81

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 16, 2019, 10:05:47 AM »

A second netiquette point would be to warn new REs of the futility of asking for non-contradictory explainations.

82

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 15, 2019, 10:54:50 AM »

I agree with that. Amusingly, this what REs think of FEs.

I fail to see:
A) How this can be amusing...

II) Any FE adherents glad handedly slapping each other on the back, saying, "...attaboy!"

It's funny simply because REs lack the ability to adapt that FEs have. For any good argument REs come up with, FEs adapt and thrive. Then a new equilibrium is found and REs fail to improve.

The attempts of REs here are so fruitless that I wonder how they can stand their waste of time.

83

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 11, 2019, 12:04:10 AM »

I would be ok with a section of the forum that Confirmed flat earthers could post and discuss in but is read-only to everyone else. I usually just sit back and read through threads anyway but if FE'ers feel they need a place they can discuss without non flat earthers giving them a hard time, I'd still like to be able to read it.

The OP is about what we REs could do to engage interesting discussions with FEs.

Indeed, this is why I think the ball needs to be in RE's court here. We get an excessive amount of threads from regulars who just discuss among themselves about how round they think the Earth is, and how much they agree with one another.

I agree with that. Amusingly, this what REs think of FEs.

May be, first we need to know the color of the soil, before we try to discuss about it.
How many of the actual subscribers on this forum are FEs and REs?

That's maybe overly optimistic, and also I don't think this forum should care about people believing in shapes different from flatness.

84

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 09, 2019, 10:57:36 AM »

I'm quite surprised that we're having this discussion.

Can't you see how fruitless is the current approach and, at the same time, how surprising it is, for REs, that it doesn't really work?

85

Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 08, 2019, 11:54:58 AM »

REs should first make a step towards building a consensus themselves. FEs are scared of posting in the forum for being attacked, and REs are quite aggressive and insisting. Probably REs should create a flatearth-discussion etiquette?

Sounds great. I don't know what happened to totallackey, but perhaps you're willing to participate instead.

I'm asking for 1-to-1 representation for friendly discussions only.

Trying to dress as a (missing) FE: I don't like the arrogance of REs and overall I wish we wouldn't have to discuss with them. By some accident, or convenience, you were lured into a false view of the world. Why should I waste my time with you? What's the benefit of showing the falsity of a round earth? As all bubbles, it will eventually pop, but until then I just want to be informed and explore real truth. If what you see as truth is different from my view, let our paths diverge (in a friendly way), because consensus is already here in the fact that I can live with my ideas and you with your ideas.

86

Flat Earth Community / Re: ISS Open For Business

« on: June 08, 2019, 09:43:38 AM »

What if the FE community all pooled together and sent up someone "trustworthy"?

Their movement is based on distrust and there's not a single or at least an accepted main stream flat earth. The opposite happens, FEs call "controlled opposition" other FEs. Imo what you're saying could never happen.

87

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 08, 2019, 12:40:44 AM »

I'm sure they're sick of the repetition of threads from fly-by RE people on here, I am too. More threads started by FE people would mix things up a bit.

Oh yeah.

and I continue to hope that this temporary wave of RE shitposters will either get bored and leave or start doing something useful.

REs and FEs look like coming from different planets (pun intended ), it really looks like the two groups are talking different languages and the outcome is what you're saying: boredom.

Or, you could try a middle ground approach where FE'ers have an area where they can discuss freely but RE'ers can still watch.  You know, like the FE Believers board on the other site.

I don't like this, because then REs2FEs discussion would still be fruitless.

I have come to the conclusion that average FE don't want to debate it.

This would make useless any forum, I guess.

but one thing that would reduce the smoke of REs is just improve Wiki with more logical and scientific explanations. 

This is something that could be the number one, and only, allowed discussion approach for REs. Everything else denied (no insisiting about sunsets, no pressing with other questions), just push for "more details". After all, if a FE isn't willing to make its idea clear, what else can work?

The mistake Bikini Polaris makes is holding that idea that the FEs have any wish to participate in that type of debate.
There are certainly some FEs on here who enjoy debating for debate's sake, but I've not encountered any who are open to the idea that these discussions could ever change their opinion about the shape of the Earth.

This is a critically important point. Still, it is possible that discussing with the few of them willing to discuss, would reveal important details on the FE mindset. If REs would agree on what works and what doesn't (and if your read Pete posts, nothing now is really working).

