Offline BA

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Research question about becoming a flat earther
« on: May 19, 2020, 12:55:51 PM »
Hello.
I'm currently researching the flat earth community and the effects discovering such a community can have on its member's psychological state. While going through all the available information online, I was disappointed to see the topic is always addressed by round earthers. It took me around 8 Google pages to reach an 'inside source.' I feel the image of the flat earther has been unjustly deformed into an uneducated gullible conspirator and I am much more interested in what the truth about becoming a flat earther is. I was happy to come across this discussion board and I'm hoping some of you could share your experience. Particularly I am interested in how you feel your life has changed since discovering FE and what effects it has had on your internal self and well-being, for lack of better words.
Looking forward to what you have to say!


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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2020, 02:38:28 PM »
While going through all the available information online, I was disappointed to see the topic is always addressed by round earthers.
Amen.

Particularly I am interested in how you feel your life has changed since discovering FE and what effects it has had on your internal self and well-being, for lack of better words.
So, one thing that I think needs highlighting upfront is that nobody turns into a FE'er overnight, and it's often to identify a meaningful border between the two. It's a gradient, usually spread over a long time, so identifying a "before" and "after" can be challening.

For example, if I wanted to compare a time when I didn't have any FE ideas with a time in which I was fully committed to this way of thinking, I'd be comparing points in time separated by at least 5 years. A lot has happened in my life over that lenght of time, and many of these things had an impact on my life and well-being. In general, I am in a much better place now than I was in the past, but I would not attribute that to FE.

Trying to filter out the noise, there are a few changes that I can safely attribute to FE, however.

It made me a better teacher. This is not my full-time career, but I do occasionally teach or take on other teaching assistant duties, usually in computer science. Being able to approach the world that surrounds me more critically has enabled me to more easily approach students, especially when they've "locked" themselves onto an error. I very rarely tell them what they've done wrong - if I do, they'll expect for someone to stand over them and correct them forever more. Instead, I ask them questions, and help them navigate their own logic until they find the error. Many students dislike that approach up until their final assessments, where they suddenly realise they're breezing through the material because they haven't memorised it, but rather understood it.

Similarly, it made me a calmer person. Developing an intuitive understanding of the fact that there are people I'll find fundamentally unreasonable (and vice versa) helps me worry less about disagreements. It's particularly useful in areas where people like to state their opinions as facts, like politics or religion.

On the other hand, it's made me a bit more cautious with my public presence. There were a couple of incidents when I first started getting involved where people made an effort to find me and express their feelings in ways ranging from mildly unpleasant to very illegal. I'm not exactly trying to hide, but I try to make some things less obvious for anyone stupid enough to want to engage in this sort of behaviour.

As for education, I hold a master's degree. Tried for a PhD, but it really, really wasn't for me.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2020, 01:45:49 AM »
It also took me several years to come to this view. When I first heard about it I thought it was incredibly amusing that people could believe that the Earth was flat. With a growing interest, one of my first lines of action was to order a physical copy of Earth Not a Globe, so that I could read the origins of this for myself, rather than relying on any third party account. I agreed with much of what Rowbotham wrote, especially the fact that models of nature don't have good track records, and have tended to fail again and again.

I have always believed that in order to investigate a subject you must argue for it. It is incredibly easy, and insufficient, to merely dismiss something that bothers you. That bears no insight or knowledge. You must attempt to argue in favor of the things which bother you. And only until you cannot successfully argue for it to your own satisfaction, have you earned the option to abandon it.

That's what I did. Not directly at first. Over time the arguments in favor of FE became more direct, until enough discussion was had and repeated, that I found myself weighing the evidence and truly and actually siding with FE myself. Once I realized that the earth was flat it came as what I can only describe as a paralyzing shock. It wasn't true after all—mankind's cosmology was merely a sci-fi fantasy and a dream. I had previously always championed conventional science and assumed that its founders were competent scholars, but that image has eroded over time.

