Author Topic: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)  (Read 16838 times)

Offline JayUtah

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #30 on: October 21, 2014, 05:01:49 PM »
Or maybe he's not coming back at all.  He signed up, posted his link, and he's never been back since.  Not that this excuses the crotchety-old-man response I wrote, but I doubt we'll need to worry about what he thinks of our criticism.  If he does come back, let's hope he feels like telling us what the point was of making the film and publicizing it here.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline AstroBrant

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #31 on: October 21, 2014, 05:55:22 PM »
It strikes me as a wannabe filmmaker trying to drive traffic to his site.

I agree.

I tend to believe Top5s was posting this here, believing this was a forum comprised mostly of hoax believers and he was looking for subscribers and hits on his video. I'd be interested in knowing what other forums he posted this on.

If someone was actually looking for some kind of peer review, it seems to make more sense that he would post the video unlisted first, and then make corrections before uploading it publicly. After all, YT videos do have comment sections.

One way to judge will be to see if he makes annotations or removes his video and re-uploads an edited version of it, based on what people have said here.
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Offline Top5s

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #32 on: October 22, 2014, 05:18:51 AM »
Hello, I am a bit shocked at all the comments. Manly the rude ones accusing me of expressing my views on the moon landing. My views are not expressed in this video, and much like the 9\11 conspiracy theory video I posted I state that in the description.

Throughout the video I say "Many people believe" or "some conspiracy theorist say" the whole point of the video is just to show what the conspiracy theorist to this day believe. I then wanted peoples feedback on the theories, not to express your views on how well the video was made and so on....

I am sorry I have not been able to reply I have been very busy.

Ben.

Offline darren r

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #33 on: October 22, 2014, 09:17:26 AM »
Hi Ben,

I, for one, am sorry you were upset at the response. 

However, the 'conspiracy theories' you present in the video (although they are more perceived anomalies based on misunderstandings and ignorance than actual theories) are old and long debunked. Not just here, but all over the internet.

I think most serious(?) Hoax Believers have accepted that these particular accusations no longer have much traction and have started presenting ideas which are, on the surface, more complex and esoteric. They're still wrong, but at least they're trying to come up with something new!


" I went to the God D**n Moon!" Byng Gordon, 8th man on the Moon.

Offline Echnaton

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #34 on: October 22, 2014, 10:29:28 AM »
Hello, I am a bit shocked at all the comments. Manly the rude ones accusing me of expressing my views on the moon landing. My views are not expressed in this video, and much like the 9\11 conspiracy theory video I posted I state that in the description.

Throughout the video I say "Many people believe" or "some conspiracy theorist say" the whole point of the video is just to show what the conspiracy theorist to this day believe. I then wanted peoples feedback on the theories, not to express your views on how well the video was made and so on....

I am sorry I have not been able to reply I have been very busy.

Ben.

You may be new to the Apollo hoax, but many hoax believers come here with the tactic of "what do you think" or "just asking question" when they have in fact already made up their minds. So when something peculiar just lands on the doorstep, it is not out of the ordinary to speculate on why it is there.  How was anyone to know the video did or did not express its makers views or that you defiantly were the maker based on "what are your thoughts?"

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I then wanted peoples feedback on the theories, not to express your views on how well the video was made and so on

They are old, untrue and long ago debunked.

I am sure people will be happy to engage in a conversation on why they are bunk, if you have the time and interest. That is primarily what we do here.  Do you have any more specific ways you want feedback on this? 
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 11:56:46 AM by Echnaton »
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett

Offline RAF

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #35 on: October 22, 2014, 10:32:40 AM »
Hello, I am a bit shocked at all the comments. Manly the rude ones accusing me of expressing my views on the moon landing. My views are not expressed in this video, and much like the 9\11 conspiracy theory video I posted I state that in the description.

So you don't endorse those claims, you just promote those claims by repeating them?


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...the whole point of the video is just to show what the conspiracy theorist to this day believe.

For what purpose?


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I then wanted peoples feedback on the theories...

...and you got that....the ideas expressed are "old news", and have been addressed years ago.


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...not to express your views on how well the video was made and so on...

If you didn't want your video, criticized, then you shouldn't have posted it to youtube.


...oh, and welcome to the board. :)

Offline twik

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #36 on: October 22, 2014, 11:49:06 AM »
I would like to welcome our new member, but I have to add a word of general scientific advice. It's best to do your research before putting your presentation together, and releasing it to the public, with a request for comments about its quality. That avoids putting others in the position of having to criticize it for inaccuracies or out of date information.

