If you believed they put a man on the moon
A long time ago I heard a radio interview with a guy who thought the moon landings had been faked. He was on with one of those debunks-consparicy-theory proponets and I was rather startled by how the conversation turned out …..
It all started off with the usual acuzations. The debunker launched in screaming and yelling at the consparicy theorist handing out the usual acuzation ‘You are just so set in your ways that you would never change your mind no matter what evedence you were presented with that proved the moon landings took place’. The consparicy theorist, with much calm and dileberation, took this point up and ran with it.
“Ok, before we get into wether or not I woudl change my mind given the right evedence, woudl you answer the same question? It seems only fair that we be held both to the same standards’ the consparist said. The debunker, with an egotistical self asurdness agreed. The race was on.
“12 men have walked on the moon. 9 of them are still alive. Now if all 9 of those men all got together at once and held a press confrence saying that they faked the whole thing, woudl you then believe the moon landings were faked?” The debunker, not suprizingly, refused to answer the question. He babled on about how such a situation wasent even posible so he wasent going to deal in hypethoticals. Then when presed switched tactics claiming that what the astronots say is irivelent because there is so much other evedence. Then when pressed again, begrudgingly gave in in an effort to appear ‘the rational one’ and said if it happened he would at least look into it.
‘Ok, what if it was just 3 of then instead of all nine?’ the consparicist asked in a very calm yet probing way. The debunker was absoutly livid at this point. Foaming at the mouth he launched into character assanation acusing the consparcist of being a liar and a fraud and was only continuing this line of questioning because he was doing some sort of sneeky underhanded backdoor atack. He demanded to know what the consparcist was up to and why he was even asking these questions.
“Well, you said that I would never be convinced by the evedenc and I would always come up with some excuse to dismiss any evedence I disagreed with. Im just wanting to find out if you are the same. But hey, just to be fair Im willing to drop the issue about the astronuts statements. Lets move on to some other evedence. If some forgin nation sent an unmaned probe to the moon and landed at the same spot as one of the previous moon landings and when they got there they discovered that there were no leftover machenery or footprints at the site, woudl THAT then convince you the moon landings were faked?’
Well the debunker nearly twisted himself into a pretzel trying to dodge this one. You could tell in his voice the abject terror he felt suspecting that the consparicist woudl pull out just such evedence as soon as he said ‘ok, that woudl convince me of a hoax’. So he launched into an absoutly stunning list of preemptive strikes. The forgnin government might be lying about what their probe found in an effort to discredit america. The probe might have toched down at the wrong spot. The footprints might have been obscured and covered up by metior impacts and acumlating space dust in the inbetween years.
“Well gee” the consparicst calmly noted “You acuse me of coming up with wierd leaps of logic to dismiss any evedence that contridicts my belief. Yet it appears that your doing the same. I havent even presented the evedence, just asked hypethoticals, and already your comming up with excuses on why that evedence is wrong”
Time was out and the interview ended.
The whole thign got me thinking. What woudl it take for ME to change my firmly held beliefs. Woudl evedence sway me, or would I come up with excuses. I believ the earth is wrong, but if I personaly were to come across the ‘edge’ of the world, lay down on my belly and peek over the edge, and see a stack of turtles all the way down, woudl I then be convinced the earth is flat because I had seen it with my own eyes? Or woudl I come up with some excuse to dismiss the evedence like ‘I must be halucinating. Someone must have sliped me a psychoactive drug into my drink’
If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will know that one of my reoccoring themes is ‘the 70-80 year loop’. The idea being that the history of sexuality cycles between revoultion / public / burnout / private / next revolution. This is in sharp contract to the liniear voew of history that assumes progress is always in one direction.
Take for example the notion of ‘being kinky today is like being gay in the 60s’. This is the linear view. Group A fights for their freedoms, then group B fights for theirs, then group C and group D untill eventualy we will have liberation for all. If you believe this, then what evedence would it take to change yoru mind?
The testomny of someone who actualy lived through the era? Or would that get dismised with something like “Well, they are just looking back on it with rose clored glasses. They want to hog all the glory for being a partoit and a rebel so they just dismiss the battles that us kinksters face today. You cant depend on just their word, you have to look at the documents and news that was recoreded at the time’
Ok, so your given those old writings and news clipings and those disagree. Would that get dismised with “Well those are just indvidual examples. You can always find some counterpoint. Thats just the exception that proves the rules. To understand you cant just look at one item. You have to colect the agragate date and look at group trends.’
Ok, so your given those staticis. Would you then change your mind or would that get dismised with ‘Well what does some egghead number cruncher know? Those guys in their ivory towers are so disconected from the real world that nothing they say is accurate. To get to the truth you need to ask the people who lived through it. The oldsters with personal experence who a few of witch are still around today to tell their story.’
Now to backtrack to the moon landing hoax interview, I sould point out that consparicy theorists DO dismiss evedence exactly as they are accused. Photos? Faked in a studio. Moon rocks brought back? Retreved by an unmaned probe. Etc etc.
But it does rais the issue, what WOULD it take for you to change your mind on somethign you firmily believe? And woudl you accept the evedence, or just come up with some excuse as to why the evedence is invalad?
January 1st, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I have followed the “evidence” for men having landed on the Moon, and the “evidence” that those events did not happen, but were faked. The video evidence has been scrutinized at length by Conspiracy Theorists, and those arguments have been counter scrutinized by the pro landing apologists in turn as would indeed happen if there was a large governmental cover up ongoing so in my opinion those evidences in effect cancel each other out. It is possible that Moon or it could have been faked for geopolitical reasons which made sense at that time, I cannot say.
The strongest evidence which lends credence to the Conspiracy Theorist side of the argument in my opinion, and for which there is no denial is the fact that no Manned Moon Landings have taken place since 1972, some 35 years ago. Apollo 17 was arguably the sixth and final manned lunar landing mission. In my opinion this circumstance of not returning would be incredible beyond belief if in fact man had been in the regular habit of visiting the Moon, as was apparently the case back then. Perhaps it would be similar to a person having learned to Run the Marathon at an unbeatable world record time suddenly deciding to crawl around on the ground for the rest of his life. perhaps it would be like the aeronautics industry having developed, and regularly using Jumbo Jets to fly passenger around the globe suddenly scrapping them all to move people by Hot Air Balloon instead.
For 35 years to have elapsed, and no return to this off world landmass called The Moon, while the space program continues to bumble around for years on years spending Billions, and losing lives trying to get back and forth to an low orbiting space shed to do what most scientists candidly will admit are nearly useless activities, now strains the bounds of credibility. It is in my opinion unbelievable, so I side with those who believe that the reports of Mankind having set foot on The Moon were greatly exaggerated. I believe those claims were advanced for PSYOP tactical reasons having to do with the National Security. It may have been the right thing to do in the same way as it was to use Inflatable Armored Tanks, http://tinyurl.com/inflatablemoon and other deceptions.