Edgar Mitchell

Yeh, he was a UFO nut. But he was also a member of a very exclusive (and dwindling) club: humans who have walked on the moon.
 
Sadly, it won't be long before there are none. And in another 30 years there'll be no one alive who'd even witnessed that unprecedented adventure. It will become a footnote in history books.
 
Assuming, of course, that there will still be history books in 2046. Could be that in 2046 all history will be gleaned from YouTube.
 

It still cracks me up when people think the moon landing was faked.  Mythbusters did a whole episode about it but, really, all you need to do is use a very high-powered telescope and you should be able to see the stuff left or, if that's too hard, have an observatory bounce a laser off of the mirror that was put there.

Not a word of a lie, I've had people on my Facebook posting the following photo along with comments like "an amazing photo of our home, cradled by clouds, taken by the Hubble telescope." 
 
Not quite on the same scale as flat earthers, but still very worrying. Critical thought is not as important to some people as the rest of us. 
 

 
 

I'm the e-pity-o-me of stoop-idioty.

Electrolytes!

Careful...this could easily get political, but such things are trumped by the forum Code of Conduct so we must be obtuse when discussing political parallels.

There isn't a conspiracy theory so bizarre or idea so daft that someone somewhere won't believe it and someone else make money out of that belief. 150 years ago they had to write about "spring-heeled jack" rampaging through London in "penny dreadful" "newspapers". Nowadays they've a whole world-wide internet to clog up.

In my cynical moments sometimes I think there's a proportion of our species doing its very best to stupid us back to the stone age.

The flat earth "theory" debunked in 3m22s. Simply by visualising what a flat earth would actually be like.

https://www.youtube.com/w...g&feature=youtu.be

I think some people are just naturally drawn to the idea that there is an alternative plane of knowledge that is higher than the "official" stuff that most people believe. It makes them feel like they're part of an intellectually superior group who can see through the "lies" that "they" want us to believe. A certain level of cynicism is a virtue, but for these people it becomes a fully blown philosophy, a truism which leads them to believe almost anything except the official version of things, no matter how ridiculous. 
 
I used to have a friend like this back in the 90's - one of his beliefs was that ecstasy is beneficial to human health. His line of reasoning was: "The government says ecstasy is bad for you. The government is evil and doesn't want you to have a good time, therefore everything they say is the polar opposite of the truth and ecstasy is actually good for you."
 
I have a couple of friends like this on Facebook now. Almost everything they share comes from a handful of Facebook pages which specialize in spreading "alternative" knowledge which is being "covered up" by the government, big pharma, the military industrial complex, the illuminati, the oil companies, all the usual suspects. So any claim about cannabis oil, chemtrails, 9/11, alternative sources of energy etc automatically sets their heads nodding and their fists pumping. Anyone who points out the glaring deficiencies in their reasoning is naturally a "brainwashed shill" who isn't privy to their higher level of consciousness. What's sad is that many of these people are actually quite intelligent but waste their brainpower on irrational nonsense. 

@ Craigb
Yeah... but it got so bad I had to de-friend him.. seriously, I did. I have pretty much given up on social media, especially Facebook. I go there maybe once a month. I deleted a LOT of pages I somehow, sometime thought it was a good idea to follow. I got so burned out on nonsense and propaganda, half truths, half lies.. and from all sides that I don't even check my email on a regular basis anymore. I'm in recovery now, it will take some time. Next time I will be more careful. This is pretty much the only place I regularly visit online, to the chagrin of some I am sure but then, I don't care. (Yes, actually I do).
Life is too short to have to deal with ignorant or mean people. It is so much easier to like people and keep moving.
I learned several years ago that even discussing most things online is fruitless, arguing is totally fruitless because you are NEVER going to change anyone else's opinion. If someone is not stupid but is ignorant about something you may teach them something with facts but opinions are useless. I am ignorant about a lot of things but I'm not so stupid as to refuse to learn. I am happy to learn and appreciate it when someone corrects me with facts when I am wrong, but with opinions, not so much.
I have no time or energy for conspiracy theory or whacky ideas. This video was both amusing and disturbing. I try not to allow things that I have no control over to upset me and most things in this life, I don't have much control over. Heck I have a hard time with self control.
J