4421

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: "Soft" Merger

« on: December 17, 2016, 03:41:45 PM »

...shit, I should have never resigned from that admin position.

4422

Flat Earth Community / Re: Cool Hard Logic - Testing Flattards - Part 1

« on: December 16, 2016, 10:32:17 PM »

We see it from aircraft - but FEers dont. We see it from space, but FEers dont.

Well, yes, that would be a geometric impossibility bearing in mind the size of the round Earth model, and the altitudes at which aircraft fly. If you can see curvature from aircraft, then you have just dismissed the scientific consensus. Welcome aboard, brother!

Low IQ.

Interesting. I would never brag about my Mensa membership, but...

It is an observation that FEers tend to be poorly educated and of below-average intelligence and/or have mental health challenges. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

I hold a Master's degree, and I'm currently in very early stages of my PhD (much to Jura's dismay).

If you can find me a prominent scientist who is a FEer I will retract that claim forthwith.

Eh, I guess you'll have to give me like 10 years before I get there. Watch this space.

4423

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Going Around the Globe

« on: December 16, 2016, 10:21:49 PM »

If it isn't, what is it ?

You'd think someone with your "credentials" would be able to read the "About" section of the homepage, but here you go:

This is the home of the world-famous Flat Earth Society, a place for free thinkers and the intellectual exchange of ideas. This website hosts information and serves as an archive for Flat Earth Theory. It also offers an opportunity to discuss this with the Flat Earth community on our forums.

You've already made your "[...] if [...]" suggestion, and we politely told you where to shove it. Don't mislead newcomers into thinking that your fantasies hold any legitimacy around here.

4424

Flat Earth Community / Re: The concept of Universal Acceleration can't work

« on: December 16, 2016, 10:17:26 PM »

Quite simply, gravity is by far the easiest and most consistent explanation for our universal observations

Except for the part where the scientific consensus acknowledges that it's not consistent, and that a the model needs to be improved before it can be considered accurate. But hey, let's not let that get in the way of your beliefs.

4425

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Problems with the Bishop Experiment

« on: December 16, 2016, 07:48:29 PM »

I appreciate your input SexWarrior, but at this point, I can find no basis in reality for your accusations of lying or flawed logic. I was hoping for a more clever tactic from you than just repeated baseless accusations. As such, I see no point in continuing to argue. Hence my original response: "K".

Yes, yes, pointing out simple facts is so unreasonable, I should be ashamed for pointing out your contradictions and "errors". I'd take your point on board (and ascribe it to previously documented incompetence) if not for the fact that you don't need to try and find anything. It's been all spelled out for you multiple times, and your best response is "I totally can't see your point!".

I'll continue to document your dishonesty and desperation for as long as you keep adding to the pile of evidence. I'm sure a thorough record will come in handy in the future (as your original complaint argued, one's track record impacts on their credibility). Please, do go on.

4426

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: 2016 US Presidential Race

« on: December 16, 2016, 07:38:04 PM »

4427

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Problems with the Bishop Experiment

« on: December 16, 2016, 03:57:29 PM »

It is a clear sign of desperation that your arguments are so quickly moving away from your flawed logic, and towards my person.

I will now withdraw my benefit of the doubt. You're trying to lie to us because you want the article down. It's not happening, and the record of your attempts is public for anyone to view.

4428

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Problems with the Bishop Experiment

« on: December 16, 2016, 03:13:04 PM »

There's no rationalisation. The coastline is visible. You admitted it. You provided images to support it. But simultaneously you're claiming you can't see it, originally blaming a crappy monitor.

In short, your argument boils down to something like:


I admit that I can see a kitten here, but there are no visible, let alone "extremely visible" kittens in this photo!!!

4429

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Problems with the Bishop Experiment

« on: December 16, 2016, 11:49:48 AM »

I'm sorry, but this is just false. From the panorama that you provided, here is the "beach" in the direction that Tom claimed he was looking. Notice that the beach is definitely not visible. It certainly is not "extremely visible". All you can make out is a vague outline of the hill against the sky. (unfortunately it is located almost exactly on the image seam)

Clearly we disagree about what the word "visible" means. We're both seeing a thing, that much we've confirmed. We are both able to perceive it with our vision. But to you, it's not visible. There is very little I can do to help you with that.

Again, I don't really expect to change your mind, nor is that my goal.

Neither is it mine to change your mind. At this stage I'm just exposing your "concerns" for what they are.

4430

Technology & Information / Re: The Flat Earth Society official IRC chat

« on: December 15, 2016, 09:59:24 PM »

I tried banning him but he won't let me.

Literally Hitler Trump.

4431

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Problems with the Bishop Experiment

« on: December 15, 2016, 09:27:03 PM »

You claimed my evidence doesn't "stand up to scrutiny", but you haven't actually shown how any of the evidence is invalid

Your evidence is not invalid, merely inconclusive. As such, it does not stand up to scrutiny, and you, as the claimant, have to step up your game.

Your objection to my evidence seems to be based on a desire to give Tom Bishop the benefit of the doubt.

