41

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 19, 2021, 01:35:33 AM »

What a terrible article for you. First you claim that the numbers were FALSE with the Twitter reference that you supported, and now your arguments shifts to claiming that the numbers posted by the lawmakers were CORRECT.

From your article:

The claim then spread to several right-wing websites and social media influencers, including Trump, whose tweet claiming Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than voters was retweeted 117,000 times.

However, these claims rely on incomplete data, according to Wanda Murren, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of State, who called the lawmakers’ release “obvious misinformation.”

So this article admits that numbers are correct but calls it "incomplete," as if it takes more than two months to upload their data.

The article does not make any effort to prove or substantiate that it was incomplete. It only calls it incomplete. This is an excuse. You found an excuse.

Now that it is May we can wait for you to prove that the numbers actually were incomplete to support this increasingly evolving line of excuses from you.

You didn't read that article very carefully, apparently. 

Here's a quote further down:

"Those claims are easily debunked. In Pennsylvania, for example, there were nearly 7 million votes cast. The total number of registered voters in 2020 was just over 9 million."

Seems like Rep. Ryan was just flat out wrong...

Just look here for the numbers:
https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Pages/VotingElectionStatistics.aspx

42

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 19, 2021, 01:29:03 AM »

You have not presented a legitimate source or authority. You are presenting a Twitter comment by "CowboyRocksteady" that "you can look it up" and "this is false".  Wow. A Twitter comment. Stunning debunk there.

This is how dishonest you are. A link to the PA Department of State is ignored and instead you try and disparage the Twitter handle. It’s pathetic.

You guys are referencing a Twitter comment and are jumping up and down assuring us that the person on Twitter accurately analyzed and understood what he was posting.

Your source is god awful, per usual.

But did you even look at the PA link and compare it to the original claim?

The PA Reps were claiming that the county data differs from the SURE system data, and the page presented doesn't specify whether it is presenting county data or "SURE" data anywhere on that page, let alone compares them for us. So we see that not only are you presenting a terrible source, you are providing terrible data as well.

Are you sure you know what "SURE" data is, exactly?  You are decrying a source that is effectively the same source - because you think the tweet from Rep. Ryan was meaningful.  SURE data is overseen by PA's Bureau of Election Security and Technology which is, dum da da dum!!!  Under the authority of the PA Department of State. 

Just the teensiest amount of Google fu shows this news article:
https://wjactv.com/news/local/pa-republican-lawmakers-analysis-finds-presidential-election-numbers-dont-add-up

which includes this response from the PA DoS to Rep. Ryan:

"In today’s release Rep. Ryan and others rehash, with the same lack of evidence and the same absence of supporting documentation, repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories regarding the November 3 election. State and federal judges have sifted through hundreds of pages of unsubstantiated and false allegations and found no evidence of fraud or illegal voting.

"Now, the legislators have given us another perfect example of the dangers of uninformed, lay analysis combined with a basic lack of election administration knowledge.

"For instance, it is quite common to have significant "undervotes" for down-ballot races in a presidential election, particularly when there isn't a U.S. Senate race on the ballot. In 2000, Sen. Santorum received 200,000 more votes than President Bush, but the US Senate race still had more than 100,000 fewer votes than the presidential race.

"We are unclear as to what data the legislators used for this most recent “analysis.” But the only way to determine the number of voters who voted in November from the SURE system is through the vote histories. At this time, there are still a few counties that have not completed uploading their vote histories to the SURE system. These counties, which include Philadelphia, Allegheny, Butler and Cambria, would account for a significant number of voters. The numbers certified by the counties, not the uploading of voter histories into the SURE system, determines the ultimate certification of an election by the secretary.

"This obvious misinformation put forth by Rep. Ryan and others is the hallmark of so many of the claims made about this year’s presidential election. When exposed to even the simplest examination, courts at every level have found these and similar conspiratorial claims to be wholly without basis.

