What globe? Flat Earth and Flat-Earthers

[JEEP]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

A previous comment mentioned a wall/dome - and I believe there is a current TV show called The Dome? I guess it's apocalyptic & so not something I'm interested in watching any more than zombies/vampires/Walking Dead, Breaking Bad (meth madness) or CSI/Sex crimes - a show high in popularity for years!

The dome relates back to the Jim Carey movie, The Truman Show (previously mentioned) which I thought was one of his best movies & a really incredible concept. My brother & his wife visited earlier this year & we watched some other movie w/ somewhat similar theme - we all thought it was rather ho hum & a little boring. However, I read up on it in order to get a clearer understanding & discovered it had won kudos at the Sundance Film Festival & further info made the movie more relevant. I did bring up the Truman Show comparison & they had never watched that movie. I had to stop discussion in order not to give away the Truman Show climax!

Interesting that UFOs are generally described as saucers but there are also many sightings of mysterious floating balls of light which are so incredibly round! Is either relevant re sphere vs disk/dome? And if we think 3D earth is a mystifying conundrum, what will a possible 4D earth do to our sensibilities? I guess we can expect a lot of hexagonal clouds!

 

[Ðekel]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

I had a lot of difficulty w/ the concept of the past/present/future all occurring at once - how COULD the future take place SIMULTANEOUSLY w/ the present?!! A passage in John Keel's Trojan Horse book or Haunted Planet (?) explained it in a way that I could at least grasp that it was possible even if I didn't totally comprehend it. I'm thinking it had to do w/ a drop of liquid on a slide under a microscope?

Hi JEEP,

If the subject of Time interests you, there was a brief discussion about it here:
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,37409.0.html

It's not easy to wrap a head around the whole "simultaneous time" issue. It can be done though.
One can at least gain theoretical insight about the subject using analogies and mental imagery.

I think it gets interesting when you begin to take into account that the past and the future are not set, they don't have to be one thing. The linear view of progressing from a certain past to a certain future becomes more and more primitive when you really meditate on the subject for a long "time". :)

 

[Laura]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?


I think the C's example of the slides on the carrousel was the best for me.

 

[Kenny McCormick]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

Laura wrote:

" I'm sorry, but I can only think that some kind of schizophrenic idiot would even take this sort of claim seriously. "

So I thought this way too, and watched the video after all. I didn' read the whole discussion yet, but have to write some thoughts down now.

"I'm very surprised that nobody watched the whole video....I went on to have a look at some other stuff that he has done and was quite impressed."

Yes, me too, but it seems to be absurd - for example - because we have longer (shorter) days when we go north in summer (winter) - it indicates sphere.
But then I recalled when my father told me, when he was flying to Sidney from Warsaw, they stopped twice - in Moscow, then in Bejing. It was very strange to me back then, because it didn't make sense - it was very far from shortest way. When I looked on this route on "flat earth" map, these two capitals were on straight line between Warsaw and Sydney. I flew once from Frankfurt to Boston, and was flying directly over London - it is also on the straight route on flat earth map, and round route on sphere... Very strange indeed.
How we could solve the problem?

I don't agree we have a dome over us. If the theory is close to truth, we have to be living on dome - not flat world, but dome.
But what of the eclipses of the moon? Maybe PTB want us to believe in "flat world", and this material is just disinformation?

 

[Konstantin]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

I don't agree we have a dome over us. If the theory is close to truth, we have to be living on dome - not flat world, but dome.
But what of the eclipses of the moon? Maybe PTB want us to believe in "flat world", and this material is just disinformation?

PTB wants peoples minds to be occupied with things like this"flat world", or like watching and fighting about football and r things like that. They want to make a lot of noise. They want the normal people not to concentrate on things that really matter, not to see the reality as it is but as they present to us, because its threat for them, because then they can be discovered and their position on power threatened. They want to twist our minds , and they do that for a long time.

