41

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 13, 2025, 04:41:23 PM »

So basically....

"I will gift my plane not to the next president but to...my library.  So the librarian can fly it or something."

>_>

I don't see evidence that anyone is intending to fly it. Several presidents have their vehicles displayed in their presidential library, such as Ronald Regan's library:

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2012/10/31/archives-spotlight-the-ronald-reagan-presidential-library-and-museum/

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum is located in Simi Valley, California—about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles—and holds over 60 million pages of documents, 1.6 million photographs, hundreds of thousands of feet of audiovisual material, and 40,000 artifacts.

In the Air Force One Pavilion, you can tour Air Force One (tail number 27000). This airplane carried Presidents Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush all over the world and the United States. This “Flying White House” was integral to Reagan’s presidency: he wrote many speeches, signed legislation, and relaxed while traveling in Air Force One.

You can also visit an exhibit on Presidential motorcades. Vehicles include one of Reagan’s presidential limousines, Secret Service suburbans, and a Marine One helicopter that flew President Johnson.

Considering that the US Taxpayers are not even paying for this plane, the library can more easily justify making the plane a tourist exhibit of Trump's presidency. Since this is a gift to the Trump Presidency which will be used for his presidency, it should logically be immortalized as Trump's flying palace and admired by the world.

If you thought that the goal was simply to give it to Trump as another plane, you were looking too low and thinking too small. Its existence as a opulent Trump exhibit is a far grander vision and is obviously the gameplan with this plane.

42

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 13, 2025, 04:25:09 PM »

The luxury plane, which would be one of the most valuable gifts ever received by the U.S. government, would eventually be donated to Trump's presidential library after he leaves office, the source said.

Like I've said before, there is no Trump presidential library. This plane is a gift to Donald Trump himself, not to the office of the president or the federal government.

This is wrong. There is a Trump Presidential Library and it's part of the federal government. The plane is going back to the federal government.

https://www.trumplibrary.gov - "The Trump Presidential Library is part of the Presidential Libraries system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency."

The federal government will be deciding what to do with the plane after Trump leaves office.

43

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 12, 2025, 07:01:53 AM »

There is barely anything special about it. It's a currency as much as a pencil is a currency. Trump may as well be selling pencils with individualized serial numbers that people are willing to buy from him and then sell to each other for prices that they decide among themselves.

Should politicians be allowed to sell pencils? Yes. The genius comes in convincing people that they should sell the pencils to each other, which gives the pencil potentially more value. Outside of the initial sale of the pencil it has nothing to do with Trump.

Does there need to be laws in selling pencils with serial numbers on them? No. Why would there be? There are many politicians who are business owners and sell products, and many more who are heavily invested in businesses, all potentially corruptible for political influence. This meme coin is just an asset with a serial number on it, which its owners go on to trade among themselves.

44

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 11, 2025, 09:11:33 PM »

You actually don't even have an example that politicians should not receive money from their supporters. Many politicians ask for and receive money from their supporters. There is massive fundraising from Super PACS,  which raise hundreds of millions of dollars for candidates and politicians. Companies write very large checks to these organizations, which are often looked at with suspicion and shade. If your argument is that politicians should not receive money from their supporters, this is blatantly contradicted by a century of fundraising.

In Obama's last term as President he was notably raising money from people to "support his goals".

Trump is ingeniously giving something in return to his supporters through Trump meme coins which could potentially have value based on the success of the very person they are investing in. Usually when you give money to a politician you get nothing in return, so he has improved the process with his innovative business acumen and has made it far more attractive for people to consider investing in him.

45

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 11, 2025, 06:48:58 PM »

If a president wants to lie repeatedly, use his position of power to further enrich himself and his mates, make decisions which push the country in to the brink of recession, take no responsibility for anything and blame everyone but himself for his failings and just generally act like a complete asshat on the world stage and make himself and by association your country a complete laughing stock then you're right, there's no requirements to stop him doing any of that.

And yes, because of the MAGA Cult he gets away with it.
Where we differ is I don't actually think it's a good thing. I'd rather have a world leader with honestly, integrity and competence.
I'm a bit of an old traditionalist when it comes to stuff like that.

