Indeed, the comment about the "flat earth vibe" of this thread IMO refers to precisely this lack of straight thinking in some of the material presented here.
As you said WM, the whole moon landing thing WAS a propaganda operation; nobody doubts that. But this doesn't imply in any way it was a hoax!
I could never understand why some people who clearly have the skepticism that allows them to be open to "conspiracy theories" do not use that same skepticism to determine whether or not the "conspiracy theory" is anywhere close to the truth. To me that seems a logical approach, but then I suppose some people just want to believe rather than want to know.
And it is really no wonder that people are fed up with the sheer amount of energy and time some invest in this "conspiracy". So indeed, MikeJoseph82 might be onto something:
The problem here is this isn't like the flat-earth conspiracy. The flat-earth conspiracy is flat-out nonsense. The moon-landing conspiracy isn't, and
still has a flavour of something amiss going on, something more than usual propaganda shenanigans. Thats how I still feel about it anyway. Not that I think its an out and out "hoax" either (I hate that word because it forces the subject to choose between extremes), but I do think there's a lot of explanations that could and should be explained to the public by the officials by now (its been 50 years!), but they still struggle to do so... And the only reason various outstanding oddities are eventually explained at all, to
some satisfaction, is because of those wacky moon-hoaxer 'theorists' forcing the issue. Its like squeezing blood of out of a stone for what should be an upfront open book for all to read, but it isn't, and it has to take forums like this one to squeeze out the blood from the stone on behalf of everyone's peace of mind.
It'd be better to say the moon-landing conspiracy has more the flavor of, say, the "chemtrail conspiracy" - if we're going to use a comparison: We now can all conclude and agree (I assume) the government aren't spraying us from planes (though the Cs did say it happens in rare instances) but we can also see there is something unusual going on in the perpendicular with regards persistent contrails. As so deduced; is likely because the atmosphere is shrinking... Something
far worse than spraying! (Having said that, I notice lasting contrail coverage in the skies has been noticeably less in the UK in recent years... But I digress)
I guess my point is, suggesting flat-earth logic as applied to forum members comes across as an
absolute put-down, without giving merit for discussion where their is some merit for it. But... I do also appreciate the way the investigative side to things was warping too far off into conjecture and it deemed necessary to drive that point home hard to keep the thread on the critical-thinking track.
I don't think the "conspiracy" itself is a waste of time and energy, just the way it was going was becoming a waste of time and energy.
Anyhow... It doesn't help the fact the Cs haven't exactly been forthcoming about the moon-landings.
EDIT: Heh... Duyunne pretty much said it too, at the same moment