Although the subject seems to have died out lately, we’ve had in the past several debates on the supposed Lunar Landing Hoax. Usually, the people who support the belief that the 1969 (and I assume later, even though they’re rarely brought up) moon landings were faked are simply paranoid nerds from the sinister edges of the IQ bell curve. But I was wondering something: why do they think like they think? Is there any more to it?
Who exactly are these people who believe in the hoax? Why do they believe it?
What groups – left wing, right wing or just plain off-the-wall – have anything to benefit from convincing society that the landings were faked?
Is there, in fact, a conspiracy to convince the public of a moon landing conspiracy?
Your thoughts will be welcome.
P.S. if you actually believe the moon landings were faked, please stay out of this thread. We’re talking about you, not to you.
The popularity of infeasibly large-scale conspiracies, despite the near-zero probability that none of the thousands of people who would necessarily be involved would blow the whistle even on their death bed, is indeed perplexing.
An excellent treatment of this and other topics is Michael Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things”.
Everyone would like to know some truth which gave them some kind of special status: the informed amongst the bovine masses. Individual identity is incredibly important - your worldview defines you even more fundamentally than your appearance or personal tastes. I suspect that the moon hoax conspiracy appeals to those who are suspicious of government myths but feel safe in a purely scientific field rather than having to deal with all that difficult, real-life grown-up stuff called “politics”.
People will be labeled a nut if they hold completely unfounded, impossible or extremely implausible ideas, when these ideas are very unpopular. Such as the moon conspirarcy or a missile rather than a plane hit the Pentagon.
But a large percentage of the public can hold equally absurb ideas and will label you a nut if you try to point out the emperor has no clothes.
There are many of these highly popular, completely inaccurate beliefs. A single example should suffice.
Imagine the reaction you will get in a public forum if you tried to describe figuratively the “Social Security Trust Fund” as a piece of paper in someone’s desk in Washington, showing the amount collected by SS tax, the amount dispursed to retirees and the rest spend by general operations. Of course, that’s essentially all it is, but it’s such an unpopular view, you are the nut.
Not to mention if the Soviets even suspected this, they would have had the technology available detect it. They already had at this point the ability to send robotic probes to the surface of the moon. Land the robot on one of the spots we claimed to have landed on, and send back pictures that there was no evidence that US had landed on the moon. If the US faked it, the Soviets would have had every reason to expose the US lie.
aahala, as I have no idea how the U.S. Social Security system works, I can’t really comment on your example.
Everybody is making good points, but you’re missing what I’m looking for here. We’ve gone over the psychology of the conspiracy quacks before, and I think we’ve pretty much nailed it. My question is, what’s beyond that? How does their belief fit in with their world views?
What’s their agenda?
Why are they investing so much in attcking NASA and the U.S. government if they don’t have anything to gain from it?
Are there people who, perhaps, don’t actually believe in the conspiracy but are propegating it for some nefarious end - a conspiracy conspiracy?
I think the OP is ascribing sinister motives to people who are really suffering from emotional problems.
Do a Web search on “chemtrails.” “Chemtrails” are a conspiracy theory believed by people who think that the water vapor contrails left by jets at high altitude are in fact noxious chemicals being sprayed on them by unseen government forces. The fact that this is laughably stupid is one thing. What’s funnier is that none of the conspiracy theorists have any pictures of these planes ON THE GROUND or taking off or being loaded with the chemicals. It’s one picture after another of Delta 415 (Raleigh/Durham to Atlanta) just moseying along leaving water vapour in its wake.
I’ve probably never heard a crazier conspiracy theory. So who believes this stuff? For the most part, neurotic hypochondriacs, people who visit their doctor with some unseen and unknown illness every five weeks and who have more emotional baggage than Flight 415 has carry-on baggage. Neurotics exernalize all their little neuroses, and it’s easier to blame the Unseen Man than admit you’re a goober and don’t eat well and need to exercise.
The moon landing conspiracy theory is a more specific version of that. It’s pretty much just people who are mildly delusional and/or have visions of grandeur. I mean, if you’re a hopeless loser, what could make you a bigger man than being the guy with the “in” that these American heroes are liars and frauds?
