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Offline AATW

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On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« on: April 11, 2021, 06:56:05 AM »
So Pete and me have crossed swords a few times on the idea that FE belief is growing to the point where it’s a significant percentage of people who believe in FE. Don’t get me wrong, you guys are certainly more known than you were 10 years ago and there’s certainly some evidence which shows it has got some traction in certain areas. Although there’s also evidence that some people simply pretend to believe in a flat earth online for the lolz.

Anyway, so scimandan spent a few hours on Omegle fishing for flat earthers and found not a one. Not the most scientific approach maybe, but make of this what you will. If FE belief was as prevalent as some on here claim then surely by chance you’d find some believers this way.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rvf3aCgFYT8

[EDIT: Link removed - let's not boost engagement for this creep. ~pete]
« Last Edit: April 17, 2021, 02:56:43 PM by Pete Svarrior »
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

Offline fisherman

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2021, 10:22:50 PM »
Quote
Although there’s also evidence that some people simply pretend to believe in a flat earth online for the lolz.

There's also money in it.  I don't think it's true of anyone on this site, but for many proponents, its just a scam.
There are two kinds of people in the world.  Those that can infer logical conclusions from given information

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2021, 05:24:40 AM »
Maybe ... just maybe, the type of person who is a flat earther is also the type of person who doesn't use omegal. I've never used omegal.

Types of people gravitate to different platforms.

Your grandparents are probably on Facebook.
Your boss is probably on LinkedIn.
Your hipster buddy is on Twitter.
That girl you know who is always crying about baby rabbits and loves homemade knitwear is on Tumbler.
Your gamer buddy hangs out on Twitch.
Your gay mate is all over Grinder.
And flat earthers are likely to be on platforms where their home and face aren't exposed to the entire world in real time.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 07:50:48 AM by Toddler Thork »
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Offline AATW

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2021, 07:12:18 AM »
Maybe ... just maybe, the type of person who is a flat earther is also the type of person who doesn't use omegal. I've never used omegal.
Oh well, that proves it then.

And what "type" of person is a flat earther? According to some people, FE belief is now shared by a significant percentage of the population. Surely you're going ot bump into some online or offline sometimes. Outside of this place, I never have. Even on here most people seem to be RE.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2021, 07:35:42 AM »
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/04/only-two-thirds-of-american-millennials-believe-the-earth-is-round/?sh=cfeedd07ec66

That's Forbes.

Can we trust Forbes?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/forbes/

Mostly, we can. What do you want us to say? We didn't do the research. And its not our fault flat earth is extremely popular and yet hasn't infiltrated Omegal. Maybe Omegal is a dumpster fire and the people with the critical reasoning skills to realise that earth isn't round, have also figured out that 1 in every 6 guys on Omegal are masturbating furiously and just waiting for you to catch them doing it.
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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2021, 07:48:13 AM »
Oh, look what we have here.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Omegle

The prosecution rests, Your Honour.


Now put your dick away. This isn't that kind of a place.  >:(
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 07:52:07 AM by Toddler Thork »
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Offline AATW

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2021, 07:56:46 AM »
Oh, look what we have here.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Omegle
And you're sure you don't use it?

Very misleading headline in that Forbes article. But aside from people who you know from here, how many flat earthers do you know?
I know a few conspiracy theorists, but none who have gone this far down the rabbit hole. Or maybe they just don't talk about it.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2021, 07:59:46 AM »
Oh, look what we have here.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Omegle
And you're sure you don't use it?
I'll be on at 6PM GMT - look for thorktugshispiggy.

Very misleading headline in that Forbes article. But aside from people who you know from here, how many flat earthers do you know?
I know a few conspiracy theorists, but none who have gone this far down the rabbit hole. Or maybe they just don't talk about it.
Are you trying to tell me your lived experience is not the same as you are reading in the mainstream media and the research you are reading doesn't tally? Maybe there is hope for you yet.
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Online Pete Svarrior

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2021, 02:48:00 PM »
Lord, give me patience.

