Things you often Wonder

[Stevo985]

 

Edit: on that note, one of my favourite threads on VT ever was the one about the moon landings. PAges and pages of stuff and it was all absolutely brilliant. Interesting, informative and myth busting. Probably my favourite ever.

Unfortunately it got pruned Devastating. 

This one?

 

Unfortunately not, no.

 

The one I'm thinking of was about 50 pages long. It started with somebody stating that they were certain the moon landings were staged, a few people agreeing with him and then pages and pages of genuinely interesting debate.

 

One poster in particular was especially knowledgeable, I think maybe it was "Sie", from memory. He posted lots of brilliant stuff that just debunked every bat shit crazy conspiracy out there. The original posters who were so adamant that the landings didn't happen conceded in the end, such was the evidence provided.

 

It was honestly one of my favourite threads but I've never been able to find it. 

 

If anyone did find it I'd love them forever. Not even man love Actual, real life, love.

 

Edit: I actually talk about the thread I'm remembering in that thread you've linked.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Stevo985

[V01]

Just using the above debate as an excuse to post a cool gif, It's the Apollo 15 commander dropping a feather and a hammer at the same time on the moon

 

 

And this video replicating it and explaining the science behind it

 

[YLN]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwr6_015ROo

[Designer1]

Limmy 

[mjmooney]

Limmy

And The Family Cooking?

[Designer1]

Mike, you are a walking miracle 

[HanoiVillan]

One thing is important - we should never dismiss something because it's a 'conspiracy theory.' There are lots and lots of real-life conspiracies, that genuinely actually happened or are happening. Woodward & Bernstein had a 'conspiracy theory', then they were able to collect evidence to prove it. 

 

The key about a theory is not that it is a theory, but whether there is any evidence to support it, or whether the evidence debunks. Clearly, the evidence debunks most 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the claim that the moon landings were fake. But they're not wrong because they're conspiracy theories, they're wrong because they're wrong. 

[TrinityRoadSteps]

Is Ray Winston still hard?

 

If that isn't asking for a Kenneth Williams pic I don't know what is 

[troon_villan]

Is Ray Winston still hard?

If that isn't asking for a Kenneth Williams pic I don't know what is

If you Kenneth Williams the Kenneth Williams-er VT will explode.

[snowychap]

One thing is important - we should never dismiss something because it's a 'conspiracy theory.' There are lots and lots of real-life conspiracies, that genuinely actually happened or are happening. Woodward & Bernstein had a 'conspiracy theory', then they were able to collect evidence to prove it. 

 

The key about a theory is not that it is a theory, but whether there is any evidence to support it, or whether the evidence debunks. Clearly, the evidence debunks most 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the claim that the moon landings were fake. But they're not wrong because they're conspiracy theories, they're wrong because they're wrong.

Eloquently put. Edited August 28, 2015 by snowychap

[ismail-villa]

Leigh Francis should have stopped with the Keith Lemon character a long time ago.

Is it bad that I thought Keith Lemon was who he actually was... Never heard of Leigh Francis until now and I feel like a right tw*t!

[mjmooney]

Leigh Francis should have stopped with the Keith Lemon character a long time ago.

Is it bad that I thought Keith Lemon was who he actually was... Never heard of Leigh Francis until now and I feel like a right tw*t!

Who's going to tell him about Ali G?

[ismail-villa]

Leigh Francis should have stopped with the Keith Lemon character a long time ago.

Is it bad that I thought Keith Lemon was who he actually was... Never heard of Leigh Francis until now and I feel like a right tw*t!

Who's going to tell him about Ali G?

Next you're going to say Borat isn't real either! [emoji1] [emoji6] [emoji6]

[Genie]

Leigh Francis should have stopped with the Keith Lemon character a long time ago.

Is it bad that I thought Keith Lemon was who he actually was... Never heard of Leigh Francis until now and I feel like a right tw*t!

I reckon there are loads of people, hundreds of thousands, who think it's a 'real person'.

[ismail-villa]

Leigh Francis should have stopped with the Keith Lemon character a long time ago.

Is it bad that I thought Keith Lemon was who he actually was... Never heard of Leigh Francis until now and I feel like a right tw*t!

I reckon there are loads of people, hundreds of thousands, who think it's a 'real person'.

I've only seen him on tele portrayed as Keith Lemon hence why I thought he was real.

