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The WMD claim had plenty of holes poked through it even at the time. There were constant stories making it clear the inspectors in Iraq were not finding anythin

The WMD claim had plenty of holes poked through it even at the time. There were constant stories making it clear the inspectors in Iraq were not finding anything, and whistle blowers like Valerie Plame who directly contradicted the White House claims. Today, less than twenty years later, it's no longer a question that there weren't any WMDs. The fraud Armstrong is pointing out isn't really comparable.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
It’s a single example. The list of governmental frauds is as long as recorded history.
- pstuart 6y ago
  Again, you are conflating frauds and have't actually refuted the point in question: did we land on the moon or not?
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    I was making a meta point about institutions and conspiracy theories, not commenting on one in particular. I specifically said this in my initial comment.
- simonh 6y ago
  Sure, but in a democracy it’s very difficult to defraud the public, because the government employees doing the defrauding are the public. At any given time, large swathes of those employees are politically opposed to whoever is in power. That’s why the WMD fiasco is so instructional. It failed immediately, for precisely the reasons we would expect any such fraud against the population to fail, and for precisely the reasons we would expect faked moon landings to be rapidly exposed.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > That’s why the WMD fiasco is so instructional. It failed immediately Maybe we have a different understanding of "failed" or "immediately", but it worked well enough to get the media on board to build a case for war and carry it for long enough until the actual war started. It was solid enough that even all the doubt coming from NATO partners (and the flat out refusal to be part of it with Chirac's utterance that "France is not a pacifist country" and it's not about war itself but that war and those reasons in particular that they wouldn't be a part of it) did not stop the war. So, to me at least, it didn't fail at all, it succeeded.
    - simonh 6y ago
      It succeeded at getting us into a war, but did not succeed at silencing and neutralising criticism and counter evidence. The equivalent would be if the Apollo program was riven by controversy, doubt and criticism from the start, but nevertheless went ahead and rockets were launched but the fakery was ultimately conclusively exposed in the early 1970s, with all the astronauts coming clean and admitting to it. There was a considerable body of evidence against the WMD story right from the start. Senior CIA personnel were crying foul at how their intelligence was being manipulated for political ends from an early stage, it's just that evidence wasn't enough to stop the war. Nothing remotely like that ever happened with the Apollo program. There has never been any substantial evidence or testimony against it from within government or NASA, or as Neil pointed out from any foreign specialists or experts, even the Russians. Conversely the WMD story was being challenged internationally from it's conception, as you pointed out yourself. In terms of challenges, counter evidence and controversy at the time the two cases could not possibly be more starkly utterly different, and that's why they are useful comparisons because the WMD thing shows clearly how government deceptions actually work out.
- dyslexit 6y ago
  I would argue that government lies, especially ones that happen on a scale like that in the US, are not at all why we have conspiracy theorists. I think there's a more underlying human need to believe that there is something behind "it all", and when that is combined with a lack of education, political awareness, or just stubborness, you get people who will believe almost anything. That, and occasionally mental illness, is why you get people who will believe in lizard people who run the world, flat earths, and so on, not because of singular examples of wide scale government fraud.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > not because of singular examples of wide scale government fraud I agree, but I do believe it's mostly because of many small scale lies. If there was only one example of government lies in history, but it was a big one, I don't think we'd see the same level of conspiracy theory acceptance. The fact that there is a constant stream of lies of all shapes and sizes from the government, the media, companies etc is what contributes to it the most. Once you make people lose their trust in those institutions, they will pay more attention to anyone presenting "alternative" explanations ("this explains that thing as well, but it's not peddled by the liars, so maybe it's true"). If those explanations then also line up with their world view, it's hard to convince them otherwise. I see that in a friend who still reads the news. He no longer trusts anything he reads, so it's a constant state of "they are probably lying, but why are they lying about this" and he's more susceptible to conspiratorial theories imho. He's not "there" yet, because he'll also research those theories and often come back to me and say "yeah that was bullshit" and share what he found, but the threshold for looking into and considering it an actual possibility is much lower.
Falling3 6y ago
That's not the point though. If Aldrin's implicit argument is the US government would never try and defraud its citizen, then any example of such a fraud disproves him.
- iainmerrick 6y ago
  The fact that it’s the US government isn’t the important bit; Armstrong isn’t asking you to trust the government, and his entire argument is explicit, no reading between the lines required. What’s important is the “gigantic fraud involving 400,000 people” part -- clearly establishing that it would have had to be a pretty extreme effort. And rather than just saying “trust us”, he explicitly suggests asking people outside that group, such as scientists from other countries, who would be able to verify whether the moon landing was real.
  - lixtra 6y ago
    How many people work in the homeopathy industry? You can create that kind of group think were many do believe in what they are doing.
    - wilt 6y ago
      It all depends how much you dilute them in water i guess :p
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      How many people are standing up and saying it's a scientific truth? How many actually-qualified scientists are backing it up? No one outside of the people shilling those oils, and the fools buying them, think they're real. The fact that you can point to it as an example implies that most people know it's hokum.
  - Falling3 6y ago
    And I completely agree with all of that. That doesn't change the fact that "the government wouldn't defraud you" is a horrific argument. And that is one of his points.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