AATW: If you recall our previous disagreements on the matter, they boil down to a few points:
  • In my humble belief, you're absolutely atrocious at analysing data.
  • You keep presenting anecdotal evidence as a response to studies performed by people who know what they're doing, and who adequately adjust for sampling bias.
  • Your methodology usually relies on sources which are guaranteed to be biased more than your standard sample, and which do not account for sampling bias, instead choosing to double down on it.
  • You are desperately seeking material that backs up your beliefs, instead of adjusting your beliefs to the preponderance of evidence.

In this case, we're looking at:
  • A professional prankster who desperately keeps trying to troll FE'ers and whose calls they just won't gosh-darn return.
    • Fun fact: he almost roped me into his podcast. Luckily, I did my research and realised what a reprehensible person he is. Perhaps you should too.
  • Said prankster going to a site which is usually used for, uh, men and women to be friends on camera and looking for a debate on the shape of the Earth. Not all of these friends are adults. You can see one of his victims awkwardly reach down to zip his pants back up during the video. Pretty gross, but it doesn't surprise me SciManDan would stoop this low. After all, the almighty dollar won't wait, and it's not like he's going to get a cordial response from the people he's trying to victimise.
  • A person who makes money on pushing a hypothesis producing a video which, shock horror, appears to agree with his hypothesis!

You need to stop wasting your time with this wild goose chase. We gave you study after study after study from all over our flat world. You have a YouTuber harassing people on a child porn site for personal profit. Can you not see how utterly hopeless and desperate this comes across as?

Finally, your terrible data analysis skills, let's talk about those again:

I have a video by SciManDan in which he spent HOURS on Omegle (according to himself, but surely he wouldn't lie - it's not like he has any incentive in editing his videos for entertainment value), in which he only found ONE WOMAN!!!!1! This may not be the most scientific of approaches, so make of that what you will, but methinks this means women are exceptionally rare. And I personally haven't met all that many of them, either! Big Statistics are clearly lying to us about women being nearly half of the population. And don't even get me started on Brazillians - never met one of them in my life, and neither did SciManDan on Omegle! HOW could there POSSIBLY be over 200 million of those if I HAVEN'T PERSONALLY MET ONE? Madness!
« Last Edit: April 17, 2021, 03:05:51 PM by Pete Svarrior »
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline AATW

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2021, 04:35:49 PM »
In my humble belief, you're absolutely atrocious at analysing data.
Well, I think atrocious is a little harsh but I'll happily concede it's not a particular area of speciality.

Quote
You keep presenting anecdotal evidence as a response to studies performed by people who know what they're doing, and who adequately adjust for sampling bias.

What studies? You have posted links previously to one off studies which show an admittedly troubling %age of people in certain areas that believe in a Flat Earth. But your claim has been that FE is enjoying "exponential growth". What metric are you basing that on? You surely need to have some data over time to demonstrate that. FE has undeniably had a rise in prominence and people who love a good conspiracy theory and who aren't particularly well versed in science have got sucked in. But while Flat Earth had found prominence, that isn't the same as it achieving anything like widespread acceptance. "Flat Earther" has become a punchline, not a seriously and widely accepted theory.

Quote
You are desperately seeking material that backs up your beliefs, instead of adjusting your beliefs to the preponderance of evidence.

Not true. I happen to like scimandan's videos (although tbh I don't think they're as good as they used to be, IMO he's got a bit lazy and does more pointing and laughing than actual explaining as to why the things he's debunking are wrong). I happened to see it and thought I'd post it here. I didn't go out of my way to find it. And what "preponderance" of evidence? Again, lots of evidence that FE is far more known about than it was a decade ago, little evidence that it is anywhere near a mainstream belief.

