Debunking Nonsense

[The Basket]

It matched a certain individuals prejudice to accept conspiracy theories. Either to show they're right or to prove that whitey is keeping them down.
It isn't nonsense if you believe it.
I love the idea of some agency reading my emails and my internet history. That guy has a boring job and as he is reading this I hope he has a good night.

 

[pbehn]

One thing I noticed with "theorists" about 911 is they get hold of a fact from people they trust and it trumps all other facts, even ones they know to be true.
Steel melts at 1400C and so the towers must have been brought down by explosives because the fires were never hotter than 1100C says the "theorist" completely disregarding what everyone knows about a blacksmith making a horse shoe, steel does not have to melt to have no strength at all.

 

[Jimbob]

Just think of the numbers of people involved in a fake moon landing. That many people couldn't keep a secret that big for so long.

 

[pbehn]

Just think of the numbers of people involved in a fake moon landing. That many people couldn't keep a secret that big for so long.

They could, because they were all involved in the da Vinci code, just a test run before world domination is achieved.

 

[Jimbob]

I stand corrected. Though I am reminded of what Thomas Jefferson said about people and secrets.

 

[buffnut453]

One has to ask, in an age where people over-share to an AMAZING extent - "Here's what I'm having for breakfast....This is what I look like the morning after...Here's a pic of my new "private" tattoo...Here's a pic of the cup of coffee I'm drinking" etc...etc....etc (ad nauseam) - how is it even possible that ANY conspiracies could be maintained when the vast majority of the population just can't wait to post something on social media or leak it to the press?

Ontop of that, we have all these "geniuses" out there "discovering" the conspiracies and blaring them all over the interwebby-thingy. Frankly, it's amazing there are ANY secrets left ANYWHERE!

 

[The Basket]

I fall for it. When someone says the SMLE suffered rimlock or don't do mud I'm like you lie!!! How dare you insult my national rifle! I don't care! Having a bee in your bonnet is certainly a hobby.
Facts are downright inconvenient if they don't match so invent new facts.
It was said that once technology becomes so sophisticated it then becomes magic. And our brains are only built to find bananas and which tree to find bananas. We cannot comprehend the world around us so we make stuff up. Stuff that comforts us.

 

[Jimbob]

Popcorn is magic if you don't know how it works.

 

[pbehn]

I stand corrected. Though I am reminded of what Thomas Jefferson said about people and secrets.

Bletchley Park was kept secret for decades despite 5,000 people working there and possibly more in USA, however there weren't masses of people discussing German encryption machines at the time.

 

[The Basket]

But even that comes out eventually.

 

[Zipper730]

His name is Anders Bjorkman and he goes on many forums by the name of Heiwa - and eventually banned on all of them.

Why would this guy go through all this effort to deceive so many people? It doesn't seem to serve any goal of his, unless he just likes seeing what he can get people to believe?

So, who wants to win 1 million Euro?

This is an interesting website because it involves various types of individuals with physics knowledge and engineering knowledge to effectively illustrate why the moon landings were not hoaxes: Effectively debunking the nonsense I was talking about.

I'd also like to recommend to you a good book that gives some insight into why people like him exist and why they have followers...

When it comes to conspiracy theories, I've never really subscribed to the notion that people like a "simple world where everything can be easily explained" as opposed to a series of seemingly random events.

Honestly, when it comes to certain types of corruption by high finance (which admittedly is not really a theory anymore): It'd be more comforting for one to believe much of the problems in the world are caused by chaotic interactions between various groups of people with a whole shitload of different ideologies and viewpoints, than a few hundred well connected people able to adroitly manipulate with stunning effectiveness, the bulk of humanity.

I generally assume that there are some actions that are the result of conspiracies, others that are just the result of unfortunate circumstances.

I think there are two sorts of conspiracy theorists: those who disbelieve facts because of ideological reasons, i.e., Holocaust deniers

Yeah, they basically believe that if only they could get the whole world to forget about that whole holocaust thing, they could bring Nazism back...

climate change deniers

That's based on both ideology (status quo), or fear over groups aimed at asserting global governance through the fear of climate change.

birthers

Largely racism, but it has also been used to fear-monger people who don't know any better.

Honestly, it's kind of amazing the stuff that's spread about Obama

• He's a socialist
• He's a Communist
• He's a white-hating Christian
• He's a secret Muslim

There's all sorts of contradictions here: While a person can hate white people or black people regardless of religious or political affiliation, and one can be a socialist and a Communist; one cannot be a Christian and Muslim simultaneously, as the beliefs as to the role of Jesus Christ are mutually exclusive; It is not possible to be a Communist and a Muslim or Christian because Communists do not believe in a god (they believe it's the opiate of the masses); While a person could theoretically be a Communist, pretending to be a Muslim, who then pretends to be a Christian, it requires a bit of mental gymnastics that verge on a person being a sort of double-reverse quadruple-agent (which might also be a sex position and wrestling move): It seems easier to just be a Socialist & Communist, pretending to be a Christian to some, and a Muslim to others (which is a triple agent -- loyal to one side, plays for three teams).

daniken-ites

I never heard of these people before, but that's more ignorance than ideology...