It’s a single example. The list of governmental frauds is as long as recorded history.

pstuart 6y ago
Again, you are conflating frauds and have't actually refuted the point in question: did we land on the moon or not?
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I was making a meta point about institutions and conspiracy theories, not commenting on one in particular. I specifically said this in my initial comment.
simonh 6y ago
Sure, but in a democracy it’s very difficult to defraud the public, because the government employees doing the defrauding are the public. At any given time, large swathes of those employees are politically opposed to whoever is in power. That’s why the WMD fiasco is so instructional. It failed immediately, for precisely the reasons we would expect any such fraud against the population to fail, and for precisely the reasons we would expect faked moon landings to be rapidly exposed.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > That’s why the WMD fiasco is so instructional. It failed immediately Maybe we have a different understanding of "failed" or "immediately", but it worked well enough to get the media on board to build a case for war and carry it for long enough until the actual war started. It was solid enough that even all the doubt coming from NATO partners (and the flat out refusal to be part of it with Chirac's utterance that "France is not a pacifist country" and it's not about war itself but that war and those reasons in particular that they wouldn't be a part of it) did not stop the war. So, to me at least, it didn't fail at all, it succeeded.
  - simonh 6y ago
    It succeeded at getting us into a war, but did not succeed at silencing and neutralising criticism and counter evidence. The equivalent would be if the Apollo program was riven by controversy, doubt and criticism from the start, but nevertheless went ahead and rockets were launched but the fakery was ultimately conclusively exposed in the early 1970s, with all the astronauts coming clean and admitting to it. There was a considerable body of evidence against the WMD story right from the start. Senior CIA personnel were crying foul at how their intelligence was being manipulated for political ends from an early stage, it's just that evidence wasn't enough to stop the war. Nothing remotely like that ever happened with the Apollo program. There has never been any substantial evidence or testimony against it from within government or NASA, or as Neil pointed out from any foreign specialists or experts, even the Russians. Conversely the WMD story was being challenged internationally from it's conception, as you pointed out yourself. In terms of challenges, counter evidence and controversy at the time the two cases could not possibly be more starkly utterly different, and that's why they are useful comparisons because the WMD thing shows clearly how government deceptions actually work out.
dyslexit 6y ago
I would argue that government lies, especially ones that happen on a scale like that in the US, are not at all why we have conspiracy theorists. I think there's a more underlying human need to believe that there is something behind "it all", and when that is combined with a lack of education, political awareness, or just stubborness, you get people who will believe almost anything. That, and occasionally mental illness, is why you get people who will believe in lizard people who run the world, flat earths, and so on, not because of singular examples of wide scale government fraud.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > not because of singular examples of wide scale government fraud I agree, but I do believe it's mostly because of many small scale lies. If there was only one example of government lies in history, but it was a big one, I don't think we'd see the same level of conspiracy theory acceptance. The fact that there is a constant stream of lies of all shapes and sizes from the government, the media, companies etc is what contributes to it the most. Once you make people lose their trust in those institutions, they will pay more attention to anyone presenting "alternative" explanations ("this explains that thing as well, but it's not peddled by the liars, so maybe it's true"). If those explanations then also line up with their world view, it's hard to convince them otherwise. I see that in a friend who still reads the news. He no longer trusts anything he reads, so it's a constant state of "they are probably lying, but why are they lying about this" and he's more susceptible to conspiratorial theories imho. He's not "there" yet, because he'll also research those theories and often come back to me and say "yeah that was bullshit" and share what he found, but the threshold for looking into and considering it an actual possibility is much lower.

Falling3 6y ago

That's not the point though. If Aldrin's implicit argument is the US government would never try and defraud its citizen, then any example of such a fraud disproves him.

iainmerrick 6y ago
The fact that it’s the US government isn’t the important bit; Armstrong isn’t asking you to trust the government, and his entire argument is explicit, no reading between the lines required. What’s important is the “gigantic fraud involving 400,000 people” part -- clearly establishing that it would have had to be a pretty extreme effort. And rather than just saying “trust us”, he explicitly suggests asking people outside that group, such as scientists from other countries, who would be able to verify whether the moon landing was real.
- lixtra 6y ago
  How many people work in the homeopathy industry? You can create that kind of group think were many do believe in what they are doing.
  - wilt 6y ago
    It all depends how much you dilute them in water i guess :p
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    How many people are standing up and saying it's a scientific truth? How many actually-qualified scientists are backing it up? No one outside of the people shilling those oils, and the fools buying them, think they're real. The fact that you can point to it as an example implies that most people know it's hokum.
- Falling3 6y ago
  And I completely agree with all of that. That doesn't change the fact that "the government wouldn't defraud you" is a horrific argument. And that is one of his points.