A motivational observation

[AstroBrant]

Sometimes we get frustrated or depressed with all our encounters with conspiracy theorists. It reminds me of the Walrus and the Carpenter about all that sand on the beach:

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Arguing with these people is often like writing on water. It's like trying to block a swarm of bees with a chain link fence. But let's notice one thing. Look at the numbers of comments in this forum compared to the number of views. There are many, many times more views than comments. Very likely many of those silent, invisible people are the ones we're trying to reach. We don't know what effect we have on them. Perhaps some will become influential Apollo defenders. Maybe some already are.

So if you ever wonder if it's all worth it, look at those view counts. If we're not turning the conspiracist tide, I'm sure we're stemming it, at least somewhat. This forum is valuable.

[onebigmonkey]

There is a danger sometimes when you get in to a heavy discussion with a few hard core individuals of thinking that there is a mass of deluded people out there who believe this nonsense, and that you are fighting a constant tide of surf borne scum threatening to wash away humanity's skills, knowledge and achievement.

However whilst in the confines of the debating room it appears noisy and vibrant, outside it is sleepy and no-one has noticed the hubbub. Rather than fighting a tide, we're wiping dirt off our shoe. You know, the kind that you occasionally tread in. It's a nuisance, it makes a stink, you really want to punch the person that left it there,  but it isn't all that common.

I often wonder, as I'm poring over photographs trying to pick out a star, or a cloud, or a rock to prove a point that no-one outside this small circle is really bothered about, just why the hell am I doing this? Who cares?

And then I watch a film of a Saturn taking off, or a rover driving around, or see pictures of Hadley Rille or Taurus-Littrow, or hear "we're go on that alarm" and I am awestruck by it again.

I find the rock, or the star, or the cloud and I think "that is just amazing". And also "Go me!" Especially when I find it first

[Bryanpoprobson]

My personal experience with hoax nuts I can only describe as frustrating in the extreme. They will argue that Black is Blue even when they are clearly in the wrong. Is it that they are so driven to prove Apollo didn't happen? Or is it some form of mental disorder? In several years of doing this I have only ever had one hoax nut hold up his hand and say, "yep I got that wrong!" Even when "Clearly" wrong, rather than admit it they will use the old Gish Gallop and go off on a tangent.

[Dr.Acula]

My experience is, they have got their own agenda and follow it blindly. They aren't able to acknowledge that they're wrong, it would destroy their world. Most of them make projections of themselves to their opponents (i.e. following blindly what has been told etc).

On one side it's frustrating to debate with people like AWE, Heiwa or allancw. You can show them exactly how wrong they are, you can provide what they demand. Result is, they simply ignore anything.

On the other side, sometimes it's really funny to see them acting. But I have to admit to have a strange kind of humour 

And there is something very important for me to follow these debates on a forum like this. Reading the responses written by experts, I've learned many things for my own. And this detail makes it worth to start a debate with these people.

[Echnaton]

Jockndoris' pride at drawing so many views is rather ill placed.  Like plenty of people on here, I check in with active threads, but only comment occasionally.  Each check in generates a view, but so what.  Does he feel pride at people checking in to see what interesting things we can learn?  Or perhaps to gaze in wonder or even disbelief at his clumsy dodging of the questions he stated he would answer?   No, the view count is another of his illusory ghosts that give him the pretense of exiting with his head high.

[Bryanpoprobson]

Jockndoris' pride at drawing so many views is rather ill placed.  Like plenty of people on here, I check in with active threads, but only comment occasionally.  Each check in generates a view, but so what.  Does he feel pride at people checking in to see what interesting things we can learn?  Or perhaps to gaze in wonder or even disbelief at his clumsy dodging of the questions he stated he would answer?   No, the view count is another of his illusory ghosts that give him the pretense of exiting with his head high.

Exactly, Adrian will get a kick out of the fact that his thread has run to 102 pages. The fact that most of that is repetition of the answers he ignored, or the questions he failed to answer, is besides the point.

[Dr.Acula]

Jockndoris' pride at drawing so many views is rather ill placed.  Like plenty of people on here, I check in with active threads, but only comment occasionally.  Each check in generates a view, but so what.  Does he feel pride at people checking in to see what interesting things we can learn?  Or perhaps to gaze in wonder or even disbelief at his clumsy dodging of the questions he stated he would answer?   No, the view count is another of his illusory ghosts that give him the pretense of exiting with his head high.

Exactly, Adrian will get a kick out of the fact that his thread has run to 102 pages. The fact that most of that is repetition of the answers he ignored, or the questions he failed to answer, is besides the point.

I try a variation of Gene Krantz's famous words while the Apollo 13 incident:
"Reality is no option."

It seems, most of the HBs abide with this. 

