1981

Flat Earth Community / Re: More fake moon landing proof.

« on: May 06, 2020, 06:21:49 PM »

They ignore what their own eyes tells em...

Some time just after the Cretaceous period when this thread began, and in other threads, you were shown several videos showing rockets working in vacuums. Your response to every one was basically "no it didn't", despite what your own eyes told you.
You have misunderstood the physics and denied the evidence of your own eyes.

1982

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Serious question to flat earthers about the government's secrecy

« on: May 05, 2020, 09:16:56 PM »

Following WWII the race to space lasted for 12 years, with one infamous failure and rocket disaster after another. During the space race there was a lot of pressure for the US to get a satellite, and therefore ICBMs, into orbit, by all levels of public and government. It was the next step of defense and nuclearization, which would establish a country as a super power.

Don't you think it's a coincidence that despite the many years of hardships to get to space, that within three months of the USSR claiming to have launched Sputnik into orbit, the US claimed to put a satellite into orbit as well?

Do you have details of these infamous failures? I am really struggling to find a list of them. But I don't think it's that strange that they got there at similar times, from Googling a few things Wernher von Braun proposed the idea of placing a satellite into orbit in 1954, you're making it sound like the US and Russia had both been trying to do so since WWII. Do you have a source for that assertion or for the list of failures? I'm sure there were some of course.

Also, it's interesting that the Van Allen belts are used as a reason why we couldn't have got to the moon. Do you know how they were discovered? By Explorer 1, the first satellite NASA put into orbit...

1983

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 05, 2020, 09:46:30 AM »

Trump is almost certainly a sexual predator

No credible evidence has been presented to date.

Well, apart from him admitting it here of course



I mean, obviously it was a slightly jokey exchange but combine it with the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape, the comments he has made about his own daughter (I mean...wow!), the allegations around Miss Teen USA, the other women who have made allegations and the general way he talks about women...
At very best he's a sleaze and has used his position of power to get away with things which most people would not ("when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."

I mean, whether he's actually done anything which would see him convicted is debatable but his attitude to women and his behaviour around them is not ok.

1984

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Are we going to just ignore the aliens, then?

« on: May 03, 2020, 09:16:35 AM »

This is like saying "people over 8 feet tall don't exist". Why don't you ever see them in your town? Why are they only on TV? Surely its just green screen trickery, right? Why isn't there one in my local zoo? Why can't i meet a giant? ... and the answer is ... people over 8 feet tall are extremely rare. As are alien visits.

It’s nothing like that. I didn’t say I was expecting to see aliens walking down the high street all the time before I believe in them.
I believe in 8 foot tall people because while they are rare, there are very clear photos and film of them, there’s lots of people who have met them and taken photos of them and with them.
I don’t have to have met someone who is 8 feet tall to be pretty sure they exist unless there is some weird “very tall people exist” global conspiracy.

A better comparison is Bigfoot. Why are there only really blurry photos of something which is really hard to identify? If there were Bigfoots or Loch Ness monsters then surely there would be some really clear pictures of footage. I saw a YouTube video recently in which someone said it’s interesting how sightings of the Loch Ness monster have gone down since smartphones were invented, surely you’d now expect clear photos of it everywhere.

If you’re going with visits from aliens are rare then ok, that would explain the absence of clear evidence. But given the lack of clear evidence it’s impossible to confidently say we have aliens visiting us. One other thing I’ll add here is I think you’ll find that the “sightings” of UFOs just happen to coincide with the space race and us being able to launch things into orbit. That surely has to fire everyone’s collective imagination.

I don’t think your belief in the shape of the earth should hang on this although I agree that the existence of aliens does fit better with RE than most FE models where the earth is special and the universe small.

My gut feel is that while aliens may well exist “out there”, the out there is likely to be too far away for us to ever meet them or communicate with them. There is certainly no clear evidence that alien craft routinely visit us, much less interact with us.

1985

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Are we going to just ignore the aliens, then?

« on: May 02, 2020, 07:45:00 PM »

US using the Covid distraction to casually mention that there are aliens and release some footage of them.

They haven't done that. They've admitted that at times they've seen they can't identify.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what these things might be if not aliens?

Honestly, no. But I am pretty convinced they are not aliens.

Does anyone care that aliens seem to be visiting at will?

