Flat Earth Society

[Simon_Jester]

No they don't. They've only got it covered in their head. I don't really care about proving it to them; they've already established that their reaction to being proven wrong is to invent another desperate justification for them not being wrong.

If they can bullshit that light arbitrarily follows curved trajectories (trivially refuted by playing around with lasers and mirrors, if anyone cared) they can bullshit anything, including nonconservation of angular momentum. It's mathematically impossible, but no more so than bendy light that just happens to create the illusion of a spherical Earth all across the Earth's surface. Oh, and that probably has to vary the degree of bending over time to preserve the illusion and keep the seasons working.

You cannot cure "batshit crazy" or "trolling" using a logical argument. Doesn't work.

So if you want a simple experiment that indicates the Earth is round, that's it. It won't convince people who can't be convinced, but that's kind of inevitable.

[Scottish Ninja]

Of course, that's the same thing that "Ship disappearing below the horizon" is - it's the ship being progressively obscured by the curvature of the Earth, until only the top is visible. A flat Earth should produce the effect of the ship dwindling to a point where the hull remains visible.

In fact, given powerful enough telescopes, ships should never be lost to sight over the horizon at all.

But "bendy light" I guess.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmph. If they had any balls they'd take the Pratchett route:

"You know how ships sometimes disappear over the horizon, like they're sinking over the edge of the world? That's because they are."

[Singular Intellect]

It should be ridiculously obvious that ships 'disappear' over the horizon simply because the flat plate of the earth is flexing under the stress of it's own mass. Like...duh!

[Norade]

If these guys were serious wouldn't they fund an expedition beyond the edge of the world or pay for their own trip into space?

[Solauren]

If these guys were serious wouldn't they fund an expedition beyond the edge of the world or pay for their own trip into space?

If they were smart enough to raise the funds to do that, they wouldn't be Flat Earthers in the first place.

[Panzersharkcat]

If these guys were serious wouldn't they fund an expedition beyond the edge of the world or pay for their own trip into space?

They believe there are soldiers guarding the ice walls who disappear anybody who try to investigate.

[Simon_Jester]

Out of curiosity, how do they explain that you can sail around Antarctica pretty quickly, given that they seem to think of it as being a wall of ice that surrounds the entire world and would logically be many tens of thousands of miles around, larger in radius than the equator?

[Simon_Jester]

EDIT: As in, there are regular 747 flights from Rio de Janeiro to Sydney; a Boeing 747 shouldn't be able to cover the distance between the two cities on the Flat Earth map. It certainly shouldn't be able to do so in a roughly day long flight at subsonic speeds.

[Shroom Man 777]

Out of curiosity, how do they explain that you can sail around Antarctica pretty quickly, given that they seem to think of it as being a wall of ice that surrounds the entire world and would logically be many tens of thousands of miles around, larger in radius than the equator?

Maybe they had it wrong and Antarctica is at the center of the world, while the North Pole surrounds the flat Earth.

[Zaune]

Maybe they had it wrong and Antarctica is at the center of the world, while the North Pole surrounds the flat Earth.

That would mean they've been proved fairly conclusively wrong by things done by the cast of Top Gear on two separate occasions.

Anyone else feel like we're just kicking these people when they're down now?

[Norade]

But, but, the range on the 747 is actually longer than they say. Boeing's part of the aerospace group so they're in on it!

Of course any idiot can tie a camera to a balloon and send it up high enough to see that the Earth is curved.

[Panzersharkcat]

But, but, the range on the 747 is actually longer than they say. Boeing's part of the aerospace group so they're in on it!

Of course any idiot can tie a camera to a balloon and send it up high enough to see that the Earth is curved.

IIRC, they claim that there's an invisible barrier at the top of the ice wall that conveniently keeps air in and apparently blocks all access to space. They also claim gravity is simulated by the flat disc of the Earth accelerating "upwards" at 9.8 m/s^2, with no explanation for what's powering that acceleration, of course.

[Havok]

See... I rarely come into SLAM because I consider it too smart for me, and so much of what is talked about goes over my head.

And here,I find the dumbest thread I have eve read. Go figure.

So where are the stations and towers that transmit the GPS signals? Surely they could be backtracked and traced to their locations.

How does, and did, navigation, minus instruments, work on the ships of old? Some one needs to link a sea captain's forum to this. The hilarity would be astounding.

[Panzersharkcat]

By the tools they use at the Ice Wall. They have huge towers they use for GPS, the Internet, Cell Phones, at the Wall. And they also use it to divert anything that attempts to leave the Earth.

Can't tell if trolling or that dumb.

[evilsoup]

It must be a troll. Normally when people believe stupid shit it is at least understandable: religion gives people hope for something better after death, conspiracy theories give the comforting illusion of living in a world that is not fundamentally cold and uncaring; but what is the point of believing the world is flat? I can't see any psychological need it fills.

[Simon_Jester]

Out of curiosity, how do they explain that you can sail around Antarctica pretty quickly, given that they seem to think of it as being a wall of ice that surrounds the entire world and would logically be many tens of thousands of miles around, larger in radius than the equator?

Maybe they had it wrong and Antarctica is at the center of the world, while the North Pole surrounds the flat Earth.

That would just create the opposite problem- now it would be flights from, oh, Seattle to Tokyo that would take forever. And, again, 747's can't fly that far without refueling.

But, but, the range on the 747 is actually longer than they say. Boeing's part of the aerospace group so they're in on it!

A 747 is still a subsonic airplane, though, and the flight still takes less than 24 hours. Which means the plane flies less than, oh, ten or twelve thousand miles. It's still not gonna work.

[Panzersharkcat]

I hope so because the guy also tried to deny the Holocaust because he never saw it personally or some shit like that, which is nothing on how he apparently believes 9/11 was staged because the buildings themselves did not exist. Yes, he actually said that. The only reason I consider the possibility of that being his real position is that I myself have held some atrocious positions in the past, none of which I will say anything of here.

[evilsoup]

But how do you know if 747s can't fly that far without refuelling? From the technical specs etc. released by the corporations! And who controls the corporations? Why, the Jewish Space Lizards, that's who!

And how do you know the 747 is subsonic? Because it doesn't create a sonic boom when it flies overhead? Don't you know that sonic booms are another deception by the JSLs?

But no, man, you keep on believing what They want you to think, just like all the rest of the sheeple.

EDIT: That guy's pretty obviously a troll. You may need to have your humour detector seen to, Panzershrkcat

[Panzersharkcat]

I have very few points put into "Detect Troll." I tend to assume people like that are just morons.

[Simon_Jester]

Eh. I'm not putting any more effort than that.

The reason I use 747 flights as my refutation is that it's easy to look up the relevant info, glance at a 'flat Earth' map, and do the math.

For some exploration of the geopolitical consequences of a flat Earth, see here. Missile Gap, by Charlie Stross. Good shit.

Also, nuclear ekranoplans!

[The Vortex Empire]

By the tools they use at the Ice Wall. They have huge towers they use for GPS, the Internet, Cell Phones, at the Wall. And they also use it to divert anything that attempts to leave the Earth.

Can't tell if trolling or that dumb.

But... If there were giant towers at the edge of the world, and the world is flat, you could grab a telescope and see them! Goddamn I hate stupid people.

[Panzersharkcat]

By the tools they use at the Ice Wall. They have huge towers they use for GPS, the Internet, Cell Phones, at the Wall. And they also use it to divert anything that attempts to leave the Earth.

Can't tell if trolling or that dumb.

But... If there were giant towers at the edge of the world, and the world is flat, you could grab a telescope and see them! Goddamn I hate stupid people.

They'd answer that the same way they answer the horizon question: with "bendy light!"

[evilsoup]

By the tools they use at the Ice Wall. They have huge towers they use for GPS, the Internet, Cell Phones, at the Wall. And they also use it to divert anything that attempts to leave the Earth.

Can't tell if trolling or that dumb.

But... If there were giant towers at the edge of the world, and the world is flat, you could grab a telescope and see them! Goddamn I hate stupid people.

"bendy light"

EDIT:GODdamnit ninja'd

[Luke Skywalker]

You know, the site justifies the government not shutting it down by saying that nobody really takes them seriously, but that they might get suspicious if the site were to be taken down.

So what the true FE believers could do is to post messages online and hard copies of their mission to travel to the edge of the Earth, get a bunch of private planes and try making the trip. If the government stops them and kills/detains them, then the forum would mysteriously go dead and several people would mysteriously go missing, thus provoking serious suspicion.