Incorrect. It's based on the lack of desire to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your posts are riddled with "errors" along the lines of "I didn't see that thing that's extremely visible, while conveniently claiming that said thing can't possibly be seen" or "there is only one beach he could be looking at. What's that? There's another beach that fits the story much, much better? Ha, what a silly mistake I've made!" I'm sort of omitting your alleged unit conversion mishap, since you've corrected yourself before anyone had a chance to even call you out.

I'm only giving you enough benefit of the doubt to openly accuse you of gross incompetence. Unsurprisingly, my actual feelings on the matter paint you in a much worse light.

This goes against the spirit of a scientific experiment.

Surely you understand by now that FET is a thoroughly unscientific discipline. We're zeteticists, not scientists.

If there are inconsistencies in the report of the experiment, then the results of said experiment need to be called into question.

No disagreement there.

The worst thing you can do is ignore the inconsistencies, and just assume that it was done correctly.

Indeed. It's a good thing that the experiment is so easily reproducible with good results.

Good for you for double checking me though. In my defense, I was using a rather old LCD monitor with bad color reproduction, and the silhouette of the landscape wasn't distinguishable from the sky. I will concede that on clear days, it is possible to distinguish a vague silhouette of the landscape.

Well... at least you've admitted it now. It's something.

That being said, my point still stands. The BEACH is certainly not visible in those images, as Tom states.

I disagree. It's quite clearly visible.

Compare that with this image that Tom provided where the beach IS clearly visible.

Ah, yes, let's talk about the image again. That's always fun, saying the same thing over and over again.

The image was randomly grabbed off the Internet. It was a stupid thing of Tom to do. It was never part of the original experiment description, but you insist on pretending that it was. We will not reach common ground on this, and I will strive to copy-paste this exact string of text if you ask me about the picture again.

If Tom really was looking in the correct direction, it seems doubtful that he would mistake those two beaches. It seems much more likely that he was simply looking at the wrong beach the entire time.

I disagree. Sandy beaches in the Monterey Bay area are fairly similar. It's mostly sand and seagulls.

Woody went into more detail elsewhere. I'm not an expert on spotting scopes, but Woody made a fairly convincing argument, and Tom has continued to avoid providing details of the telescope he used.

A wordy statement of disagreement is still just that - a statement of disagreement. Restoration of obscured objects with telescopes is a trope within FET experimentation, and again, it's one that's very easily reproducible. If you doubt it (wordily or not), I'd suggest you have a go. Why take it from us?

I am well aware that we had this discussion already, and I was not expecting a different result from you. You want to give Tom the benefit of the doubt. Good for you. Normally, I am all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case, the evidence is way to strong.

I will continue to invite you to present your evidence. To date, that simply hasn't happened.

I made this thread for general visibility of the issue, not to convince you specifically.

Ah, yes, because the other five threads where we've had the exact same discussions and where your lot have made the exact same errors weren't enough public exposure of "the issue".

4432

Technology & Information / Re: The Flat Earth Society official IRC chat

« on: December 15, 2016, 05:22:47 PM »

With all the kickings on whims and this stuff, I genuinely can't tell if the IRC has any rules at all. Can we basically just kick and ban anyone we feel like? Like...can I just permaban Rushy or beardo or something

It's Parsifal's personal playground. You can do whatever you want unless he doesn't like it, in which case you can't do that.

4433

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Problems with the Bishop Experiment

« on: December 14, 2016, 03:25:10 PM »

Perhaps you could give a specific reason why the other evidence I presented doesn't stand up to scrutiny? Hiding behind blanket statements bespeaks bias.

Yes, let's pretend that I haven't already done that multiple times in multiple threads (Seriously, you guys would benefit greatly from organising yourselves. Frankly, I'd benefit too. Perhaps that's why you're avoiding it?). That sounds like fun.

*sigh* All right, one last time.

1. The beach Tom claims to be able to see is 23 miles to the North.
2. The beach he provided a picture of is 4 miles to the West.

We've already talked through that one. That image is not (and never was) part of the Wiki article for a reason. It was sloppy of Tom to grab random images from the Internet, but it really doesn't matter as much as you'd like it to.

3. The beach 4 miles to the West is the only beach visible from his specified location, due to a rock outcropping obstructing the view.

Irrelevant given the above. You insist on assuming the wrong beach as "the specified location".

4. Even if you circumvent the rock outcropping, the beach 4 miles to the West is the only beach visible in all the user-uploaded panoramas of that location. Remember, Tom claimed he could see the beach with the naked eye.

I'm sorry, you'll have to provide some evidence to the claim that the beach can't be seen with the naked eye on a clear day. Given that your claim about panoramas is demonstrably false, this will be a considerable challenge. Thanks for handing me the answer to that one on a silver platter, I might not have thought to check the panoramas before you mentioned them.

I'll refrain from calling you a liar for just one moment and give you a chance to explain yourself... or will I?

5. It is doubtful that a telescope can provide the details that Tom claims to see over a distance of 23 miles. Tom avoids providing any details of the telescope he uses.

Unfortunately, "I doubt it!!!" is not a convincing piece of evidence.

