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Been done. Doesn't seem to faze the loonies. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-s

Been done. Doesn't seem to faze the loonies. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.htm...

LyndsySimon 8y ago
> Doesn't seem to faze the loonies. Given the etymology of that word, that's a deliciously ironic sentence :)
api 8y ago
That's because they don't believe this stuff for rational reasons but to fit into a group or in some cases as a "fuck you belief" directed at "the establishment." "Fuck you beliefs" are a personal theory of mine. People sometimes assume ridiculous and deliberately provocative "beliefs" as a means of explicit rejection of a social order. The canonical example would be Satanism as a rejection of Christian culture/society. Believing Apollo is a hoax or that the Earth is flat is an explicit rejection of the industrial/scientific/corporate/university complex and its culture. The absurdity of these beliefs adds to their value as acts of protest. The phenomenon can also take the form of refusal to believe something taught by the hated authority. If the belief being refused is actually true and demonstrably so, it becomes a more potent act of protest. Talk to the people that hold beliefs like the Apollo hoax and scratch the surface and you'll usually find someone who is under-employed in a dead-end job with no future and too much student loan debt. They are adopting an absurdist epistemology in protest of a society that they see as having failed them. When I see conspiracy theories becoming popular I see a metaphysical and epistemological version of people throwing Molotov cocktails in the street at cops in riot gear under clouds of tear gas. Maybe this is what mass protests and "riots in the street" look like in the Information Age.
- andrepd 8y ago
  Huh. Interesting thoughts. Maybe they should do actual protests and "riots in the street" then, instead of trying their best to be tagged as loonies :^).

Been done. Doesn't seem to faze the loonies. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.htm...

LyndsySimon 8y ago

> Doesn't seem to faze the loonies. Given the etymology of that word, that's a deliciously ironic sentence :)

api 8y ago

That's because they don't believe this stuff for rational reasons but to fit into a group or in some cases as a "fuck you belief" directed at "the establishment." "Fuck you beliefs" are a personal theory of mine. People sometimes assume ridiculous and deliberately provocative "beliefs" as a means of explicit rejection of a social order. The canonical example would be Satanism as a rejection of Christian culture/society. Believing Apollo is a hoax or that the Earth is flat is an explicit rejection of the industrial/scientific/corporate/university complex and its culture. The absurdity of these beliefs adds to their value as acts of protest. The phenomenon can also take the form of refusal to believe something taught by the hated authority. If the belief being refused is actually true and demonstrably so, it becomes a more potent act of protest. Talk to the people that hold beliefs like the Apollo hoax and scratch the surface and you'll usually find someone who is under-employed in a dead-end job with no future and too much student loan debt. They are adopting an absurdist epistemology in protest of a society that they see as having failed them. When I see conspiracy theories becoming popular I see a metaphysical and epistemological version of people throwing Molotov cocktails in the street at cops in riot gear under clouds of tear gas. Maybe this is what mass protests and "riots in the street" look like in the Information Age.

andrepd 8y ago
Huh. Interesting thoughts. Maybe they should do actual protests and "riots in the street" then, instead of trying their best to be tagged as loonies :^).