[rubberbands]

I've been very clear about what there is to answer: I would like to know why you said "yes" to one and "no" to the other. From the fact that you answered them differently, I could already tell that you saw these as very different questions, but I still do not see much meaningful difference between them. Hence, I am asking you to clarify why you answered them differently.

For the record, I didn't intend for there to be any real difference between the phrases "computer navigation system" and "GPS". Most plane navigation is heavily reliant on GPS, so I took the two to be more or less synonymous. That change of phrasing is essentially the only difference I can see between the first and second time I asked that, so I can only assume that it has something to do with the difference in your answer.

And, just to reiterate, the reason I think this is important is that I take your larger point to be that pilots need not be in on a conspiracy because they could be led by their navigation systems on different paths than they expect. I see this as unlikely, and have argued that since pilots are often able to see the ground and specific landmarks (such as coastlines, cities, ice, or just open ocean), they would certainly realize if their navigation systems were trying to deceive them. Therefore, they would have to be complicit in flying their planes on alternate, flat-Earth-friendly routes, and hence in on the conspiracy.

[Rounder]

Rubberbands asked "Are you (Junker) suggesting that pilots and sailors blindly follow their computer navigation systems to get from Point A to Point B and, in the meantime, don't actually have a clue where they are?"  To which Junker replied less than an hour later "That is exactly what I'm suggesting. I'm sure from experience of flying particular routes repeatedly they gain an intrinsic understanding of their bearings. They aren't pulling out maps to chart courses in an airplane."  Perhaps this is true in today's ships and airplanes, where the computer reigns supreme, but in pre-digital days this was not the case.  Early aviators absolutely DID navigate in flight using paper maps, and sailors always have and still do so as a backup if GPS should fail them.  And those maps are/were projections based on an assumption of a round earth.  If the assumption of a round earth were false, then maps based upon that assumption would not be an accurate representation of the world.  They might be navigable in some parts of the world, but they would be worthless in others. 
   In today's world, ships and planes routinely arrive where they are trying to go, and they arrive in the amount of time one expects of a round earth.  Therefore one of the following must be true:
1.  All pilots who fly more than merely local routes, and all mariners who navigate ships across the ocean, they all merely pretend to use RE navigation when in reality they know and use FE navigation, and therefore all of them are a part of the conspiracy to keep FE a secret.
2.  All those people are fools, they think they're navigating a round earth when in fact they've been duped by mapmakers and GPS programmers who pretend their maps represent RE when they actually represent FE, placing all mapmakers in the conspiracy.
3.  None of those people are in the know, they all mistakenly believe RE, the maps are based on RE and are worthless, and my statement about ships and planes routinely arriving at their destinations is false.  They are actually lost at sea in large numbers or making landfall wildly off course due to navigating under false RE assumptions with bogus RE maps.  There must be a massive coverup to hide all these missing ships and planes from the news, which is an even bigger pool of conspirators.
4. None of the above, because maps based on RE assumptions actually get you where you want to go.

[Charming Anarchist]

None of this has to be so difficult. 

I have an idea for settling this once and for all. 2 methods:

1: A trusted flatearther actually takes the direct flight between Santiago and Sydney and journals everything faithfully; times, regular photos out the windows on both sides. This is expensive but the Society could chip in.

2: Find two trusted flatearth supporters to help, one in Santiago or who can get there, one in Sydney. Get Sydney to find the flight (if it doesn't exist you've won straight away) watch it take off and note it's tail numbers. Get him/her to contact Santiago just before the flight plan says it's going to land; if it doesn't, RE is in trouble.
Cheap fun day project for all involved!

I'd be happy to take part if someone wants to arrange it. Thankfully,

we can ask GoogleEarth to show us a live-streaming video of all of the flights the shills and disinformation trolls say exist........ oh, wait. 

[Wezzoid]

"we can ask GoogleEarth to show us a live-streaming video of all of the flights the shills and disinformation trolls say exist........ oh, wait."

Yet another weak strawman argument, laughable. Does google have to do everything? Just search for flight trackers, there's plenty of them. Or don't, if you have no interest in finding out what the truth is.

[Luke 22:35-38]

"we can ask GoogleEarth to show us a live-streaming video of all of the flights the shills and disinformation trolls say exist........ oh, wait."

Yet another weak strawman argument, laughable. Does google have to do everything? Just search for flight trackers, there's plenty of them. Or don't, if you have no interest in finding out what the truth is.

How about this?
http://m.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream

[rubberbands]

Still wondering why Junker is refusing to answer a simple, direct question.

[Rounder]

How about this?
http://m.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream

You forget, Luke, that we are not going to get anywhere with evidence based on spaceflight, spacecraft, satellites, etc.  Flat Earthers believe all spaceflight to be fiction, hoax, Photoshop and CGI.  A live feed from the ISS is no better to them than 'footage' from Pandora or Tatooine.

[Wezzoid]

You forget, Luke, that we are not going to get anywhere with evidence based on spaceflight, spacecraft, satellites, etc.  Flat Earthers believe all spaceflight to be fiction, hoax, Photoshop and CGI.  A live feed from the ISS is no better to them than 'footage' from Pandora or Tatooine.

Any evidence you have that is too strong to come up with a plausible sounding rebuttal for, suddenly becomes fake. Even if the source had previously been used in a different context to support flathead ideas. It's like banging your head against an ice wall.

[juner]

You forget, Luke, that we are not going to get anywhere with evidence based on spaceflight, spacecraft, satellites, etc.  Flat Earthers believe all spaceflight to be fiction, hoax, Photoshop and CGI.  A live feed from the ISS is no better to them than 'footage' from Pandora or Tatooine.

