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Offline Opeo

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@Junker: Sorry if this doesn't go in this forum, but this is something that's been frustrating me and I believe has been really detrimental to the quality of debate on this site.

I've been posting here for a month, and at first I was really excited about this forum. At the offset it seemed like one of the few places on the internet where people were actually looking at the evidence and attempting to test hypotheses scientifically on this subject rather than just scream past each other like on Twitter and Facebook.

However, there seems to be a pretty alarming trend here that's hurting discourse, and that's that while every single thread has its fair share of heliocentrists arguing their case, many FE believers seem to completely avoid certain topics of debate.

If it were just random threads it would be one thing, but it appears to always be threads where Rowbotham/ENAG/other standard FE beliefs don't appear to have any explanation for the counter-argument brought up.

The best example are the two recent threads asking about the discrepancy between the FE model's predicted daylight-hours for the Southern Hemisphere versus actually observed hours:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8995.0
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9178.0

The first got only a couple responses from FE believers with no follow up, while the second didn't even get a single FE response.

Why are certain topics not being discussed? Shouldn't an apparent weak spot in the FE model be the most interesting new topic to debate and hash out? If someone showed me a large inconsistency in my worldview, my first priority would be to closely examine it and experiment until I figured out the problem or changed my view to something that works, but here many FE believers seem to be avoiding these topics. Is there a reason these aren't being discussed?
"It's easier to fool people that to convince them that they have been fooled ;^)" — Marcus Aurelius, 180 A.D.

Offline Scroogie

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@Junker: Sorry if this doesn't go in this forum, but this is something that's been frustrating me and I believe has been really detrimental to the quality of debate on this site.

Why are certain topics not being discussed? Shouldn't an apparent weak spot in the FE model be the most interesting new topic to debate and hash out? If someone showed me a large inconsistency in my worldview, my first priority would be to closely examine it and experiment until I figured out the problem or changed my view to something that works, but here many FE believers seem to be avoiding these topics. Is there a reason these aren't being discussed?

I couldn't help but reply to this post as I have been harbouring exactly the same question for some time now. Unfortunately, I feel that I already know the answer because of the non responses I've gotten to several topics. We all know that there are a vast number of problems with the theory overall, but I have in the past isolated a few which seemed a bit more obvious and totally unresolvable to me (maybe I'm just not thinking sufficiently far "out of the box") so I posed them on this forum, never getting a reply.

The only reasonable conclusion I could draw was that they appear equally unresolvable to any FEer who might have read them, so they choose to ignore them. Attitudes such as this will inevitably result in Flat Earth Theory remaining in exactly the same position it is at present, with no advancement whatever. To be brutally honest, I hold out little hope for any advancement in the theory at any rate, unless it can be taken it a totally different direction. What direction, I haven't a clue. The present theory is fraught with inconsistencies and "problems", but these have never really bothered FEers. They are quite adept at ignoring them, hoping they will go away, possibly to be resolved by a saviour, a Knight in Shining Armour.

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Offline AATW

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The thing is, there can’t be any advancement in FE Theory because it is patently wrong. It doesn’t in any way match observations or empirical evidence - something they claim to value highly.

As has been said, gaping holes in their model are either explained away using all kinds of crazy reasoning (The ISS is a balloon, perspective causes sunsets, buildings are occluded not by the curve of the earth but by waves, no one knows the distance from New York to Paris and so on) or, more often, they are just ignored.

The conclusion has to be that at some level they know their model doesn’t work so either:

1) They live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, their identity is so wrapped up in the FES that they cannot admit to themselves that they are wrong

2) They don’t really believe it either and are just in it for the lolz.

If I had to guess I’d say Tom is in the first of those categories and Pete is in the second.

There is a third category for people who believe in a flat earth for (flawed in my opinion) religious reasons. They believe that’s what scripture says so they believe it and trust that over all the science.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

Offline jimbob

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The thing is, there can’t be any advancement in FE Theory because it is patently wrong. It doesn’t in any way match observations or empirical evidence - something they claim to value highly.

As has been said, gaping holes in their model are either explained away using all kinds of crazy reasoning (The ISS is a balloon, perspective causes sunsets, buildings are occluded not by the curve of the earth but by waves, no one knows the distance from New York to Paris and so on) or, more often, they are just ignored.

The conclusion has to be that at some level they know their model doesn’t work so either:

1) They live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, their identity is so wrapped up in the FES that they cannot admit to themselves that they are wrong

2) They don’t really believe it either and are just in it for the lolz.