I disagree he is a "A professional prankster". As I said, I do think he is veering in that direction a bit but mostly his channel has been debunking FE nonsense. On what basis are you calling him reprehensible? What did your "research" reveal?
You understand from his point of view you are the "baddies" - you are the ones spreading FE balderdash, he is simply making sure it doesn't go unchallenged. My motivation for joining this site was similar. When I stumbled upon this place I read some of Tom's posts for a while and in the end I couldn't help myself, I felt I needed to respond. I couldn't let it go unchallenged. Scimandan and others like him are doing the same on YouTube. From their point of view, and mine, they are the good guys.

As I said at the top, this is not the most scientific approach. But I continue to see a disconnect between your assertion of "exponential growth" and the reality of FE becoming known about but more as a punchline. I mean, look at the definition on Urban Dictionary

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Flat%20Earther

Quote
We gave you study after study after study from all over our flat world.

Did you? As I said, I've seen a couple of one off studies. Nothing which makes me think there's any basis for your claim of exponential growth.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Online Pete Svarrior

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2021, 04:06:03 PM »
What studies?
I am not wasting my time going through old posts and digging them up. You've seen each and every one of them and made your "well i personally haven't met many so this is fake!" non-reply in each of them.

You have posted links previously to one off studies which show an admittedly troubling %age of people in certain areas that believe in a Flat Earth. But your claim has been that FE is enjoying "exponential growth". What metric are you basing that on?
Growth is a function of size over time. The size has been well-documented at different points in time, and I politely caution you not to turn an upper fora thread into a discussion of whether time moves forward or backward.

You surely need to have some data over time to demonstrate that.
Which has been presented to you time and time again. Eventually, one has to accept that you're obviously not interested in the facts, merely in repeatedly stating that you disagree with them.

But while Flat Earth had found prominence, that isn't the same as it achieving anything like widespread acceptance.
Desperately shifting the goalposts from "FE isn't growing" to "b-b-but 10% is not widespread acceptance!". Is that the best you can do?

And what "preponderance" of evidence? Again, lots of evidence that FE is far more known about than it was a decade ago, little evidence that it is anywhere near a mainstream belief.
Yes - if you choose to change the claim you're discussing, you're likely to arrive at different conclusions. I hope you understand nobody will really entertain that.

I disagree he is a "A professional prankster".
I'm sure you do. Do you base this on any knowledge of him, or is this another personal call based on 0% evidence and 100% gut feeling?

On what basis are you calling him reprehensible?
It was you who provided us with evidence of him abusing a child porn site for personal profit. If that's not reprehensible where you're living, then I'm starting to understand why people in this country keep voting Tory.

You understand from his point of view you are the "baddies" - you are the ones spreading FE balderdash, he is simply making sure it doesn't go unchallenged. My motivation for joining this site was similar. When I stumbled upon this place I read some of Tom's posts for a while and in the end I couldn't help myself, I felt I needed to respond. I couldn't let it go unchallenged. Scimandan and others like him are doing the same on YouTube. From their point of view, and mine, they are the good guys.
Yes - therein lies the tragic failure of RET, and what will bring its ultimate demise in a few decades. A complete lack of interest in facts, and a whole lot of delusions of superiority. Spreading uninformed opinions because it's the right thing to do is the antithesis of open inquiry, and a huge disservice to the science you claim to uphold.

Meanwhile, in the real world, people explore, inquire, and debate. This is not a "good guys vs. bad guys" thing. Falling victim to a prankster/scammer doesn't make you a good person - it makes you gullible.

I mean, look at the definition on Urban Dictionary
Oh, this is getting better and better. We're moving from a scammer videoing himself on a porn site to Urban Dictionary. With such strong counter-evidence from you, I'm sure pollsters and universities worldwide will be posting their retractions any moment now. What's next, AATW? Did someone on Neopets name their pet "erthrund420"?

More importantly, if your measure of how "good guy" or "bad guy" someone is is how badly they're described by meme pages on the Internet, I have some bad news for you and your "debunker" friends.

