Talk:Flat Earth/Archive1

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This

This is the first article I've written, hopefully we can make it better. I think it's kind of an important article, because Flat Earthism is something that no normal person believes in, but those who do believe in it have used many of the same tactics as those who deny evolution and global warming. For example, in 1931, $5,000 was offered for anyone who could prove that the earth was round. That money was never collected, so therefore the Earth is flat. :-P Slink 18:01, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Man, antarctica is funkier than i thought. Where's the "There be monsters"?--PalMD^{-If it looks like a donut, eat it} 18:35, 5 November 2007 (EST)

They believe that Antarctica is not actually a continent. Instead, toward what we consider the center of antarctica, there is a 150-foot Ice Wall. Slink 18:37, 5 November 2007 (EST)

It's Elder Things who're messing everything up, you know. If we could only perceive the world in its proper twelve dimensions, everything would be much clearer. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 18:40, 5 November 2007 (EST)

I'm replacing the external link, because you linked to the parody Flat Earth Society instead of the real Flat Earth Society. :-P Trust me, these dudes are kooky enough. Slink 18:48, 5 November 2007 (EST)

OMG, you guys are too much. Finding this site makes me want to go do some celebratory strawman editing of conservapedia.

The end of the Illuminatus! trilogy suggests that the FES is, in fact, one big parody. (In you heart, you know it's flat)

Spherical

Shouldn't we say "spherical" - or is that heresy? --Bob^{bing up} 13:50, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

Relgion?

While I don't doubt for a second that the vast majority of the (real) flat-earthers are probably religious and likely to be creationists too, a quick scan of the forums of the main society doesn't show any arguments from scripture or anyhthing that would put the motives as being religious in nature. If I've just missed it after being smacked in the face by so much wierdness, please let me know ArmondikoV^bomination 13:19, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

I've been round those forums a few times in the past and there were certainly some religious types (or apparently religious types) debating there.--Bob^{bing up} 13:28, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

The FAQ on the flat earth society forum claims they are not religious but there still are some who use scripture as 'proof' of a flat earth. The religious people, strangely enough, seem to be the most sane on those forums.--gckaufman^lax

Poe's law

This would seem to be another example of Poe's Law. A good percentage of people posting of the flat earth forum must be parodists. But which ones? --Bob^{bing up} 13:30, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Upon extensive examination of their forums, it is clear that the members with 4000+ posts are deadly serious. I made an account to view theirs; their post counts are all genuine. Most of the trolls who pretend to be Flat-Earthists are easy to pick out. The bonafide Flat Earthists' beliefs are so wacky, though, the line can be hard to draw...

The Flat Earth Society isn't even a Poe, it's openly parody. It's about as serious as Pastafarianism.

I thought it was well known that the FES existed to parodise the fact that you can invent made-up science to explain why any ridiculous pseudoscience claim is true. I think the joke is on this RW article to be honest... ERK! | Complaints Hotline 02:33, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

While I think a good chunk of them are Poes, there do seem to be serious people there. People who, in an effort to win arguments, would derail a thread so fast it gave people whiplash, and use so many red herrings and straw men than Poseidon vomiting on a scarecrow convention. If it was just about making fun of pseudoscience, there'd be a lot more making fun of pseudoscience and less stupidity.Onychoprion (talk) 06:10, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Banner?

I'm so glad someone took the time to put a "Bull" template on the Flat Earth article, otherwise I might have fallen for it! RoundRobyn 21:19, 19 December 2008 (EST)

Shome mishtake shurely

"... one that lived mostly on a large plain would reach this flat conclusion as "common sense" fairly readily." Surely living on a large plain, like living by the ocean, would negate the idea of a flat Earth; the plain, if large enuff, would give the same indications of disappearing downwards with distance, no? Now someone living in a jungle, with no distance visible would have no idea of curvature. 11:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps. Although anywhere where you'd only experience local curvature (which is negligible) would do. A mountainous region where you can't make sense of any curvature, or a large plain that really does look flat. ^narchist 12:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Live Flat-Earther at GLP?

Here's a Flat Earth thread at Godlike Productions. Doesn't look like a troll.

the facts and figures that we know about science and the solar system are gathered from WHAT "THEY" TELL US" and "nothing more",one percent of one percent of one percent of people are scientists,im not in the habit of blindly believing what "they" tell me when "they" the governments "and the scientists that are on the governments payroll", are the same people that make most of us finacially suffer throughout our only lives and send millions of youth off to their deaths in their wars for oil and conquest, all throughout this thread i said the sun is perhaps "thousands of miles" away ...not feet... and i can assure anyone,without fear of denial or ridicule,that the sun is no way 93 million miles away,just go out and look at the damn thing...none the less...hold out a gallon of water at arms length,it weighs around eight pounds and it starts to get fairly heavy pretty quick,now the weight of the oceans,which have an average depth of 2 MILES and are up to around 7 MILES deep in places,are in the order of millions upon millions of tons and they just casually adhere themselves to the ROUND earth without falling off!?,they say gravity is a very weak force,yet it gracefully holds the gigantic weight of the oceans...I'M NOT BUYING IT FOR A SECOND.... - mike

--ZooGuard (talk) 13:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Qur'an

I have cut this to the talk page temporarily because I'm concerned about the translation of some of them. I can only find some of them on flat Earth forums and not actually in the Qur'an. E.g., the first one is only written as "level" plain on a thread in the Flat Earth forums and this article. Mainstream translations say something completely different. ADK^{...I'll coax your railing!} 13:22, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Considering just the first one, 18:47, that is a real translation, the Shakir translation. It is a bit controversial, due to allegations of "plagarism", and a Shia bias (see here). But I doubt it has any "flat earther" or anti-Muslim bias. The much more respected Yusuf Ali is somewhat similar and thou wilt see the earth as a level stretch. See e.g. here. Haven't checked the rest. But, I assume these are actually legitimate translations, just they carefully select the ones that best meet their agenda (people do the same thing with translations of Jewish and Christian scriptures too) (((Zack Martin)))^™ 13:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll run them through Quran.com and try to figure out which translation goes where. ADK^{...I'll deconstruct your pile of flaming horse feces!} 14:18, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

---

Flat earth according the Qur'an

These verses would only be applicable to a flat earth belief

Sura An-Naml (27

61)

Is not He (better than your gods) Who has made the earth as a fixed abode, and has placed rivers in its midst, and has placed firm mountains therein, and has set a barrier between the two seas (of salt and sweet water).Is there any ilâh (god) with Allâh? Nay, but most of them know not.

Sura Al-Kahf (18

86)

Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water. And he found near it a people. We (Allâh) said (by inspiration): "O Dhul-Qarnain! Either you punish them, or treat them with kindness."

Sura Al-Kahf (18

90)

Until, when he came to the rising place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We (Allâh) had provided no shelter against the sun.

Sura Yasin (36

38)

And the sun runs on its fixed course for a term (appointed). That is the Decree of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing.

Sura Yasin (36

40)

It is not for the sun to overtake the moon, nor does the night outstrip the day. They all float, each in an orbit.