[JayUtah]

The problem is and will always be that the hoax claimants and their critics come from two fundamentally different points of view.  And I can't emphasize "fundamental" enough.

Jarrah, Heiwa, Adrian, and Neil Burns all share one thing despite their generally different approaches.  They all want an inappropriate amount of attention paid to them in one way or another.  And they all have a very over-inflated opinion of the competence and importance.  But they all manifest it in different ways and to different degrees.

Burns, for example, doesn't care if he's roundly laughed at.  Adrian is just too stupid to realize how wrong he is.  Jarrah cloisters himself, in Jack White fashion, among his supporters.  Each has his own idiomatic way of attracting attention and his own idiom for ignoring criticism and error.  But it's all fundamentally egotism.

The critics' approach is not about attention.  It's about a concerted effort to discover what the facts are and what they mean.

[ka9q]

Jarrah, Heiwa, Adrian, and Neil Burns all share one thing despite their generally different approaches.  They all want an inappropriate amount of attention paid to them in one way or another.  And they all have a very over-inflated opinion of the competence and importance. 

There is probably no better demonstration of this than the way Jarrah reacts to those hoax debunkers who garner the publicity he apparently thinks is rightly his. James Oberg, Phil Plait, Adam Savage and you come to mind.

[smartcooky]

And there is something very important for me to follow these debates on a forum like this. Reading the responses written by experts, I've learned many things for my own. And this detail makes it worth to start a debate with these people.

I couldn't even begin to list the things I have learned about the Apollo programme (and space technology in general, even in areas where I have considerable expertise such as radio and radar) from reading posts by members such as JayUtah, ka9q, sus_pilot, lunar orbit et al.

Another thing that being on his forum has taught me; that there is a lot of stupid out there, far more than I had ever imagined. I had heard of Kaysing, Sibrel, Rene and Jack White before I ever joined this forum, and I thought they were stupid, but their levels pale into insignificance next to that shown by Adrian, Burns and the Blunder.

Truly, the world is full of stupid, and there is no cure.

[Sus_pilot]

And there is something very important for me to follow these debates on a forum like this. Reading the responses written by experts, I've learned many things for my own. And this detail makes it worth to start a debate with these people.

I couldn't even begin to list the things I have learned about the Apollo programme (and space technology in general, even in areas where I have considerable expertise such as radio and radar) from reading posts by members such as JayUtah, ka9q, sus_pilot, lunar orbit et al.

Another thing that being on his forum has taught me; that there is a lot of stupid out there, far more than I had ever imagined. I had heard of Kaysing, Sibrel, Rene and Jack White before I ever joined this forum, and I thought they were stupid, but their levels pale into insignificance next to that shown by Adrian, Burns and the Blunder.

Truly, the world is full of stupid, and there is no cure.

Thanks for the compliment, putting me in the same league as Jay, et al, but it's hardly deserved. I'm a manager and a flight instructor that merely recognizes valid engineering principles.  As I tell my flight students, I only have to understand how to use an airfoil, not design one; similarly, in my other life, I only have to recognize the constraints imposed by the track structure and opportunities given by the  layout of a huge network.

Heck, I even learn better sentence structure and grammar here, which is a huge asset in writing nearly weekly for an electronic newsletter. Thanks, Gillianren!

[gillianren]

You're welcome!

[Dr.Acula]

And there is something very important for me to follow these debates on a forum like this. Reading the responses written by experts, I've learned many things for my own. And this detail makes it worth to start a debate with these people.

I couldn't even begin to list the things I have learned about the Apollo programme (and space technology in general, even in areas where I have considerable expertise such as radio and radar) from reading posts by members such as JayUtah, ka9q, sus_pilot, lunar orbit et al.

Another thing that being on his forum has taught me; that there is a lot of stupid out there, far more than I had ever imagined. I had heard of Kaysing, Sibrel, Rene and Jack White before I ever joined this forum, and I thought they were stupid, but their levels pale into insignificance next to that shown by Adrian, Burns and the Blunder.

Truly, the world is full of stupid, and there is no cure.

Thanks for the compliment, putting me in the same league as Jay, et al, but it's hardly deserved. I'm a manager and a flight instructor that merely recognizes valid engineering principles.  As I tell my flight students, I only have to understand how to use an airfoil, not design one; similarly, in my other life, I only have to recognize the constraints imposed by the track structure and opportunities given by the  layout of a huge network.

Heck, I even learn better sentence structure and grammar here, which is a huge asset in writing nearly weekly for an electronic newsletter. Thanks, Gillianren!

My first language is German. Here I can improve my English and can learn either. And I feel very comfortable with the detail, that nobody here, in contrary to some of the HBs, doesn't care much about my mistakes. Here my mistakes are corrected and that's all.

[AstroBrant]

You're welcome!

You should have written, "Your welcome."... http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/Smileys/default/grin.gif