Did you?
Yes. And you've responded to each of them without fail, so there is very little room for doubt as to whether you had actually seen them.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2021, 04:21:11 PM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline c0i9z

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2021, 08:36:39 PM »
I doubt that belief in a flat earth will ever become more than niche, simply because it doesn't work, while the standard model does work and works very well. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the standard model makes a truly amazing pudding. Meanwhile, belief in a flat earth doesn't ever seem to actually make any pudding, only to nitpick the standard model's pudding and boast about how much better its pudding would be if it ever bothered making any.

Offline scomato

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #12 on: May 01, 2021, 04:42:03 PM »
Google Trends is a good way of gauging interest in a subject. How much people Google Search a topic is a decent indicator of interest.





Flat Earth has definitely gathered more interest. Some time in early 2015 google search interest in FE really took off, and has died down a little bit since then, but remains higher than pre-2015 levels. Search interest for FE is greatest in NZ, USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa. The New Zealand result is probably inaccurate because the first result for 'Flat Earth New Zealand' is for the tour company that does the famous Lord of the Rings tours.

For the most part, Flat Earth was side-by-side with other Earth-based conspiracy theories like Hollow Earth (on the graph for reference) but while Hollow Earth has remained unpopular, Flat Earth has definitely taken on a life of its own post-2015.

One region where Flat Earth has become extremely popular is in the Phillipines. Doing some digging, it seems that the Christian religious establishment and President Duterte and his allies are very much behind the promotion of Flat Earth belief among Filipinos, Duterte is using FE belief x Christian fundamentalism to discredit his opposition, a strong strategy given the Philippines is one of the most Christian countries in the world.

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Online Pete Svarrior

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #13 on: May 01, 2021, 06:10:35 PM »
Google Trends is a good way of gauging interest in a subject.
Substantiate this statement, ideally keeping in mind that it's been made and refuted multiple times before, and the real correlation with Google Trends has already been documented. (i.e. please provide a new argument which sufficiently overturns the understood cause, and don't waste our time with the ones already dealt with)
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline scomato

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #14 on: May 01, 2021, 06:48:22 PM »
Google Trends is a good way of gauging interest in a subject.
Substantiate this statement, ideally keeping in mind that it's been made and refuted multiple times before, and the real correlation with Google Trends has already been documented. (i.e. please provide a new argument which sufficiently overturns the understood cause, and don't waste our time with the ones already dealt with)

I don't understand your question but there's a strong correlation between general interest in a subject and Google Trends results.

It is not a perfect but it tracks public interest in a subject in ways that we expect it to. For example, Trends for Donald Trump predictably blow up in a way that's consistent with his political career. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Donald%20Trump Not remarkable until June 2015 when he started his run for President. By contrast, here's Hillary Clinton (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Hillary%20Clinton) which also shows an expected result. Interest spike during her run for President but dies down shortly afterwards, because she isn't the President.

Google Trends even shows predictable seasonal changes in interest, for example, here's Hayfever (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=hayfever) and predictably the search interest rises in the summer months, decreases in the winter months, quite consistently year over year. Conversely, here's results for Influenza (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=influenza) which likewise spike each winter season, and die down in the summer months, which is consistent with the flu's seasonal pattern.

This should be solid enough evidence to support the notion that Google Trends is a good indicator of general public interest of relevancy in some thing. Therefore, my earlier statement that Flat Earth has seen a marked change in search interest since 2015 is solid, and Google search interest demonstrably correlates with general interest in a subject.

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Online Pete Svarrior

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #15 on: May 01, 2021, 08:20:06 PM »
I don't understand your question
Yes, that much is evident. If you don't understand the discussion that's taking place, nor the context behind it, might I suggest taking the time to do so before posting?

