What becomes of old 'friends'..

[Not Myself]

Well, how can you dispute 'One Who Knows'? If he knows, he knows, right? Actually, the guy should have fleshed it out a bit and put it out as science fiction - it's not a bad yarn, in spots. (I read the first two pages hen skimmed some of the rest.)

He's obviously in the know.  Some of these conspiracy folks just have a vague idea that something doesn't smell right to them.  This guy has the story spelled out in incredible detail, dates, names, types of weapons, etc.  Must be an insider.

[ka9q]

More toward your point, I tell kids to get their generals done at whatever accredited school is cheapest for them to attend.  Everyone getting a 4-year baccalaureate has to take so many of the same classes regardless of eventual major, and they're largely the same no matter where you go, and largely as disinteresting to students.  Hence if you're going to be a mechanical engineer, get "Western Civilization" and "Nutritional Life Skills" out of the way at Groener State Teacher's College, because you won't enjoy them any more at $4,000 per credit hour at your Ivy League dream school.

That's not always possible. Credits are not always readily portable, even within the same university. Cornell, my undergraduate school, is an unusual mix of endowed and state colleges on the same campus. This is important because for New York residents (28% of the student population) tuition is substantially lower for state than endowed schools yet for the first two years everyone sits in exactly the same classes. So it was once common for prospective engineers from New York State to enroll in Agricultural Engineering and then switch to the College of Engineering after their sophomore year, saving substantially on tuition for two years. The University put a stop to that by requiring transfers to pay the difference when transferring credits from a state to an endowed college.

I suppose it's still viable if you think you won't make it all the way. At least you won't have spent as much when you drop out. Then again, few students enter college expecting to flunk out, nor would I recommend a self fulfilling prophecy. It happened often enough unintentionally.

There's also the adjustment factor; while a lot of students do transfer between universities, it's a major disruption at a life stage when you really don't need it. Every university has its own unique culture, and you spend much of your first two years getting to know the campus, its students and faculty and making friends. I found it hard enough to transition from Cornell to CMU for my masters degree, but Bell Labs discouraged their One Year On Campus students from returning to their undergraduate schools. (In those days they hired many engineers like me with BS degrees and paid us a salary and tuition to get a one-year MS. When I got that offer I didn't even seriously consider any others.)

For most students, freshman year is the first time they've ever lived on their own. Cheap communications may have changed this, but when I went to school my parents no longer told me when to study, when to go to bed and when to get up. No one noticed if I skipped a class. Although there was some drug and alcohol use in my high school, it just didn't happen in my social circle. That changed in college (the drinking age was then 18) creating another potential pitfall. All this is much for some students to handle.

I entered Cornell knowing that I wanted to become an electrical engineer, and even though I had to take many general courses in those first two years I joined a fraternity and got to know the EE school so by my junior year I knew which professors and courses I really wanted.

[ka9q]

Here's an account from someone who is clearly in the know, as the account includes all kinds of specific details.  Unlike the vague account above.

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/fire1.htm

That's a pretty wild one. Quoting:

Friends, it's time you learned the real story. In October, 1977, a newly operational Russian Cosmos Interceptor shot down *Skylab. Skylab,* along with its crew of five American astronauts secretly aboard, died in a giant fireball over the United States. NASA immediately initiated a prolonged cover-up of what had happened. How do I know? Suffice it to say, I have a very high-up source of information.

So Skylab was shot down in October 1977, huh? Then I wonder: what was that large and bright object in low earth orbit that was regularly seen until July 11, 1979? It looked just like the Skylab launched in 1973. It even shared its orbit. I wrote a program to track Skylab in high school, and it was always right where it was supposed to be. Isn't that strange?

The Cold War, like nearly all wars, was a manipulated fraud.

Gosh, if only that were true. I sure wish he'd told us earlier; like many young kids (and adults!) when I learned about nuclear weapons I sometimes lay awake in bed at night wondering if the world would still be there in the morning. Through my early teens I assumed that when I reached 18 I'd be drafted, sent to Vietnam and almost certainly killed or maimed. At times I wondered what point there was in going to school and planning for a future that probably wouldn't happen.

Knowing that the Cold War was phony sure would have calmed a lot of jittery nerves in October 1962. I don't think we even had a TV set yet, and I probably would have been too young to really understand what it meant.

I think conspiracy theories serve much the same purpose as mythology.  For many people the world is filled with inexplicable things and events, most of them bad, that they're powerless to control. Myths fill this gap. Even though they still can't control what's happening, at least they can focus their anxieties. They can know who's responsible and why, even if most people don't. As someone here recently said, a conspiracy theory lets people feel better about themselves by creating a small, powerful and evil group to blame for all the bad things that happen to them. They can feel relieved that they themselves are blameless, innocent victims.

