[Action80]

What does that thread have to do with this thread?

[Pete Svarrior]

Now, add scale. Also, take this garbage out of this thread and put it where it belongs.

[AATW]

I've seen no evidence of any impropriety.

If only your standards were this low for the tribe you don't like...

I don't know what that means. And for the record I don't particularly like or dislike any "tribe", there are individuals on both sides I dislike. For example, I do like how Professor Dave Explains...explains, but he's a condescending dick and that makes him quite unlikeable.
I can't pretend to have looked into this in any detail. I don't know where the money came from to fund the 1 FE and 1 RE place which were prepaid. But me not knowing that isn't evidence of fraud, or evidence against it. I wouldn't even know how to investigate that. The crowdfunding places are clearer, so let's come on to that.

Other places have been crowdfunded but that isn't "stealing". If someone sets up a fundraiser for a holiday and people want to contribute then that's their business.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree there.

If I set up a crowdfunding page and say "I'd like a lovely holiday please, could you pay for it kthxpls?" then I'd expect people to tell me to sod off. But if people did want to pay for me then...well, that's up to them, isn't it? That's what crowdfunding is, what's to agree with or disagree about there?

And I'm not gonna hide this - to me, that makes you morally reprehensible. I'm sure you're devastated by that.

I'm completely consolable.
But your assertion about my morality seems to be based on the idea that I think it's OK to scam people by lying about what I'm crowdfunding for - but I don't think that. To continue my example above, if I said I wanted one last holiday because I'm terminally ill and then it transpires I'm fine and just wanted a holiday then I'd agree, that would be morally reprehensible. So I guess the point of disagreement is whether people have been lied to.

They were selling this trip to a dedicated fandom with the promise of finally delivering the "smoking gun" that will, once and for all, shut up those evil Flat Earthers.

This is more or less true, but you're leaving out a fair bit of context which is that the experiment was chosen specifically because FE and RE disagreed about what the outcome would be. Now, YOU may not disagree about it but (all together now) you aren't the FE authority. Because as you tell me repeatedly, there isn't one. And I think that's part of the issue here. The FE "tribe" are not a single group with coherent beliefs. You view this as a scam because to you this is a a waste of time and money and you know what the outcome of the experiment will be anyway. But the FE people they were speaking to did NOT agree about the outcome of the experiment, Jeranism has already admitted the results were not what he was expecting.

your only response is one of victim-blaming: "Well, if they're happy being scammed, then what's the problem? If they didn't want to get scammed, they just wouldn't pay up!

Being scammed is in the eye of the beholder. Your claim is that people have been scammed. But for that to be true people would have had to be lied to about what was going to happen. If people had raised money for a trip to Antarctica and then gone to the Bahamas for an all expenses paid holiday then that would be a scam. Or if people had gone to Antarctica for the experience and to take photos of penguins and hadn't done the experiments they said they were going to do then that would be a scam. But none of that happened. They said they were crowdfunding to go to Antarctica and observe the 24 hour sun and that's exactly what they did. I think people were pretty clear about what they were contributing to. Where's the scam?
At worst, I'd agree that it was over-stated that this would end all FE debate, that was never going to happen. But, again, the experiment was chosen because RE and (some) FE people disagreed about the outcome. The fundamental issue is that there is no set of coherent FE beliefs - is a consequence of there being no FE Authority.

Extreme tl;dr version: if you wanna count these people as part of the FE camp, then I'm gonna start counting idiots who mix up velocity and acceleration as part of the RE camp.

We have had this conversation before so I'll just reply like I have before
It's a false equivalence. The shape of the earth is an established fact, most people are taught it and believe it and many don't really understand much science and don't need to in their daily lives. Most people believe a load of stuff without really understanding it or thinking about it too hard. To be a flat earther you must surely have looked in to the matter in some depth and are therefore a de facto FE expert.

You did know, from day 0, that no true ScotsFE'er would find the results of this experiment to be valuable, and that's because you know that we expected the same outcome as you. You might not understand why that is, but that doesn't necessitate flying a bunch of grifters to Antarctica.

