3181

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are other objects in the Solar System Flat as well?

« on: May 11, 2018, 10:53:32 AM »

Outside of the world of mathematics it’s pretty much impossible to prove anything absolutely

That may be your personal epistemology, but I have little interest in philosophy.

There is a reason why in UK courts something must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
You have 10 witnesses that say that Pete shot Tom in cold blood over a dispute over the FE Wiki. They all claim they saw him.
What if they are all mistaken? It’s possible. Or it was someone who really looks like Pete.
But Pete’s fingerprints are on the gun.
Well, how do you know he didn’t handle the gun earlier in the day then left the gun lying around and someone else shot Tom?
…and so on.
The objections can get increasingly ridiculous but you could always say there’s some doubt. But is the doubt reasonable?
That’s for the jury to decide.

Okay. Let's say I didn't shoot Tom. What does it matter that 10 people claim they saw me (you could easily round up 10 angry RE'ers to say something incriminating about me - some people really dislike me)? If your methodology leads to a false conclusion, then frankly I don't want to hear much about it.

And, of course, we both know that common law systems fail regularly. You have complex issues like jury nullification, the decline of the legal profession which focuses so much in determining bureaucratic legalisms over the spirit of the matter, etc.

Yeah, if you want to view the world as a lawyer, I'm not stopping you, but I'm definitely not coming with you.

In itself it doesn’t prove it, but it does add weight to the likelihood of it being true.

I don't believe I've ever denied it. What I questioned is the circular reasoning of "We should believe NASA because NASA said we should believe them." It's the same as the Bible - the Bible is the infallible word of God because God said so in the Bible. Sorry, that's simply insufficient. To take it back to your Phoenix Wright analogy - me saying that I totally didn't murder Tom, if presented by itself and with no supporting arguments, is not going to be particularly relevant to the case most of the time.

It doesn't automatically make it true but their opinion isn't irrelevant either.

Okay, so basically you've written a whole bunch of paragraphs that boil down to you explicitly agreeing with me. Why do I even bother?

3182

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Testable difference between FE and RE

« on: May 11, 2018, 10:34:31 AM »

... but the home page positively invites anyone to converse in the forum.

I have no issue with conversations - but if you come here aggressively demanding that I cater to your whims or sensibilities without you doing any of the initial groundwork, I'll be thoroughly disinterested.

You mistake an invitation to engage with us for a promise that we'll engage you on any and all terms you can imagine.

Ultimately, we have to make tough decisions about how to manage our time and communications. For example, if I responded to every Twitter DM that demands an answer to something that's already been amply discussed and archived, I'd have to sacrifice all of the time that's currently allocated to sleep - and I do like to sleep in. Sometimes, I respond with nothing but a link to the relevant page - at which point I get lambasted for not writing out each response in my own, unique words.

I purport that, for the average outraged RE'er, there is no such thing as a satisfactory response. And since I'm convinced this is the case, I naturally shift my efforts towards something more productive. This means less bothering with chumps who set their sigs to out-of-context quotes in the hopes of "one-upping" someone, and more attempts at securing widespread coverage, improving the technical backbone of this community, or even just taking a step back and relaxing. Gotta keep your priorities in check, you know?

3183

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Testable difference between FE and RE

« on: May 11, 2018, 08:17:00 AM »

Isn't the purpose of the society to persuade people like me of your belief system?

No. We are not here to directly persuade anyone, which is also why few of us ever engage the RE noobs who come here demanding 1-on-1 tuition. You mistake our lack of interest in you for our absence.

3184

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: May 10, 2018, 10:19:22 PM »

Got it.

No, you didn't get it at all. We know that not even NASA claims for this particular stream to be real. This doesn't magically make everything NASA says true, it just uncovers an inconsistency in the OP and your consequent attempts at devil's advocacy.

3185

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Protecting IP addresses from google

« on: May 10, 2018, 03:21:14 PM »

This has now been implemented across the Wiki, homepage, and forum. Cafepress stores don't allow users to alter GA parameters (other than the tracker ID), so unfortunately it won't be possible there. Nonetheless, this should be at least a small step forward.

3186

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Unofficial Debate Guidelines

« on: May 10, 2018, 03:17:20 PM »

All of these guidelines go directly against how online fora work.

