The Earth is flat!

[double u]

"Seriously though, are there any flat earthers who are celestial navigators?"

Are there pre-GPS-circumnavigators using celestial only, who are flat earthers? I don't think so!

[HopCar]

I was a flat earth believer until I lived with cats (feline type). I now know that if the Earth was flat, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.

[TeddyDiver]

While waiting someone to find the edge of flat earth I'm fine with the "globe" as presentation of the reality
I have a question thou. As living up north in 70deg how do they explain the midnight sun and polar night?

[Michael Cobbe]

If the Earth was flat there wouldn't be a horizon.

[Uncle Bob]

The earth is fat, get over it.
Oh sorry, the the quote was flat.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

While waiting someone to find the edge of flat earth I'm fine with the "globe" as presentation of the reality
I have a question thou. As living up north in 70deg how do they explain the midnight sun and polar night?

But is that really reality or just what you have been conditioned to believe??

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Bill Seal

I believe Ptolemy of Alexandria created some unbelievable mathmatical gyrations in order to prove the earth was the center of the universe, and Copernicus did some fancy tap dancing to promote his heliocentric theory (or be labeled a heretic and be burned at the stake or some such thing)
I wonder how a flat earther could explain the math behind celestial navigation?
How does spherical geometry work on a flat plate?

BTW, The clown from Amboy or Ludlow who was going to go up in a rocket to prove the earth was flat, ended up splattering himself all over the Mojave Desert.

I think it was this Ptolemy bloke that made a pretty good stab at calculating the diameter of the earth.

He appeared to have a habit of staring down wells at local mid day and noticed that in a certain day in southern Egypt the reflection of the sun was in the very middle of the circle of water at the bottom. Some months later when he was back in the north he noticed a similar occurrence. He then hired a bloke to walk between the wells and count the paces and was then able to calculate the earths diameter.

So it appears that we have had both flat earthers and round earthers for a fair while now.

Galileo was obliged to recant his heliocentric theories by The Inquisition and his works on the subject were placed on the Proscribed List by the church. They remained there until a couple of decades ago. This was an organization which acted to preserve much ancient learning through the dark ages of western civilization.

We all make mistakes occasionally.

[clownfishsydney]

Funnily, in my 63 years, I have never met an Australian who believes the Earth is flat. I am sure there are some, but the number must be low.

Why do Americans seem to have a high percentage of flat earthers? Related to COVID views and gun ownership views perhaps (all of which can also be conspiracy theory related)?

[Joefiss]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I think it dangerous to simply dismiss flat Earthers (and all the related non-science believers) as simply people who are unintelligent. In many cases these people are demonstrably highly intelligent and thoughtful. And more importantly, they tend to be people who are also highly engaged in the subject. Often they've spent way more time thinking about the issue than the average person.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, how do people like this fall so far off the apple cart? How do our highly technical and science-based societies produce people like this?

Anti-science movements are on the rise all over the developed world. The Internet, and to a larger extent so-called "social media", are great enablers. But there is something deeper going on. Expertise and verifiable knowledge is under attack at all levels. We see the results in anti-science rhetoric that is now being spouted at the highest levels of leadership.

Flat Earthers are kinda cute. It easy to dismiss them. But they are a tip of a very large iceberg that appears to be growing.

I can answer this one Mike. It comes down to trust in the veracity of what others tell us. With knowledge exploding exponentially the ability to comprehend all that information becomes increasingly impossible to assimilate. The inverse is faith must increase in what others are telling us is true. With modern technological societies the malevolence of some can and does undermine this faith in the benevolence of the majority of others with profound understanding of certain subject matter. As faith in the benevolence of others erode the individual retreats into religious hysteria, conspiracy theories and rejection of social norms that continue to isolate the individual in an ever smaller vortex culminating in little more than existence as a disconnected thinking thing or a brain in a vat. Fortunately there is a method of reversing this trend. Whether it catches on is a different issue. Reconciliation is the method where a deceiver admits their error and makes amends and the offended accepts this gesture. Faith can then be restored. Of course I could be wrong and if so I apologize.