 

[Laura]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

But then I recalled when my father told me, when he was flying to Sidney from Warsaw, they stopped twice - in Moscow, then in Bejing. It was very strange to me back then, because it didn't make sense - it was very far from shortest way. When I looked on this route on "flat earth" map, these two capitals were on straight line between Warsaw and Sydney. I flew once from Frankfurt to Boston, and was flying directly over London - it is also on the straight route on flat earth map, and round route on sphere... Very strange indeed.
How we could solve the problem?

Not so strange if you read up on air routes and why they are the way they are. Among the main considerations are weather, prevailing upper atmospheric conditions, necessity for fuel sources along the way, necessity for landing resources along the way in the case of emergencies. Commercial airliners will not necessarily fly the shortest route - as a straight line - if those other factors are not considered.

I already posted a link to the wikipedia article about air routes, but here it is again with an excerpt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_planning

Flight planning is the process of producing a flight plan to describe a proposed aircraft flight. It involves two safety-critical aspects: fuel calculation, to ensure that the aircraft can safely reach the destination, and compliance with air traffic control requirements, to minimise the risk of midair collision. In addition, flight planners normally wish to minimise flight cost through the appropriate choice of route, height, and speed, and by loading the minimum necessary fuel on board.

Flight planning requires accurate weather forecasts so that fuel consumption calculations can account for the fuel consumption effects of head or tail winds and air temperature. Safety regulations require aircraft to carry fuel beyond the minimum needed to fly from origin to destination, allowing for unforeseen circumstances or for diversion to another airport if the planned destination becomes unavailable. Furthermore, under the supervision of air traffic control, aircraft flying in controlled airspace must follow predetermined routes known as airways, even if such routes are not as economical as a more direct flight. Within these airways, aircraft must maintain flight levels, specified altitudes usually separated vertically by 1000 or 2000 feet (305 or 610 m), depending on the route being flown and the direction of travel.

Obviously, one of the parameters must be that the airways are under the observation of some type of system that tracks them. These systems aren't positioned everywhere on the planet so air routes are designed to keep air traffic under observation.

Aircraft fly on airways under the direction of air traffic control. An airway has no physical existence, but can be thought of as a motorway in the sky. On an ordinary motorway, cars use different lanes to avoid collisions, while on an airway, aircraft fly at different flight levels to avoid collisions. One can often see planes passing directly above or below one's own. Charts showing airways are published and are usually updated every 4 weeks, coinciding with the AIRAC cycle. AIRAC (Aeronautical Information Regulation and Control) occurs every fourth Thursday, when every country publishes its changes, which are usually to airways.

Each airway starts and finishes at a waypoint, and may contain some intermediate waypoints as well. Waypoints use five letters (e.g., PILOX), and those that double as non-directional beacons use three or two (TNN, WK). Airways may cross or join at a waypoint, so an aircraft can change from one airway to another at such points. A complete route between airports often uses several airways. Where there is no suitable airway between two waypoints, and using airways would result in a somewhat roundabout route, air traffic control may allow a direct waypoint-to-waypoint routing, which does not use an airway (often abbreviated in flight plans as "DCT").

Most waypoints are classified as compulsory reporting points; that is, the pilot (or the on-board flight management system) reports the aircraft's position to air traffic control as the aircraft passes a waypoint. There are two main types of waypoints:

A named waypoint appears on aviation charts with a known latitude and longitude. Such waypoints over land often have an associated radio beacon so that pilots can more easily check where they are. Useful named waypoints are always on one or more airways.

A geographic waypoint is a temporary position used in a flight plan, usually in an area where there are no named waypoints (e.g., most oceans in the Southern Hemisphere). Air traffic control require that geographic waypoints have latitudes and longitudes that are a whole number of degrees.

And:

Special routes known as ocean tracks are used across some oceans, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, to increase traffic capacity on busy routes. Unlike ordinary airways, which change infrequently, ocean tracks change twice a day, so as to take advantage of favourable winds. Flights going with the jet stream may be an hour shorter than those going against it. Ocean tracks may start and finish about 100 miles offshore at named waypoints, to which a number of airways connect. Tracks across northern oceans are suitable for east–west or west–east flights, which constitute the bulk of the traffic in these areas.