---

A FIXED earth, but not a flat earth. if the earth does not spin and is the center of the universe, then the sun would rise and set. But please remember, by 600 CE it was known that the earth was not flat. I doubt you could make a compelling argument that the Qur'an reflects a flat earth. fixed, sure. En attendant Godot 15:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I would reckon the point of the text was not to declare whether the earth was flat or spherical; any mention of the shape of the earth is in service of some other point (remembering that the Quran is highly poetic and figurative). Even today, when almost everyone believes the earth is round, people often use language which has flat-earth implications (e.g. "four corners of the earth"), because those set words or phrases originated when a flat earth was the common belief. We shouldn't read that language to imply the speaker actually believes the earth is flat. If the Quran somewhere uses such language, why should we conclude it means literally that the earth is flat? A lot of language is ambiguous anyway - to a flat-earther, the "surface" of the earth is a clear indication of a flat earth, to a sphericalist it is talking about the surface of the sphere. If we then say that surface is "flat", to a flat-earther that is more proof a flat earth is meant, to a sphericalist it means the surface of the sphere is smooth and level rather than heavily indented. (((Zack Martin)))^™ 20:16, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, this is exactly what we see in stuff like this and this. It's practically a trope in itself. ADK^{...I'll glug your sceptre!} 01:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

No, intelligent adults should not think that. The problem is, less intelligent adults read a book "by" a man; a book that posits peace above all else, a book that shows that said man at every turn of his life save 3 turned AWAY from violence; a book that explicitly says if you are going to war for faith, there may be NO innocents killed (we use the term collateral damage today) and these people, who read the very words of their holy leader, still manage to kill thousands at a time blowing up trains, busses and buildings. A leader who said "a woman should be BEATEN for sexual immorality (in context, please remember it was the custom of per islamic arabs to cut off women's heads for immorality) becomes justification for returning to stoning women. (that, by the way, is in the christian bible, not hte qur'an, but i digress). We make pages like these to mock the idiots who think that poetry about "rivers under the oceans" is really some kind of fucking foreknowledge of deep see currents or rips in the earth's mantel. That said, being the bitch I am, I expect people to correctly cite their ripping of fundis. ;-)En attendant Godot 14:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy navbar

Wouldn't the pseudoscience one be more appropriate?--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 22:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

A nice article about Wallace's legal problems with a flatearther

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/2015/01/12/wallaces-woeful-wager-how-a-founder-of-modern-biology-got-suckered-by-flat-earthers/ The book mentioned in the references should also make a good source of material for the article or listed as "Further reading" here.--ZooGuard (talk) 15:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Some BoN. Poe? =

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/3alr88/think_flat_earthers_are_crazy_watch_this/

FLAT EARTGERS ARE RIGHT ^{— Unsigned, by: 70.210.129.4 / talk / contribs} 14:52, 21 June 2015‎ (UTC)

Should this include Anti-Flat-Earth Arguments?

Off the top of my head, the tendency of large mountain ranges to affect surveyors' instruments, fitting Newtonian gravity, satellites, photos of Antarctica, the behavior of Foucault's pendulum, the visibility and invisibility of different stars at different latitudes, and the reputed appearance of distant ships - though flat-Earthers could use optical looming as a counterargument. 108.45.79.25 (talk) 21:12, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, primarily! Rational thinking, not theory!

HELP PLEASE! Can someone help me add and image and reference to the weather satellites showing that Antarctica is a normal continent. http://meteonews.ch/en/Satellite_Image/CAQ/Antarctica

Note also, the distances, ocean currents in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are very similar. The southern and northern jet=streams have the same character and speed. Only possible on a globe! http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/global/jet.html

Aurora Australis not possible in a flat-earth model Please help add this too? http://www.aurora-service.net/aurora-forecast/ Rangutan (talk) 05:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Mountains = giant silicon trees

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon Bar.

http://secretenergy.com/news/are-these-giant-prehistoric-trees/

https://ufoholic.com/forbidden-history/flat-earth-supporter-claims-mountains-ancient-remains-gigantic-silicon-trees/

http://www.conjectureviews.co.uk/2016/08/the-giant-sionzion-trees-of-old-have.html?m=1

http://www.exohuman.com/wordpress/2016/08/there-are-no-forests-on-our-flat-earth/

It's not stupidity, it's a new kind of genius at this point. Diacelium (talk) 11:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Yhea... that is some next level stupidity :p TheGrandmother (talk) 16:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The pictures on the first one are decorative (if nothing else). 86.191.125.197 (talk) 22:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

"www.ufoholic.com" — what, they can't stop drinking ufohol? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Moved for posterity. This is a gold mine that should be rememebered. Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 02:24, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I think we should make a page on this. This "theory" has spread on the net, people argue that mesas are tree stumps cut by giants, it should be fun to have a page or a section in the Flat Earth page about it. Diacelium (talk) 11:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

ok so

One Flat earther made the argument that if the earth was spherical rivers would flow uphill could anyone debunk this please so I can add it to the main page --Godonaldgo (talk) 19:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Debunk: "Gravity goes "down". Water is affected by gravity. Ergo, water goes down. On a sphere, this means it goes downhill. The lower water can get, the closer it is to the center of the spherical earth -- and thus to the center of gravity, which it is attracted to." Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 20:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

A glaring pitfall

If the Earth really WAS flat, then there would not be any need for the science behind map projection, wouldn't there? No arguments on whether Mercator or Gall-Peters is any better than Azimuthal or Dymaxion projections. ^{— Unsigned, by: 75.49.8.71 / talk / contribs}

Amusingly, that's an argument flat-Earthers use against the round Earth: maps exist. The argument goes that "if the Earth were truly spherical, then a globe would be the best map for use in navigation, but sailors of olde always took flat maps! Checkmate!" Though it is amusing that FEers can't agree on which map is accurate. The two major ones are the mono-polar one, centered at the North Pole with Antarctica forming an ice-wall (to keep the oceans from falling off, presumably; also to provide an impenetrable barrier for people trying to explore south because nobody's ever done a trans-Antarctic journey before, and a dual-pole one, which is a huge distortion of landmasses (even moreso than the monopole) in an attempt to explain the south celestial pole (while simultaneously doing even worse than the monopole at explaining solstices and airline flight paths). Onychoprion (talk) 21:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Flat astronomy

A (being sarcastic) response elsewhere to a 'flat earther' wondered about 'flat other planets.'

Would be an interesting universe. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:25, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

... and [1] may cause mild brainwarp (Clangers world makes more sense). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:36, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

ok so again

someone made the argument that if the earth was spherical why aren't buildings built at a angle and why aren't they upside down, please debunked this argument please so I can put it on the main page --Godonaldgo (talk) 21:35, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The golden gate bridge dose have this problem. The top of the tower's is farther from each other then the bass of the bridge.--2d4chanfag (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

@2d4chanfag Did I misread that, or did you just express that the Golden Gate bridge is proof in favor of flat earthism? I probably misread that. Hehe. Honest question. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 07:11, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Most flat earther arguments blow up as soon as you consider a spherical planet with a larger radius than a few kilometers or so... this one is an example. --Imaginative username (talk) 15:33, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

You did, Reverend. "The top of the tower's is farther from each other then the bass of the bridge." Each tower is perpendicular to the horizontal (pointing at/away from the core), and they're far enough apart, and tall enough, that their tops are thus more distant from each-other than their bases. While in theory every suspension bridge has this feature, there are a few extra-long and extra-tall ones where the difference is in human terms: centimeters, not micrometers. I believe there's a bridge near New York City that's even more pronounced than the Golden Gate. Edit: The other bridge is called the Nerrazano-Narrows Bridge, where the difference in distance of the towers from top to bottom is measured in centimeters. Onychoprion (talk) 21:48, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Mostly, this is a problem of imagination and scale. With a planet the size of Earth, by the time two vertical towers (buildings, suspension bridge supports, radio masts, etc.) are far enough apart to be visibly tilting away from each-other, they're well beyond the horizon and thus can't be seen. For the longest-span suspension bridge, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in Japan, the tops of the towers are a full 88 mm farther apart than their bases. Across a span of nearly 2 kilometers. This is not only not noticeable to the naked eye; you'd be hard-pressed to find a camera that'd be able to measure that. You'd have to have a resolution of 10 pixels/meter and a shot wide enough to capture both towers (again, 2 kilometers apart) to get the distance difference to around a single pixel. And by then you probably have more atmosphere and lens distortions that would obscure it.

So, the short answer is: they are tilted away from each-other, but so slightly that it's not readily apparent.

