[SteelyBob]

Again, you want to talk about SAMs, which you think is okay to use on a spherical earth for short distances, but also think it's okay for the Tomahawk to use on a flat earth for long distances.

Do you see the fallacy there?

I’m afraid I don’t really see a coherent argument, or even a coherent, comprehensible sentence there. What exactly are you saying?

[Tom Bishop]

Again, you want to talk about SAMs, which you think is okay to use on a spherical earth for short distances, but also think it's okay for the Tomahawk to use on a flat earth for long distances.

Do you see the fallacy there?

I’m afraid I don’t really see a coherent argument, or even a coherent, comprehensible sentence there. What exactly are you saying?

The Tomahawk uses flat earth for long distances. You want to keep bringing up SAMs and the SAM spherical earth model you saw and how spherical earth is okay to use for short distances because long distances need an accurate world model. Your argument needs work.

[Tumeni]

As I recall you said that you made an observation and saw something sunken in the distance.

You recall wrong. I've explicitly stated that this has nothing to do with either "ships going over the horizon", nor "the sunken-ship effect" to paraphrase the above, and I fail to see why you keep dragging sunken ships into it  ...

I recall referring to the Sinking Ship Caused by Refraction page and said that we need more than a single reference to a sinking effect. You purposely replied with "Why?", ignoring the suggestions presented to you, as if refraction didn't exist to cause a sinking effect.

You may well have "referred" to that, but, as I asked, why, when I explicitly do not claim any "sinking effect" ?

This is some sort of pedantry from you, claiming that you didn't see a ship and that you didn't claim it was an effect. Why does it seem that you are unable to have an honest conversation?

Where did I say I "didn't see a ship"?   I saw the ship. The ship was not suffering any "sunken ship effect" (from going over the horizon). You introduced that into the discussion.  I made no claim about any "effect". You're the one who keeps talking about effects, not me. 

Ready for any honest conversation you can muster.  I started a thread for it - https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=19213.0

Let's talk about the canal experiment, ideally over at that thread. Does it demonstrate straight light or not?

[DuncanDoenitz]

My understanding has always been that Tomahawk navigates by Terrain Profile Matching, in which case it could navigate with equal ease on a flat, globe or banana shaped world, as long as it has contour map data for the terrain below its course. 

In other words, it navigates just the way you and I drive; by ascertaining our current position, comparing with desired position, and producing an error signal.  We don't drive to the end of the street on a specific heading for a specific distance and turn left; we drive down the street, monitoring where we are in relation to the kerb and white lines until we reach the stop sign, then turn left, maintaining road position etc.  We can navigate this way, using small scale maps, over any distance.  Tomahawk does just the same, using terrain contours as a datum.  It is only ever interested in, and bases its spatial awareness on, the terrain immediately below it. 

[Tom Bishop]

My understanding has always been that Tomahawk navigates by Terrain Profile Matching, in which case it could navigate with equal ease on a flat, globe or banana shaped world, as long as it has contour map data for the terrain below its course. 

In other words, it navigates just the way you and I drive; by ascertaining our current position, comparing with desired position, and producing an error signal.  We don't drive to the end of the street on a specific heading for a specific distance and turn left; we drive down the street, monitoring where we are in relation to the kerb and white lines until we reach the stop sign, then turn left, maintaining road position etc.  We can navigate this way, using small scale maps, over any distance.  Tomahawk does just the same, using terrain contours as a datum.  It is only ever interested in, and bases its spatial awareness on, the terrain immediately below it.

I see zero sources on how it works to use a FE model on an RE, just "your understanding".

[SteelyBob]

The Tomahawk uses flat earth for long distances.

Does it? What precisely for, and where is your source for that?

You want to keep bringing up SAMs and the SAM spherical earth model you saw

No, the paper that your source analysed brought up the subject of SAMs, you just haven’t understood that.

and how spherical earth is okay to use for short distances because long distances need an accurate world model.

This is just muddled garbage. Short distances…for what, exactly? It’s all about context. As I made clear in the other post, what model you use depends on what precisely you are modelling (radar detection, SAM tracking, blast damage) and what level of accuracy is required. It’s all in the paper.

Your argument needs work.

No, it needs answers from you, not just desperate flailing around (as here) or complete silence (as in the other thread).

[stack]

Again, you want to talk about SAMs, which you think is okay to use on a spherical earth for short distances, but also think it's okay for the Tomahawk to use on a flat earth for long distances.

Do you see the fallacy there?

I’m afraid I don’t really see a coherent argument, or even a coherent, comprehensible sentence there. What exactly are you saying?

The Tomahawk uses flat earth for long distances. You want to keep bringing up SAMs and the SAM spherical earth model you saw and how spherical earth is okay to use for short distances because long distances need an accurate world model. Your argument needs work.

The long and short is that the document in the video you presented says that Tomahawk simulations when targeting something specific, use TRAMS which is based on digitized terrain information from the Digital Terrain Elevation Database (DTED - A geoid) provided by the Defense Mapping Agency or a simple spherical Earth model.

Unless your video and the document are wrong.

[DuncanDoenitz]

My understanding has always been that Tomahawk navigates by Terrain Profile Matching, in which case it could navigate with equal ease on a flat, globe or banana shaped world, as long as it has contour map data for the terrain below its course. 

In other words, it navigates just the way you and I drive; by ascertaining our current position, comparing with desired position, and producing an error signal.  We don't drive to the end of the street on a specific heading for a specific distance and turn left; we drive down the street, monitoring where we are in relation to the kerb and white lines until we reach the stop sign, then turn left, maintaining road position etc.  We can navigate this way, using small scale maps, over any distance.  Tomahawk does just the same, using terrain contours as a datum.  It is only ever interested in, and bases its spatial awareness on, the terrain immediately below it.

