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122
Suggestions & Concerns / QED's permaban
« on: November 03, 2018, 09:40:50 AM »
Let's get weird. I'd like to question, and potentially appeal, QED's recent permaban. Before we begin, here's the post which, as far as I can tell, triggered the ban in this instance:
I agree that there are some obvious issues with this post, but if you gloss over the first two or three sentences, the post reads as a passionate defence of Zetetic values and free thought. I also understand that many of his back-and-forths are idiotic, and that we shouldn't ignore that. However, he has recently been showing some signs of reform - many of his posts have a point to them, and the perspective he offers is often unique and interesting.
Junker, could you let me know your thoughts on this? I don't want to rush to any conclusions, but at face value this decision looks a bit too heavy-handed.
Whereas I do agree that I am probably the only pure zetetic here, I must admit that everything else you wrote is such complete crap that I cannot understand one single sentence of it.
Are you trying to sound smart? Don't do that. Instead, talk about the things you actually know. In doing this, you will talk to folks who know more than you do, and thus you will learn. Over the period of many years of doing this, you will learn a great deal. Then, you will find that you do not need to pretend to know shit: you will actually DO (if you get my meaning).
Indeed, you will soon see that knowing shit is not what is important. What is important is the ability to think. If you can think critically, then you can outshine most of the bullshit that is heaved your way. Of which there will be plenty, over the course of your life.
THINK.
Well, it has been fun. Have a nice life.
I agree that there are some obvious issues with this post, but if you gloss over the first two or three sentences, the post reads as a passionate defence of Zetetic values and free thought. I also understand that many of his back-and-forths are idiotic, and that we shouldn't ignore that. However, he has recently been showing some signs of reform - many of his posts have a point to them, and the perspective he offers is often unique and interesting.
Junker, could you let me know your thoughts on this? I don't want to rush to any conclusions, but at face value this decision looks a bit too heavy-handed.
123
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: Post your best astrophotography efforts and your latitude.
« on: November 02, 2018, 01:59:58 PM »
This topic has been moved to Science & Alternative Science.
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=11114.0
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=11114.0
126
Flat Earth Community / A missed gem - the Washington Post schools NdGT on our FAQ
« on: October 13, 2018, 12:29:36 PM »
The Round Earth mindset has been a bit of a fascination of mine over the last few months. Recently, I've discussed some individuals' desire to reject information that doesn't match up with their imagination, specifically focusing on the GoPro photo taken from Everest which was floated about as "proof" of the Earth's rotundity. Hilariously, some RE proponents decided to reinforce my interpretation of their mindset by overreacting and demonstrating the very patterns I was accusing them of.
Anyway, it's time to dig into another story, one which has written itself while I wasn't paying attention. Back in March of 2018, everyone's favourite pop-scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson decided to publish a video on just how absurd the Flat Earth Theory is, in his mind.
Of course, most readers here will immediately notice one major issue: Neil has no clue what he's talking about, and I'm not just talking about his belief in RET. Neil forgot to RTFM.
But that's not new. We get people who failed to read the FAQ every day - NdGT's fame and wealth doesn't make him inherently more likely to educate himself before he opens his mouth. But this is where this story turns fun. An astute journalist at the Washington Post did read the FAQ, and while she managed to completely misunderstand some of what's been written, she successfully contrasted some of Neil's claims with our "nonsense" - pointing out that he's simply not addressing our claims.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/12/why-neil-degrasse-tyson-failed-to-prove-earth-isnt-flat/
Once again, we're left with a bleak image of society. Those who are supposed to lead the charge in educating the masses struggle to find it in themselves to actually research the subject they're intending to discuss, and prestigious journalistic outlets find it difficult to mount a more coherent response than "haha this is obviously stupid!"
But, as always, these dumpster fires ultimately end up advancing our cause. The WaPo article has recently resurged on social media, and people are noticing the lack of a credible response in the article. Ultimately, WaPo volunteered to act as a backlink farm for the Flat Earth Society. For that, I graciously thank them.
Anyway, it's time to dig into another story, one which has written itself while I wasn't paying attention. Back in March of 2018, everyone's favourite pop-scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson decided to publish a video on just how absurd the Flat Earth Theory is, in his mind.
Of course, most readers here will immediately notice one major issue: Neil has no clue what he's talking about, and I'm not just talking about his belief in RET. Neil forgot to RTFM.
