HB Contradictions

[macapple]

Ok this is a nice bit of speculation about the Russians being paid off, but there are some facts that people seem to forget here. Since the fall of the Berlin wall and the subsequent collapse of the USSR, many of the records and "secrets" of the Soviet space race and its alleged infiltration of NASAs contractors are now well known.

You just have to look at the Buran space craft. *cough* Shuttle

1. President Kennedy, prior to his famous announcements had conducted discussions with Premier Khrushchev' to see if there could be a joint US and USSR mission in 1961. Funding the two programs was expensive for both countries but the offer was turned down by the Russians as they were still developing their moon program. Later his son recounted that he was tempted to take the Americans up on their offer after thinking it through. Kennedy had already started a program of sharing information which later culminated in the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Deke Slayton had met with russian cosmonaughts Leonov in 1965 to discuss possible join cooperation but relations didnt really thaw until early in the 1970s when an agreement was made to make a joint docking system for the ASTP which launched in 1975.

www.spacewar.com/news/russia-97h.html



3. A little known fact is that the Soviets actually captured (recovered) a boiler plate CM which had been lost at sea on recovery training. So they were also well aware of what was going on. www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpsule.htm


4. the Russians whilst ahead in the space race in the late 1950s started to fall behind due to a sting of accidents such as the Nedelin launch pad disaster which claimed the lives of 160+ people. It has been rumored that there were some Russian pilot deaths in their space program but these rumors can be substantiated.

Here is an article on why Russia failed in the race to the moon, unfortunately doesn't contain anything about paying off Russia

www.astronautix.com/articles/whynrace.htm

and if your bored what the CIA knew about the space race

www.astronautix.com/articles/whanowit.htm

[drewid]

Jul 27, 2009 21:18:35 GMT -4 macapple said:

1. President Kennedy, prior to his famous announcements had conducted discussions with Premier Khrushchev' to see if there could be a joint US and USSR mission in 1961. Funding the two programs was expensive for both countries but the offer was turned down by the Russians as they were still developing their moon program. Later his son recounted that he was tempted to take the Americans up on their offer after thinking it through.

Goodness me I never knew that. I wonder what effect that might have had on the cold war.

[tedward]

I have an issue with paying off and that is you are giving leverage to an enemy and that could be used to gain the upper hand at some point in the future. The system of government and power struggles meant you could not predict which way they would go should a leader pop off this mortal coil. Having a chat about possibilities is just that. But it does seem strange straight after the Cuban crisis, I would have thought Khrushchev would still be smarting over that and not really considered it and dismissed out of hand. See you on the Moon sort of attitude.

[homobibiens]

Jul 27, 2009 8:54:19 GMT -4 mowbrax said:

There would possibly be further ramifications of the Soviets position. Having "accepted" the bribe, there would be nothing to stop them proclaiming "it's a Hoax", by first providing their evidence, and making it a double whammy by showing that they had been paid a bribe to keep quiet about it. What could the USA do? Demand their bribe back? This would be the ultimate proof that they tried to cover it up!

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
when first we practice to deceive!

That's a problem, you don't buy silence, you only rent it.

[mowbrax]

Jul 27, 2009 10:16:45 GMT -4 grashtel said:

Jul 27, 2009 9:50:22 GMT -4 mowbrax said:

Hi again.
Anybody out there know where the HBs post. I'm afraid that here, the overall input is by those who know the Truth, so posts are limited to taking about defence of the landings in a general and indirect way. I should like to lock horns with HBs themselves so I can take up their individual issue directly.

Where wold I find these people?

Thanks for your help.

Generally places where they have the advantage so they can ban you when you start asking difficult questions. Occasionally HBs show up over here, though they generally don't stay around for long for various reasons (often either blowing out or simply disappearing). You might also want to check out the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum, there are a couple of HBs currently active in the Conspiracy Theories section, though its not likely that they will be for much longer (the most active of them is failing to answer questions which means that he is likely to get banned shortly unless his behaviour changes PDQ).

