121

Flat Earth Community / Reminder: The Moon Covers the Sun in Total Eclipse Because 'Coincidence'

« on: August 22, 2017, 12:42:54 AM »

Just a friendly reminder to everyone who saw the eclipse today. Despite that the Sun is 4 million times larger than the Moon, the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size from earth and fit perfectly into each other during the Solar Eclipse. The official scientific reason for this is that it is a coincidence.

122

Flat Earth Community / FES Think Tank - Week 1 Poll

« on: August 15, 2017, 01:09:26 AM »

I don't know about any one else on this forum, but I do not really have the bandwidth to maintain 20 different conversations. These are subjects that deserve more than a few sentence explanations. I have a proposal. We will pick a topic and talk about it in depth over one entire week in Flat Earth Debate. We will discuss and discuss and once the week is over we will compile that information and create Wiki articles out of it. I see three main topics that are brought up over and over:

Perspective - If we choose will talk about perspective we will spend the week talking about the disappearance of the sun, why the moon does not turn, the distance to the vanishing point, as well as the mechanics of perspective.

Distance discrepancies - If we choose to talk about this subject, we will talk about flight times, GPS, Latitude and Longitude, and navigation.

Conspiracy - If we choose to talk about this subject we will discuss evidence, motive, and intricacies which go beyond the Wiki.

Other - List any other subject you might feel important.

Please cast your votes or make your comment. Voting will end on Thursday the 17th. Once we have come to a consensus we will agree not to talk about any other subjects in Flat Earth Debate for a period of one week, starting on Sunday Aug 20. All discussions will contribute towards a Wiki article.

123

Flat Earth Community / Impossible Daytime Moon Phases in Round Earth Theory

« on: August 09, 2017, 10:04:28 PM »

According to Round Earth Theory the sun is illuminating the earth and moon as in this top-down view:



However, it has been observed that during the day, on the "day" side of the earth, the moon can be seen with phases which show significant lit area.

It should be impossible for the moon's phase to display significant fullness during the day. But the moon is seen on many occasions to do just that. Here is an example which should be impossible under the Round Earth model:



In the video the author pans across to the sun, showing that it is significantly above the horizon. This person is clearly somewhere on the day side of the earth. How is this observation possible?

124

Flat Earth Community / Moon and Sun Angles Don't Line Up

« on: April 04, 2017, 02:14:32 PM »

I came across a youtube video which asks some interesting questions about the angles of the sun and moon.

125

Flat Earth Community / Shaquille O'Neal believes that the earth is flat

« on: March 19, 2017, 08:29:26 PM »

Start listening at 9:30: http://podbay.fm/show/1000068299/e/1488182460?autostart=1

126

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Mass Automation and General AI will not cause mass unemployment

« on: December 08, 2016, 08:03:58 PM »

If every job were capable of being automated with AI and humanoid robots, people would just offer to do the job for a lower wage, to the point where it is cost effective for the company. When many people are receiving lower wages, deflation will occur and everything will be a lot cheaper.

An AI Salesperson will cost money to purchase. Human Salespeople compete by charging less than what it would cost to acquire that technology. As that technology becomes cheaper, the sales people charge less and less. Will a company really spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a machine when people are willing to work for beans?

Companies will use people, despite the possibilities of alternative technologies, because people will price themselves as a cheaper alternative. Consider automated mail or package delivery. It has been possible to create a network of automated mail and package delivery for the last 100 years. The technology existed, but that doesn't mean that a majority of cities, states or governments would actually invest in that. Using people to deliver the mail was a more primitive, but cheaper solution, and that is why delivery people still exist today.

When the automation goes down in price, so will the wages that keep people competitive. We will eventually lobby to abolish the minimum wage, and $1 will actually mean something again. Even if the new prevailing wages is 25 cents a day, the economy will adjust to make a coffee 2 cents.