But that's not new. We get people who failed to read the FAQ every day - NdGT's fame and wealth doesn't make him inherently more likely to educate himself before he opens his mouth. But this is where this story turns fun. An astute journalist at the Washington Post did read the FAQ, and while she managed to completely misunderstand some of what's been written, she successfully contrasted some of Neil's claims with our "nonsense" - pointing out that he's simply not addressing our claims.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/12/why-neil-degrasse-tyson-failed-to-prove-earth-isnt-flat/
Once again, we're left with a bleak image of society. Those who are supposed to lead the charge in educating the masses struggle to find it in themselves to actually research the subject they're intending to discuss, and prestigious journalistic outlets find it difficult to mount a more coherent response than "haha this is obviously stupid!"
But, as always, these dumpster fires ultimately end up advancing our cause. The WaPo article has recently resurged on social media, and people are noticing the lack of a credible response in the article. Ultimately, WaPo volunteered to act as a backlink farm for the Flat Earth Society. For that, I graciously thank them.
128
Flat Earth Projects / MOVED: I encourage everyone to perform this measurement on their own.
« on: September 21, 2018, 01:27:57 PM »
This topic has been moved to Flat Earth Investigations.
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10787.0
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10787.0
130
Flat Earth Investigations / The decline of critical thinking in the media, exemplified by That Everest Photo
« on: August 31, 2018, 03:04:03 PM »
A common point raised against the Flat Earth Theory, one which has been doing the rounds for months now, takes a visual format. It is a selfie of a man (often attributed to Reddit user amazed_spirit, though that does not appear to be the origin - more on that later) from the top of Mt Everest, with a very curved Earth firmly on show.
By now, I have seen it so many times that I've taken to referring to it as That Everest Photo. Let's talk about it. I'm sure you've seen it before, but here it is as it appeared on Reddit in April 2018, with an annotation of "Checkmate, Flat Earth Society!":
Most of you here, RE'er or FE'er, will already know that in the Round Earth Model, the curvature should not really be discernible from atop Everest. It's "only" 29,000 feet tall. A curvature *this* pronounced would suggest that the Earth is round and very small. Personally, I think this shouldn't be a controversial statement. Many of us have flown before, thus having an opportunity to view the Earth from much higher than that. It just doesn't look like that. The flags in the background are also strangely curved. A true mystery, indeed! (Of course, it's no mystery, and most of you are probably rolling your eyes hard at me not just saying what it is)
None of this, however, gave the mainstream media any pause; they went absolutely insane about the subject. Some examples include:
The Independent - Show this selfie from the top of Everest to a flat Earth conspiracy theorist. Immediately - click
LADBible - Flat-Earthers Shot Down By Amazing Everest Selfie - click
T2 Online - Man's Everest selfie is dropping the mic on 'Earth is flat or round debate', effective immediately - click
India Times - This Man's Selfie Atop The Everest Shuts Up Everyone Who Thinks The Earth Is Flat - click
The absence of critical thinking is astonishing here. One of the articles (T2 Online) even states that "So far, we don't think the image is Photoshopped or any way tampered with. Hence, we will choose to believe that it's the real deal." Of course the photo hasn't been tampered with! That's the problem. Another one (The Independent) proudly states that "Everest is just shy of 9,000m above sea level and thus a prime position to see just how unflat the world is." No. No, it isn't. Even if we assume RET for granted, that's not how geometry works. Try something like 60,000ft.
It's almost as if these people already decided what conclusion they want to reach, and thus decided that everything else must check out.
So, a quick Google reverse image search gets us to the original photograph. Sure enough, it wasn't taken in 2018, and sure enough it has nothing to do with the Reddit user. It was actually taken in 2012 by Dean Carriere. More importantly, Dean was kind enough not to strip EXIF data from the photograph. A copy of the (seemingly) unaltered original file can be found here.
Anyway, let's finish stating the obvious, now that no speculation is required. The photo was taken with a GoPro Hero3-Silver Edition with a (35mm-film-equivalent) focal length of 16mm. It's an ultra wide-angle lens, and so the entire image is distorted. That's not Photoshop or tampering, that's just simple optics. The photographer was surely aware of this, but apparently our Reddit poster and mindless journalists were not.
Adobe Lightroom Classic has a pre-defined lens correction profile for the Hero3 Silver, intended to bring the image closer to something a human eye would see. Here's what the photo looks like after this adjustment:
If you want, you can reproduce this image yourself (and I encourage you to - you shouldn't blindly trust me, that's largely the point of this thread!). Lightroom Classic can automatically pick the correct lens correction profile based on EXIF data. I've made no changes to the photo other than ticking that one checkbox and letting Adobe do its magic.
Now, none of this is intended to prove that the Earth is flat. You can still detect some (irregular) curvature on the horizon (I'd attribute this to imperfections in both the lens and the correction algorithm), and, well, no reasonable RE'er would have claimed that you can see the curvature from Everest in the first place. But that's not the point here - this isn't a discussion about the shape of the Earth per se. The point is that none of this is arcane knowledge, and yet the media coverage of this has shown itself to be profoundly scientifically illiterate (or, for those who mis-attributed the photo to a random Reddit user, they have shown themselves incapable of using Google). The original is not hard to find, the "issue" behind the photo is not challenging to figure out, and, in my mind, any reasonable person's intuition should immediately prompt some questions about the photo.