The philosophy of arguing in favor of things which are "wrong" brings incredible insight, and could be a philosophical movement unto itself. This devil's advocacy is presently practiced in law to good effect, and helps the jury see a balanced side of both arguments to come to a better conclusion. It is really up to you, as judge and jury of your own thoughts and beliefs, whether you want to give the other side a fair hearing.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2020, 04:07:07 PM by Tom Bishop »

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2020, 10:59:26 AM »
I mean no disrespect to what anyone here believes they know as truth and obviously I'm not disputing "the truth" because well, we all know we disagree on that, but do you guys ever wonder/worry about whether or not the reason it has taken a long time to come to the conclusion of a flat earth is related to simply becoming so familiar with the idea over time that you've kind of warmed to it? I believe known as the 'Illusory truth effect'. I know sometimes I have to check myself on this too, especially on a subject I don't know much about which is linked to many other subjects I don't know much about. the shape of the earth in detail seems to be one of those topics for most people, as most people don't actually know much about the world and the universe around us it's easy to dive in with a surface level of knowledge on a lot of topics which would make people open to interpret information incorrectly or simply receive wrong information which would act as the foundation of your knowledge on the overall subject. By the time you've become a more critical thinker (something flat earth subject has helped me with too) it may be that the information you "know" as correct could be otherwise not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

Of course, you could argue the same thing for "round earth" since most people grow up on this information but no one subjects themselves to the topic quite so intensely as I'm sure people do when they start pulling at the thread a massive conspiracy. A lot of people "know" the earth is a spheroid planet but don't care either way.
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #4 on: May 21, 2020, 01:49:31 AM »
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I mean no disrespect to what anyone here believes they know as truth and obviously I'm not disputing "the truth" because well, we all know we disagree on that, but do you guys ever wonder/worry about whether or not the reason it has taken a long time to come to the conclusion of a flat earth is related to simply becoming so familiar with the idea over time that you've kind of warmed to it?

I don't believe so. As an example not directly Flat Earth and more cosmology related, look at the Cosmological Principle page.

The collected quotes here compels me to think that the philosophy that we are set adrift in a random part of the universe may be untrue. I don't think that I merely read the quotes enough times to convince myself of that, that it has anything to do with my 'warming up to it', or that the quoted sources were misquoted and the sources wrote 'just kidding' afterwards, or anything. What could be my fallacy in this example?

Maybe someone else would read these quotes and would agree with the appeals to absurdity and Stephen Hawking's scientific position founded on modesty?

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2020, 10:35:09 AM »
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I mean no disrespect to what anyone here believes they know as truth and obviously I'm not disputing "the truth" because well, we all know we disagree on that, but do you guys ever wonder/worry about whether or not the reason it has taken a long time to come to the conclusion of a flat earth is related to simply becoming so familiar with the idea over time that you've kind of warmed to it?

I don't believe so. As an example not directly Flat Earth and more cosmology related, look at the Cosmological Principle page.

The collected quotes here compels me to think that the philosophy that we are set adrift in a random part of the universe may be untrue. I don't think that I merely read the quotes enough times to convince myself of that, that it has anything to do with my 'warming up to it', or that the quoted sources were misquoted and the sources wrote 'just kidding' afterwards, or anything. What could be my fallacy in this example?

Maybe someone else would read these quotes and would agree with the appeals to absurdity and Stephen Hawking's scientific position founded on modesty?
This isn't really an example of what I was asking, but since you mention it, I do personally think it's more likely we aren't in the center of the universe, but I also accept there is also the possibility that we are in the center. I can't confirm either, but if one were confirmed it would take nothing away from me. I mean, if you draw a bunch of dots on a deflated balloon and pick any dot to represent earth and blow up the balloon, all the other dots will expand away from it equally, the same could be said for any of those dots. Pick a dot, any dot, and that dot will observe it's surroundings in a similar way that we observe the universe. With that in mind, why should I consider earth as a random dot in a larger and expanding universe? It doesn't matter to me if we are in the middle, it matters simply that what we observe is the same regardless. A lot of people pick a side on this, religious folk would insist we are at the center and feel it would break their understanding of a lot of things if that were untrue. I couldn't care less, but I do think it would be a pretty cool coincidence if we were roughly in the center.

To go back to my previous posts point; You only provided one snippet of your understanding of the universe around you, that one snippet helps to form your full understanding of the universe around you and unless you like to play devils advocate a lot, you've been shown on these forums time and time again that things you think you knew or understood were wrong. And if you were wrong about some things, things which lean on other things to need to be correct, do you not think maybe your fundamental understanding of everything could be skewed? That maybe you're more accepting of evidence of a flat earth simply because you've built up in your mind rather intensely over the course of a few years how you think the universe works?

