Flat Earthers

[Burlyman]

No deal

[Alter-Fox]

Oh, poor mouse.
Whatever gave you the impression I was asking permission?

[Burlyman]

Who are you again?

[Alter-Fox]

Oh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

[Burlyman]

Try me.

[LightWolf]

There's no such thing as a solar system. Why hold on to it?

Riddle me this: Why does Newton's solar system model so accurately demonstrate the movement of the "stars" we call planets?

[Burlyman]

Because planets don't exist.

By the way, I'm the fourth greatest pilot in the universe because I forgot about {RIP}Foil.

[LightWolf]

You completely missed my question. If solar systems, or even planets, don't exist, then why are the motions of their respective stars so accurately described by Newton's model?

[Burlyman]

They're also described by other models but they have no explanation for retrograde motion. Newton's model would be true or closer to the truth if such things existed.

I didn't miss your question. You kinda missed my answer.

[LightWolf]

Alright, can you prove they don't exist?

[Alter-Fox]

Try me.

Well, I tried telling you yesterday, but then we all had to reset your memory when you started gibbering. It took all night. Definitely not doing that again.
So you'll just have to take my word for it.

If it makes you feel better, your mind lasted longer than anyone expected.

[Burlyman]

No you didn't.

Alright, can you prove they don't exist?

The book of Genesis never said God created planets. The word for wandering stars is in the book of Jude (planetes) but that is a reference to humans and fallen angels and their sins. So this is where these philosophers get the idea of planets from. Also, they exist, but only as holograms. Yes, they've been that way for a long time.

[TigerRaptor]

Genesis 1:1 ESV
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Earth is a planet.

[Alter-Fox]

No, no, BM, my dude. Lightwolf asked you to prove the thing.
You cited a book that's about faith.
In point of fact, the guy that book is about even says at one point, to this bloke Thomas, that the book he's in doesn't really do that whole proving of things. Not really what this guy's about, you know.

Commendably sneaky, yes. But answer the question you did not.

[LightWolf]

Also, fun fact, the flat Earth is not an idea native to Christianity, but was introduced by pagans.

Anyway all you did is cite one source which still requires a technicality to reach your conclusion. You didn't prove anything.

[Burlyman]

earth is a world, not a planet.

Look who's talking. Can you prove they exist and aren't holograms without NASA or space agency CGI?

[LightWolf]

"Can I prove it when all proof is a lie?"

How about the hundreds of objects we've sent up, sending back results consistent with the patterns of what stars do (mathematically and observationally), and consistent with each other? Or the sheer amount of people with competing interests who would have to keep this secret, with no leaks (like you see with every top secret leak that eventually gets confirmed)? You certainly can't have both with a secret like this - there either must be enough in common to collude, or the lack of common interest will produce numerous discrepancies. Even if they had so much in common, colluding with this level of consistency would be impossible.

Now let me ask you this: If they are holograms, who made the projectors, where are they, and where are they projecting to? If it's all CGI, again why so consistent given there's no way only one country would be producing it?

Or, my favorite, why so actively fabricate evidence for this hoax for so long? What incentive would there be to even start something like this?

[Alter-Fox]

"Can I prove it when all proof is a lie?"

How about the hundreds of objects we've sent up, sending back results consistent with the patterns of what stars do (mathematically and observationally), and consistent with each other? Or the sheer amount of people with competing interests who would have to keep this secret, with no leaks (like you see with every top secret leak that eventually gets confirmed)? You certainly can't have both with a secret like this - there either must be enough in common to collude, or the lack of common interest will produce numerous discrepancies. Even if they had so much in common, colluding with this level of consistency would be impossible.

Wait, you mean there's no ancient conspiracy?


...well then what the heck did I just join?

[Top Gun]

Yeah, I got a free coffee mug and everything.

[LightWolf]

Oh hey look what I found, something which addresses the model...erm, models, that flat earthers try to use.

[vision]

Holy crap, I had to watch the whole thing. Incredible. The flat Earth people have no idea what they are doing.

