Fair enough. I've heard of it earlier, too. But it seems new life was breathed into it lately. My favorite counterargument, because of its simplicity, is that in 1968-69 it would have been utterly impossible to generate the kind of simulations allegedly made, given the limitations of IT. It really *would* be easier to go to the moon!
┬лMy favorite counterargument, because of its simplicity, is that in 1968-69 it would have been utterly impossible to generate the kind of simulations allegedly made, given the limitations of IT.┬╗
You don't need IT to do that, high quality "special effects" were around before IT; especially as, given the limitations of the technology of the time, the video feed was rather blurry. The obvious counterproof to the "Moon Hoax" are instead:
* Did other people receive radio transmissions from the moon?
* Can we check with telescopes that the lander base and the moon vehicles are there?
* Why didn't the USSR and China denounce the trip to the moon as fake USA propaganda?
There are two real values to the Moon Hoax though:
* For the public, to remind us that virtually all we think we "know" is hearsay, as personal verification is way impractical.
* For the "authorities", the same, because if everything is hearsay, then credibility depends on being an authoritative source, and they have the advantage as to that.
Good list. My go-to counter was ultimately "It is less likely that 50,000 gov't employees, contractors and vendors would have kept the hoax a secret than it is that we went to the moon. It's a more difficult task."
But that underestimates the "Moon hoax" theory: it is not that the Saturn launches with the Apollo capsules etc. never happened, it is that they were launched but never arrived, or if they managed to get to the moon there was nobody onboard or they died, and only some (not necessarily all) of the *landings* were faked. That can be surely done with a much smaller team.
Yes -- very important point. Too much of what is supposedly "known" is that which is obtained second-hand, and so is based on trust. Trust is essential for complex society to function, but it is not at all the same as first-hand knowledge.*
*Arguably, there is not such a thing as (human) knowledge at all, except for that single thing that a person "is one with" -- that is, one's own thoughts. *Everything else* is merely belief -- belief in one's calculations, logic, own sensations, etc., etc. ... every one of which is mediated, and every one of which can fail.
┬лToo much of what is supposedly "known" is that which is obtained second-hand, and so is based on trust. Trust is essential for complex society to function┬╗
I would not say "trust" or "belief" unqualified here as those are dangerous as they can lead to gullibility, I would rather say that "informed degrees of skepticism" and "some betting on the optimistic case" are crucial. Risk management works like this:
тАЬProven by evidence: Evidence based science is like standing on a train track facing east saying: I wonтАЩt turn around until you prove to me there is a train coming from the west.тАЭ
Most people have no idea how a jet works, and yet they trust their life to Boeing, Airbus and airline employees every time they fly. Same with cars. There's so much knowledge out there you have to necessarily have some amount of faith that things will work.
┬лtrust their life to Boeing, Airbus and airline employees every time they fly. [...] some amount of faith that things will work┬╗
In operational decisions "trust" and "faith" simply mean "superstition", with airplanes or cars as well as with corporate or "unofficial" media.
There is a gigantic difference between boarding a plane (or giving credibility to NYT smears about "russian collusion") because of "trust" and "faith", or doing it because of a conscious evaluation of the odds.
There is the argument by existentialist philosophers that every conscious decision on the odds generates anxiety, and for many "trust" and "faith" do help reduce that anxiety, but that is quite another argument.
A long time ago I was due to board a plane that crashed before reaching my destination, killing everyone on board. This was pre-9/11 when people could meet their family at the gate, and i'll never forget the media flooding the airport and family members crying in despair. I can't speak for others, but I trusted that the airline would operate in a safe manner, but that day they didn't. I wasn't flying on superstition. Before that day I had never seriously thought about the odds of dying while flying, and for a long time afterwards I had to tell myself over and over when boarding a plane that flying is statistically safer than driving.
┬лI trusted that the airline would operate in a safe manner, but that day they didn't. I wasn't flying on superstition.┬╗
But worded as that, you had no reason to trust, so it was "superstition", as "If I wear my lucky t-shirt I usually win the deal" and "airplanes usually don't have accidents" are then pretty much equivalent. That is admittedly stretching it a bit, but not that much, and that is my point. Which is demonstrated here:
┬лBefore that day I had never seriously thought about the odds of dying while flying and for a long time afterwards I had to tell myself over and over when boarding a plane that flying is statistically safer┬╗
GOTCHA! (in a good humored way), you were flying superstitiously in the past.