You are wrong. Trump does not have control over whether he is successful in his meme coin business. Trump is not enriching himself by selling meme coins. It is his supporters who are enriching him because they have faith that its value will go up based on his success. This is very different to, say, the insider trading Nancy Pelosi and other Congress people blatantly engage in. Because of this insider trading Nancy Pelosi is getting greater rates of returns than Warren Buffet, and is one of the greatest traders of all time. Now that is self-enrichment and blatant fraud.

For the rest of your post, it is just more unsupported liberal accusations without merit.

46

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 11, 2025, 12:00:38 AM »

That was your third post in this thread you have already abandoned Newtonian Gravity and the idea that objects fall "downwards." What will you abandon in another three posts? Will it be the insistence on unseen dimensions, metaphysical curvature, or perhaps the reliance on abstract mathematics that only serves to obscure the reality of the Earth's upward acceleration?

Things do not "fall" to the ground. The so-called "falling" is nothing more than the result of the Earth accelerating upwards at 9.8 m/s², as evidenced by direct observations and experiments. The fact that reality is this way shows that the earth is flat, not that we must create abstract explanations to explain it. The flat earth model simply accepts what the evidence directly shows without requiring extra mathematical dimensions or "curvature" that nobody can see. Your theory of gravity, however, attempts to explain these phenomena by resorting to an interdimensional simulation of upward acceleration through curved spacetime. This is not only convoluted but also entirely unnecessary. Inventing bizarre physics to fit a Round Earth paradigm is the wrong approach.

The evidence overwhelmingly supports the upwards acceleration of the surface as the  more direct explanation of physical reality. The upwards acceleration of a flat surface does not require the metaphysical gymnastics of curved spacetime or the invention of unseen realms. The earth is not continually exploding apart from itself interdimensionally in a desperate explanation of reality.  It relies on observable phenomena and empirical data, while your Round Earth model continually retreats into abstraction whenever its foundational assumptions are questioned.

You seem to think GR means a flat earth is forever physically accelerating upwards, but GR doesn't make that claim. It instead says that with a suitable reference frame, Earth can be considered as accelerating towards the apple.

The experiments show that there is clear physical evidence supporting the idea that the Earth is accelerating upwards. Yet you dismiss this as merely mathematical, claiming we can "consider" the Earth as accelerating upwards without it being physically real. This is outright denial of physical evidence and a refusal to engage with reality.

Let’s examine your position. How can the surface of the Earth be "accelerating upwards" in some unseen mathematical dimension while its physical effects, such as redshifts, time dilation, and weightlessness in free fall, are undeniably real and observable? If the effects are real and measurable, then why isn’t the mechanical process of upward acceleration also real?

Your response reveals the lengths to which defenders of this absurd theory must go to justify their position. By retreating into abstract, unseen models and redefining physical phenomena as "considerations," you sidestep the evidence at hand. This isn’t an argument grounded in science, it's an exercise in creating convoluted explanations to prop up an outdated paradigm.

When pressed to defend your position, you resort to nonsensical jargon and metaphysical abstractions, which only highlight the weaknesses in your argument. The most direct explanation, supported by experimentation and direct observation, is that the Earth is physically accelerating upwards; no unseen dimensions or "considerations" required.

47

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 10, 2025, 04:58:34 PM »

Your difficulties with Brian Cox are at least partly accounted for by his mischievous nature – in the original video you referenced, he's already mocked people calling him a paid NASA shill by claiming that's how he can afford to stay in the Raffles Hotel, Singapore, lol.

It's not only Brian Cox saying this, see these collected quotes from https://wiki.tfes.org/Equivalence_Principle

Gravity: A Very Short Introduction

From Gravity: A Very Short Introduction by Cosmologist Timothy Clifton, we read:

“ Consider a skydiver jumping out of an airplane. The skydiver falls freely, up to the effects of air resistance. According to Einstein, the skydiver's path is the straightest line possible through the curved space-time around the Earth. From the skydiver's perspective this seems quite natural. Except for the air rushing past her, the skydiver feels no perturbing forces at all. In fact, if it weren't for the air resistance, she would experience weightlessness in the same way that an astronaut does in orbit. The only reason we think the skydiver is accelerating is because we are used to using the surface of the Earth as our frame of reference. If we free ourselves from this convention, then we have no reason to think the skydiver is accelerating at all.

