[Dr David Thork]

Who knows what the views in space are like, but the landings were pretty epic.

[StinkyOne]

Is it me or does the new post on the home page have just a tinge of desperation?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we've received many questions about the recent SpaceX launch, and the resultant "live stream" of a pretty red car floating about in space.

It starts with quoting out the phrase live stream, as though it is anything but. If you're going to imply something isn't real, it helps to post supporting evidence.

After all, corporations are driven by profit, not the pursuit of knowledge or truth.

While it is fundamentally accurate to say that corps are driven by profit, the statement is misleading. The implication is that knowledge isn't important or, at best, a secondary concern. Businesses rely on knowledge to maximize profits. A company planning on providing launch services to space is 100% dependent on knowledge and its accurate implementation. If SpaceX lacked knowledge, it would fail in no time. Knowledge and profits are intrinsically linked. You can't fake putting objects into space that are supposed to provide a service. Also, I thought NASA were the big fakers here.

What is surprising, however, is the new generation of people shouting "It's true, I saw it on TV!" Except this time, it's the Internet.

Is it really surprising? Look at FEH, its recent increase in popularity is due to the Internet and a few of those people believing it. While believing something on the Internet can be tricky, there is more than enough corroborating evidence that this event took place. It was covered on the Internet, TV, and was witnessed live. Questioning whether it actually happened goes from being a good skeptic to being downright delusional. Of course flat Earthers have to say at least some portion of the launch is fake. Having a live feed of an object orbiting Earth is a bit of a problem for FEH. Just more "it can't be real" from a group of reality deniers.

Even Steve Wozniak has remarked that ‘[he doesn't] believe anything [Musk] says’. Make of that what you will.

First, the comment Wozniak made was in relation to disappointments he had with Tesla. Second, it attempts to place Wozniak in a position to judge Musk's honesty, which he is not. Musk is pretty notorious for missing deadlines, that is very true and well known. That isn't the same as being dishonest. Implying someone is a liar and then giving yourself an out by saying "make of that what you will" is simply an attempt at planting the seeds of doubt. It gives FE hypothesists a little cover. "Can't believe a thing that Musk guy does. Just look Steve Wozniak said he doesn't believe a thing he says."

Hey FEers, don't panic. 

[StinkyOne]

Pete addressed a bit of this in another thread, so I'll post them here as it does address some of the points I raised.


To be clear, the intention of that post was not to assert that it's false (though you can guess my thoughts on the matter). It is mostly an appeal to the immense number of people who contacted me (mostly on Facebook and Twitter) to take things with more caution. If, after evaluating the material carefully, they personally decide that it's of value to them, fine. But it's not the "gotcha!" many think it is.


Of course. It was not for one moment my intention to suggest that Wozniak said "omg the Earth is flat!" - merely to point out that corporations don't even trust one another. I provided a link to the source for those who want to read it in its full context.

[Fatearthsociety]

I was present at the launching of this rocket, and watched the live stream on my smart phone as well. You’re saying they synchronized that perfectly, creating an edit in real time because... spaceX profits from people believing in a round earth? I would like an explanation on what they have to gain from spending millions on rockets and perfect real time video shopping just to protect the idea of a round earth.

[ryjay707]

Even Steve Wozniak has remarked that ‘[he doesn't] believe anything [Musk] says’.
Then again, it was a good car ad.

First off I'd like to say you're using this quite out of context, He doesn't believe anything Musk says about his self driving vehicles.

Second -- I was also present at the launching of the rocket and watching the screen from the rockets perspective, I'm shocked you guys can still think this is fake.

[ryjay707]

After all, corporations are driven by profit, not the pursuit of knowledge or truth.

While it is fundamentally accurate to say that corps are driven by profit, the statement is misleading. The implication is that knowledge isn't important or, at best, a secondary concern. Businesses rely on knowledge to maximize profits. A company planning on providing launch services to space is 100% dependent on knowledge and its accurate implementation. If SpaceX lacked knowledge, it would fail in no time. Knowledge and profits are intrinsically linked. You can't fake putting objects into space that are supposed to provide a service. Also, I thought NASA were the big fakers here.