Thanks for your suggestions. Here I must make a confession. For the past 20 years I have been paying attention to various hoax theories, and so far have not come up against one which stands up to critical examination. So to say that I was convinced of the proof of the landings would be a gross understatement. However, one day, I dream of coming up against a real good theory that will challenge me, my own personal Moby Dick.

M...mmm. Still looking.

I'm very much afraid that my present motives for indulging in these tussles with HBs and their theories, is less than noble. I do it principally for the sport. I do it much as I might go out on a hunting shoot, with targets which are just wiley enough to prolong inevitable destruction.

Then the whole process changes, from being one of the establishment of the Truth about Lunar landings, to one of semantic and rhetorical exchange.

In the end of the chase, those who remain uncaught all resemble each other to a degree. They become paranoiac (why are you trying to stop us asking questions?), arrogant (go on. prove it, if you can't just give up and admit defeat), insulting (if you guys want to live in a dream world, go ahead), and with the final characteristics of (a) repeatedly repeating the same argument without reference to any counter-argument, (b) simply ignoring the 80% of material presented to them which would break their theories or (c) constantly fliting from one issue to another in order to create the impression that you are not capable of scoring any direct hits.

Whoops. Just re-read the above, and am seriously considering changing my tag name to "Pompous-lunatic-who-takes-all-of-this-far-too-seriously-and-needs-a-blow-job"...

I'll also tell you why (that is, if anybody has red this far down my post), why I enjoy and actually commend those HBs and am thankful for their existence. It must be admitted that it is essentially a healthy thing to question things. The problem arises when at some point in the questioning, the questioner becomes firstly identified, and then seduced by his role as questioner, and this takes over as motive for his actions. This comes at a cost, the cost being the pursuit of the Truth. The discussion then inevitably becomes personal, and a question of "who (not what) is right"?

However, thanks to them, with their questions and sometimes ludicrous ideas, I now know more about the Lunar program than I did before, and have researched into many different disciplines than I ever would have if it had not been for these HBs.

Talking about ludicrous "proofs", I found a hum-dinger the other day, and I wonder if anyone had heard it before?

HB: I have absolute proof that they did not go to the Moon. Anyone can see that the craft that splashed down in the Ocean did not look anything like the craft that took off from the Lunar surface!

...
I kid you not.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

mowbrax

[drewid]

Hahaaa, fantastic post.

"be vewwy quiet....I'm hunting hoaxers..."

and the quote is fantastic, and reminds me of an exchange from a you tube thread that went something like:

"There's no way that lunar module could have survived the lift off, the atmosphere would have torn it to pieces."

"It was protected by the fairings of the Saturn V"

"You mean it went inside another craft? I didn't know that."

[homobibiens]

Jul 28, 2009 8:40:04 GMT -4 drewid said:

reminds me of an exchange from a you tube thread that went something like:

"There's no way that lunar module could have survived the lift off, the atmosphere would have torn it to pieces."

"It was protected by the fairings of the Saturn V"

"You mean it went inside another craft? I didn't know that."

Oh my, did they think a tow rope was used?

[Ian Pearse]

Jul 28, 2009 8:40:04 GMT -4 drewid said:

Hahaaa, fantastic post.

"be vewwy quiet....I'm hunting hoaxers..."

and the quote is fantastic, and reminds me of an exchange from a you tube thread that went something like:

"There's no way that lunar module could have survived the lift off, the atmosphere would have torn it to pieces."

"It was protected by the fairings of the Saturn V"

"You mean it went inside another craft? I didn't know that."

That is a classic ;D

[mowbrax]

Jul 28, 2009 8:40:04 GMT -4 drewid said:

Hahaaa, fantastic post.

