3941

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Debate Club: A fundamental change to how the public perceives the forums

« on: May 14, 2018, 04:43:04 PM »

But how do you propose we force our Flat Earth extraordinaire Thork to sit online all day answering each of the the endless of questions and followup questions that get posted, and generally engage with every single curious person who comes along?

Dude, come on! No-one has so sit here all day replying to posts. This is not that busy a board. It takes 10-15 minutes to look quickly through the threads which have new replies, maybe an hour top to respond. It's not a full time job for anyone, if a few people join in then between you it doesn't take long.

It would be better if the debate forums were entirely self sustaining and it wasn't hung up on a few people to log on every day. Don't you agree?

Yes, of course. But that does involve more flat earthers participating in the debate.

If everyone participated to debate both sides, wouldn't that be far more interesting?

How would that work? I mean, I think your version of perspective is balls. I can't sensibly argue that I think it is.

3942

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Debate Club: A fundamental change to how the public perceives the forums

« on: May 14, 2018, 02:59:29 PM »

I pretty much agree, but FE people will need to make a bit more effort.

This is a fantastic example of the misunderstanding we ought to deal with. This is not a personal support forum for RE'ers who are looking for a clash. It is extremely unlikely that you will ever see "more effort" on that front, simply because this has never been the purpose of this community.

What do you see as the purpose of this community? What is the point of these boards?
You're the one who seeks publicity, you seek to gain attention.
Here's a newsflash: Almost everyone in the world is a "round earther".
So most people who hear about you guys and looks here is going to think "What the hell is this nonsense?"
Some of those people, like me, will sign up and start posting and because we think it's nonsense we'll say it's nonsense.

Now, some people will sign up and post things like "lol, earth is round, ur stupid". Those people should be banned immediately (not warned). If I was a mod here I wouldn't bother with people like that. There are ways of stopping that, making it so new users have to be manually approved if you get repeat offenders or making it so new users can only post on certain sections of the board and promote them to full membership once they've shown they're not idiots. (I'm assuming this is all possible, the boards I've moderated provide this sort of functionality).

Other people, like me, are interested in debating the issues, explaining why (in our opinion) the earth is round and showing why (in our opinion) the flat earth ideas don't stand up to scrutiny.
I guess the problem is if the balance between FE and RE posters is wrong then you're going to get too many of me and not enough of you.

From experience you can't force a board to be something it isn't. Boards are simply a reflection of the people who post. If you want more FE content then more FE people need to post. If you think that the sheer number of RE people is putting them off then fine, ban RE people from posting.

3943

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth UK Convention

« on: May 14, 2018, 12:57:17 PM »

I don't think it really matters whether the room was bursting at the seams or half full, the point is it was in a small venue, a couple of hundred people attended and the speakers included an NHS manager, a former graphic designer and a Bolton-based dance musician.

Their website still has a "countdown" counter (minus 16 days and counting...) and a "Register Now" button on.

It's all very low-rent and completely at odds with Pete's giddy excitement about how brilliantly they're doing. It doesn't have the hallmarks of a serious organisation.

It's hardly a movement which is sweeping the "disc". Interest has certainly increased so they have done well to publicise themselves but much of that publicity is people pointing and laughing.

3944

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Debate Club: A fundamental change to how the public perceives the forums

« on: May 14, 2018, 11:59:31 AM »

I pretty much agree, but FE people will need to make a bit more effort.
Sure, you're outnumbered but this site isn't that busy right now. It wouldn't take that much effort for a few of you to be more active and answer more threads or start your own threads from a FE perspective.

And if you get the same questions being raised over and over then that tells me your Wiki and FAQ need improving (obviously some people still ask questions which are answered in the Wiki, you'll never stop that, but at least you can point them in the direction of the appropriate page quickly).

3945

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Stand up proof

« on: May 13, 2018, 05:13:52 PM »

Read through the entire page. I also specify in the first sentence "On a very clear and chilly day it is possible to see Lighthouse Beach from Lovers Point and vice versa."

A very clear and chilly day. Qualifier. It is not possible to see the opposite coast on some days. On those days where the opposite coast can be seen, it must be because the day and and the ocean is calm. It is possible to observe the effect at times through the year, but mainly on clear/calm days as was qualified.

Can I suggest this be removed from that Wiki page then:

Whenever I have doubts about the shape of the earth I simply walk outside my home, down to the beach, and perform this simple test. The same result comes up over and over throughout the year under a plethora of different atmospheric conditions

3946

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson Still Unanswered

« on: May 13, 2018, 05:12:07 PM »

I actually do agree with the first couple of minutes of the video.
As ridiculous as FE is, Neil deGrasse Tyson's response is not helpful and saying that we shouldn't challenge an idea because the answer has been established for hundreds of years is not helpful, I agree with the video that by that rationale Einstein would have been told to stop being ridiculous as Newton had already sorted it all out.
The way of tackling FE is to show the evidence for the globe, obviously some will dismiss that or call it fake, there's nothing you can do about that.