I would care if they were, but they are not.
I tell you why they're not. You know how mediums claim to "hear from the dead". Well they don't hear very clearly. Why are they so vague? Can't they just tell the medium some really specific information about their living loved ones which would prove it all beyond doubt? Same with ghosts, why do they always appear at night in "spooky" houses? Why never clearly during the day? And why when "aliens" abduct people is it always some farmer in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere? Why aren't these craft every seen clearly in the day? If they're coming and going as they please then you'd think in the era of smartphones we'd have photos of them everywhere.

There might well be aliens out there. In a universe this size it's perfectly feasible. But the distances between stars are unimaginable and given we think the speed of light is a universal speed limit, it doesn't seem feasible that we could either contact or visit each other.
What is the FE take on aliens anyway? Where are they from? Isn't the FE universe quite smal?

1986

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 01, 2020, 06:49:30 AM »

Suppose I tried to sell you bear repellent, but it was just a can of water. Could I use the fact that there are no bears around us at the moment as justification that my “bear repellent” was effective?

Cause brother, do I have some deals for you!

As always, The Simpsons shows us the way

1987

Flat Earth Community / Re: More fake moon landing proof.

« on: May 01, 2020, 05:53:59 AM »

Need we say more? he he

Well, you literally haven’t said anything, you’ve just posted a video which is about upcoming planned trips to the moon. So he’s, you need to say more. Saying anything would be nice.
What’s your point, caller?

1988

Flat Earth Community / Re: 100 Questions for Round-Earthers.

« on: April 30, 2020, 11:54:16 AM »

Why do you believe the Earth is round?

Ships go over the horizon, the horizon increases with distance and drops below eye level with height, star trails rotate around the poles in different directions in the hemispheres. The ISS can be seen from the ground, GPS and satellite TV, airlines using great circle routes.

Where is your evidence?

See above. The models we have of a globe earth demonstrably work. The technologies that rely on it work. There is no such thing as a FE scientist because none of the evidence points to that being true. The best FE can do is to invent mechanisms to try and explain why observations better match what we'd expect to see on a globe.

Is there any amount of evidence that would change your mind about the shape of the Earth?

Yes.

If yes, what evidence would change your mind about the shape of the Earth?

There would have to be a massive WikiLeaks style release of information from people involved in faking the globe earth or space travel, some photos of the flat earth from space and a map and model that actually works and explains observations.

If you believed the Earth was flat, would you admit it?

Yes. If I believed it then the evidence would have to be compelling enough that a lot of people would believe it and it would probably become the new mainstream view

Have you always believed the Earth is round?

Yes.

If no, what made you change your mind?

N/A

Have you ever observed the curvature of the Earth?

No, not in the sense of being high enough to see a curved horizon.

Have you ever been to space?

No.

Have you ever been to the top of Mount Everest?

No.

Can you believe in something you have never seen before?

Yes.

What does faith mean to you?

It means believing in something I can't prove I guess, but I'd suggest that if you think about it that would apply to most things.

Why do you deny the fact that the Earth is flat?

There is no evidence for it. This place should present it if any exists and the FE model just doesn't work. The sun would not maintain a consistent angular size and velocity if it were circling above us and it would not set, to explain these things mechanisms like "magnification" and EA are invented without evidence of those mechanisms existing. All these do is explain why the observations better match a globe earth. I'd suggest a simpler and better explanation is that the earth is a globe.
There is no FE model or map which works and matches our observations.

Will you believe anything the scientific community tells you?

I believe that the current scientific community use the models which best match the observed reality and are open to those models being amended or replaced if better ones come along - as evidenced be Relativity replacing Newton in terms of being our best understanding of gravity. I don't believe they are actively trying to fool us although some may do work sponsored by certain companies which may skew their conclusions as they did with the whole debate about the dangers of smoking. Ultimately though the truth tends to emerge when the evidence is strong enough.

If the scientific community told you the sky was red, would you accept it?

I don't believe they would ever say that.

Do you believe that all planets are round, or just the Earth?

It's not a matter of belief, they are observably round. And we know why they are.

Do you believe that we put a man on the moon?

Yes.

If yes, why haven’t we done it again since 1969?

Mostly the cost. The space race in the 60s cost a huge amount of money and was politically motivated. There just isn't the political will to justify that amount of expenditure any more.

