4 ms·
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 dispro
by 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 agoThe 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 agoHow 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 agoIt all depends how much you dilute them in water i guess :p
- blaser-waffle 6y agoHow 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 agoAnd 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.
- iainmerrick 6y agoI think you need to point to the sentence where he says or even implies that. I can’t see it and neither can the other people responding here. Three of us (when I last looked) pointed out, independently, that he has two main arguments, and “trust the government” isn’t one of them.
- Trasmatta 6y agoDo you mean Armstrong? Because I went back and read the argument in the letter, and that's not his argument at all. His first argument was that it's incredibly unlikely that 400,000 people would have been complicit in such a fraud with none of him breaking ranks. His second argument was all of the scientific experts from other countries who all agree it actually happened. He didn't make any claims about how "the US government would never try and defraud its citizen".
- me_me_me 6y agoJust imagine if Soviet Union could prove US faked the Apollo program, faked claims of landing on the moon. But i bet Soviet Union was on the conspiracy too xD
- majewsky 6y agoputs on additional layer of tinfoil hat Of course the Soviets were in on it. They didn't publicly humiliate the US because they feared Mad Man Nixon would start WW3 over it. IT ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
- dyslexit 6y agoArmstrong's point isn't that the government would never try to defraud its citizens, and I think it's a stretch to mold his argument into that. His point is that it would be impossible to hold over 400,000 people to the same lie, without anyone breaking. Bush's WMD claims had plenty of people contradicting it at the time, and has been completely debunked now, unlike the moon landing that happened 50 years ago.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Rapzid 6y agoIt was a weak man argument. Armstrong's paragraph was meant to be taken as a whole; but this argument just extracts one sentence and tries to establish a false equivalency with it.. And a scarecrow. Pretty impressive piece of drivel TBH.
- koheripbal 6y agoNo, that kind of is the point. The analogy doesn't work because the US put out all the evidence transparently - it was their conclusion that didn't make sense. ...so it's nothing at all like faking a moon landing.