1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How do FE meteors work

« on: January 10, 2023, 05:17:35 PM »

My complaint about FET isn't that it is incomplete, it's that it doesn't really exist at all. I mean, there's no working map for one thing, that's pretty fundamental.

Look at you. You can't hold your breath for 2 sentences. "Uhhh the problem isn't that it's incomplete, just look at this thing that's necessary for its completion!!!!!".

The issue is that "incomplete" isn't a strong enough word. RET is incomplete, there are things it can't explain. But there's plenty it can and does a good job of modelling. FET doesn't even exist. There is no working model which has any predictive power at all.

Also, your claim that the FE map isn't "working" is entirely misguided; and your claim that it's "fundamental" is pulled out of thin air.

We know how far places are apart, we know the shapes and sizes of land masses. If the earth is flat it should be possible to plot them on a map and it match the reality. The earth is flat, maps are flat. Just scale down. The entire reason that every map of the whole earth is a projection is that maps are flat and the earth isn't, so some distortion has to be introduced. So yes, I regard it as pretty fundamental that there's no working map. If you couldn't make a globe of the earth which accurately depicts land mass shapes and sizes and the distances between them then that would put quite a big dent in the claim that the earth is a globe.
The other option is to deny the known distances I guess, that's the approach Tom seems to take. But that's a bit of a stretch given that there's a whole travel industry predicated on knowing where places are and GPS demonstrably works.

But while FET has some hypotheses which can explain observations, those are often to explain why observations don't match what you'd see were the earth flat.

No. That's just your imagination of the motives behind our observations.

I do at times suspect that you lot are treating this as an academic exercise. You know the earth is a globe, but let's imagine the earth is flat - why does the sun appear to set? Why do objects fall? EA and UA are thus invented to explain those things - things which RET already has explanations for.
But the motive isn't really that important. The point is you guys are simultaneously claiming that observations show the earth is flat and hypothesising mechanisms which explain why observations aren't what you'd expect to see on a flat earth.

you lot are this meme

Nah. That's a straw man. You don't have to explain everything, as discussed RET can't do that.
But you need to explain some things. If your model doesn't explain things better than RET then it's not going to be taken seriously by the scientifically literate.
EA is actually a pretty good explanation for sunset - it's a million times better than "perspective" or some of the other rubbish you see on some FE YouTube channels. But your reasoning about it is circular. The sun sets in your model because the light bends upwards. How do we know light bends upwards? Well, the sun sets, doesn't it?
Now, that might be unfair, but I've yet to see any solid experimental evidence that this phenomena even exists.

And none of your ideas have any predictive power. RET can explain annual meteor showers and predict when they will next occur. FET can't.

Incorrect, especially given that the models don't even differ in this case. You're literally saying that orbital mechanics simultaneously can and can't predict the same phenomenon.

How do the models not differ? The RE model has the earth orbiting the sun because of gravity. The meteors are in a certain part of that orbit so as the earth goes through it we get a meteor shower. In FE the celestial bodies are rotating above us once a day. What's the equivalent annual cycle which would explain the annual meteor showers. I'm not saying none can exist but it can't be identical to RE.

You were the one who raised quantity as a subject. Now you're complaining that I responded to you without changing the subject.

I'm not complaining. You said the FET had been a success, I simply asked by what metric. If your aim is to convince a lot of people then yes, I guess FET has been a success. But that's not what I meant by the model being "widely adopted" - that is not about quantity in terms of your average Joe. A lot of scientifically illiterate people believing in FET and not using it for any practical purpose, instead of believing in RET and not using that for any practical purpose, isn't a model being widely adopted. The model hasn't been adopted by any professionals working in the relevant fields. There are no FE equations one can use to model things and launch satellites.

The "serious scientific community" is the cause of the "depressing" state of the world you're decrying so much. People just aren't interested in pandering to the old guard simply because they're the old guard.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree. People don't need to "pander" to anyone, but people should listen to subject matter experts because...well, they're experts.
If I'm ill I go see a doctor, if my boiler stops working I call a boiler engineer.
Now, experts aren't always right of course, but this growing attitude that the average man in the street knows better than people who have studied in a particular field for years or even decades is ridiculous. That's the state of the world I am depressed by and I don't see how the scientific community have caused that. I'd suggest the cause is the internet, it allows bad ideas to proliferate far more quickly than they ever could before. The free availability of information about any topic is a good thing, but a lot of people have a misplaced confidence in their ability to understand what they're looking at. Googling things is not "doing your own research".
Now, I'm not saying that unswerving, unthinking confidence in experts is a good thing either, but there's surely a sensible middle ground.
Your position, from previous conversations, seems to be that everyone should figure out a model of reality for themselves. That's like saying everyone should build their own house. Sorry, but I don't have the skills. I wouldn't know where to start. There is a right way of building a house so it doesn't fall down, so why not get some people who know what they're doing to do that.

