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Flat Earth Believers... I DONT GET IT!!!!

If you watch the sunrise or sunset (the 2 safest times to actually look at the sun directly) the sun is round. After that you watch the moon and it is also round. So are these simply disks that happen to always face us? Or are they round and the flat earth is simply a happy accident? If it is, in fact, flat then how thick is this disc we ride on? Given all the modern technology available we should be able to dig to the other side, right? I guess one could argue there is no water in the moon 'cuz it all rolled off. And all our "friends" in "other countries" with different "time zones" are really just fooling us about it being dark where they are when it's light here, right?
I think it isn't far-fetched to think our government(s) often try to redirect our thinking on many things but in order for all of that to work it would have to be controlled by one "master" government capable of keeping that delusion alive. Since we often can't even agree on simple trading rules, humanitarian rules, etc., how the heck would they all be able to agree to conspire on a round earth conspiracy? And did this same master government conspire to bury all those "dinosaur" bones in various areas of the earth or do they just have a factory somewhere to make them for display purposes? And of course we have the old gem "If we evolved from apes then why are there still apes?" I have a friend who doesn't believe in evolution OR creationism so I am still trying to figure out if he thinks we are just some happy accident. I am also pretty sure he thinks there can't possibly be other forms of life other than on earth. My theory on that: I think there are other sentient beings out there and they are simply smart enough to avoid us like the plague
 
If you think that flat earthers are a bunch of shallow thinking, conspiracy nutjobs then check out the hollow earth conspiracy people.


By comparison the flat earth people are well balance and sane.
 
psionandy said:
If you think that flat earthers are a bunch of shallow thinking, conspiracy nutjobs then check out the hollow earth conspiracy people.


By comparison the flat earth people are well balance and sane.
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I once read a conspiracy theory magazine that contained both an article on how the moon landings were faked and another on how the US government were in secret contact with aliens and that was how, amongst other things, they were able to develop the technology to reach the moon so quickly.

I couldn't work out whether the readers were split into 2 camps, each of which would vehemently reject the other's theories, or whether they were skilled practitioners of doublethink who could simultaneously believe that both contradictory propositions were true (while rejecting simpler, self-consistent explanations).
 
Zigman66 said:
If you watch the sunrise or sunset (the 2 safest times to actually look at the sun directly) the sun is round. After that you watch the moon and it is also round. So are these simply disks that happen to always face us?
Click to expand...
Actually the ancient Greeks worked that one out. They observed that the phases of the Moon were shadows, and that the shapes of the light and dark areas implied that the Moon was spherical.

Though of course the Moon is a sphere that happens to always face the same side to us (tidal locking) ;).

In fact once you realise that the dark areas are in shadow, which is pretty obvious, it's really hard to consider the Moon as a disc. I've tried to think of a way you could produce such shadows on the face of the Moon and the best I could do would be to have the Moon semi-transparent and lit up from behind by a source that emitted a cone of light that exactly reached the edges of the Moon's disk (fine-tuned to produce no spill-over, no dark rim), with an opaque hemisphere rotating around the light source to produce a changing pattern of shade on the surface of the disk. This whole system then has to move across the sky together. That is, of course, far more complicated than just having a rotating sphere that's illuminated from one side, but it could produce the right shape of shadow.

If you accept that the dark side is a shadow cast on the Moon then to believe that the Moon is flat you need to posit an extremely implausible cosmology: some object between the light source - presumably the Sun - and the Moon, co-moving with the Moon so that the shadow stays in place as the Moon moves across the sky, but always outside our line of sight, even when the Moon is visible in daytime (so both Sun and Moon are above the horizon). And this object has to change shape in a very peculiar way to produce the phases, while never casting its shadow on the Earth. I suspect that is too much even for a flat-Earther - certainly William of Occam would have a field day with it.
 
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the-flat-earthers.jpg
 
I kinda hate how small Earth is, like, there's inhabit places in the world but it's a sea of water mostly unless it's an island only those nearby know about it and keep it a somewhat of a secret. The thing is, I'd like to sorta go live afar from civilization and just not worry about the world at all. The world kinda sucks.
 