I knew from day 0 that this would not end all RE/FE debate, but I didn't think it had no value as an experiment because I have seen some FE people - including on here - claiming that the 24 hour sun in Antarctica doesn't happen. I honestly don't know who the "true" FE people are. I've never been entirely convinced that you lot are serious about it. What I see is a lot of People's Front of Judea and Judean People's Front sects, all claiming that they are the "real" FE people and the others are grifters or controlled opposition etc. Again, you are not the FE Authority, why should I believe you when you say that others aren't the real ones?

Sorry, but you've firmly convinced me that that would be a waste of my time.

This is quite a common tactic of yours, to claim that you really do have a good explanation for <something>, pinky-promise, but I wouldn't be interested in hearing it. It's all a bit "I definitely have a girlfriend but she goes to a different school, you wouldn't know her". It's not really the way to convince me that you are serious about FE.

I have ploughed my way through the pages about the moon tilt illusion, the first one starts:
"If the light travels in straight lines and the Sun illuminates the Moon then it is expected that the Moon's illuminated portion should always point at the Sun. The Moon Tilt Illusion is a phenomenon in which the lit portion of the Moon unexpectedly points away from the Sun"

It's a strong start given that the Moon Tilt Illusion is an optical illusion. There's a clue in the name. When the illusion occurs the lit portion APPEARS to point away from the sun, but it actually doesn't. I have verified this to my own satisfaction.
The initial page is a very long explanation for why EA predicts a phenomenon which doesn't actually occur (again, illusion). The supplemental page is a box set of not understanding that the fact a straight line perpendicular to the terminator on the moon intersects the sun is proof that the illusion is just that, an optical illusion. Which actually shows that EA doesn't exist if you think about it, because it "predicts" something which doesn't actually occur, it merely appears to and it's trivial to demonstrate that.

You berate me for conversations going round and round but the above has been explained on multiple occasions and yet the same topics keep coming up:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=17742.msg234260#msg234260
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=19030.0

You have an opportunity to move these conversations on but you always say I wouldn't be interested in your explanations. And then you lament that the conversations go round and round. They only do so because you refuse to advance them, *shrug*

[Dual1ty]

The only final experiment:





Yes - the globe-defending zealots are very afraid and it shows, through this completely unrelated observation being labeled "the final experiment" by them. All while ignoring the true final experiment above-which they will never perform.

[markjo]

Level is not the same as flat.  On a round earth, the level structure would follow the curvature of the earth at a constant height.

[Pete Svarrior]

I don't know what that means.

Jesus, you don't have to admit that. That should be the kind of stuff I accuse you of, but which I can't quite prove.

And for the record I don't particularly like or dislike any "tribe"

I'm sorry, you have YEARS of actions here which speak SO MUCH louder than words. This conversation just makes it worse - we've got an open-and-shut case of some YouTubers doing unsightly stuff. It would be very easy for an honest person to say "yea, these guys are kinda whack", but you're not capable of doing that. Partially because you're not capable of criticising a RE'er, and partially because you never read their crowdfunding pages. You need to understand that, with this sort of track record, no one with a serious interest in debate will show you any good will on this account.

I can't pretend to have looked into this in any detail. I don't know where the money came from to fund the 1 FE and 1 RE place which were prepaid.

Indeed. You also don't know how many people were paid for (it's 5 not counting the organiser, so arguably 6; not 2). So, given how little you know, why the fuck are you still talking?

But me not knowing that isn't evidence of fraud, or evidence against it. I wouldn't even know how to investigate that.

It's simple. It's well within public interest to see the financials here. You should be able to just ask. Will you?

If I set up a crowdfunding page and say "I'd like a lovely holiday please, could you pay for it kthxpls?" then I'd expect people to tell me to sod off. But if people did want to pay for me then...well, that's up to them, isn't it? That's what crowdfunding is, what's to agree with or disagree about there?

As with most intentionally dishonest arguments, the issue lies in the premise, which I bolded for your convenience. However, you know you're not arguing in good faith, so how about we don't waste ach other's time?

But your assertion about my morality seems to be based on the idea that I think it's OK to scam people by lying about what I'm crowdfunding for - but I don't think that.