Because you're trying to replace a model which works (for most practical purposes) with one which doesn't.

Incorrect. FE works better than RE.

Counterpoint - no it doesn't. You have no model which has any predictive power so in what way does it "work better"? Give an example.

RE contains unresolveable contradictions, while FE is simply less complete than RE.

What makes you say they're unresolvable?

The latter has been directly observed and multiple technologies which demonstrably work rely on its shape.

Incorrect. They were determined with RE assumptions, and they happen to work.

OK. So GPS works by having a cluster of satellites orbiting the globe. By knowing the positions of some of those satellites and using timestamps you can figure out where you are. Are you suggesting that NASA thought they were putting satellites into orbit around a globe but they're actually just circling over a FE, and all the calculations used to find your position just happen to work out?
And, again, the globe earth has been observed. There are numerous satellites and other craft which have taken photos, there are timelapses of those showing the rotating earth. And the ISS is in orbit as we speak, an object which can be observed from the ground and which ham radio operators have contacted. Again, do NASA just think it's orbiting the globe but it's really just circling above us and all the RE calculations used to get it there just happened to work out despite the earth really being flat? The other option is that the ISS is fake of course, that's a path a lot of FE people go down. But...well, you can see it from the ground so that's a bit of a stretch. Clearly something is up there.

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How do FE meteors work

« on: January 09, 2023, 10:28:15 PM »

Your mindset seems to be that because RET in the second sense isn't complete, it must be all wrong.

Well, if it helps at all, that's exactly what your mindset comes across as every time you complain about FET being incomplete, or about it not revolutionarily differing from RET in some aspects.

My complaint about FET isn't that it is incomplete, it's that it doesn't really exist at all. I mean, there's no working map for one thing, that's pretty fundamental. FET is a collection of hypotheses which at times contradict one another. Now I know you've explained that the Wiki is meant to document competing FE ideas, so I guess that's fair enough. But while FET has some hypotheses which can explain observations, those are often to explain why observations don't match what you'd see were the earth flat. And none of your ideas have any predictive power. RET can explain annual meteor showers and predict when they will next occur. FET can't.

It's doing astonishingly well so far.

By what metric? Are you looking for quality or simply quantity? By the latter metric yes, it is doing well. A depressing number of people do now believe the earth is flat. In the same way that a depressing number of people are anti-vaxxers. Conspiracy theories are far easier to spread now the internet is a thing. And the level of scientific literacy amongst the great unwashed is low. So yeah, this is one of the conspiracy theories which has proliferated, we'll probably have to agree to disagree about whether that's a good thing. But you're not getting any traction in the serious scientific community any more than anti-vaxxers are in the serious medical community. Because you're trying to replace a model which works (for most practical purposes) with one which doesn't. And, again, let's not conflate RET in the wider sense with the earth's physical shape. The latter has been directly observed and multiple technologies which demonstrably work rely on its shape.

3

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How do FE meteors work

« on: January 09, 2023, 10:35:08 AM »

Is there a FE explanation?

Also not novel. You're approaching this with the mindset that FE must be revolutionary in every aspect. It's just orbital mechanics, even if we're not aware of every barycentre involved.

I'm approaching it with the mindset that for a new model to be adopted it has to provide better explanations for observations than the existing one. It needs to make better predictions.

No, that's not how you do science. It's pretty good evidence that RE orbital mechanics match many observations - something FE doesn't contest. RE is, generally speaking, a serviceable approximation of the world. It happens to break down in certain areas, but for everyday use its okay; much like Newtonian physics is neither "correct" nor "incorrect" - it simply matches most simple observations.

There's two things here, there's RET in the sense of the earth being a globe. The earth is a physical object which has a shape. That shape has been observed. Not by me, admittedly, but in real life no-one believes only the things they have directly observed. There's a page on your Wiki about the ice wall. How many of you have observed it directly?