I see zero sources on how it works to use a FE model on an RE, just "your understanding".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)#Navigation

". . . Based on comparison results the missile's inertial navigation system is updated and the missile corrects its course . . ."

It flies at low level, and only looks at the terrain immediately surrounding it.  At least, that's my understanding of reading this. 

[jomples]

The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was.
The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.

[AATW]

You guys have been unable to debunk a single article in the Wiki. We have repeatedly asked you to do so with unsatisfactory results on your end.

Ah, but whether you regard results as "unsatisfactory" seems to be entirely based on whether they fit your worldview or not.
I read an article about this, I've posted it here before, I won't do so again now. But basically the trick you pull is that you operate in the sceptical context but you do so selectively depending on whether the thing you're scrutinising confirms your worldview or not. I don't know whether you're doing it knowingly for the lolz, or unwittingly and therefore fooling yourself. If you operate in that sceptical context then it's easy to dismiss anything.

For example, let's say you think kangaroos are fake.
So I tell you of a time I saw one at a zoo. You say I'm lying or mistaken.
So I bring someone who works at the zoo tending the kangaroos, you say that he's a shill and lying too.
So I tell you I know a world expert in kangaroos, you say he doesn't know what he's talking about.
So I show you a picture or video of a kangaroo, you say it's CGI.
So I take you to the zoo, we go and see the kangaroos, you see one hopping around...and then say it's an animatronic.

You then claim on forum.kangaroosarefake.org, for which you edit the Wiki, that
"You guys have been unable to debunk a single article in the Wiki. We have repeatedly asked you to do so with unsatisfactory results on your end."

You see how silly that sounds? This sort of thinking has played out on here in multiple threads. There was a thread about crepuscular rays where in the end I made a 3D model showing exactly how they work, you never replied again in the thread. There was the thread about the experiment with the laser and the boat, you spend 2 days misunderstanding it - claiming that I was the one who didn't understand it. Then when someone else finally explained it to you and you did understand it correctly, you simple called it fake and ran away.

Wiki articles have been debunked numerous times, but the level of evidence you require to accept that is impossible to meet. But evidence which you think backs up a FE you accept fairly unquestioningly.

[secretagent10]

You guys have been unable to debunk a single article in the Wiki. We have repeatedly asked you to do so with unsatisfactory results on your end.

Ah, but whether you regard results as "unsatisfactory" seems to be entirely based on whether they fit your worldview or not.
I read an article about this, I've posted it here before, I won't do so again now. But basically the trick you pull is that you operate in the sceptical context but you do so selectively depending on whether the thing you're scrutinising confirms your worldview or not. I don't know whether you're doing it knowingly for the lolz, or unwittingly and therefore fooling yourself. If you operate in that sceptical context then it's easy to dismiss anything.

For example, let's say you think kangaroos are fake.
So I tell you of a time I saw one at a zoo. You say I'm lying or mistaken.
So I bring someone who works at the zoo tending the kangaroos, you say that he's a shill and lying too.
So I tell you I know a world expert in kangaroos, you say he doesn't know what he's talking about.
So I show you a picture or video of a kangaroo, you say it's CGI.
So I take you to the zoo, we go and see the kangaroos, you see one hopping around...and then say it's an animatronic.

You then claim on forum.kangaroosarefake.org, for which you edit the Wiki, that
"You guys have been unable to debunk a single article in the Wiki. We have repeatedly asked you to do so with unsatisfactory results on your end."

This is how I feel. There could be some philosophical/entertainment value in debating whether kangaroos exist, but there’s a certain willfully forced “skepticism” that would push me to believe kangaroos are not real. This sort of thinking is harmless in the case of things like FE but manifests negatively in some cases (COVID conspiracies).

Simply put, it is much more comforting to believe that you just have the grand answer that nobody else does, that everybody else is a sheep, instead of accepting that there is no big evil conspiracy. The world is far more boring than that.

[AATW]

That’s interesting, because that’s how I feel about conspiracy theorists. It’s like they need to feel that the world is a bit more exciting than it really is. Which in the case of FE is particularly silly as the Apollo Missions, the ISS, the space telescopes and the images we get from them, the Curiosity rover and probes sent to other planets are exciting enough without thinking there are big conspiracies and none of that is real.

And I agree that FE thinking is not in itself harmful but the same underlying mindset leads to anti vaxxers, climate change deniers etc, and that does cause real harm.

[ichoosereality]

That’s interesting, because that’s how I feel about conspiracy theorists. It’s like they need to feel that the world is a bit more exciting than it really is. Which in the case of FE is particularly silly as the Apollo Missions, the ISS, the space telescopes and the images we get from them, the Curiosity rover and probes sent to other planets are exciting enough without thinking there are big conspiracies and none of that is real.

It seems unlikely to me that what motivates an FEer is that they have a desire to have the world be one way or the other (except for those that adopt what they see as their chosen religion's view, though I think (but could easily be mistaken) that covers a minority of FEers).  I think it's far more likely that it's about how adopting a very unorthodox view makes them feel about themselves.  That it's the delusion of them seeing themselves as seeing or knowing what the vast majority do not see no matter what that happens to be.

This could be why rational debate is not possible as for the FEer it is not about the subject matter but about how holding their position makes them feel.

All rather speculative of course.  My expertise is in IT not psychology, but I think the explanation fits the behavior we see here.

And I agree that FE thinking is not in itself harmful but the same underlying mindset leads to anti vaxxers, climate change deniers etc, and that does cause real harm.

Exactly.