I can put it another way, you look at Stockholm syndrome. I can tell you now that people who would kidnap me and demand randsom money from my friends and family for my freedom are horrible people. You can't change my mind on that because 1. I dont think about it that often and 2. I've not been exposed to that situation. Now suddenly I get kidnapped and they keep me for an intense month where I get to know them and come to like them.

It's safe to assume that if I didn't spend that month with them I would never accept that they are good people or try to justify in my head what they're doing is ok. I guess what I'm getting at is if you surround yourself with certain information and really put your mind to it, you can come to believe the information is correct. You've been subjected to this information for so long, at a much more intense rate than other topics of information that you could well have just come to understand it as the right thing, much like how if I'd have been subjected to my captors for so long, at a more intense rate than I normally spend time with people, I could come to believe those people are ok. But then my sister would come along be like "Wtf, why are you friends with this horrible people? What they did was absolutely wrong" in this case the rest of the world is my sister. :P

To be clear it's just an example and I don't consider you to be held hostage by flat earth or anything ridiculous but I hope you can see the possibility of how subjecting yourself to something for a "crash course" amount of time could make you think certain things. To use another example, I burglars should know stealing is wrong, but they justify it, in their mind it's the 'right' thing to be doing because they've been subject to a certain conditioning. In their mind they're just taking back from a world that took from them so it's ok, even though they'd be incorrect. Or hell, I don't think skateboarding is that great, in fact I think it's somewhat pointless but give me 5 years to go get good at it and if I meet a bunch of great people while doing it then I'll tell you skateboarding is life. Skateboarding is the best thing and everyone should do it, I'd be convinced.

So I guess what I'm asking is, has subjecting yourself to the topic of flat earth in a relatively short and intense amount of time maybe conditioned you? Is it possible you've conditioned your mind to think a certain way which could be incorrect? I mean, I know in your minds the answer is no because no one would want to admit that obviously, but from the outside it certainly seems like this may have happened and I am just curious if the thought had crossed your minds at any point?
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2020, 03:06:28 AM »
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This isn't really an example of what I was asking, but since you mention it, I do personally think it's more likely we aren't in the center of the universe, but I also accept there is also the possibility that we are in the center. I can't confirm either, but if one were confirmed it would take nothing away from me. I mean, if you draw a bunch of dots on a deflated balloon and pick any dot to represent earth and blow up the balloon, all the other dots will expand away from it equally, the same could be said for any of those dots. Pick a dot, any dot, and that dot will observe it's surroundings in a similar way that we observe the universe. With that in mind, why should I consider earth as a random dot in a larger and expanding universe? It doesn't matter to me if we are in the middle, it matters simply that what we observe is the same regardless. A lot of people pick a side on this, religious folk would insist we are at the center and feel it would break their understanding of a lot of things if that were untrue. I couldn't care less, but I do think it would be a pretty cool coincidence if we were roughly in the center.

Is your reasoning "that's aburd" and "Stephen Hawking is right. We have no scientific evidence for this, but we have to believe it because of modesty"?

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I can put it another way, you look at Stockholm syndrome. I can tell you now that people who would kidnap me and demand randsom money from my friends and family for my freedom are horrible people. You can't change my mind on that because 1. I dont think about it that often and 2. I've not been exposed to that situation. Now suddenly I get kidnapped and they keep me for an intense month where I get to know them and come to like them.

It's safe to assume that if I didn't spend that month with them I would never accept that they are good people or try to justify in my head what they're doing is ok.

If you could take the time to get to know them as good people, how do you know that they aren't good people, though?

Maybe they just want money from your rich family and are otherwise decent people, and don't really have anything against you personally. I'm sure it matters on how they actually treat you too. If they actually abused you every day, and treated you badly, then maybe you would keep a grudge against them regardless.

In this case of Stockholm syndrome you saw the evidence of them being good people, rather than relying on the assumption that they would be inherently, 100% bad people. You based your position on evidence rather than assumption.

Only from the outside, without the knowledge, did you classify this behavior on 'syndromes', and are encouraging me to trust my gut feeling about the inherent nature of 'good people' and 'bad people'. That seems sort of like asking us to trust our gut on what is and is not 'absurd'.