Then there's RET in the sense of the whole of conventional physics. We agree that it isn't complete, it doesn't perfectly explain everything we observe. It does a pretty good job of some things, others things not so much. There are things we simply don't understand right now. But that has always been the case, that's why science is still a thing. If it perfectly explained everything it would stop. Newtonian physics does a very good job for many things, but for others Relativity does better which is why it has superseded it - it's a better understanding of reality. For something else to come and replace it, it would have to do a better job still of explaining observations and making predictions.

Your mindset seems to be that because RET in the second sense isn't complete, it must be all wrong. You're throwing the globe earth baby out with the whole of physics and astronomy bathwater. Which would be ok if your model was better, but right now it isn't. If it's a work in progress then fine - RET in the second sense above is too - but FET won't be widely adopted until it can do a better job of explaining reality than RET.

4

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: January 06, 2023, 04:24:01 PM »

Last Night in Soho

Wasn’t what I was expecting although tbh I didn’t know that much about it.
Thought it was worth a look though, it's got Ana Joy whatsherface in, who I quite like, so I asked Santa for the DVD and he obliged.
I liked it. Didn't go where I thought it would but I guess that's a good thing.

5

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Died Suddenly

« on: January 06, 2023, 04:21:03 PM »

Covid-19 is an airborne M. avium. Had each person, in each country, received a kit with clarithromycin/azithromycin through mail, back in february of 2020, there would have been no pandemic at all.

If only the medical experts around the world had listened to some bloke on the internet.
It's a real head scratcher that they didn't.

6

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How do FE meteors work

« on: January 06, 2023, 02:54:21 PM »

There is nothing novel about where meteors "come from" under FET. A meteor is a meteoroid that entered the Earth's atmolayer. Meteoroids are usually fragments of comets or impact debris from other bodies.

There is also nothing novel about them colliding with Earth. OP proposes that something has to "cause a meteor to suddenly lose acceleration and 'fall'", but that's blatantly not the case. Both bodies are affected by UA, so their relative velocity will be unaffected by it. The meteoroid will continue to travel with its initial velocity, and will continue to be affected by other factors, like gravitation.

There's no issue with meteoroids hitting earth in FE, if they're nudged out of the region where UA operates then they'll "fall" to earth, or rather the earth will accelerate up and hit them but the effect is the same. The issue I see is that there are certain meteor showers which occur at predictable times of the year. This makes sense in the RE model - the earth is travelling through the part of its orbit around the sun where those meteors are. Is there a FE explanation?
And then you have things like Halley's comet which has a ~75 year orbit, it was visible when I was a kid and has been periodically through history. We knew when it was coming, we know when it'll be back. Halley's prediction of its orbit and when it would return was done using Newtonian physics and his prediction was correct. Things like that are pretty good evidence for the model being correct. Is there any FE thought on periodic comets like that?

7

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Midterms 2022

« on: January 05, 2023, 09:36:34 PM »

Aye. What the utter fuck are you lot playing at?

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why are all FE models discs?

« on: January 02, 2023, 10:53:29 PM »

Latitude and Longitude are references ultimately based on astronomical phenomena. The Latitude is based on the angle of the North Star in the sky (for the NH) and Longitude is related to clocks and time zones. You might know your Lat/Lon coordinate point, but this would do nothing to show the distance between those points. This is how GPS, and formally the land-based LORAN, operate. The station knows its own coordinates and it is giving you your own coordinates based on triangulation.

Incorrect, as you are wont to say.
GPS uses trilateration, not triangulation.

https://gisgeography.com/trilateration-triangulation-gps/

You have agreed GPS can tell you your longitude and latitude. But mapping applications can use that information to accurately plot routes between one set of co-ordinates and another. How can it do that if it doesn't know the distance between them? And while we are here, the distance between degrees of Longitude is highest at the equator and gets smaller the further north or south you go. But on the monopole FE map the distance would have to keep getting bigger and bigger the further south you are. Some simple testing in Australia would immediately show that to be incorrect.

Much of professional GPS and GIS work, by the way, assumes that the earth is flat.

So? This is like your somewhat dishonest quoting elsewhere in the Wiki of some aerodynamics manual which talks about a flat earth. But it does so listing it as a simplification. It also lists as another simplification the airplane being of constant mass - which it won't be of course as it is constantly using fuel. So yes, sometimes simplifications are used but the very fact they're acknowledged as simplifications shows that they do not match the reality. In fact, the part you quoted
says: "the fiction that the earth is flat, which, of course, immediately introduces distortion"
And the very next sentence, which you didn't quote, says "it is worthwhile to spend some time discussing how the distortions are handled". A paragraph or two later it says:

As long as the extent of the coverage of the coordinate system is limited, the curvature aspect—while it leads to distortion—can be managed. It's when the flat map, the flat coordinate system, extends beyond a limited area that the distortion can get out of hand.  Therefore, the projection of points from the Earth’s surface onto a reference ellipsoid and finally onto flat maps is still viable.