As I said, I've addressed all your concerns and resolved ones that were in any way significant. You've now hit the level of desperation of just restating your claims over and over, hoping that my answer will somehow change.

The answer will not change unless new factors come into play. As mentioned in your S&C thread, it is blindingly obvious to me that you're trying to get the article removed because you don't want people to see it, and not because of any actual issues with the article. That, in and of itself, is quite possibly the best endorsement of the article I could imagine.

4434

Flat Earth Community / Re: Cool Hard Logic - Testing Flattards - Part 1

« on: December 14, 2016, 11:14:35 AM »

CHL is always entertaining, but he has the unfortunate tendency to say what the groups he's addressing "must" believe rather than what they *do* believe. He ends up debunking a strawman, and his follower base is not critical enough to verify his assumptions.

4435

Technology & Information / Re: The Flat Earth Society official IRC chat

« on: December 13, 2016, 07:33:54 PM »

the IP ban I've been given with an exemption for the nick "Saddam."

That's hilarious

4436

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 13, 2016, 03:22:20 PM »

It seems he has made some overtures to at least a more centre-leaning left position like backing off on repealing Obamacare and looking to see what can be salvaged.

Point taken.

4437

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 13, 2016, 02:55:56 PM »

What IS draining the swamp then?  Does anyone have an actual answer or is it just "Remove people I don't like" kind of thing?

Honestly, that's pretty much it. To my understanding, Trump supporters are fed up with career politicians who don't listen to them. Due to inherent biases, they identify themselves as "the people", and so these politicians "don't listen to the people".

Ultimately, everyone knows that politicians are gonna be politicians. They're desperate for an alternative, but that doesn't mean overthrowing the modern model of a republic.

I always assumed it was "remove politicians and people whose primary interests are themselves and their job and not the US citizens."

That's the polite way of putting it, yeah.

I disagree.  Everything we've seen so far has shown that his strongest opponents do dictate his policy, just not in the way they want.  He is quick to attack any criticism and that attacking is part of his policy and execution.  For example, when Mainstream Media attacked him and what he says, he was quick to attack back, threatening to implement laws restricting what the media can say/print moreso than already exists.

When the head of Boeing criticized him, Trump spoke of canceling a $4 Billion deal.  And if the head of Boeing were to continue speaking out against Trump, Donald would most certainly cancel any deals he could with the company.

He is a populist, but he's also a reactionist.  He will make knee-jerk reactions to punish those he feels are wronging him, even if it's just words.

That's fair enough. All I meant was that liberals crying about whether or not the swamp is currently being drained are unlikely to alter the direction of said swamp-draining. If his voter base started complaining, fair enough, but he's already doing what they wanted.

4438

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Fake news makes real news

« on: December 13, 2016, 01:04:48 PM »

I also wonder if mainstream media and journalism are really declining.

Gut feeling tells me it is declining, mostly through entryism of media like HuffPo and Breitbart. They're not quite fake news, but their journalistic standards are appalling, and yet they get to enjoy mainstream media status. "Real" MSM then followed in their tracks to keep up with shifting audiences. Heck, even MTV is partisan these days.

I think it is that shift in standards that ultimately let people to convince themselves of views like "reality has a well-known liberal bias" (in a genuine way, not just as a satirical quip from Colbert). Polarising ideas sell, and in the current state of MSM not much else matters. In other words, this is all about ethics in journalism.

It has always been rather bad, but the awareness of how bad it is has increased. Awareness is the first step in fixing it for both mainstream and social media. I have no idea what the second step is though 

That's a tough one. Either the "old" or "new" media need to lead the charge in fixing this mess. The push against echo chambers is slowly becoming a non-partisan issue (or so I'd gather from people like Nicholas Kristof discussing it).

I think our best bet is hoping that after a bit of infighting in the new media crowd, sensible alternatives will eventually start surfacing and gaining popularity.

4439

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 13, 2016, 11:31:25 AM »

Considering how populist he has been, this may not be strictly true.

He's a populist, absolutely, but he still has a target audience. I strongly doubt he has much to gain from pandering to the stereotypical American liberal. So far, he seems to understand this. Here's hoping that won't change.

If he tried, he'd find himself stuck in the same position as many other politicians who try to appease the left: nothing he did would ever be enough, any attempts would be described as more privilege-fed bigotry from a white man, and he'd always be met with new demands. It's a never-ending war for "justice", one that brings no rewards to those fighting it. Right now, in America, being a populist will only really work on right-wingers.

4440

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: December 12, 2016, 09:18:00 PM »

how many of trump's emails do you think you're gonna get to read?

Probably not many (he seems to be more of a Twitter kind of guy), but here's hoping that in case of a law enforcement investigation they won't find it quite so difficult (read: largely impossible) to access crucial data.

I don't think you understand what "drain the swamp" means.

Funny, that's how many Trump supporters feel about the displeased liberals who keep trying to go "ha gotcha!!! where's the swamp draining now bucko????"

Suffice to say that it will not be Trump's strongest opponents who will dictate his policy, or the execution thereof.