The other route would be to put it together, but then not go actively seeking opinions on it.

Offline JayUtah

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #37 on: October 22, 2014, 11:49:27 AM »
Welcome back, Ben.

Thanks for clarifying your intent.   Sorry folks misunderstood what you wanted, but it's usually best if you say right up front what kind of criticism you're looking for.  Otherwise you'll get whatever criticism people feel like dishing out at the moment, whether it fits your plan or not.

Perhaps my mother could give you some helpful advice.  For many years she ran the public speaking program at a university up north.  She often taught the introductory public speaking classes that survey all the different kinds of ways you can speak.  When they get to the persuasive speech, invariably some student would choose to argue faked Moon landings.  Not that they necessarily believed it, but it was a topic they thought they could research and persuade people about, and thereby get a good grade.  When my mother told them, "My son is one of the world's experts on debunking those hoax theories," they invariably changed topics.  I think the message is here is "Know your audience."  You registered here, posted your video, and left -- all within five minutes.  Had you read through the first pages of the top five or so topics, you might have found a better way to frame your video here in order to get the response you wanted.

What I said at first about your video is still mostly what I would say now, but I would naturally temper it a bit knowing that it's a survey film and not and advocacy film.  Namely, your material is about 10 years old.  Given that your theme is, "People still believe these 5 things," that's not necessary a bad thing.  But if that's what you're trying to say -- i.e., that this stuff keeps coming up although we should know better -- then frame the evidence that way.  Make that point.  A simple point-counterpoint presentation on a controversial subject still leaves people wondering why you're saying it.  And yes, while this is what people were commonly saying 10 years ago, most of the prolific hoax claimants have moved on from them.  So they're not really the top 5 anymore.

Before we leave the point-counterpoint notion, I think you got some good suggestions.  "Many people believe..." and "some conspiracy theorists say..." are probably reasonably good introductions to the hoax claims, the personification of the other side needs work.  "NASA says..." should be used only if you get the rebuttal material from NASA.  NASA, by and large, does not acknowledge or respond to hoax theories.  Most of your rebuttals are going to come from the private or academic sectors.  So, for example, if you're going to talk about crosshairs, frame the rebuttal in words like, "Photography experts have shown how the crosshairs can fade away under ordinary circumstances."  You have to show that the rebuttals have real teeth and aren't just gainsaying or denials from the people accused of perpetrating a hoax.

Toward that end also, framing rebuttals with "Believers say..." is unfair.  "Believer" suggests someone who takes a conclusion on faith.  That is not a fair characterization for most of the people who dispute hoax theories.  In my case especially, and in the case of many others here on this forum, my conclusion that Apollo was real is based on my professional training and experience as an engineer working in aerospace -- 25 years in the field -- and a very lengthy, exhaustive program of historical research into the history of the program and its claims.  It's not a pseudo-religious belief.

If you're going to get into characterizing the players on both sides of the issue that you treat, characterize them accurately:  among the relevant qualified scientists, engineers, technicians, historians, etc. there is as close to unanimous acceptance of Apollo's authenticity as one can get.  Your audience might want to know that.  "You mean there aren't any scientists who think the Moon landings were hoaxed?  Hm..."

That's the general flaw in the overly centrist approach.  I know some teachers say you should give equal weight to both sides and let the audience decide.  But they're generally talking about topics on which you could likely have a well-reasoned debate on both sides.  Take America's new universal healthcare system -- I'm sure you could make a great summary film on the question, "Will the Affordable Care Act help or hurt the U.S. economy?"  See, on that point we aren't too sure, and there are experts on both sides making informed predictions.  But not so with the authenticity of Apollo.  Therefore, many of us here think it's a fatal flaw to given the appearance of equal credibility to both sides of the Moon hoax question when the sides simply are not scientifically or factually equivalent at all.

You have to decide, "Should I give equal time/weight to both sides?" or "Should I weight my presentation of the evidence according to what I think the evidence itself indicates?"  I've been involved with professional filmmakers making full-length documentaries using my expertise on this subject.  The best one gets shown occasionally on National Geographic.  The approach they took was to test hoax claims according to science, believing it likely that a scientific discussion or demonstration would refute the hoax theory.  They didn't think the hoax claims were true, but at the same time they allowed the claimants to make their statements in their own words.