What evidence do you have that we put a man on the moon?

It's all on film, most of the guys who went there are still alive and none have admitted it was all a conspiracy - neither have any of the other people who worked on Apollo many of whom surely must have known it was being faked if it was. There's also plenty of 3rd party evidence - at the time Jodrell Bank in the UK were tracking the craft, the Australians were relaying signals. Amateurs were tracking the craft too. The Russians must have been and never called the US out on a lie. We have the laser reflectors which are still being used, the Chinese have a craft which they claim can take photos of good enough resolution to see the landing sites.
All the evidence I've seen for a conspiracy is based on incredulity or ignorance.

What evidence would change your mind?

If lots of people who were involved suddenly started speaking out and explaining how it was all faked maybe.

What is your opinion on conspiracies in general?

It takes a certain mindset to believe in them and it's generally people who like to believe that "they" are up to something. They generally involve clinging on desperately to any shred of evidence which implies a conspiracy could be at work and ignoring the mountain of evidence that it is not.

Do you believe the official story given by the government regarding the JFK assassination?

Yes. I saw a good documentary about it actually which debunked a lot of the nonsense in the film "JFK".

Do you believe that 9/11 was an inside job?

No.

Do you believe in chemtrails?

No.

Do you believe in the Illuminati?

No.

Do you believe Obama was born in Hawaii, or Kenya?

Hawaii.

Do you believe Obama is a Muslim?

No.

Do you believe corona virus is real?

Yes.

Do you believe that the CIA was testing methods of mind control in the 50’s and 60’s?

I have no real opinion, not something I've looked into.

Do you believe in any conspiracies at all that were not already mentioned?

Not really, I mean I'm sure "they" are up to some things but there is no obvious motive for most of the conspiracy theories I've heard about.

How do you square the fact that some of the most evil people in history believed the earth was round? Ex. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Jim Jones, etc.

Square it with what? Most humans in history believed the earth was round so that includes evil people and good people (whatever "good" means).

Do you believe in the “theory” of gravity, as proposed by Isaac Newton?

It is not our best model of gravity since Einstein's came along but I believe in it in as much as it's a very good approximation for most situations and has been used successfully for centuries.

Were you aware that Isaac Newton attempted to steal all the credit for the invention of calculus from Gottfried Leibniz?

My understanding is they pretty much developed it independently and yes, Newton took all the credit. I'm not sure what you're getting at though. A person doesn't have to have an impeccible character to be a good scientist.

Why do you take someone who wore a powdered wig seriously?

Because he lived at a time when that was the fashion and his models have indisputably been shown to be correct - or at least a good enough approximation to be useful.

Why do you strawman people you don’t agree with and claim they are somehow anti-science?

I don't.

Do you believe in God?

Yes

If yes, what religion/denomination are you a member of?

Christian

Do you believe that water seeks its own level?

Not in the way that is meant in the FE community. Water like any liquid is subject to the forces that act on it. A small drop of water will form into a sphere, tiny drops of water can form a mist and be suspended in the air (that's what clouds are and, when they're at ground level, fog/mist).
A thin film of water can cling to the outside of a sphere. If the sphere is large enough and has a gravitational field then the level of the water can follow the curve of the sphere because the gravitational force acts towards the centre of the sphere.

Do you believe in tectonic plates?

Yes.

What is your evidence for tectonic plates?

Evidence from volcanos/earthquakes, there's evidence from magnetic stripes on the sea floor which are evidence for movement over time, there are things continuing mounain ranges and animal/plant fossils across continents in a way which indicates a joined past.

Have you ever seen a tectonic plate?

Well, we all live on one but I don't really know what that means.

Has anyone ever seen a tectonic plate?

As above

If the tectonic plates move so slowly that you can’t even notice, how do we know that they move at all, assuming of course that they actually exist?

You can find evidence for the way plates have moved over time - features like fences which used to be alined which are now not following plate slips. And GPS measurements are now accurate enough to detect the movement.

How many tectonic plates are there?

I don't know.

How many continents are there?

So in the UK we think of 5: Africa, Europe, The Americas, Asia and Australia. Antartica is a continent but when I was at school I think we didn't count that, I guess because there's no indiginous population. And the Arctic isn't a continent, just a load of ice.

Why are Europe and Asia seen as two different continents even though they are clearly one landmass?