Now consider yourself on the ground, looking up at the falling daredevil. Normally, your intuitive description of your own motion would be that you are stationary. But again this is only because of our slavish regard to the Earth as the arbiter of what is at rest and what is moving. Free yourself from this prison, and you realize that you are, in fact, accelerating. You feel a force on the soles of your feet that pushes you upwards, in the same way that you would if you were in a lift that accelerated upwards very quickly. In Einstein's picture there is no difference between your experience sanding on Earth and your experience in the lift. In both situations you are accelerating upwards. In the latter situation it is the lift that is responsible for your acceleration. In the former, it is the fact that the Earth is solid that pushes you upwards through space-time, knocking you off your free-fall trajectory. That the surface of the Earth can accelerate upwards at every point on its surface, and remain as a solid object, is because it exists in a curved space-time and not in a flat space.

With this change in perspective the true nature of gravity becomes apparent. The free falling skydiver is brought to Earth because the space-time through which she falls is curved. It is not an external force that tugs her downwards, but her own natural motion through a curved space. On the other hand, as a person standing on the ground, the pressure you feel on the soles of your feet is due to the rigidity of the Earth pushing you upwards. Again, there is no external force pulling you to Earth. It is only the electrostatic forces in the rocks below your feet that keep the ground rigid, and that prevents you from taking what would be your natural motion (which would also be free fall).

So, if we free ourselves from defining our motion with respect to the surface of the Earth we realize that the skydiver is not accelerating, while the person who stands on the surface of the Earth is accelerating. Just the opposite of what we usually think. Going back to Galileo's experiment on the leaning tower of Pisa, we can now see why he observed all of his cannonballs to fall at the same rate. It wasn't really the cannonballs that were accelerating away from Galileo at all, it was Galileo that was accelerating away from the cannonballs! ”

Why Is Spacetime Curved?

In a section titled Why Is Spacetime Curved? of the book Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe by John Richard Gott III, professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University, we read:

“ A famous (perhaps apocryphal) story about Einstein describes one occasion when he fell into conversation with a man at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. During their chat, the man suddenly pulled a little book from his coat pocket and jotted something down. Einstein asked, “What is that?" “Oh,” the man answered, “it's a notebook I keep, so that any time I have a good idea I can write it down before I forget it.” “I never needed one of those," Einstein replied. “I only had three good ideas.”

One of them occurred to him in 1907—what he would later call the “happiest” idea of his life. Einstein noted that an observer on Earth and an observer on an accelerating spaceship in interstellar space would have the same sensations. Follow this chain of thought to see why. Galileo had shown that an observer dropping two balls of different mass on Earth sees them hit the floor at the same time. If an observer in an accelerating rocket in interstellar space performed the same experiment, dropping two balls of different mass, they would float motionless in space—but, since the rocket was firing, the floor of the spaceship would simply come up and hit both of them at once. Both observers thus should see the same thing. In one case, it is the result of gravity; in the other case, it is caused by an accelerating floor with no gravity involved. But then Einstein proposed something very bold—if the two situations looked the same, they must be the same. Gravity was nothing more than an accelerated frame-of-reference. Likewise, Einstein noted that if you get in an elevator on Earth and cut the cable, you and everything in the elevator will fall toward Earth at the same rate. (Galileo again—objects of different mass all fall at the same rate.) So, how do things look to you in the falling elevator? Any object you drop will float weightless in the elevator—because you, the object, and the elevator are all falling at the same rate together. This is exactly what you would see if you were in a spaceship floating in interstellar space. All the objects in the spaceship, including you, would be weightless. If you want to experience weightlessness just like an astronaut, all you have to do is get in an elevator and cut the cable. (This works, of course, only until the elevator hits bottom.)