As for buildings being 'upside-down', I'm presuming they mean that buildings in Sydney, Australia should appear inverted with respect to buildings in Chicago, USA. The answer is that they are, but there's several thousand kilometers of opaque Earth in the way preventing viewing the one city directly from the other. One way you could verify this is by measuring the Polaris' angular distance from the zenith (vertical) at both places. Because Polaris barely moves throughout the day, it can be used as a standard direction (this, of course, will be countered by the argument that Polaris is really only, like, 10,000 km from the flat Earth, though that will be hindered by the fact that Polaris will be greater than 90 degrees from zenith in Sydney, which would be impossible for a flat Earth). The difference between those angles is how much buildings in both cities are tilting away from each-other due to their north-south distances.

Math for the distance calculations: Let d1 be the distance between the bases of the towers (such information can be acquired from Google Earth, though in practice this distance isn't more than a meter or so off the recorded span-length of the bridge (which measures the length of the road-way), d2 be the distance between the tops of the towers, h be the height of the towers, r be the radius of the Earth in meters (6371000 is what I used), and a being the angle formed by both towers and the center of the Earth. a = d1/r, and d2 = a*(r + h). (Or, to put it into mathy words, a is the radian angle measurement between the bases of the towers, and thus d2 would be that same radian angle, but measured h meters above the bases). Therefore the distance difference is d2 - d1 = (d1/r) * (r + h) - d1. Plugging in those numbers: (1991m / 6371000m) * (6371283m) - 1991m = .088m. Although I didn't find a direct source confirming this, I tested the algorithm on the Nerrazano-Narrows Bridge, which does have this information. (1299m / 6371000m) * (6371198m) - 1299m = 0.04m, which is quite close to the listed distance of 0.041m

Onychoprion (talk) 21:23, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

The deleted furniture

If four items in a room are chairs the fifth is, logically, unlikely to be so. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

If by deleted you mean this, I put it back after realising my (probable) mistake. But you're right that if you've got four chairs in a room the fifth is probably a table (what room other than wherever you eat are you going to get four chairs?). Christopher (talk) 16:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Written between reversions. If there are 10-15 chairs the undefined article is probably 'a board which can be written upon' (of some kind)

And the religious objections can be got around using some advanced technology called mirrors (and the deities being all seeing and all powerful/occupying multidimensional space ... there is probably an interesting SF story here). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:27, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

No offense, but you always seem to stray into word salad on your 2nd post (on any given topic), and at that point, I can't understand a thing you're saying. Again, no offense meant — especially if you're schizophrenic, etc. We do not look down on mental illness/disability here. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 18:31, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

RBP - I do write fiction and know an eclectic mix of facts, quotes and other material (and sometimes use Brit understatement) - so can see the story possibilities in some of the strange ideas discussed, but am mostly harmless.

Given the nature of gods would the fact that the Earth is a sphere be a problem to them observing it all? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough — I try my best to understand you, either way.

Regarding your (actually quite interesting) question: No, not as long as the deity in question is omnipresent. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:30, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Another case of a problem that isn't there? 86.191.125.152 (talk) 21:20, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Furniture 2

'Would you expect the fifth of the four pieces of furniture in your room to be a chair even when the other four are?' - is even less logical than the original article - is '...the fifth piece of furniture...' what is meant? 86.134.53.15 (talk) 13:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Flat Earth Government Conspiracy

What is the logic behind the concept?

One can see why 'the government/Handshakes/other disliked body' would theoretically want some things covered up - but why not just bring people up with 'the world is flat and this is the proof (even if there is some weird science involved)'? 86.146.100.79 (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

What is the motivation for the conspiracy?

I've been looking around for a little while (not very hard) for an explanation of why NASA, all governments, pilots etc etc would be motivated to cover up that the Earth is flat. What are they supposed to be gaining from doing this? Is there some sort of First Class Lounge beyond the ice wall that only those people know about?^{— Unsigned, by: Anotherhowie / talk / contribs}

The feeling I got from the forums (fora?) was just that the Powers that Be (including airlines, cruise ship operators, etc.) want people to be ignorant. Probably some convoluted mess where if They can keep Us in the dark about this, then We'll not be able to overthrow Them? Like most things FE, it falls apart once you look too closely. Onychoprion (talk) 22:21, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Alternativeky, it is like evolution in that it's a ploy by the Devil to turn us from G-d. --174.255.131.88 (talk) 16:08, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

What Would It Take?

I am a fan of science fiction, fantasy, and their shameful cousin speculative fiction. Partly because of this, I've occasionally wondered what a flat Earth would be like—what changes to the laws of physics it would take to make such a world vaguely resemble ours (such as having gravity always go down, different biomes, and being habitable) and what the side effects of that would be. I've figured out the obvious bits (a universal "downward" force field, a spotlight Sun that shines on the Equator for longer than the "poles," etc), but suspect that there would need to be more to it. I'm also not well-versed enough in planetary sciences to figure out if that would be enough for ocean currents and weather, or what the consequential effects on climate could be.

I've tried Googling questions on the subject, but every page I've found always points to one of three things—pages trying to explain why the Earth is flat, pages trying to explain why those pages are crap, and a Vsauce video which makes relatively shallow observations about a flat Earth with a different set of assumptions. I don't suppose anyone would know where I could find answers to my unusual questions, or be able to answer them themselves?

GreatWyrmGold (talk) 14:57, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I guess that depends on how similar to the real world you want it to be. It wouldn't be all that difficult to have a magical flat planet, once you get rid of gravity (and potentially figure out what's beneath it, whether it's infinite, etc.) Gravity could be acceleration upwards, or some ethereal (or aethereal) force pushing everything down (or, just the natural motion of matter, a la ancient Greek physics). The spotlight sun could work, though you'd need some weird light-bending mechanism to allow for night and day to average out across all latitudes -- for a true spotlight sun, the farther away from the center of the Earth you go, the more night there'd be in relation to day.

Fluid currents that, on Earth, are shaped by Coriolis forces, would either not exist, or need some other mechanism. It could be eddies in the ethereal 'gravity' force, e.g. The spotlight sun would provide convection currents similar to Earth, though without a Coriolis force to 'confine' the convection currents into latitudinal bands they'd behave differently than on Earth. There probably wouldn't be tropical/temperate/tundra separations like on Earth. I'm not atmospheric climatologist, but I'd suspect that'd make the temperature across the flat plane more uniform, and more windy. Unfortunately I don't have any sources or anything, though, sorry.

If you like strange science-fiction like that, I'd highly recommend Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. It's not a flat Earth, but it's hard sci-fi, as understood by the ancient Greeks (geocentric, four elements, spontaneous generation, etc.). Onychoprion (talk) 15:32, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

My best guess is that you would need a ring world in order for there to be a "flat earth" much like in Halo, but there are many problems surrounding it. In order to ring spinning to simulate gravity via centripetal acceleration, you're going to need an ungodly amount of thrusters just to get it up to speed. Another thing is a magnetosphere, but to power a magnetic field of THAT magnitude, you'd need many fusion reactors all firing at once, but even then, you'd need to have a lot of hydrogen to power it. In regards to the atmosphere, the ring's centripetal acceleration would deal with that, but to get an atmosphere going, that's the hard part. You'd need the gases in the right portions to be habitable and dense enough to sustain life. And in regards to sunlight, that can be done by having the ring built in orbit of a star, but the construction costs would be ridiculous, and you'd need to be able to get enough materials to construct the ring. It's hard to give a definitive answer. The living oxymoron (talk) 15:49, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Clarification

What does the source n4 (https://www.pinterest.de/pin/497788565047559856/) refer to? The title says "Brian Mullin and his find on the errors in calculation on a round earth" and the pic is taken from a "Flat Earth Fun" album. LongTimeAgo (talk) 13:47, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Historical Denial/Anti Semitism and Shaq

I've noticed that most of the prominent flat Earth youtubers engage in blatant anti semitism, with some of the most famous videos also outright accusing the Jews of primarily perpetuating the myth of the globe and/or denying the holocaust. This is true of 'You Been Exposed,' the Russian fellow of 'there are no forests on flat earth' fame, and other video creators often show Magen David when talking in dog whistle turns about Jews, (illuminati globalist elite and sometimes the less subtle zionists,) idk if it's worth mentioning it's ties to antisemitism and how Holocaust denial is, if not an integral part of the theory, more than tolerated in flat earth circles.