[Burlyman]

First of all, my name isn't BM, second of all, you're asking basic flat earth questions which means you haven't done the research (which is now near-impossible or impossible due to censorship similar to China) So that means I'd have to answer all those basic, easy to answer questions that you think are so hard and improbable. Should I tell you the answers considering how you have treated me all these years and continue to treat me? (If you say yes I'll do it anyway. )

I hope no one is feeding you things to say.

[Alter-Fox]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

If the contradictions that video points out are so basic why don't you address them for us, then, Mr. Highly Esteemed The Honourable Sir Not-BM? If you've done that research, come on and shut us up once and for all!
Or is your brain also censored by China?
Or... are you afraid to? Ooooh, I think you're scared.

Either that or they're not so easy to answer after all. 'Cause, and I'm sure you know this very well, "basic" is a word anyone can say anytime they want.

So, come on then. Prove you're not scared.

[TigerRaptor]

Holy crap, I had to watch the whole thing. Incredible. The flat Earth people have no idea what they are doing.

When Dave starts rolling, it's hard to turn away.

[Burlyman]

All you had to do is ask. I'll watch the videos and reply to you soon.

[Burlyman]

Okay I'm starting with 10 challenges for flat earthers, and this is mind-numbingly stupid and easy for someone who has to insult flat earthers. He could be a shill, but anyway

#1) almost every flat earther uses the azimuthal equidistant map. It has distances on it but they are distorted because of the "equidistant" part makes it so it's not to scale. A lot of flat earthers don't understand this.

See how easy this is so far?

#2) In this one he talks about the midnight sun. If it exists it's because there is less atmospheric refraction and the sun can be seen here and maintain the same apparent magnitude.

sigh lol

#3) Even geocentricity predicts the path of celestial objects like the sun. Flat earth is equivalent to the other two but doesn't have an explanation for hologram planets with retrograde motion because they are not planets, and I proved that using the Bible, showing what the word actually means, and the Bible isn't just a faith book, it's a history book and flat earth is not a pagan concept, it's supported by the bible.

#4) Okay this one is just bad. Apparently he's never seen a flat earth video where it is shown on the curvature calculator that the landmark should be buried under curvature, and he issues a "challenge" without having done so.

#5) There have been videos where people "stay on the boat" but it doesn't go "bottom up" like this guy so proudly claims, it just keeps moving forward in to the background and becoming invisible, this is why people don't show things from Texas to whatever state he mentioned.

#6) sigh this guy is just lying. A sun sets due to atmospheric refraction and has the same apparent magnitude because of water droplets in the air. This has been demonstrated before. He just claims it doesn't out of no where and then insists that the earth is a sphere (when it's said to be an oblate spheroid). He just insists that and hopes people still believe him. There are some dry days in some places where the sun appears to get small and then sets anyway.

No flat earther believes that the moon is the cause of tides or that the sun is outside the firmament. And the firmament isn't untouched, planes crashed into it in antarctica during World War II and Operation Fishbowl showed that even nukes can't breach the firmament. There isn't more refractive effect in the flat earth model or any other model but there is a density of water droplets that accounts for sunrises and sunsets and the moon works the same way.

#7) A lunar eclipse is a hologram. It should not exist. These things are there to make heliocentricity seem true to sun worshippers a.k.a. fanboys of scientism.

#8) there are plenty of weather balloon videos showing a flat horizon without a curved lens. Sending anything to the moon is not a good idea. The moon is a portal to another dimension. Nothing returns from there, and there is a lot of heat back there that gets transferred to the sun. It's the moon's job to cool down the earth.

#9) That's funny that he mentions flights, because there are many nonexistent flights over what you call antarctica that destroy his arguments altogether. Nobody goes across the pacific ocean like that, pilots always have to go north "on the globe" because it's faster, I.e. a straight path on the flat earth.

#10) I was going to write equations for flat earth, but there are too many things that need to be kept secret or protect people from it like the moon. So I decided not to bother because of trolls like him and work on quantum gravity, since that's what they want to hear about.

-----

How about the hundreds of objects we've sent up, sending back results consistent with the patterns of what stars do (mathematically and observationally), and consistent with each other? Or the sheer amount of people with competing interests who would have to keep this secret, with no leaks (like you see with every top secret leak that eventually gets confirmed)? You certainly can't have both with a secret like this - there either must be enough in common to collude, or the lack of common interest will produce numerous discrepancies. Even if they had so much in common, colluding with this level of consistency would be impossible.

