23
Why does nobody talk about how hard it is to debunk moon landing deniers in person?
I got into it with my uncle Dave at a family barbecue last Saturday near Fresno. He kept saying the shadows in Apollo photos don't line up and pulled out some YouTube video from 2015. I tried explaining parallel light sources and showed him a NASA.gov diagram on my phone, but he just said the government faked that too. Has anyone else had a relative who won't budge no matter what evidence you bring?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
the_diana6h ago
Got a buddy who tried to explain the Van Allen belts to his dad over Thanksgiving and his dad just nodded then said "well, that's what they want you to think." He ended up bringing a book the next year, all flagged with sticky notes, and his dad still wouldn't look at a single page. Sometimes people just want to believe the story where they're the smart one who sees through everything, you know?
8
gavin_mason314h ago
Sometimes people just want to believe the story where they're the smart one." Maybe. Or maybe the dad just doesn't trust the same sources everyone else does. Look at what NASA got wrong over the years. The whole Van Allen belt thing is a perfect example of trusting old data. They didn't even know the belts were that dangerous until the 60s. And now they say going through them is fine? That's a big jump with a lot of holes. People who question things aren't always trying to feel smart. Sometimes they just see a history of bad info and decide to use their own judgment instead of following the crowd.
1
eric3594h ago
Blame it on my own brain but I once spent an entire weekend building a model rocket to prove something to my uncle - didn't even have a motor in it, just wanted to show him how fins worked on reentry. He took one look, said "pretty sure that's a toy" and went back to his recliner. I get where your buddy is coming from with the sticky notes because I've been that guy, waving a book around like it's a magic shield against stubbornness. The thing is, the more you try to prove stuff to someone who doesn't want to see it, the more you end up looking like the crazy one with a cardboard rocket and a stack of highlighters.
1