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So I guess what I'm asking is, has subjecting yourself to the topic of flat earth in a relatively short and intense amount of time maybe conditioned you? Is it possible you've conditioned your mind to think a certain way which could be incorrect? I mean, I know in your minds the answer is no because no one would want to admit that obviously, but from the outside it certainly seems like this may have happened and I am just curious if the thought had crossed your minds at any point?

I tend to argue both points to myself to come to a position. Take the center of the universe example. If I put myself in Stephen Hawking's shoes I would be arguing on basis of absurdity and modesty to deny evidence. Perhaps such loops of logic are acceptable for some people. But that would be insufficient in my mind, that I have not satisfactorily defended my subject.

I actually think the opposite is true, and that people are conditioned to believe that everything in science is completely verified, and make statements along the lines of "I believe the standard explanation. If the alternative was verified I'd believe it", without understanding, even when explicitly admitted, "We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty". The meaning of this sentence is that the standard belief is not verified, and was only made to deny the evidence.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 01:28:34 PM by Tom Bishop »

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2020, 01:00:04 PM »
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Is your reasoning "that's aburd" and "Stephen Hawking is right. We have no scientific evidence for this, but we have to believe it because of modesty"?
Apologies in advance for going off topic from OP for this, feel free to split this discussion if deemed needed.

So, my reasoning has nothing to do with what famous people say but I'll take you through my thought process. First, I don't have a religion so I don't believe we as humans or that the earth itself is some kind of special case from the rest of the universe, in that regard maybe it's modesty but I think in a very chaotic universe we popped up in quite a random place, I have no reason to believe that place is the very center of the universe any more than that place is random within the universe and the probability of earth forming and life forming on earth in the very center is extremely low. You could say some sky daddy no one has seen evidence for has made us and we're super special and the center of everything... In that sense I guess I do say "that's absurd" simply because I'm not religious. Since this observation is nothing to do with religion I mostly discount that as a probable reason for being at the center (I could be wrong, maybe god is a thing, if he is I've seen nothing to suggest it's truth).

I mean, let me ask you something, if you were born and raised in a town that had never heard of religion, no religious members in the towns community, no bible to read, would you come to the conclusion that god is your saviour and that there's heaven after life? Without people to tell you this stuff, you'd probably grow up not being religious correct? This thought is the reason I don't have any religion, people telling me god is a thing and that I have to have faith or I'll be damned and doomed for eternity... Just sounds like cult conditioning to me and thankfully that never happened in my upbringing. I grew up in an accepting family that would be fine if I had a religion but didn't tell me how to think. If I ever happened upon a super religious experience that could not be explained any other way than a god intervention/miracle then that may convince me but until that time, I'll be looking at things from the perspective that religion has no place in what we observe in the universe.

So again, if all of the celestial bodies are ever expanding away from us, and away from each other, then that observation would look the same from any position in the known universe and again the probability that we happen to be at the center would be extremely low. The only reason to believe we're in the center is religion, it's cool if people have religion as it has nothing to do with me, but it has no place in such a point. Of course I could be wrong and maybe (observable universe aside) we are in the middle and everything revolves around us... But whats the probability of that being the case? Well, if the earth were flat, I could go out into the street and proclaim that I am in the center of the world, whats the chances of that being true?

The religious side of this is the biggest "what if". if god is actually a thing the the probability of us being in the middle shoots way up, but we still wouldn't know for sure without 'faith' that some book people wrote ages ago claiming it to be the word of god, then rewrote a few times still proclaiming it to be that same word of god even though it's different now and up to modern standards is actually, truly the word of god. If god is real I don't think I'd believe in the bible still. Or Jesus, call me damned but he sounds like a con man.

As for the example of Stockholm syndrome, dude, they could give me my favourite meal every day and never beat me but if they still took me and held me against my will and then emotionally exploit my family for profit, they're bad people...  Come on Tom, next you'll be saying slavery is all good so long as you treat your slaves well.  ::)

Also NGL I really am trying to think of examples with good things to convey my point but I could only think of bad things like Stockholm syndrome, I'm really not trying to say flat earth is bad and believing it is bad or anything (though it's not exactly beneficial to think the world is flat when it's not).  Sorry if it comes across as me comparing flat earth to being super bad.
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2020, 03:29:33 PM »
First, I don't have a religion so I don't believe we as humans or that the earth itself is some kind of special case from the rest of the universe

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You could say some sky daddy no one has seen evidence for has made us and we're super special and the center of everything... In that sense I guess I do say "that's absurd" simply because I'm not religious.