Read the entire article, it's interesting.

 

[Oxajil]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

For example: if I know someone personally who has been up in a space shuttle or to the moon, and that person tells me convincingly that they have done so, the flat earthers declare that they HAVE to say that because they are being blackmailed or have signed a security agreement and cannot tell the truth. As it happens, I do have two cousins who worked for NASA for years during the most active period and have been involved in social occasions with other NASA people during which the latest mission was the main topic of conversation. It would be preposterous for me to think that all of that discussion and banter and descriptions etc was just a game. But the flat earthers will say that even the workers don't know the truth, that their engineering work, mathematics, etc, all filters through a conspiratorial sieve that is totally controlled by an evil consortium at the top.

Yeah, it's crazy, anything that doesn't fit their belief system is put away as "they're lying/it's a cover-up".

One of the flat earthers, Eric Dubay, claims that "the Sun, Moon, stars and "planets" are all merely luminaries, round discs of celestial light, NOT spherical terra firma capable of landing on as the Freemasons at NASA would have you believe."

Well, when I was younger I've seen the moon very up-close, and it was clear to me then that it was a sphere, not a round disc of celestial light...

Also, there's an interesting study ('The Earth is flat when personally significant experiences with the sphericity of the Earth are absent') in which they explored whether or not direct experiences with Earth's sphericity affects a person's cognitive model of the planet, their conclusion being: "Although none of our participants believed in a flat world when asked directly, the ones who had no personal experience with the Earth as a sphere showed cognitive distances which are quite compatible with such a view." Which may have played an additional role as to why some people may be more prone to fall prey to flat-earth lies.

And for what it's worth, here's someone from Princeton University who shows that the earth isn't flat by analyzing a picture of a sunset over Lake Michigan: _http://orfe.princeton.edu/~rvdb/tex/sunset/sunset.pdf

Abstract: If the Earth were flat and a water surface perfectly smooth, a sunset photo would show a perfect reflection of the Sun on the water
surface. The fact that the Earth is not flat causes the reflection to be foreshortened. In the absence of distorting effects, this foreshortening could
be used to measure the diameter of the Earth. However, distorting effects usually dominate. But, occasionally, one is lucky and gets a photograph
in which the distortions are small relative to the foreshortening effect. In this paper, we consider the fundamental problem and address the various
possible distortions. In particular, we study one specific photograph of a sunset over Lake Michigan on a particularly calm day.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

 

[RedFox]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

One of the flat earthers, Eric Dubay, claims that "the Sun, Moon, stars and "planets" are all merely luminaries, round discs of celestial light, NOT spherical terra firma capable of landing on as the Freemasons at NASA would have you believe."

That reminds me of things I heard when I was younger:

_http://nfo.edu/astro/models.htm

Ancient Models of the World

The ancient Chinese people believed the sky is a round dome, surrounding a flat square-shaped Earth. The ocean goes all around the Earth. The sun travels in a big tilted circle. At night the sun is not under the Earth, but rather on the side of the Earth.

The ancient Egyptians believed the Earth is flat. The sky is like a flat plate, supported at four places by mountains. The sun is carried across the sky in a boat, from east to west. At night, the sun is carried back to the east through the Underworld.

In ancient India it was believed that the Earth is a circular disk, surrounded by the ocean. In the center of the world is a great mountain. The sun goes around the mountain once a day. In the evening, the sun goes behind the western side of the mountain. It travels behind the mountain at night, and comes out on the eastern side in the morning.

Most ancient Greeks believed that the Earth floated in the ocean like a cork in water. One person, named Anaximander, thought that the Earth was a cylinder with a rounded top, floating in the air. The sky surrounded the Earth, and beyond the sky was a region of fire. The sun, moon, and stars were holes in the sky, through which the fire could be seen.