I think this statement is quite far-fetched and seemingly desperate. No corporations are driven by the pursuit of knowledge?  That's just asinine, I'd say they're mostly all driven by the pursuit of knowledge, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to better their services/products. Look at CES, it wouldn't exist if corporations weren't driven by the pursuit of knowledge.

What is surprising, however, is the new generation of people shouting "It's true, I saw it on TV!" Except this time, it's the Internet.

Is it really surprising? Look at FEH, its recent increase in popularity is due to the Internet and a few of those people believing it. While believing something on the Internet can be tricky, there is more than enough corroborating evidence that this event took place. It was covered on the Internet, TV, and was witnessed live. Questioning whether it actually happened goes from being a good skeptic to being downright delusional. Of course flat Earthers have to say at least some portion of the launch is fake. Having a live feed of an object orbiting Earth is a bit of a problem for FEH. Just more "it can't be real" from a group of reality deniers.

This is hilarious too, since he's also saying he doesn't believe in the people who were physically there. Apparently tens of thousands of people in the US are all faking seeing the rockets launch? According to him - Yes.

[juner]

Split/merged posts from the Announcements thread to this one.

[Pete Svarrior]

This is hilarious too, since he's also saying he doesn't believe in the people who were physically there. Apparently tens of thousands of people in the US are all faking seeing the rockets launch? According to him - Yes.

And where, exactly, am I saying any of that?

[ryjay707]

This is hilarious too, since he's also saying he doesn't believe in the people who were physically there. Apparently tens of thousands of people in the US are all faking seeing the rockets launch? According to him - Yes.

And where, exactly, am I saying any of that?

You say it in the other post, however then apparently you deny that you said it.

[Dr David Thork]

Somehow Pete squeaked into the Evening Standard.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-conspiracy-theorists-flat-earth-society-blast-elon-musks-astonishing-a3761471.html

[Pete Svarrior]

Somehow Pete squeaked into the Evening Standard.

And a few other places.

http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/07/flat-earth-society-responded-elon-musk-launched-car-space-7294854/
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/flat-earth-society-issues-statement-elon-musk-launched-car-space-104145574.html
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/915948/spacex-flat-earth-falcon-heavy-launch-fake-elon-musk
https://www.livescience.com/61688-flat-earthers-spacex-falcon-heavy-conspiracy.html

You say it in the other post, however then apparently you deny that you said it.

By all means, quote the post you think implies that, and I'll do my best to clarify.

[Dr David Thork]

One day a man is going to silently pull up behind you and fry you with a flamethrower. Musk isn't all failed projects and fake hair you know.

[Pete Svarrior]

One day a man is going to silently pull up behind you and fry you with a flamethrower. Musk isn't all failed projects and fake hair you know.

Or maybe I'll get sent to outer space in a brand new car.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/680294/Elon-Musk-Spacex-Falcon-Heavy-Reddit-murder-plot

[Dr David Thork]

At least your corpse could observe the shape of the earth for itself.

[nickrulercreator]

I posted in the other thread a way to prove it happened, or was at least live.

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8695.msg140643#msg140643

[Pete Svarrior]

I posted in the other thread a way to prove it happened, or was at least live.

No, what you proved is that it's consistent with other sources that also claim the Earth is round. That's a good thing, granted, but it's a poor effort when it comes to reaching any conclusions.

[nickrulercreator]

I posted in the other thread a way to prove it happened, or was at least live.

No, what you proved is that it's consistent with other sources that also claim the Earth is round. That's a good thing, granted, but it's a poor effort when it comes to reaching any conclusions.