Also, Shaq said it was a practical joke and of course the earth is round. ^{— Unsigned, by: 174.255.134.191 / talk / contribs}

Interesting. Source on Shaq saying he was joking, btw?

Also... On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:04, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

And the Ancient giant silicon-based tree hypothesis proponents are also of various shades of racist persuasion.86.145.120.170 (talk) 10:12, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks. Here's the source for Shaw.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cbssports.com/nba/news/shaq-was-apparently-trolling-everyone-when-he-made-his-flat-earth-comments/amp/

Of course, flat earthers think he wasn't joking but that the government 'got to him.'

And the guy who started the giant tree theory also denies the Holocaust and thinks Hitler was a Jewish shill or something similar. I watched his whole forest :::video but couldn't get through the other one. A loose retelling of Genesis as a James Cameron sci-fi epic is entertaining. A long anti Semitic diatribe less so. :::Of course, most conspiracy theories are anti Semitic and most conspiracy people anti semites, so it's not special to the flat earth. But of all the conspiracy :::theories I've looked into, this is one of the worse ones. Partly because it's largely the nuttiest members of reactionary biblical literalists, partly because it :::assumes the illuminati are real, partly because 'all' of history is manipulated so Holocaust denial can be wrapped up into flat earth quite nicely. And if the :::shape of the earth can be a hoax, why not a genocide? A lot of 9/11 truthers are Shoa deniers, but that's not usually part of the theory itself.

Also, these guys all seem to love Jim Carry. Conspiracy? --174.255.131.88 (talk) 15:07, :::1 July 2017 (UTC)--174.255.131.88 (talk) 15:07, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Modern non-troll "scientist" support?

For every other extreme science denier/contrarian position that is often compared with flat-eartherism, there are the actual scientists (not necessarily graduated in areas pertinent to the subject, anyway, but sometimes) lay supporters point to in appeals to authority. Does it happen with contemporary flat-earthism?

In my experience, the experts they point to aren't actually supporting Flat Earth, but the expert says something that out of context could be taken that way and :Flat Earthers claim them as secretly a Flat Earther or they just lie about someone's qualifications. I can't think of any realm of hard science that could be :convinced by the non-arguments. --174.255.131.88 (talk) 15:20, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

There was a scandal in the beginning of April of this year because an Arabian PhD student defended Young Flat Earth creationism. The news. --Jagoe (talk) 14:05, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Pancake Earth

The question is #why only the Earth#

Will mention [2] which only complicates the argument

Anybody for this [3] version of Earth? 86.146.100.86 (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I know of a Flat Earther, Stars are Souls, who used Newton's defense about the Earth being an oblate sphere as a case for his belief. Unfortunately, he deleted his channel. So to my knowledge, yes, there are Flat Earthers who think that.--Jagoe (talk) 13:50, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Sub-section: Qur'anic "logic" as proof

It seems that the quoted verses ( They will ask thee of Dhu'l-Qarneyn. Say: I shall recite unto you a remembrance of him. Lo! We made him strong in the land and gave him unto every thing a road. And he followed a road, Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout... Then he followed a road, Till, when he reached the rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had appointed no shelter therefrom. )

aren't actually saying that he traveled to the literal setting-place and rising-place of the sun. It would seem that it is just saying that he followed a road until the sun began to set/rise. Sahih International adds "[as if]" to the part where it is saying he found the sun setting in a muddy spring. These verses seem to narrate about him and are talking about what he experienced and what he saw. So in a sense it's a metaphor. I doubt any flat-Earthers are stupid enough to believe these are actually saying that the sun sets in a muddy spring and that it is possible to walk to it. I find this sub-section completely pointless. Should we really be keeping it? Original-name.jpeg (talk) 11:12, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that portion was crap, so I flushed it. It also read "I" and "mine" in mainspace text, which is cardinal sin editorially. Thanks for letting us know. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 12:23, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

How to Win Every Debate

Ask why Antarctica gets 24 hours of sunlight in December and it has been filmed doing so.--Rimuru Da Ninja 18:15, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

They'd just say the film was fake. Christopher (talk) 18:58, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Then they can go see it themselves then, vacation anyone?--Ultimate Slime 20:21, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

They could also book one of those ultra-expensive joyrides on a military supersonic planes that flies at the altitudes the Concorde used to fly at. Evil Zionist (talk) 01:45, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Sounds fun, when do we start and how much?--Rimuru Tempest 00:52, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Reason why Earths Curvature is not taken into account for most building projects

I may be wrong here, but I think the reason why most building projects (even mile long tunnels) don't have to take into account Earths curvature is not necessarily because it has a "negligible impact", but moreso because it is automatically taken into account along the way without the construction workers even actively realizing it. Basically every single time you take a spirit level/water ruler, you are adjusting for any potential error that the Earths curvature may bring into your project. When people build tunnels, they don't just dig it all out in one fell swoop. They work on it for a few meters, readjust their measurements, work on it, take measurements again and readjust their instruments, etc. Any potential for error due to the Earths curvature would automatically be corrected via this emergent process, without anyone possibly even having to "know" that they are doing it. --88.73.43.130 (talk)

Is it actually true though, that geodesics and stuff don't take into account earth's curvature for the likes of marathon long tunnels? Evil Zionist (talk) 22:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Well when they build those miles long bridges the have to take into account the curve. If the earth were flat then the bridge should look curved to the side like a elbow noodle, but I haven't seen one like that.--King Tempest 00:58, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Isn't there also the thing with snipers taking into account curvature and earth rotation and stuff? Evil Zionist (talk) 20:20, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I think thats more of a myth. They're taught about the Coriolis Effect in training but I've also read experiences from snipers (unrelated to the flat earth kookery) that they never really think of it in real mission scenarios --88.73.43.130 (talk)

Well I think in most cases wind is a way bigger concern. But of course most winds are majorly affected by earth's rotation, so there's that. Plus I'd figure most shots are not those mile-long record shots you read about. Evil Zionist (talk) 23:28, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization of "Earth"

According to Grammarist (and other sources I could find online), "Earth" is supposed to be capitalized when it is not preceded by "the" or otherwise treated as a proper noun, but it is not supposed to be capitalized if it is preceded by "the" or not treated as a proper noun (example: "The earth is a pale blue dot.")