I am pro scientific truth all the way.  I don't care if that will be against 99% of the population.  It would be fantastic if everyone in here would be seeking the truth, not polarized, not induced by what other people think or wrote.  Except, of course, if this is not the intention of this place.  .

Consider the possibility that you're using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Consider the premise of being a FE, clearly that's something weird from a RE p.o.v., they aren't trying to discredit science, just to convince themselves of a beautiful fairy tale.

----

I think here REs are agreeing that the current approach is fruitless. If we're so keen on science we may conclude with a p-value less than 0.05 that we're wasting our time because we're not finding the right approach. FEs just want to close themselves into a sauna and breath conspiracies? Well fine. Will there be a backdoor or not? This is what matters. Btw, I do like and I'd expand the proposal by spherical: if someone states the earth is flat and create a wiki, the right approach would be to elicit logical details. I don't think FEs could ignore that (maybe), because that's what FEs would do too (again, maybe).

88

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 07, 2019, 09:42:06 AM »

Over on the other site they have a "Flat Earth Believers" forum where only approved FEr's or FE 'supporters' are allowed to post. Coincidentally there's a discussion right now about using that area for more FE2FE discussions/debates. Which, in theory, it already is. However, it's not really being used in that manner I guess due to a low number of participants. I'm not sure how it would play out anyway. One example to look to is maybe Dubay's http://ifers.123.st/ site. Only FEr's are allowed to post. Participation as a whole seems to be spotty at best there.

Ouch, I missed those. I'll have a look, but yes, there's the possibility of a non-sense in this topic. At that point maybe everything gets useless I guess?

What do you propose?

Basically anything that would lead FEs to one of these two outcomes:
- FE doubting flat earth
- FE showing signs of not being distinguishable from a fake FE/prank
as these are the only two reasonable outcomes.

Somehow I don't think the REs attempts here are accomplishing any of those two. It's mainly pointless that REs explain to each others how the Earth is round. It's pointless to show complicated diagrams of how the RE model is. It's pointless to revisit 400 years of epistemology and methodological doubt just because FEs wish somehow to be right. They're pointless because they are confirmations of how Science works, not the "Zetetic" method.

FEs thrive on knowing their own priorities and not revealing those to the world. Discovering what they value most is the first step. So I'm pretty sure that hulls disappearing first over the horizon for them is a trivial objection, they already have the auotmatic answer. But maybe something else isn't. So, at first, I would try to not follow what they want to stress, as it's probably a controversial topic they thrive on.

But it's mainly a brainstorming here.

89

Flat Earth Community / REs netiquette

« on: June 06, 2019, 08:10:43 PM »

Motivated by my previous observation that in this forum there isn't much FE2FE discussion, I wonder if REs shouldn't look for some rules to follow, in order to allow FEs to reach at least a certain amount of freedom here. Moreover, it would help the quality of the debate, which often amounts to a yes vs no fight.

Advantages for REs
- They could concentrate better on what arguments actually can make it
- Less redundancy in arguments
- Hopefully get to see more FEs around
- More sharing of previous experiences

Disadvantages for REs
- it's unpleasant to be told what to do
- feeling that "Science" must bow and be sacrificed

I have some rules in mind, but I largely prefer to hear others REs proposals

90

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Crisp clear horizon line

« on: June 05, 2019, 09:24:43 PM »

Does anyone want to comment about my observation on May 13 that the transmission lines seem to curve around a round earth? Any explanations, or did was this put in the too-hard-basket?

That's a great picture, one of the best works showing RE imo, but I don't think FEs would reply to that but for saying it could be fake. Since FEs and "Zetetics" are sooooo skeptical and they base themselves only on easy observations, my hope is to find a very easy , but "impossible", observation that is true in whatever conditions. I believe that the clear definition of the horizon is one of those:

- acknowledged by Rowbotham
- impossible for a truly flat earth
- literally everywhere in FE "proofs"

I can see two evolutions of this topic:

- how the horizon looks on other landscapes such as plains
- what colour should the horizon line be

91

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Polaris position over flat Earth

« on: June 04, 2019, 09:15:30 AM »

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za31.htm#page_177

The first line in the page that the above link points to states that

IT has been demonstrated that the earth is a plane, the surface-centre of which is immediately underneath the star called "Polaris,"

How exactly has this been demonstrated out of interest?  That the Earth is a plane I mean.

Rowbotham leverages the Bedford Canal Experiment. That's his only *real* demonstration.

