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Flat-Earth Resurgence

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Jokodo

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I only recently stumbled upon what seems to be a real segment of the "truther" movement, at least on youtube (yeah, don't tell me, youtube): The "Flat Earth Conspiracy".

It seems to be a rather recent phenomenon - most or all of the videos are from the last couple of years, and a lot of the people commenting approvingly say something like "I used to be a globe-believer myself half a year ago". I know a "Flat Earth Society" has been in existence for the better part of a 100 years, but I always thought this was a marginal phenomenon even among the circus that is the US Christian Right. But by the looks of it the idea is spreading within that biome.

Now I'm a genuine fan of  Hanlon's razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"), but I find it hard to fathom that much stupidity. So I'd be very thankful about any evidence, ever so incidental, that the Flat Earth Movement is something other than 1000s of voting age adults in industrialised societies with internet access thinking that triangulation was made up by the masons/Jesuits/NASA. Some suggestions:

  1. The Flat Earth Movement is a mission to divert rationalists from the real battles, to take there time away from arguing against the conspiracy theories/anti-science beliefs that really matter (along the lines of "Fuck it, let'em 'teach the controversy' when it comes to evolution or climate change, as long as we don't have to teach the controversy about the shape of the Earth*
  2. A meta-conspiracy against conspiracy theorists: Along the lines of "let's make the people who've seen through our machinations look stupid by creating a ton of puppet accounts that make-believe spread the truth about the Rockefellers/9-11/the evolution hoax while also prominently professing a believe in the flat earth, so we can always say 'but anyone who claims to have evidence for this probably also believes the earth is flat', so the regular joe will turn away from those other ideas" (this one has actually been proposed by some right wing conspiracy theorists: "the man" created Flat Earth to distract us from population engineering (aka chemtrails) etc.)
  3. I large scale high-school project: High school science teachers have created those Flat Earth channels to test their students understanding of the subject by letting them argue against those ludicrous arguments.
  4. Whatever else you can think of...

Please, someone... anyone? Give me one argument not to believe that actual adults in their thousands believe the Earth is flat and NASA invented trigonometry! This one time, I'll take a very flimsy one.
 
Currently they seem to be mostly focussing on the upcoming US eclipse, failing to understand why the shade would move West to East when the moon moves East to West as seen from Earth.
 
Jokodo said:
Give me one argument not to believe that actual adults in their thousands believe the Earth is flat and NASA invented trigonometry!
Click to expand...
It's not that they believe it's flat for the sake of it being flat, it's the human need to be on the INSIDE of an IN joke. To be one of the enlightened, not one of the fooled.
One or two people out of every hundred Flat Earthers are there because of the scripture that describes a flat earth, or they fell for some other argument, the rest just want to be able to sneer at people who buy into the government's lies. And you KNOW the government lies.
 
I kind of get the "the government lies" thing.

But here we're talking about basic trigonometry everybody can verify with a pencil and paper. Even if you think the tables for the cosine function have been meddled with by NASA, you can just draw it out on a paper and see that on a flat earth, the angle of the sun at noon of a specific day at 10° north when combined with its angle at 30° predict a distance of the sun to the "plane of the earth" that's incompatible with its angle at 50° north. Unless of course distances along the meridian are also fake.
 
Jokodo said:
I kind of get the "the government lies" thing.

But here we're talking about basic trigonometry everybody can verify with a pencil and paper.
Click to expand...
Um... What do you use as a benchmark for 'everyone?'

'Everyone' could use a dictionary to verify that 'niggardly' has nothing to do with the N-bomb, but a significant portion of the nation let stupid people dominate the debate a few years back. It was easier to accept the argument than to try put any effort into testing it.

Plus, as far as math goes, i've seen the mathematical proof that shows 1=0. I've performed the math to prove that all horses are the same color. I regularly tease my wife with the three guys in the hotel where the busboy gets a 2 dollars tip that appears out of nowhere. It wouldn't take much to convince some people that the math which 'prooves' the Earth isn't flat is just carefully constructed on some hidden assumptions that aren't revealed...
And would take work to figure out...
 
The thing, you don't have to trust any figures. You don't have to trust your calculator's result for the cosine calculation, or an old-fashioned look-up table. You can just try to join the lines with pencil and paper to find that you can't make more than two lines join at the same point.

Effectively, you have to not trust your own eyes. Ironically, that's what they accuse us "globeheads" of doing.
 
Gravity is the biggest indicator. That gravity always pulls directly down no matter where you stand on the earth is the bigest indicator that the world is round, nothing else would make sense. If the world were flat on top and round on the botton, gravity would constantly continue to pull you into the center, meaning its effects would not be distributed evenly across an uneven surface. No math, just basic fucking sense. =/
 
They just looked at the airlines. It's obviously a sham!

When we are going to the Far East the pilot heads west. Obviously something is up, we are being lied to about how the world is laid out!
 
Loren Pechtel said:
They just looked at the airlines. It's obviously a sham!

When we are going to the Far East the pilot heads west. Obviously something is up, we are being lied to about how the world is laid out!
Click to expand...