This article is a bit inconsistent, but it seems that "Earth" is almost always capitalized. Is there a reason for this, or should I go ahead and change all instances of "Earth" to follow the above rules? 162.157.64.124 (talk) 16:23, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Whatever's grammatically correct, go ahead and do it. RoninMacbeth (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, all updated. I didn't touch any quotations or links (as far as I could tell), but I changed any original text to follow the above rules. 162.157.64.124 (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Other flatnesses

Will mention [4]/accounting for Saturn and UFOs. Anna Livia (talk) 22:00, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Flattening brain activity / Flat Earthery is plane-ly false

You guys clearly don't actually talk to flat-earthers that often. I'm not a flat-earther, but a lot of the arguments used in these sections are given counters here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs ^{— Unsigned, by: 134.129.225.32 / talk / contribs}

The standard excuse reason for not being careful and thorough with skeptical arguments is that the irrational claims are so preposterous that they are not worth the effort. Besides, it is difficult to do research and write with depth when one is R O T F L! I saw this problem with some of the arguments and have not yet found sufficient motivation to open an edit window and clean them up. After all, see the next topic about a possible new winner of the Darwin Award. The problem will fix itself, one Flat-Earther at a time. --Some random Smith (talk) 14:34, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Ooooo, a gold mine of crazy: Eric Dubay video Ewww! veritable mountains of conspiracy theory and woo, all piled up in one place! It appears that Eric Dubay has been mentioned on RatWiki, but he has no article. I like his video title: Life is Just a Dream, Death is Waking Up. How about waking up before dying? Wouldn't that be more interesting? For the purpose here, this pdf may be golden. Warning: the download site may attempt to load software on your computer. Many of his arguments (some completely false, some merely misleading) may seem plausible to the naive; they are based on common ignorance. The round earth was known to the ancients and to all peoples who needed to navigate long distances at sea. I have not read his document in detail yet, only enough to see that he requires, at the start, belief in a conspiracy theory. So I don't know yet if he confronts what all sea-faring peoples knew: the increasing elevation of the pole star with northward travel. With modern tools like cell phones, it is now possible to determine one's location on the earth from knowing the time of a zenith observation at a known location, and one can know that time from talking with an observer there, even if one decides not to trust ephemerides, which were used for centuries for life-and-death navigation. The angular altitude of that object (the sun is often handy for this) will decline with distance, just as latitude is roughly the distance from the north pole. --Some random Smith (talk) 16:57, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

That Dubay document is up as html, easier to copy from, no PDF need be downloaded. Most arguments are based on radical misunderstandings of ordinary reality, not to mention physics and navigation, etc. Many things he claims as fact are simply not true, and are well-known not to be true by anyone familiar with, say, celestial navigation. Is he lying? I don't know. He might simply be thoroughly ignorant. But he's selling books, apparently. ==Some random Smith (talk) 18:43, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

"Flat-Earther Plans Homemade, Manned Rocket Launch This Coming Saturday"

Best. Headline. Ever. 217.119.171.154 (talk) 13:24, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

So what happened? --Some random Smith (talk) 14:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Apparently he didn't have a permit to launch his rocket and thus decided to chicken out. GrammarCommie (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

So Mad Mike Hughes, the silly goose, forfeited his Darwin Award. What a loss! On his web site, there an apparent sponser link, displaying Research Flat Earth. It links to a YouTube video of DMurphy25, in which he (rather convincingly if one doesn't know the truth) argues that the behavior of aircraft artificial horizons (which are based on gyroscopes) is "absolute proof" of a flat earth. You can see that this has definitely convinced some watchers that DMurphy has something. What he states is true for gyroscopes (of sufficient precision), but is vary much not true for artificial horizons, which are not purely gyroscopes, they incorporate a gravity correction mechanism that will only allow "tilt" for a limited time. Otherwise they would be useless on a round earth. There is a youtube video, I think I have linked it on this page, showing an experiment with an artificial horizon. The guy powers it up, tilts it, presses the cage button, and then sets it down on his level table. It starts out showing major tilt. Slowly, over a few minutes, which one can watch, it corrects itself to displaying level again.

This seems to be characteristic of all flat earth arguments I've seen. They depend on assumptions that can sometimes be easy to make!

This is also why we don't depend on single arguments! With a diligent search, one can find an argument for almost any idea. But what about the other evidence? Flat earthers are selective about evidence. I've never seen one, so far, who actually addresses the strongest -- personally verifiable -- arguments for a round earth.

So this artificial horizon thing is a good example of how an argument can seem quite plausible, if there is missing information. The Wikipedia article does have the information about gravity correction. But who reads carefully?

Meanwhile, Mike Hughes, the actual news. Best word from the story: this was to be a launch into the atmosflat. I love neologisms, they can be easy to search. This led me to a [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0xgDra2YdY video of astronaut Scott Kelley] saying that the "atmosphere looks incredibly flat," which FLAT EARTH NETWORK put up on November 23. It has been edited to make him say it many times. Hey, this is Flat Earth Snark! They can do it too! (He meant "thin, i.e., flat against the Earth, which is quite visible from space. He did not mean "flat" as in a plane, no curvature.)

I was suspicious about the idea that "atmosphere" had to do with shape. Seems my suspicion was founded. See definition of sphere, meanings 3 and 4 and maybe 1. Of course, a "flat" can be a place where someone lives, or the condition of being broke. Or uncomplicated. Or boring. --Some random Smith (talk) 16:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

RationalWiki Sloppy Lazy Fun

It's sloppy and lazy, and it's fun, endless lulz, until it gets old, which takes time, so the problem is?

Given an article on Standard Stupid Idea, there are going to be various wingnuts and cranks and face-palm ignorant youtubers who will generate reams of stupid arguments that wouldn't stand in dry concrete. And then they can be quoted so we can all enjoy the idiocy. However, take this article.

Please.

Are there any arguments for a flat earth that don't immediately collapse with a shred of knowledge? That the earth was round (or shows observable characteristics that require "round") was known to people who needed to know, thousands of years ago. If one lives in one location all the time, as most people did -- and still often do -- there is no way to definitively observe the roundness of the earth, it is too large. So it is not "necessary knowledge," which is the best kind, because it is routinely tested.

Most flat-earthers appear to assume that concepts like "flat" and "level" are simple, and they then extend these concepts into regions they have not experienced, assuming the same. Thousands of years ago, however, humans travelled, some by sea, where they had no landmarks. How did they find their way? I have never encountered a flat-earther who had any clue about this, nor have I ever seen arguments that address it on any flat earth site or video. But the universe is vast.

Ancient navigation was difficult in one direction and easy in another. Determining an approximation of latitude was easy, use a marked stick with a knotted rope ending in a piece held in the teeth, and determine the angular altitude of Polaris (in the northern hemisphere, and the very disappearance of Polaris as one travels south is a round earth phenomenon that anyone can observe. If they get off their butt and actually travel. Ignorance is maintained by parochialism.)

So for navigation at sea to points on shorelines it was simple: one needs to know if one is east or west of the destination. Assume west. At sea, travel north (toward the pole star) or south (the other way) until one is at the latitude of the destination, then travel east, and one's path will intersect the shoreline within the accuracy of the latitude measurement. An error of one degree would give an accuracy, near the equator, of sixty nautical miles. Close enough to be able to recognize the land, perhaps.

Determining longitude was very difficult, normally requiring clocks and ephemerides. The idea of the fixed celestial sphere is easy, though. The stars are always in the same places (neglecting the planets, of course). Why is it a celestial "sphere"? Well, that's because it does not exist, it is the stars as seen from our vicinity.

But this is what could easily be verified by them, that they don't consider. What are the strongest arguments in the other direction, because if we want weak arguments, like we might want to shoot fish in a barrel, there are plenty, but they are boring. Anything not boring out there? --Some random Smith (talk) 18:36, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

@Some random Smith, what @Skeptical's contributions have to do with finding latitude? Christopher (talk) 18:43, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Christopher mentioned both, therefore -1 = e^i*pi. Next question? Hopefully, it will have something to do with improving the article. --Some random Smith (talk) 19:11, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea what this discussion is about anymore (note: this discussion has been discussed on my talk page). Christopher (talk) 21:02, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Ah, now I see. I have corrected that link in my comment above, it is now to the Wikipedia article on the Kamal. Clipboard error. Thanks. --Some random Smith (talk) 21:28, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Seriously, what are the stronger arguments?

When I review the article, what I see is snark, sarcasm, and argument that will not convince anyone inclined to question "round earth" -- mixed in with some level of reasonable information. It seems that we are happy with smug, self-satisfied proclamations of the stupidity of others that do not address real questions that real people may have. I have seen far better arguments for a flat earth than what is shown, and some of the defenses of round earth that are shown are weak. All those "flat earth arguments" are misleading, to be sure, as far as I have seen, but exactly how? Generally, something is missing in understanding, the cause is not necessarily stupidity.

