What's even the point? With most of these nutcase conspiracies there's actually an endgame that the purported deception could actually achieve? But flat Earth? What do they gain by expending such extreme effort to convince people it's round rather than flat? How can they possibly benefit from something that takes such an enormous amount of constant maintenance: plane routes, satellites, time zones, weather patterns, and so much more, yet has so little direct impact on 99.99% of people's lives? What the hell are they achieving that's worth it?
@DocSavage Those were deceptive photos man. There is video showing that the 8" per mile squared curvature calculation is wrong. I don't know how much money you have, but if you have a spare $1,000 or so... you should invest in either a P900, or a P1000 camera from Nikon and zoom in on ships that have completely disappeared from view.
Until you do it yourself someone like you won't believe it.
Look man, I don't want to cause you any problems, but I'm telling you that you do not live on a 24,901-circumference ball. I am asking you to PROVE to me that all of us do. Start with the movement of the Earth. Once you find that it is totally impossible to PROVE that the Earth moves at all, then you will be compelled to look further into it.
Are you an atheist? Just wondering, because I was. At least you ask questions and don't just call me names.
I will help you along the way, but I simply cannot do the research for you.
Thank you for always being respectful towards me. Even though I am a brain-damaged dummy to you.
@TBIman Out of curiosity, why do you assume so many things are fake, especially when you admit you haven’t checked them out yourself ? There are too many different places that will show you the same effect. And the structures themselves were built or a reason which has nothing to do with proving the curvature. So, it not like they’re part of a deliberate plot. It makes no sense that you believe in a conspiracy that has no reason, instead of simple , honest observations.
Instead of just saying "rhubarb" immediately, I tried to find out what the FE lot really believe, what the things they are reluctant to explain.
Firstly, their common themes though not necessarily shared by all, are a flat disc of an Earth, motionless in its geocentric Space, with no gravity; and that any statement to the contrary is a lie tantamount to heresy, to support an unstated conspiracy.:
1) How that model can explain day-night and seasonal cycles, the Moon's phases, the tides, falling weight (not the same as mass), nightly star-circling and over-year constellation changes, and rivers flowing down-hill.
2) What is the conspiracy, over how many nations and historical time, and by whom for what ends or benefits?
3) How convincing are the proponents' themselves?
[i]Answers:[/i]
1) No matter how hard I tried, nothing would fit that full FE model convincingly!
For example, making the Sun orbiting on a plane "above" the disc, but concentrically, gives either no night at all, or perhaps a gradation from full to dim light. Orbiting by going "underneath" the planet and popping up the other side, gives night and day and of local-noon; but of equal timing world-wide: everywhere is either dark or lit simultaneously.
So I tried imagining the face of the Earth being perpendicular to the orbital plane: whichever is doing the orbiting still gives no day/night cycle anything like we see, even if the Earth is still rotating on its own axis. If no axial rotation; the day-light or darkness is fixed, with no diurnal cycle. Nor could it make the seasons work.
And so it went on. No matter how I arranged the FE model, none of those familiar natural events would work.
Besides, what is "down" the sides, or what does the underside look like?
. 2) One publication, by a Thailand-resident, American yoga-teacher called Eric Dubay; blames the solar-centric round-Earth model on a so-called "Atlantean Conspiracy"; but I do not know if that is his invention or lifted from another FE-er.
These supposed conspiracies, we are told to believe, go back centuries and are international. This means they need allege countless mariners, explorers, map-makers, scientists, teachers etc, all over the world have been colluding to deceive us all in a uniform manner for so long.
Who though, could possibly have devised such a conspiracy, for what reason, and how would their descendants maintain it so thoroughly to gain from it, nowadays?
' 3) I saw two videos, one of them Dubay's, as well as reading posts here from TBLman and his supporters who seem inspired by those shows.
Dubay is alone on his site (a blog??), which must have taken hundreds of hours to create. It is a vast collection of selectively-picked (and edited by him??) passages from, or summaries of, both text-books and probably other FE sites; each illustrated by a photograph or diagram. In fact, we read it, not hear him.
Although well-made, it is full of clear flaws, including his evident poor grasp of basic geometry, let alone such advanced concepts as simple gravity; and by some very unlikely examples.
One such is the "London & North-Western Railway", London to Liverpool, about 250 miles apart, via Birmingham in the middle of England. It does not demonstrate the FE hypothesis at all. Dubay's photograph is of a single-tracked, straight, non-electrified railway line clearly not this one. The two end stations are close to sea-level, Birmingham is over 200 feet a.s.l. . The LNWR name ceased in the 1930s, but the route still exists; double-tracked (4 in places), with few long straights, and has used electric traction for years. It also crosses many gentle hills. Its relevance to FE-according-to-Dubay is not at all obvious!
'
The other was very different, and unlike Dubay's creativity and simple, calm approach; is a shoddily-made video having no personal presentation or artistic-production skills whatsoever. One clip stoops to a cruel trick on an elderly woman; elsewhere they often use a trick common in domestic abuse called in law, "coercive and controlling behaviour". Its excitable "presenters" make little or no attempt at coherence, civility, cohesive arguments, marshalled examples or even relevance - one clip is by some idiot anglers of their own straying into a Naval exercise-range - but again; collectively shows no technical knowledge whatsoever.
Still, Oscar-losing apart, its basic premise is again of a mystery conspiracy standing up to no logic; but these potty-mouthed characters openly call anyone teaching otherwise, a "liar", and even question the very existence of historical people.