They have a specific thing about airlines: They find that there are not all that many direct intercontinental flights between destinations on the southern hemisphere, and oftentimes when you search a connection between two points on the southern hemisphere, flight search agents will through up something going through a northern hemisphere hub. To them, that proves this is actually the most direct route, and the southern hemisphere is peripheral in a flat world centered around the north pole.

Don't try to explain to them population distribution and economics of scale.

Also, I once searched for a flight connection between a minor airport in South-Western Germany and Vienna, Austria. The cheapest connections I was returned were via Britain or Turkey (I took the train, which was faster, cheaper, and what I had intended anyway - I only looked up the flights out of curiosity). I guess that means Britain and Turkey are actually situated between Austria and Germany.
 
A game for you.
1. Have a group of you watch a youtube on flat earth evidence.
2. Whenever anyone sees a false statement, or other error, on the video they yell out. The statement is discussed and if the majority agree it is probably false that person get a point.
3. When the video is finished the person who has the most points wins.

Variation - Do the same with any other similar video.
 
LordKiran said:
Jokodo said:
They don't believe in gravity.
Click to expand...

What? So what explains the force that pulls them "Down"?
Click to expand...

It's down (and not just "down"), why would you need a force? Things just fall down, what other way would they fall?

Or something like that.

A minority position seems to be that the disc, including the firmament, is hurling upward.
 
LordKiran said:
Gravity is the biggest indicator. That gravity always pulls directly down no matter where you stand on the earth is the bigest indicator that the world is round, nothing else would make sense. If the world were flat on top and round on the botton, gravity would constantly continue to pull you into the center, meaning its effects would not be distributed evenly across an uneven surface. No math, just basic fucking sense. =/
Click to expand...
Actually, gravity isn't uniform across the earth's surface. Teensy tiny fluctuations occur depending on the density of the Earth around and under you.
The variance is enough that it has to be corrected for when we program our missiles for flight.

So, gravity is not what you think it is, all science is therefore a lie, your world picture is a conspiracy to make us doubt Lord Blissu and the Frisbee Earth Model!

Or, you know, whatever other conclusions occur to the FEF, who knows JUST enough facts to be dangerous...
 
My dad and I met a flat earther at a bar the other day. I asked him how it was that if the Earth is flat, planes can fly in a circle around it. He replied that they can't actually do that. I conceded the argument at that point.

Also, according to him, nuclear missiles aren't a threat because nuclear fission doesn't actually happen and it's all just a scam. My dad replied that he's pretty sure that it does and the guy asked how it was that he knew that. My dad said "Well, I used to be a Vice President at Atomic Energy of Canada and now teach physics courses at university, so I think I know something about this topic". The guy informed him that he was wrong in that assumption and nukes don't work. My dad also conceded the argument at that point.

Sometimes, there's just not enough alcohol to make an discussion worthwhile.
 
LordKiran said:
Gravity is the biggest indicator. That gravity always pulls directly down no matter where you stand on the earth is the bigest indicator that the world is round, nothing else would make sense. If the world were flat on top and round on the botton, gravity would constantly continue to pull you into the center, meaning its effects would not be distributed evenly across an uneven surface. No math, just basic fucking sense. =/
Click to expand...

Yeah, you see, gravity isn't real either. Shit just falls towards the Earth because God made it that way.
 
Keith&Co. said:
LordKiran said:
Gravity is the biggest indicator. That gravity always pulls directly down no matter where you stand on the earth is the bigest indicator that the world is round, nothing else would make sense. If the world were flat on top and round on the botton, gravity would constantly continue to pull you into the center, meaning its effects would not be distributed evenly across an uneven surface. No math, just basic fucking sense. =/
Click to expand...
Actually, gravity isn't uniform across the earth's surface. Teensy tiny fluctuations occur depending on the density of the Earth around and under you.
The variance is enough that it has to be corrected for when we program our missiles for flight.
Click to expand...

They don't even allow for the coriolis effect. If you shoot a missile due north, it doesn't land due north because its initial vector is made up of a northward component and an eastward (east as in along a great circle route with initial bearing 90, not east as in following the parallel). Since the target moves slower than the launch position, it'll deflect somewhat to the east. You sure know more about how to actually input it into missile paths. That probably also means you're part of the conspiracy.
 
J842P said:
LordKiran said:
Gravity is the biggest indicator. That gravity always pulls directly down no matter where you stand on the earth is the bigest indicator that the world is round, nothing else would make sense. If the world were flat on top and round on the botton, gravity would constantly continue to pull you into the center, meaning its effects would not be distributed evenly across an uneven surface. No math, just basic fucking sense. =/
Click to expand...

Yeah, you see, gravity isn't real either. Shit just falls towards the Earth because God made it that way.
Click to expand...

And why wouldn't he? He just likes shit to fall.

Stop asking questions! because: The Lord moves in mysterious ways.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
My dad and I met a flat earther at a bar the other day. I asked him how it was that if the Earth is flat, planes can fly in a circle around it. He replied that they can't actually do that. I conceded the argument at that point.
Click to expand...

Then I guess I don't exist.

(I've been around the world heading west twice.)
 
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