Shouting and sneering "GRAVITY" at someone who is questioning the roundness of the earth and adding "You Fucking MORON!" would only convince them that the one shouting is an idiot, someone to avoid. Which they can easily do, just stop watching!

If someone is looking for enlightenment on Flat Earth theories and what they see, "Before we begin," is this asshole shouting, they are quite likely to end the exploration, taking away with that a future avoidance of RationalWiki. The Mission statement actually is not clear. Does RW serve the development of rational thinking, or does it serve a subculture of dismissive fucktards, essentially cranks, who think they know better than most people?

Or what? If the purpose of the article is to arm people with evidence and arguments to use when "flat earth" comes up, if only the most stupid and weakest of arguments are identified, it will fail. If there is any interest, I will find and list arguments here. I'm not editing the article yet because it's work and if there is no interest, why bother? --Some random Smith (talk) 22:26, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if there were any strong arguments in favour of a flat Earth. I would be interested in any you could dig up though.

I agree with you on the "Before we even begin" section - even more after having watched the clip. I also think that the next section ("Flattening Brain Activity") would serve the article better as summation, rather than preamble. Daev (talk) 02:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

"Strong" is relative. It means, in this case, arguments that cannot immediately be seen as misleading by an ordinary person. Some of these arguments are only strong because rooted in incorrect information (perhaps even lies), but others are not so rooted. Okay, examples. Perhaps I mentioned the first:

• Aircraft have an artificial horizon that is used to maintain level flight. What was hard to find here was the original flat earther argument, since there are piles of refutations. Apparently, one person says something wrong -- or thought to be wrong -- and dozens contradict and correct. A few don't include "GRAVITY, YOU MORON!" but patiently explain and present evidence, and some of these explanations are fun.

The argument: The Biblical Flat Earth: The "Plane" Truth This is a comment there, unfortunately, but it makes the argument.

... planes rely on an "Artificial Horizon", which is created utilizing gyro's. Gyros remain FIXED and level when they are set on the ground prior to take off. So if the earth were a ball, this line would be a TANGENT to the earth's curved surface, and within two hours at 550 mph, a pilot would find himself out of the atmosphere. The magik [sic] god "Gravity" does not overcome the effect of a gyro. So either you are dipping the nose down ~270 feet every minute (with no one feeling this downward acceleration) or the earth is flat.

Explanation: (three minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHOq2Ui-Ioc

My summary: contrary to what this idiot smart feller thinks, artificial horizons are not pure gyroscopes, which would be useless for purpose on a round earth for exactly the reason this smeller gives (and it's not just the curvature of the earth, rotation also shows up in gyros). Gyros are designed to self-correct with gravity over time. This is slow enough correction that the gyro reliably shows attitude, but fast enough (by a good margin) to correct for the slow shift in vertical from the curvature of the earth.

Advanced study: There are flat-earthers who give deeper arguments about this. Gyroscope Basics And The Pendulous Vane Fallacy - June 6, 2017 addresses some common descriptions of how gyros correct and claims to debunk the idea of self-correcting gyroscopes. For an exercise, where exactly does this page go off the rails? (This page liks to a video where the flat-earther sounds sane -- at first, until he is talking about Focault's "lies" about precession (I have seen a Focault pendulum, he thinks Focault used a "gyroscope")--, who gives the "top three arguments" that "conclusively prove" the earth is flat. And they are false, he makes factual statements based on limited experience where his statements are *almost true.* If the statements are assumed to be absolutely true, then he would be right, "Flat earth" would follow! What I notice is that the fellow does not seem to be aware of the problems with the alleged facts.)

He gives the gyroscope as the number one proof that the earth is flat. He cites a dumb argument about gyroscopes someone made may have made using w:Schuler_tuning. In other words, a dumb argument by a person arguing against Flat Earth strengthened this guy's convictions. (If that was actually the argument: Artificial horizons -- aircraft gyroscopes, used in artificial horizons -- do not use Schuler tuning. They use gravity, heavily dampened so that correction is slow. But maybe the other person actually was making a different argument, because Schuler tuning does work. This pilot's critique is all based on the application to ordinary gyroscopes that most pilots use.

That pilot argued his ideas, but someone else decided to actually test a real artificial horizon.

Somebody is blowing hot air (and some arguments being refuted may actually be poor or even false). How is an inquiring mind to distinguish them? In any case, that video purports to give the "top three proofs that the earth is flat." So later I will list those. But his most important point is about artificial horizons. And he's a pilot and thinks that makes him an expert. He doesn't know how his own instrument works....

Where I would go eventually: There is a simple and direct experiment which shows the curvature of the earth, and it is essentially what Eratosthenes did to determine the curvature of the earth. I'd be amazed if the method is not out there. It is far easier now, with cell phones. This is so much within the ordinary experience of people that they may not need to actually perform the experiment.

When is the time of local noon? Local noon is defined as the time when the sun appears at its highest elevation for the day. It is common knowledge that as we go west, and don't change our clock (our watch, say), we would find that sunrise or sunset come later. (Modern cell phones automatically adjust this as we move from one time zone to another). If one is on the U.S. east coast, and talks to someone in California, it will be three hours earlier there (i.e., the sun from California is more to the east). One can easily determine the angular height of the sun by measuring shadows. If two people do this at the same time, but separated by a distance, they can directly measure the change in angle. If they have the distance, they can then determine the radius of the earth. For the north-south direction, it's convenient that Polaris is located near the north celestial pole (defined by the axis of rotation of the Earth), and one can see the elevation of Polaris as one travels North. This could be done with the sun with ready accuracy using a phone with two observers, the same as east-west. People know about time zones and know about time difference. Time difference is due to the curvature of the earth.

I hate listening to videos of bullshit. Give me text any time... --Some random Smith (talk) 01:50, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Flat Earth Authority?

Is there any? Or is the "Flat Earth Movement" just a random collection of cranks and knee-jerk stupids. I'm looking. This looked promising in Google: The strongest arguments of the flat earth theory, on the Flat Earth Society web site! However, this is a collection of stupidities, most of them not even coherent. There is a response on that site that addresses all 22 alleged strong arguments.

A Secretary of the Society points to a long list of arguments -- Evidences Of The Flat Earth (On Going @142) -- but does not classify them by strength. Apparently the number of arguments matters, rather than their strength. I have encountered that before .... from people seriously deluded by strong belief. So you spend years, you can invent hundreds of arguments. But the arguments listed mostly depend on some kind of obvious ignorance about basic physics, mechanics, astronomy, etc. I liked the artificial horizon (gyroscope) argument because the necessary knowledge to recognize the error is actually rare. (And then we see internet debaters assert what they do not actually know as if fact. It happens on all sides! Just because your argument supports the truth doesn't mean that it, itself, is true!)

However, if one is a leader, as one might expect from an official of the Society, one would not list terminally weak arguments without pointing that out. My conclusion is not terribly surprising. The Secretary is, to use the technical term, a fucktard. Has anyone collected actually strong arguments? Strong means "not obviously mistaken with basic understanding -- but not depending on the already existing view that the Earth is round."

My point or goal would be to demonstrate that science is not a religion, a body of dogma, but is rooted in clear observation and thought. It is not afraid of "heresy." It welcomes it, because part of the education of every generation is connection with what has been done before, generally reproducing it and verify it. That's why science courses include lab work, where students test existing theories. And that's why a professor who downgrades a student who questions existing ideas is an idiot and should not be teaching science. However, a pedogically sophisticated professor (many are not) would challenge and encourage the student to design experiments to test existing ideas or the student's ideas.