.
So two contrasting approaches by different FE-fans to basically similar, conspiracy-theory based ideas; but we ought ask their motives. They seem desperate to push their beliefs; but what do they gain personally from it, if anything?
'''''''
That is my use of the abbreviation. Previously I had known FE perfectly innocently as for "Finite Element" Analysis - a mathematical tool used by professional scientist and engineers.
@TBIman [quote] believe that the Earth is a motionless plane BECAUSE water cannot curve around spinning balls[/quote] I thought you said before the the earth is constantly moving in an upward direction. And it’s the downward pressure that keeps things falling. So wouldn’t the water slide off the edge ? What force is keeping us moving ? It would have to run out of energy sooner or later.
@DocSavage You thought wrong. I would never say that the Earth moves at all. We live on a 100% STATIONARY PLANE. It does not rise, fall, or move at all.
@TBIman Then what keep things from floating up if not gravity ? You have no explanation for the laws of physics or lack of. If you’re talking biblical flat earth instead of bat shit stupid flat earth. You could claim magic.
Nope. The Earth is round. Here's a bunch of "round Earth" evidence:
I particularly liked this one proving the "eye level horizon" claim is false https://flatearth.ws/water-level-horizon
I also liked this one disproving claim 6 (just google for Ponchartrain power lines; hundreds have shot this image) I liked this one disproving claim 20 And this one disproving claims 34,35 And this one disproving claims 56,57
@ElwoodBlues Quite apart from trying to persuade Flat-Earthists of the error of their ways (impossible because they do not want to think otherwise), those are impressive photographs!
What intrigues me is why these people are so determined to be seen as right and that everyone else either agrees with them or are liars, they go to such trouble to create all sorts of artistic web-sites to promulgate their case. What do they gain from it?
@ArishMell Yeah, those Lake Ponchartrain curving power lines are amazing. It's clearly a very long telephoto lens to compress so many towers together.
I don't know what they get out of their beliefs. There does seem to be a strong current of anti-expert sentiment in the US. On the left there's the "essential oils" & "healing crystals" crowd; on the right there's denial of evolution, climate change; all kinds of craziness.
Science has greatly increased our lifetimes and taken most of the backbreaking work and much of the drudgery out of our lives; it's amazing how many people are willing to reject science while taking for granted its many many benefits.
@ElwoodBlues There's a goodly amount of the oils-and-crystals stuff in the UK too but a lot of that is encouraged commercially, and by the land having so many extremely ancient sites that attract people who seem to think they can believe spiritually for whoever built them!
I don't think we have too many of those deniers. They are about but not very noticeable. Some American organisations I call "commercial creationists" wanted to muscle in on the English education system when that was largely farmed out to so-called "academy trusts" (businesses!). They were given short shrift, and failed because schools have to follow at a minimum, a national curriculum and teaching-quality standards; and your progress through schools ends in nation-wide school-leaving examinations in most subjects.
In either case there is little or no specific political bias here to any of these beliefs; largely I suppose because the several British political parties broadly agree on matters such as the climate, and just bicker over how to get there, and how fast.
It is very ironical though how the most rabidly anti-science campaigners all use the Internet to push their ideas, making me wonder how much or how little science and engineering they were ever taught. Or perhaps they were taught, but they failed to learn!
Actually, I can see a TON of proof of the curvature of the Earth. Go to Chicago. Head out on Lake Michigan on a calm day. Watch the city sink into the lake!! No, not really; it's just a bit beyond the curve of the Earth.
Go to Lake Ponchartrain.
Check out the power lines. Take some pictures. [media=https://youtu.be/ipqronPSXGM]
Then check out the causeway. Take some pictures. Did they build all these wind turbines partway under water? Nope. Curve of the Earth again.
@Nexus No I most definitely do not. Do you believe that the Earth is a huge spinning ball? If so let's talk about it. How did you come to the conclusion that the Earth is a moving ball? It looks flat and I feel no motion. Do you feel like you are living on a spinning ball or a motionless plane?
@TBIman Why is the Earth the only flat planet in the solarsystem? The Moon is a globe, as is tehe Sun as is every other planet? If you are travelling at 600 kph in a plane you can't feel it moving at all and yet it is. You can walk up or down the isles with no effect of the speed of it moving ?
@Nexus There is no "Solar System" we live in a "Geosystem." We don't live in a Solar System. No, the moon is not a globe. The moon is just a light. Listen Tantra. I'm not here to change your mind about your beliefs. If you are content living on a spinning ball, who am I to say that you do not? I'm here just to give you a different point of view. Take it or leave it, but try to remember me when it's all over the news.
@Ryderbike I don't know when that photograph was take, but are those Qanon clowns still about?
Due to it having been turned from a wild but obscure conspiracy-fantasy into something highly party-political, Quanon is largely confined to the fringes of the USA's otherwise deeply thoughtful, inciteful and civil internal political discourse; but some of its own and similar wilder ideas outside of US party-politics have attracted the gullible in other countries.
I thought it had died out, but it would be interesting to know who started it, and why he, she or they did? We know which fringe web-site nurtured it, and we know the party activist who found it there and turned it via the big-name "social-media" into a presidential-election campaign-tool; but has anyone been identified as or admitted being, its originator?
I wonder if one day someone will have the courage to spill the Beans and admit, "It was I, because ....". Yes, that capital 'B' is deliberate.
I liked this one disproving claim 20
And this one disproving claims 34,35
And this one disproving claims 56,57