Good question. Isn't Africa also connected? It's just a definition, I'm not clear how the separation was made or why.

What is the definition of a continent?

As above, I don't know how they're defined or why. It seems pretty arbitrary but then so are countries.

What is the definition of a planet?

Not exactly sure but I believe it has to be large enough to be gravitationally dominant in its orbit - so have cleared out other objects in the same orbit.

What is the definition of a species?

Not 100% sure. I know it's a population that can interbreed but it is probably a bit more complicated than that.

Do any of the previously mentioned words have clearly defined meanings?

I believe they do although I'm not 100% sure of what those definitions are.

Should words without clearly defined meanings be used in a scientific setting?

Ideally terms should be defined to help common understanding.

If tectonic plates can create a mountain, could they also destroy a mountain?

I think mountains are destroyed more by erosion rather than tectonic plate activity but am not sure.

What evidence is there that a mountain can be formed by tectonic plates?

I believe the Himalayas have been formed by the plate India is on smashing (slowly) into the plate North of it, The evidence for this is fossils found high up on the mountains which are from sea creatures - so that land must have been undewater at some point - and I believe because of the continued movement of that plate the Himalayas are continuing to grow in a measurable way.

Have you ever observed a mountain being formed from tectonic plates?

The change of height of a montain can be observed over longer periods of time but the question is silly. Look at your fingernail, can you observe it growing? No? Well, it can't be then. Look at it again in a couple of weeks, then you'll observe a difference, that is how we can observe that mountains are being formed by plate movement.

If tectonic plates caused all the continents to become one massive landmass, why did they suddenly drift apart in the opposite direction?

Not sure about this but I believe the land formed as one landmass - pangea - and then broke apart.

Do you believe that earthquakes are caused by the shifting of tectonic plates?

Yes.

Where is your evidence that earthquakes are caused by the shifting of tectonic plates?

The movement of plates can be measured by GPS and earthquake location corresponds to the plate boundaries.

Do you believe that Earth could have landmasses no person has ever been to?

Not a large one, no. We have enough satellites now and the globe has been mapped well enough to make it impossible that any large landmass exists which we have not found.

Do you believe that life exists on other planets?

I'm going to sit on the fence on this one. The size of the universe makes it feasible but so many things are unknown to make it impossible to be sure.

Do you believe aliens have visited Earth?

No.

Have you ever heard of the Fermi Paradox?

Yes although I'm not clear on what it says.

The Fermi Paradox is as follows: If evilution is true, then shouldn’t we be seeing aliens everywhere?
What is your explanation for the Fermi Paradox?

Distance. The nearest star, Alpha Proxima, is 4 light years away. We do not have the technology to get there in any reasonable timeframe. And that's the nearest star. It's possible that some alien civilisation somewhere out there has better technology but given that as far as we understand the speed of light is some universal speed limit, they're still too far away to get to us or communicate.

Do you believe the sun is many times bigger than the moon?

Yes.

If yes, how could a solar eclipse be possible?

Because the sun is further away than the moon. They are different sizes and different distances which makes the angular size roughly the same. You could hold a coin up and block out the sun too - obviously it would cast a significantly smaller shadow though.

If the sun was bigger than the moon, then what are the chances that the moon would be able to eclipse almost all the light from the sun, except for a rim of light?

It is quite the coincidence, if the moon were closer we'd have eclipses which would last a lot longer, if it were further we wouldn't get them at all. But note that the moon's distance does vary and sometimes it is too far away to completely block the sun and we get an annular eclipse.

How does a lunar eclipse make sense on a round earth?

I don't understand the question. The moon is in the earth's shadow. How does it make sense on a flat earth?

If the earth was casting a shadow on the moon, wouldn’t it just cause the moon to appear black, instead of red?

As the shadow moves across the disc of the moon it is mostly black but at some points of totality the light is filtered through the earth's atmosphere, the blue light is scattered (hence we see blue skies) and reddish light is cast onto the moon. What is the FE explanation?

Do you believe the Earth rotates around the sun?

Yes.

Do you believe there are millions of planets?

Yes. Well, there will be more than that in the universe.

Do you believe there are millions of stars?

It's orders of magnitude more than that.

Do you believe that our sun is a star?

Yes. The spectoscopy evidence shows that our sun is made of the same stuff as other stars so there's good reason to believe the sun is basically the same as other stars.