This shows how not to engage with a fanatic. Great question, then trashed by the ad-hominem argument. Waste of time, generating no value at all. As predictable, the Secretary used the insult to avoid a response to the question, asking for the "top 3 ... things which can be tested by ordinary people." That thread went on with detailed responses to the "evidences." Most responses are quite good. The "refraction" arguments should be examined, it's crucial to this topic, and is a bit outside of ordinary knowledge. Refraction allows objects to appear higher above the horizon than they would be without atmosphere. This is well-known to navigators, if there is no correction for refraction, significant errors will be made. The point made was that a total eclipse of the Moon has been observed while the sun was also in the sky. That's a good argument! However, the devil is in the details. The Secretary did not point out that this has only been seen -- if I'm correct -- when both were near the horizon, such that refraction could elevate the images enough that both could be visible. Essential, the visible sky is more than 180 degrees across.

I finally found a statement on the FES site:

Perhaps the best example of flat earth proof is the Bedford Level Experiment. In short, this was an experiment preformed many times on a six-mile stretch of water that proved the surface of the water to be flat. It did not conform to the curvature of the earth that round earth proponents teach.

This is not evidence available to us, in fact. w:Bedford Level experiment Considering this a "proof" depends on believing that Rowbotham correctly performed the experiment and correctly analyzed the data. Other experiments have, in fact, confirmed Rowbotham's finding. As well, there are other evidences that depend on the the same factor as was active with Robothman: neglecting refraction. So how is a student attempting to maintain rigorous neutrality to assess this? Is refraction a possible factor? A student can pursue this, studying refraction. A place to start looking would be in textboosk on celestial navigation, a mission-critical art that has been studied for centuries, actually millenia. See w:atmospheric refraction. There is no reasonable doubt that refraction is a real phenomenon, but if anyone doubts this, it can be confirmed, it's just a bit of work. The easiest way is probably to observe a celestial object while it is setting, and record exact times, I won't go into the analysis. As the object approaches the horizon, though, it will "slow down." In fact, its angular motion stays the same, but refraction plays a larger role as the elevation above the horizon declines. There is no effect of refraction when the object is near the zenith.

No, relying on indirect evidence and inaccessible facts is not actually strong argument. Someone on that Flat Earth site raised the issue of time zones and sunrise and sunset. There was no participation from FE'ers. The ancients had little way of determining time remotely, which is why determining longtitude was such a difficult problem. There was a method using the angular distance between the moon and stars, but it wasn't terribly accurate. But now we have telephones, so it is possible for two observers at a great distance from each other to make an observation of the sun, the most convenient object, and see that the angle from the vertical is different, in exactly the way that would be predicted by a round earth. This is an improvement over the method of Eratosthenes.

The Flat Earth wiki attempts to reframe this. The result, for a given pair of observations, could also be giving the distance to the Sun. Then they give some mumbo-jumbo about magnification of the sun. They ignore that anyone can repeat the basic Eratosthenes experiment, involving many locations (and with the sun elevated high, making angular observations easy by observing the shadow of a pole -- or, better, an elevated pinhole's solar image on the ground --, and, in "round outline," people already know what they need to know: time zones!!!. --Some random Smith (talk) 19:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Silver?

Anyone think this is silver-level quality? RoninMacbeth (talk) 21:46, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I think not, too many dumb arguments unsourced with weak arguments in opposition. Nobody is going to learn anything from "GRAVITY!" repeated in a thoroughly annoying voice by an arrogant asshole. (even if he is right, but the argument is unconvincing, it requires way too much knowledge and assumption.) The article is a mixture of sanity and "we are right and you are wrong," which never convinces anyone and may drive away someone who is looking for neutrality. Question is, what do we want for a "quality article"? Snark should be funny, not merely dumb.

I'm thinking of sourced arguments for a flat earth, with explanations of the strengths (if any) and weaknesses (typically many) of each. As it is, some random idiot somewhere proposes a flat earth argument, and it is treated the same as arguments advanced by people with a smidgen more intelligence. There are a few flat earth arguments that require special knowledge to refute.

Or we can point to the "round" basics, and this does that, not well-enough fleshed out:

The earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse looks round [7] and two sticks at two different latitudes produce two different-length shadows at the exact same time of day. A spherical Earth can account for these phenomena.[8] And people have known this since antiquity.

The first part is an entirely different argument from the second. How do we know that what eats the Moon in a lunar eclipse is the shadow of the earth, and how many have actually seen this? And, of course, what if the earth is a flat circle? Round shadow. But the stick shadow is a variation on the latitude issue I raise above. However, how do we know that this phenomenon occurs as stated? This is not in the ordinary experience of most people, unless they look rather specially. In our time, if people have made phone calls over long distances, they might then have some personal experience (i.e., collective experience including the report of a friend.) But have they ever asked? I have found that people -- too often -- are ignorant of the most basic astronomical facts, that would have been known to very ordinary people in ancient times. Like a full moon always rising at sunset.

If the goal is to educate people in rational thinking, videos of 'GRAVITY, STUPID!" don't do that. That is not "rational thinking," it is emotional reactivity to perceived stupidity. --Some random Smith (talk) 22:40, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I think the flat circle couterargument on the lunar eclipse doesn't hold up that well because I think if the shadow has to be round, Earth has to be in a pretty specific position in relation to the light. Otherwise, I think, the shadow will look like a skewed circle in most rather than a regular circle. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 22:35, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

How is a person to know that the shadow on the Moon is the shadow of the Earth? That's the issue I raised. (Yes, the argument is correct, but the pedagogical issue still stands. I'm not insisting on this particular point.) "Shadow of the Earth on the Moon" is not actually a Flat Earth argument, it is an argument against a Flat Earth, one of many, and by no means the strongest, in the sense of appealing to what people know or can quickly learn. What I would see the article as doing is not proving that the Earth is Round, but rather dismantling and clarifying the arguments used by Flat Earthers. Some of them just plain lie, but some arguments depend on ready misunderstandings. For example, aircraft have gyroscopic attitude indicators. Why don't those show a change in attitude during long distance level flight? Yelling "GRAVITY!" does not address the issue. (Actually, thinking about it, it does, but not the yelling.) --Some random Smith (talk) 01:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Elon Musk

Can someone bring in this - was on the news as well. Anna Livia (talk) 22:22, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Question

How stable would the Flat Earth be?

'Oumuamua and other objects can remain as strange shapes because they do not get knocked about or encounter a gravity source which causes them to break up.

However the Earth is very big - and there will be the occasional 'dinosaur destroyer sized object' which would cause problems to a Flat Earth - whether going through the Earth or knocking off the Earth-bordering mountains (and so all the air spills out). Or is my Flat Earth astronomical knowledge flawed? Anna Livia (talk) 16:04, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there is one single flat earth cosmology. So I'm guessing there is not going to one simple answer. But I don't know enough about any of them to respond sensibly - or even stupidly for that matter.--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

And even 'floating dust and solar wind' will have an effect, not to mention the 'patterns of gravity' as the planets including the Earth move round the sun, which will destabilise the orbit of the Flat Earth.

Even 'popular level scientific knowledge' shows the obvious flaws in the proposal(s). It is a rare 'bad theory' that one cannot learn something from through considering the thought experiments. Anna Livia (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

In order to support a flat earth theory, one of the scientific ideas that must be rejected is gravity. That's why that annoying youtuber was snarling "Gravity!" A flat earth would collapse from gravity, it would become a sphere. It is far too large to be stable as a "strange shape." No material could handle it. Of course, perhaps God made the Earth, underneath, out of unobtainium, the only substance with the required strength. Expensive, but God is omnipotent.

Yes. Actually researching "flat earth" one can learn quite a bit. In basic science education, how "scientific facts" came to be known (or believed) is important. Flat earthers are missing a few screws, but many people don't actually have the screws either, so they don't know how to respond to flat-earthers other than by telling them how stupid they are. How many people know how they could measure the size of the earth with a few friends with cell phones, not depending on anything other than surface distances, which they could also confirm by driving. Except, of course, the gummint has rigged the odometers! Sometimes it may not be possible to reach the true fanatics, but ... my understanding is that I should make the effort, one step at a time. --Some random Smith (talk) 03:04, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

'Popular scientific knowledge' - what one learns from TV programs and the news, articles in newspapers and magazines etc. ('Some moonlets, asteroids and comets look like weird boulders because their small gravity allows them to do so.') How much does 'gravitational influences from other planets' affect the Earth? Is there a convenient term to describe all the influences of bodies within a system (eg the gaps in the rings of Saturn caused by resonances with Saturn's moons?)

