I don't quite understand how people think that we didn't land on the moon.

Me either, really. I can understand a person may pretend that a war or genocide didn't happen because the imaginary world they create through their pretendings would be "better" than the real world, but the imaginary world that moon landing deniers create is worse than the real world, because it is one where humans are small and incapable of this great acheivement.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Some HBs appear to think that they are the only ones who were not fooled.

Some appear to be small minded - because they themselves could never achieve anything, they prefer to think that nobody else can either.

Otherwise, it is very hard to understand.

It's part of the whole psychology of Conspiracy Theory mentality (not to say that actual conspiracies don't happen, but anyway...)

These people in general feel insecure, like they aren't sure what's going on, convinced something's wrong with their lives or life in general; and then they see or hear of an apparent glitch, an image or concept that doesn't ring true for them, and they seize on it and say "See? This is what's been bugging me!" They "realize" they've been fooled and what they've been told by The Man (whom they distrusted anyway) must be a lie. They feel they're "in the know", and try to convince others of their newly 'discovered" "facts".

Not all HB's fall into this description. But it's a recurring theme among them.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I think it's a combination of what Paul Beardsley and Noclevername posted. Some people are small-minded and insecure. Conspiracy theories make them feel empowered because they can see through "the man" and act like they know what is really going on.

Frankly, I find them rather pathetic and annoying.

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"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
Douglas Adams

Go to to the Consprracy Forum and you will see how these folks think. Its scary.

I have discussed the moon landing with some hardcore Holocaust Deniers who are also Moon Hoax 'Truthers'. It freaked me out. I am not Jewish, and genocide has been committed again and again throughout history, but Germany was supposed to be a 'civilised" country. And it was done in a 'civilised' manner, all assembly line style. Humans go in, bodies come out, disposed off 'efficiently' then burnt in lots, like so much coal. The killed others as well, gypsies, homosexuals, people who protected those people. It was death on an industrial scale. It was worse then war. And while I do believe one has the right to think and even talk about that it was a hoax, as long as they don't take an action to harm others, I also have the right to think that they are some of the worlds worst examples of the human race.
They are scary.

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I think there's another phenomenon here that is important but hasn't been mentioned yet, and that cuts to the heart of how highly valued is a concept of truth. I suspect most HBs are people with no particular affinity for truth, but a great affinity for feeling "amazed" and "in the know". HBing is a form of "magic bullet" type thinking, where you can circumvent all the laborious effort that was done to put people on the Moon and just read one book or website that claims it was a hoax, and suddenly you are an expert. The "magic bullet" approach to knowledge is found in many places and in many guises, but at the bottom of it, I think you always find someone who loves something more than they love the truth. This is very frustrating for scientists, who tend to rank love of truth very highly, and they don't understand why others wouldn't do that also. Unfortunately, it takes all kinds to make a world, including some that can be infuriating to those who have made different choices about what matters.

I dunno. Some of the 'illuminati', 'space lizard overlords' etc believers and folks like Liederman ( ETA: Did I say Liederman? I meant Leider. I must have been thinking of two people at the same time there) are rather mind boggling.

I rather agree with the OP. There isn't much good in applying rational explanations for the behavior of the irrational.

The best we can do is tug rational people (The uninformed or uninitiated) back away from the ramblings of the irrational.

My grandmother had a simple answer for any and all errant, irrational or disruptive behavior: "So and so is just looking for attention."

Simple answers are not necessarily correct answers. Some of them are looking for attention. Some of them are seriously ill. Some of them are looking for money. Some of them really believe what they're saying; some of them really believe it and don't actually talk about it. Probably a fair number of them just heard something that sounded plausible to them and haven't learned enough to know that they are wrong. That doesn't make them irrational, just ignorant. And ignorance isn't deplorable until it becomes willful ignorance.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

My statement was made after this:
In which case the HB's I am referring to would be the likes of Sibrel and Percy and such.
Sibrel LOVES the spotlight. I'm sure he's in it for the money too.

The mental Illness possibility may apply to some, but I think evidence would be required. Diagnosis.

In this modern age- they treat everything about human behavior as mental illness and give it a pretty label and come up with pills for it.

I think there is a fundamental difference between the truly mentally Ill (Lieder perhaps? Maybe...?) and the rest. Many folks can learn and overcome their irrationality if they give themselves a chance to. That isn't Mental Illness and should not be addressed as such.

Oh, I think very few of them are mentally ill. Nancy, certainly, and a past member here who thought that everyone who claimed to see an airplane hit the Pentagon could have been lying, and all the evidence could have been planted, and, in the long run, everyone on the Apollo Hoax board actually is a government disinformation agent. That's not healthy. A few others. Not many. I just don't think we can ascribe all HBs a single motive, so I presented all the motives I could think of.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

And all that being said... sad isn't it.

