Flat earth conspiracy spreads globally

trustbutverify said:
Well, I'd be interested in a method that reliably converts gravity deniers into rational human beings. I might even be able to pick up some pointers. Could you provide a few JREF/ISF links where you successively employed this method on some hardcore conspiracy warriors?
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Antigravity obsession and 9/11 are two types of woo (which come to mind) I have no ability to address.

9/11 is like a deist flavor of religion, in that you can't prove nobody knew it was coming. It's really unlikely in my mind, but it's not 100% completely impossible.

It kind of falls under the umbrella of this:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/pap...Bale/26ff6be33c8775e385504ae7e5a9b988b4658417

Political paranoia v. political realism: on distinguishing between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiratorial politics
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ABSTRACT
Scholars and intellectuals often fail to pay sufficient attention to the historical and political importance of conspiratorial politics, that is, real-world covert and clandestine activities. This is primarily because they rarely make an effort to distinguish conceptually between such activities, which are a regular if not omnipresent feature of national and international politics, and bogus ‘conspiracy theories’, elaborate fantasies that purport to show that various sinister, powerful groups with evil intentions, operating behind the scenes, are secretly controlling the course of world events. Bale's purpose is to provide a clear analytical distinction between actual conspiratorial politics and ‘conspiracy theories’ in the pejorative sense of that term, and to suggest that research methods appropriate to investigating and analysing the former have long been available. In a world full of secret services, surreptitious pressure groups, criminal cartels and terrorist organizations, academics can no longer afford to ignore bona fide conspiratorial activities of various types, which have often had considerable historical significance in the past and are likely to continue to exert an impact on events in the future.
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The antigravity people are a different thing alltogether, it seems. It would take someone with significant expertise in physics to try my method and see if it even works with them. But I have seen an actual physicist try to teach them, and the way it goes is, the scientist goes on and on starting from scratch till the believer can't follow the math any more, and starts just making things up to cover for their ignorance, and when the physicist pinpoints the place it goes wrong, the woo goes full Godwin's law, like clockwork.

BUT - that wasn't using my method (I don't think) where you make sure to the best of your ability to not let the believer's (or even your own!) ego get tied up in the outcome of the discussion. You have to remember that people feeling humiliated dig in deeper. You can't learn when you're feeling over-the-top defensive. That's true of almost everyone.

But most of the time the physicist gets so enraged over being called a Nazi for knowing how to do math, they go into full on roast mode. Which is definitely understandable. And quite entertaining to watch, I have to admit.

eta:
Another principal of my method, is that you have to have the same debate at least 3 times with someone who's DEEP into the belief. They don't really accept it the first or second time, even though they know. The belief that they're right and just couldn't quite prove it sticks around and re-emerges as certainty in the belief again. I don't think I've ever seen someone stick with the demonstrably false belief even after 5 rounds tho.
 
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PhantomWolf said:
If you want to see a real online hate group mob behavior with absolutely no socially useful function, go and read the comments that the Flat Earthers make about people that dare to stand up and say that they are wrong.
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Where?
 
Hey question

How much would it cost the Flat Earther's to rent or lease a long range transport plane and just fly to and over the Antarctic ice barrier?

What would that be like 200,000 USD or so?
 
Hans said:
Hey question

How much would it cost the Flat Earther's to rent or lease a long range transport plane and just fly to and over the Antarctic ice barrier?

What would that be like 200,000 USD or so?
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Even if you flew them there and showed them the facts, they'd just come up with another "theory." There is no end to one's ability to make **** up to justify one's beliefs.
 
Hans said:
Hey question

How much would it cost the Flat Earther's to rent or lease a long range transport plane and just fly to and over the Antarctic ice barrier?

What would that be like 200,000 USD or so?
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Cheaper to buy a box of chalks to mark the position of shadows, go to Singapore (plus a few more places on the so-called equator) and record the sun travelling across the sky in a continuous straight line from due East to due West.

Hmm. A line which doesn't deviate to right or left, yet after 24 hours somehow joins up into a circle. If only there were some other dimension in which it could curve.
 
shemp said:
Even if you flew them there and showed them the facts, they'd just come up with another "theory." There is no end to one's ability to make **** up to justify one's beliefs.
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This is the other trap "Can't win" thing the Woo Slingers, Woo Apologists, and other people with anti-intellectual chips on their shoulders have got us in.