3947

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson Still Unanswered

« on: May 13, 2018, 08:14:06 AM »

I'm saying I don't know if any scientific reason there can't be land at the equator.
But I'll admit there are some scientific areas here I'm not an expert on, but neither are you.
I suggest you take my advice about a science class

3948

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Stand up proof

« on: May 13, 2018, 08:10:42 AM »

In order to take ENAG to the task you will need to provide contradicting experiments. There are more than just explanations in the work. There are experiments which prove the various attributes of those explanations. Those need to be contradicted.

They have been.
And every time you dismiss those experiments on spurious grounds and when you finally agree there are no reasonable grounds for dismissing them you just declare them fake.

 

3949

Flat Earth Community / Re: 1/3 of millennials not sure if earth is round

« on: May 13, 2018, 08:02:40 AM »

the only real way to figure this out is to travel, without planes

Yeah, if only there was some way to do that...


 

3950

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson Still Unanswered

« on: May 13, 2018, 07:51:59 AM »

Again, the bulge of the earth was caused because the earth was spinning at the time it was hot and malleable and the force could cause it to change shape.
Since then the oceans formed and there's been billions of years of tectonic page moving.

EDIT: By the way. You really really should go on a simple science course. It may not change any of your views but it would help you debate stuff armed with a bit of knowledge about what our current scientific models say. You repeatedly show on here you don't know much about that. And there is nothing wrong with that in itself, not everyone can know everything, but arguing in such a condescending way from a place of such ignorance does you no favours.

3951

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Repeat Bedford level test?

« on: May 13, 2018, 07:48:05 AM »

"He's wrong"

"Not so"

Good one. Your rebuttals are so convincing

.
Your rebuttals are literally "that's wrong because Rowbotham said so" and "This experiment is wrong because it gives a result I don't agree with"
The second of those not quite what you say, but it's funny how every experiment, no matter how poorly designed and executed, which show a result which appears to back up what you believe prove you to be right, but any experiment which shows you to be wrong is flawed or, if every spurious objection is demolished, simply declared fake.

3952

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: May 13, 2018, 07:36:13 AM »

what if satellites are ground-based and just made like they were space-based with positional tracking and propaganda.

Then I'd ask you what these dishes are pointing at.

http://sawyertravel.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/our-satellite-dish.html

And if you're going to say "how do you know they're pointing at anything?" I have 2 points:

1) Why would satellite providers send you a disk for free as Sky do if those dishes don't actually point at anything. What a ridiculous waste of money, why would they do that?
2) I have personal experience of my signal being blocked by a neighbour putting up scaffolding, I know how precisely these dishes must be pointed to receive a signal and how they stop working if they don't have clear line of sight to the satellite. Someone else in another thread suggested the signals could be something else in the sky but offered no explanation or suggestion as to what technology could make an object hover in a stationary position for years on end. What would power it? What would stop it moving?

3953

Flat Earth Community / Re: Flat Earth Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson Still Unanswered

« on: May 13, 2018, 07:29:07 AM »

I believe his argument is that if there is a bulge to the earth, because of centripetal acceleration, then naturally the water should have gone to the equator since that is easier to move than the land.

There's a bulge because as the earth cooled it was spinning, the centripetal force made the earth bulge slightly.
But at that stage of the earth's history there was no water, the crust was just cooling molten rock.
I haven't watched the rest of the video but the first point is pretty silly and shows no understanding of the theories about the history of the earth's formation.
He seems to imagine an earth as it is now bulging because of the centripetal force, that isn't what happened.

3954

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are other objects in the Solar System Flat as well?

« on: May 13, 2018, 07:18:43 AM »

Occam's razor isn't hard baked into the scientific method, it is just a guideline. If it were then we wouldn't have Relativity or Quantum Theory which may be many things but simple isn't one of them. If you agree it is flawed in the sense that it is not some universal law that the simplest explanation is always the correct one then why do you have a Wiki page about it (which honestly isn't well written, you can write a page like that to back up any idea if you word it in the right way). More work on the Wiki?

3955

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are other objects in the Solar System Flat as well?

« on: May 12, 2018, 01:04:01 PM »

You may not like it, but the conclusions in the Occam's Razor page in our Wiki are the simplest explanations.

And the only things wrong with that are

1) Simplest is subjective. There is no objective "simplometer" you can use to determine which is the simplest.
2) That page has been written with a FE slant, so of course you make it sound like your explanation is the simplest.
3) Occam's razor is not a fundamental law of the universe, it's just a guideline.

3956

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Stand up proof

« on: May 12, 2018, 12:58:14 PM »

The amount and height of swells on the ocean varries throughout the day and by location. If we were set up a timelapse a video camera we would see that sometimes one can see more or less of that hotel throughout the day.

Except...