That's a reasonable sense of fair play.  But if you pick a topic where the evidence is clearly skewed toward one outcome, and you make a purely centrist, "equal time and weight" film, it reflects badly on you.  Some of your audience will wonder how good an analyst you are if you can't see that there's no legitimate controversy.  They'll accuse you of making "fluff" pieces that simply aim to stir up a controversy without offering any real insight.  There are, however, pitfalls also to weighting your presentation.  The people on the other side will complain that you misrepresented them or that you are biased.

The specific flaw in the centrist approach is what Echnaton brings up above.  Read his response carefully.  Almost all conspiracy theorists at first adopt a centrist position.  They say they haven't really made up their minds, or that they just have a few questions.  Then over the course of several dozen pages of debate, they slowly reveal that they're quite ardent hoax believers -- they just weren't honest about it at the beginning.  I can go into greater detail about this if you want.  But the bottom line is that you probably honestly thought that by not explicitly taking sides, you'd convey to your critics sufficiently that you weren't advocating anything.  You probably had no way of knowing that the nature of this particular debate is that if you don't explicitly say in big bold letters, "I believe we really did go to the Moon," any centrist presentation is likely to be interpreted as the "stealthy" approach to advocating a hoax.

My "How can we make progress?" comment is an expression of my frustration at having to debunk the same nonsense over and over.  Sorry if that personally offended you.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline JayUtah

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #38 on: October 22, 2014, 12:00:22 PM »
...releasing it to the public, with a request for comments about its quality.

For all we know at this point, this is his rough draft.  But generally yes, asking open-ended questions like, "What do you think of this?" is going to engender lots of different kinds of responses.

I've been handed communiques written by my colleagues for me to review before they get sent to the client.  Very often I'll point out the logical or factual flaws in them, only to be told that I was just supposed to review the spelling and grammar.  You really do have to be explicit with people in order to get what you expect will be helpful.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Noldi400

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #39 on: October 22, 2014, 06:29:18 PM »
Hi Ben

If by "Most Believed" you mean the most commonly heard, you might want to consider the radiation argument - lately it seems to me to be the one that crops up most frequently.  Just as debunked as the others, of course, but it does seem to currently very popular.

A more interesting video might be "5 Most Ridiculous Claims of Moon Hoax Believers".  You could start with the notion that rockets won't work in a vacuum. Just a thought.

"The sane understand that human beings are incapable of sustaining conspiracies on a grand scale, because some of our most defining qualities as a species are... a tendency to panic, and an inability to keep our mouths shut." - Dean Koontz

Offline AstroBrant

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #40 on: October 23, 2014, 02:05:13 AM »
Hello, I am a bit shocked at all the comments.
Ben.

I was going to do this before seeing your recent comment here.

I owe you an apology, Ben. Not because I think anything I've said was wrong, but because of my attitude. On your channel I sneered at what you were doing. That was wrong. If I was your age I would probably be doing the same kind of thing. Just because my involvement in YouTube is quite different from yours doesn't make yours invalid. You are just there for purposes that most people on this forum wouldn't be interested in.

I feel that Jay and Kiwi and some others have expended misplaced effort on dealing with you and your video, because I still believe it really doesn't matter to you that much. I may be the only one here who's actually spent some time studying your channel and I have a pretty good idea where you're coming from. You're really not in this for the issues -- you're in it for your channel. I was saying that cynically before, and I really don't have the right to do that. What you are doing really is not worthless, seditious, or contemptible!

That having been said, I wish you good luck with your channel. Who knows, some hot chick at school might come up to you one day and say, "Hey! You're that 'Top5s' guy! Cool! My name's Lisa, and I just broke up. Doing anything tonight?" ;-)

You have a good narrating voice, you write a good script, your videos are well-edited, and I think they are a helluva lot better than many I see on YT. (I hate the kind where they sit in front of the camera and ramble on and on with some unscripted nonsense, don't you?)

So don't let old codgers like me spoil it for you. Go ahead and have some creative fun. 
May your skies be clear and your thinking even clearer.
(Youtube: astrobrant2)

Offline AstroBrant

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Re: 5 Most Believed Moon Landing Conspiracies! (Video)
« Reply #41 on: October 23, 2014, 02:15:20 AM »

You could start with the notion that rockets won't work in a vacuum. Just a thought.


Man, you know, I've been seeing that more and more lately. Does this conspiracy garbage have any bottom???
May your skies be clear and your thinking even clearer.
(Youtube: astrobrant2)