What globe? Flat Earth and Flat-Earthers

[Laura]

I try not to believe, I try to only use facts to see what the possibilities may be.

You also avoid serious learning and critical thinking.

 

[Windmill knight]

I try not to believe, I try to only use facts to see what the possibilities may be.
These facts tend to make me think current beliefs systems are perhaps wrong.

You know, there is no flat earth model consistent with the movements of the sun, moon and stars that you can perceive with the naked eye from your backyard. On the other hand, such movements are entirely consistent with the earth being round.

Simple example: How can you explain sunset and sunrise with a flat earth model? We know the sun doesn't go 'underneath the disc' at night, cause I can talk on the phone with people on the other side of the earth and they can confirm to me that it's night while it's day on my side, or viceversa. Unless you actually think that half the earth is on the bottom side of the disk, which would be bizarre for several reasons, such as: where does one side start and the other end? Why have we never seen the edge?

Because of that, modern flat-earthers proposed a flat earth model on which the sun is always hovering above the disc, just moving on a circular path, and with the 'north' at the center of the disc and the 'south' at the edges. But in that case, we would never see the sun set nor rise - we would just see it move a little further away and then come back.

But if the earth is round, the movement of the sun is very easily explicable.

 

[Jones]

Yeah, I figured that outside of all experiments and thought gymnastics, you could just hire a Boeing 747, do a Christopher Columbus and go take a look. I'm sure plenty of scientist, journalists and Flat Earthers would be interested in purchasing a ticket if anyone was taking the idea seriously. A 747 has a flight range of 13,450 kms, the distance between Ushuaia - Malvinas Argentinas International Airport and the South Pole is 3,910 kms.

 

[Woodsman]

You know, there is no flat earth model consistent with the movements of the sun, moon and stars that you can perceive with the naked eye from your backyard. On the other hand, such movements are entirely consistent with the earth being round.

Simple example: How can you explain sunset and sunrise with a flat earth model? We know the sun doesn't go 'underneath the disc' at night, cause I can talk on the phone with people on the other side of the earth and they can confirm to me that it's night while it's day on my side, or viceversa. Unless you actually think that half the earth is on the bottom side of the disk, which would be bizarre for several reasons, such as: where does one side start and the other end? Why have we never seen the edge?

Because of that, modern flat-earthers proposed a flat earth model on which the sun is always hovering above the disc, just moving on a circular path, and with the 'north' at the center of the disc and the 'south' at the edges. But in that case, we would never see the sun set nor rise - we would just see it move a little further away and then come back.

But if the earth is round, the movement of the sun is very easily explicable.

Oh, but you underestimate the sheer determination and stubbornness of the Flat Earther!

The air is thick, you see. As the Sun, (which is only a few thousand feet around), travels (on magic sky wires?) further away, the thick air obscures your ability to see it as it transits Australian air space, and indeed, the thick air grows dark above you, for sunlight fails to penetrate across all those miles. Surely, you wouldn't expect a 60 watt light bulb burning a mile across town to illuminate your backyard? Don't be silly! It's all about scale! The math holds up! (Well, it actually doesn't hold up in the slightest, but it's easy to pretend that it does. And who's going to check? Anyway, you can just zone out for the few seconds it takes for the determined Sphere Earther to repeat the same tired NASA-approved talking points.)

