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Flat Earth Theory / FET's Credit Score

« on: December 11, 2017, 10:36:21 PM »

Most people understand how a credit score works. Your credit score determines how much debt banks think you're good for. You build up a good credit score by borrowing responsibly and making the payments. I think this concept extends usefully to theories, including FET.

As pointed out by Tom before, the evidence for the shadow object is the lunar eclipse. There has to be something blocking the light of the sun, and since it can't be the Earth or any of the planets, there must be something else up there that has never been seen doing it. Ergo, shadow object and evidence for said object.

This quote from another thread bothered me when I read it, and the concept of a credit score helps me articulate why.

The lunar eclipse is not evidence of a Shadow Object. Rather, FET requires one. It has borrowed one - or to put it another way, it owes us a Shadow Object. Until we verify its existence, FET is in debt.

In much the same way, gravitational theory diverged from observation to the tune of one Neptune, and later a Pluto. But it already had a good credit rating and paid its debts once more: we found those planets. For these reasons and the many other useful and accurate predictions it has made, gravitational theory has built up a AAA rating.

FET, by way of contrast, has zero credit rating. It has achieved nothing useful. All it does is borrow. It owes us a Shadow Object, it owes us perspective that pinches things flat within a few miles but allows the sun and moon to double their thousands-of-miles distance from us without changing size at all. It owes us a moon where the bright half points north. It owes us something the earth rests upon that's accelerating upwards. Its ledger is nothing but red. Nothing required by FET has any independent verification.

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Flat Earth Theory / UA is redundant in FET

« on: December 08, 2017, 12:09:46 PM »

Celestial Gravitation (CG) is invoked in FET to explain tides and other observed deviations from the uniform force proposed by UA.

CG is observed to act upon terrestrial matter, and the distribution of 'celestial matter' is declared to be unknown. Consequently it is impossible to rule out scenarios where CG is wholly responsible for objects falling to earth when unsupported.

No demonstration of matter undergoing UA can be presented. Rather, we are asked to believe that somewhere below us, some 'special' matter is being subjected to UA, and everything else is being pushed ahead of it. This is inference from a hypothesis, not observation. In contrast, we can see the effects of CG directly, in the same way that we can see the way magnets behave.

I submit therefore that UA is an unnecessary and unjustified complication of FET, perpetuated solely based on its attraction (sorry) as a mechanism requiring a flat earth.

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Flat Earth Theory / Occam's Razor (sort of) - is there a term for this?

« on: November 25, 2017, 08:25:42 PM »

Occam's Razor is a philosophical principle that may be stated in several different ways, perhaps most straightforwardly as 'the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true'

Over the years I've personally converged on a rule of thumb that smacks of Occam's Razor, but which isn't quite captured by the original. I can't believe it's a novel principle, so if anyone recognises it, shout out

First attempt at expressing it: "The explanation that is least capable of explaining anything else is the most likely to be true."

My personal poster-child for this principle is evolution. I find the fact of evolution (the truth of common descent with modification, as distinct from any particular theory describing the mechanisms by which it happened) overwhelmingly compelling precisely because its explanatory powers are so limited. Only things that self-replicate with potential for modification can evolve. Everything must be a modification of that which came before - even more specifically: the embryonic development of everything must be a course-change of embryonic development that came before.

The fact that all life ticks these incredibly specific, limiting boxes - with the shared ancestry and course-changes visible in its DNA - is what seals the deal for me. Anyone who comes at me brandishing Intelligent Design, telling me that it's a better explanation because an intelligent designer is more capable than no designer, is completely missing the point as far as I'm concerned. An intelligent designer could have done anything. Frankly, Minecraft is a better designed habitat for humans than reality is. Positing an intelligent designer merely begs the question: why would he limit himself in these precise ways?

I'm posting this here because Flat Earth Theory rings all the same alarm bells in my head as Intelligent Design. I don't reject FET because it requires deformations of perspective, curved rays of light, non-euclidean space, or whatever. I don't even reject it because it requires an implausible worldwide conspiracy involving corporations acting against their own financial self-interest. No: I reject FET because these deformations of perspective, curved rays of light, and non-euclidean spaces by an incredible and inexplicable coincidence just happen to make it look exactly as though the world is a ball, and make the conspiracies possible.

Think about it: if we asked someone to create a universe based on the general statement "Ok, the world is flat, and rays of light curve sharply over short distances, and space is profoundly non-euclidean" we would in 99.999999999% of cases see a total mess when we looked up at the sky, or into the middle distance. Stars and the sun and the moon warping and shifting. Objects bending and squashing as we moved towards or away from them. And in those 99.999999999% of cases, nobody would even think of claiming the world was a ball, let alone foster a worldwide conspiracy to that effect.

That's why the conspiracy theories are bullshit: because they require the universe to be in on the con. I can step outside my back door on any clear night, point my camera at Polaris and take a long exposure picture that confirms RET. Why the hell would that be the case if the world were flat? What are the chances of everything being fucked in the exact way and exact degree necessary to mislead me?

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Flat Earth Theory / Why are circular star trails claimed as evidence of a flat earth?

« on: November 15, 2017, 11:45:16 AM »

Hi I'd be interested to hear an explanation. I've seen variations on this claim a few times:

"Visually circular star trails visible at different latitudes prove the earth is flat, because on a globe earth star trails would only be circular when viewed from the pole."

This is a very odd claim to make since it's exactly backwards, akin to saying something isn't on fire because flames and smoke only come out of something that isn't on fire.

Looking forward to your replies.