"be vewwy quiet....I'm hunting hoaxers..."

and the quote is fantastic, and reminds me of an exchange from a you tube thread that went something like:

"There's no way that lunar module could have survived the lift off, the atmosphere would have torn it to pieces."

"It was protected by the fairings of the Saturn V"

"You mean it went inside another craft? I didn't know that."

That's a good one!

There is another issue of argumentative technique that I from time to time take up with the HBs when their post runs along the lines of *you are all a bunch of schmucks (a technical term) that will just believe anything NASA tells you*.

...As opposed to just taking on and accepting what some HB want you to believe coming from them. i.e.

Why should I believe what NASA, a huge, responsible well-trained, professional and knowledgeable group of serious people purport to have happened, backed up with mountains of empirically and demonstrably proven evidence readily available to everyone, all of which was undertaken directly under the intense gaze of nearly the whole of the worlds media?

Instead, I should listen and accept, without any reservation, what some anonymous, non-professional poster unable to take in the most elementary counter-argument, says what really happened.

Gee, sure, that makes a lot of sense to me.

As a matter of record, not one of these self-proclaimed experts have taken up the challenge of explaining why this should be so. Now, why do you think that would be?

*For legal reasons, it must be made clear that the above statement does not imply a refutation per se of the claim of the HBs, rather a criticism of their methods.*

My lawyer annoys me sometimes.

[henke]

Hi there!

Sorry for weighing in very late. But as they aired on Swedish television last monday all documentaries there are from both sides, and it took some spin on swedish news media I had no idea how much this hoax theory has stuck that much in peoples minds. And took a spin in media.

However, when scrutinizing the net, books, TV-documentaries I find no one is mentioning contradictory things BETWEEN the main hoax proponents Bill Kaysing, Bart Sibrel, Ralph René. Not even at the www.clavius.org site. I've searched this forum and found no topic or thread on the following.

If my observations can provide some to it all I'll be delighted.

Now, since 2 of the main proponents are now dead (Kaysing, René) it's futile to request any answer from them. What I find peculiar is that no one has put out arguments BETWEEN THEM. They've only defended Hoax-theorists against NASA. Sort of polarized them. I find it very peculiar that no one has brought up the following yet:

On the TV-documentary, Bill Kaysing said "The astronauts went up in the elevator to the rocket, but went down again and got hushed away..."

But in his book "We Never Went to the Moon" he instead insisted on that they splashed somewhere in the polar sea, and got picked up by a hangar vessel and stayed there. Now, why can't he keep the same answer to "what happened instead" all of the time? He even contradicts himself.

Then, when asked about the moon stones that had the inner core filled with gas/glass that had never touched earth, he answered "... well, NASA has cheramical labs that the can make such stones..." instead of resorting to that the russians (as well as americans) did bring back samples from the moon - mechanically by robots and drills - way before they sent man to the moon, and that's even acknowledged by Kaysing in his book. Funny things, he must invent those labs at NASA when that answer could've been more simple, and lo and behold, to his advantage!

Paul René had contradictory answers, that both contradicted Kaysing, and Bart Sibrels. When doing a comparison between those three answers and explanation they differ wildly.

On a complete different note, on the CLAVIUS.ORG site there's much explanation, and they do list an ancient old argumentation philosophy or technique that's called OCCAMS RAZOR. Well enough. But I think they should put in a note about another peculiar human tendency that we all possess that's called CONFIRMATION BIAS. It's a thing that is very easy to understand and is learned out the first hour in any phsycological scientific class.

It is a tendency for all human beings to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and to irrationally avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. I e, in simple terms: PREJUDICE. All scientists does this too. So therefore, in order to prove something as SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN, one must concentrate much more on information that is contradictory to your theory or argument and display that. If you do not do it yourself, you bet your ass that others are gonna tell you to, or do that for you, and then some.