"To put it simply, this so-called analysis was based on incomplete data."  [emphasis added]

43

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 19, 2021, 12:31:02 AM »

Pennsylvania

PA State Reps found numbers that don't add up.

BREAKING: Pennsylvania Certified Results for President Are Found in Error – The Error Is Twice the Size of the Difference Between Candidates

"Republican State Representative Russ Diamond uncovered and reported today that the results for President are way off in Pennsylvania.  More ballots were cast than people voted by more than 200,000 votes."

Personally, I think in a country of well over 300 million, with so much at stake the idea that there wasn't fraud is ridiculous. However, the claim that the amount of fraud that occurred was sufficient (on one side) to have been the reason Biden won is what we do not have evidence for.

Randomly I wanted to look at the last claim first, and went to that tweet from Dec. 28th.  Fifth reply down says this:

CowboyRocksteady
Dec 28, 2020
Replying to
@russdiamond
You can look up the PA SURE numbers online. These numbers presented here are false.


And the very next tweet has this link showing that the numbers are wrong:
https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/BEST/Pages/BEST-Election-Stats.aspx

So...fact checked same day as the tweet all the way back in Dec. 28 by the fifth public reply!

Someone else can look at the other claims.  Maybe they're all legit.

44

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: When did Islam introduce fighting?

« on: May 19, 2021, 12:13:16 AM »

I don't doubt everything you write here is accurate.

But to be fair, warfare and violent conflict is endemic to the human condition and virtually all societies, with only a few remarkable exceptions.

In other words, if the society and religion founded by Mohammed were without "fighting" then that would be remarkable indeed.

 

45

Science & Alternative Science / Re: I have a Math/Physics degree ask me anything

« on: May 18, 2021, 04:57:05 PM »

I have a math/physics degree, and my research is on mathematical modelling.

Ask me anything.

Read this:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Electromagnetic_Acceleration

Can you help tfes.org by mathematically modeling this phenomena, particularly with the intent to discover what the "Bishop's Constant" might be?

46

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: May 13, 2021, 05:53:29 PM »

And if they are capable of living as I am currently (even better, in most instances), then yeah, they are not going to work.

I think I have the numbers right:

The max amount you can get is $450 per week of unemployment for usually 26 weeks (Some states are lower, like Missouri is 13 weeks). And that’s the max amount based upon your previous years income. And the max amount varies by State. For instance, California max is $450, Arizona’s is $240, Kentucky’s is $552. So I’m using the rough average max for this, $450.

That’s a total of $11,700.00 ($450 X 26 weeks, 1/2 a year)

Covid has extended the 26 weeks to 39 weeks and added a $300 additional benefit for up to 11 weeks.

So the max would be $450 + 300 for 11 weeks + $450 for 28 weeks for a total of: $8250 + $12600 = $20,850.00

Are you saying you make less than $20k for 3/4 of a year and the unemployed with these benefits are making more than you?

Source on those numbers?

47

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Help me understand how light rays travel

« on: May 12, 2021, 05:50:07 PM »

If we leave the distance that light travels on the December solstice constant and try to determine what time sunrise would be on the June solstice we get position 'B'. 

Can you elaborate/show your work on this?  Not disagreeing, I just don't comprehend it.

48

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why?

« on: May 12, 2021, 03:43:31 PM »

To continue to control the public and keep the public from realizing that there is a creator.

You can believe in a creator regardless of the shape of the Earth.
None of the religious people that I know believe that the Earth is flat.

For example, I'm very religious and yet accept RET as true...

49

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why?

« on: May 11, 2021, 11:45:42 PM »

the notion of American dominance of space is ridiculous when we aren't dominating space by one bit. 

Well, it's a little more complicated than that.  The mere presence of Chinese and Russian space stations is no more proof that the US does not dominate space than the existence of Chinese and Russian navies disproves US dominance of the world's oceans. But the US does dominate the worlds' oceans in a very real sense. Likewise, most IR security analysts accept that the US dominates space - though that could very well be temporary.

Anyway, back to RET vs FET...

