DescentBB

With the all the scientific achievements made over the decades. People still believe the world is flat by a large margin.

This dude still takes the time to explain it.

I can tolerate flat earthers, their theories are dumb but ultimately harmless because all it takes is a little bit of education to convince the average person to dismiss them. The people I truly despise are the anti-vaxers, their theories are extremely harmful and can cause death or permanent disabilities to others.

Although it should be noted that there is significant crossover between flat earthers and anti-vaxers (and they also tend to be conspiracy theory junkies in general).

Oh, those guys. Their theories so far out the there, the Twilight Zone and Tales from the Darkside put up a keep out sign.

Well, I mean I pity them just a little... it lets them shut down anything at all someone might say that they don't want to hear, which definitely makes it look like a defense mechanism for someone who just isn't able to deal with reality.
But I try not to feel too sorry because reality usually isn't that hard to deal with if you try, and I think most of the flat earth people are either too lazy to try, or outright cowards too afraid of other people to deal with them as equals.

Such an utter rejection of reality is really a rejection of one's own survival in it, and the only reason any creature would have to do a thing like that is if it's so afraid it believes, on some instinctual level, that it could never survive anyway.

A friend of mine became a flat-Earther. It's sad. He had a religious experience in his 40s and now believes all sorts of conspiracy theories. Really smart and talented guy, but sometimes little cracks in human psychology become chasms.

Kinda funny how people believe stuff "because God said so!" even when God clearly did not say so.
In terms of Christian flat-Earthers most people point to poetic language in the Bible and take way too literally.

I still find it funny that 'the four corners of the Earth' is used to support the flat Earth, then they make the map a circle.

While we're talking about it, when I hear about the flat Earth I can't help but think of this:

I think John Cleese said something once about how sometimes the problem with religion is that it tends to be started by very smart people -- or very smart god(s) talking to very smart people if you prefer -- and that the trouble with really smart people is that they don't always think and speak in literal terms, yet the people hanging onto their every word don't really know that.
So if you take that as granted it's not very surprising.

More amusing to me is how they take a line about the "corners of the Earth" and use it to justify a disc shape.

Personally, I really like to hear people's misconceptions. I once had a lady angrly explain that Early Voting votes didn't actually count and that Election Day ballots were the only one that counted. It's super wrong, but man was I fascinated by the mental journey she took to arrive at that conclusion.

I'd love to meet a flat earther. If sound logic is vegetables, flawed logic must be ice cream.

I mean, that's probably the reason most creative people are creative.
This world's too limiting. But unfortunately it also exists. If you can't live with that you can't really create, 'cause there's no point in making something better if you've already convinced yourself you can have anything you want.

Tragic really. Maybe it's because the things those people want are just so boring.
So you wouldn't really want to meet them. They must be very boring people.

Modern cosmology says the entire universe is flat, so of course the earth is flat...silly. <deadpan>

Heh. Not so fast....

https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... d-or-flat/

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-sha ... -20191104/

Since Anti-vaxxers has been mentioned... In my profession, it's one of my greatest obstacles and it's going to get worse soon.

I know what you mean, my best friend's now a doctor and I'm in healthcare as well... and even though I'm only tangentially involved with patients, everyone working in a hospital feels that frustration.
Everyone who has any connection at all to patient care has been educated and trained to be an expert in something, and none of us would be there if we didn't have that informed belief in our ability to help people.

Never mind that their whole idea is incredibly insulting to anyone who is on the autism spectrum, 'specially those who manage to get along in the world just fine.

LightWolf wrote: ↑Sat Jun 20, 2020 8:24 pm Kinda funny how people believe stuff "because God said so!" even when God clearly did not say so.
In terms of Christian flat-Earthers most people point to poetic language in the Bible and take way too literally.

I remember the days when the Ethics forum was purely bible bashing.

People are getting exponentially more stupid so there is a lot more bash about.

I saw all the arguments and I'm convinced. Funny how people with the same education as flat earthers dismiss them as being "stupid." How arrogant.

Yes how dare people be arrogant and side with basic physical reality.

People believe what they want as long as it conforms to their world view, even if it's batshit crazy.

Yeah, trouble is when people this threatened by rational reality decide you are a particular threat, you’ll be very lucky if it's just a little annoying.
They'll mob you like a flock of ravens, only without a raven's sense, a raven's ability to figure out when to stop, or... a raven's brainpower in general.

...I might just be insulting ravens right now.

They don't just stick to prominent visible people like politicians or celebrities either. When a group is this convinced that 99.9% of the population is a threat to their basic worldview, they might go after anyone at all just for showing rational thought where they can see it.

One of my co-workers believed that the vaccine had a chip in it. He also still believes it changes your DNA. He also believes he was forced to get vaccinated or else he'd lose his job. I told him he had the choice. He denied it. I said you could have said no and suffer the consequences of your action but he's prefer to blame someone else.

He also believes the world is about 4000 years old.

Oh, I forgot to mention he's a religious nutcase. I've seen far to many patterns when it comes to religion. They don't seem to have any common sense or logic.

CDN_Merlin wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 5:01 pm One of my co-workers believed that the vaccine had a chip in it. He also still believes it changes your DNA. He also believes he was forced to get vaccinated or else he'd lose his job. I told him he had the choice. He denied it. I said you could have said no and suffer the consequences of your action but he's prefer to blame someone else.