But my all time favorite, hell-bent-on-stubborn, FE theory is the one explaining how gravity is the result of the flat Earth forever accelerating upward at 10 meters per second squared. The speed of light cannot be exceeded? Pshaw! Obviously that's wrong, because clearly gravity works. Einstein was just a NASA stooge.

~~~

Logic and reason and a willingness to submit your belief system to the uncaring whims of Objective Reality are by no means a normal trait. It's a special cognitive event to be celebrated! Flat Earthers are basically small children in adult bodies. You can love and value them, but you can't win rational debates with them because their minds haven't strung together enough of the required software yet. Give them a few more lifetimes. We were all children at one time.

 

[Windmill knight]

The air is thick, you see. As the Sun, (which is only a few thousand feet around), travels (on magic sky wires?) further away, the thick air obscures your ability to see it as it transits Australian air space, and indeed, the thick air grows dark above you, for sunlight fails to penetrate across all those miles. Surely, you wouldn't expect a 60 watt light bulb burning a mile across town to illuminate your backyard? Don't be silly! It's all about scale! The math holds up!

Right! Actually, I think some flat-earther I once had a discussion with said something along those lines. The sun moves very very far away so that's why day turns to night and you can't see it anymore. Problem is, I've seen many sunsets and many (but not as many ;) ) sunrises, and the sun does not go dimmer and dimmer until it vanishes. It clearly moves behind the horizon or comes from behind it. The fact that something so obvious does not cross their minds is astonishing. It's like they have difficulty picturing 3D shapes, movements and interactions.

And sunsets aren't the only problem with that flat earth model. For example, if the sun were much smaller and hovering much closer to earth, as they say, it would appear to change speed from our relative perspective quite noticeably: 'slow' as it approaches from far away (i.e. covering just a few degrees of the imaginary arc above us slowly), 'faster' when it passes right over us (covering a lot of degrees very fast), and 'slower' again as it goes away in the distance. Kind of like a fast car passing us as we are standing still, or watching an airplane approach, then fly above us and leave. Yet the sun, moon and stars move at constant speeds across the sky, which again is consistent with the curvature of a rotating earth and the actual distances of these objects.

 

[Woodsman]

And sunsets aren't the only problem with that flat earth model. For example, if the sun were much smaller and hovering much closer to earth, as they say, it would appear to change speed from our relative perspective quite noticeably: 'slow' as it approaches from far away (i.e. covering just a few degrees of the imaginary arc above us slowly), 'faster' when it passes right over us (covering a lot of degrees very fast), and 'slower' again as it goes away in the distance. Kind of like a fast car passing us as we are standing still, or watching an airplane approach, then fly above us and leave. Yet the sun, moon and stars move at constant speeds across the sky, which again is consistent with the curvature of a rotating earth and the actual distances of these objects.

Oooh! That's a good one.

But.., I'm sure if you drop that in the business end of the FE logic processor, in just a few weeks you'd get some spectacular and perfectly logical explanation provided from the other end. -Possibly citing some overlooked Edwardian era scientific paper as proof that speed is a social construct and accurate time keeping an elitist conspiracy. Newton was a member of several secret societies, was he not? Hah! So there you go!

Flat Earth theory is wishful thinking; trying to package what feels true fit with a stream of words that will make people agree with the wishful thinker. Because if everybody agrees with each other all at the same time, then God must leave the room (in shame)!

The meek cannot hope to inherit the Earth through legitimate means, after all.

 

[newuser23]

Thank you for all your replies.

It seems you are labeling me as a believer. As I stated I try not to believe. Most people cannot understand not believing, and will immediately ask after being told I do not believe" Ok but what do you believe in" or will say
"Ok then you believe this".

It seems to me part of critical thinking, is to not blindly believe.

We are all here because our ancestors believed or pretended to believe, upon the threat of death. The DNA memory
of this trauma is so terrifying that most people cannot even imagine not believing.

So let me state, I do not believe in flat earth nor do I believe in globe earth. Perhaps it is both; like light
being a particle and a wave, or perhaps it is neither and we are in a computer simulation or in a dream.
Believing can prevent any person from seeking the truth; if they believe they already have the answer.
I have experienced too many things that are impossible, to believe. So I choose the path of not believing.

I will present you one of the unbelievable things that happened to me.
For many years I was told by I-Ching not to write about this event on the forum; because of life threatening dangers.

Today I get this

14. Noble Presence
Line 3:

A duke presents offerings to the Son of Heaven,
an ordinary person cannot.

Being in a unique position to do something for someone, that others are not able to do.
(The Son of Heaven is the king.)
Line 5:

Bowing deeply to a trustworthy associate,
with dignity.
Good fortune.

Respecting a trustworthy person one associates with, with dignity. Things go well.


Hexagram is changing to:
10. Stepping

Stepping on the tiger's tail.
It does not bite the person.
Progressing.

Placing oneself in a dangerous situation. One doesn't get harmed. There is progress.




Keeping a journal for years I have found, sometimes our memories can become faulty,so I posted this immediately after the incident.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/2aexpx

"Disappearing knife

The other night; July 9th. My son was going to sleep. I started doing dishes. We have a small alleyway kitchen.
Counter, cupboards and refrigerator one one side. Counter, cupboards and stove and sink on the other side. My