1. You can't reason people out of an opinion they didn't reason themselves into.

2. You can't use anything other then reason because that makes you a big mean poopie head member of a hate cult.

People who demand "Skeptics" are only allowed softly and meekly go "You're wrong" in neutered, Milquetoast ways and do absolutely nothing else are the problem here.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Note, some of these comments are NSFW.... okay, most of them are.

...

And that's just against one person!
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I'm tempted to say Dan gets the worst of the worst, but that level of vile ad hom is actually pretty standard. It's just ludicrous.

Another YT I've been catching up on is potholer54. He lays out a lot of basic math showing that the geometry just plain fails for a discworld.
A favorite of mine from one of his vids... everyone accepts a northern hemisphere "celestial pole", currently that closely tracks Polaris. Look North from anywhere (N. Hemi) and the sky rotates about a fixed point. Fine.
Now explain the Southern Celestial Pole on a flat Earth.
:D
 
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Jim_MDP said:
I'm tempted to say Dan gets the worst of the worst, but that level of vile ad hom is actually pretty standard. It's just ludicrous.
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Yup, I've had a few in reply to my posts too, but as a commentor rather than a creator, I face it less, but yeah, I could have picked any of about 5-6 I watch who do comments, though most have them inside their videos rather than as a whole video as Dan does.

Another YT I've been catching up on is potholer54. He lays out a lot of basic math showing that the geometry just plain fails for a discworld.
A favorite of mine from one of his vids... everyone accepts a northern hemisphere "celestial pole", currently that closely tracks Polaris. Look North from anywhere (N. Hemi) and the sky rotates about a fixed point. Fine.
Now explain the Southern Celestial Pole on a flat Earth.
:D
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Points at the flag in sig......
 
Hans said:
Hey question

How much would it cost the Flat Earther's to rent or lease a long range transport plane and just fly to and over the Antarctic ice barrier?

What would that be like 200,000 USD or so?
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The stupid prick in the Netflix documentary, Mark Sergeant could just get a window seat on the Lufthansa flight the goes daily between Seattle and Frankfurt for about $1300 round trip and request a window seat. He lives near Seattle. I've taken that flight many times and you can see the curvature of the earth when the plane is over the pole. KLM has a flight between Seattle and Amsterdam every day for about the same price. The return flights that leave at around 0800 Central European Time give you the best light for viewing the curvature.

Traveling might open his eyes to a world beyond his mom's basement (where he actually lives). He could maybe take a Viking River Cruise and really open his horizons.
 
Craig4 said:
The stupid prick in the Netflix documentary, Mark Sergeant could just get a window seat on the Lufthansa flight the goes daily between Seattle and Frankfurt for about $1300 round trip and request a window seat. He lives near Seattle. I've taken that flight many times and you can see the curvature of the earth when the plane is over the pole. KLM has a flight between Seattle and Amsterdam every day for about the same price. The return flights that leave at around 0800 Central European Time give you the best light for viewing the curvature.

Traveling might open his eyes to a world beyond his mom's basement (where he actually lives). He could maybe take a Viking River Cruise and really open his horizons.
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I tried that and the clever conspirators had fitted trick windows to the plane to make the earth look curved. Viking cruise, ha. If the earth were curved, the water would fall out the ends and the boat would run aground. Don't you know anything?
 
PhantomWolf said:
Note, some of these comments are NSFW.... okay, most of them are.

[snip]

And that's just against one person!
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Oh, yeah, youtube comments are just flooded with trolls and other nefarious characters. It's not a place to try to have a discussion about anything, ever.
 
kellyb said:
Oh, yeah, youtube comments are just flooded with trolls and other nefarious characters. It's not a place to try to have a discussion about anything, ever.
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Since this Arguement was settled Scientifically 4000 years ago in Anchent Greece, with two sticks. I haven't given it much thought. However reading the thread and watching a few video made me wonder if it was a mistake for our Anchent Fish ancestors to crawl out of the Oceans?
It seems some people's brain cells clearly are not getting enough ixygen in air.
 
I think it's more psychological than intelligence-based. The overwhelming need people have to feel important, different, and to stand out. It's a powerful drug. And it will make people believe nonsense like the flat earth.
 
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