Given what we know about how history is covered up and distorted in order to validate the current power structures, could all these absurd ideas be used from a future perspective to justify how 'backward/uncivilized' we where?
i.e. the flat earth idea is part of the rewriting of history - a seed that's been planted to for fill future justifications for wiping out history among other things?

 

[Laura]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

Also, there's an interesting study ('The Earth is flat when personally significant experiences with the sphericity of the Earth are absent') in which they explored whether or not direct experiences with Earth's sphericity affects a person's cognitive model of the planet, their conclusion being: "Although none of our participants believed in a flat world when asked directly, the ones who had no personal experience with the Earth as a sphere showed cognitive distances which are quite compatible with such a view." Which may have played an additional role as to why some people may be more prone to fall prey to flat-earth lies.

Another thought that has come out of our discussions here. And those discussions aren't about whether or not the earth is flat, but the most curious phenomenon that human beings can think this and other human beings can be so easily persuaded of it. It's a serious weakness in a network that is striving for colinearity.

Anyway, this thought just mentioned is: what if those people who simply can't grok the various principles being explicated to them about curvature, gravity, atmospheric lensing, etc etc (all that which is involved in a spherical earth), have this problem because they are Organic Portals? There's a whole chapter in The Wave about the perception of animals - dogs and horses in particular - leading to a discussion of how understanding 2nd to 3rd density perceptions can be used as something of a foundation for speculating about 3rd to 4th density perceptions. So, what if Organic Portals are 2nd density beings that have "graduated" to the "entry level" of 3rd density and are not yet able to parse it, to be conversant with it, to maneuver in it, to feel comfortable with it? What if 3 D sphericality is sort of a "bridge too far" for the Organic Portal? What if we have stumbled on a sort of "test"???

 

[shellycheval]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

Laura

I never realized how poorly educated some of our forum members are. For example, asking why a plane doesn't fly off the earth? I can't believe that people don't know about and understand things about gravity, atmosphere, flight electronics, mechanics, geography, etc. I mean, so much of that sort of thing was taught to me in junior and senior high school physics, chemistry, geography classes that I'm just stunned at the ignorance.

Just astonished.

ADDED: I thought about this a bit more and I realize that the education system is designed to NOT educate people, but to make them drones. But I do think that if a person is reasonably aware of the world around them questions would NATURALLY come to their minds in all kinds of situations. In fact, I actually can remember asking some of these kinds of questions when I was just a kid. Things like "why don't people in Australia fall off the earth" and "why don't planes just fly away into space and never come back?" Fortunately, I was raised by an engineer and I was a great reader and was never shy about asking questions in school. Plus, the education system then still did a reasonable job.

I guess I'm just too accustomed to intelligence all around me and can't fathom a grown man asking "why don't planes just fly off into space" if that grown man is NOW a member of this forum and thereby signalling his interest in esoterica. Hell's bells! If you don't understand the real world around you in the most basic terms, what business have you in trying to explore deeper questions???

I just want to tell anybody who is taken in by this silliness to go away, go back to school, read some books, take some courses, and when you figure out the mechanical parts of reality, then you'll be in a position to ask questions about the underlying forces that make the mechanics go.

I think it is probably worse than you can imagine Laura.
It is an ancient cliché for teachers to complain that their incoming students get dumber as the years go by, but after teaching in the same 2 year/community college school system (MD USA) for over 23 years my observation is that it is true. Repeated observation of 1st year composition classes and discussion with colleagues who teach the same, shows that approximately half of the students in a freshman class right out of high school cannot identify the subject of a sentence --they just guess from the nouns they see until I agree with their choice. Last year I had a student in my Intro to Film class who wrote "Movies have been around for thousands of years." That kind of ignorance is breathtaking! Where do you start? Many students have no idea that technology like electricity, telephones, radio, electric lights etc., have only been in common usage for about 100 years or less in many areas.