Why has this not happened? Why is no one holding these journalists to account? Why are we still getting spammed with That Everest Photo?
By now, I have seen it so many times that I've taken to referring to it as That Everest Photo. Let's talk about it. I'm sure you've seen it before, but here it is as it appeared on Reddit in April 2018, with an annotation of "Checkmate, Flat Earth Society!":
Most of you here, RE'er or FE'er, will already know that in the Round Earth Model, the curvature should not really be discernible from atop Everest. It's "only" 29,000 feet tall. A curvature *this* pronounced would suggest that the Earth is round and very small. Personally, I think this shouldn't be a controversial statement. Many of us have flown before, thus having an opportunity to view the Earth from much higher than that. It just doesn't look like that. The flags in the background are also strangely curved. A true mystery, indeed! (Of course, it's no mystery, and most of you are probably rolling your eyes hard at me not just saying what it is)
None of this, however, gave the mainstream media any pause; they went absolutely insane about the subject. Some examples include:
The Independent - Show this selfie from the top of Everest to a flat Earth conspiracy theorist. Immediately - click
LADBible - Flat-Earthers Shot Down By Amazing Everest Selfie - click
T2 Online - Man's Everest selfie is dropping the mic on 'Earth is flat or round debate', effective immediately - click
India Times - This Man's Selfie Atop The Everest Shuts Up Everyone Who Thinks The Earth Is Flat - click
The absence of critical thinking is astonishing here. One of the articles (T2 Online) even states that "So far, we don't think the image is Photoshopped or any way tampered with. Hence, we will choose to believe that it's the real deal." Of course the photo hasn't been tampered with! That's the problem. Another one (The Independent) proudly states that "Everest is just shy of 9,000m above sea level and thus a prime position to see just how unflat the world is." No. No, it isn't. Even if we assume RET for granted, that's not how geometry works. Try something like 60,000ft.
It's almost as if these people already decided what conclusion they want to reach, and thus decided that everything else must check out.
So, a quick Google reverse image search gets us to the original photograph. Sure enough, it wasn't taken in 2018, and sure enough it has nothing to do with the Reddit user. It was actually taken in 2012 by Dean Carriere. More importantly, Dean was kind enough not to strip EXIF data from the photograph. A copy of the (seemingly) unaltered original file can be found here.
Anyway, let's finish stating the obvious, now that no speculation is required. The photo was taken with a GoPro Hero3-Silver Edition with a (35mm-film-equivalent) focal length of 16mm. It's an ultra wide-angle lens, and so the entire image is distorted. That's not Photoshop or tampering, that's just simple optics. The photographer was surely aware of this, but apparently our Reddit poster and mindless journalists were not.
Adobe Lightroom Classic has a pre-defined lens correction profile for the Hero3 Silver, intended to bring the image closer to something a human eye would see. Here's what the photo looks like after this adjustment:
If you want, you can reproduce this image yourself (and I encourage you to - you shouldn't blindly trust me, that's largely the point of this thread!). Lightroom Classic can automatically pick the correct lens correction profile based on EXIF data. I've made no changes to the photo other than ticking that one checkbox and letting Adobe do its magic.
Now, none of this is intended to prove that the Earth is flat. You can still detect some (irregular) curvature on the horizon (I'd attribute this to imperfections in both the lens and the correction algorithm), and, well, no reasonable RE'er would have claimed that you can see the curvature from Everest in the first place. But that's not the point here - this isn't a discussion about the shape of the Earth per se. The point is that none of this is arcane knowledge, and yet the media coverage of this has shown itself to be profoundly scientifically illiterate (or, for those who mis-attributed the photo to a random Reddit user, they have shown themselves incapable of using Google). The original is not hard to find, the "issue" behind the photo is not challenging to figure out, and, in my mind, any reasonable person's intuition should immediately prompt some questions about the photo.
Why has this not happened? Why is no one holding these journalists to account? Why are we still getting spammed with That Everest Photo?
131
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: Force of Gravity Real or Fake?
« on: August 23, 2018, 04:44:01 PM »132
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: are other planets flat too?
« on: August 23, 2018, 03:50:55 PM »133
Flat Earth Projects / A frequently asked question: Does the rotundity of other planets clash with FET?
« on: August 21, 2018, 12:44:58 PM »
As I've recently been more active on Twitter, it's come to my attention that one of the most frequently asked questions a newcomer may ask is along the lines of:
How can the Earth be flat if all the planets we've observed are round?