If I had to guess I’d say Tom is in the first of those categories and Pete is in the second.

There is a third category for people who believe in a flat earth for (flawed in my opinion) religious reasons. They believe that’s what scripture says so they believe it and trust that over all the science.

Yep I think you have it nailed...............I have asked in a previous thread "calling all flat earthers" for believers to identify there primary reason for belief in the theory....no response. I think almost all are in category 2 otherwise they would step forward.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Well look at the topics you highlighted in the OP. Both spotlight sun.

We've all had that debate to death. We're bored of it. We know where the conversation goes, we know your objections, we have a wiki with the info and hundreds and hundreds of threads about it.

We aren't an automated bot service that can just do this conversation again and again for every single person that visits the site. If you want to know, search the forum, read those threads, and then once you are further along in your understanding of FET, come back to us. Maybe we can talk about vines wrapping around trees anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere or monkeys exhibiting flat earth assumptions or sun dogs only appearing towards the poles. But spot light sun or gravity again ... yeah, you will find it hard to get someone to go through all that for the 300th time.
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Offline Tom Bishop

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If I spend 5 hours in a thread to bring you up to speed on a subject, you guys will just make another thread on the same topic the next week.

So why is our time better spent debating with you than improving the wiki, making a youtube video, or writing a book?

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Offline Opeo

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Well look at the topics you highlighted in the OP. Both spotlight sun.

We've all had that debate to death. We're bored of it. We know where the conversation goes, we know your objections, we have a wiki with the info and hundreds and hundreds of threads about it.

We aren't an automated bot service that can just do this conversation again and again for every single person that visits the site. If you want to know, search the forum, read those threads, and then once you are further along in your understanding of FET, come back to us. Maybe we can talk about vines wrapping around trees anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere or monkeys exhibiting flat earth assumptions or sun dogs only appearing towards the poles. But spot light sun or gravity again ... yeah, you will find it hard to get someone to go through all that for the 300th time.

Genuinely, thanks for the response.

However, I have to disagree on that explanation because despite it being a common question, I've never see the an FE explanation for it anywhere I've looked. There's nowhere on the wiki that explains it and I've searched some older threads and not seen it — there doesn't seem to be a counter argument anywhere.

The closest thing I've seen is this chapter from the great Rowbotham himself: http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za26.htm. However, he doesn't explain any of the evidence, he just compares day lengths across wildly different latitudes and then flat out rejects the possibility that days and nights are the same length for equivalent latitudes north and south of the equator, but seasonally swapped. This is an attempt at an explanation at least, and shows he thought through the logical consequences of his model, but is now so patently absurd today where someone at 34° N can phone up someone at 34° S and verify that their seasonal daylight times are a perfect match. We're now well past the point where anyone who's not being intellectually dishonest can doubt the reported sunrise and sunset times across the world, so clearly a new FE explanation is needed.

If this has been answered before, I'd truly be curious to see it, but I haven't found it anywhere. Would you mind even just linking to an explanation?

If I spend 5 hours in a thread to bring you up to speed on a subject, you guys will just make another thread on the same topic the next week.

So why is our time better spent debating with you than improving the wiki, making a youtube video, or writing a book?

Even just a link to the wiki page explaining this phenomenon would be great! I promise, at least speaking for myself, that I scoured the wiki for an explanation before making my thread and couldn't find it anywhere.
"It's easier to fool people that to convince them that they have been fooled ;^)" — Marcus Aurelius, 180 A.D.

If I spend 5 hours in a thread to bring you up to speed on a subject, you guys will just make another thread on the same topic the next week.

So why is our time better spent debating with you than improving the wiki, making a youtube video, or writing a book?
I heartily agree with you on this. The problem seems to be you don't do that second part. When was the last time the FES made a YouTube video? How about the last time you wrote a book? How often do you update the wiki to reflect information discussed on these fora? In my opinion, ideally these fora should serve as a location to learn where you need to strengthen your hypothesis, so that you can then go and do so! If you get asked the same question(s) over and over, maybe that's a clue you need to improve information on the wiki. Or create a video discussing the topic. Or write an updated book on the information rather than relying entirely on claims made decades ago.

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Offline AATW

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That's fine, Tom, but as others have noted you DON'T seem to spend any time updating the Wiki.
Yes, you do get a bunch of people signing up and saying things like
"If the earth is flat why aren't the other planets flat?"
That is a silly question because the answer is right there in your Wiki. Silly answer, obviously, but at least you have one.