Einstein's assertion that gravity and acceleration are, the same—which he called the equivalence principle—was influenced, no doubt, by his previous success in equating the situation of a stationary magnet and a moving charge with that of a stationary charge and a moving magnet. But if gravity and accelerated motion were the same, then gravity was nothing but accelerated motion. Earth's surface was simply accelerating upward. This explained why a heavy ball and a light ball, when dropped, hit the floor at the same time. When the balls are released, they just float there—weightless. The floor (Earth) simply comes up and hits them. What a remarkably fresh way of looking at things!

Still one must ask how Earth’s surface could be accelerating upward (away from Earth's center) if Earth itself is not getting bigger and bigger with time like a balloon. The only way the assertion could make sense is by considering spacetime to be curved.

Einstein proposed that mass and energy cause spacetime to curve. It took him 8 years of hard work to derive the equations governing this. He had to learn the abstruse geometry of curved higher dimensional spaces. He had to learn about the Riemannian curvature tensor—a mathematical monster with 256 components telling how spacetime could be curved. This was very difficult mathematics, and Einstein ran upon many false leads. But he didn't give up because he had great faith in the idea. ”

Relativity Visualized

“ Einstein’s view of gravity is that things don’t fall; the floor comes up! ”
                  —Epstein, Lewis Carroll: Relativity Visualized. (Insight Press, San Francisco, 1988) pp. 65 ff.

Tony Goldsmith

Tony Goldsmith, author of a mass-media book Space-time for Absolute Beginners and his Absolute Beginner book series, explains the Equivalence Principle as follows:

“ When you are in a lift you may be accelerated. Where is this coming from? It is the lift pushing you up.

Einstein said that the Earth does the same as a lift (which has an acceleration of g). The Earth isn't in the way; it is doing the pushing. This is his Equivalence Principle. ”

Why Gravity is NOT a Force

A popular science video by Veritasium with over 10 million views, Why Gravity is NOT a Force, explains at the 9:57 mark how in General Relativity you accelerate upwards without changing your spatial coordinates with the General Relativity equation:

“ But if I'm accelerating up and so is everyone else around the world and presumably the whole surface of the Earth, then shouldn't the whole earth be expanding?

No. It is possible for you to be accelerating even though your spatial coordinates are not changing. I will show you one equation from General Relativity...

(equation)

...so in curved space-time you have to accelerate just to stand still. ”

Inner Life of Numbers

In a book on how math relates to the universe One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers by mathematician Andrew Hodges, he describes that the earth's surface is accelerating upwards against your feet in the geometry of curved space-time:

“ Earth's mass curves the geometry of space-time in such a way that the Earth's surface is always accelerating upwards at 9.81 m/sec^2 and so presses on your feet. Weight doesn't exist, but the Earth's electromagnetic forces push harder on fat boys than on slim. This sounds crazy, but it is no crazier than the fact that if you steam straight ahead on a sphere you will end up back where you started. Such things are made possible by curvature. ”

Earth’s Surface Accelerates Up (and Out)

A physics student, Berry, came across this subject and made us a brief paper about what he learned in his upper level physics classes, showing the math on how in the globe model of gravity the surface of the earth is actually accelerating upwards.

“ This paper uses the Schwarzchild geometry utilized by the current globe Earth model to show that the surface of the Earth is accelerating upwards. ”

The video Markjo posted above also has the earth accelerating upwards at the twelve minute mark:

48

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 10, 2025, 03:52:43 PM »

Remarkable. I'll be blunt then, which experiments on Earth's surface tell us it's the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

It's mostly all the stuff you have already heard about.

- Light redshifts when pointed at a ceiling. This is predicted by the earth's upward acceleration, as the ceiling accelerates away from the light. It is not predicted by Newtonian Gravity.

- The perceived information from a clock speeds up as the clock increases in height above you. This is predicted by the upward acceleration of a surface, where the observer is accelerating into the broadcasted photons. It is not predicted by Newtonian Gravity.

- Bodies and particles of different masses fall together, despite that they have different inertial resistances and require different amounts of energy to be moved. This is predicted by an upwards accelerating earth, and requires an absurd coincidence in Newtonian Gravity, as described by the above space.com article.