Currently, we do not really host an answer to that question, save for an abysmal page about planets which will hopefully see an overhaul soon. "The Earth is not a planet", while correct, is not quite enough of an explanation for a newcomer.
I would like to suggest that we include an answer to this question in the FAQ. In order to do that, we have to agree on:
I have some ideas of my own, but I would like to hear what others think first. Input is welcome from FE'ers and RE'ers, provided that you're actually trying to develop a reasonable Q/A and not arguing about what you believe to be the correct shape of the Earth.
How can the Earth be flat if all the planets we've observed are round?
Currently, we do not really host an answer to that question, save for an abysmal page about planets which will hopefully see an overhaul soon. "The Earth is not a planet", while correct, is not quite enough of an explanation for a newcomer.
I would like to suggest that we include an answer to this question in the FAQ. In order to do that, we have to agree on:
- A reasonable phrasing of the question
- A phrasing of the answer that makes it easy to understand while covering the basics. It would be good to acknowledge the intuition behind the question, but also to deal with the flawed attempt at proof by induction.
I have some ideas of my own, but I would like to hear what others think first. Input is welcome from FE'ers and RE'ers, provided that you're actually trying to develop a reasonable Q/A and not arguing about what you believe to be the correct shape of the Earth.
134
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: The Flood and Where it Came from
« on: August 14, 2018, 04:09:14 AM »
This topic has been moved to Philosophy, Religion & Society.
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10373.0
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10373.0
135
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: A question for flat earthers: Where is eye level in this photo?
« on: August 13, 2018, 07:42:00 PM »136
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: Visibility of Venus, follow-on from YouTube FE video awards thread
« on: August 13, 2018, 07:41:42 PM »137
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: More IR Photography: FE Photographer Looks at Distant Island
« on: August 13, 2018, 07:41:21 PM »138
Flat Earth Investigations / MOVED: FE YouTuber Unwittingly Provides RE Evidence
« on: August 13, 2018, 07:40:12 PM »139
Status Notices / Unplanned Wiki outage, 2018-08-10
« on: August 10, 2018, 02:27:36 PM »
From about 14:00 to 14:10UTC, the Wiki was offline due to a particularly embarrassing slip of the finger by yours truly. Everything should be back up and running now, but if you do notice anything out of the ordinary, please let me know.
140
Suggestions & Concerns / First question of the FAQ
« on: July 25, 2018, 08:00:58 AM »
I'm considering replacing the first question of the FAQ, quoted below:
I think it made sense to have this up a few years ago, or even before the Society split in two parts, mostly because we were much accepting of tongue-in-cheek posts in the upper fora. At the time, it was pretty much necessary to warn people that they may be exposed to, say, James's theories about seafaring dinosaurs. Now that this episode is behind us, I think the question can give off the right idea. It has a "we're serious, honest!" vibe to it, which I think only serves to make people that we might not be entirely serious.
I propose that we replace this question with What is the Flat Earth Society? It serves a similar purpose (clarifying what we're about), but it moves us away from the "totally serious, honest!" tone.
Here's a rough idea of what I'd prefer to see, though the actual wording will definitely need some work:
What do people think? Am I roughly heading in the right direction here? If so, how exactly should this be phrased?
Quote
Is this site a joke?
This site is not a joke. We are actively promoting the Flat Earth Movement worldwide. There are, admittedly, several non-serious flat earth posters, but they are fairly easy to identify.
I think it made sense to have this up a few years ago, or even before the Society split in two parts, mostly because we were much accepting of tongue-in-cheek posts in the upper fora. At the time, it was pretty much necessary to warn people that they may be exposed to, say, James's theories about seafaring dinosaurs. Now that this episode is behind us, I think the question can give off the right idea. It has a "we're serious, honest!" vibe to it, which I think only serves to make people that we might not be entirely serious.
I propose that we replace this question with What is the Flat Earth Society? It serves a similar purpose (clarifying what we're about), but it moves us away from the "totally serious, honest!" tone.
Here's a rough idea of what I'd prefer to see, though the actual wording will definitely need some work:
Quote
What is the Flat Earth Society?
The Flat Earth Society is a group actively promoting the Flat Earth Movement worldwide. Descending from Samuel Shenton's International Flat Earth Research Society, and the Universal Zetetic Society before it, we continue the age-old tradition of questioning the Round Earth doctrine and challenging authorities. Acknowledging the link between various unconventional beliefs, the Society also occasionally engages in other unconventional debates, striving to provide a voice for all free thinkers and Zeteticists.
What do people think? Am I roughly heading in the right direction here? If so, how exactly should this be phrased?