Many adults I've met can't tell a bluebird from a blue jay or an oak tree from a maple. I am afraid to take a poll asking if the earth revolves around the sun or vice versa! I could go on, but it is too depressing.
Of course in every class there are a few students who are fairly well educated--at least in some areas, but the majority are abysmally ignorant of the most basic knowledge of how they and the universe they live in function. The very worst thing I see is how willful ignorance has become the norm. The overall lack of desire to ask questions, to learn and to know is shocking--a deadly complacency is the norm.

When you do the comparison of what comprised an 8th grade education in the USA around 1900 with today, and with what students measurably know, it seems clear that the education system has been co-opted to create mindless rule followers--throw in the influences of a toxic physical and medical environment, ponerazation, increasing poverty, mass media indoctrination, and it seem that the zombie apocalypse takeover is here--"they are us." IMHO, all we can do is continue to shine the light of knowledge and awareness in our classrooms and conversations and here for the minority who want to hear and are seeking answers. Many thanks to all of you who keep SOTT and the Forum up and running. The rest of us can help by remembering to donate so what little light that remains in the world can continue to shine.
shellycheval

PS Interesting idea about sphericality as a test for OPs! Wonder how that would work on high-functioning psychopaths?

 

[Mal7]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

I think to have a discussion with a Flat Earther or Hollow Earther there would have to first be some common ground, e.g.

1. Some kind of mutual agreement that the world can be explained through rational inquiry, or scientific method.
2. That the world has an objective reality. How this reality appears to us might take on different aspects depending on how one observes it, but it is still an objective thing out there. Its reality may be inter-twined with our subjectivity to some extent, since it and us are part of the same quantum universe, but not to the extent that we can choose anything to believe and the universe will restructure itself to match our beliefs. So e.g. either the Earth is more-or-less spherical, or it is flat, or it is hollow and there is a dome above us, or some other theory, but it must be one or the other of these, and we should really go about determining which it is most likely to be using our best toolkit.

Regarding scientific method, this doesn't mean one should be an authoritarian follower and believe anything that someone in a white lab coat tells you. That is not scientific or rational. But at the other extreme to that of the authoritarian-follower "believer" in science, some people may become wilfully irrational and make a point of refusing to accept anything that comes to them packaged as being "scientific".

There is good science and bad science, but bad science isn't really science at all.

 

[Kisito]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

Laura

I never realized how poorly educated some of our forum members are. For example, asking why a plane doesn't fly off the earth? I can't believe that people don't know about and understand things about gravity, atmosphere, flight electronics, mechanics, geography, etc. I mean, so much of that sort of thing was taught to me in junior and senior high school physics, chemistry, geography classes that I'm just stunned at the ignorance.

Just astonished.

ADDED: I thought about this a bit more and I realize that the education system is designed to NOT educate people, but to make them drones. But I do think that if a person is reasonably aware of the world around them questions would NATURALLY come to their minds in all kinds of situations. In fact, I actually can remember asking some of these kinds of questions when I was just a kid. Things like "why don't people in Australia fall off the earth" and "why don't planes just fly away into space and never come back?" Fortunately, I was raised by an engineer and I was a great reader and was never shy about asking questions in school. Plus, the education system then still did a reasonable job.

I guess I'm just too accustomed to intelligence all around me and can't fathom a grown man asking "why don't planes just fly off into space" if that grown man is NOW a member of this forum and thereby signalling his interest in esoterica. Hell's bells! If you don't understand the real world around you in the most basic terms, what business have you in trying to explore deeper questions???

I just want to tell anybody who is taken in by this silliness to go away, go back to school, read some books, take some courses, and when you figure out the mechanical parts of reality, then you'll be in a position to ask questions about the underlying forces that make the mechanics go.