Any evidence you have that is too strong to come up with a plausible sounding rebuttal for, suddenly becomes fake. Even if the source had previously been used in a different context to support flathead ideas. It's like banging your head against an ice wall.

Incorrect.

[Rounder]

You forget, Luke, that we are not going to get anywhere with evidence based on spaceflight, spacecraft, satellites, etc.  Flat Earthers believe all spaceflight to be fiction, hoax, Photoshop and CGI.  A live feed from the ISS is no better to them than 'footage' from Pandora or Tatooine.

Any evidence you have that is too strong to come up with a plausible sounding rebuttal for, suddenly becomes fake. Even if the source had previously been used in a different context to support flathead ideas. It's like banging your head against an ice wall.

Incorrect.

Which part is incorrect?  My statement that FE believe spaceflight to be fake, or the more broad statement made by Enlightenmental?  Or are both incorrect?

If my statement is incorrect, and you DO accept spaceflight as real, what do you think of the ISS live feed?

[juner]

The response was specifically to Enlightenmental.

[Wezzoid]

The response was specifically to Enlightenmental.

I told you in https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=4410.0 i'm ignoring you until you've watched those timelapse videos and tackled them directly. So there.

[rubberbands]

Junker! Glad to see you back in this thread, it just hasn't been the same since you started ignoring me. I'm still wondering about your apparent self-contradiction from earlier -- if you actually changed your mind on that issue, or if there's a way for you to reconcile the two different statements you made.

[juner]

Junker! Glad to see you back in this thread, it just hasn't been the same since you started ignoring me. I'm still wondering about your apparent self-contradiction from earlier -- if you actually changed your mind on that issue, or if there's a way for you to reconcile the two different statements you made.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I've made no contradicting statements.

[rubberbands]

I've asked you this question at least three times, Junker. You keep avoiding it.

I would like to know why you said "yes" to one and "no" to the other. From the fact that you answered them differently, I could already tell that you saw these as very different questions, but I still do not see much meaningful difference between them. Hence, I am asking you to clarify why you answered them differently.

For the record, I didn't intend for there to be any real difference between the phrases "computer navigation system" and "GPS". Most plane navigation is heavily reliant on GPS, so I took the two to be more or less synonymous. That change of phrasing is essentially the only difference I can see between the first and second time I asked that, so I can only assume that it has something to do with the difference in your answer.

I asked you what I thought was the same exact question two different times. The first time you said yes, the second time you denied having said yes. I want to know whether you actually think GPS/other navigation systems actively deceive pilots and take them on different routes than they expect. If you don't think that, I want to understand what you actually meant earlier when it looked like you were saying exactly that.

[juner]

"Computer navigation" and GPS are not the same thing.

[rubberbands]

Okay, as I've said, I considered that a pretty insignificant point since practically all plane navigation involves GPS at this point. However, I will do my best not to conflate the terms from here on out.

Now that we've finally put that aside, I would like to ask you again if you still hold that pilots are often deceived by their computer navigation systems into taking different routes than they think they are taking -- specifically, I'm assuming that the navigation systems would have FE-based maps programmed into them, but would display alternate routes on a RE map so that the pilot doesn't catch on to the flatness of the Earth. A specific example of this might be a flight computer taking a pilot flying from Sydney to Santiago through the northern hemisphere (the shortest FE route, at least according to the most popular map) while making the pilot believe they are flying over the Pacific Ocean the whole time (the shortest RE route). If this is not a fair characterization of the way you think things work, please correct me.

If this is an accurate characterization of how you believe international air travel works, I would like to know how pilots don't catch on by just looking out their windows and seeing land when they should be seeing water (or vice versa). In the above scenario, this would happen all the time, there's no way around it.

To reiterate, the whole reason we got on this topic is because I am firmly on the belief that many airline pilots would have to be in on the FE conspiracy, and in particular all of those who even occasionally fly in the Southern Hemisphere (assuming the typical map). The above is the only remotely plausible way I could think of to attempt to deceive pilots into thinking the earth was round while they flew over a flat earth, and as I've argued, it appears rather far-fetched itself.

Bottom line: If we accept that pilots can often tell whether they're flying over land or not, then it seems to me they wouldn't be able to be tricked and would therefore have to be in on the conspiracy. This seems like something we should be able to agree on at this point.

[Woody]

I will add my personal experience:

I have sailed between Hawaii and California two times.  The map I used was of course a projection of a round Earth.

I have sailed to other locations as well.

From time to time I enjoy using more traditional methods of navigation.  Using a sextant to get noon shots of the sun to get longitude and sighting stars to get my position.  Methods that are based on a round Earth. A method of navigation that has been successfully used for hundreds of years that required astronomers to be in on the conspiracy during that time also.

Using maps based on a RE I have always made port in the travel times I expected. The speeds, distances, and travel times always added up correctly.

On a side note I also witnessed something many times during my travels over the ocean.  I will focus on one experience at night watching a ship near me and several times I approached land at night. Which I find the most compelling argument against a flat or concave Earth I have experienced.  While on deck I saw I light on the horizon.  I got my binoculars and tried to determine what heading the other ship was on.  I will list my visual observations in order.

1. Saw one light.

2. Continued to see the one light which I identified as being on a mast along with now being able to see light from a lower location the Helm.

3. Previous lights still visible and light coming through several port holes that where slightly lower.

4. Navigation lights came into view.

1. Well as for approaching land pretty much the same as above I was able to see light from the taller buildings first.  Pretty much the same experiences during the day but I usually have to be closer to ships before I notice they are there.  It is just harder to spot them with the naked eye until they are closer.

These experiences and seeing how the lights came into my view does not support a flat or concave Earth.