Now let me ask you this: If they are holograms, who made the projectors, where are they, and where are they projecting to? If it's all CGI, again why so consistent given there's no way only one country would be producing it?

Or, my favorite, why so actively fabricate evidence for this hoax for so long? What incentive would there be to even start something like this?

The "hundreds of objects we sent up" just crash into the ocean unfilmed and planes are used instead of space telescopes like the Hubble. You'd be surprised about how many are in this loose-knit network, many in each different country. So there are no enemies but the ones they make. Collusion isn't impossible, it's just that most people can't fathom how it could be done, or they assume wrongly that the news media would say something. The media is also part of the same group of people who do things like this.

People above the high class made the projectors, they carry the projectors with them and they project to the firmament. It's consistent because they all agree on doing the same thing: make planets fit Newton's model.

[Alter-Fox]

I see a lot of words. You want to really prove things to people, you need math, and you need evidence. I thought you would understand that at least one of those things was what I was asking for?
The closest you came is claiming that a video of a ship exists somewhere, without actually showing it.

And, as far as the Definitely-Not-Just-Faith-Book goes, Mr. Doesn't Do BMs -- you only use it to prove things to your own satisfaction. Since you weren't the one who asked for it to be proved, that's still not how "proof" works. You're being sneaky again, but I'm better at that. I mean, come on, I literally present as a man-eating leopard.
Lightwolf asked you to prove it to his satisfaction, not your own. It would be extremely silly for anyone to think that he was only asking you to prove it to yourself, since it's patently obvious you've already done that and it would be a waste of energy to do it again. Until you at least convince the person who asked you the question, you can't honestly claim anything in that massive essay -- which I did read, by the way -- has been "proved".

And while you're at it, why not address his point about how a massive conspiracy full of millions of self-interested people could ever manage not to tear itself apart for more than a decade or two? All you really said was "well it does, so there". But I guarantee that if someone like me and someone like you were in an ancient conspiracy together, that conspiracy would be lucky to last a week. And the two of us aren't nearly so selfish as these folks are supposed to be.

All you have here are allegations, and something vaguely resembling religion. You say the latter is not a faith book, but since you present no evidence to prove that it's not, you're still asking everyone here to take everything you've said on faith.

So why should we take you on faith, Mr. Doesn't Do-BMs?
As far as I can see, your version of the world is not one that the rest of us want to live in. Since we still see nothing to suggest that we do live in it, what exactly makes this worth rejecting the one we have, eh?

[Alter-Fox]

Eeh, you know, if you get an essay I do too.
It's only fair.

Let me ask you a question: if you could choose between doing just a little bit of work to secure a good place in life for yourself and your (current and/or future) children; or doing a ★■◆●-ton of work to secure a good spot in life for a bunch of people who you'll never meet and might not even be related to you at all -- well, which one would you do?

Do you know what you can see plenty of evidence for, if you just crack open any history book?
Stories of every ultimate leader with ultimate power from Julius Caesar, to Henry VIII, to Napoleon Bonaparte, to Josef Stalin (and that's just in Europe!) all show that people who are willing to share ultimate power with a group would really prefer if they had it all for themselves and their children; and that none of them really think of the consequences beyond their own lifespan. The most forward-thinking among them might just barely manage to consider their grandchildren.

With that evidence in mind, the maximum lifespan for a conspiracy like the one Flat Eathers describe couldn't possibly be more than three generations; and that's being generous.

So, in the face of that, anyone who's going to cover the holes in their worldview by saying "a massive conspiracy did it" might as well say they believe a wizard did it, because given the evidence of recorded history, evil magic would be more plausible.