Look, try this. You can come up with anything - ANYTHING - no matter how insane or stupid, and if you were to send it around by E-mail, thousands of nitwits will believe it because it’s an escape from the grim hopelessness of their own existence. Nothing could be nuttier than chemtrails, but give it a try.
The thing about believing in some conspiracy is that it makes you feel special - you know know something most people don’t know. The pseudo-scholasticism involved makes it feel like real knowledge. And once you’ve embraced the conspiracy, you’re no longer one of the masses; you’re enlightened.
I didn’t make my point well enough, or perhaps not at all.
Here’s what I was driving at. Most of us can see the stupidity of these moon conspiraces, because we DON’t hold those views.
But most of us, me included probably, hold equally unfounded views which we ourselves can’t see as unfounded, unsupported etc.
Every human being is in the same boat . We can see faults in others, but rarely can see our own errors. “We” are no different than “them”, it’s just the subject we hold the false view that separates us.
Back to the OP, the advantages of propoating the “moon-landing hoax” theory are thus:
It sells a lot of books.
It makes people feel special (mentioned above already; the whole “secret knowledge” thing is not new to civilization)
I’m sure there are people in that camp that don’t always subscribe to the wackiest theories. In fact, I’m sure that there are people who, on some days, start doubting, and start asking themselves questions. But the inevitable conclusion–“There is no conspiracy; I’m lying to myself; reality isn’t as exciting as I make it out to be”–is probably too scary for people to face, so they keep feeding themselves (and others) the lie.
(This can be generalized to the worldview of your choice.)
I think there’s a fundamental difference, though. I’m willing to be swayed by evidence to the contrary, while people who believe the moon landing was hoaxed don’t appear to be. I don’t dismiss the moon hoax theory out of hand, I dismiss it because the evidence for a moon landing is much, much stronger than for a hoax. Similarly, I’ve never been to Antactica, but I believe people who tell me it exists, because if it didn’t it assertions that it did exist would be falsifiable and evidence certainly would be produced to the contrary.
I think this makes the best case for a conspiracy conspiracy. Bill Kaysing may very well be convinced by now that the missions took place, but there’s no paycheck in that. As long as he can convince the unwashed masses, he sells books.
As for a particular political demographic of HBers, it’s generally liberal. “You conservatives will believe anything the government tells you to believe!” is the charge. At least in my observation.
One of my honor students recently responded to an essay question on how America could become a better nation by arguing that the federal government needed to stop lying to the American people. As evidence, he mentioned the “obviously fake” lunar landing in 1969. I was not impressed.
I thought it was generally ultra-conservative – “The government is pure evil and pulls these hoaxes to justify the insanely high taxes that they use to fund programs giving them power over our daily lives!” is what I’ve heard.
Hmmm. I suppose there are hoax believers from all over the spectrum.
I was just about to ask, what the conspiracy theorists believed the USA had to gain with faking a moon landing. I never thought about the tax aspect. To me, that would seem the only reaons to believe it was faked. I mean, other than the government being able to get more taxes from you, what else would it have to gain?
Another big hoax-believer argument I’ve heard is “NASA figured out that they couldn’t do it with 1960’s technology, but couldn’t back down from the space race with the Russians, and so they faked it.” Which I find quite insane, but it’s another motivation: saving face during the height of the Cold War.
Perhaps their motive was best summed up by a comment I once read on the Bad Astronomy bulletin board. These people are what can be termed cultural vandals. Same as petulant child who has little hopes of creating something wil invariable start to destroy or deface property, these folks have little or no signifigance in their lives to build a project the likes of the Moon landing.
So rather than try to do the best in the world that they can, they try to trash the very idea that people went to the Moon. They take one of the greatest acheivements of humanity and try to dismiss it on lame pretexts. Vandalism.
They’ll never admit it, of course. And the world of Moon-hoaxery gives one a warm fuzzy that all conspiracy theories offer: The feeling of Knowing-The-TRVTH! The secure feeling that you ‘know’ more than your fellow citizen, and therefore are better than they are. It makes up for the lack of contructive progress in some people’s lives.