We will all live in healthy competition with the AI. The better they get at creating Androids and General AI, we will just unionize and lower our wages lower and lower, into the fractions of a penny if we have to, and the economy will adjust to the current reality. Instead of annual raises, we will have annual salary reductions, and we will convince ourselves that it is a good thing.

127

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Abortion is selfish and should be abolished

« on: October 21, 2016, 06:26:44 PM »

Abortion is perhaps the most selfish act a person can do.

The baby in the womb wants life. Every cell in its body wanted to live. There is no denying that. Think about that. The baby wants to live. The baby wants to live very dearly. Aborting a baby who wants to live is incredibly selfish, and the mental gymnastics used to justify the act of abortion are shameful.

The argument that pregnancy is difficult and hard and that it would be unethical to compel women to go through a pregnancy falls flat on its face when one considers that these women want to corrupt the life and wishes of a baby in order to avoid a little inconvenience.

We have a society where we don't need to resort to abortions anymore. There are other options. There is adoption, for instance. Most infants get adopted. There is even open adoption. The government will even give you money to raise your own baby if adoption is not for you, if you choose to live that life.

How many foster children can you find who would say "I would rather have been an abortion!" Kids find a way to enjoy life, even if they are a foster child. Even if they happened to be one of those unfortunate kids who were abused, they would likely get past that at some point and enjoy life. Is some hypothetical physical or sexual abuse really worth a death sentence?

We have birth control now, and if that birth control fails then a little growing baby who only wants to live life shouldn't have to be punished for it. Why pick on someone who can't defend themselves in the most vulnerable time of their life? Abolishing abortion would be inconvenient, sure, but it is the moral thing to do.

128

Flat Earth Community / Merely mistaken

« on: September 25, 2016, 02:46:26 AM »

The world is merely mistaken that the earth is a globe. This mistake took root in Ancient Greece when it was decided that the earth was a globe based on three casual observations -- the sinking ship effect, the observation that the shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse is round, and the observation that Polaris descends as you travel southward (Later to be addressed as fallacy in Earth Not a Globe by Samuel Birley Rowbotham). These beliefs took hold and were passed down from generation to generation, brainwashed into children from the cradle. Scientific interpretations about the world are skewed under the dogma of a round earth, and elaborate phenomena and explanations are invented whenever an observation contradicts the status quo.

Astronomy

Astronomers observe the heavens and interpret, just as the Astrologer does. There is no real proof for their theories. The universe is not put under controlled conditions to come the the truth of a matter. The necessity of controlled experimentation is denied entirely. A Chemist is expected to create controlled tests to determine a truth. But Stephen Hawking gets away with building theory upon theory, a house of cards model of the universe which "stands on the shoulders of giants". Hawking performs zero experimentation on the universe before coming up with a theory like the metric expansion of space.

Historic parallax observations which compute the sun to be millions of miles distant on a Round Earth also say that it is thousands of miles distant under the interpretation of a flat one. The theory of gravity doesn't seem to work at large distances in space, causing the necessity for elaborate Dark Matter and Dark Energy theories which comprise 98% of the universe. The lunar eclipse and other celestial events are predicted by the analyzing patterns of past observations -- the same way the Ancient Babylonians, a Flat Earth society, predicted them.

Geodesy

Geodesists are said to study the shape of the earth, but if one looks at their journals they will find that they do nothing but look at certain phenomena and interpret how it works on a Round Earth. The levels of g are slightly different at different locations, so the Geodesist declares that the earth is not perfectly round. Not really the level of inquiry we are looking for here.

Piloting

Pilots fly on preplanned routes to their location and do not require the earth to be any shape. There is not enough data from airline flights to fully map the earth by analyzing aircraft logs, as no one really goes the "long way" around the earth, for obvious reasons, and a Flat Earth map can take many configurations to explain the limited results.

Satellite Communication Companies

Satellite communication companies aren't in the business of putting satellites into orbit. Do you think Direct TV has launch capabilities and access to restricted orbital rocket technologies which are 98% similar to an ICBM? They rely on the government putting up communication satellites for them and giving them a way to feed in their signal.

