Hey fellow flat earthers!!! My name is Oscar.
Welcome! Please be aware that this site is frequented by all sorts, not just "flat earthers" (if such a thing there be). Many are RE proponents, believers/acolytes, and/or apologists. Personally, I am a "globe skeptic/denier" and do not know the shape of the entire world with any certainty (I lack the verified and verifiable data to do so, like everyone else)
Over the past few months I have become increasingly interested in the flat earth community and "conspiracy".
There isn't much of any "flat earth community" that I am aware of - do you mean YouTube? Also, conspiracy is merely a synonym for crime (that involves more than one person) - they happen in huge numbers all the time but don't have relevance to the shape of the earth (as that is inconsequential to human existence / experience / life). What conspiracy do you mean?
Any time I made mention of my belief to friends I've been shunned and made fun of, occasionally I have had to play it off as a joke to avoid getting in a fight.
Belief is often ridiculed (and rightly so) when it comes to matters of fact/knowledge/science. If you BELIEVE that the world is round, flat, or any other shape - then you have faith, not fact. Belief has no place in fact/knowledge, least of all scientific, and is directly across purposes.
it has really opened me up to the adversity that is faced when trying to
seek truth.
But I thought you were talking to them about your mere beliefs - when did truth come into this? You may believe that your beliefs are true, but how can you expect to convey that certainty and truth to others when all you have is an arbitrary belief to begin with / justify it?
I was very excited when I found this forum and realized that it was pretty genuine, unlike other places on the internet, and seemed relatively free from those who seek to troll and chastise.
The trolls are everywhere. Some of them do so as an imagined public service though, and we should always try and remember what it is like to be them (as we most all believed in a globe at some point).
As a newcomer to this forum and to being an open flat earther I was curious if you fine people had any tips for how to handle being an open flat earther, what do you think I could do to help bring my friends come around, and hopefully resolve a couple of long burning questions I've had about the earth being flat
You can convince/persuade/teach a person of any stupid thing (sucker born every minute). Helping people "come around" is merely a marketing challenge. Better to seek the truth together! The first step is recognizing that you are not so much educated as conditioned by rote under the guise of education. The vast majority of things you learn are not validated to be true before accepting them (you aren't given the time or the training to do so), and so validating those core beliefs/assumptions/unverified "facts" becomes the natural place to begin. My only advice is to seek for the answers with your friends, not against them. Remember, you can lead a horse to water - don't try and force them to drink.
Do you think the reason we're being by the government because to much of our economy has become built around hollywood movies that depict space?
I'm not sure what you are talking about "being by the government" or economy, but it is true that the concept and depiction of space has its inception firmly rooted in fiction (which went on to become the first movies - george melies)
Is it possible that the flat earth is a test made by those beyond the wall to see who can determine fact from fiction?
In imagination, all things are possible. In reality, very little (if any) of what we imagine will be correct.
If it is a test is it possible we are in a matrix like simulation?
Again, wild speculation/musing is all well and good but it leads to fiction. Reality is studied out here, in reality!
There is no more intellectually vapid pursuit than "simulationism". It is a sophist drain where philosophy goes to die. Judge theories by their fruits (the posit that the world is a simulation has no fruits whatsoever, and is entirely a worthless waste of time as a result)
Also, what would it take to send a weather ballon beyond the wall with a gps and a camera in it, how far do you think it would get before somebody got rid of it?
What wall? The ice shelf is reasonably easy to go beyond, assuming you can get permission to do so. Some people speculate that there is a dome (not a wall), and because we are supposed inside the dome - there is no way to put a camera outside of it.
In general, no one can stop us from sending the balloons up. They cost a couple of hundred bucks and there is simply nothing they can do about it short of making balloons illegal (which they may well do if we begin to do such things in large numbers). In a place like antarctica, enforcement of such a balloon ban would be even more challenging but so would the deadly trek to retrieve the camera once it came back down to retrieve the footage...
I genuinely want to know why so much money is being afforded to these people to protect the true shape of our earth.
The money apportioned to nasa is done at a congressional level. Those people are bought and sold, and do as the bribe money tells them to do. That's the literal reason nasa gets money.
There is very little, if any, evidence to support that they are protecting/hiding the true shape of the earth. It is MUCH more conceivable that they simply believe the world is round like every other educated person, which is why their footage/artwork depicts that (as well as lens/"barrel" distortion which is often misrepresented as the "curve" of the horizon/earth when it is plainly not)
I highly recommend reading the wiki here, and also keeping in mind that NASA et al are irrelevant to the shape of the earth and to determining it with certainty. They (and all "data" which requires abject appeal to authority on faith) are best left out of earnest discussion and research into the shape of the world.
Have a lovely day!
Ever curious,
-Oscar
You too! Stay curious, and share that curiosity (not belief) with your friends/others!