The fact that you're here, telling us "it's real, man", should be proof enough that human psychology doesn't work that way. 'Cause you see, my BM-deprived friend, in a world where such a thing was possible, you'd be keeping the conspiracy's secrets to use for blackmail so they'd let you in. Because even without a seat at their table, your chances with them would be so much higher than your chances against them that talking about something they want to keep secret on an open forum like this one would go against your logic, your common sense, and every survival instinct you have.
And, again, you want evidence for that? This was everyday life for the common folk in feudal societies like medieval and renaissance Europe, under monarchies which were not nearly as powerful or dangerous as your monster in the dark. More recently, this was very very much everyday life for people living under communist regimes like the USSR -- something I know from my own grandparents' life stories.
So, you don't even need to talk to a history professor -- ask any middle-aged guy off the streets of eastern Europe, and you'll have evidence for weeks.

So, in the meantime, if you want to convince me that you even really believe there's a big conspiracy out there, you're gonna have to start acting a lot more paranoid. Or, like, get poisoned to death by a mysterious assassin because you got too close to something they didn't want you to know. That would also work.

And meanwhile, the only evidence that Sir Antilaxative here has presented is a book that no one but him ever accepted as being valid in this thread's context.

[vision]

I see a lot of words. You want to really prove things to people, you need math, and you need evidence.

This is the crux of it all. Using a round Earth model you can predict all manner of celestial phenomenon (holograms or not). I've never even seen a flat Earth model let alone one that can make a perdition. If the Earth really is flat it doesn't matter. What really matters is the model because it's useful to our civilization.

[LightWolf]

Okay I'm starting with 10 challenges for flat earthers,

Why do I feel like you're intentionally avoiding the video I linked? I know you didn't watch it, because the 'flat horizon' footage was addressed in it.

Just for you, I'm going to link it again. This guy is directly responding to a GlobeBusters video. He admits that in a previous video he didn't research the flat earth position very well, so he made sure to research it very well for this one.

People above the high class made the projectors, they carry the projectors with them and they project to the firmament.

Hence why they existed long before modern technology...right.

Do you know where the term 'wandering star' comes from? There are stars - not holograms - which don't stay relatively fixed. These are the basis of the Newtonian model. I don't think history is "People made hologram projectors based on Newton's model. Newton observed the holograms, and made his model. Technology came around to create hologram projectors. In that order."

Here's a fun fact for you: One reason the heliocentric model was accepted over the geocentric model is because people did the math on both models, and how they accounted for the wandering stars. The heliocentric calculations proved to be so much simpler. And, as it turns out, a heliocentric model would tear apart the Earth if it were flat.

[Top Gun]

Just what has to happen in your life to get you to the point where you're this batshit ★■◆●ing insane? I genuinely want to know.

[LightWolf]

Just what has to happen in your life to get you to the point where you're this batshit ★■◆●ing insane? I genuinely want to know.

I could ask you the same about your incessant use of personal degradation in place of reason, but that's not very relevant to this thread.

If you've been told something your whole life, and have had little to no reason to see things differently, you will inevitably strengthen those beliefs. Some beliefs eventually become part of your worldview and presuppositions, where they will proceed to filter new incoming evidence in their own light. This is why i.e. creation vs evolution is very rarely solved by evidence. As a creationist, I believe the evidence clearly points to creation. As an evolutionist, you believe the evidence clearly points to evolution. You would see the stars as the natural product of natural processes, while I would see them as the awesome product of God's creation process. (Oh Burly, I have seen a creation model which relies on the Bible, but results in things like stars and planets, including a round Earth...)

In short, the reason he's so 'insane' is because of the same psychological process that led you to conclude he's insane.

[Alter-Fox]

I think that's still overly simplistic, LW, that example you're giving is more down to two groups of people having a different definition of what qualifies as "evidence", rather than coming to a certain conclusion based purely on personal upbringing. It's more about that upbringing influencing how much weight a person is inclined to give to different sorts of evidence. I may like the scientific argument on that issue more than the religious one, but I can still see very easily how someone whose upbringing revolved around a bible could come to see more importance in the information inside that book than in information the physical world gives them. It is still a rational thought process in both cases, and I can still see how someone could become convinced.

For an example of what I mean, someone like you might reject some scientific ideas based on contradictions with your religion, but you're not going to reject the idea that, say, your brain is the control center of your body, just because that idea is based on biology. However, if it were solely a question of what you were brought up to believe in, you'd have every reason to reject it.