NASA

NASA is mistaken as to the earth's shape as well. There is a conspiracy, but it is not to hide the shape of the earth. NASA is not running a real space agency, so they wouldn't know what shape the earth truly takes. Since sustained space travel is not possible, there was a necessity to fake it. The earth is depicted as a globe in their media because that's what everyone expected to see at the time of NASA's creation.

The motivation is simple. NASA must exist for reasons of national security. Having the ability to launch rockets into orbit also means the ability to put weapons into orbit and obliterate any country at the push of a button. The purpose of NASA is to fake the concept of space travel to sustain America's military domination of space.

Following WWII the race to space lasted for 12 years, with one infamous failure and rocket disaster after another. Don't you think it's a coincidence that within three months of the USSR claiming to have launched Sputnik into orbit, the US claimed to put a satellite into orbit as well?

129

Flat Earth Community / Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: September 12, 2016, 07:41:33 AM »

I was watching an interesting video which provides some elements of discussion.

- In Lone Survivor, a true story, a major plot point is that the team's Satellite Phone got zero signal on the top of a mountain in Afganistan.

- There is an interesting idea posed that Satellite TV could be using Troposcatter technology, and that other satellite technologies may be land-based Troposcatter broadcasting devices.

- Brought up a point that Thork once made that many satellite dishes are often seen pointed in the general direction of the horizon, rarely "up".

- Obligatory 9/11 conspiracy tie-in at the end.

130

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Buying a home is a terrible investment

« on: September 10, 2016, 09:01:56 PM »

It is a common myth perpetuated in our society that buying a home is a good investment. Home ownership is seen as one of the best things you could do in your life. You purchase your home and at some time in the future it will greatly increase in value.

Lets say we bought a home in 1980. The average price of a home in the United States in 1980 was $68,714.00. If we hold onto it for 30 years on a mortgage and sell in 2010, the average price of a home in the United States is now $272,900. Huge profit!

It is 2010 and you sell your house. You now theoretically have $272,900 in the bank. But wait, you still need somewhere to live. You probably want to live in at least the same quality of house as the one you were living before, right? Who would want to downgrade their living experience? But those houses are now all averaging at $272,900, too. It seems that in the end you didn't really make anything in your investment.

The only advantage you would seemingly get is to put the new home on another 30 year mortgage from the bank, to be paid off in monthly payments, and enjoy your money in the present. But now you are merely living on borrowed money, not your own. Eventually you will need to have to pay off your new home with your money, old or new, or the bank will take it back and claim what is theirs, all profits from your home investment strategy eventually equaling zero.

131

Flat Earth Community / How would you promote the society if we were funded?

« on: September 10, 2016, 08:38:37 PM »

This is an informational query for any Flat Earthers on this forum. Lets say that I found a way to get us funded. Lets keep the amounts ambiguous for now. If you were provided with some amount of money, what would you do with it to promote the society?

What experiments would you conduct, projects would you work on, or promotional activities would you organize?

Imagine that our budget was $10,000, $50,000 or $100,000.

Thank you.

132

Flat Earth Community / Police, firefighters called in after flat Earth debate turns heated

« on: June 27, 2016, 03:21:09 AM »

Apparently a Round Earther threw a fit when he was unable to champion his own model, becoming so enraged that he violently lost control. Seems typical.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/flat-earth-debate-leads-to-fire-police-call-1.3634692

A family argument over whether the Earth is flat or round became so heated that one of the participants threw a propane cylinder onto a campfire, prompting an intervention by firefighters.

The dispute over a question most considered resolved centuries ago boiled over around 10:30 p.m. Monday at St. Lawrence Park in Brockville, Ont.

Police said a 56-year-old Brockville man was at a campsite with his son and his son's girlfriend when the woman began insisting that the Earth is flat.

The older man insisted the Earth is round.

