Disengage. You can’t logic someone out of a position that they haven’t logic’d themselves into.
But on a wider scale, I think it’s indicative of a subpar elementary education in science literacy and critical thinking. If we can raise a generation of teenagers who are able to sift through the logical fallacies and handwaving, we could see a reduction, not just in CTs but in the prevalence of homeopathy, anti-vaxxers and creationists. Kids on some level want to know and develop these skills. Have you ever seen a toddler playing with something like an iPad or a wii for the first time? It’s a slightly breathtaking application of the scientific method. Press a button. Observe response. Modify behavior. Observe response. Continue until some level of mastery is acquired.
Their approach is simple: Take a position, and only accept evidence that confirms the position. If evidence points in more than one direction, deny all possibilities for the evidence except for the one that supports your position. Using this method it is possible to prove that a wooden box is actually a wooden ball of the same size. They are both made of wood, they have the same weight, they are both hollow inside, they hold the same volume etc. The fact that one is cubical and the other is spherical is only one piece of evidence that can easily be overlooked, because there are mountains of evidence that show they are the same, right?
And you know, the government may kill OJ Simpson to cover it up, and the government may kill Sam Waterstone to cover it up, but thanks to the help of Telly Savalas, James Brolin will get away and call you out on your misdeeds there Mr. Government man.
I have yet to see verification of that. I’m pretty sure UV protection of the flags would have been thought of by the group responsible for providing such.
Still, it is an interesting conjecture.
I imagine direct photographic evidence would be unfeasible.
The resolution of the LRO won’t allow for such details to be visible.
The idea of a purely monochromatic flag with no sigil at all is rather interesting.
Usually, it means “we surrender,” but not in this case.
Unless, of course, it is a symbol of our retreat from the frontier.
Flags on Earth fade after 40 years, and that’s with the atmosphere shielding us from a fair amount of UV light. There’s less UV protection on the moon. And much less protection from temperature swings and such.
At least we know they’re still standing. That’s actually pretty surprising after 40 years. Though, they’re probably not in good condition. They’re expected to be in tatters and to completely fall apart soon, if they haven’t already.
They were off the shelf flags - not special mission flags - and not designed for all the UV or the swings from -300F to +250F or any of the other adverse conditions on the moon.
That’s quite surprising to me. For all the rest of the costs involved, I would have thought that coughing up some extra bucks for flags that could withstand the environment would be a no-brainer. Huh.
Then William Proxmire would have plucked that out of the budget, and without context or explanation, proclaimed “NASA has wasted $900 of your tax money on flags!”
All this bullshit you foolishly spew has been DISPELLED INSTANTLY by the LRO a few years ago. Many Hoaxers were convinced when they saw what the LRO produced, which in turn, sifted the ignorant Hoaxers from the INSANE Hoaxers who can’t let go due to their mental illness.
I don’t know whether to pony-up for your first psych visit or towards a one-way trip for you to one of the landing sites. But one thing I do know is…
Motives
Several motives have been suggested for the U.S. government to fake the moon landings - some of the recurrent elements are:
Distraction - The U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction to take attention away from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities did abruptly stop, with planned missions cancelled, around the same time that the US ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.
Cold War Prestige - The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race with the USSR. Going to the Moon, if it was possible, would have been risky and expensive. It would have been much easier to fake the landing, thereby ensuring success.
Money - NASA raised approximately 30 billion dollars pretending to go to the moon. This could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity. In variations of this theory, the space industry is characterized as a political economy, much like the military industrial complex, creating fertile ground for its own survival.
Risk - The available technology at the time was such that there was a good chance that the landing might fail if genuinely attempted.
