SpaceGazelle wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

So there is at least a teeny but of uncertainty over what it is. Right? Some people like to speculate. Some people see evidence you might disagree with. Let them at it, sez I.

No it's fine, but there is a line in the sand between evidential proof and bunkum. Extraordinary claims and all that. My point is that pseudo science is now becoming accepted and normal and this is alarming. There's homeopathy on the NHS ffs. It's not a far leap to start claiming Mexicans are evil (with proof) when all the leaps are ridiculous.

Hey now. Homeopathy is at least effective at ameliorating dehydration.

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I'm often surprised by the number of people who dispute the moon landings.

This one guy I met at work was adamant, and often pointed to details such as the lie of the flag in the vids (why was the flag fluttering?), and other such shit.

The thing that played out in my mind, was that if I stuck to the common conviction, Gazelle's, which discounts the credibility of eyewitness statements, then arguing that the landings took place becomes a mire.

I am actually exercising a degree of faith in an eyewitness statement (though the supporting evidence, like the tech used to get there, the training regimens, prior history, upholds my belief that the even took place).

The government, maaan, because they can control you. Same shit flat earthers say. There's a much more interesting story behind all that, in what's happening in a person's life to lead them into obviously nonsense beliefs.

davyK wrote:

The 2 questions I have for deniers. Why was a fake moon landing executed? Who benefited from it?

For reasons similar to why Facebook was once found to fake a chatbot AI with 'mechanical turks'.

During the cold war, space became a frontline of a kind, so to have one side convince the other of complete mastery over this new domain would mitigate an expensive arms race, through scientific intimidation (if that's the correct term).

Which is actually a convincing reason.

The risk in faking it though wouldn't be worth it, I'm sure, though Kennedy was never known for airtight planning and decision making (as evidenced by the Bay of Pigs and it's legacy)...

Wait... I'm not going to attach myself to this idea... The moon landings took place. X'D

Maybe they faked that too.

Kow wrote:

Maybe they faked that too.

A lot of eye witnesses saw it go up. 



Wait a minute....    

The Russians have their own conspiracy theories about the West undermining them.
https://www.google.es/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dulles-plan-conspiracy-theory-russian-election-trolls.amp

The odds of a conspiracy involving 400,000 people leaking out are approaching certainty.

There are some who say a craft went to the moon but there were no people in it - only the moon walks were faked. That is approaching something that's feasible I suppose.

The technology to do that would be more impressive.

I recommend watching Room 237 which is the wackiest conspiracy documentary I have ever seen. It covers Kubrick filming the footage.

But, but... Kubrick told us he did it, in The Shining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL1fTlH81gU

Kow wrote:

The Russians have their own conspiracy theories about the West undermining them.
https://www.google.es/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dulles-plan-conspiracy-theory-russian-election-trolls.amp

Whilst the specifics of that particular conspiracy theory are a bit wild, they were engaged in a 50-year Cold War with both sides trying their best to destroy the other.

With the CIA funding for all their student groups, non-commie trade unions, the congress for cultural freedom and all their other activities, the Americans were obviously waging a cultural war against Russia. I don’t think they ever really had much agent penetration within Russia itself and therefore devoted their efforts to preventing other countries ‘going commie’ or ‘falling into the Russian orbit’. The CIA having the ability to subvert Russia from within is fanciful, inside Russia itself is probably one of the only areas of the planet they couldn’t manipulate and wreck.

It was a deliberate American strategy to lure the Russians into Afghanistan and bleed them dry, the way Vietnam had done to the Yanks, of course.

Who Paid the Piper? is an excellent book about the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the battles of the cultural Cold War btw.

Dulles was an utter cunt btw, a fanatical right wing Wall Street corporate fascist who engaged himself in a lifelong battle against wealth redistribution, progress and social change. He also may or may not have been involved in the death of Kennedy, depending on which theory you subscribe to. As head of the Warren commission (a man who Kennedy utterly despised and sacked investigating his murder) he was certainly involved in attempting to cover it up and preventing Americans from asking any awkward questions about why JFK, who was debating winding down the Cold War and getting out of Vietnam, was mown down in broad daylight.

The Devil’s Chessboard is a good book about Dulles btw.

Now we can get back to talking about silly aliens...

SpaceGazelle wrote:

It's mainly a Western thing thankfully, and the East are quietly and assuredly educating their populace in the scientific method.

May need a little more detail to back up that statement.

From what I've read, the opposite, to a degree, is true, and that makes sense...

You can't have a surveillance state of the likes that China is purported to have, if a large proportion of a 1billion+ populous is educated to the level you've just suggested.

I'm not talking about dictatorships and the harm that does, I'm talking about tech advancement and the benefits of science for any given society. How many Indian and Chinese students come over here to study English literature or photography? The sheer size of both countries is one thing but their scientific and tech research is massively disproportionate compared to the West in terms of percentages. 

The West is in trouble. At home there aren't enough physics teachers in the UK. The Uni Science depts are doing OK for now but it's mainly down to foreign money which will dry up once the Chinese and Indian universities get better established. After Brexit you can say goodbye to the UK being the heart of scientific research in Europe forever, not that anyone gives a fuck except the scientists. The good news is at least someone is invested, just not us.

There's definitely lots of business too, but Glasgow maths and physics is around 50% Indian and Chinese. Mainly Chinese, but the India is catching up. In computing I think it's higher.

The Chinese are proper tech and science obsessed, and that's reflected in their importance at school level.