Sounds like a defeatist for sure. But then a lot of these conspiracy theories seem to be about having an excuse to give up.
Otherwise you'd expect things, like, freemasons having a higher rate of being murder victims than everybody else.
I would just say to someone like that, that if they want to unnecessarily quit their job or live in their own world that's even crappier ours already is, they can go ahead and do that while I stay in this one and stay relatively happy. A sort of "It's no loss to me, and you can't make it one."
And then change the subject to the weather.

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 8:47 pm And then change the subject to the weather.

Where they will immediately say "Climate change is a hoax!" and deny it has anything to do with Minnesota having Tornadoes in the middle of December.

I just can't deal with this level of stupidity. It hurts my head.

Krom wrote: ↑Thu Dec 16, 2021 6:22 am

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 8:47 pm And then change the subject to the weather.

Where they will immediately say "Climate change is a hoax!" and deny it has anything to do with Minnesota having Tornadoes in the middle of December.

Oh well... what about traffic?
There has to be *something* so mundane they can't twist it into a spy thriller plotline.

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:43 pm Oh well... what about traffic?
There has to be *something* so mundane they can't twist it into a spy thriller plotline.

Nope, there are even conspiracy theories that electric vehicle batteries emit EM radiation and it has been covered up.

The thing about mental illness is that it can twist anything.

What if that is counter-intelligence?

Top Gun wrote: ↑Sat Dec 11, 2021 7:25 pm Yes how dare people be arrogant and side with basic physical reality.

lol You either haven't heard all the arguments or you don't understand them. Because 9.81 m/s/s acceleration isn't enough to hold people moving at 40,000 m/s there are a lot of reasons why your beliefs aren't physical reality.

So there's another mental illness now? Add Flat Earther Disorder to the fake DSM.

Burlyman wrote: ↑Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:21 pm lol You either haven't heard all the arguments or you don't understand them. Because 9.81 m/s/s acceleration isn't enough to hold people moving at 40,000 m/s there are a lot of reasons why your beliefs aren't physical reality.

...this makes literally no sense. At all.

The best thing about flat-earther insanity is that all it would take for one of these people to gain credibility would be to show where the Earth's edge is. So...why haven't they?

They have. This is what I mean about you being ignorant. It takes a lot more for it to gain credibility, even for me. They haven't because people like you don't understand real logic from false logic. Google and other companies made it very difficult if not impossible to research flat earth. Also, some people sometimes give nonsensical answers but for the most part it's true. Not to mention there are shills and then there's the phony Flat Earth Society...

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

I can probably answer all the "challenges for Flat Earthers" but honestly I don't feel like it. Just like I didn't debunk your hippie Jesus concept about Christianity. I'll do it if you really really want me to, though. but I might be throwing pearls before swine.

Burlyman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:40 amThey haven't because people like you don't understand real logic from false logic.

I know this is just a Neo troll post, which I imagine is entertainment for him, but I'm going to respond because I have a Flat Earth friend I had conversations with.

It doesn't matter if someone believes the Earth is flat or round because it's doesn't affect a person's daily like that something like mushroom foraging does (where people routinely get sick and die). Here is the thing about the flat versus round Earth. We have models of a round Earth that allow us to make extremely accurate predictions of the world around us. What would a flat Earth model look like and could it out perform the round Earth model? This is the only thing I ever want to hear from a flat Earth proponent. Please use a flat Earth model to predict the next solar eclipse and show the math. No conspiracy story, just math. Those who know enough about the flat Earth must surely know the diameter / thickness / whatever. Let's see your work so we can compare it to round Earth models. If the flat Earth model is better, that's what I'll use.

First of all, I'm not a troll, second of all, I'm not trying to be "entertained" by any of you, I am serious.

There are documents that use a non-rotating flat earth and say the flat earth assumption is valid (a hint!) and these are for aircraft models. You'll have to look that one up if I can't find it. Just don't go to the moon. This is why nobody goes to the moon, they just say they do and are told to lie about it. It's not something you can land on and it's dangerous to fly into it.

I didn't get a real response. Disappointed.

You haven't understood a single real response we've ever given you, so why should we continue to waste our breath?

But please, do enlighten us. Derive a law of universal gravitation that would account for a flat Earth.

Burlyman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 12:19 pmThere are documents that use a non-rotating flat earth and say the flat earth assumption is valid (a hint!) and these are for aircraft models. You'll have to look that one up if I can't find it.

I looked it up! And, in the process I found an explanation why those papers exist from a well-sourced flat-earth debunking site. When looking at the evidence side-by-side, I'll have to go with the debunking site. They did their homework.

Burlyman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 12:19 pmJust don't go to the moon. This is why nobody goes to the moon, they just say they do and are told to lie about it. It's not something you can land on and it's dangerous to fly into it.

So, this is an interesting idea. Is the conspiracy to hide the flat Earth a global conspiracy that even our enemies are in on? Because lots of countries have, and still go to the moon. For example, China, Israel, India, and Japan have all sent landers and satellites there. What is so dangerous about the Moon?

I can't tell you either of these things except that gravity is not universal. They are secrets. Sorry.

but keep thinking people can land on the moon, it might be safer that way.

"I have no idea what I'm talking about so I'm going to throw out some page non sequiturs and then walk slowly out of the room."

lol you're just mad because I won't tell you about real gravity.

I am devastated Neo, truly devastated.

Burlyman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 1:11 pm lol you're just mad because I won't tell you about real gravity.

Laughs in Einstein

Which is heavier - 1000lbs of lead or 1000lbs of aerogel?

Lol Burlie, why am I not surprised this is you?

Maybe I can have some fun with you after all.