- Bodies are weightless as they fall. A strand of hair or globule of water will have different parts of its atoms moving up and down weightlessly, when a downward pulling gravity should be pulling all atoms "down" together. If a flat falling rope or strand of hair is falling, pulled downwards at every atom, even at the same rate, it should not freely flex and bunch in every direction and deform as if in a weightless environment. In loosely connected matter such as water, a hair, or a rope, there should be resistance against the downwards pulling gravity if some atoms try to go upwards in relation to the rest.

The reason these phenomena are being pointed out with interest by physicists in the relativity articles is because it's not something Newtonian Gravity adequately predicts. The weightless absurdity is Einstein's "Happiest Thought", which led him to his Equivalence Principle. Why would he be so happy if it was something that was adequately explained for centuries? These phenomena are pointed out as wow amazing in the introduction to relativity texts because they go against intuition of a world where things are being pulled downwards, instead suggesting that the surface is being pushed upwards. If Newtonian Gravity predicted everything fine there would be no reason to replace it.

49

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 10, 2025, 01:34:16 AM »

Selling Trump merch is one thing.  Using meme coins to sell direct access to the president is a whole new level of corruption.
https://news.sky.com/story/us-senators-attempt-to-ban-trumps-profoundly-corrupt-crypto-schemes-13363230

You actually don't need to own a meme coin business to accept money from people. Trump and his family were making multi-million dollar deals as he was President during his first term, and I am still waiting for you guys to prove that bribery occurred as has been alleged.

50

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 09, 2025, 11:40:06 PM »

the folks here are saying it is bad for a president to use the office to enrich themselves, even if it is permissible.

Yeah, and the "folks here" have coincidentally posted their Trump hate for years. In reality, Trump was selling his name a under the Trump brand during his campaign and for years prior, and only the far left was screeching for him and his family to sell his hotels or businesses as president. Trump came into office selling Trump-branded products and services. The people accepted him as a presidential candidate, knowing full well that his brand might get a boost if he became president.

The theme that Donald Trump sells Trump things already existed. The people already bought into the fact that he was a billionaire who got rich off of the name Trump, so it is not an issue at all. Therefore Trump can continue to sell the Trump brand. It is part of the package. To strip away Trump's ability to sell the Trump brand would be a violation of his very identity, president or not. The traditional rules simply don't apply to him.

51

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 09, 2025, 07:49:35 PM »

This is obviously bullshit. When you appoint or vote someone to a certain role you expect them to do that role and act professionally.

Actually no, why would you vote for someone and then expect them to act completely different?

Because they're in a different role which requires them to.

This is wrong as well. The only requirement to be US President is that you are over the age of 35, a resident of the United States for over 14 years, and be a natural-born citizen. Everything else is your personalized whiney rant of the day about what you think a president should do or how they should conduct their business interests. If there were further requirements it would be legislated, not in your mind depending on something you disagree with on a particular day.

i like how you go out of your way to make it sound like zelensky got caught doing something horribly inappropriate but escaped the scandal during his campaign/presidency due only to his celebrity.

lol it was an obviously-fake skit on a popular variety show from like three years before zelensky even ran for office, dummy. this is like saying "arnold schwarzenegger got to keep being governor of california even though he was once a killer cyborg from the future!!!!!!!"

That is actually my exact argument that comedian stars are held to a different standard than traditional politicians and can get away with many more improprieties. This is why Trump gets away with so much. He is not a traditional politician and is held to different standards. Trying to hold him to the standard of a traditional politician will not and has not worked.

52

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 08, 2025, 09:38:43 PM »

This is obviously bullshit. When you appoint or vote someone to a certain role you expect them to do that role and act professionally.

Actually no, why would you vote for someone and then expect them to act completely different? If for some reason the people voted for Snoop Dog into a political position they would expect him to continue being Snoop Dog. They would expect that his anti-police mannerisms stay the same, that he continues to smoke reefer, and so on.

53

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 08, 2025, 04:44:51 PM »

But there's a difference between Zelensky using humour in his speeches - which many politicians do anyway (often with...mixed results) and him launching a new comedy show or stand up tour. If he did those things I suspect there would be a feeling of "shouldn't you be running the country?"