92

Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 04, 2019, 09:12:24 AM »

REs should first make a step towards building a consensus themselves. FEs are scared of posting in the forum for being attacked, and REs are quite aggressive and insisting. Probably REs should create a flatearth-discussion etiquette?

93

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Let's investigate how viewing distance works.

« on: June 03, 2019, 07:28:10 PM »

Why L can't see the segment AC?
Why L can't see the segment AM?

Why L can't see beyond B?

I'm going to assume your math is correct because I'm lazy, and I see no reason to doubt you... All of those things should absolutely be visible on a flat Earth.

Maybe it's me but FEs won't measure distances, otherwise you could disprove the planarity of Earth in so many ways. Including this one, of course.

94

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Let's investigate how viewing distance works.

« on: June 02, 2019, 10:01:01 AM »

Something that I am pondering related to the OP (and I wish your opinions so I will later add to the topic of Crisp Clear Horizon line https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=14746.0) is about the colour of the horizon. If all those details, too far and too small for the human eye resolution, all disappear in a single horizon line, shouldn't it be brownish instead of blue? Like when you randomly mix colours at home, a small amount of different colours will just mess up everything. In FE you're mixing mountains, woods, cities, deserts, the Sun, the Moon, etc... in a single line. Also water is transparent, so the humidity in the air shouldn't change those colours to blue.

95

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How is it possible to see the sun rise or set?

« on: May 30, 2019, 08:09:26 AM »

The problem with that demonstration is that it fails to account for the path that the light from the moon takes before hitting the eye of the observer. Refraction is real and it has a very real effect on what we see. Since we don't live in a vacuum and the atmosphere as well as it's composition can have a very dramatic impact on what we see.

Even in the round earth model when you see the sun "rise" it's well below the horizon. When it comes to optics and refraction what you see is not reality. It's your visual cortex's best attempt at making an image out of a cloud of electrical signals.

Refraction wouldn't bend light making it curve under the clouds:

96

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Solar Eclipse Umbra and Penumbra sizes

« on: May 29, 2019, 08:12:01 PM »

Ok, but then the penumbra will be really skewed and pointy in B, being round only in one middle point.  Whilst in A is always round-ish. I just would like to pinpoint another blatant difference between A and B.

97

Flat Earth Theory / Re: What are your main points for when proving to someone the Earth is flat?

« on: May 29, 2019, 07:51:21 PM »

Apart the obvious "it looks flat" and "where's curvature?" I am a huge fan of:

1 - The Sun and the Moon have the same size
2 - Earth is inhabitated by a unique sentient race, it's not a normal planet
3 - If it were a rotating ball, water would fly into space

98

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Solar Eclipse Umbra and Penumbra sizes

« on: May 28, 2019, 08:10:10 PM »

As basic mechanics and optics, if the Sun moves East-->West faster than the Moon below, the projected shadow would always moves the opposite direction, no matter what, West-->East, this works like a lever with the Moon as the pivot, top goes to one direction, bottom goes to another.

Ok, I need help with my understanding, this is how I pictured it:



Both Sun and Moon are moving from left to right, I forgot the arrows there. A cone comes up, with a point with only shadow. On the upper part, the shadow moves from left to right, in the lower part the "paradoxical" right to left.

99

Flat Earth Community / Re: Does the lay Flat Earther understand Physics? Or are just in to conspiracies?

« on: May 28, 2019, 09:26:34 AM »

It's more or less the same as any interest group - the term "Flat Earther" is too broad to capture a well-defined group.

Don't you find this odd? Being flat is not such a special property, actually it's a very clear one, but then instead of uniting in proving that, FEs divide on other silly and irrelevant details. Who cares if there's a dome or not. Do we really need to explain gravity in other ways? The current FEs experiments are not enough to percolate society, but if new, deal-breaking, ones were performed they would convince a good deal of people and, with the new funding, other smaller details could be explored too.

100

Flat Earth Community / Re: So what if the earth is flat?

« on: May 28, 2019, 09:21:34 AM »

The only way a sphere can 'morph' into a flat plane is if something caused it to rotate a lot faster. We know from observing the other planets that increased rotation also creates a polar flattening effect. Jupiter shows the greatest degree of flattening between the poles and not surprisingly it is also the fastest rotating planet.

Let's not forget explainations that look alike, li,e how FEs predict eclipses (using RE computations) or tides. Best example, with the pac-man effect you could create a flat earth theory which is undistinguishable from RE.