Flat Earth?

[O2HeN2]

I've just been bought off apparently.

Must be agonizing hiding those millions of dollars from those of us not part of the conspiracy.

O2

[Grant H.]

Must be agonizing hiding those millions of dollars from those of us not part of the conspiracy.

O2

I hid them well enough that I don't even get to play with them...


I've had discussions with FE'ers as well, and it is interesting to see their thought process and be able to understand the missing logical step that they aren't taking.

Even before this job, when I was doing industrial data comms, I had to account for the curvature of the earth, and I could easily prove it existed with radios. Even with proof that didn't require space/etc, they still think there is some fix that the .gov is perpetrating.

Just think... All those damn towers I built, climbed, and worked on over the years are ONLY used because of a massive .gov conspiracy...

[ray1970]

Thanks for the map.

If I run into one of the flat earth people I might have to have them explain the science to me for why the very center has a big cold spot. Seems to be one similar cold spot near one small place on the edge as well.

Once they explain the two weird cold spots then I can hopefully have them explain the changing seasons and the shorter daylight in the winter months.

[Justin]

I've debated with flat earthers a few times, and the one thing they can't do is to present an atlas or navigational map that uses flat earth projection.

Ultimately, Flat Earth falls apart, like most pseudoscience does, when you start asking about the practical applications for whatever the actual theory is that you're debating. Things like cartography, trucking and shipping routes, and even airplane routes*.

For instance, look at a Flat Earth picture, like the one posted earlier in the thread. Look at how distorted the landmasses become the further toward the edge you get. If Flat Earth were real, it would be trivially easy to prove it by mapping a north-south route in one of those countries, say, from Adelaide in the South of Australia, to Darwin in the North.

According to Flat Earth, those two cities are not that far apart, but according to traditional mapping, they're quite far apart. All you'd have to do is drive or fly from Adelaide to Darwin and keep track of the miles of the odometer. If that mileage matches the FE model, then FE would be true. If it matches the Globe model, then FE is clearly false.


Ultimately, though, from what I've seen, the people who believe in FE don't really care about FE. For most of them, FE belief is ultimately about faith, and is rooted in an extremely literal interpretation of the Bible to the point where FE and their faith are so intertwined that they can't separate them without their entire belief system falling apart.

And then there's Mark Sargent, who's the current face man for FE, and the guy who's the subject of Behind the Curve. He comes across as a pretty affable guy, but looking at his life objectively, he's not really a winner. He lives at home with his Mom, he's not really fit, he never really held down a job or started a family, in short, he's kind of a loser. But his FE advocacy has brought him a measure of fame, allowed him to travel all over, and donations from followers keep him financially afloat. That dude will hang on to FE advocacy for as long as it brings him money and acclaim, even if he secretly knows the truth.





*There's a video on Youtube where a guy took a flight that crossed over Antarctica, and he recorded the entire trip, both on video and with a GPS device. It absolutely disproved the FE conspiracy about no flights over Antarctica, but he was simply dismissed out of hand.

[Duman]

Precession.

I watched a ton of FE videos and read a lot of articles to fully understand their arguments.

I can defend the FE position really well against any baller, while not believing any of it for a moment.

O2

You can't have precession without a spinning (object) sphere. Even with precession, the rate of change from precession (>100,000 years)is much slower than the 24-hour period to cycle through the Focault circle.

Have you talked with them about the earth's polehode motion?

[Irving]

If the answer to most things is, "There is a conspiracy to cover up the truth," then they are already too far gone in their thinking. No amount of reasoning or evidence will matter.

[O2HeN2]

You can't have precession without a spinning (object) sphere.

I'm talking about a pendulum's precession. Small lateral errors at time of release* can cause the pendulum's swing to take on an elliptical track and the direction of it's swing will change on its own.

O2

* This is why the Foucault pendulum back in the day was commonly released by burning a string that was holding the pendulum back - so no lateral movement was imparted at the moment of release.