The remainder of your post is precisely what I asked you not to waste our time with. Hopefully you knew in advance it would be ignored.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline AATW

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #16 on: May 03, 2021, 10:14:37 PM »
I am not wasting my time going through old posts and digging them up. You've seen each and every one of them and made your "well i personally haven't met many so this is fake!" non-reply in each of them.

I can remember two.
One about Brazilians, another about Americans.
The one about Americans has a somewhat of a click-baity headline but basically it puts FE belief about 2%.
I'd still regard that as alarmingly high, but it's nowhere near the 5-10% I've seen you claim.

Quote
The size has been well-documented at different points in time
I disagree. I've struggled to find good data around this and I don't remember it being presented on here.
As I said, I've seen a couple of one off surveys. I have not seen - or I don't remember seeing - data over time.

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and I politely caution you not to turn an upper fora thread into a discussion of whether time moves forward or backward
I have literally no idea what you are talking about here.

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Desperately shifting the goalposts from "FE isn't growing" to "b-b-but 10% is not widespread acceptance!". Is that the best you can do?

No, it's simply not true that FE belief is anywhere near 10%. Even the most generous estimate I could find, that study in Brazil, put it at 7%. And that was a survey of 2000 adults. I'd suggest that in a country of 200 million that's not a statistically significant sample. The US survey (8000 people) said 2% overall. Higher amongst millennials, or more in that age range were questioning. But where is a source which says that FE belief is 10%?

Quote
I disagree he is a "A professional prankster".
I'm sure you do. Do you base this on any knowledge of him, or is this another personal call based on 0% evidence and 100% gut feeling?

I base it on having watched his videos over the last couple of years. Mostly they've been a reaction to, and debunking of, FE nonsense he has seen on YouTube. Actually, I suspect you'd agree with a lot of what he says because many of the FE YouTube channels he's responded to have been spouting things which I think you would agree are nonsense.
I'm interested what you think your previous research revealed about him - obviously that pre-dated the Omegle video so it can't have been to do with that. Not his finest work, I'd agree, although "abusing a child porn site" is a ridiculous mischaracterisation of him and Omegle and you know it.

Quote
Yes - therein lies the tragic failure of RET, and what will bring its ultimate demise in a few decades.

And you're calling RE delusional? Wow...
Dude, that isn't going to happen. Because there is no FET to challenge RET. You have no FET which hangs together and can make any predictions about anything.

Quote
A complete lack of interest in facts, and a whole lot of delusions of superiority.

I'd love to be presented with facts - I've asked you many times for more information about how you came to your views.
And as I alluded to above, it's not exactly a "delusion" of superiority. RET is a demonstrably better model which can explain and predict things better than FE. Night and day, seasons, consistent angular size and speed of the sun and moon, eclipses, 24 hour sun at the poles in summer and night in winter, the different way the stars rotate in the 2 hemispheres and the different stars visible, ships disappearing over the horizon - all these are explained by a simple model of a rotating globe earth which is tilted on its axis and orbits a distant sun and has a moon orbiting it. FE has to invoke separate ad-hoc mechanisms for all these things.
Give me one thing which your theories can actually predict.

I think you know that FE has had it's day. You've had a good run but you admitted the interview requests have dried up a bit.
FE has gone from obscurity to a curiosity to a punchline.

I am not denying that interest in FE has grown. It demonstrably has. 10 years ago I'd never heard of you. In an era where trust in the mainstream has dwindled it has done pretty well. But don't confuse interest and curiosity with acceptance. FE won't gain serious traction until you have a model which is consistent and does a better job of explaining observations than RE.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2021, 10:17:55 PM by AllAroundTheWorld »
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Online Pete Svarrior

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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2021, 07:54:34 AM »
I can remember two.
I can't help you with that. Your inexplicable memory lapses (which just gosh darn happen to make you forget things you were wrong about and should have learned from) are truly mysterious, but I lack the expertise to help you with those. Folk wisdom suggests it could be magnesium or B-12 deficiency, but you shouldn't rely on just folk wisdom when your health is concerned.

