[Pete Svarrior]

You have made this argument before. Someone pulled a map directly from the wiki, showed it was impossible, and you pretended that it misrepresented flat Earth and that they should look at the wiki.

And now you're lying about what I've said. The "images" I was referring to were a series of "debunks", each of which started with an incorrect assumption about the Flat Earth Model, and not the map featured in some of said images.

While quote-mining me and imposing your own context onto what has been said might make me look bad to someone who's not paying attention, it only aids my claim that you're not interested in a truthful assessment. Thank you for this confirmation.

[mtnman]

Please give serious consideration to what you want to teach a child. I hear so many people throwing around the goal of having an "open mind", and on the surface that sounds all well and good. I certainly have no problem being open minded, and I consider myself to be open minded. But think about what this really means.

The way I see some people use the term, they wear it as a badge of honor, and in their some of their minds, being open minded means believing the opposite of most people, or of conventional thought. There is a difference in being open minded and being stubbornly contrary.

I am going to post some things here not for the sake of starting a debate thread, but to comment on being open minded.
Here are a few things that support RE (round Earth) belief:
Calculations of shadows in ancient Greece that determined the circumference of the Earth
Ship captains navigating the Earth for hundreds of years using a clock and the angle to the sun or north star to calculate their position on the Earth's surface
Pictures of Earth from space (NASA, ESA, private satellite launches, weather satellite pictures on TV news, etc.)
GPS
Satellite TV and radio
Solar and lunar eclipses
Constellations that are different in the northern and southern hemisphere

How does FE explain the things listed above? Lies, conspiracies, balloons, nothing at all?

You can find individual items discussed in threads and occasionally in the wiki. The explanations where they exist are shallow at best and often have an elaborate explanation for one attribute, which completely contradicts other attributes.

So I ask you to seriously consider, is believing that all the explanations we are commonly taught for all those basic attributes of the world are all lies and/or wrong. Is that really being open minded?

[StinkyOne]

You may not want to bring up the Tsar Bomba thread - you were wrong on that thread, tried to misrepresent what 3D actually said, and when I called you on it, you conveniently vanished.

Oh yeah, you were the proponent of supersonic sound. That was a fun one. Always good to see creative RE'ers invent things like that. Not as fun as Dallas, Japan; but fun nonetheless.

You may want to go back and refresh your memory on that one. We misread the graph, once that was cleared up, you had no other rebuttal other than to misrepresent what 3D said. Again, once your mistake was called out, you vanished. Fun indeed. I love proving FEers wrong.

[mtnman]

One suggestion I would make is this. Make an appointment with a science teacher at your local grade school or high school and discuss this. Don't rely on YouTube videos and forum posts. I have seen such nonsense posted on those kind of sources. Some of it so ridiculous that I really go back and forth on thinking people are ignorant or just playing a practical joke.

There is often a lack of quality response in these settings that you would get in a personal conversation. I have seen many times where people post something, have it thoroughly debunked, but then the original poster disappears from the discussion thread.

I think a one on one conversation with you and a good science teacher with a whiteboard would make a huge difference. Please consider it.

[Hmmm]

xenotolerance, Pete Svarrior, StinkyOne, TomInAustin, 3DGeek,
i think you should create a new thread somewhere in debate section - otherwise you will flood this one with information  Steve, the OP didn't(kinda) ask for.     

[Hmmm]

...Don't rely on YouTube videos and forum posts. I have seen such nonsense posted on those kind of sources. Some of it so ridiculous that I really go back and forth on thinking people are ignorant or just playing a practical joke.

But if everything was allright with the world, there would be no reason to question earth's shap, and there would be no reason to talk about any conspiracy.
I think, some of the people who talk about flat earth are normal, sane and genuine in their concerns.

I know a method^{(you could learn to do it auromatically)}: find things 'that are repeating' in all of FE youtube videos you watch - combine things, that  everyone or majority  of people agrees on, in one big picture; do it with every little claim.
For example:
most FEs agree on that the sun is smaller and closer than we're taught.

...I think a one on one conversation with you and a good science teacher with a whiteboard would make a huge difference. Please consider it.

Or you could make an appointment with one science teacher today, with another two days after, and another next week, etc (within 1 month timespan); and then analyze what  most or everyone  of them agrees on(what's matching in their opinions) and what  most or everyone disagrees on.

I think it's effective technique(especially if you combine or balance with other related ones), but i could be wrong. At least, when i use it, it works for me.

[mtnman]

...Don't rely on YouTube videos and forum posts. I have seen such nonsense posted on those kind of sources. Some of it so ridiculous that I really go back and forth on thinking people are ignorant or just playing a practical joke.

But if everything was allright with the world, there would be no reason to question earth's shap, and there would be no reason to talk about any conspiracy.
I think, some of the people who talk about flat earth are normal, sane and genuine in their concerns.
 

I don't think it's a valid argument to say the Earth might be flat because some people talk about it being flat. But rather than having that argument, I will share an example of the type of thing I am referring to. I was searching for videos on the solar eclipse in August. I was able to drive a couple of hours an see the totality, it was an awesome sight and I wanted to see some other views of it. In doing so I saw a video that claimed that the moon is 70 miles wide and this was proof of NASA lies, flat Earth, etc.