I bet Zelensky could launch a new comedy show or stand up tour as he was president. It's hard to prove that he's not running the country, and everything is arguably delegable. His supporters would just argue that he's providing important social commentary in his role of communicator, and justify it completely. After all, a comedic social communicator is who they wanted as president.

More directly, if as Ukrainian President Zelensky went on stage and did the bit where he plays the piano with his testicles again, no one would bat an eye. He would lose no popularity, simply because that is the person they voted for. They would clap and call it hilarious.

54

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 08, 2025, 04:21:06 PM »

Up to a point. Zelensky was a comedian before he went in to politics. I don't think the people of Ukraine elected him and then expected him to go on another standup tour or launch a new TV comedy series. Whatever background someone has, you elect someone to run the country, not to enrich themselves.

Actually Zelensky proves that the rules of traditional politics don't apply to stars. There is a video segment of Zelensky playing the piano with his testicles in front of an audience. If a traditional politician went on stage and did it, or if previously filmed segment was uncovered and publicized as they were campaigning, this would be campaign ending for them. For a traditional politician a video of them pants down in front of a piano would be professionally embarrassing and they would have to resign or get rejected by their party. Zelensky got away with it because he was a media and comedic star, and his antics even gained him popularity.

Zelensky may not be using humor anymore in his role as president, but if he had continued with it he would assuredly get away with a lot.

55

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 08, 2025, 03:34:58 AM »

No politician should

Again, this is the issue. He's not a traditional politician, so he doesn't play by those rules. He is a television star and world famous comedic personality whose running theme is that he runs businesses and makes money, so he can get rich off of his crypto business and meme coins if he wants to.

You may as well argue that if Elvis were elected President that he shouldn't continue to sing in concerts, but those arguments will obviously not go far in the realm of public opinion if President Elvis Presley wanted to lead in a concert. Your social expectations of a traditional president would mean nothing, and they mean nothing here with Trump.

56

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 07, 2025, 07:07:22 PM »

The problem with the criticism and why it goes nowhere is because Trump has a background as a reality television comedian star, and therefore it is water off the duck's back. He has been trolling you for years, this entire time. This is why Trump can do and say things that are career ending for traditional politicians, and even get more popular for it. Your attacks are powerless against this.

57

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 05, 2025, 05:30:36 PM »

Troops would mean we are now an active military target. Ie. The US/EUgoes to war with Russia.  A step we probably should have taken but it could have led to WW3.

Russia stated that they wouldn't be in Ukraine if Ukraine was in NATO, so Ukraine having actual allies would have solved the problem without WW3. Russia already has NATO allies which share its border, and this would have been another one. Unfortunately NATO members did not care enough about Ukraine to be its ally, leaving them to the slaughter as they stood around watching and virtue signaling in limited support. The problem with Ukraine was its lack of allies.

As for the streets:
You are correct: Per Axel.  Tanks don't have axels so the weight is distributed across the whole tread.  But that being said, it's still 50% over the gross weight limit.

Gross vehicle weight: 80,000 pounds
Weight on any one axle: 20,000 pounds
Weight on any two consecutive axles less than 10 feet apart: 34,000 pounds

It also says in the link in the text below that section that if the vehicle weighs more to contact them for a permit:

"Any vehicles exceeding these restrictions require an oversize/overweight vehicle permit to travel within the District of Columbia."

So it doesn't appear to be a hard limit.

58

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 05, 2025, 03:26:33 PM »

Direct experiments on the earth's surface tell us that the earth is accelerating upwards.

The OP and the relevant wiki articles all frequently and approvingly refer to the Equivalence Principle when discussing UA, but the EP states that acceleration of the Earth and gravitational acceleration are experimentally indistinguishable. How then can experiments on the Earth’s surface tell us that it’s the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

The OP has some explaining to do before rubbishing general relativity.