Well, then you'll just gosh darn have to read what's been advertised, rather than imagining it. I made a mistake of assuming thaty you wouldn't defend pitches you haven't read, but I guess you're not just evil - you're evil and incorrigibly stupid. After all, the crowdfunders were very clear about what they're getting money for - and it's not "holidayz plx":

Flattys have claimed for over 150 years that the sun in Antarctica NEVER circles 360 degrees overhead all day. This is because it would destroy the idea of pizzaland. Testing their own claims is an excellent way to settle the question using their own claim. So I'm going there with some flattys to see what happens.

If the Sun is visible for 24 hours, then this will prove that the flat Earth proponents are mistaken. [...] Other things of value to the discussion of the shape of the Earth will be the flight I will be taking across the South Pacific (a flight that is impossible on a flat Earth), and various other experiments related to the unique location.

Following the youtube link in this GoFundMe you will find an experiment put together to try to end this debate once and for all.

The Final Experiment is to educatate the flat earth/globe earth community with actual video evidence from the location of that is ANTARCTICA!

This journey is more than just observing a natural wonder; it's a quest to seek truth through firsthand experience. Some believe that such a phenomenon shouldn't occur under certain world models, and witnessing it ourselves could provide valuable insights. But I don't intend to stop there. During this Final Experiment event, I plan to conduct a series of thorough tests and experiments to explore various questions about our world.

They were consistent in their claims. If you're as independent as you claim, you will find no difficulty in acknowledging that. But you will find difficulty in it, because speaking out against grifers in your tribe is beyond your moral capacity.

FE and RE disagreed about what the outcome would be. Now, YOU may not disagree about it but (all together now) you aren't the FE authority. Because as you tell me repeatedly, there isn't one.

This isn't the gotcha you think it is. RE doesn't have a central authority, either. Indeed, it is the hallmark of the scientific method that Bazza down the pub might be able to shake up the scientific consensus at any moment if he brings the right evidence to the table. There are no material differences here - you just don't like one side of the debate, so you twist my words to mean something they don't. You are a thoroughly dishonest person. That's all there is to it.

Being scammed is in the eye of the beholder. Your claim is that people have been scammed. But for that to be true people would have had to be lied to about what was going to happen.

Luckily, I showed that to be the case through my quotes above. More importantly, the fact that you never even tried reading what the scammers said before claiming you've seen no evidence is telling. Yeah, no fucking shit you've seen no evidence - you went out of your way not to look at it.

It's a false equivalence. The shape of the earth is an established fact, most people are taught it and believe it and many don't really understand much science and don't need to in their daily lives. Most people believe a load of stuff without really understanding it or thinking about it too hard. To be a flat earther you must surely have looked in to the matter in some depth and are therefore a de facto FE expert.

Wow, way to double down on a double standard. No, you absolutely don't need to be an FE expert to argue for FE on the Internet. Hell, even you could do it! There's literally nothing stopping you, right now, from making pro-FE arguments. Now, the acutal FE'ers might call you slurs for it, but ga-hyuk, they're nOt AuThOrItAtIvE.

Again, you are not the FE Authority, why should I believe you when you say that others aren't the real ones?

For the same reason you disregard the folks that don't understand the difference between speed and acceleration. Neither side has an official authority that gets to say what goes. We reject nonsensical fringe arguments not based on their popularity or authoritative appeal, but on their merit.

to claim that you really do have a good explanation for <something>, pinky-promise, but I wouldn't be interested in hearing it

I didn't claim that. FE is riddled with holes and inconsisitencies, and this happens to be one of them - we have a partial explanation, one that's easily accesible to you, and it has issues, but you don't know what those issues are. All that information is available to you, but you're not interested in it - so I have to do both the jobs of the FE and RE proponent. It's kinda sad that only one of us is interested in critically evaluating both models.

You can't exactly spend the better part of a decade here establishing your bad will and then expecting people to take you seriously. You need to either assume a new identity (I won't rat you out, I promise), or accept that it will take you multiple years of non-deplorable behaviour to redeem yourself. Until then, you're simply not worth anyone's engagement, so you won't see any engagement from anyone.

[AATW]

I'm sorry, you have YEARS of actions here which speak SO MUCH louder than words.