Anyway, the difference between that type of judgment and the Flat Earth thinking is -- well, for one thing, Flat Earth is a very new idea. New enough that I doubt Mr Totally-not-a-BM could have learned it from his childhood. And for another, it seems to rely on rejecting all forms of evidence, instead of people making up their minds based on the types of evidence they like more. Then after the fact, they try to pick tiny little bits of information that could fit it if they were twisted into just the right shapes, and glue those together into something that doesn't really look very convincing at all. It looks a lot more like an irrational thought process.

I might even be inclined to say Top Gun has a point (even if you don't like how he put it) because rejection of reality and irrational thinking can be a response to trauma.

Meanwhile, the great B-but-not-M is undoubtedly writing us a wonderful story about how the dinosaurs invented holograms in ancient Mesopotamia and we've been playing catch-up for sixty five million years. XD

[dissent]

See, that's what I mean. Haven't been here in a fair chunk of time, and I come back, and it's like nothing has changed.

Feels like home.

[Alter-Fox]

What, you didn't notice the slightly increased levels of awareness and self-parody?

[LightWolf]

One's worldview and presuppositions always inform how evidence is interpreted. Having looked at the evidence, I would argue that evolution is scientifically irrational, and Burly Man would see the round earth as scientifically irrational. By bringing up the 'science vs religion' dichotomy, you're proving my point - you've filtered out the scientific evidence against evolution because it doesn't fit your evolutionary presuppositions. (For example, what if Miller and Urey introduced just a little bit of oxygen into their experiment, as would have inevitably happened to get to an oxygen-rich atmosphere, also being an inevitable result of any number of chemical processes? The results would have been far different - any produced amino acids would have been immediately destroyed by the resulting explosion. He also fails to consider that there must have been more than methane, ammonia, and hydrogen in the primordial soup; how would the aforementioned oxygen-rich atmosphere exist today otherwise? And this is a fairly low-level flaw - there are some much bigger ones, such as many models being based on an outdated, simplistic model of a cell.)
Also worth pointing out that the flat earth theory has existed for a long time, even if it is recent in terms of all of human history, so his upbringing most certainly can have influenced him. It is far from the only thing that's influenced any of us, but it has definitely influenced all of us.

If you watch that video, you will see that flat earthers do in fact rely on evidence, even if it is easy to discredit the conclusions they reach. If you think about it, there isn't that significant a gap between flat earthers who ignore the gaping holes in their theory and the evolutionists who ignore the holes in theirs. This is all due to worldview bias. The only reason you can't see how someone could reasonably believe in the flat earth is because of your round earth bias. Burly is just as guilty, judging by his notable reluctance and dismissiveness to discrediting the round earth position - it appears he finds the round earth unreasonable. It is possible to show that a position is unreasonable or unscientific, but assuming such a thing because you've suitably convinced yourself of it, and especially projecting that assumption onto your opponent (I've convinced myself that their position is unreasonable, therefore they must be unreasonable), doesn't lend yourself any favors.

So no, Burly is not insane. He is just driven by his worldview and presuppositions, as are you and I, and especially TG. He would only be unreasonable if he were shown to an extent that should convince him and he continued to believe in the flat earth (i.e. if we could get him to recognize the flat earth doesn't even have a singular consistent model to explain all relevant phenomena, then he continued to insist it did).

(Also worth pointing out that TG uses that strategy of "I've convinced myself that their position is unreasonable, therefore they must be unreasonable" all the time in E&C as a reason to focus on personal attacks rather than actually arguing anything, hence why I felt it was time to call him out.)

[Alter-Fox]

Well, see, now you're making an argument that your worldview is the only one that could possibly explain everything. For one thing that's not so different from what TG is doing.
For a second thing, I wouldn't be so hard on him. BM has a well-earned reputation here for being a... how will I put this... insufferable jerkface. This conversation between the two of them faaaaaar more often plays out in reverse. I don't blame him for getting a little bit of satisfaction.
And you're wrong about his thinking, too. Most of us who've been here long enough to really know him have known that Burlyman himself is unreasonable for far longer than we've known what his position is.