In scientific circles, it is demanded that you spend 70-80 percent of your time to make sure all FALSIFICATIONS of your theory are disproven. Otherwise you can't claim that it's science. If your theories are vague and open to interpretation, and leaves a neutrality among peers, attitude polarization occurs. Look that up in wikipedia. The above is what's happened now among HB and NASA believers (or whatever they may be called).

Now, you may believe what you want, but do not ever claim that any of these hoaxes are scientifically proven. Given the wide and diverging answers displayed from the most proponent posers described above, it's laughable from any scientific standpoint. I request definitely much more from any hoax theorists, than "just a hunch" or "intuition".

And for christ sake, team up with each other to have at least the same fake answers to anything. Don't be a rouge HB. That's my biggest gripe with any hoax theorists, they all seem to UNCONSCIOUSLY ignore any information that seems to go against their stance. And especially CONSCIOUSLY avoiding to speak to OTHER hoax theorists, because they know they can't talk the other one over (or vice versa, letting them to be convinced by the others argument), for whos' right when it comes to agreeing on what fake answer's the best...

Houston, we don't have a problem, and we never did.
Roger over and out.

/Henke

[Bob B.]

Jul 28, 2009 14:52:39 GMT -4 henke said:

And for christ sake, team up with each other to have at least the same fake answers to anything. Don't be a rouge HB. That's my biggest gripe with any hoax theorists, they all seem to UNCONSCIOUSLY ignore any information that seems to go against their stance. And especially CONSCIOUSLY avoiding to speak to OTHER hoax theorists, because they know they can't talk the other one over (or vice versa, letting them to be convinced by the others argument), for whos' right when it comes to agreeing on what fake answer's the best...

I don't think they want to work together because that way they'd have to split the profits made by peddling the hoax. You have to think of the hoax theorists as businessmen competing for market share. They don't want to help each other; they'd rather drive the other guys out of business by inventing the best selling hoax story.

[laurel]

Welcome to the board, Henke.

[macapple]

Jul 28, 2009 14:52:39 GMT -4 henke said:

Hi there!


It is a tendency for all human beings to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and to irrationally avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. I e, in simple terms: PREJUDICE. All scientists does this too. So therefore, in order to prove something as SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN, one must concentrate much more on information that is contradictory to your theory or argument and display that. If you do not do it yourself, you bet your ass that others are gonna tell you to, or do that for you, and then some.

In scientific circles, it is demanded that you spend 70-80 percent of your time to make sure all FALSIFICATIONS of your theory are disproven. Otherwise you can't claim that it's science. If your theories are vague and open to interpretation, and leaves a neutrality among peers, attitude polarization occurs. Look that up in wikipedia. The above is what's happened now among HB and NASA believers (or whatever they may be called).

Now, you may believe what you want, but do not ever claim that any of these hoaxes are scientifically proven. Given the wide and diverging answers displayed from the most proponent posers described above, it's laughable from any scientific standpoint. I request definitely much more from any hoax theorists, than "just a hunch" or "intuition".


/Henke

Henke welcome to the forum, the answer to the problem is more tightly linked to the people who support, or create, theories and their history.

There are some well thumbed papers on the phycology and social modeling of these conspiracy monger's.


However, much has been researched on the subject and generally the socially "disavowed" person or conspiracy theorist targets people or organisations, which they personally have identified as "at war with", these will typically be the Govt, Large Corporates, Religion, Masonic members etc etc.

Anything from an activity that oppresses, deceives or obstructs them individually.

I remember having an argument with my ex girlfriends brother about his own conspiracy. Which was of course born out of fantasy. He had watched a film called the Saint in which it stated that "Cold Fusion" was going to provide the world with free energy.

He actually believed this to be true and believed that Govts and energy companies were stopping the development. He set up a site on it and was "investigating" the science of this to debunk the conspiracy inherent in the system.

Well i did point out that cold fusion was in fact completely un-proven and is still to this day only based on some small scale experiments.

His reply, which i found out, through my ex- girlfriend was that he thought i was working for the govt and how close he was to the truth.