I think it is probably worse than you can imagine Laura.
It is an ancient cliché for teachers to complain that their incoming students get dumber as the years go by, but after teaching in the same 2 year/community college school system (MD USA) for over 23 years my observation is that it is true. Repeated observation of 1st year composition classes and discussion with colleagues who teach the same, shows that approximately half of the students in a freshman class right out of high school cannot identify the subject of a sentence --they just guess from the nouns they see until I agree with their choice. Last year I had a student in my Intro to Film class who wrote "Movies have been around for thousands of years." That kind of ignorance is breathtaking! Where do you start? Many students have no idea that technology like electricity, telephones, radio, electric lights etc., have only been in common usage for about 100 years or less in many areas.

Many adults I've met can't tell a bluebird from a blue jay or an oak tree from a maple. I am afraid to take a poll asking if the earth revolves around the sun or vice versa! I could go on, but it is too depressing.
Of course in every class there are a few students who are fairly well educated--at least in some areas, but the majority are abysmally ignorant of the most basic knowledge of how they and the universe they live in function. The very worst thing I see is how willful ignorance has become the norm. The overall lack of desire to ask questions, to learn and to know is shocking--a deadly complacency is the norm.

When you do the comparison of what comprised an 8th grade education in the USA around 1900 with today, and with what students measurably know, it seems clear that the education system has been co-opted to create mindless rule followers--throw in the influences of a toxic physical and medical environment, ponerazation, increasing poverty, mass media indoctrination, and it seem that the zombie apocalypse takeover is here--"they are us." IMHO, all we can do is continue to shine the light of knowledge and awareness in our classrooms and conversations and here for the minority who want to hear and are seeking answers. Many thanks to all of you who keep SOTT and the Forum up and running. The rest of us can help by remembering to donate so what little light that remains in the world can continue to shine.
shellycheval

PS Interesting idea about sphericality as a test for OPs! Wonder how that would work on high-functioning psychopaths?

I have not been much in school, but thought comes to mind. You seem to say that students are becoming more stupid, and that the school or university are met over its role. However, "you say," that the school and the government (the elite STS) lie to us for centuries. So why believe that what you have learned there are 20 or 50 years at school, were better? This seems to mean that 30 years ago, there were no lies in school and no adverse or brainwashing programs existed. Is not the school and the university that we schedule lies and illusion by alienating us? So what school was better before? Today the Internet is a tool against small-power system, people should be more educated. The intelligence does not preserve the beliefs and illusions ...
Sometimes I feel I meet elites everywhere. In space, in school, in society, in finance, in pride and in forums.

 

[Ðekel]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

[..]
Last year I had a student in my Intro to Film class who wrote "Movies have been around for thousands of years." That kind of ignorance is breathtaking! Where do you start? Many students have no idea that technology like electricity, telephones, radio, electric lights etc., have only been in common usage for about 100 years or less in many areas.

[..]

Oh my. I'd never even considered this as a possibility.

 

[Richs]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

Laura

I never realized how poorly educated some of our forum members are. For example, asking why a plane doesn't fly off the earth? I can't believe that people don't know about and understand things about gravity, atmosphere, flight electronics, mechanics, geography, etc. I mean, so much of that sort of thing was taught to me in junior and senior high school physics, chemistry, geography classes that I'm just stunned at the ignorance.

Just astonished.

ADDED: I thought about this a bit more and I realize that the education system is designed to NOT educate people, but to make them drones. But I do think that if a person is reasonably aware of the world around them questions would NATURALLY come to their minds in all kinds of situations. In fact, I actually can remember asking some of these kinds of questions when I was just a kid. Things like "why don't people in Australia fall off the earth" and "why don't planes just fly away into space and never come back?" Fortunately, I was raised by an engineer and I was a great reader and was never shy about asking questions in school. Plus, the education system then still did a reasonable job.

I guess I'm just too accustomed to intelligence all around me and can't fathom a grown man asking "why don't planes just fly off into space" if that grown man is NOW a member of this forum and thereby signalling his interest in esoterica. Hell's bells! If you don't understand the real world around you in the most basic terms, what business have you in trying to explore deeper questions???

I just want to tell anybody who is taken in by this silliness to go away, go back to school, read some books, take some courses, and when you figure out the mechanical parts of reality, then you'll be in a position to ask questions about the underlying forces that make the mechanics go.