For a third thing, unlike you I never claimed or implied my own worldview to be perfect. Science is a process of finding answers to questions and then adjusting those answers based on asking better questions with new information, not a religious belief system purporting to explain everything at once like yours does. I would have expected you of all people to show at least some understanding of the difference.
So yes, there is an amount of faith inherent in rational thinking in both those cases, and in the case of science that's because we are always going to find new evidence that has to be accounted for before we can account for it (that is, as you know, how time works), or things that we know of but don't yet have the ability to explain. But both of us were already arguing that the thinking is the same, we're only disagreeing on the details of what that thinking is.

I maintain that this rational worldview-building is still about forming a worldview by accepting large pieces of information that all support the same conclusions, and only afterwards choosing to accept or reject other information based on the worldview.
Flat Earth thinking, at least right now while the movement associated with it is very small and obscure, still appears to be based on building a worldview by initially rejecting large pieces of information, and then looking for evidence to support what's left over. This is very much out of the ordinary for scientific or religious worldviews, but it is fairly standard for conspiracy theories.

And conspiracy theory is ultimately what Flat Earth is. Because if you take the conspiracy out of it, everything else falls apart.

[Spidey]

Personally, I don't even see the need for flat earth believers even needing a model or models, the heaven and earth were created by a supernatural being, and it can do as it pleases...AKA it doesn't need any estinking models.

Trying to make a supernatural creation fit the scientific model is where they make their mistake, it's like the debate on how dragons fly...they use magic, stupid.

The light shines the way God intended.
The seasons work the way God intended.
Etc.

Get over it.



I just want to know where the magnetic field comes from.

[Alter-Fox]

Hey, long time no see, you old bastard you.
I still actually see a difference here. In your statements, if you take God out of the religion, the statements still make sense.

The light shines.
The seasons work.

It's minimal, sure, but it doesn't require further questions unless you actually want to ask them.

In the case of the flat earth, you've got the statement "The Earth is flat but everyone thinks it's round, because an ancient conspiracy is covering it up."
If you take the conspiracy out of it, you've got "The Earth is flat but everyone thinks it's round."

Which fails to make sense, and practically begs for more questions. It's also unappealingly long-winded.
As I see it, that's what makes this a conspiracy theory and not just some oddball religious movement.

[LightWolf]

I'm not saying mine is the only one which could possibly explain anything. I'm just saying you're discrediting too much out of hand and owing it to unreasonableness. As a matter of fact, I believe yours is perfectly reasonable. That's my point - it takes a lot for such a thing to be unreasonable. If precedent shows me wrong on the reasonable thing in BM's case, then fine; I was going just based off my experience with him. Flat Earth random Joes (possibly excluding BM) aren't inherently unreasonable however, just wrong.

If that's the dynamic between TG and BM, then fine. I just noticed it seems to be a default position for TG in just about every argument I've seen him in, hence why I pointed it out. Doesn't make Burly doing it any better.

I never claimed the Bible explains everything; if it did, we wouldn't need science. I'm just saying that religion is not inherently anti-scientific, and by stating 'religion vs science' the way you did, you are in turn implying anti-evolution can only come from an anti-scientific position. I am not even claiming to know specifically how biological creation may have worked, just that evolution has some big flaws to it. Scientific flaws. A good theory needs to have both significant evidence for it and be able to explain or discredit the evidence against it. Faced with a small pile of evidence against it, or a pile which constantly receives answers, "we'll explain it someday" would fly by me. But when a large pile of evidence is met with centuries of "we'll explain it someday", I can't help but take notice it takes a much larger leap of faith to believe evolution than it does to believe another model is much better suited. (With that said, I feel like if we're going to continue to debate this point we should take it to another thread.)

I'm not going to argue that the flat Earth worldview is not flawed. It most certainly is. Just dismissing someone as insane because of it is not a very productive position to hold. (Again, if it is warranted in BM's case, then so be it.)

Anyway, enough with this tangent... Ready to answer the objections raised in that specific video Burly?

Edit: DBB forgot to warn me there were new responses...Just wanted to point out that European science was born out of asking those 'how?' and 'why?' questions that theistic religion left. "Because God said so" doesn't explain how the universe works. This is why we have scientific models. Without them, you get stereotypical ignorant religious "God of the gaps" nuts.