The one about Americans has a somewhat of a click-baity headline but basically it puts FE belief about 2%.
This is desperately incorrect, and you know it!!!1!

I'd still regard that as alarmingly high, but it's nowhere near the 5-10% I've seen you claim.
Indeed. And even if we pretend that you didn't just fudge one statistic you dislike, we can still point out that you completely ignored the other one, which flatly states >7%, and falls square in the middle of my estimate. :)

As always, you cherry-pick poorly analysed data, and only present what you think makes you look good. You're not even good enough to get that going, but the intention here is more worrisome than the outcome.

Even the most generous estimate I could find, that study in Brazil, put it at 7%. And that was a survey of 2000 adults. I'd suggest that in a country of 200 million that's not a statistically significant sample.
And what would you base this suggestion, which completely defies how statistical research is done, on? Once again - it is convenience. You don't like the results, so you're ready to throw out all research methods out the window in favour of... YouTube videos. Are you perhaps beginning to see the irony of this situation? You are everything you accuse the FE'ers of being.

I'm interested what you think your previous research revealed about him - obviously that pre-dated the Omegle video so it can't have been to do with that.
Of course - the Omegle case is more readily available because you presented it to us, and thus are unlikely to deny it happened (you'll only pretend that you didn't understand what was happening, but you won't suddenly "not remember" his video, at least for another few days). When SciManDan approached me for an interview on his podcast, I spoke to other FE content creators and activists about their experiences with him, and the many attempted "interviews", the troll mobs he sends after people, the hilarious failures at doxxing by said mobs, and his tendency to outright ban people when an argument isn't going his way (or when any of the above is highlighted) - you know, the kind of nasty stuff that put him on everyone's naughty list. I was warned by people I trust to disengage, and I have done so.

I was immediately suspicious because, when I pointed out that he appears to be a "debunker" channel (in the nicest possible way) and (more to the point) that we're not interested in inviting people to harass us, he told me that I shouldn't worry about that, because this podcast is totally different from all of his other content. Extreme red flag, and I'm grateful for it.

Not his finest work, I'd agree, although "abusing a child porn site" is a ridiculous mischaracterisation of him and Omegle and you know it.
Which part?
  • Omegle is predominantly a porn site running under the guise of "anonymous discussion", and a significant portion of the users are underage.
    • If you don't believe me and the Beeb (reminder for the mysteriously forgetful here), go ahead and check it for yourself. I mean, I strongly suggest you don't, shit's kinda gross, but if you really want to, you can verify it.
    • If I were you, I'd simply look at the mainstream media reports on the site and assume that they're not a complete lie. Too many witnesses, too much evidence.
  • He is abusing the site - he is not using it for its intended purposes.
  • He is doing so for personal profit - his videos are monetised, he's unable to bait any more FE'ers into interacting with him because the word of his misdeeds has spread far and wide, but the channel needs to keep ticking on. After all, how else is he gonna make rent?
Which part is a ridiculous mischaracterisation?

Dude, that isn't going to happen.
And yet it continues to happen, no matter how long you cry about it.

Again, take a step back and observe your desperation: you keep proposing that we should abandon statistics and data science in favour of:
  • a poll on an IT forum
  • some guy browsing child porn sites, finding some of his fans (quelle surprise), but not finding any FE'ers who'd reveal themselves to him
  • you personally not having met many people whom you go out of your way to call inferior to yourself (egads, I wonder why they might not be willing to talk to you...)
  • urbandictionary
You wouldn't need to do that were it not for the continued growth of FET.

And as I alluded to above, it's not exactly a "delusion" of superiority. RET is a demonstrably better model which can explain and predict things better than FE. [...]
Oh, no no no, you're not getting away with this. You don't get to call us bad people who deserve to be harassed only to then go "hnyeh all I meant was I don't think your theories are very good teehee". Either back up your belief that we are "baddies" who "cannot go unchallenged", and that the people who seek to harass, dox and marginalise us are "the good guys" from your perspective, or admit that placing yourself in a position of moral superiority was a dumb move that needs serious reconsideration.