Every conspiracy that gets uncovered, from the czarist secret police publishing anti-semitic literature (the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) to the Boston FBI office protecting Whitey Bulger gives them proof of their conspiracy theory that gingers are alien androids intent on wiping out the Danes*.

Well...

• Firstly: Most red-heads *are* Scandinavian, so it would be ridiculous that red-headed people are alien-androids aimed at wiping out Danish people (who are Scandinavian).
• Secondly: With genuine conspiracies being uncovered, it's vital to be able to distinguish the actual ones from those that are nonsense.

 

[buffnut453]

My middle son is a red head. When he emerges from his room first thing in the morning, he looks like an alien.

Does that count? I guess I'm now part of the conspiracy!

 

[Shortround6]

I never heard of these people before, but that's more ignorance than ideology...

Erich von Däniken

and to some people it is an ideology

That writing as careless as von Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of von Däniken.[18]

— Carl Sagan, Foreword to The Space Gods Revealed

 

[nuuumannn]

I love the idea of some agency reading my emails and my internet history. That guy has a boring job and as he is reading this I hope he has a good night.

Nope, not happening. No intelligence agency has enough personnel to examine everyone's emails, phone messages etc. Yes, our web transactions are monitored, but it's all done with algorithms that match individual words and phrases, which will cause alarm bells to ring if the right/wrong combination is produced. Only then do people get involved. Sorry, you're just not that special, that is, unless you are a terrorist or paedophile.

we have all these "geniuses" out there "discovering" the conspiracies and blaring them all over the interwebby-thingy.

Thing is, conspiracy theories have been around for a lot longer than the internet has. What has changed is the means of conveying information, just like the invention of the printing press, telephone, TV etc; the internet is just another form of broadcasting and people will always take advantage of each new media to spread misinformation.

 

[parsifal]

thought this was interesting

https://nerdist.com/still-think-the-moon-landings-were-faked-heres-more-proof-they-werent/



The rubbish arguments supposedly supporting the hoax supporters....

Reasons why man has never gone to the moon


Satellite photo of the Apollo 16 landing site....taken by the Russians I believe.

 

[pbehn]

Some top BS in that attachment Parsival. Starting with, Apollo didn't land on the moon because Nixon was President and descending down hill from there.

Often forgotten or not even known by the younger generation is that the Russians also landed unmanned explorers on the moon.
Lunokhod 1 - Wikipedia


The final location of Lunokhod 1 was uncertain until 2010, as lunar laser ranging experiments had failed to detect a return signal from it since 1971. On March 17, 2010, Albert Abdrakhimov found both the lander and the rover[3] in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image M114185541RC.[4] In April 2010, the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) team from the University of California at San Diego used the LRO images to locate the orbiter closely enough for laser range (distance) measurements. On April 22, 2010 and days following, the team successfully measured the distance several times. The intersection of the spheres described by the measured distances then pinpoint the current location of Lunokhod 1 to within 1 meter.[5][6] APOLLO is now using Lunokhod 1's reflector for experiments, as they discovered, to their surprise, that it was returning much more light than other reflectors on the Moon. According to a NASA press release, APOLLO researcher Tom Murphy said, "We got about 2,000 photons from Lunokhod 1 on our first try. After almost 40 years of silence, this rover still has a lot to say."[7]

By November 2010, the location of the rover had been determined to within about a centimeter. The location near the limb of the Moon, combined with the ability to range the rover even when it is in sunlight, promises to be particularly useful for determining aspects of the Earth-Moon system.[8]

In a report released in May 2013, French scientists at the Cote d'Azur Observatory led by Jean-Marie Torre reported replicating the 2010 laser ranging experiments by American scientists after research using images from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In both cases, laser pulses were returned from the Lunokhod 1 retroreflector.[9]

 

[Zipper730]

Erich von Däniken

He's an idiot: We appear smarter because we have all the knowledge that has been accumulated.

Nope, not happening. No intelligence agency has enough personnel to examine everyone's emails, phone messages etc.

But they have been archiving all our e-mails, phone-calls and internet activity.

The purpose is both to identify present threats, as well as data-mining, which is ultimately aimed at creating something not entirely dissimilar to Minority Report.

Sorry, you're just not that special

The problem is that it's ubiquitous surveillance without any suspicion of wrongdoing.

 

[swampyankee]

One rather obvious sanity check on the Moon Landing conspiracies: the USSR would have so much fun exposing it.

 

[Graeme]

One rather obvious sanity check on the Moon Landing conspiracies: the USSR would have so much fun exposing it.

Very true.
From a scrapbook dedicated to APOLLO 11 which my older brother and I made in 1969.

 

[Graeme]

Note how the "spaceman" continues to move slowly in his attempt to catch Bond....I like that kind of dedication to the role.