But a lot of other questions which you're asked - you might well think you have answers but those certainly aren't in the Wiki so why not answer them?
Your answer could then become a Wiki page so you don't have to keep repeating it.

Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

Offline jimbob

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Well look at the topics you highlighted in the OP. Both spotlight sun.

We've all had that debate to death. We're bored of it. We know where the conversation goes, we know your objections, we have a wiki with the info and hundreds and hundreds of threads about it.

We aren't an automated bot service that can just do this conversation again and again for every single person that visits the site. If you want to know, search the forum, read those threads, and then once you are further along in your understanding of FET, come back to us. Maybe we can talk about vines wrapping around trees anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere or monkeys exhibiting flat earth assumptions or sun dogs only appearing towards the poles. But spot light sun or gravity again ... yeah, you will find it hard to get someone to go through all that for the 300th time.
OK, good, so two believers Tom and Baby Thork. Would you care to share with us that which was primarily instrumental in your decision to accept FE theory

Offline Scroogie

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2018, 08:18:02 AM »
If I spend 5 hours in a thread to bring you up to speed on a subject, you guys will just make another thread on the same topic the next week.

So why is our time better spent debating with you than improving the wiki, making a youtube video, or writing a book?

Mostly because improving the wiki, making a youtube video, or writing a book are each a waste of time, even yours. The best thing you could do with the wiki would be to delete each page, one by one. At least then it wouldn't have any errors or misconceptions, which is about all it has at present.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2018, 10:49:18 AM »
OK, good, so two believers Tom and Baby Thork. Would you care to share with us that which was primarily instrumental in your decision to accept FE theory
I discovered the site over 10 years ago. I read it for a bit and thought ... mmm. Proving that the world is round seems a bit easy. Why don't I prove its flat instead? Got to be more fun.

Anyhoo, that means learning FET, making the arguments and finding flaws in RET. After a while, FET became easier to make a case for than RET, even in my own head, and the rest is history. I'd accidentally red-pilled myself.
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Offline Opeo

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2018, 04:13:17 PM »
OK, good, so two believers Tom and Baby Thork. Would you care to share with us that which was primarily instrumental in your decision to accept FE theory
I discovered the site over 10 years ago. I read it for a bit and thought ... mmm. Proving that the world is round seems a bit easy. Why don't I prove its flat instead? Got to be more fun.

Anyhoo, that means learning FET, making the arguments and finding flaws in RET. After a while, FET became easier to make a case for than RET, even in my own head, and the rest is history. I'd accidentally red-pilled myself.

So still no response to my point here: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9253.msg144528#msg144528 ? The constant evasion on this topic really doesn't look good for the FE hypothesis. One might even start to think there are glaring logical holes that none of the supporters can explain so instead they just deflect and ignore.
"It's easier to fool people that to convince them that they have been fooled ;^)" — Marcus Aurelius, 180 A.D.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2018, 05:49:01 PM »
I took a look through the threads you linked in your first post where you assert that there is a lack of participation and found the following quote:

He states that the FE Map is as shown on the UN Logo - actually there is no agreed map although that is admittedly the one commonly shown.

It looks like the thread was answered to me. It is using a false premise by assuming that the earth is a Northern Azimuth projection.

I'm pretty sure we have said that the commonly used map and model is just a visualized example numerous time, enough times that even Round Earthers are parroting that information back to you. This is also expressed in the Wiki that states that there are multiple possible models, and across the literature. The problem isn't that no one is participating. The problem is that you aren't listening.

Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2018, 05:54:15 PM »
I took a look through the threads you linked in your first post where you assert that there is a lack of participation and found the following quote:

He states that the FE Map is as shown on the UN Logo - actually there is no agreed map although that is admittedly the one commonly shown.

It looks like the thread was answered to me. It is using a false premise by assuming that the earth is a Northern Azimuth projection.

I'm pretty sure we have said that the commonly used map and model is just a visualized example numerous time, enough times that even Round Earthers are parroting that information back to you. This is also expressed in the Wiki that states that there are multiple possible models, and across the literature. The problem isn't that no one is participating. The problem is that you aren't listening.
When will you be explaining how you would propose to actually produce a correct map of the earth?

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Offline Opeo

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #15 on: March 19, 2018, 06:32:16 PM »
I took a look through the threads you linked in your first post where you assert that there is a lack of participation and found the following quote:

He states that the FE Map is as shown on the UN Logo - actually there is no agreed map although that is admittedly the one commonly shown.