Do you believe in galaxies?

Yes.

Do you believe in black holes?

Yes

Do you believe in quasars?

Yes.

Do you believe in pulsars?

Yes.

Do you believe in nebulae?

Yes.

Do you believe in supernovae?

Yes.

Do you believe in neutron stars?

Yes.

Do you believe in white dwarfs?

Yes.

Do you believe in brown dwarfs?

Yes.

Do you believe in red dwarfs?

Yes.

Do you believe in red giants?

Yes.

Do you believe in dark energy?

I'm not sure about this.

Do you believe in dark matter?

Only in the sense that it's used as a placeholder right now, it seems like there is more matter out there than we can observe.

Do you believe in anti-matter?

Yes.

If you answered yes to any of the previously mentioned celestial objects, why?

Because of the evidence from various astronomers, Hubble has taken photos of many of these things.

Where is your evidence that these celestial objects exist?

As above.

Have you ever observed any of these celestial objects?

Only photos from various space agencies/astronomers.

Do you believe that in the future, there will be people born not on Earth? Ex. Mars, The Moon, deep space, etc.

It's possible.

Do you believe that in the future, people will be able to travel back and forth between different planets?

Within the solar system, possibly.

If we were to start a colony on a different planet or even the moon, what laws would they have to follow?

Good question. Like any colony, those would have to be defined and would evolve over time

Why is it that the most famous planets and stars are named after pagan gods?

They were disovered by people who worshiped those gods. Maybe they believed they were those gods.

Did you know that astronomy originates from the false religion known as astrology?

I don't know if that is true but what of it? Astronomy is evidence based, astrology is not.

Is pluto a planet?

Not any more.

If pluto is too small to be considered a planet, how big does something have to be in order to be a planet?

As I said above I believe it's something to do with it being gravitationally dominant which relates to its size.

What is the difference between a planet and a dwarf planet, other than size?

I think it is mostly about size.

How big does something orbiting a planet need to be in order to be considered a moon?

Not sure. Not that big though, I believe some of Jupter or Saturns are relateively small.

Is the fictitious international space station a moon?

It's not fictitious, it can literally be seen from the ground. And no, it's a satellite.

Do you believe that our solar system could have a ninth, unknown planet?

Certainly possible.

1989

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: With Zetetic method, what pictures are Real vs. Fake

« on: April 27, 2020, 09:54:58 PM »

Exactly, you are solely relying on your model of reality to predetermine whether any images you are shown are genuine or fake.

As are you, as is everyone. At the very least we use our model of reality to give us an idea in our head how likely an image is to be real.
Are you suggesting that if you see a picture of an elephant walking through the African plain your first instinct is to research whether it's a real image or fake.
I call bullshit on that.

That is bias.

No, it's just using common sense. If I see a picture of an elephant flying then I have very good reason to suspect it's fake, if I see a picture one walking in its natural habitat I'd have to have pretty good evidence to declare it fake.

And NASA is on record as having released fake images.

The link explains that the image is a composite of real photos from space. Any time you take a panorama your camera is creating a composite image.
That does not mean that the result is fake.
In this case what he did was a bit more elaborate, he also enhanced some of the images he made the composite result with.
But he is not admitting the image is CGI because it is not. The composite is made from real images taken from space by an orbiting satellite.
And I note the satellite orbits over both Poles which rather blows your monopole model out of the water.
Other pictures, and the film you were shown earlier, are not composites.

And what's your take here. You believe NASA are faking all their images, but you also believe that they are perfectly happy with their employees openly giving interviews in which they carefully explain how an image was made? Man, they sure do suck at keeping secrets...

1990

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 27, 2020, 04:58:18 PM »

Nah...

You would rather die than live in a country other than the USA?

Yep.

Oh dear. Are you one of those #MAGA people who likes to wave their little Stars and Stripes and chant U-S-A! U-S-A! and who genuinely believes that the US is the best country in the world. You might want to look away now

https://www.newsweek.com/worlds-best-countries-us-not-top-five-1300813
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/overall-rankings

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan. But like most countries you have a bunch of problems, there's nothing that special about you apart from a lot of you believing there is. Fine line between patriotism and jingoism...

1991

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: With Zetetic method, what pictures are Real vs. Fake

« on: April 27, 2020, 01:58:12 PM »

The video is of a ball rotating that resembles a globe earth.