Why would being at the center of the universe require religion to be true? Perhaps things naturally collect at the center of the universe which make life possible, like how things could collect at the bottom of a bowl, or different properties at the center of the sun.

You are arguing on basis of absurdity that religion cannot be true so we can't be at the center.

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Since this observation is nothing to do with religion I mostly discount that as a probable reason for being at the center (I could be wrong, maybe god is a thing, if he is I've seen nothing to suggest it's truth).

You even admit that this has nothing to do with religion, but choose to give us a long rant about how you hate religion and that's why we can't be at the center.

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the probability of earth forming and life forming on earth in the very center is extremely low.

Is that based on your omnicent knowledge of the universe for what is and is not probable? I'm pretty sure that all things have a special place in them - rocks in a stream have different life harboring properties for bacterias on the outside than the inside, electrons move around protons, etc etc.

Instead you are mostly ranting about sky daddies, cult religions, and how religion can't be true and your general hatred of religion. That seems more like a personal problem on your end. You admit that it has nothing to do with religion, so why are you bringing religion into this?

Your argument to us here tells of bias and arguments from absurdity

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Without people to tell you this stuff, you'd probably grow up not being religious correct? This thought is the reason I don't have any religion, people telling me god is a thing and that I have to have faith or I'll be damned and doomed for eternity... Just sounds like cult conditioning to me

I don't see what truth has to do with what people tell you to believe.

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I grew up in an accepting family that would be fine if I had a religion but didn't tell me how to think. If I ever happened upon a super religious experience that could not be explained any other way than a god intervention/miracle then that may convince me but until that time, I'll be looking at things from the perspective that religion has no place in what we observe in the universe.

Again, you are bringing religion into this, when the evidence that we are at the center has nothing to do with religion. You are rejecting it because it agrees with what religion says.

That is the exact opposite of the concept of scientific objectivity.

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The only reason to believe we're in the center is religion


Not at all. The reason to believe we are at the center is because the evidence says that we are at the center.

"The only reason to believe it is because of religion" -- You are bringing religion into this and are telling us that you hate religion and that religion says that we are at the center, so that's why we are not.

Really, what kind of reasoning is that? Perhaps you are the one who needs some objectivity here

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As for the example of Stockholm syndrome, dude, they could give me my favourite meal every day and never beat me but if they still took me and held me against my will and then emotionally exploit my family for profit, they're bad people...  Come on Tom, next you'll be saying slavery is all good so long as you treat your slaves well.  ::)

Not everything is black and white. I am fairly sure that it is possible to accept that the kidnapping was "just business" and see that a person has other good qualities to them.

It is also possible for slaves to like their owners and accept that their position is a matter of societal norms of the time and not their slave owner's inherent evil. The slave owner needs to compete with other slave plantations, after all. That's hard to do if you are refusing to use slaves. The slaves understood that it was a matter of business and the norms of the time, and accepted it, and many were reported to even come to like their owners. It wasn't a "syndrome".

You seem to be screaming that bad people are 100% bad, no matter what. Again, asking us to judge with our biases without considering the other side.

I say that your investigational method  founded on judging with your biases is insufficient, and that you actually need to consider the position of the other side for better understanding.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 03:32:50 PM by Tom Bishop »

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2020, 05:19:30 PM »
Don't put words in my mouth Tom, I wasn't ranting about hating religion, I was explaining why I put religion to one side as an explanation. I don't care either way if people have religious beliefs, I certainly don't hate it, I just don't personally see any point in using religion as a base for our understanding of the universe, for which I explained why that is. You were pretty quick to the character assassination there and it's highly disrespectful.

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Not at all. The reason to believe we are at the center is because the evidence says that we are at the center.
Evidence also says we could equally be anywhere else in the universe...

