Tomcat Quite a few Americans don't think America actually went to the moon. The trouble is they don't know the number of third party witnesses that verify it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings.
It's like the youtube guy that went to trial because he thought Sandy Hook was faked. You can't do that. There are too many people that are directly involved that would have to be in on it. If it's a closed event like an alien abduction or something, but not a public event. Apparently they don't think of all the possibilities, like the ambulance drivers, the hospitals, the school administration, police, passers by. Everyone would have to be in on it. You can say well, the guy is nuts, but I know perfectly rational people that believe it.

      fire7side I do believe that even perfectly rational people can end up believing things that are false. If "garbage ,in garbage out" is true for computers( that are supposedly smarter than us humans when it comes to somethings), then it's also true for humans as well. Things get even more hopeless, when disagreements stem from a difference in first principles. That said, it's rare for me to meet any perfectly rational people who are also wrong face to face; especially when it comes to the issues of conspiracy theories. At the same time, I'm uncomfortable with dismissing people who I disagree with as just being crazy, as even crazy people can get away with doing that( and they will if they've got more influence and power). Somethings it just feels that discourse is just broken. Heck, somethings it feels like it's more advantage to make the emotional argument than the logical one.

          Well, I've seen UAPs (the new word for UFOs). I saw 2 ships the first time, and then 1 ship a year later (this was around the year 2000). I was with other people, and they saw them too. But no one believes me. Am I saying they were aliens? I'm not sure. It could have been secret military technology, could be time travelers, astral beings, who knows? But that was over 20 years ago, and we still don't have planes that can fly like what I saw. And I'm pretty rational and I believe in science. But I saw what I saw, and no one has an explanation.

            Audiobellum I do believe that even perfectly rational people can end up believing things that are false. If "garbage ,in garbage out" is true for computers [..], then it's also true for humans as well [..]

            And this is even exploited to rouse people, or to calm them. Even to present them with an alternative reality. Social media algorithms play a big role here. They can spread fake news, but could also be used to spot and eliminate them.

            Audiobellum [..] somethings it feels like it's more advantage to make the emotional argument than the logical one.

            Motivated reasoning. If messaging lacks accuracy, then that can be a sign of a distracting or biassed argument. Motivating people to add accuracy (aka more cognitive effort) can reduces the bias.

            Evolutionary principles were part of my study (geoscience, pre-history), and at that time, quite frequently, scientologists and the likes had their booths in pedestrian area of the city. One can learn a few things from those, I mean, how to lure people into believing :-)

            Must carry on with my stuff, a lot to do today. And we're straying again ...

                cybereality Yeah, that's what I meant. Your experience is at least credible to some degree because there aren't any third parties that would have to be in on it for it to be a hoax. I've had experiences that people don't believe because it's too incredible, but I know it happened. I didn't imagine it or hallucinate it. But, believing Sandy Hook was faked, or the moon landing was faked, that has to be immediately discounted. Like with the moon landing, it would actually be easier to do the real thing than to fake it at that public level by far. There are all those amateur astronomers with telescopes actually powerful enough to view it. You can see satellites in the night sky with the naked eye. The rockets took off at a public landing with thousands of viewers. All the news agencies would have to be in on it. And then there is just motive. All they would get out of it was that they were the first on the moon. No money or anything.

                    Well with the moon thing, you are right. It would have more costly and complicated to fake it than to do it for real. It's not like they had computer graphics back then (well maybe wireframe 3D, at best). I mean, look at the movie special effects from that time and tell me they could convincingly fake that. They couldn't. It would be possible, but still pretty hard today.

                      Audiobellum There are some conspiracy theories that really can't be discounted one way or the other, but others, it's definitely a lack of understanding the complexity of pulling something like that off. I laugh at a lot of fact checker articles because they don't get it right. They are still making assumptions that can't be proven and showing bias.

                        Objection. Hearsay.

                        duckandoff ...

                        Just kidding, haha :-)

                        cybereality sorry, China, but Myth Busters actually proved that we did go to the moon. It was a cool episode, too. They tried to fake it, but gravity made them look very awkward. When they got onto a thing that simulated gravity on the moon, it definitely proved it as a fact.

                          cybereality Yeah, I see what you're saying. I was trying to make a point about the limitations of discussions, while also avoiding the whole "some people are just crazy" excuse (which can be thrown at anyone). For example, you did saw what you saw and I do believe you. At the same, I won't call anyone of the people who'd disagree with you crazy either, even though I believe that you are telling the truth; the discussion simply cannot progress. Then again, this is one of the lesser controversial takes surrounding the limitations of discussions. A more grim situation is when disagreement stem from a difference in epistemology; it's similiar to the problem of the criterion. Right now, I'm thinking of writing multiple factions in my game, based on this issue.

                            fire7side Like with the moon landing, it would actually be easier to do the real thing than to fake it at that public level by far.

                            That might not be the case with a Mars landing, if and when that happens. The film Capricorn One (1977) makes a credible case for how it could be faked.

                                Or the Kubrik movies, Space Odyssey and a follow up that I forgot. From the newer ones Interstellar, or The Marsian. Maybe not all the props in their shapes and functionality, but weightlessness is done pretty well I think. And CGI has become pretty convincing.

                                Edit: not that I believe in any conspiracy theory at all ! I'm not the believer-type anyway.

                                But I know what I know and others know the same. But I don't know what I don't know and others might not know different things.

                                scnr, kidding again :-)

                                Fret not. I, similar to Jon Snow, know nothing.

                                DaveTheCoder It would be the rocket taking off and leaving orbit that would be nearly impossible to fake. All the amateur astronomers who would actually have to see it. The thousands of people that went to the lift off sight would have to see it. All the news agencies would have to be in on it or they would have to be able to photograph it. I suppose you could fly the rocket out there and not land it and then send back some fake images. If you have the tech to get out there though, the odds are you would have the means to actually land.

                                    Plus, when Myth Busters faked it by bouncing on the "moon" with a space suit and one of those wires that hold people up when they fly in movies, the suit kept bouncing side to side to show they were experiencing normal gravity.

                                    fire7side I suppose you could fly the rocket out there and not land it and then send back some fake images.

                                    Yes, that's the part I was thinking of. In the movie I referenced, NASA discovered before launching (from Earth) that the life support system was faulty and the crew wouldn't survive the trip to Mars. They were afraid that yet another big failure would result in the loss of their budget. They launched the rocket, but first they secretly took the crew away to a location that was a sort of Mars film set, and had them make fake videos that would be transmitted to simulate a successful landing.

                                      As some have pointed out, one issue with USD is everyone who mentions it has to add "not the currency" to clarify what they are talking about. 🙂

                                        It sounds good, but it better not be Nvidia proprietary. They do great research, and have the smartest minds in the world, but sadly I think all their closed projects have failed. Even ray tracing would have gone nowhere without collaboration from Microsoft and Khronos. And PhysX has been dead in the water for a long time. GSync was a great idea, but now has been replaced by the VESA standard VRR. Most people don't even realize that Nvidia lost, and AMD won (well, AMD called it FreeSync, but it was a brand name for an open standard). Pretty much all the "GSync" monitors you see for sales are actually VESA VRR, but Nvidia pays monitor manufacturers to label it "GSync" so gamers don't even realize they lost. It's stuff like this that makes me hesitant to support them. Though USD is a good format, and assuming Nvidia contributes in an open source manner, then I'd support that.