The problem is that you read a sentence about gravity from physicists and think that it's talking about Newtonian Gravity because that is the topic in dispute here. Those the same physicists also say that General Relativity succeeded Newtonian Gravity long ago. The gravity they are talking about is General Relativity. They are saying that upwards acceleration of the earth's surface and the General Relativity theory of gravity are experimentally indistinguishable in laboratory experiments. You will also find that those sentences of indistinguishability appear in articles about the history and advantages of Einsteinian gravity, giving additional context to which gravity it is talking about.

Newtonian Gravity where things fall "down" has a litany of problems, such as not predicting the redshifting of light when pointed at a ceiling, as mentioned above.

Another problem is that Newtonian Gravity actually predicts that objects with twice the mass will fall twice as fast, and this fixed with ad-hoc bandaid mechanisms. A Space.com article Relativity: The Thought Experiments Behind Einstein's Theory by astrophysicist Paul Sutter explains that under a plain interpretation of how Newtonian Gravity pulls on objects, a body with twice the mass of another should fall faster. Newtonian Gravity requires a separation of inertial and gravitational mass and their equivalence for bodies to fall equally. It is suggested in this article that this is an ad-hoc mechanism to explain physical phenomena.

“ Einstein's first insight into the nature of gravity was to put a new twist on an old idea. In Isaac Newton's original mathematical description of gravity ("OG"?), there's an odd coincidence when it comes to the concept of "mass." In one famous equation, F = ma, mass is your inertia — how much oomph it takes to shove you along. In Newton's other equation on gravity, mass is more like gravitational charge — the level of attraction you might feel toward the Earth, for example.

Objects with twice the mass feel twice the attraction toward the Earth, and should therefore fall twice as quickly. But years back, Galileo Galilei had conclusively shown that they don't: Neglecting air resistance, all objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass.

Thus for Newton's theory to work, inertial mass had to be the same as gravitational mass, but only by sheer coincidence: there was no reason for this equality to hold. For an object with twice the mass, the Earth may pull on it twice as strongly, but this is perfectly canceled out by the fact that it's now twice as hard to get the object moving. Inertial and gravitational masses move in perfect lockstep.

This odd correspondence had long been a puzzle in gravitational circles, but in 1907, Einstein took it one step further. The physicist imagined what would happen if you were to fall from a great height. Again neglecting air resistance, your inertial and gravitational masses would cancel, making you feel perfectly weightless, as if there were no gravity at all. But zero-gravity environments are precisely the playground of Special Relativity, the theory he had cooked up just a couple years prior that wove our conceptions of space and time into the unified fabric of spacetime.

To Einstein, this was a major clue. Lurking in the shadows of gravity was his precious special relativity and the essential concept of space-time, and what made that realization possible was the elevation of the equivalence between inertial and gravitational masses into a fundamental principle, rather than the awkward afterthought it had been. ”

As mentioned above, it is a sheer coincidence that they are equal. For example, if the gravity field of the earth were stronger it would increase the 'gravitational mass' of the object. It would no longer match the inertial resistance of an object. It is incredible that the earth is a special planet where the gravity field exactly matches what is necessary to cause this weightless effect.

This weightless effect where bodies of differing masses fall together is so absurd that Einstein recognized it for what it is, the upwards acceleration of the Earth's surface. In another video about bodies which fall together, Brian Cox explains:

"The reason, why the bowling ball and the feather, fall together is because they are not falling! They are standing still! There is no force acting on them at all! He (Einstein) reasoned, that if you couldn't see the background, the'd be no way of knowing, that the ball and and the feathers are being accelerated towards the Earth - so he concluded ... they weren't"

Brian Cox seems to be in love with this idea of the earth accelerating upwards, that he can't help but bring it up again and again and again, throwing this absurdity in our face and celebrating how weird physics is that it is this way.

59

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 05, 2025, 12:34:10 AM »

Might makes right, does it?  Well, never underestimate the “weaker” country.  Ukraine has been doing a pretty good job of holding its own against Russia for three years longer than anyone, especially Putin, expected.

This is incorrect, they did not hold their own. I don't think you understand the meaning of "holding its own".

That remains to be seen. Ukraine's strength, in part, comes from soft power - something Russia sorely lacks. It has allies, and some of them haven't even betrayed it out of cowardice. Making a reliable comparison between the two will likely not be possible for a few decades... unless Russia suddenly collapses on itself.