You have no idea whether or not it is genuine.

Correct. But you could apply that to any image.
So this is where I come back to my model of reality.

Show me a photo of an elephant walking across the African plain then I'm not going to immediately think it's fake. It could be of course but I know that elephants exist. I know they live in Africa. I'd have no particular reason to suspect fakery.
Show me a picture of an elephant flying then my initial reaction would be that it's fake. Because my model of reality tells me that elephants can't fly.

I've been through why I find photos from satellites credible. My model of reality tells me that we live on a globe earth and we have satellites orbiting it. So sure, why couldn't they be sending images back? Have they been altered? Well, in the sense that colour balance and contrast may have been altered, maybe. But that's the logical equivalent of using a filter on your phone camera, it doesn't mean that the object you're taking a photo of doesn't exist or you weren't really looking at it and taking the photo of it.

Yes, they could be fake, but NASA are absolutely not on record on saying they release "fake" images. Please provide a source where they say that. And the word fake is important here. The aforementioned photo of a flying elephant is fake - elephants can't fly so image of one flying must have been created. The photo of the elephant walking may well have been altered in the sense that maybe the contrast has been changed to make it clearer. But it's still a real image of a real elephant that the person taking the image saw. NASA admit to altering images. They admit to compositing images. These things are not the same as the images being fake and I don't believe you will find a source where they say that they are faking images of earth.
NASA do sometimes release artist impressions of things like exoplanets which we currently don't have the technology to get good images of but when they do that they clearly label them as such.

1992

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: With Zetetic method, what pictures are Real vs. Fake

« on: April 27, 2020, 12:32:47 PM »

Funny...I am looking at a flat screen...with flat images...

Come on, now you're just being disingenuous. All images are flat, but you can generally tell that the image is of 3D objects and the shape of those objects. The lighting of the image taken from lunar orbit is characteristic of a sphere being lit. And the video is clearly of a sphere rotating.
You can say the images and video are fake, of course, but it's pretty clear what the shape of the object shown in the images is.

I will agree with one thing you said a while back, most people couldn't explain how they know they live on a globe, it's just what they've been taught. But it doesn't take much digging in to, if you understand the science, to know that we do.

1993

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 26, 2020, 09:59:58 PM »

Whether sarcasm or not, what he was pondering about was fine. Even if we are talking about the disinfectants that can poison you, many pharmaceutical drugs are poisons in high enough quantities. The trick to medical research is to find something that poisons the disease more than it poisons you. The question of how do we make a poison safe for use internally is the basis of much pharmaceutical research.

He definitely did not instruct people to drink Lysol, as the media is immorally implying, like the dishonest liars they absolutely are.

Right. To be fair, he didn't suggest that people start chugging Domestos (do you have that in the US? Anyway, it's one of the brands here).
But what was all that ramble about anyway? You could argue that the companies have had to print disclaimers because of the media coverage rather than Trump's actual words but from what he said it sounds like Trump was suggesting things to medical professionals.
I mean, if he wants to do that then whatever. The look on the lady doctor's face tells you everything you need to know about what she thought of his rambling. But FFS do it behind closed doors.

Even if you think that some areas of the press obsess over what he says and twist it - which I agree they do - he gives them a lot of ammo with nonsense like this.

1994

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Bedford Level Experiment Flawed

« on: April 26, 2020, 09:07:35 PM »

Check the Frozen Lake video again. When the camera is 1 foot above the surface the red light does not blink and is steady. Only when the camera gets to such a close altitude of 5 inches the red light starts blinking a bit.

At 1 foot above the horizon, refraction would need to occur there too, yet the red light is not blinking. Your 'blinking light proves refraction' argument is shown to be false by the 1 foot observation.

I don't understand how any of that explains the light blinking. Refraction over water means you can see things which should be over the horizon if we lived on a globe with no atmosphere. That refraction varies over time because our atmosphere is turbulent. Which probably explains the blinking, obviously it's impossible to know the exact conditions on the day that experiment was done.
If the earth were a plane then what is causing the light to blink at all? I guess atmospheric effects could cause the apparent light to vary in height but there shouldn't be anything blocking the light source at any height.

I don't see what the size of the sun has to do with this. That can occur through a mechanism that does not rely on 'coincidence'. This response is admitting that your position is that a coincidence did it.