I've been scathing of some of the RE drive-by idiots who come here occasionally too. There are individuals I don't like on both sides. As a "tribe" - I think FE (by which I don't just mean people on here) are misguided and largely ignorant of science. A lot of them are more to be pitied than scorned. And you'll note my tone on here has softened a lot since I first joined this board.

we've got an open-and-shut case of some YouTubers doing unsightly stuff.

I disagree. You described yourself at the beginning of this as "verging on hostile" towards it, you're not neutral or being objective.
Once again you are conflating someone disagreeing with you with them being dishonest. You do this a lot, you're so certain in your position you don't seem to be able to entertain the notion that there are other points of view. If I don't immediately come round to your position then I must be being dishonest - no, I just don't agree with you.

Partially because you're not capable of criticising a RE'er

A strange thing to write in response to a post in which I made my feelings about Professor Dave Explains pretty clear.
While we're here, I quite liked SciManDan in the beginning but he can also be a dick and his "debunks" are pretty lazy

and partially because you never read their crowdfunding pages.

Yes I have. I looked at them before responding above.
MCToon is correct - flatties HAVE claimed that. Maybe not all of them, but it's definitely been claimed. Again, that was the basis for choosing this as the experiment.
Critial Think is clearly talking about the "flat Earth proponents" who claimed the 24 hour sun an Antarctica doesn't happen.
GlobeyMcGlobeface - I agree he is massively overstating things if he thinks it will end FE debate, I already said that isn't going to happen. But he does say "try to", so I'd argue he's covered himself there and he says that's why the experiment was put together, which it was.
George Demitropoulos/Kosho - Not clear what your issue is there

They were consistent in their claims. If you're as independent as you claim, you will find no difficulty in acknowledging that.

I do acknowledge that. But their claims were they were going to go to Antarctica to do experiments including observing the 24 hour sun.
And that's exactly what they did. And, again, that experiment was chosen because some FE people agreed it would be a useful way of discriminating between their FE model and the globe one.

RE doesn't have a central authority, either.

It doesn't, but there is consensus about the shape of the earth, how many poles there are and that there is a 24 hour sun in Antarctica.

You are a thoroughly dishonest person. That's all there is to it.

I'm actually not. I refer the honourable gentleman to my comments above you conflating someone not immediately coming round to your point of view with them being dishonest. Your level of cynicism extends to not even believing me about why I chose my original username. Interestingly, you persist in that despite me explaining that your thesis - that it's a reference to that joke - makes zero sense as "around" can apply to a flat or globe earth and "the world" doesn't imply any particular shape.

No, you absolutely don't need to be an FE expert to argue for FE on the Internet.

I suppose that's true, but if you're going to set up a FE messageboard or YouTube channel then aren't you setting yourself up as a de-facto FE expert. You're claiming you know better than all mainstream scientists. With RE it's much clearer what an expert is - there's a clear education path, clear textbooks to look at and so on.

We reject nonsensical fringe arguments not based on their popularity or authoritative appeal, but on their merit.

I don't think the rejection of a 24 hour sun in Antarctica or that Antarctica is actually a wall around the edge of the flat earth is a fringe FE belief. That model is still claimed to be the most common one in your Wiki.

It's kinda sad that only one of us is interested in critically evaluating both models.

My issue is I don't regard both models as equally valid. I'm a bit of a Charlie Church but I'm also fairly scientifically literate. So I don't regard young earth creationism as equivalent to the more established scientific evidence of an old earth and evolution. I have my own thoughts on how to reconcile that with early Genesis which I won't go into here. But I don't regard young earth creationism as something worth looking in to seriously when there's such a huge amount of evidence showing it can't be true - there are ice cores which go back orders of magnitude longer than when some people claim the earth was created. And so on. New models come along when they are better than the old one and my observations of FE are that it's significantly worse than the globe earth one in terms of it's ability to explain and predict things.
That said, I have consistently given you props for EA and UA. I don't think they're right but I've always acknowledged they're much better explanations for observations than some of the utter horseshit you see on YouTube.