elbow touched, what felt like a knife, sticking out of the dish rack; causing a knife to fall on the floor. I
turned slightly just to see and hear the knife hit the floor, beside my foot; maybe 1/2 inch away from my shoe.

To my amazement the knife did not bounce. We had two same knives with plastic black handle. It was very fast and
I remember I did not see the black handle just the metal blade. There was a thin bright light maybe 1 millimeter
thick around the metal I saw. Then the knife disappeared. Like it went into the floor or another dimension.
I was so totally amazed I called my son to help me see a knife on the floor. Knowing that sometimes people can
not see something in front of themselves. We looked everywhere and did not find any knife.
I am still in total amazement and awe and feel lucky, to have seen, something that never happened before.

Edit: I have an inkling what caused this."


Let me explain a bit the context and what I think happened.

As a unemployed single parent; poverty is usually a serious issue in our home.
Being told, the only way to really make money is to use other peoples money to make money.
Already mining bitcoin at home, I had seen 30% profits per month. Therefore I used a P2P bitcoin lending site
called BTCJAM, I borrowed a large amount of bitcoin and rented mining machines.
A few weeks later, CEX.io the largest mining site at the time, dumped a huge amount of bitcoin mining machines on the market.
Flooding the market lowered profits to almost nothing.
This caused me alot of stress, no profits; now I owed a large amount of money with no foreseeable way to pay it back.
I did manage to pay everything I owed; a few months later, but I'm sure the stress caused some white hairs to pop out of my head.

It wasn't until many months or maybe a year later I heard the expression "the knife falling through the floor".
This is a saying used in financial markets, relating to a huge price drop.
When I first heard of this saying I checked dates and found out my incident happened the night before the CEX.io dump as well as prices and profits collapsing.

I think the incident was my subconscious warning me.

Perhaps my younger years spent meditating with brain entrainment has increased my paranormal experiences.
Being in dreams with others, exchanging information of what happened in the dream being exactly the same for both persons.
Being flat broke not having a penny in my pocket, knowing it is the right time to take a walk and find something. Finding $5, $10, $20 or $50, just by knowing it is a good time to take a walk with my eyes open and senses sharpened.

These are just a tiny amount of things that have led me to be a non-believer.

 

[Jones]

I try not to believe, I try to only use facts to see what the possibilities may be.

It seems you are labeling me as a believer. As I stated I try not to believe. Most people cannot understand not believing, and will immediately ask after being told I do not believe" Ok but what do you believe in" or will say
"Ok then you believe this".

It seems to me part of critical thinking, is to not blindly believe.

As far as I can see, no-one has called you a believer in regards to flat earth. Did you read the whole thread before you posted? It's pretty much all about debunking the flat earth theory.

I'm not sure if English is your first language, but the definition of 'fact' is a thing known or proved to be true. What you have listed as fact is not true and what other members have basically done, in various ways, is point that out.

It's good to not blindly believe, but also part of critical thinking (called thinking with a hammer here) is learning to separate what is true from what is false and most of us can have blind spots with that to various degrees so it's good to have errors pointed out.

 

[Windmill knight]

It seems you are labeling me as a believer. As I stated I try not to believe. Most people cannot understand not believing, and will immediately ask after being told I do not believe" Ok but what do you believe in" or will say
"Ok then you believe this".

I understand what you say about 'not believing'. When I am confronted with something I don't know much about, and I realize the truth may be one way or the other, I too take the attitude of 'not believing', until I get more information in support of one position or the other. In other words, I try to remain open.

However, the issue of the flat vs globe earth is not one such situation. What we are trying to tell you is that the the observation of very simple facts, plus a little thinking about them, should make you 100% certain that the flat earth theory is wrong, and that the earth is a globe. You don't have to 'not believe' when the evidence is so strong.

 

[Oxajil]

Hi ShamanSam, I second what Jones and Windmill knight have written above. Regarding your other bit:

I think the incident was my subconscious warning me.

Perhaps, yes. Or perhaps the knife never fell and you thought it did. It's difficult to tell.

Perhaps my younger years spent meditating with brain entrainment has increased my paranormal experiences.

I think it would be more helpful to stay grounded. Too much focus on paranormal experiences can lead to becoming detached from reality. Which may have led you to entertain the idea of a flat Earth! It's one thing to be open-minded, and another to confuse facts with beliefs. When the latter happens, you have to put on the brakes and work on increasing your basic knowledge of for example physics, astronomy, and others, and to learn to think critically.

 

[WIN 52]

It is not clear about the Earth being flat or perfectly round.

Consequently the discussion is not settled about either.

There are other issues involved such as Admiral Byrd's experiences which are overlooked in the discussion. As well as the fact we don't currently have the technology to put people on the moon.

There seems to be many unanswered questions for this discussion to be settled. It makes no difference what a person is conditioned to believe.

In that respect, I would classify myself as a non believer as well.

 

[Cosmos]

I try not to believe, I try to only use facts to see what the possibilities may be.
These facts tend to make me think current beliefs systems are perhaps wrong.