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You seem to be screaming saying that bad people are 100% bad, no matter what. Again, asking us to judge with our biases without considering the other side.
I crossed out your further attempts at character assassination... Stop making it seem like I'm some angry, loud person. And I'm not saying they are 100% bad as in they have 0% good in them, I'm saying they are definitely bad people. you take another person hostage and exploit their family for profit you aren't a good person, That's pretty much obvious and also not really my point, my point was the psychological process of blocking out something in the mind in order to fill it with something else. In this case, slowly blocking out the fact that someone is doing something horrific and coming round to liking them. Do you see the point I'm making or do you want to argue semantics more?

I'm simply asking if this is something you've taken into consideration when you dived deep into the idea of flat earth in the (relatively) short time of a few years filling your mind with a very much overview/foundation knowledge of a lot of topics in order to dig deeper into each one. There are very few people in this world that would fully understand every subject matter about the world, and flat earthers would have to dive into a lot of those topics and have a high level of knowledge about them which is obviously not likely possible for one persons lifetime. A Jack of all trades I suppose would be the term. You can't be an expert on everything, so it's possible you can misunderstand things. By you, I mean all of us obviously, not specifically you.

I'll say again, so far I've seen all flat earthers who rush to do a youtube video or whatever to share their epiphany tend to massively not understand what they're talking about in fact the only flat earthers that haven't been proven wrong are the silent ones like Pete... Even you, Tom, seem to fail to understand something as simple as perspective while confidently going about explaining things and that's not a dig at you, it's my point that you and I or anyone else cannot retain knowledge of so many subject matters without getting things fundamentally wrong sometimes. There was even an extremely long thread pointing this out to you Tom. Do you claim to be all knowing of all subjects about the earths shape? Are you smarter than rocket scientists or the engineers that put satellites into orbit? Are you more knowledgeable than professional geologists? Are you a better sea captain than a sea captain with a lifetime of experience sailing the world? Absolutely not. Which suggests that you would have a lot of holes in your knowledge on the subject of  the earths shape. But people who are professionals in their fields have enough knowledge to know specific things that point toward the earths shape. Do you have expert credentials in anything that could show evidence of a flat earth Tom? If so I'd love to hear it (really, I would). I know my specific field of expertise is CGI and there's still plenty more for me to learn in that subject.

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I say that your investigational method  founded on judging with your biases is insufficient, and that you actually need to consider the position of the other side for better understanding.
I'd say you missed the main point I was making and just went straight to the attacking of me, All I'm doing here is asking you if perhaps there are some misunderstandings in your knowledge that could have taken you to the wrong conclusion. I'm even admitting this for myself, I could well be doing this. It's something I said I question a lot for myself.

The fact that you're basically saying no and going to character assassination suggests quite a bit of arrogance from some kind of insecurity. If I do what you're doing here I could say you're always screaming "BUT THREE BODY PROBLEM", I could say you're yelling how much you hate the globe, I haven't done that though. If I were you I'd question why you feel so very strongly about not wanting to admit you may have some misunderstandings. Think of them as plot holes maybe, that's how I consider it. For example if I said X, Y and Z is all true, but if X is true then Z can't be, that's a plothole in my knowledge and I would most certainly question that.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 08:32:57 PM by ChrisTP »
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2020, 05:21:45 PM »
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Perhaps things naturally collect at the center of the universe which make life possible, like how things could collect at the bottom of a bowl, or different properties at the center of the sun.
This is a fair comment for sure. It's a what if, and I dunno, since it looks like everything is expanding away from us then why would everything be collecting in the middle?
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2020, 06:01:03 PM »


There are very few people in this world that would fully understand every subject matter about the world, and flat earthers would have to dive into a lot of those topics and have a high level of knowledge about them which is obviously not likely possible for one persons lifetime. A Jack of all trades I suppose would be the term. You can't be an expert on everything, so it's possible you can misunderstand things. By you, I mean all of us obviously, not specifically you.

I think this is an extremely important point and one that bears repeating.

If we zoom out to view the entire FET vs RET debate, we see that FET must simultaneously respond to and account for a huge variety of technical, philosophical, scientific, and logical problems. And they have to do so with expert technical knowledge in each one of these areas. Unfortunately, the FE claims do not generally come from experts in these respective fields.

I just made a post recently in the flat earth investigations forum regarding a subject I actually am fairly knowledgeable about - WW2.  My understanding of it squares and comports perfectly with RET. but it contradicts FET (at least as far as the monopole map goes).