I do agree that there's a logical conundrum in the Wiki insofar as exerting military dominance of space is kind of meaningless if there is no space to dominate...what's the point of NASA again, then?

50

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why?

« on: May 11, 2021, 06:43:10 PM »

of course the question now becomes why do the scientific community of every other country on earth ALSO agree in RET, when they have no NASA (with some exceptions of course several great powers have space programs but many smaller countries do not).

To answer that question you’ll have to wait for a FETer to answer.

51

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why?

« on: May 11, 2021, 06:00:36 PM »

Let’s say the earth is flat, why would nasa hide the truth

Read this page:
https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Conspiracy

Key quote:
"The purpose of NASA is to fake the concept of space travel to further America's militaristic dominance of space. That was the purpose of NASA's creation from the very start: To put ICBMs and other weapons into space (or at least appear to)."

52

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is there anything that RET cannot explain?

« on: April 06, 2021, 08:05:15 PM »

The plotting boards did not need to have highly accurate measurements, any more than your travel atlas.

Get me within 10 or 20or even 50 miles and it will be just fine.

So. to sum it up the carrier battles took place within the 10th parallel.

Wow.

Kind of lays waste to your observation.

Not at all.

Firstly, the lines of longitude are going to be off by a lot more than 20 miles, even 50 miles. Sadly, we can't really measure that because the wiki proposes zero maps with actual scale for the expanding distance between each line of latitude the further south you go beyond the equator. But we should be able to dispense with the notion that we're talking a small difference.

The massive six month Guadalcanal campaign, which comprised the two biggest carrier battles of the war - Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz - was fought in this area over tens of thousands of square miles (yes, tens of thousands of square miles) in the area of the Solomon Islands and other archipelagos nearby.

Google tells us that the Solomon Islands are 666 miles south of the Equator. So, yes, a huge number of carrier fighters were flying around on the open ocean in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 (or more) lines of latitude south. At that point, according to the FE monopole map as displayed in the wiki, it's pretty clear the lines are quite divergent. If each line of longitude began (at the equator) at about 69 miles apart (something I assume no one disagrees with, FE or RE), then by the time those lines reach the Solomon Islands they're quite a bit off. The error is not going to be a few dozen miles apart, but over a hundred. This means death to the pilots. And that didn't happen.

Furthermore, even if the discrepancy were only, say, 10 miles off, there's the fact that these planes sometimes failed to find their carriers and survive (a minority overall, to be sure), but this means that even with accurate plotting boards mistakes can happen. The visibility of the scouting planes were only about 25 miles out on a clear day. Fighters, whose cockpit had different designs (for different needs) could see even less than that. A deviation of 10 miles, against a ship that is also moving (carriers didn't sit still during any battles, but always moved), often meant the fighters had to circle around looking for their ships even with highly accurate plotting boards. An error of 10 miles likely translates into mistakes of dozens of miles off, which would have resulted in far more sea deaths than recorded. These planes had ranges in the hundreds of miles, but they had to go to the enemy, fight, then return, and didn't usually have the luxury of being able to spending another hour looking for their carrier group. They had to find it fast.

And finally, what about all the other battles in other places further or closer to the equator? There is no record or indication that planes were fitted with different plotting boards for each battle. In fact, carriers and their fighter pilots often didn't know where/when they would be fighting. The plotting boards had to work for any part of the ocean. So, are you arguing that the plotting boards were off by 10 in some places, 20 in others, and 50 in even others? If the pilots didn't even know the margin of error that sounds like a recipe for sea landing disasters almost universally.

53

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is there anything that RET cannot explain?

« on: April 05, 2021, 07:35:36 PM »

To again try to get this back on track 

@stevecanuck, - you could add to your OP that RET also explains how WW2 carrier battles were fought as depicted by all sailors and airmen (both US and Japanese), i.e., by the use of plotting boards which would not work south of the equator on a FET monopole map.

As described in detail in my one original contribution to the overall FET/RET debate:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=16428.0

Yeah, right...