It's not clear if anyone at the campfire put forth the argument that the Earth's equatorial bulge makes it not perfectly round, but instead a shape known as an oblate spheroid.

Nevertheless, police said the man became so enraged he began throwing objects into the campfire, including a propane cylinder.

Brockville firefighters were called to put out the campfire. By the time police arrived at the scene, the man had left.

Brockville police are looking for the man and say they expect to charge him with mischief.

133

Suggestions & Concerns / Lets host Earth Not a Globe

« on: June 21, 2016, 06:59:28 AM »

The sacred-texts.com version of Earth Not a Globe is public domain and may be used for any non-commercial purposes.

NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION
scanned at sacred-texts.com, June 2005. Proofed and formatted by John Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the United States because it was published prior to 1923. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of attribution is left intact in all copies.

I would like to scrape the book from the site and host it directly here on this website. The person who digitized the book left various disparaging comments on the index page such as:

"To make his system work he had to throw out a great deal of science, including the scientific method itself, using instead what he calls a 'Zetetic' method. As far as I can see this is simply a license to employ circular reasoning (e.g., the earth is flat, hence we can see distant lighthouses, hence the earth is flat)."

These sorts of comments have no place in an informational resource. It could equally be argued that Rowbotham found the methods used by astronomers to come up with the theory of a round earth to be seriously lacking in evidence, and so Rowbotham adopted a much more empirical approach to determining the shape of the world.

The digitizer also comments that Rowbotham's motivations are mainly religiously motivated, when this is clearly not the case. The comments should be stripped out entirely and the book should be a source hosted on this site, where we could quote and link to freely in the Wiki and in the forums, without having to quote from a website called "sacred-texts".

134

Flat Earth Community / Airy's Failure demonstrates stars are moving, not the earth

« on: June 12, 2016, 12:51:13 AM »

Ignoring some of the religious references at the end, the following video is a good overview of Airy's Failure experiment and how it suggests that the stars are moving, not the earth.



Airy's paper on his experiment:
http://rspl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/20/130-138/35.full.pdf+html

Specifications for the equipment he was using:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1873GOAMM..33C..17A/0000132.000.html

135

Flat Earth Community / How the Sun sets on a Flat Earth

« on: May 28, 2016, 03:26:27 AM »

I came across a video by Youtube author p-brane which seems to bring up a lot of good points, showing that the diagrams which are routinely paraded as examples for why the sun cannot set do not accurately demonstrate perspective.

136

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Teachers deserve low pay

« on: April 24, 2016, 01:08:04 AM »

For my entire life I've heard teachers complain that they get paid far too little for teaching. They are defended by many as heroes who are educating our children, who gave us our own education, and should be paid highly for this.

But what are teachers, really? At the lowest levels, preschool and kindergarten, teachers are little more than babysitters who read children stories. At the elementary, middle, high school, and college level the job role is essentially the same. Teachers remain babysitters who merely read children different books, whether it's a story about Martin Luther King, or about the periodic table. Other authors wrote those books, and did the research behind it. The teacher didn't do any of those things. The teacher is simply repeating the teachings of others. Most of the time they have their students do homework from the book and use exam handouts from the publisher (who graciously does not watermark the handouts). So why do they deserve large amounts of money for what is essentially a babysitting job?

In addition, teachers are frankly the losers of academia. Rather than contributing to an academic profession like their respected counterparts, they are reading stories to children. It's pathetic. Why should they be paid highly for that?

137

Flat Earth Community / Magnetic Field Line Diagram Help

« on: February 07, 2016, 04:59:24 AM »

I was able to get access to edit the Wiki, and upon review I notice that we are in dire need of illustrations to visualize the magnetic field on a Flat Earth. I think it would be helpful to see diagrams of the magnetic field lines on both the Mono-Pole and Bi-Polar models. I am reaching out to the community to see if we have anyone proficient in graphic design.