[Joefiss]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

But is that really reality or just what you have been conditioned to believe??

Well clearly this is just my imagination as a thinking thing caught between an invisible evil deceiver and an equally invisible benevolent deity staving off the madness of being truly alone.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

I think it was this Ptolemy bloke [...]

*Eratosthenes


But don't worry ...

Originally Posted by RaymondR

We all make mistakes occasionally.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I think it dangerous to simply dismiss flat Earthers (and all the related non-science believers) as simply people who are unintelligent. In many cases these people are demonstrably highly intelligent and thoughtful. And more importantly, they tend to be people who are also highly engaged in the subject. Often they've spent way more time thinking about the issue than the average person.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, how do people like this fall so far off the apple cart? How do our highly technical and science-based societies produce people like this?

Anti-science movements are on the rise all over the developed world. The Internet, and to a larger extent so-called "social media", are great enablers. But there is something deeper going on. Expertise and verifiable knowledge is under attack at all levels. We see the results in anti-science rhetoric that is now being spouted at the highest levels of leadership.

Flat Earthers are kinda cute. It easy to dismiss them. But they are a tip of a very large iceberg that appears to be growing.

Nothing to disagree with there...

Originally Posted by Joefiss

I can answer this one Mike. It comes down to trust in the veracity of what others tell us. With knowledge exploding exponentially the ability to comprehend all that information becomes increasingly impossible to assimilate. The inverse is faith must increase in what others are telling us is true. With modern technological societies the malevolence of some can and does undermine this faith in the benevolence of the majority of others with profound understanding of certain subject matter. As faith in the benevolence of others erode the individual retreats into religious hysteria, conspiracy theories and rejection of social norms that continue to isolate the individual in an ever smaller vortex culminating in little more than existence as a disconnected thinking thing or a brain in a vat. Fortunately there is a method of reversing this trend. Whether it catches on is a different issue. Reconciliation is the method where a deceiver admits their error and makes amends and the offended accepts this gesture. Faith can then be restored. Of course I could be wrong and if so I apologize.

Not sure exactly what you're saying, but it does seem to echo some thoughts I've been having, and that I've heard others extolling.

It seems a lot (most?) of these 'fringe' groups have at least one common denominator (and leaving out a host of relative-affluence-related psychological factors); it provides them something that used to be available locally. Identity.

Without going into a rant on the 'evils' of today's society, many, many people seem nowadays to be unable to fend for themselves; maybe it's just me, or maybe the desire to be part of the crowd, or perhaps any crowd, has always been just as prevalent as it feels now, but to my memory it seems that not very long ago, individuality was not nearly as rare as it is now.

And it doesn't seem in anyway confined to the 'younger generations'.

Hard to say if this will wind up being a good thing or a bad thing overall, but personally I don't like the connotations I've seen so far.

I'm probably just getting old...

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

But is that really reality or just what you have been conditioned to believe??

The edge of flat earth? Where's that? And how midnight sun and arctic night are explained? If you notice I'm not whistling..

[NaClyDog]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

If they cannot explain it then its a conspiracy and not real!!!

Sadly, this isn't reserved for the realm of the flat earthers.

[GordMay]

According to a study by YouGovUS, millennials between the ages of 18 and 24, are more likely than any, to answer the question 'Is the earth flat or round?' with an answer flat (4%).
➥ https://today.yougov.com/topics/phil...lves-religious

The basic goal of a conspiracy theorist, isn’t usually to prove that one specific theory is true or false, but to prove that nothing is provable, that all assertions are arbitrary. This is the type of thinking that leads people to believe that absolutely everything is “arbitrary and manipulative,” and that anything they don’t agree with is “fake news.”



FWIW: Google Trends: Flat Earth
➥ https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=flat%20earth