One, the plotting boards were flat.

Two, the plotting boards were flat.

Elaborate on how many carrier battles were fought south of the equator in WW2.

I think this comment and my reply probably belong on that other thread....(I only linked it to suggest it can be added to the OP list of this thread).  But I'll reply here anyway:

The plotting boards being flat doesn't disprove my WW2 argument any more than an azimuthal projection of the globe disproves that the earth is a globe.

What matters for the plotting boards is that they had to have highly accurate measurements for the distances of longitude south of the Equator. If their measurements were off by as much as the monopole FE map suggests, then virtually none of the WW2 pilots who fought in carrier battles south of the Equator would have survived - they all would have failed to return to their carriers and been lost at sea. (EDIT: WW2 carrier planes had ranges in the hundreds of miles and fought over spaces far far beyond sight of any land or their carrier groups - which is why failing to navigate properly literally was a life or death proposition for them).

As I wrote in that post, 60% (3 of the 5) major carrier battles of the war occurred south of the Equator - Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz. These three battles involved tens of thousands of pilots from Japan and the US. Without accurate distances between lines of longitude on their plotting boards these men would have all died. But they didn't. (EDIT: the two battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz were both part of Guadalcanal, a six month campaign that involved more sorties of naval planes than the entire rest of the war put together. In other words, the overwhelming majority of carrier fighter combat in WW2 occurred south of the Equator!

We can conclude that the plotting boards had accurate distances between the lines of longitude between each given segment of the lines of latitude. And those plotting boards were based on RE.

54

Flat Earth Theory / Re: About the conspiracy

« on: April 05, 2021, 07:03:42 PM »

Of course, the eagle-eyed among beings who cannot to cease to be will have already noticed that his proof is impossible - but I am still curious to see him either reach that conclusion himself or deny it.

Got it - I am content now that I understand. 

55

Flat Earth Theory / Re: About the conspiracy

« on: April 01, 2021, 06:15:50 PM »

Do you presume the Govt innocent until proven guilty?

I have not accused the government (or any government, to stay closer to my question) of having committed a crime. You are the one who made an affirmative statement here (the Government always tells the truth about everything some things). It is your burden to substantiate this claim.

Clarifying question about this -

Is a government agency "telling the truth" if it believes it is doing so, even if what is says is later discovered to be mistaken or incorrect? 

Or is it only "telling the truth" if what it says is 100% accurate and correct with no mistakes?

The distinction seems small, but it's not. "Telling the truth" can be defined as an absence of deception, or as an absence of error (or both).

I would think it's possible to provide examples wherein the govt. always tells the truth because it isn't employing deception, but could involve errors (e.g., the population numbers of Rockwall county, TX, as provided by official county statistics - no one's ever claimed those statistics were deceptively provided to the public).

But it's likely virtually impossible to find examples in which the govt. always tells the truth about something because it is never incorrect about it. The government is full of fallible humans, so it's bound to be incorrect about everything at one time or another.

If we define telling the truth is merely an absence of deception, I'd say Tumeni already provided sufficient examples, and I offered a narrower one from his own list - the specific population of Rockwall county, TX.

56

Flat Earth Theory / Re: About the conspiracy

« on: April 01, 2021, 04:44:14 PM »

In all manner of mundane, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian ways, Govts tell the truth;

Environmental; reporting studies of bird and animal populations, analysis of flood plains, of coastal erosion, of landslip, of river flows, ship and boat registration, vehicle licencing, town planning and building, etc. etc.

Population; overall numbers, splits by county, city, town and village; splits by age, by sex, etc. etc.

Schooling; overall numbers, splits by private and state-owned, numbers of pupils, splits by sex, etc. etc.

In criminal law, the presumption is of innocence until proven guilty. Guilt by association with another (allegedly) guilty party does not make a valid case. Even if you prove Govt lies about something, somewhere (balance of payments, unemployment stats, number of COVID cases or vaccinations), that is not an automatic proof of lies with regard to space exploration, global mapping, or any of our hot topics here.