In particular, your suggestion that people shouldn't split posts into smaller, relevant quotes and addressing them one by one - that's exactly what they should be doing. The alternative is what we get from noobs these days - an enormous quote followed by a response to god-knows-which-part of the original post.

You're also advocating against transparent moderation. Again, that's unlikely to garner much support. The moderators issue warnings publicly, because the alternative is a world of unsubstantiated accusations.

The argument against Wikipedia is nonsense. Yes, it can be edited by anyone, but if you try to edit it to reflect something untrue, it will get reverted within a minute. Their peer review system works just fine for debates here. Instead of prescribing approved sources, if you disagree with something Wikipedia is saying, present sources to the contrary. And, protip: edit Wikipedia and include your references to help everyone else out.

The same goes for telling people when they can speak. Sorry, not gonna happen. I don't care how many people are speaking for either side. If you find a particular debate "not fun", may I suggest the radical approach of not participating? It's vastly preferable to your attempts at controlling what everyone else does.

I'm sorry that you dislike the style of this communications medium, but I strongly disagree with adopting your personal preferences above common practice. Given the responses in the CN thread, various individuals disagree with various subsets of your suggestions. That alone should be telling.

3187

Technology & Information / Re: Are IP addresses personally identifiable?

« on: May 10, 2018, 07:59:07 AM »

I can demonstrate an easy ban-evasion tactic

Congratulations, you have demonstrated a high-schooler's level of understanding of networking, though you managed to overcomplicate your process to oblivion. Why did you think anyone would care?

More importantly, what does your arcane knowledge of proxies have to do with the claim that IP addresses can be personally identifiable?

3188

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: May 09, 2018, 10:25:24 PM »

You do realize this came from your source right?

I don't see how this is relevant. I'm not disagreeing with the article - these organisations most likely said what the BBC claims they said. That doesn't magically make it an insurmountable truth.

3189

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Protecting IP addresses from google

« on: May 09, 2018, 10:19:28 PM »

Don't worry too much about implementation - it's a one-liner. I'll get it committed tomorrow, I just wanted a second pair of eyes to check over the suggestion before jumping on it

3190

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Moderator censorship?

« on: May 09, 2018, 05:24:35 PM »

I didn't realize there was a report button, I apologize. I'll make sure to do that. Again, sorry.

Hey, it's no problem. Just trying to help. I know that there's a lot of FE vs RE hostility around here, and I'm sure that that sometimes leads to unconscious bias. My hope is that these are isolated incidents rather than the trend that some in this thread assert, but I'm also one of the worst qualified people to be able to call it impartially. If we have concrete examples to work with (FE'er misbehaves, gets reported, and it doesn't get actioned upon), then at least we can start seeing the bigger picture, if there is one.

3191

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Moderator censorship?

« on: May 09, 2018, 05:02:52 PM »

although there are a lot of people who make our arguments invalid as they just fall back to spamming "THE EARTH IS FLAT" over and over again. Banning these people would make it a lot easier to have a normal conversation.

Again, do you have any specific examples of this "a lot of people"? Have you tried reporting individual "offending" posts? Let's put the vague sentences to one side and try to identify the problem you're alluding to. That's the only way we can try to fix it.

3192

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are other objects in the Solar System Flat as well?

« on: May 09, 2018, 07:25:52 AM »

Pointing that out is not invalid or useless as part of the debate.

It is entirely invalid and useless. The FE position questions whether or not we should believe the "authorities" on the matter. Retorting with "but look at all those things they said!" is pointless unless it comes with an additional qualifier. The FE side has no business that something is false just because NASA said it (although we are guilty of this at times), and the RE side is not going to get anywhere just saying "NASA said so ergo it's true".

By your own admission, this is what sets Gove's infamous quote apart from the issue here. Gove qualified his claims for why we shouldn't trust experts - whether his justification was good or not is another matter entirely, but he didn't just bluntly say "people say x, therefore truth value"

3193

Flat Earth Community / Re: What Makes conspiracy Theorists believe.

« on: May 09, 2018, 07:15:55 AM »

And what does TFES home page say about relying on Wikipedia?

Nothing at all. The word "Wikipedia" is absent from the home page. I wrote most of the content there, so if you're confused about anything, I'm happy to help.