I don't have a position because it's impossible to know all the conditions. I suspect some refraction is at play here though.
My point was you know full well that if RE was claiming a mechanism whereby an object could move above us at a fixed height across the sky but maintain a consistent angular speed and size, you would scoff at the coincidence. Especially if no explanation or evidence for that mechanism was presented. Because that is not how objects which move across the sky behave - they increase in angular speed and size as they come closer and decrease as they get further. You are scoffing in this thread at what you say is a coincidence but you're fine believing in ones which make your model work. Just like you're happy to believe this video is proof of your model but hand wave away ones like the Turning Torso video which prove the opposite.

The video is admittedly interesting and deserves some further investigation.

1995

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 25, 2020, 12:25:27 PM »

Actually, the FE Wiki is almost nothing except quotes from physcists and professionals. I do value professional expertise, who speak about their field.

You cherry pick and you take things out of context. You argue in bad faith.
Maybe not deliberately, but you are either being dishonest with yourself or us.
And, again, even if this doctor is highly regarded - which is disputed - he is only one doctor. Unless there is some kind of consensus then this is just one doctor's opinion. Which, if he is reputable, is more valuable than your opinion or mine maybe, but you always cherry pick the sources which fit with your world view and ignore or dismiss the ones which do not.

1996

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 25, 2020, 09:46:16 AM »

Appealing to the autority of just one man, when virtually everyone else in this field says "don't inject or ingest disinfectant", and when this man is also a proponent of orthomolecular medicine, which for some reason is categorized as health fraud. In other words, cherrypicking arguments from authority, nevermind how dubious the authority is.

Is anyone surprised?

Not in the least. It's a very disingenuous way of arguing.
Every credible scientist is saying the earth is a globe, you can post articles backing that up all day long. But those people's expertise and experience count for nothing because, as Tom once said, I believe unironically, "we are smarter than those guys".

But Trump under fire for saying something dumb for the millionth time? Well that just won't do. Let me quickly Google that and cherry pick the first source I can find which possibly shows the president isn't deranged, no matter how credible the source.

Appeal to authority and expert opinion only count in Tom's book if they confirm his agenda - or in this case Trump's. And even if this doctor was credible, which it sounds like he is not, debates and research in fields like medicine go on all the time. Unless there is medical consensus about this - and there absolutely isn't - cherry picking a source you happen to agree with is a dishonest way of debating.

1997

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Bedford Level Experiment Flawed

« on: April 24, 2020, 08:40:26 PM »

The answer to these is "a coincidence did it."

Apparently a perfectly valid answer when you're asked why the sun maintains a consistent angular size throughout the day despite it being many times further away at sunset than at noon and thus should be many times smaller.
But, by coincidence there's some effect which magnifies it in such a way that at all distances it's magnified by different amounts so it looks exactly the same size all the time.
But that's a coincidence which is needed to make FE work and thus is OK?

And I note you continue to ignore the fact that in that video on the ice the two distant lights are flickering on and off despite them being steady light sources, the further one flickers the most. Almost like at times the light is being blocked by something. What could that be?

1998

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 24, 2020, 08:30:39 PM »

An actual doctor not quite believing what she was hearing from the POTUS

https://twitter.com/Daniel_Lewis3/status/1253482576699969537

It must be genuinely terrifying working for someone like this who thinks he's an expert on everything and is actually an expert on nothing and, worse, routinely sacks or demotes people who speak up against whatever crazy schemes he thinks up.

1999

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 24, 2020, 08:25:41 PM »

I would like to once again remind everyone that Tom is not a medical doctor and will blindly defend anything Trump says no matter how dumb.

2000

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 24, 2020, 11:01:06 AM »

Yeah, doesn't mean I have to keep supporting it.

What do you see as the alternative, out of interest?
In a small village you can maybe club together and agree on who maintains the roads, how you defend yourselves against attacks from other villages, whether you're going to have a hospital which you all pay into and everyone can then use for free or whether you have to pay for treatment and it's every man for himself and those who can't pay are screwed.

When you come to a country, that isn't going to work. The party outlines their priorities, what they want to spend money on. If you largely agree with them then you vote for them. If they don't spend money or make policies in the way they said they would then maybe next time you won't vote for them.
It's not a perfect system by any means but what would be better?