I think this is the bulk of people who claim to be flat earthers.
Check out the ISS instagram account. Dummies can’t wait to post comments how NASA is fake and the earth is flat.
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Have been somewhat reluctant (tongue in cheek) to accept the earth-is-not-flat assertion for a while, (since well before this current wave of flat earth lunacy).
The problem is I think that in the popular view there’s some conflicting logic in assumptions around this concept of “flat”.
On the one hand - you have a notion that goes along the lines of -
- “that plane surface which has no curvature anywhere”
… and on the other -
- “the surface which is everywhere 90° to the pull of gravity”
Of course we know that if the surface in the first case is very large, then it “appears” to a person that there’s no curve, (especially if they’re not looking very hard, and located close to the surface). The conflict creeps in with the notion that things are arbitrarily scalable, (maybe it’s some quirk of the human mind to assume that things can freely scale concepts without them changing in their essence). Perhaps the source of confusion it is that the concept of “flatness” is too simplistic, in that it can’t, (nor should perhaps anything) - be considered conceptually complete without including scale in the equation. Looking out into the cosmos or at the microscopic level nothing is really flat - even the rings of Saturn are only very loosly arranged objects held in an orbital-ly planar fashion. Normal processes that we’ve observed don’t really seem to support the existence of extremely large (or small) “flat” things. What would gravity on a super massive obelisk be like, anyway? You’d walk towards the edges - but it would start to feel steeper and steeper as the center of gravity falls further behind, at the furthest extremity you’d have to cling ladders like a sort of cliff dwelling?
If we allow that flatness in the first criterion’s sense isn’t arbitrarily scalable - and that we can transfer our definitional terms to the second notion when sufficiently large chunks of matter are involved - then we could possibly arrive at a situation where everyone, (whatever shape surface they happen to reside upon) could agree.
So in this (perhaps somewhat) re-concilliatory analysis : yes, the earth is “flat” - (it’s just that at very large scales flat is also spherical).
Even at very small scale, the earth’s curvature is simply measured with a flashlight and some sticks and a kilometer or water.
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Oh, no doubt - I’m just saying that it seems the particular idea the flat-earth people lack is an appreciation of the distinction (and appropriate scope of applications) between topological and gravitational notions of flatness. Taking their statements in good-faith, (questionable I know) - there are clearly several levels of prerequisite education that would be needed to arrive at a solid understanding.
In all seriousness though, the flat-earth as a movement thing does sometimes feel like a form of epistemological-vandalism-as-protest. (That’s how the one person who I know who half-entertains these notions seems to think of it as, (they’re intelligent - not traditionally educated, and highly distrustful of authority, (which, somewhat oddly, to me at least - they consider the sciences to be representative of)). I think it’s actually missing the point somewhat to merely refute the logic of the claims without considering the underlying cultural malaise and meta-conversations that are involved.
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Oh, but you see this isn’t real. It’s just props in the dome.
It’s useless arguing with these people. For every scientific fact, they will come up with some crazy justification. And all for what? What is there to gain by pushing a “round earth agenda”?
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Ha! I wish! Life got in the way, so i stopped producing them about 13 years ago. We were way too ahead of the curve to get any real traction, but it was fun.
My neighborhood is mostly registered Democrat, but there are a scary number of chemtrail and antivax people showing their true colors on Nextdoor.
I don’t think ignorance is a left-right issue, at least when it comes to voters. Willful ignorance, well that’s what the GOP leadership practices.
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But they don’t need all those things, because they have “common sense,” don’t you know…
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The ones who say things like, “I saw a trail in the sky and then I had an asthma attack”
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I have an op-ed in today’s Globe and Mail , “Why do people believe the Earth is flat?” wherein I connect the rise of conspiratorial thinking to the rise in actual conspiracies, in which increasingly concentrated industries are able to come up with collective lobbying positions that result in everything from crashing 737s to toxic baby-bottle liners to the opioid epidemic.
So you’re saying that people are figuring it out? That our corporate overlords can’t hide in plain sight anymore? And yet, they do. Trump has yet to be impeached, and he is a fat pustule of evil.
Uh…
(padding)
Anyone who believes Big Data actually works should buy a washing machine on Amazon. The observation that all the Amazon ads on random web sites will suddenly start offering them more washing machines ought to tell them something.
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Christ. Tell me the hood, and I’ll drive around with a steam pump leaving vapour trails.
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Well, what route would you suggest after traveling through the hollow earth???
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There’s sweet sweet NASA grant money that you spend on convertibles and margarita machines.
That’s what the lizardoids want you to think. They’ve taken over key leadership positions to delay our interstellar space drive program.
They’re trying to suppress this footage of water finding its level.
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Even better, this thread was asking about a bad smell in the neighborhood. And received several links to chem-trail conspiracies.
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Welcome to boingboing.
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The answer won’t surprise you: Santa Cruz Mountains.
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- The ability to see much further than the globe model allows.
Indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T874RMncnAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nUFLLUahSI