PhilipX20 said:
I kinda hate how small Earth is
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You'd not like it bigger.

If we pretend, for simplicity, that the average density of the planet would stay constant as we increased its size, then the surface area scales with radius^2 while the mass scales with radius^3. So since the gravitational force on the surface is proportional to mass/radius^2 it follows that if you wanted to double the surface area (and who wants to mess about with small increases: if we're going to do this let's make it worthwhile) you have to increase the mass by a factor of 2.8, and hence your weight at ground level by 40%. That's not only tiring, and a major problem for civil engineers, but makes you much more likely to injure yourself if you fall. And of course flight has become a lot more difficult to achieve.

You could make the land area larger, but that would have some major effects on climate. The consequences would depend on exactly how you did it (more islands would, I think, be less dramatic than larger continents - the interior of Pangea was pretty uninhabitable I believe). Doubling the land area would undoubtably have severe effects however you did it though.

So to bring this back on topic, if you really want a bigger world a sphere is the wrong shape. An Orbital would be a better design - much less work to build than a Ringworld or a Dyson Sphere, and should be big enough for most people. Though I suspect you may still require magical engineering materials to build it (I've not done the stress calculations). But it would be flat in one direction at least.

As for making a bigger flat Earth, if you didn't want to risk it cracking you'd need more elephants to support it and spread the load. And a bigger turtle...
 
It's a good point. They have a Facebook page. Maybe I'll pose the question to them, showing the above image.
If I get an explanation, I'll post back here.
 
Actually I don't think it's worth it, because looking at the stuff on there, I'm convinced it's all a joke.
 
Well what's amazing is the world thought that Galelio (Capernicus was the first though) was some kind of evil satanic bastard back in the day when he said the earth is not the center of the universe because he said the church was stupid and wrong.

And everybody back in the day persecuted him and Galelio got thrown in jail and excommunicated him (to cut off from heaven) and everybody hated him and despised his guts and was seen as some kind of demon or "Satan".

You cant say anything against popular opinion even today / these days or you too will also get thrown in the same "evil demon" and "nut case" basket :)

Some people (not all) don't like it when you question things or want to probe deeper and try to understand what is really going on which is very odd.

People will always take the popular opinion at the time or what seems to be the biggest story in the news or media that everyone is pushing.

What is important to remember is that popular people always get the most attention and spotlight but being popular doesn't mean it is always right or correct.

Scary world where the biggest, loudest, dumbest and most aggressive and most arrogant people are told they are correct and everyone must just shut up and blindly follow them and if you don't agree with them you are seen as some kind of demon or evil bastard which may not even be the case at all you could just trying hard to understand something.

The status quo is not always correct or what the raging crowds say :)

Thank God justic was done and Galelio had the last laugh! ;)

Phew!
 
The truth always comes out even if it's 100's of years later! :D

Who knows?

Maybe Einstein will be seen as a fraud and that maybe time space was actually discovered by a cat!

People hated Vincent Van Gogh for example and everyone said he was a total loser noob but after time he was seen as one of the greatest artists that had ever lived but everyone hated him at the time.

 
I always assumed, since school age in the Sixties, that people who believed the Earth was not round / spherical believed in consequence that it was a cube / cuboid shape.
Looking at this thread do some people believe it's literally a flat piece of earth with limits?

As kids we used to always joke about people falling off an edge, and I'd still like to see these people explain or provide photographic evidence of that limit (if they don't believe in conspiracies of information being withheld, mind control etc).

Of course it's lunacy to deny in the presence of long distance air travel, basic visual cues etc., if they want to deny satellite and computer information and the rest.

The more interesting aspect of this 'discussion' - pertaining to government conspiracies, mind control etc (and something that has intrigued me a lot longer) is an organisation's actual ability to keep a large secret, known to dozens or hundreds of employees and others, and passed on to their replacements over time. I'm obviously thinking of the Moon landings (Capricorn One) and Roswell .I wouldn't want to offend by even mentioning the Holocaust and 9/11 deniers.

It would be humanly impossible in my view to prevent a leak.
 
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