Those are clients, not allies. Allies in a military alliance help each other directly in battle when they are attacked, an example being the NATO military alliance. Over the past several years Ukraine was begging for direct participation from western powers, but was refused at every turn. Only money and equipment were provided, skirting around the alliance issue.

Ukraine was despicably given a wad of cash and was told to sacrifice its people to fight a war for others, the benefactor countries being unwilling to fight themselves. Because of this, we now have an entire generation of Ukrainian men which have been nearly erased and Ukrainian families in untold suffering, all while the benefactor countries remain unharmed and safe, fat and happy.

This is terrible and unjust, to say the least. Luckily for the people of Ukraine Trump was willing to step up once he became president and halt the US military aid to the mercenary government. If you want a war fought you should do it yourself, not send some third world backwater country to fight your battles and die for you.

You... You think rubber pads will help against weight?  Really?
You do know DC is literally built on swamp land, yes?
Also, max weight limit for a city streets in the DC area is 20,000 lbs.
And M1 Abrams tank weights 125,000 lbs.  So you really think rolling a bunch of somethings 6 times the maximum weight is gonna be ok so long as you use rubber pads?  Really?

The 20,000 pound figure is the weight on one vehicle axle. See in that link "Weight on any one axle: 20,000 pounds". The weight of a tank is distributed over a wide area, allowing them to roam city streets with proper treads.

Tanks have paraded Washington DC a number of times, so I don't know why you guys are pretending that this is anything new.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« on: May 05, 2025, 12:02:55 AM »

That video actually goes through the evidence and affirms that the physical reality is that the surface of the earth is accelerating upwards.

lol. He literally doesn’t use the word physical or physically once. He explains quite well how the acceleration is not physical.

Actually, he does say that the upwards acceleration manifests as physical phenomena. At around the 5:50 mark he explains:

this means when the light travels
up its frequency reduces and in light
when the frequency reduces it goes
towards red end of the Spectrum in other
words we get a red shift due to gravity
this is something that Newton did not
predict so if Einstein is indeed right
we should see gravitational red shift
and we saw it you can Google pound rebka
experiment for more details

Light shifts red, indicating that the ceiling of the building is accelerating away. The Newtonian theory of bodies falling "down" does not predict this. It is using the same mechanism of a policeman's radar gun which uses the red or blue shift of light to determine acceleration. When cars are accelerating away from the policeman, the light redshifts. In this experiment the doppler shift is coined as "gravitational redshift", and in the opposite direction towards the ground light blueshifts as the earth accelerates into it, all expected physical effects on an upwardly accelerating surface. This is one of many experiments which tells us that the earth is accelerating upwards.

Direct experiments on the earth's surface tell us that the earth is accelerating upwards. Bending space and physics in unseen dimensions are used to explain this as an illusion of a metaphysical realm where the earth is not exploding apart from itself. The evidence itself of the surface's upward acceleration is undeniable as far as experimentation is concerned, and "bending space" is the resulting cope mechanism.

Upwards acceleration of the earth's surface doesn't work if the Earth is a ball, so unseen realms of existence are invented where mechanics are occurring beyond our perception.

Also not true.

Have you seen the earth's surface accelerating upwards through bending space? If not, then it is unseen. You are talking about unseen physics in unseen realms, which is nonsense to say the least.

The reason why we always just see Brian Cox or others merely explaining what it is, but we never see direct defense of the upward acceleration of the earth's surface through space time, is because it is ridiculous beyond words

As a wise man once said (see my sig)
“Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

That's not the only part of the argument. The other part is that there is a lack of evidence that the earth's surface is accelerating upwards through space time or bending space.

You continue to conflate “I don’t understand this” with “this is not possible”. And curiously you do so while cherry picking parts of mainstream science where it suits your agenda. There’s no crime in being ignorant, but it’s a little silly to base a whole worldview on that ignorance.

Actually this thread shows that mainstream science is cherry picking what to accept. It can't accept an upwardly accelerating earth, so here you are mumbling on their behalf about alternate dimensions that you can't show us.