Not Well has gotten steeper in recent years.