[Not Myself]

So Skylab was shot down in October 1977, huh? Then I wonder: what was that large and bright object in low earth orbit that was regularly seen until July 11, 1979? It looked just like the Skylab launched in 1973. It even shared its orbit. I wrote a program to track Skylab in high school, and it was always right where it was supposed to be. Isn't that strange?

The conspirators were an extremely cunning lot.

[ChrLz]

A small update to the fattydash/Patrick1000/dastardly/decisively story..

As I reported earlier, he had a brief (but high output) fling at the AboveTopSecret forum.  He initially used just one identity (decisively), but started multiple threads denying Apollo - first posting in the dastardly persona as the sextant-prize-winning idiot-savant and then slowly morphing into the highly experienced chess playing doctor..  During his stay there he converted no-one, and really only managed to attract a couple of known tinfoilhatters (SayonaraJupiter and Bokonon) to offer a few supporting posts.  The rest of the ATS audience despite their usual encouragement of conspiracies were rather harsh on decisively, and he was eventually banned - presumably for continuous insults and avoiding questions.

That was it, I thought..  but all of a sudden, after a couple of weeks silence, decisively returned with a single sockpuppet..  And once that was recognised and banned, he has now tried several more in very rapid succession (for some reason, explosive diarrhea comes to mind..) but each time he is getting more quickly recognised and banned for his trouble.  ATS appear to have had enough of him as well..

So he is a one trick pony, it appears...

[Noldi400]

Gosh, if only that were true. I sure wish he'd told us earlier; like many young kids (and adults!) when I learned about nuclear weapons I sometimes lay awake in bed at night wondering if the world would still be there in the morning. Through my early teens I assumed that when I reached 18 I'd be drafted, sent to Vietnam and almost certainly killed or maimed. At times I wondered what point there was in going to school and planning for a future that probably wouldn't happen.

I'm not sure the "Truth" was more assuring.

According to "Knows", the reason it was a fraud is that the Soviets had multiple orbiting "Cosmodromes", each bigger that a pre-WW2 dirigible and armed with particle beam weapons that could destroy targets in the US at any time. The Cold War never happened because we were totally at their mercy. It was undoubtedly one of those you saw in Skylab's orbit.

Give it a read. I thought it wasn't a bad alternate reality yarn, as these things go.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

The rest of the ATS audience despite their usual encouragement of conspiracies were rather harsh on decisively, and he was eventually banned - presumably for continuous insults and avoiding questions.

There hasn't been a decent Apollo Hoax thread on GLP for months, only the occasional trollish "only an idiot would believe it".
As if that's even an argument.
It seems that there are very few true believers left..

[Noldi400]

New stuff has actually just about died out on YouTube, too. Well, except for Hunchy's delirium dreams. Even the nameless one hasn't posted anything new about the Hoax in six months or so.

[dwight]

Oh if you want delusional, http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=PtdcdxvNI1o is about as nutbar as it gets. Forgive my language there, it just sometimes boggles my mind how wilfully stupid some people want to be.

[Noldi400]

Wow. I couldn't read that all at once. Most of those jarheads are just yapping to hear themselves yap. They don't care about what's true, they're just jumping on the bandwagon and parroting what they've heard.

Take a look at Hunchedback's YT video back in May. Now he thinks the astronauts were drugged and brainwashed to make them think they had been to the moon while actors shot the pictures on a set.

[Count Zero]

Doctor Socks is continuing his assault on ATS - spamming threads with weird videos, etc.  The Mods are fighting the good fight, and have caught & banned him twice tonight.  Sock-puppets have included ScottieD, FelixDoodleBrook and RhesusFilbert.

[twik]

I know many people at first thought that Patrick was just trolling, in the original definition - throwing out a ridiculous opener just to laugh at people who took him seriously. But it appears Patrick is extremely devoted to his theory. There's something bizarre in his constant use of socks to bolster his arguments, each with their own little dramatic story of how they're the best in whatever is their chosen field, resulting in a ban and a run to the next forum where he can do the same thing all over again. It's like he literally cannot stop talking about it. I'm not sure what will happen to him if he eventually runs out of forums where he's not been banned.

[ineluki]

I'm not sure what will happen to him if he eventually runs out of forums where he's not been banned.

Let's just hope he outgrows his obsession before that happens, and he takes his frustration to the real world.

[JayUtah]

I'm not sure what will happen to him if he eventually runs out of forums where he's not been banned.

There's always spurstalk.  They seem to have a fondness for trolls, whom they capture and keep around for their amusement.

[AtomicDog]

Doctor Socks is continuing his assault on ATS - spamming threads with weird videos, etc.  The Mods are fighting the good fight, and have caught & banned him twice tonight.  Sock-puppets have included ScottieD, FelixDoodleBrook and RhesusFilbert.

"How do you kill that which has no life?"