┬лthan driving.┬╗
And here GOTCHA! (in a good humoured way) again.
Because I recently learned (from a commenter on another blog) that is some sort of "hearsay", from airline industry propaganda because that is about the frequency of deaths *per mile* and since airplanes are much faster than cars they have the advantage.
If one looks at deaths *per hour of travel* or *per trip* it turns out that things are quite different.
All that the airline propaganda means is that if you go from NYC to LA by car you have a lot more chances of a fatality than by plane.
But if you spend say 20% of your time on a plane (a travelling investment banker) vs. 20% of your time driving a car (a travelling salesman) things are quite different.
I understand your point of view, but I hope that my more skeptical "check the odds before you bet" point of view is also good or perhaps better.
I think that's quite a stretch. There's a difference between a statistically insignificant sample of 1 (My lucky T-shirt) and millions of passengers who fly every year without dying. For many years. That's a lot of evidence.
I think a the that taking the Covid vaccines right now is an act of faith seeing as how it is a new technology with limited studies that was approved on an emergency basis. And nobody in their right mind should trust big pharma. I was deeply suspicious of the vaccines and only agreed to take one because someone I know and trust understands how the mrna vaccines work.
>> If one looks at deaths *per hour of travel* or *per trip* it turns out that things are quite different.
If you happen to have a link you can share, please do.
┬лI think that's quite a stretch. [...] That's a lot of evidence.┬╗
But you confessed to travelling without thinking of the odds before your near miss, that was superstitious too, even if perhaps in the back of your mind you had an impression of the odds. From my point of view there are several degrees:
* "superstition" when the basis for a decision is "faith" and "trust" when there is little or no consideration of the odds.
* "hearsay" when the odds are evaluated on the basis of received information.
* "checking the odds" when information on the odds is sought proactively and skeptically.
* "actual knowledge" then the information is personally verified.
тАЬIf one looks at deaths *per hour of travel*тАЭ
┬лIf you happen to have a link┬╗
That is not really necessary at least "per hour", a simple guesstimate is "20 times larger than per mile", as one can realistically assume that jet aircraft speed is 800km/h and car speed is 40km/h.
Just as a matter of Internet history, the Moon Landing Hoax was around in the very early 2000s, if not before.
Fair enough. I've heard of it earlier, too. But it seems new life was breathed into it lately. My favorite counterargument, because of its simplicity, is that in 1968-69 it would have been utterly impossible to generate the kind of simulations allegedly made, given the limitations of IT. It really *would* be easier to go to the moon!
┬лMy favorite counterargument, because of its simplicity, is that in 1968-69 it would have been utterly impossible to generate the kind of simulations allegedly made, given the limitations of IT.┬╗
You don't need IT to do that, high quality "special effects" were around before IT; especially as, given the limitations of the technology of the time, the video feed was rather blurry. The obvious counterproof to the "Moon Hoax" are instead:
* Did other people receive radio transmissions from the moon?
* Can we check with telescopes that the lander base and the moon vehicles are there?
* Why didn't the USSR and China denounce the trip to the moon as fake USA propaganda?
There are two real values to the Moon Hoax though:
* For the public, to remind us that virtually all we think we "know" is hearsay, as personal verification is way impractical.
* For the "authorities", the same, because if everything is hearsay, then credibility depends on being an authoritative source, and they have the advantage as to that.
Good list. My go-to counter was ultimately "It is less likely that 50,000 gov't employees, contractors and vendors would have kept the hoax a secret than it is that we went to the moon. It's a more difficult task."
But that underestimates the "Moon hoax" theory: it is not that the Saturn launches with the Apollo capsules etc. never happened, it is that they were launched but never arrived, or if they managed to get to the moon there was nobody onboard or they died, and only some (not necessarily all) of the *landings* were faked. That can be surely done with a much smaller team.
Thanks for this reply and list.
"[V]irtually all we think we 'know' is hearsay"
Yes -- very important point. Too much of what is supposedly "known" is that which is obtained second-hand, and so is based on trust. Trust is essential for complex society to function, but it is not at all the same as first-hand knowledge.*
*Arguably, there is not such a thing as (human) knowledge at all, except for that single thing that a person "is one with" -- that is, one's own thoughts. *Everything else* is merely belief -- belief in one's calculations, logic, own sensations, etc., etc. ... every one of which is mediated, and every one of which can fail.