I am actively involved in the education of the masses. I am one of those people that give my time and energy to help educate people that visit the Ward Observatory. I have noted that children ask the honest questions.
I have been told that we are all wrong and that man can never get off this planet because.... but only by adults who should have listened a little more when they were at school. I practice being gentle with them... Information is the tool of education. Avoiding ridicule is a amusing art. But. some people will not be told. They are the ones that are missing some thing. Is it humility, or just knowledge.

Yes, I remember him That was quite a thread!

I agree with you to a large extent. I believe that human's ability for pattern recognition went off the charts a few years back, and while that's a key element in our survival, it's also a key element in our paranoia, allowing us to see patterns where patterns do not actually exist. Thus, a trend of two, or even one, allows us to believe that "something's going south, here," when it's simply a normal variation within the data.

That, combined with an anally-retentive approach to "nailing things down" causes the movers and the players to do things which really have little to do with the facts at hand.

So far as the Moon Landing Conspiracy is concerned, I'd have to coin a phrase, that "a little salt seasons the meal a long way."

Take that, Shakespear!

Regardless, it's true that a little bit of information has caused even the brightest and most informed human to bite off on a particular avenue that turns out later to be incorrect.

In some ways, our intellect is our blessing. Look at how we have risen above the other species of our world! No species, save human, have ever managed to build entire cities, escape the planet, or develop a global communications network (which I'm now using to type this message).

Not even close!

Yet we're still plagued with our own problems of distrust, wars, cruelty towards others, power-play crap (our only effort should be given to solving the problem at had, not one-up-manship...)

Back to conspiracy theories...

I believe that while some elements of humanity are doing their best to shut the door on our collective knowlege, thereby keeping them in the know and us out in the dark, I also believe that they honestly believe that what they're doing is right.

However...

I also believe that we're close to the point where there is no longer any advantage (globally) to be gained by such actions, and that revealing the vast sum of hidden knowledge would only help out species, not hurt it.

Let's face it, folks. We went through some very defining moments over the last 150 years, but a speck in time compared to the longevity of the existence of our species.

We've learned a lot of lessons. There are many lessons we've yet to learn.

I think that, as a whole, we're on the right track. But it's impossible to convince everyone in power to head in one direction when they're still subject to the evolutionary forces which brought them to power in the first place.

These things take time. In time, they'll come around, provided they have the support and pressure they need.

And that's where we come in. We, as underlings, do provide that support and pressure, saying "no" to directions which are not desirable, and "yes" to directions which are.

Thankfully, we live in a society where we "underlings" have, as a mass, the ability to redirect the activity of our leaders without having to percolate our impressions through hundreds of layers.

And the really nifty thing is that our leaders have set up electronic ways where we can do this!

If you believe in something, strongly, I encourage you to send it to your elected representatives.

You do have a voice as to where we're headed.

Please use it!

Enough said.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Mine: "Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that."

Heinlein's: "Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." "Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite."

Indeed, they are. Learning to think scientifically has put a stop to my fear of monsters under my bed and such things, but only in exchange for realizing the crazy things that some people think. I swear, until fifth grade, I thought that everyone knew ghosts weren't real.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

I really don't want to hear what they want to say. But I can understand how people can believe that we didin't make it to the moon in 1969 because of the tech back then. But I'm also aware that there's people who believe that we haven't even left the Earth's atmostphere. Meaning Mir and Skylab don't exist.

Heck, there are people who believe the world is flat. You can only be a martyr if everyone's against you, so picking a viewpoint that's clearly disproven lets them claim "persecution" by the "forces of science".

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

When I consider the serial the "X-Files" and its incredible popularity when it made its big run a few years ago, I can see where many of its fans were taken in by Mulder's delusions and constant poking at governmental coverups he claimed exist. A lot of them identified with Mulder and his endless pursuits.

However, just as there isn't just conspiracy freaks who enjoyed that show, there isn't one stereotype to fit conspiracy conjecturists. I have a Phd niece who bought into the Moon hoax and when I poked a few holes through her thoughts she became quite emotional and claimed that I was being too emotional. She refuses to bring the subject up any longer.

Others I think might have found something in a conspiracy that education failed to give them: a series of cause and effect links that made them hungry to follow up on something to a conclusion. If they put a great deal of effort into it they will defend that effort just as a young wannabe trying out for some major league roster does not want to admit to himself that all he is is a wannabe who never will be.

Still others were attracted to the group think atmosphere that exists in those surroundings, almost like being on some research team of their own, pretending to uncover something.

As for the technology to go to the moon in 1969 being too underadvanced at that time I usually point right to the particle accelerators and point out that what is going on there dwarfs what goes on in space flight technology. The mathematics that governed moon flights of Apollo was over 200 years old and still functions to get us out to Saturn and Pluto. The math and technology that governs what goes on at the LHC, Brookhaven and Fermilab lies way beyond that of planetary travel.