This kind of stuff, by the way, is why I call you lot reprehensible, and ultimately one of the factors that fuels some of the nastier parts of the FE movement. Arrogant RE'ers who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are, but who think they can lord over others because they watched a YouTube video once. Despicable stuff, and it's gonna shoot us both in the foot.

I think you know that FE has had it's day. You've had a good run but you admitted the interview requests have dried up a bit.
We have had this discussion at least seven times now, so I'll give you the briefest of reminders: interview requests follow media hype when Elon make funny tweet. They're a bad thing, and while we made the best out of a bad thing with successful interviews, it is good that they've dried up. I much prefer talking to normal people and the occasional academic than brain-dead bloggers who pretend to be journalists. The actual growth of FE adherents also does not follow the media hype - unsurprisingly, dumb schoolkids visiting us to say "hehehe erth rund" are not our target audience.

I am not denying that interest in FE has grown.
We have made considerable progress. Now we just need you to concede on all the other things you're demonstrably wrong about, and your extremely twisted sense of moral righteousness.

But don't confuse interest and curiosity with acceptance.
Keep in mind that it's you and the other RE twerps in here who keep mixing up those metrics. You don't need to warn me about the risk of confusing them, but rather you need to think real hard about your own warning.

FE won't gain serious traction until you have a model which [I personally view as] consistent and [which I personally think] does a better job of explaining observations than RE.
Keep thinking that if you'd like. Just don't come crying to me when you realise your side had lost, purely due to ignoring the early warnings.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2021, 08:35:25 AM by Pete Svarrior »
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Re: On the Notion of Flat Earth Belief Growth
« Reply #18 on: May 11, 2021, 10:04:32 AM »
I can remember two.
I can't help you with that.
Well, you could. You could post the other data you're basing your opinions on. As I said, I remember two surveys, one from Brazil, one from the US. As part of this conversation I tried to look at the issue of flat earth growth and I found the same two, I didn't find much else. If there are others then I'll have a look if you post them.
Memory lapses aren't inexplicable or mysterious when you start hurtling towards 50 - I doubt you'll be able to remember all the posts you've read on here either when you get there.
But as I said I had a look around the internet and didn't find a lot of data on this other than those two surveys.

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The one about Americans has a somewhat of a click-baity headline but basically it puts FE belief about 2%.
This is desperately incorrect, and you know it!!!1!

Direct quote from this article about it:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/04/only-two-thirds-of-american-millennials-believe-the-earth-is-round/?sh=91ba2ec7ec66

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The survey found that 2% of Americans firmly believe the Earth is flat

4% among millennials if you want to be super-generous. And sure, other people are questioning things, but it's a bit disingenuous to count those.
And "the other one" says 7% (it also repeats the 2% from the US survey):
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2019/07/7-of-brazilians-believe-that-earth-is-flat.shtml

I'll just highlight these bits:

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The survey had 2,086 respondents over 16 years of age in 103 cities across the country

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Ninety percent of those interviewed claimed to believe that the Earth was round and the rest said they did not know their form. The belief that the Earth is flat was inversely proportional to schooling. While 10% of those who left school after elementary school defend that Earth is flat, this percentage decreases among those who studied until they finished high school (6%) or higher (3%).

On sample size. You said:

Quote
And what would you base this suggestion, which completely defies how statistical research is done, on? Once again - it is convenience. You don't like the results, so you're ready to throw out all research methods out the window in favour of... YouTube videos.