And on map projections it says:

State Plane Coordinate Systems are built on map projections. Map projection means representing a portion of the actual Earth on a plane. Done for hundreds of years to create paper maps, it continues, but map projection today is most often really a mathematical procedure done in a computer. Nevertheless, even in an electronic world, it cannot be done without distortion.

In fact much of the article you posted is discussing the problem of projection from the surface of an ellipsoid earth on to a plane. Why is any of that necessary? If the earth is flat then no projection is required. But in reality it is. Why?

9

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why are all FE models discs?

« on: December 31, 2022, 10:27:45 PM »

Your position is flawed. Unless they did something like walking around with a digital measuring wheel and physically measured the earth with a tactile method, there were assumptions in measuring long distances.

If they used a digital measuring wheel then that would also mean making an assumption - that the wheel is calibrated correctly and accurate.

Your objection to “assumptions” is very selective. The Bishop Experiment makes assumptions, Rowbotham made assumptions. You have no issues with that. Only when an experiment or technique yields results you don’t like do you switch to the skeptical context and start objecting to “assumptions”.

You have previously agreed that GPS can accurately give your longitude and latitude. How can it do that without distances being known? Leaving aside how that would work in the middle of an ocean, as it demonstrably does, which rules out any land based solution

10

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why are all FE models discs?

« on: December 31, 2022, 09:27:08 PM »

If you can come up with a way of measuring large distances which does not involve pseudoscience and a series of assumptions let us know.

Surveying is not pseudoscience.
It does of course involve assumptions - Euclidean geometry for example. Any scientific pursuit involved that. Rowbotham’s experiment involved assumptions, it presupposes that light travels in straight lines - something you actually reject.

The distances between places have been known for centuries and there are multiple ways they have been tested. You have previously said you accept GPS as accurate. I asked you several times how that could be so without the distances between places being known, you ignored the question. Because of course you did. Either the distances are known, in which case the earth cannot be flat, because know FE map is possible with those distances. Or the distances are wrong in which case you need to explain how GPS works and how industries get people and goods around the world.

11

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why are all FE models discs?

« on: December 30, 2022, 07:08:45 AM »

A lot of FE belief stems from an attempt to take certain parts of the Bible literally. That was certainly Rowbotham’s motivation. And this verse talks about the “circle of the earth”

https://biblehub.com/isaiah/40-22.htm

So I think that’s a factor in it being a circle in some models.

12

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 27, 2022, 06:37:51 PM »

Tom’a position on pretty much anything is the one which panders most to his biases and worldview. The veracity with which he treats any evidence is dependent entirely on whether it confirms what he wants to believe. We can all be guilty of this of course, but he really turns it up to 11.
I’m just not sure if he really is as big a mess of Dunning-Kruger, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance as he comes across or whether he does it for the troll or the intellectual exercise of defending the indefensible.
When it comes to the election, most people in the cult of Trump believe it was stolen simply because Trump said it was. One thing Trump is depressingly adept at is getting a lot of people to see him as their source of truth regardless of the evidence.

13

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk

« on: December 22, 2022, 05:57:27 PM »

No one actually believes in free speech. It's a made up idealistic gibberish concept, like communism or a perfect circle. It's not real. It doesn't exist in reality. Everyone has some "I believe in free speech... but". Pointing out that people don't believe it (like Musk) makes for plain boring intellectual circlejerking.

People do believe in free speech, but free speech doesn’t mean you can literally say anything you like. The classic “shouting FIRE in a crowded theatre”. That isn’t covered by free speech for the obvious reason that you could cause a panic which could harm people (unless there actually is a fire of course). Free speech means you should be free to express differing opinions without censure. Yes, there is a “but”, the but is about saying things which could harm others. There are obvious grey areas here. If a social media platform decides to censure disinformation then that makes them the arbiter of truth, which is problematic. But it’s also problematic if someone posts something about how drinking bleach will stop you getting Covid.