You can't exactly spend the better part of a decade here establishing your bad will and then expecting people to take you seriously. You need to either assume a new identity (I won't rat you out, I promise), or accept that it will take you multiple years of non-deplorable behaviour to redeem yourself. Until then, you're simply not worth anyone's engagement, so you won't see any engagement from anyone.

I think assuming a new identity would be futile, my posting style wouldn't really be different so I think it would be immediately obvious who it was. I appreciate the offer though. I would argue that my attitude has softened significantly since I first came here and that has led to better relations with other posters more recently. I would ask you to consider the thought that me disagreeing with you isn't dishonesty.

While we're here, and in an attempt to get things on a more cordial footing, if you were to design a "final experiment" then what would it be? I don't think it's possible to design one which would really end all debate but is there one which in your mind would help to distinguish between the two models?

[mahogany]

While we're here, and in an attempt to get things on a more cordial footing, if you were to design a "final experiment" then what would it be? I don't think it's possible to design one which would really end all debate but is there one which in your mind would help to distinguish between the two models?

Was asking the same question to myself; I believe the outcome (no matter what experiment is designed - even sending FE'ers to space to orbit the Earth to observe Earth's curvature or shape) will be similar to "The Final Experiment" in that it will be labelled a scam, fakery done in a studio, or that the FE participants were grifters.

I also don't believe the majority of self-proclaimed FE'ers sincerely believe that the Earth is flat. Instead I believe that flat earth provides them with an avenue of expressing their contempt--disdain--skepticism with things like science, institutions, government agencies, or that which they might not fully understand.
       

[RonJ]

I also don't believe the majority of self-proclaimed FE'ers sincerely believe that the Earth is flat. Instead I believe that flat earth provides them with an avenue of expressing their contempt--disdain--skepticism with things like science, institutions, government agencies, or that which they might not fully understand.

Perhaps there was some initial contempt and/or disdain for science & government at the start for a few of the flat earthers but the ones who jumped all in it also became a career opportunity.  I think it’s a bit strange, but you must admire their entrepreneurial spirit. What’s even stranger is that the round earth community is indirectly helping them out.  Controversy is the needed thing to keep things going.  The ‘final experiment’ did fan those flames a bit and will ultimately help their cause.  Some of the more popular flat earth deniers probably are doing OK for themselves as well.  My hat is off to both sides in that aspect.  I did take a look at the 'Behind The Curve' movie and you can see that the flat earth stars seem to really enjoy their lifestyle.  They can be self-employed and discuss their side of the earth's shape and make a living doing so.  The more they can promote controversy the better things will be for them.  Both sides need their 'fan boys' for support and to keep websites, like this one active.  Both sides need each other to keep things going.  The 'Final Experiment' kind of reminds me of a bull fight.  The bull needs a matador, and the matador needs a bull.  Ole!

[AATW]

A time-lapse? Really? Got a chance to put the whole thing to bed, and two people couldn't stay up to do the whole 24-hour thing live?

Gimme a break.

By the way, I just watched a video about this and they did film a 25 hour real-time video of the 24 hour sun which they are looking at making available.
The issues with that are the camera they used for it records video in 30 minutes chunks and the files are very big so putting them together into a single video has been a challenge.
That has now been done but they're now coming up against a couple of YouTube limitations - apparently videos can only be 12 hours long and file size has to be under 256Gb, which even half of it wouldn't be.
So they're just working round those things before making it available.
Honestly, I'm not sure I would bother watching it as I don't think it would add much to what I've always seen, but if you're sceptical of the timelapse for whatever reason then maybe you'd be interested in the real time version when it is released.

[Action80]

I am not really that interested in watching it either, given the information I am now aware of concerning entire sets allowing for 360^o shooting.

[AATW]

Fine. I just thought I'd mention it as you were complaining about it being a timelapse, for reasons I still don't entirely understand.

[Action80]

Well, I would think the reason would have been obvious, but I will explain further.

Sessions for such momentous events as DJ's broadcasting realize that extended airplay draw the most attention and make a more earnest attempt at drawing attention.

[mahogany]

This is a 360° view; you can turn your camera and/or phone in all directions and watch in 360°.
This is a 10 hour (of 24 hour) continuous shot (I believe additional video's to be released to show the remaining 14 hours)