Apollo Discussions > The Hoax Theory
What should we really be doing?
ka9q:
This move to a new forum has gotten me thinking: what should we "Apollogists" really be doing?
I've certainly met a lot of interesting people of all kinds, on all sides. I've learned a lot from other debunkers and from researching my own answers to hoax claims. And yeah, though we don't really like to admit it, sometimes it can be a little...um...gratifying...to ridicule the most absurd hoax claims. But I'm wondering: what do we reasonably hope to accomplish? Is there a better way to do it?
It's obvious to anyone who's been at this for any length of time that it's almost impossible to change a "hard core" Apollo denier's mind with facts and reason. We can probably count our collective successes on the fingers of one hand, and I'm not sure that any of them even qualify as "hard core". This should not be a surprise since most deniers didn't arrive at their original beliefs with facts and reason in the first place, though a few hotly claim to have done so. Quite frankly, I think many if not most of the really hard-core hoaxers are probably suffering from some sort of mental illness and have more serious problems in their lives that none of us are in any position to help them with.
So what do we hope to achieve? Obviously we'd like to stop their nonsense from spreading through the population at large, and maybe even turning it into opportunities to learn and teach. Human history is rife with sad examples of a few psychotics somehow infecting entire populations of otherwise normal healthy people with their delusions. But what's the best way to stop this? Is it even possible?
I know I've asked a lot of questions, I wish I had answers for at least some of them.
gillianren:
We should hope to achieve what we have achieved. No, we won't change the minds of any hard-core hoax believers, but there are plenty of hoax believers who aren't. We're changing the minds of reasonable people. We are providing answers for people who've heard just enough so that the hoax sounds believable but not enough so that they understand that it isn't.
Is there a better way to do it? Yes, but going door-to-door isn't feasible, and critical thinking isn't taught well enough in the schools.
LunarOrbit:
I believe that most hoax believers are only mildly convinced that the moon landings were faked and will change their minds when exposed to the facts. If we can convince them then I'm happy. The die hard hoax theorists can't be convinced because they don't want to be, so they're a lost cause. And I suspect many of them don't even believe the garbage they're spreading online, they have other motivations for saying what they do (fame, money, or whatever).
I think the hoax theory is basically dead anyway. Ever since the LRO images of the Apollo landing sites were published only fools continue to claim the landings were faked. But the Flat Earth Society has shown us that there will always be fools.
LunarOrbit:
--- Quote from: gillianren on February 23, 2012, 10:28:46 PM ---Is there a better way to do it? Yes, but going door-to-door isn't feasible, and critical thinking isn't taught well enough in the schools.
--- End quote ---
We give Google something to show to the people who search for "moon hoax" besides Jarrah White videos. It's a start.
ka9q:
--- Quote from: LunarOrbit on February 23, 2012, 10:44:50 PM ---I believe that most hoax believers are only mildly convinced that the moon landings were faked and will change their minds when exposed to the facts
--- End quote ---
I think you're right but the problem is that most of the forums where we could do that are controlled by the hard-core, and they're quick to block you as soon as you start to turn their audience against them.
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