[MakemineVanilla]

One thing is important - we should never dismiss something because it's a 'conspiracy theory.' There are lots and lots of real-life conspiracies, that genuinely actually happened or are happening. Woodward & Bernstein had a 'conspiracy theory', then they were able to collect evidence to prove it. 

 

The key about a theory is not that it is a theory, but whether there is any evidence to support it, or whether the evidence debunks. Clearly, the evidence debunks most 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the claim that the moon landings were fake. But they're not wrong because they're conspiracy theories, they're wrong because they're wrong. 

 

Conspiracy theorists are on pretty solid philosophical ground if they follow Karl Popper's claim that no theory can be proven true but only falsified by experiment.

 

Those who dispute the orthodox explanation of the destruction of the twin towers, cite the claim that aviation fuel does not get hot enough to melt steel, as one such experiment.

 

And it cannot be doubted that most of us rely entirely on 'authoritative testimony' for our evidence rather than empirical knowledge. 

 

So neither party can say they know and the only honest stance to take is to admit that we do not know and if we do not know, how can we claim the other party is wrong? 

[chrisp65]

Another way of looking at it is that authority has repeatedly and regularly undermined our trust in authority.

 

Police in the UK are massively responsible and safe and trustworthy and would never just execute a man. Then there are cases where people are shot in the street and it's not even clear after years of investigation if the 'suspect' had a gun. Or was even a suspect 5 minutes before he was killed. Be it a known villain, a petty local scrote, or an electrician late for work. The authorities can put up a version later proven to be a story.

 

Or the police can investigate themselves for years and find no case to answer for Hillsborough. Or the government can tell us there is absolutely nothing to worry about with the thalidomide drug, or 1950's nuclear installations. Or asbestos. Or Iraq. Or how we treated some prisoners in Iraq. Or whether we had soldiers in Northern Ireland that were less than even handed.

 

So we've learnt we can't trust 'them'. Consequently, any offensive bollocks will get some size of audience, some level of acceptance, because the alternative is to believe the official version which has previously been disproved a hundred times. The fact the official version was correct ten thousand other times gets lost.

[HanoiVillan]

I wonder how many of Karl Popper's acolytes called for a doctor when they fell ill?

 

You're both right, about both the philosophy and the reasons for the popularity of conspiracy theories, including those with no worthwhile evidence like the idea that the Moon landings were faked. It is hard to 'disprove' something that is ultimately unfalsifiable, and impossible to do so if all expert testimony is rendered invalid as a matter of course. And their popularity does stem from the failure of officialdom to tell the truth on many previous occasions, ie. to participate in conspiracies, of which Hillsborough is an excellent example. 

 

Yet there are strong reasons to resist simply giving up on classifying conspiracy theories by their validity, which has to include, as a matter of necessity, expert testimony. There are also reasons to avoid simply declaring that the truth is unknowable or that trust has gone and can't be brought back. If I had, for one example, been a powerful politician who had abused children in the nation's care homes, I would take great comfort in a philosophy that declared that nobody else's perception of what happened was more valid than my own, or that expert testimony could be dismissed as further bias. I'd probably sneer at any journalist asking questions, 'That's just a conspiracy theory', in the way that many people have before. I'd point to the wacky individuals talking about the Moon landings and 9/11. I'd probably make a derogatory reference to tin-foil hats, and possibly further to the X-Files and to people's mother's basements.

 

It's for the benefit of those who truly need it most that we need to fight for the truth (and believe that 'the truth' is something that can be found) and against corrosive cynicism. 

 

All conspiracy theories deserve (or deserved, at some point) investigation. But when the balance of evidence reaches a certain critical mass (and it's certainly far beyond that point in the case of the Moon or 9/11) it's time to give up and focus on those conspiracies for which there does seem to be some evidence. 

[Seat68]

An old friend of mine is on keith lemons sketch show, I didn't know this someone mentioned him and I said what??? Turns out he styles himself as a comedian.

[tonyh29]

Leigh Francis should have stopped with the Keith Lemon character a long time ago.

Is it bad that I thought Keith Lemon was who he actually was... Never heard of Leigh Francis until now and I feel like a right tw*t!

Who's going to tell him about Ali G?

Next you're going to say Borat isn't real either! [emoji1] [emoji6] [emoji6]

On the Borat thing ... I went to Kazakhstan a few weeks back the young girl I go to see to get my back sorted now and then thought it was a made up country for the film :shakes head: