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Flat earthers

theprestige said:
It's not an operational short cut, though. For almost all of human history, it's been a practical reality. Even today for almost everyone, almost all of the time, it's still a practical reality.

When people treat the earth as flat, they're not taking a "shortcut". They're operating in the most natural, intuitive way. And it's effective, too.

Very few people in the history of mankind have ever been in a position where they were required to add any operational complexity to the equation. And even they could dispense with the complexity, almost all of the time.
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Well, if you don't get outdoors much, never travel, and never communicate with people elsewhere in the world, then perhaps yes.

But if you want to understand why the sun rises and sets, why there are tides and seasons, and have an idea of what to expect from weather systems, then you need to know that Earth is round.

And if you travel by sea or air, even long distances over land, or if you want to communicate across time-zones, it is absolutely essential to know.

Hans
 
theprestige said:
Very few people in the history of mankind have ever been in a position where they were required to add any operational complexity to the equation. And even they could dispense with the complexity, almost all of the time.
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Except they already did by extrapolating to "earth." In other than man-made structures, I find the near-me to be other than flat - it's actually quite bumpy on small scales. I only get "flat" if I expend some effort to create it.
 
I don't know if anyone has mentioned him yet, but the guy with the long, red hair and the headband is engaging in parody. His channel is called AwakenWithJP, and he's got some pretty funny stuff. Here's one of my favorites about being "gluten intolerant".
 
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My favorite trend is for flat earth advocates to argue big things, like railways, don't curve around the Earth because they are the same height above sea level at either end. Apparently the idea of the sea curving around a sphere makes no sense.

This lead to at least one video of a guy complaining rivers should not flow North, as water can not flow uphill.
 
Tomtomkent said:
My favorite trend is for flat earth advocates to argue big things, like railways, don't curve around the Earth because they are the same height above sea level at either end. Apparently the idea of the sea curving around a sphere makes no sense.

This lead to at least one video of a guy complaining rivers should not flow North, as water can not flow uphill.
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I saw a guy claim that the Mississippi River would have to flow thousands oof feet uphill before going back down. It demonstrates such a profound ignorance of physics that it took me a little while to unpack what he even meant.
 
Tomtomkent said:
My favorite trend is for flat earth advocates to argue big things, like railways, don't curve around the Earth because they are the same height above sea level at either end. Apparently the idea of the sea curving around a sphere makes no sense.
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On more than one occasion I've read Flat Earthers say "It's called sea level, not sea curve, for a reason!"
 
fibbermcgee said:
How do they explain radar loss at about 200 miles?
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They explain it as voodoo. Unflatearthly evil spirits lurk beyond the Two Hundred Mile Zone™ and no wise man has dared go see where all others have only perished. Either that or the earth is round. :eek:

JesseCuster said:
On more than one occasion I've read Flat Earthers say "It's called sea level, not sea curve, for a reason!"
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"It is anchorman, not anchorlady! And that is a scientific fact!"
 
I see a lot of non-flat-earthers here asking other non-flat-earthers what flat-earthers believe. Seems to me that if you want a real answer to your questions about what flat-earthers believe, non-flat-earthers possibly aren't the best people to be asking.

I know that Marsh has had at least one flat-earther on the Be Reasonable podcast. You might want to try that out if you want a real answer.
 
arthwollipot said:
I see a lot of non-flat-earthers here asking other non-flat-earthers what flat-earthers believe. Seems to me that if you want a real answer to your questions about what flat-earthers believe, non-flat-earthers possibly aren't the best people to be asking.

I know that Marsh has had at least one flat-earther on the Be Reasonable podcast. You might want to try that out if you want a real answer.
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Are you suggesting that any specific answers given here are wrong? Because it's not necessarily true that asking someone who believes something to explain his beliefs is preferable to asking someone else who has looked into those beliefs but doesn't believe them.

I'd even suggest that someone from the outside often has more clarity about a set of beliefs than those on the inside, though certainly that's not always the case. There's also the issue of honesty. For instance if you want to understand the Intelligent Design movement, you are actually better of talking to their critics than those who espouse it, because they are deliberately deceitful about the nature of their beliefs.
 
arthwollipot said:
I see a lot of non-flat-earthers here asking other non-flat-earthers what flat-earthers believe. Seems to me that if you want a real answer to your questions about what flat-earthers believe, non-flat-earthers possibly aren't the best people to be asking.

I know that Marsh has had at least one flat-earther on the Be Reasonable podcast. You might want to try that out if you want a real answer.
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I think most of us have some idea about that they believe, but I agree that it is not very interesting to discuss what we all think they think.

And it seems the flat-earthers visiting this forum (and there are some) do at least have enough common sense to stay low.

Hans
 
arthwollipot said:
I'm really not sure how you got to there from anything I said.
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I didn't, that's why I asked.

What I did get was that you suggested that we'd be better to ask flat earthers what they believe than asking non-flat earthers what flat-earthers believe. But if the non-flat earthers aren't actually wrong about anything they are saying, I'm not seeing why you think it's a bad idea.

The relevant quality isn't who believes what, but instead what they know about others' beliefs.
 
Roboramma said:
I didn't, that's why I asked.

What I did get was that you suggested that we'd be better to ask flat earthers what they believe than asking non-flat earthers what flat-earthers believe. But if the non-flat earthers aren't actually wrong about anything they are saying, I'm not seeing why you think it's a bad idea.

The relevant quality isn't who believes what, but instead what they know about others' beliefs.
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The point isn't that the non-flat-earthers are actually wrong, it's that we don't know whether they're wrong or not.
 
arthwollipot said:
I see a lot of non-flat-earthers here asking other non-flat-earthers what flat-earthers believe. Seems to me that if you want a real answer to your questions about what flat-earthers believe, non-flat-earthers possibly aren't the best people to be asking.

I know that Marsh has had at least one flat-earther on the Be Reasonable podcast. You might want to try that out if you want a real answer.
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good point,
creating an echo chamber is never a good idea.

its not flat though.
 
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