He was not a lunatic but he had been unemployed for a long time and had started feeling removed from society , which he also started to blame on the govt.

The problem with these people is they create a support structure which provides them a platform for their own self fulfilling prophecies. Its an easy way for people to blame everyone else but themselves for their own problems in life.

Unfortunately the internet is to blame somewhat as throughout the years the Internet has been wrongfully quoted as the location of all knowledge and truth. It would seem that its reduced peoples ability for reasoned discussion and debate , forming closed user groups of paranoia and distrust who actually believe what they read on the internet.

The other problem with conspiracy theorists is that they all believe with a passion that our collective governments and secret service organizations are as efficient and as well equipped as those depicted in the hollywood films.

Therefore most of these conspiracy theories are born out of a prejudiced view of the subject which is not open to any discussion.

" Im always right and your part of the conspiracy. The truth is out there, even if i am gonna make it up!"

[Ginnie]

Jul 28, 2009 8:32:27 GMT -4 mowbrax said:

Talking about ludicrous "proofs", I found a hum-dinger the other day, and I wonder if anyone had heard it before?

HB: I have absolute proof that they did not go to the Moon. Anyone can see that the craft that splashed down in the Ocean did not look anything like the craft that took off from the Lunar surface!

...
I kid you not.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

mowbrax

That's a good one!

[mowbrax]

Jul 28, 2009 14:52:39 GMT -4 henke said:

Sorry for weighing in very late. But as they aired on Swedish television last monday all documentaries there are from both sides, and it took some spin on swedish news media I had no idea how much this hoax theory has stuck that much in peoples minds. And took a spin in media.

....

Roger over and out.

/Henke

Hi Henke.

Thanks for your post.

I often feel that the majority of those who become HBs must have some sort of pre-disposition to identify with this sort of action. It's as if they are *looking*for something to complain about. And when they come across somebody drawing attention to some unclear aspect of the mission, they buy it wholly, because that's what they are looking for.

If this the case, then this would explain why it is so very difficult to get them to understand our explanations. For them to do so would to be to completely negate this feeling, this sense of what they mean to profit from this experience. They generally do not seek the Truth, but their actions are specifically designed to bolster their own sense of being.

Another aspect of this phenomena is that, given that they generally invent some imagined scenario that has as its only purpose to support their desired view, how can we expect them to then take on board the detailed, reason-based scientific evidence and documentation that is subsequently presented to them?

Basically their interpretations are based not on the totality of evidence, but the highly selective and specific parts that can support their ideas, to the detriment of all else.

As a brief example, I recently had a real tussle with some guy whose entire basis for disbelieving the Moon landings was his contention that there is no way that Television images could be transmitted from the Lunar surface to the Earth. He argued that one would absolutely need a truck-sized transmitter and a power supply of between 20,000 and 600,000W to effect that transmission. This was therefore impossible.

Again and again, I postulated upon the interdependent nature of radio transmission & reception, trying to explain that, given the power of the 210 ft radio telescope (which was designed to listed to radio waves from the other side of the Universe with almost infinitesimally weaker signals). that the problem was just about establishing how strong the signal needed to be from the Moon to be able to effect reception on Earth.

They also have the strange idea that they are somehow on safe ground, since they think that none of this stuff can be proved one way or another, therefore they feel that they cannot be proved wrong. Make you wonder in that case, what they hope to achieve in trying to prove to us. This, of course, also supports the above argument.

After a week, and over 500 posts on this forum, this person repeatedly answered me, but not once referred t to the subject of reception, not even obliquely. Never, not even to refute my point. He insisted that it was a question of transmission. End of story.

Of course the point is that he could not respond, because to do so would be to venture into territory that would demonstrate the fallacy of his argument.

It is a truly strange feeling, having some HB declare in desperation, that none of this can ever be proved, and in doing so, somehow implies that this means he's right...

Go figure.