Whenever I have doubts about the shape of the earth I simply walk outside my home, down to the beach, and perform this simple test. The same result comes up over and over throughout the year under a plethora of different atmospheric conditions.
—Tom Bishop

https://wiki.tfes.org/Experimental_Evidence

Doesn't seem to have been a problem for you.

This is why the experiments are performed on large bodies of standing water, as there can be issues with waves and swells on ocean conditions.

But your experiment wasn't on standing water, it was across a bay open to the ocean...
Are we expected to believe that over a stretch of 23 miles there was no wave or swell over 20 inches high?

3957

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Stand up proof

« on: May 12, 2018, 12:19:20 PM »

You may use a telescope to modify your perspective angles and push back that point where the rail road tracks meet together, but so too does Rowbotham describe that you can use a telescope to reverse the sinking ship effect on flat bodies of water, showing the effect is not due to any curvature of the earth and more to do with angular limits of the scene. A telescope cannot see behind a hill of water.

Right. Which brings us back to the original experiment which started this thread. The pictures are taken by zooming so why hasn't the zoom "restored" the distant objects



With a viewer height of 2 feet quite a lot of the hotel is occluded, from 6 feet it isn't. On a flat earth it should be the same.
And if you're going to talk about waves and vanishing points then you'll have to explain why this is the explanation for the observation at 2 feet looking at a hotel 11 miles away, but in your experiment you claim that with a viewer height of 20 inches (again, less than 2 feet) and looking at a distant beach 23 miles away (i.e. more than 11) you can see the beach "all the way down to the shoreline.

Why aren't waves and vanishing points an issue for you?

Experiments > Non-Experiments

Agreed. How funny then that every time you're show experiments which don't show what you want them to show you just shout "FAKE!" or dismiss them on spurious grounds, while refusing to do any experiments yourself.

3958

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Stand up proof

« on: May 11, 2018, 10:01:44 PM »

It appears that now you are talking about a different experiment than the first "stand up proof" experiment in the Metabunk link. In that link the author "proves" his claim by sitting down and standing up at the shore of a beach.

That was the original experiment, later on in the thread someone posts the pictures I’m referencing. It is basically the same experiment, just with pictures taken at 3 different heights and the first one taken at 6 feet instead of 2 as with the original experiment.

You appear to be saying "Okay okay you got me... but explain THIS picture." Is that right? To add on top of that you attempt an attack on another experiment performed 10 years ago?

You appear to be dodging the issue, as usual.
Even in the original experiment the initial photo is taken at 2 feet.
Fun fact 20 inches is less than 2 feet.

So please explain how in these photos taken from 2 feet your explanation for the occlusion is waves and swells, but in The Bishop Experiment you claim to be able to see across a 23 mile expanse of sea and see the distant beach “all the way down to the shore line” from a viewer height of 20 inches.
When your experiment was conducted is irrelevant, were waves different 10 years ago?

3959

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are other objects in the Solar System Flat as well?

« on: May 11, 2018, 05:41:03 PM »

I've given a whole list of things above that would have to be true in order for the earth to be flat.
Possible? I guess so, again in the purest sense. Plausible in any way? Not remotely.

Right, and we've generated similar lists as an argument against the Earth being round. The Wiki page on Occam's Razor is a good example of a mediocre argument (though not one I'm looking to outright remove - enhance, perhaps). I don't like that format, since it doesn't add much to the discussion; or, at the very least, it carries little persuasive power. You and I will probably find different things to be highly implausible.

The Occam's Razor page is weak. If you want me to go through it then I can but as you say, it's not based on observations, it's just saying "wow, NASA claim to be able to send rockets into space, I don't believe that's possible so isn't it simpler to think they can't?". I mean, what kind of argument is that?! It's too subjective.
If you can point me in the direction of a better link then I'd like to have a look.

3960

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Stand up proof

« on: May 11, 2018, 05:35:01 PM »

40 foot high waves? The Metabunk author is just standing up and sitting down at the shore of the beach.

Look at the picture I linked to. In that example he takes 3 photos from 6 feet, 40 feet and 80 feet.
So even if we accept that 6 feet waves are occluding the distant hills in the first photo, that cannot be the explanation for the second and 3rd.
And how come waves and swells aren't an issue in your Bishop experiment when your eye level is allegedly 20 inches.

Your claim is that in the photo I linked to waves are the explanation for occlusion with a viewer height of 6 feet, but in the Bishop Experiment you claim:

With a good telescope, laying down on the stomach at the edge of the shore on the Lovers Point beach 20 inches above the sea level it is possible to see people at the waters edge on the adjacent beach 23 miles away near the lighthouse. The entire beach is visible down to the water splashing upon the shore. Upon looking into the telescope I can see children running in and out of the water, splashing and playing. I can see people sun bathing at the shore and teenagers merrily throwing Frisbees to one another. I can see runners jogging along the water's edge with their dogs. From my vantage point the entire beach is visible.

You don't see any problem here?