[BillO]

Behind the curve is a new documentary regarding the flat earth on Netflix.  It features many flat earth top rollers like Mark Sargent.  Worth checking out one way or the other.

[Bishthebosh]

Really enjoyed it. I liked what the scientists had to say about the psychology of FE and can see how there could be huge disincentives to finding out that one’s thinking is skewed, that there has been a misunderstanding about the scientific explanation. FEers would have such a lot to lose - a community, friends etc and the potential humiliation of admitting they had misunderstood the science.

I found myself liking Mark Sargeant. Nice guy. And he admitted that he couldn’t leave the FE community - this was in answer to the question “What if you were proved to be wrong?” 

I wonder where things have got with the very expensive laser gyroscope, and the light experiment - both of which showed exactly what would be expected on a globe Earth?

Warm wishes.

[Mysfit]

I had been hesitant to watch, but will give it a few mins.

[AATW]

I haven't seen it but really want to. I've seen clips. This one was quite funny:



I see Tom in S&C saying there should be some response as "The work depicts a poorly researched Flat Earth Theory", but that implies there's a well researched one and given the wild disagreements on here (one pole, two poles; UA, EA; there's a dome, there isn't a dome, etc) there's not much evidence of that. I've not seen any FE research going on. It's RE people coming on here and doing experiments which FE people then refuse to engage with or repeat.

[jack44556677]

I think the point is that they were not exactly out to document the community and try to find the best representatives to explain or defend it critically.  To do so would be political and career suicide, not to mention only "entertaining" to a select few, which is why none of us should expect any such main-stream source to provide one.  Like the socialist's feel of Bernie running for president, it sucks he's not really socialist... but at least he's raising the brand!  I feel the same way about this "documentary". They could have done much better, but it raises the brand.

They found what they found, they documented what they documented. No one learned anything, everyone went home thinking "those lonely deluded idiots, how sad" and went back to their daily grind. To the average viewer, the existing prejudice that flat earth supporters are stupid ("Behind the curve") and suffering from psychological malady will be further solidified.

I did really like the fact that it encouraged, in several scenes, the "learned" to reach out and engage with flat-earther's as opposed to immediately ostracize and deride them.  This stands in harsh juxtaposition to the only clips of experimentation and/or critical evaluation of flat earth being used to demonstrate to the audience that the flat earther's are incompetent, misguided, and deluded.

What do you guys think about the laser gyroscope? I had misremembered something and thought it was all garbage/hoax especially because the scene is SO HOKEY, but it turns out Michelson-Morley did end up detecting the rotation of the earth, just not it's motion in any direction through space/ether.

Anyway, do you guys think the laser gyroscope (or any gryoscope, pendulum) proves that the earth is rotating around a center point?  Is this really a problem for the flat earth concept? Especially since one could argue that the laser gyroscope (interferometer) also proves that the earth is not moving through space which would be a major monkey wrench for the heliocentric model and a hell of a lot more.

[AATW]

Finally watched it. Was a bit disappointed in it tbh, it seemed to focus mostly on a few of the FE poster boys (and girl) and a bit about the psychology of it.
Didn't really dig into the actual theories or explain why they're wrong. Maybe they didn't really feel a need to.

[ChrisTP]

Finally watched it. Was a bit disappointed in it tbh, it seemed to focus mostly on a few of the FE poster boys (and girl) and a bit about the psychology of it.
Didn't really dig into the actual theories or explain why they're wrong. Maybe they didn't really feel a need to.

I think it would only feed into the flat earthers notion that we have to prove the earth is a spheroid. Why bother trying to prove something that they'd flat out deny, then claim that by trying to prove the round earth it's evidence we have something to hide? Better off giving an insight into the minds of flat earthers and letting the viewers decide how dumb the flat earthers are. I think the point in the documentary was to just show people that flat earthers are just humans too and that there's no need to alienate or ridicule unnecessarily.

The more they are alienated the more they bury themselves into the idea of flat earth. In a perfect world everyone would embrace each other and help each other learn. Unfortunately the world isn't perfect and flat earthers tend to push back just as much as everyone else.