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?