I think it is probably worse than you can imagine Laura.
It is an ancient cliché for teachers to complain that their incoming students get dumber as the years go by, but after teaching in the same 2 year/community college school system (MD USA) for over 23 years my observation is that it is true. Repeated observation of 1st year composition classes and discussion with colleagues who teach the same, shows that approximately half of the students in a freshman class right out of high school cannot identify the subject of a sentence --they just guess from the nouns they see until I agree with their choice. Last year I had a student in my Intro to Film class who wrote "Movies have been around for thousands of years." That kind of ignorance is breathtaking! Where do you start? Many students have no idea that technology like electricity, telephones, radio, electric lights etc., have only been in common usage for about 100 years or less in many areas.

Many adults I've met can't tell a bluebird from a blue jay or an oak tree from a maple. I am afraid to take a poll asking if the earth revolves around the sun or vice versa! I could go on, but it is too depressing.
Of course in every class there are a few students who are fairly well educated--at least in some areas, but the majority are abysmally ignorant of the most basic knowledge of how they and the universe they live in function. The very worst thing I see is how willful ignorance has become the norm. The overall lack of desire to ask questions, to learn and to know is shocking--a deadly complacency is the norm.

When you do the comparison of what comprised an 8th grade education in the USA around 1900 with today, and with what students measurably know, it seems clear that the education system has been co-opted to create mindless rule followers--throw in the influences of a toxic physical and medical environment, ponerazation, increasing poverty, mass media indoctrination, and it seem that the zombie apocalypse takeover is here--"they are us." IMHO, all we can do is continue to shine the light of knowledge and awareness in our classrooms and conversations and here for the minority who want to hear and are seeking answers. Many thanks to all of you who keep SOTT and the Forum up and running. The rest of us can help by remembering to donate so what little light that remains in the world can continue to shine.
shellycheval

PS Interesting idea about sphericality as a test for OPs! Wonder how that would work on high-functioning psychopaths?

Anyone paying attention and watching what was going on in the educational system could see this all coming down to what we have today many years ago. It actually began about 100 years ago and has resulted in what we have today.

Several years ago I had as a passenger (I was driving for a corporate limousine company a the time) the director of research for one of the largest oil companies in the world. We got into a conversation, mainly because I mentioned I had worked for this company for 20 years and this provided an opening for the conversation. What I discovered while speaking with this guy was really shocking to me. It turns out that the head man in the research lab had no idea of what the "scientific method" actually is! I had to explain it to him. This just about floored me, as it was so unbelievable that if I had not seen it for myself I would think it was an impossibility.

So, I'm not really surprised that very few people can find France or any other country on a map, or any of the other common questions researchers ask people to find out their general knowledge level. Most people are pretty ignorant of just about anything of importance.

 

[Possibility of Being]

Re: Is the Earth an enclosed technologically created world, and NOT a globe?

But then I recalled when my father told me, when he was flying to Sidney from Warsaw, they stopped twice - in Moscow, then in Bejing. It was very strange to me back then, because it didn't make sense - it was very far from shortest way. When I looked on this route on "flat earth" map, these two capitals were on straight line between Warsaw and Sydney. I flew once from Frankfurt to Boston, and was flying directly over London - it is also on the straight route on flat earth map, and round route on sphere... Very strange indeed.
How we could solve the problem?

No, it wasn't. But to understand it, you need to understand how "flat maps" are being made. There are different types of map projections and each type distorts distances (always) and shapes or areas on the sphere. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection

Do you have a globe at hand? If you don't, you can check the website that draws big circles between two locations, a big circle being the shortest way from one point on a sphere to another one. I picked Warsaw and Sydney airports for you (link below). You can see that in this particular case the big circle goes pretty close to Moscow and Beijing, and definitely not through Turkey and Iran as one would think from looking at a flat map. And the diversion to have mid landings in those two capitals is not that big at all.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=WAW+-+SYD

Hope it helps. :)