It looks like the thread was answered to me. It is using a false premise by assuming that the earth is a Northern Azimuth projection.

I'm pretty sure we have said that the commonly used map and model is just a visualized example numerous time, enough times that even Round Earthers are parroting that information back to you. This is also expressed in the Wiki that states that there are multiple possible models, and across the literature. The problem isn't that no one is participating. The problem is that you aren't listening.

I am very aware that there is some disagreement with in the FE community on what the map looks like. My point has always been to argue against the most common model, which by the way is the one that's used to explain seasons by both the wiki (https://wiki.tfes.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#How_do_you_explain_day.2Fnight_cycles_and_seasons.3F) and Rowbotham. I never claimed "if the spotlight model shown on the seasons page of the FE wiki is wrong, then all possible FE models are wrong," it was "if the spotlight model shown on the wiki is wrong, then FE supporters should update it." Hence why I specified "'spotlight' model" in the title of my first topic.

If you already know that model is wrong because it can't explain something as simple as the seasons, why is it all over the wiki? Why is it so frequently posted here? Why is it in the logo of the Flat Earth Society itself? It's not that this is "just a visualized example," it's clearly and objectively incorrect. This also isn't a matter like a Mercator projection, where concessions and distortions have to be accepted since it's impossible to draw and entire 3D object on a 2D plane. If the Earth is flat and a piece of paper is flat, the paper should be able to show a map perfectly so there's literally no reason to put up with an outdated, incorrect model. It's OK to update the wiki to just say you don't know what the map looks like instead of peddling models you know are wrong, if that's going to be your defense whenever someone points out issues.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest as it stands, since the wiki uses that model to describe many things, but whenever someone brings up problems and inconsistencies with the explanations their critiques are suddenly not valid because you already knew the model was wrong. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2018, 06:43:54 PM by Opeo »
"It's easier to fool people that to convince them that they have been fooled ;^)" — Marcus Aurelius, 180 A.D.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #16 on: March 19, 2018, 08:30:35 PM »
Why is it in the logo of the Flat Earth Society itself? It's not that this is "just a visualized example," it's clearly and objectively incorrect.

This old chestnut again.

Do these guys sell half eaten apples?






Is this a company run by a woman who sells sea shells on the sea shore?






Is this cereal for zoos?




We have a logo. Its a very rough representation of a flat earth. McDonald's don't even have a burger in their logo. They have a golden 'm'. It has nothing to do with their product at all. Most logos are like that. Ours is no different. You see it, you think of flat earth ... job done. Have you been writing angry letters to the people below because of their crappy representation of earth?




Let it go. It's just a logo.
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Offline Opeo

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2018, 08:51:58 PM »
Why is it in the logo of the Flat Earth Society itself? It's not that this is "just a visualized example," it's clearly and objectively incorrect.

This old chestnut again.

I'm being trolled right now, right? No one could possibly in good faith read that post and think the central point that needed a response was me complaining about the logo.

The longer these constant deflections and straw men and deliberate misrepresentations go on, the more I'm being persuaded that every FES member is just in on the joke and this whole thing is a bit. I just don't want to think people could be so close-minded that they'd fabricate complete non-sequitors just to derail conversations they don't like.

I'll spell out my real question this time for you: if the azimuth projection map doesn't work, then why is it still in the ostensibly educational wiki?
"It's easier to fool people that to convince them that they have been fooled ;^)" — Marcus Aurelius, 180 A.D.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2018, 08:53:01 PM »
Because we're too lazy to change it.

Are you happy now?  >o<
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Offline AATW

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Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2018, 09:44:58 PM »
Because we're too lazy to change it.

Are you happy now?  >o<
Do you really not see it as a problem that there are such gaping holes in your "theory"?
You have no idea what a flat earth looks like - in the real world the globe has long since been mapped.
You don't even know if there is one pole or two - in the real world both have been explored, there is a research base at the South Pole which you can pay to visit.

The fact is there is no flat earth map which can match observations. The one in the Wiki doesn't. Either there's one pole in which case there is no way the 24 hour sun in the Antarctic circle can be explained and you're calling every single Antarctic explorer a liar. Or there's 2 in which case your entire model of the sun's movement falls down.

The reason for this is that the premise it is based on - a flat earth - is wrong. It's weird that you never consider this. Instead you start with the premise of a flat earth because of...reasons. You then try and fit everything around that but it doesn't fit. You are trying to fit a too big carpet in a room, soon as you flatten one corner down another one pops up.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"