The meteorology site does not claim the Earth is round. It simply provides the data of the position of clouds. It allows you to come to the conclusion that this wasn't pre-recorded, and was live. If you then apply more thought to it, there is no way SpaceX could've predicted where the clouds would be in the future, and the data was available 1 hour at a time. Thus, one could conclude that this footage is real.

[JohnAdams1145]

I posted in the other thread a way to prove it happened, or was at least live.

No, what you proved is that it's consistent with other sources that also claim the Earth is round. That's a good thing, granted, but it's a poor effort when it comes to reaching any conclusions.

The meteorology site does not claim the Earth is round. It simply provides the data of the position of clouds. It allows you to come to the conclusion that this wasn't pre-recorded, and was live. If you then apply more thought to it, there is no way SpaceX could've predicted where the clouds would be in the future, and the data was available 1 hour at a time. Thus, one could conclude that this footage is real.

The fact that people have to resort to using clouds/meteorology to prove FE wrong because they won't accept other evidence should tell them something.

An even simpler issue with calling the SpaceX launch fake is:
1. We know how much fuel, what type of fuel, and the initial mass of the rocket.
2. We know how much thrust the engines produce.
3. We know that SpaceX is a private company.
4. Applying Newton's laws of physics and some basic calculus tells us that the rocket can go pretty high (and also to reach orbital speed, but let's just leave it at altitude).

So what part of this does FE not understand? If Musk can send a rocket super-high, how is he still mistaken on the shape of the Earth? And FE loves to call their model simpler; it sounds just like a bunch of people who look once, see that the Earth seems flat and are then unwilling to let go of that belief, intellectually straining to defend an untenable position.

[nickrulercreator]

The fact that people have to resort to using clouds/meteorology to prove FE wrong because they won't accept other evidence should tell them something.

And even then, they don't accept the evidence.

An even simpler issue with calling the SpaceX launch fake is:
1. We know how much fuel, what type of fuel, and the initial mass of the rocket.
2. We know how much thrust the engines produce.
3. We know that SpaceX is a private company.
4. Applying Newton's laws of physics and some basic calculus tells us that the rocket can go pretty high (and also to reach orbital speed, but let's just leave it at altitude).

True, but even I, as a RE, don't see how this proves it happened. SpaceX could've easily made up the numbers and checked if they were correct.

If Musk can send a rocket super-high, how is he still mistaken on the shape of the Earth?

FE's usually just claim it went off into the ocean, past the horizon line so no one sees it crash. Of course, this poses the question as to why we can see the rocket burning at later times, and have even been able to observe it as it headed off to solar orbit. People have put their observations to the test and have calculated the orbit of the object they observed. It matched perfectly with the data released to us of the car by NASA and SpaceX.

it sounds just like a bunch of people who look once, see that the Earth seems flat and are then unwilling to let go of that belief, intellectually straining to defend an untenable position.

I agree. I believe that the real believers have some reason to distrust everything they are exposed to. Not question, as they usually claim. No, legitimately distrust it. Almost immediately after the live stream began I see people online calling it fake. They didn't use any real evidence and went entirely off of "it looks fake."

[Pete Svarrior]

So what part of this does FE not understand?

You do realise that your "hurdur how stupid are you?" schtick is unlikely to ever convince anyone, right? Especially when your own understanding of FET is below entry-level.

The meteorology site does not claim the Earth is round. It simply provides the data of the position of clouds. It allows you to come to the conclusion that this wasn't pre-recorded, and was live. If you then apply more thought to it, there is no way SpaceX could've predicted where the clouds would be in the future, and the data was available 1 hour at a time. Thus, one could conclude that this footage is real.

No, these conclusions simply do not follow. If footage of the Earth from space is faked, it is only sensible to assume that there is one centralised source for this footage - otherwise the inconsistencies you were looking for would crop up early on. Whether this is achieved via a pack of textures and shaders, or a simple seed for procedural generation, it is not at all difficult to arrange for consistent results across sources. The only thing you can honestly conclude is that the two sources you compared were (arguably) consistent with one another.