Showing posts with label moon landing hoax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moon landing hoax. Show all posts

Monday, January 13, 2020

No, the Earth is not flat. You're just a moron!

So this appears to be a thing now…every reference to space and the space program gets an automatic reply by the flat Earth believers, as in this article about pictures of the Earth taken from the International Space Station. The piece quickly triggered a set of mental defectives to trot out their conspiracy theories about doctored photos that only create the illusion of a curved Earth.

Now a story like this is probably run in this paper to illicit the incredulous chuckles from readers. It could lead to several head-shakes and jokes about the silliness a of a few people who still believe in nonsense like a flat Earth. As the article details, the Earth was know to be a sphere over 2000 years ago. Simple calculations have been able to prove it.

So I guess I might be in a slightly surly mood right now, but I’m not getting the urge to chuckle at this. Even one flat Earth believer in the world in 2020 is too many. As a growing body of psychological research in conspiracy beliefs is demonstrating, people who believe in idiocy like this are the alienated, the mentally unfit, clinical paranoids, and the sufferers of various mental and personality disorders. They are the antisocial misfits, the inept outsiders who are so alienated from the rest of society that they need to concoct narratives of vast evil cabals that are responsible for all of society’s ills. The creation of these fantasies by these chronic misfits lets them feel like the heroes of their own private universe. It lets them feel like heroic crusaders saving the world from conspiracies no one else is smart enough to see. These conspiracy beliefs are the ultimate ego trip.

Or, in plain English, people who believe in the Earth being flat - or the anti-vaccination agenda, for that matter, or the faking of the Moon landing, or mass shootings being perpetrated by "crisis actors" - are a collection of frigging morons who should be committed to mental asylums against their will. It would certainly be for the betterment of society. 

Sunday, December 16, 2018

Steph Curry got schooled


So earlier this week the Golden State Warriors' Steph Curry set off a little controversy when on a podcast he appeared to be maybe joking but not joking that he thought the moon landing never happened. Now whether he was kidding or not is hard to tell - let's hope really was kidding - but his comments did bring some furious criticism down on him. NASA even invited him to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to show him moon rocks and explain why the Apollo moon missions were all, in fact, real.

So now Steph clarified that he was absolutely kidding about being a moon "truther" and he never believed that the Apollo missions were a hoax. If anything, he said that his comments were a "silent protest" against how gullible people are and how quickly they fall for fake information just because they come from someone famous. Silent protest? Huh? Not sure I understand that one. But I hope he means it that this was but his clever wit at work, a big practical joke on the real moon truthers out there.

Although the best reaction to all this was just posted on my new favorite YouTube channel, "A Call for an Uprising." Check it out right here. In his customarily breathless monologue, the host of this show gave an exasperated, outraged explanation about what was REALLY behind the whole Steph Curry kerfufle. Steph, our anonymous host explained angrily, is actually a part of the Illuminati and the secret bloodlines that control the world - and orchestrated the moon landing hoax for some unspecified reason - and this stunt with the podcast was just a ploy by the Insiders, the Elites, the New World Order, and Them, to discredit belief in the moon conspiracy.

Now I still believe that whoever is behind this looney tunes "A Call for an Uprising" channel is pulling off his own massive con on tens to thousands (if his subscription count is to be believed) of people out of pure, simple, uncomplicated greed. Each posting, in fact, starts out with links to opportunities to donate money to the show. But the frightening thing is that there ARE tens of thousands of people out there who are gullible, simple minded, and alienated enough to believe all the bovine manure in these videos.

Or perhaps the shadowy operative behind "A Call for an Uprising" is merely carrying out a silent protest against the stupidity of the conspiracy culture.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Conspiracy Theorists


I am quoted in this article about a new study into the psychology of conspiracy beliefs. It's fascinating to read that insecurities kindled in people from the time they are infants will shape their predisposition to believe in fantastic, irrational, and unrealistic claims of massive conspiracy theories later in life. These findings are not surprising, though, as a growing body of research has been affirming that people who tend to be the biggest fans of the most outlandish conspiracy theories are also those who feel the most powerless, alienated, and insecure. "Individuals with anxious attachment are preoccupied with their security, tend to hold a negative view of outgroups, are more sensitive to threats, and tend to exaggerate the seriousness of such threats," the study says.

Raising well-adjusted children who are given adequate feelings of security and control in their lives might be a good start to help keep us from raising another generation of kids who will believe that the Earth if flat, that LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, the Dallas police, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, aliens, oil billionaires, Elvis Presley, Oliver North using a time machine, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne shooting from the grassy knoll killed JFK.

Moreover, as I argue in the article, the educational system needs to do its part in teaching logic, critical thinking skills, and media literacy skills to help young people deconstruct the messages of paranoia hucksters like Alex Jones and the flat Earthers, to understand all of the underhanded and unethical communication tactics conspiracy theorists use to convince the gullible and unwary of everything from "crisis actor" conspiracy theories to the fantasies of the anti-vaccination crowd.

I incorporate such exercises in the class I teach about conspiracy films and American culture at Saint Peter's University. In their semester projects, students need to manufacture their own conspiracy, creating one using tactics such as the reverse scientific process to cherry-pick facts that support preconceived notions, inaccurately assigning causality between unrelated variables, and launching all manner of character assassinations against one's critics. Once students can see how easy it is to create vast conspiracies where none exist, they should hopefully be able to recognize all the flat Earth theories, Moon landing hoax theories, and 9/11 Truther claims for the simple parlor tricks they are.