The field lines on the Mono-Pole model would look something like this:



The magnetic field lines on the Bi-Polar model would look like the magnetic field lines on a bar magnet, with the poles centered over the North and South Pole.

Essentially something like this, but in 3 dimensions:



An important note: There are no field lines on a magnet which trail off straight into nothingness, they all eventually loop around and connect with the opposite pole, even if in your research you find bar magnet illustrations which have field lines that seemingly extend off of the image into nothingness.

Additional suggestion: Do not underlay a specific flat earth map beneath the models. This would allow the illustration to be a representation of the general model rather than promoting any specific map or continental layout argument.

138

Flat Earth Community / Gullibility of the public

« on: February 01, 2016, 08:20:43 AM »

http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/planetary_alignment_decreases_gravity

During an interview on BBC Radio 2, on the morning of April 1, 1976, the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced that an extraordinary astronomical event was about to occur. At exactly 9:47 am, the planet Pluto would pass directly behind Jupiter, in relation to the Earth. This rare alignment would mean that the combined gravitational force of the two planets would exert a stronger tidal pull, temporarily counteracting the Earth's own gravity and making people weigh less. Moore called this the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect.

Moore told listeners that they could experience the phenomenon by jumping in the air at the precise moment the alignment occurred. If they did so, he promised, they would experience a strange floating sensation.

At 9:47, Moore declared, "Jump now!" A minute passed, and then the BBC switchboard lit up with dozens of people calling in to report that the experiment had worked!

Is it a wonder the general public will believe anything they are told?

139

Flat Earth Community / Argument via Empericism

« on: January 31, 2016, 12:16:37 AM »

Empiricism is a view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced. The tenets of empiricism promotes a back to the basics approach to knowledge, where theoretical concepts are scrutinized for their applicability to the real world. Many believe that only empirical knowledge should be considered truth, as anything less is a diversion into fantasy and conjecture.

In order for a concept to be empirical it must be testable. That is, it cannot exist only in hypothesis or idea. A concept which is completely hypothetical, existing mainly in the imagination, is unemperical. Let us consider the following.

Our Environment

FET predicts that the earth is flat. To test this we need to look out our window. We will see a plane extending farther than the eye can see. - Testable

RET predicts that the earth is at such a convenient size that it creates the illusion of being flat. - Untestable

Gravitation

FET predicts that gravitation is caused by an upwardly accelerating earth. To test this we will need to stand up on the edge of our chair and walk off the edge while observing the surface of the earth carefully. The earth will appear to accelerate up towards the observer - Testable

RET predicts that “graviton particles” no one has ever seen are pulling objects towards the surface of the earth. There should be trillions of tiny graviton particles whooshing around us at every moment of the day creating the illusion of an accelerating earth. - Untestable

Movement of the earth

FET predicts that the earth is still and the celestial bodies whirl above our heads. To test this we simply need to sit on our porch for a while and watch as the sun and stars move through the sky on their own accord as the earth remains still - Testable

RET predicts that the earth is in constant motion, spinning like a top at over a thousand miles an hour at the equator, the appearance of moving celestial bodies being an illusion. – Untestable

140

Suggestions & Concerns / Discussion with Admins on Membership

« on: January 05, 2016, 05:52:46 PM »

So, we've been talking about things on and off over the past year and I think there is a consensus that we would like to open membership. We will not do physical membership goodie packages at this time, as a suitable 3rd party vendor to print certificates and membership cards could not be found. We may look at that in the future.

Past threads on the subject:

http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=2221.0
http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=1715.msg55761#msg55761
http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=2656.msg67162#msg67162

I would like to see something in line with the following:

1. User signs up on main site
2. His/her name is added to a membership roster
3. He/she is assigned a member number
4. He/she receives a printable certificate (perhaps we can work on something very colorful and graphical)
5. His/her forum username is added for access to the Zetetic Council forums
6. He/she receives notice of their new access and abilities

I know there are web framework packages where users can fill out a form and receive a printable certificate. We might begin investigating some of those.