It urges one to not rely upon Wikipedia which can be edited by pretty much anyone, but to go out and observe for yourself, or use other resources.

No, it doesn't say any of that. You appear to confuse the message of "don't automatically trust something just because it's on the Internet" with "please automatically distrust everything on the Internet". The two are not synonymous.

3194

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Protecting IP addresses from google

« on: May 08, 2018, 04:45:01 PM »

Huh, apparently I missed this thread when it was created. Let's pick it up.

Normally, I'd be the only person to push against changes to how our GA works, but in this instance, I completely agree. The full IP information does not provide us with much benefit (if any at all), and while the privacy gains are fairly small, I can see no practical argument against it.

I'll discuss this with site admins, but given that you've already convinced the hardliner, I imagine there shouldn't be much opposition. Unless I'm missing something, of course.

3195

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth UK Convention

« on: May 07, 2018, 07:32:15 PM »

But hey, I guess if I'm still here trying to teach Tom about perspective in 5 years time then we'll see who's right...

There were people like you saying similar things 5 years ago, and 10 years ago. Suffice to say it's likely that we'll outlast you

3196

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Obvious Truth Part 2

« on: May 07, 2018, 06:56:08 PM »

I [...] I [...]
I [...] I [...]

You were not the only offender, and you did back off eventually. My comment was not referring to any individuals specifically, but rather to the harmful pattern of debating we've witnessed here.

3197

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: May 07, 2018, 06:23:44 PM »

I strongly suspect that you simply failed to spell it correctly

and your spell-checker didn't catch it because it would be a valid spelling in other tenses.

Congratulations, you where truly able to prove you're point with that one. After all, a spelling mistake can't be a spelling mistake if it accidentally formed another existent word. That would be mad.

Wow, it's like I don't even have to try!

You'd certainly do better not to - you seem very intent on making yourself look bad, and that's... well... not a good thing.

Because it's possible that it was auto corrected on my phone to use present tense and I never gave it a second pass?

That is certainly possible, and is fairly close to my original prediction. I'm still not sure why you'd try to make yourself look less educated by asserting that it was a grammatical error, rather than a simple overlooking. We're all human, you know.

Cool, what about the other two quotes?

Please respond.

"Oh, you didn't like my first argument from authority? But what about the other two arguments from authority that I also made?" - Yes, congratulations. The same criticism applies.

That said, I will stop referencing that Wiki page as you have deleted it.

Thanks. It's a shame I didn't get a full admission and an apology out of you, but as long as you stop being dishonest about this, I'm sure we can put your little faux pas to one side.

3198

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth UK Convention

« on: May 07, 2018, 06:19:29 PM »

Admittedly you guys are getting quite a lot of coverage in the media but much of it has a mocking tone.

Entertain this thought for a moment: let's say that for every x people who find out about the Flat Earth Theory, one of them is going to accept it. I'm sure we'll disagree about the value of x, but that's why I want to leave it undefined here.

Now, let's say that a few years ago, x people would regularly be exposed to our content. Today, it is 10x. Even without me disclosing anything sensitve, you have to be able to discern that the growth of the FE movement's popularity necessarily translates into the growth of the movement itself. This is the very principle behind our "all publicity is good publicity" approach - whether or not you want to believe me that it's working out fantastically is obviously up to you

3199

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Obvious Truth Part 2

« on: May 07, 2018, 06:15:06 PM »

The Wiki page you're referring to has recently been removed, as it clearly does not represent the FE viewpoint. To provide some context: we've inherited the Wiki from "the other place" - it has its significant issues, and those are being ironed out slowly, but steadily. We chose to try and keep it alive and try to fix it over time, and yes, that occasionally means that someone finds something that should have never been there. The other site, as I understand, decided to remove their version of the Wiki altogether for similar reasons.

So, to answer your question: it's not based on anything. It's incorrect, and we've moved on nearly a decade ago. It never was a "cornerstone" of anyone's belief, although a couple of particularly dishonest debaters recently tried to frame it that way. Mountain, molehill, etc.

3200

Flat Earth Projects / Re: wiki is being trolled

« on: May 07, 2018, 12:25:19 PM »

it is seeming to wrap around a spherical object.

Not at all.