TL;DR, I don’t think this is a simple issue, but if you’re going to buy Twitter and bang on about how you want it to become a bastion of free speech then it’s not a good look to ban the accounts of a load of journalists who have criticised you. (I believe these accounts have now been reinstated)

14

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 17, 2022, 10:00:18 AM »

See? Orange man bad

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64009203

15

Flat Earth Theory / Re: How do FE meteors work

« on: December 15, 2022, 06:53:50 AM »

There are of course annual meteor showers like the Perseids. This makes sense with the RE model, the earth passes through the part of its orbit of the sun where they are. Not sure what the FE explanation is, if any, became in that model the earth isn’t orbiting the sun once a year

16

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It

« on: December 14, 2022, 04:58:06 PM »

There is no test which can predict who will become an irresponsible parent

I guess the 1,000 monkeys at typewriters who write your posts were bound to come up with something reasonable sooner or later.
That's a fair point.

I do think there's "a problem" here, but it does feel like any potential solution probably just causes more problems.

17

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are there any 2d projections that are widely accepted by FE?

« on: December 13, 2022, 04:16:38 PM »

Land and water measurements cannot equal a spherical map...

Can you explain that? I would suggest that the known distances between places can only be represented accurately on a sphere.
This is why every map we have is a projection which introduces some inaccuracy.
Were the earth flat it would be possible to make a FE map which is accurate - the only issue would be scale.

18

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Are there any 2d projections that are widely accepted by FE?

« on: December 13, 2022, 02:12:40 PM »

I think most projections are to make a spherical map more readable...  If you start with a Flat Map then you don't really need to add anything...  Perhaps some topographical features etc..

I did see a video some time ago from a former FEer who tried to make a map using the known distances, realised he couldn't and renounced FE.
That's the fundamental problem. The solution on here seems to be to simply deny the known distances are accurate.

19

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The cosmos, confusion, and further understanding

« on: December 13, 2022, 01:24:44 PM »

'We' can allegedly see stars and galaxies light years away. We can see craters on the moon from 250,000 miles away. But we cant see the top of a mountain (even better a person on top of that mountain) from a front elevation of the globe from a few miles up and capture that image as its peak projects horizontally away from the globe. That would stop in its tracks any further debate on this subject. It would prove a global earth.

It really wouldn't.

From ancient times we knew the true shape of the earth. We might not have been able to observe it directly, but it can be inferred from observations.
The Wiki pages here on things like EA are an admission that observations do not match what you would expect to see on a FE. The very existence of a horizon is good evidence. Why is there a sharp line between the sea and sky? Why is that line only a few miles away? Why can't you see more sea? It can't be visibility, you can see ships and distant landmarks further away, you just can't see the bottom of them. Why not? What's hiding the bottom of them? And why does increasing in altitude increase the distance to the horizon? All these observations make sense on a sphere, on a FE you have to invoke mechanisms to explain them.
You can make observations of the sun and moon too - they maintain a constant angular size through the day and night, that implies a constant distance. Objects get smaller as they get further away. Again, this makes sense on a rotating globe with a distant sun and moon. On a FE other mechanisms have to be hypothesised to explain it.

But then since the 60s we've had the ability to observe the shape of the earth  directly via both manned and space exploration.
We had Earthrise in 1968 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise )
And The Blue Marble in 1972 ( https://www.nasa.gov/content/blue-marble-image-of-the-earth-from-apollo-17 )
Actual photos taken by humans who observed the earth as it really is.

There's also this timelapse made from images taken from the DSCOVR satellite:



If you don't trust NASA you can find similar things from the Japanese Himawari8 satellite.

Right now we have people orbiting the globe in the ISS - an object you can see from the ground. We have technologies like GPS and satellite TV which people use every day and relies on satellites orbiting a globe earth. FE exists despite the evidence, not because of it. So with all that, you think the images you're requesting are the things which will tip the balance and end all debate on the matter? It would be just as easy to dismiss them as fake as any other images from space.

20

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The cosmos, confusion, and further understanding

« on: December 12, 2022, 07:37:42 PM »

I remember reading one time that if a snooker ball was the size of the earth then it would have bigger mountains than Everest. Point being, the Earth is very smooth for its side. So yes, any mountains, people or any other objects at the positions of those stick men would be angled as the stick men are. But unless they were at the size of those stick men you wouldn’t be able to see them at the distance where you can also see the whole globe earth. Optical resolution is a factor but so it just how far you’re looking through the atmosphere at that angle.
But why is any of this an issue. We have photos of the globe earth, unless you have good evidence they’re faked then that should be pretty definitive. Especially when you add things like the ISS, other technologies which we use daily and rely on satellites etc etc.