What facts and in reference to what? It is one thing to understand that some things are not what we were told, it is quite another to then throw the baby out with the bathwater and suspect conspiracies everywhere, even in things that are obviously and very clearly not conspiracies or "false beliefs". It is very easy to go overboard and fall into the trap that everything is potentially not as is told and work from that shaky assumption.

1. Military personnel are required by law to lie about secrets.

What exactly has this to do with the flat earth idea? Can you elaborate? Clearly, just because military people might be required by law not to tell secrets, doesn't infer that they lie about the shape of the earth.

The first person and perhaps the only non-military person to go to space, Auguste Picard said: " It seemed a flat disk with upturned edges"

And why would that be anything to go by in regard to the flat earth idea? Because he said it? Can you elaborate?

2. Pendulums put into mines; the top is closer and the bottom is farther apart. https://blogs.mtu.edu/physics/2000/01/mtu-physics-department-history-1901-1916/

What exactly has this to do with the idea of the earth being flat? Can you elaborate?

3. Picard's view of a flatter slightly concave shape and a domed firmament explain why celestial navigation was needed to travel. The curved surface is still there, but concave instead of convex.

How exactly would a "concave flat shape" explain "celestial navigation"? Can you elaborate so that we can follow your reasoning?

4. Nasa admits that it cannot currently get through the van allen belt. Electronics would fail etc. Impossible to do with 1969 battery and electronics technology; far below today's cell phones. Do the math volts, amps, battery capabilities etc.

Where is NASA admitting that? Where is the proof that it was "impossible" in 1969? What math? Can you provide the math you used? Can you elaborate what you mean?

5. Nasa uses balloons to put things up there, It has been doing so since 1950's and still does. This could partly explain the huge helium depletion on the earth.

Really? Are you suggesting that the helium balloons from NASA caused "huge helium depletion on the earth"? How, why and on what basis do you come to that idea? The video is quite long, has this something to do with that idea? If so, can you elaborate so that we can understand your reasoning?

6. With advances in technology available to the average person we are seeing discrepancies in what we are told about space.

What "discrepancies" exactly? That "Rockets hit the Dome"? How do you come to that idea? Can you elaborate?

7. Even NASA's own footage shows us space is not what we are told to believe.

Those objects behind a 12 mile tether are impossible; if you believe what is told.

What has this video to do with the flat earth idea? I don't get it. Why are those objects "impossible behind a 12 mile tether"? What is your reasoning? Can you elaborate?

8. NASA says we can only fly in low orbit.

NASA says? Where? Can you elaborate? Are you referring to the little snippets in the video from astronauts? First: Astronauts are not NASA. Second: Have you noticed that the context in all of those excerpts from what the Astronauts are saying is missing? Take just one of the first statement in the video as an example.

The astronaut says:

"Right now we only can fly in earth orbit, that is the farthest that we can go"

What is the context of what he is saying there? Can you see that in the video? No. Have you looked it up? Here is the context:

All he is saying is that NASA is CURRENTLY not able to go further with humans on board than the earth orbit since the moon missions and the accompanied technology was terminated back in the days after the last moon mission. In other words; since then, NASA didn't put money and resources into the needed equipment that they had back then, to build the stuff today that they need to go further WITH humans on board. The equipment they used back then isn't produced anymore today. It is as simple as that.

Or as a commentator on reddit said:

Apollo class rockets do not exist anymore. Nothing to make them exists. Nobody in the world CURRENTLY makes such a rocket. The moon missions were flown with rockets designed and built to do one thing, put a man on the moon. After that, the space shuttle was designed to move people and satellites into space. Now the Usa has nothing that can take us there. Space X is working on a capsule system to carry astronauts to the ISS, and eventually mars.

 

[fabric]

Just take the first small and simple fact astronomer Michelle Thaller shares, the one with the boat. It clearly points to the Earth not being flat!

I’m with her. I can’t understand how this is even a ‘thing’! You don’t even have to suspend critical thinking to see that the Earth is a sphere, you just have to pay attention to what’s around you. It has nothing to do with ‘belief’ – it is implicit in our everyday experience. To me some things are so self-evident that debating on whether or not to ‘believe’ is a non-starter.

Now it’s not to say that we should not question things, of course one should. But for some things, all it takes is a quick trip down Common Sense Avenue and you get your answer. Otherwise it’s a waste of time. Much more important things to spend time on.

Nevertheless, I did look at the so-called evidence for a flat Earth (I was curious about what the fuss was all about) and everything I’ve seen thus far required that I suspend all reason and logic as well as my own experiences because ‘they’re lying’ and ‘muh government!’. Neither have any sound refutations (and provable ones) come out against current evidence that says Earth is a sphere. (It seems like they instead discover the Earth’s curvature)

And even if the Earth did turn out to be Flat – so what? Things keep going as they were, are and will be. It’s not as if this is suddenly going to make humanity hold hands, sing kumbaya and end all wars.

 

[Joe]

These are just a tiny amount of things that have led me to be a non-believer.

So you're a nonbeliever in everything?

 

[WIN 52]

Why not ask the C's about Admiral Byrd and what that was all about? He seemed to think there was more land than what is known, is here?

Do we really care what shape this world actually is? Round, flat or some other shape? Will that change anything at the moment? Well, it may explain a lot of things.