Mistakes and errors of incompetence do not equate to "lies". 

Do you presume the Govt innocent until proven guilty?

I largely subscribe to the economics school of Public Choice Theory which essentially says that public officials - politicians/bureaucrats - face the same constraints and influences on behaviors as those in the market, meaning they'll have incentives for (among other things), lying, misrepresentation, and other strongly self-interested behavior. A key example of this is the strong proclivity for bureaucratic entities to experience mission creep wherein each official seeks to gain more power over more things by subtly expanding their areas of jurisdiction.

Needless to say, I do not take a government's word for something as a rule, particularly if the topic is highly political in nature (e.g., remember way back when Fauci first claimed masks didn't protect folks, then admitted he only said that so that nurses could get the available masks first? - I think it's possible this event unintentionally influenced those who don't believe masks are needed, had Fauci never misled on this point, perhaps we'd all be better off, who knows).

All of that said, at least in the US and other democracies with stable political institutions and parties, there are checks on the complete abuse of the truth by the government - namely other political parties and oppositional government agencies. You can see this played out pretty directly all over politics in the US. Trump says a half-truth and his critics jump on it. Biden says a half-truth and now his critics jump on it. If either says a full lie, they jump on it even more. And multiple agencies (at least in the US) vie for influence over the same or similar domains of power, incentivizing them to push back if one makes a false step.

Are there areas where both (or multiple) political parties have incentives to collude in their misrepresentations of the truth to the public? Absolutely. But is that the case for the most part? No.

57

Flat Earth Theory / Re: About the conspiracy

« on: March 31, 2021, 01:39:07 PM »

If this were true then why would FET not be the prevailing view?

Change takes time, and we do have a schooling system that (in our case) is tailored towards raising good Tory voters, and not people who think critically.

The tall order for FETers to change the prevailing view goes much further than just for folks in the UK.

The prevailing RET view is also true in China, India, Japan, S. Korea, N. Korea(!), Iran, Egypt, Brazil, Norway, Iceland, Singapore, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Israel, Thailand, Austria, The Czech Republic, Russia, Portugal, Ethiopia, the UAE...(well, one could list every political entity because in my understanding none exist in which FET is currently the prevailing view, and indeed, it's a phenomenon that only exists in a handful of countries at the moment right now anyway, even in small numbers).

My substantive point here isn't just that it goes well beyond 'fixing' the school system to stop raising "good" Tories in Britain. All of these places have quite diverse schooling systems, and yet all of them produce citizens who generally believe in RET, not FET.

Change is indeed hard if you're going against literally the whole world...

58

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is there anything that RET cannot explain?

« on: March 30, 2021, 07:44:35 PM »

To again try to get this back on track 

@stevecanuck, - you could add to your OP that RET also explains how WW2 carrier battles were fought as depicted by all sailors and airmen (both US and Japanese), i.e., by the use of plotting boards which would not work south of the equator on a FET monopole map.

As described in detail in my one original contribution to the overall FET/RET debate:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=16428.0

 

59

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 27, 2021, 12:45:50 AM »

So I hope this isn't too much crossing some line, but I laughed harder when I read this than for anything in several days:

https://babylonbee.com/news/mr-biden-why-are-you-a-total-loser-asks-new-white-house-reporter-ronald-crump

 

60

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Working on a VR simulation of the Earth - Need Feedback & Accurate Starmaps

« on: March 27, 2021, 12:33:19 AM »

I'm excited to see this because the FET map version I'm most interested in is this monopole one.

Can you put a scale to it that matches south of the equator known distances?  I would love to see that, as the monopole maps I've seen never show actual scale distances, and I've always wanted to see so I can try to find someone to test it out (I have a co-worker who lives in Argentina, and I think I can convince him to do some traveling for me and measure....except there's no monopole map that shows me what it "should" be...).

tl;dr - this is exciting!  Can you make a scale for it and show it closer in?