I didn't even mention YouTube videos. I've happily accepted at the start of this thread that SciManDan's video is not scientific.
If you want to know what I'm actually basing my assertion on that a survey of 2000 people is not statistically significant of a population of over 200 million, rather than you telling me what I'm basing it on. I'm basing it on something we did at work - we have a system which has about 1-2 million people going through it a year and as part of that system we collect some profiling data which is used for reasons I won't go in to. I own this system and ideally I would like us not to have to ask people these questions because it's a potential roadblock for customers. But we do need the data. So one idea we came up with was to only ask a sample of people. Someone looked in to this and found that to get statistically significant results with a high confidence we'd only need to ask just over 1% of people. So I figured that if you need 1% of 1-2m people you'd probably need about the same with 200 million people. It turns out, looking at this:
https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/calculating-sample-size/
That it doesn't scale as I thought it would. So actually to achieve a confidence level of 95% with a margin of error of 2% you only need 2401 people. I'll admit that is a lot lower than I expected although it's still a higher than the number of people who did respond to the survey and I don't know how they chose who to ask.

So OK, let's agree that the number in Brazil is worryingly high (well, you probably disagree about the "worryingly"). That still doesn't tell me data over time. That's what would tell us if there is the continued growth you claim. That's what I haven't seen. And it's only data in 2 countries. Famously, FE believe has spread all round the globe (lolz - sorry), but I don't have good data over time in multiple countries which would make me think that there has been a sustained growth.

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When SciManDan approached me for an interview on his podcast, I spoke to other FE content creators and activists about their experiences with him, and the many attempted "interviews", the troll mobs he sends after people, the hilarious failures at doxxing by said mobs, and his tendency to outright ban people when an argument isn't going his way (or when any of the above is highlighted) - you know, the kind of nasty stuff that put him on everyone's naughty list. I was warned by people I trust to disengage, and I have done so.

Fair enough. Obviously I can't comment on the way he acts as all I really know about him is his videos. Although I would note that FE content creators are probably a bit butt hurt about his success as he has gained a lot of followers pulling their nonsense to pieces.
In general his motive seems to be to stand up for truth - and sure, he wants to make money but "YouTuber" is a valid career choice these days. If he can make a full time living from it then what's wrong with that?
He started out by debunking FE stuff but has done more general science stuff and debunking of other nonsense conspiracy theories. Just today he released a video debunking some anti-vaxxer stuff which I think is a noble thing to do. Certain conspiracy theories are harmless enough but anti-vaxxer stuff can be genuinely dangerous and should be challenged.
No argument that the Omegle video was not his finest work.

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And yet it continues to happen, no matter how long you cry about it.

You have yet to demonstrate that. I've yet to see data over time. You have claimed exponential growth. Where's the data which shows that on a continued basis?

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Again, take a step back and observe your desperation: you keep proposing that we should abandon statistics and data science
No, I'm proposing you should present the statistics. The two polls I've discussed aside, I've not seen the data you're basing your opinions on.

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You don't get to call us bad people who deserve to be harassed

I didn't call you that. I mean, there are some people who pose as FE but don't actually believe it and are deliberately spreading misinformation. Those people should be...I wouldn't say harassed but their nonsense should not go unchallenged. So yes, I'm very much on the side of people like scimandan who do challenge it. I wouldn't advocate harassment but has he done that to you? You say he reached out to you, you declined his invitation and then what? Has he harassed you since? If so then I'd agree he shouldn't do that but you guys barely get a mention on his channel, he mostly responds to YouTube FE channels.

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Keep thinking that if you'd like. Just don't come crying to me when you realise your side had lost, purely due to ignoring the early warnings.
Well, I won't, because "my side" isn't going to lose. Actually, you have previously said that you're interested in the truth. In that sense we are on the same side. We may disagree about what the truth is, but I care deeply about what is true. This is why I cheer on people like scimandan who, from my perspective, are standing up for that truth and debunking sometimes dangerous misinformation. But I wouldn't approve of his methods if he's actually harassing people.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2021, 10:37:09 AM by AllAroundTheWorld »
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"