┬лToo much of what is supposedly "known" is that which is obtained second-hand, and so is based on trust. Trust is essential for complex society to function┬╗
I would not say "trust" or "belief" unqualified here as those are dangerous as they can lead to gullibility, I would rather say that "informed degrees of skepticism" and "some betting on the optimistic case" are crucial. Risk management works like this:
https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1315072918045552641
тАЬProven by evidence: Evidence based science is like standing on a train track facing east saying: I wonтАЩt turn around until you prove to me there is a train coming from the west.тАЭ
:-)
Most people have no idea how a jet works, and yet they trust their life to Boeing, Airbus and airline employees every time they fly. Same with cars. There's so much knowledge out there you have to necessarily have some amount of faith that things will work.
┬лtrust their life to Boeing, Airbus and airline employees every time they fly. [...] some amount of faith that things will work┬╗
In operational decisions "trust" and "faith" simply mean "superstition", with airplanes or cars as well as with corporate or "unofficial" media.
There is a gigantic difference between boarding a plane (or giving credibility to NYT smears about "russian collusion") because of "trust" and "faith", or doing it because of a conscious evaluation of the odds.
There is the argument by existentialist philosophers that every conscious decision on the odds generates anxiety, and for many "trust" and "faith" do help reduce that anxiety, but that is quite another argument.
A long time ago I was due to board a plane that crashed before reaching my destination, killing everyone on board. This was pre-9/11 when people could meet their family at the gate, and i'll never forget the media flooding the airport and family members crying in despair. I can't speak for others, but I trusted that the airline would operate in a safe manner, but that day they didn't. I wasn't flying on superstition. Before that day I had never seriously thought about the odds of dying while flying, and for a long time afterwards I had to tell myself over and over when boarding a plane that flying is statistically safer than driving.
┬лI trusted that the airline would operate in a safe manner, but that day they didn't. I wasn't flying on superstition.┬╗
But worded as that, you had no reason to trust, so it was "superstition", as "If I wear my lucky t-shirt I usually win the deal" and "airplanes usually don't have accidents" are then pretty much equivalent. That is admittedly stretching it a bit, but not that much, and that is my point. Which is demonstrated here:
┬лBefore that day I had never seriously thought about the odds of dying while flying and for a long time afterwards I had to tell myself over and over when boarding a plane that flying is statistically safer┬╗
GOTCHA! (in a good humored way), you were flying superstitiously in the past.
┬лthan driving.┬╗
And here GOTCHA! (in a good humoured way) again.
Because I recently learned (from a commenter on another blog) that is some sort of "hearsay", from airline industry propaganda because that is about the frequency of deaths *per mile* and since airplanes are much faster than cars they have the advantage.
If one looks at deaths *per hour of travel* or *per trip* it turns out that things are quite different.
All that the airline propaganda means is that if you go from NYC to LA by car you have a lot more chances of a fatality than by plane.
But if you spend say 20% of your time on a plane (a travelling investment banker) vs. 20% of your time driving a car (a travelling salesman) things are quite different.
I understand your point of view, but I hope that my more skeptical "check the odds before you bet" point of view is also good or perhaps better.
>> That is admittedly stretching it a bit,
I think that's quite a stretch. There's a difference between a statistically insignificant sample of 1 (My lucky T-shirt) and millions of passengers who fly every year without dying. For many years. That's a lot of evidence.
I think a the that taking the Covid vaccines right now is an act of faith seeing as how it is a new technology with limited studies that was approved on an emergency basis. And nobody in their right mind should trust big pharma. I was deeply suspicious of the vaccines and only agreed to take one because someone I know and trust understands how the mrna vaccines work.
>> If one looks at deaths *per hour of travel* or *per trip* it turns out that things are quite different.
If you happen to have a link you can share, please do.
┬лI think that's quite a stretch. [...] That's a lot of evidence.┬╗
But you confessed to travelling without thinking of the odds before your near miss, that was superstitious too, even if perhaps in the back of your mind you had an impression of the odds. From my point of view there are several degrees:
* "superstition" when the basis for a decision is "faith" and "trust" when there is little or no consideration of the odds.
* "hearsay" when the odds are evaluated on the basis of received information.
* "checking the odds" when information on the odds is sought proactively and skeptically.
* "actual knowledge" then the information is personally verified.
тАЬIf one looks at deaths *per hour of travel*тАЭ
┬лIf you happen to have a link┬╗
That is not really necessary at least "per hour", a simple guesstimate is "20 times larger than per mile", as one can realistically assume that jet aircraft speed is 800km/h and car speed is 40km/h.