The basis of his claims about the moon's width was that something can cast a shadow bigger than itself, but not a smaller one due to the "laws of shadows". It only took a moment to understand where his thought processes were wrong. His main problem was that he was thinking that the area of totality is "the" shadow of the moon, and that he was thinking of the sun as a single point of light. Because the sun is large and round there are areas where the moon blocks some, but not all, of the sun. So you have areas of partial and areas of total eclipse (penumbra and umbra). So the true shadow of the moon includes all the areas of partial eclipse which was a path thousands of miles wide.

So this is the problem I have. He made a video over 20 minutes long. I will guess he spent at least a few hours gathering video clips and editing. He posted this and it has been viewed over 250k times with over 4k comments. All of this because he decided to make the conspiracy video rather than taking ten minutes to research the facts to understand why he was wrong. It's the same logic that I have seen over and over in these videos, comments and posts here: I see something that doesn't make sense to me, so it must mean I have found proof of the evil NASA conspiracy! What is wrong with having the thought process: I see something that doesn't make sense to me, so I should research and find an explanation to my understanding.

If Mr 70 mile wide moon had talked to someone with basic science knowledge and just asked how the moon's shadow could be so small, it would only take a few minutes to explain.

Or you could make an appointment with one science teacher today, with another two days after, and another next week, etc (within 1 month timespan); and then analyze what  most or everyone  of them agrees on(what's matching in their opinions) and what  most or everyone disagrees on.

I think it's effective technique(especially if you combine or balance with other related ones), but i could be wrong. At least, when i use it, it works for me.

I think that is an excellent suggestion!

[xenotolerance]

The "images" I was referring to were a series of "debunks", each of which started with an incorrect assumption about the Flat Earth Model, and not the map featured in some of said images.

This is a useful clarification.

the images in question:




I'm not sure where 4 went.



dude takes a certain tone that I find disagreeable. I will focus on specifics

1 does not make any specific claims about what flat Earth beliefs are. he does write "the flat Earth map" when there is not a single specific thing, so he might be assuming the unipolar map is official (it looks that way, I'm sure you are aware) but it doesn't matter. One could define south as 'away from the north pole' for any unipolar model, or 'toward the south pole' in a bipolar model, and this argument holds.

2 is not entirely fair to Rowbotham's explanations for sunsets, as it isn't simply distance but faulty ideas of perspective (explained in terms of increasing distance, but moving on) that are supposed to explain sunsets. it's possible broheim had met this argument on reddit or elsewhere, but just distance is not used to explain sunsets here as far as I know. the question of the straight terminator is valid regardless.

3 is similar to 3DGeek's arguments about flight distances. it also does not make reference to a specific flat Earth tenet, instead generally showing that Earth can't be flat. one might disagree with the conclusion but he doesn't make any assumptions about flat Earth here.

5 ignores what ad hoc explanations do exist for lunar eclipses, and makes fun of one specific, possibly misrepresented argument about it. Lunar eclipses remain a clean demonstration that the Earth is not flat, and yet you are correct that this image misrepresents your beliefs.

6 suffers from its first paragraph referencing the alleged distance belief again, but is otherwise solid. Due westeast sunrise on equinox is not possible on a flat Earth, regardless of the drawn map. He is not making any assumptions about the map, beyond using the unipolar map that's featured in the wiki faq.

Having reviewed the available materials, I maintain that pointing these guys to the wiki was misdirection. also, redditors are fuckheads

[Pete Svarrior]

I'll leave the disagreements about FET out of this (sounds like 5 new threads to me, and we've detailed this enough by now) and I'll focus on your attempt at attacking my character.

Having reviewed the available materials, I maintain that pointing these guys to the wiki was misdirection. also, redditors are fuckheads

What I told him was to learn FET before trying to debunk it, and suggested the FAQ as a starting point. Yes, he'd have to go much further before he could start trying to debunk things. If I ever made it sound like this wasn't the case, hey ho, my bad.

Though I do think I made it clear:

Of course not. Do you not understand what an FAQ is? It's a starting point. If you're actually serious about this, you're going to have to set aside a few months to research the subject.

Start with the FAQ, work your way up from there.

[xenotolerance]

And it's obvious that he understands the theory well enough to form 5 good arguments against it, regardless of his time spent researching the wiki. In truth, the subject is somewhat straightforward: The Earth is not flat.

It's not an attack on your character to call this misdirection. I will refrain in the future from commenting on your tactics, in respect to your sensitivity on the subject.

[ScaryGary]

Honestly, the best bet is to let your son receive education without injecting all of your contradictory knowledge to what is being taught in school.  Once he gets out of school ten to 15 years from now then start presenting information.  Maybe by this time the rabbit will be out of the hat and you won't be to shed light on all of the false stuff going on.

[Tommy]

My son is nine. how do I educate him about this? I'm actually a teacher as well?

Don't

As a 10 year old who is completely logical and studies physics, I am outraged by the fact that you are trying to educate him about this. People say that it is the 'Government's lies' but think about it, if they government was really that corrupted, wouldn't they be exposed by the media or anti-corrupt agencies? Even if all those agencies I've mentioned are also corrupt, there would surely be whistle-blowers by now who would reveal these lies


But there are NO WHISTLE-BLOWERS
So the government can't be lying