In my opinion, FEers  now have to wrestle with a deep and complicated subject that they hadn’t before - the Pacific theater in World War II.

 I have no doubt there are flat earth believers who also know about World War II and I am looking forward to any of them responding to that thread.

But this goes back to the point you made, Chris - you need to be a super deep expert in so many areas that no one can actually do it.

(I suck super bad at math and physics for example).



Offline MK

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Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #12 on: June 10, 2020, 10:31:43 AM »
it's my point that you and I or anyone else cannot retain knowledge of so many subject matters without getting things fundamentally wrong sometimes.

This is a particularly difficult thing for me to deal with. Maybe the reason I spend so much time on this forum or other forums, or youtube videos arguing for or against flat earth. I don’t know what shape the earth is… I really don’t and it seems impossible for me to make a decision. It keeps me up at night, it’s creeping into all knowledge I have of everything else. Or think I have… I mean, don’t you guys think the core of becoming a flat earther must be this notion of abandoning one of the most solid ‘truths’ of your perception of life. Something you never really even considered as up for debate. It’s an incredible weight on me to think about it in this way. If such a notion is possible in this case, then isn’t it possible for any case? And based on what do you make a decision on any truth then. You might say proof, but it is safe to say the hundreds of years of round earth belief now go to show proof is not always or should not always be believed. So why believe flat earth proof? I want to make it very clear I am not questioning your ability to believe in flat earth, because it goes against what I grew to believe in. I am questioning the ability to believe in anything in a world of growing uncertainty.

So.. I don’t know what shape the earth is. How did you chose, how did you come to feel secure in what you’ve chosen?

Re: Research question about becoming a flat earther
« Reply #13 on: July 15, 2020, 07:08:57 PM »
Hello.
I'm currently researching the flat earth community and the effects discovering such a community can have on its member's psychological state. While going through all the available information online, I was disappointed to see the topic is always addressed by round earthers. It took me around 8 Google pages to reach an 'inside source.' I feel the image of the flat earther has been unjustly deformed into an uneducated gullible conspirator and I am much more interested in what the truth about becoming a flat earther is. I was happy to come across this discussion board and I'm hoping some of you could share your experience. Particularly I am interested in how you feel your life has changed since discovering FE and what effects it has had on your internal self and well-being, for lack of better words.
Looking forward to what you have to say!

Hello, my name is Edvaldo, I'm Brazilian living in Michigan, I'm new in this forum and I've been "studying" FE for 1 year now. I have a college degree in Mechanical Engineering and I work in a big automaker.
The first time I heard about it was from a friend of mine asking me if I watched that documentary in Netflix and I told him: "Don't even bother talk to me about this theory!"
Well, 2 weeks after that I was surprised with myself when I was searching Youtube about Earth's magnetic field reversal and I found a Brazilian GEOLOGIST, PHD in seismology, talking about the movement in the magnetic field and, also, how it makes MUCH more sense in flat earth than in an spherical earth.
That video turned my mind upside down and I started researching about FE, because I wanted to understand why a lot of people believe in it. To me it looked ridiculous and now I see how wrong I was.
There are a few things that need to be answered, like the real shape of moon, why we can see only one side of it, how it works, etc, but even with these things I think FE is much more plausible.
The main thing FE changed in me is that I became much more curious about everything than before. Now I don't just believe in everything someone tells me it's true, I question everything! This new way of thinking was the most important thing that happened to me and I think everybody should do that!
I never believed man went to the moon and I know it's impossible to do that, just look for information on Van Allen radiation belt and, also, look for information on our own thermosphere, in which its temperature varies from 500C (932F) to 2000C (3632F). There's no known material that supports Van Allen's radiation and that highest thermosphere temperature.
I am Christian, I believe in the Old and in the New Testament (I prefer call them Alliance and Renovated Alliance), I believe Earth is the center of the "universe" and all human beings are special, just like God created us. I can find FE in the Bible, it was always there and I guess I never payed attention. Did FE make any difference in my beliefs? Of course it did, for better!
Some scientists say that we're less than a grain of sand compared to the universe! To me, that's a big fat lie, just to make us believe we're nothing, we're just an accident, born from a worm in a primordial soup, billions of years ago in an event which its possibility of happening is trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions... That's our enemy's strategy, don't fall for that.
Question everything!