Most people have come across the idea of the 'dinosaur-destroying-meteor' (even if the reality was somewhat different); 'the wind blowing bits of paper around'/'the solar wind causes auroras/disrupts the communications satellites)' (so the solar wind will affect a pancake planet) - and can come up with 'it is not rocket science to work out there will be holes caused that the air can flow off the Earth of'; and then there is 'Why only one flat planet?'

The proponents of the theory also have to face the prejudice of the colloquial usage of 'Flat Earther' being treated as synonymous with 'proposing a theory that is so out of date nobody sensible believes it.' Anna Livia (talk) 11:04, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

"Popular scientific knowledge" is a bit of an oxymoron. Science is actually an approach that creates stronger knowledge than simple intuition and gossip. It is not common for science to be well-represented in newspapers and other media. Then again, much popular thought sucks, until and unless people actually experiment and test ideas themselves. Most of the time, if a source seems reliable, we trust not only what it reports from experience, but its conclusions, which is where science gets left behind. However, this behavior obviously has survival benefits. (Think about efficiency.) It is only that it's limited, because once in a while, what "trusted people" say is not true. Examples actually abound. But we think that "other people" do that. We, of course, are careful and only trust people who don't make mistakes. We like their attitude. If only they were the dictators rather than the ugly assholes who actually run things, for their nefarious and stupid motives. Now, Anna's excellent questions and issues:

The statement about small gravity is true; rock is strong enough to resist the small gravity from the mass. Planet-sized gravity, over time and distance, will bend any known material, "seeking" minimum volume. We can imagine a rigid structure, but what happens when this structure is thousands of miles across? How big a bridge can one build with steel? What is the pressure near the middle, from the attraction of the ends? That pressure will cause the steel to bulge out. Same with rock, of course, until the rock liquifies from the release of gravitational potential energy. But this starts to get complicated. Science is properly taught in stages, the same as math. One of the characteristics of reality, a sign of understanding, is that it fits together, and it fits together even if there are holes in it, unknowns.

The solar "wind" is particle radiation. It does exert a pressure, but that pressure is not high. It's enough to blow ions around, and it can be used for "sailing" around the solar system. I don't think it would be enough to "blow holes in the Earth, if it were flat. "Why only one flat planet?" Most flat earthers would say "because God." The only way to falsify that is to show that it's not flat, that God was smarter than to create a mess like a flat planet, that offends the mind and contradicts everything else he's done.

As to looking like idiots, humans resist domination, and especially as teenagers, and some continue this. It is probably instinctive, probably confers a survival benefit, even though some die. It allows human society to change to meet new situations. The idea that the "common person" is wrong to believe the so-called science that teaches a round earth as dogma, and that the flat earth idea is being suppressed because it is Truth, appeals to some, and they will attribute everything depending on official information to the conspiracy. Hence the NASA moon landing conspiracy, the allegations of photoshopped photos -- and often the photos actually were photoshopped, though not to mislead. But a flat-earther will see the signs of photoshopping and "Aha! The conspiracy!" Remember the Obama birth certificate images. The fanatics found that images of the birthdate were made up of copies of pixels in the rest of the document. It was fake! What they did not realize -- or did realize, if they were actually attempting to create deception -- was that these were PDF compressed, which works by finding similar sections (not *exactly the same*) and keeping only one copy, which is then presented in all the locations.

Fanatics in all directions talk about "proof." Science, outside of math, doesn't. It creates evidence, to be weighed. If we look carefully enough, we can find evidence for anything. Anything. If we then fall into confusing evidence with proof, we blind ourselves. We might happen to be right, and, in fact, if this behavior wasn't a survival behavior in some way, it would be long gone. We blind ourselves to what we consider irrelevant or useless.

To the point here: how can we improve this article? It's mostly boring. But it's large. Perhaps high explosives? --Some random Smith (talk) 14:29, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

'Popular scientific knowledge' (and I am referring more to 'information' than 'practices') - the sort one picks up by watching TV programs, reading books in the 'popular science' section etc - one has some knowledge and can follow a narrative without too many technical terms and simple equations, but not 'ones on several lines.' And most people have a 'Sherlock Holmes' view on what the Earth orbits' view of many areas of science.

The question on solar wind was more would it be able to push a flat earth around in the way that air can push a piece of flat paper around.

And for most persons 'basic presentations' suffice, especially if they can (be encouraged to) access such material from different sources (so get an overview) - and they are provided with the means of finding out more information (Wikipedia et al) on things that seem too odd to be taken at face value. As for the others 'them as don't want to be persuaded won't be.' Anna Livia (talk) 15:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

According to the Planetary Science institute [5] the dinosaur asteroid was 10 km across. Could it cause a hole in FlatEarth - or disrupt the world-embracing mountains sufficiently to 'allow the air to fall out of the soup bowl'? And would 'the various gravities in the solar system' cause FE to go into an unstable orbit/rotation? Anna Livia (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh, don't be silly, Anna. God fixed the Earth in position. Nothing can move it against his supreme power.

Galileo: And yet it moves. --Some random Smith (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

But 'in the real world' how valid are my arguments? Anna Livia (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

How we confuse ourselves and probably others.

Pythagorean proof of curvature for a ball with a radius of 3,959 miles (Using AutoCAD 2015 with 15 digit precision)

An image was removed here because it was deleted on Commons. I have uploaded what appears to be the same image, from hints in the Commons deletion discussion. Here is the image, and this usage alone would qualify as fair use, if anyone wants to be a stickler:

This has the caption we have supplied. "proof of curvature." It is no such thing. It is what purports to be a calculation of the effect of curvature on the assumption of a ball earth. I got the image from a flat earth site. The author there correctly critiques the image. The "altitudes" shown in the image are not altitudes, which are always a distance along the vertical, which is a line intersecting the gravitational center of the Earth. I think many flat-earthers have followed this Bad Idea but I'm not searching for examples. Too much work for one day.

What this author leaves out, which is crucial for the discussion, is refraction, which causes objects to appear that would not otherwise be visible, objects appear at higher elevation than a straight line would show. Navigators (and most surveyors) know all about refraction because if they do not correct for it, long-distance measurements can be off. Far off. A minor problem if your ship falls off the edge of the earth! Or wanders endlessly, looking for that damn island!

Light travels in straight lines in a vacuum (almost, forget about gravity for the moment, it's usually a very small effect) (This is even the definition of "straight", but the light path will curve when passing through a medium which is varying in density, either from temperature or from altitude.) Like the atmosphere. (So apparent elevation may vary with the weather and other conditions. But at least the flat earther, here, gets the ordinary math right, in "round outlines." To my mind, he isn't really clear.

Looking around, there are shallow round-earth arguments presented, and sometimes then the flat-earthers jump on obvious errors. Of course, they neglect their own. By focusing on the errors of others, we keep ourselves stupid, and we become ineffective communicators. --Some random Smith (talk) 19:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Question 2

What is on the underside of the Flat Earth? Anna Livia (talk) 22:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Turtles? elephants? GrammarCommie (talk) 22:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

In all seriousness though I'd say icicles based on the most common FE layout, given that it's supposed to be surrounded by a ring of frozen mountains. GrammarCommie (talk) 22:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

A turtle, definitely. It is said that a wise lady, when asked what was under the turtle, said, "another turtle." And under that? "It's turtles all the way down." (Actually, in the original story, it was "rocks." But "turtles" sounds much better.) ^{— Unsigned, by: Some random Smith / talk / contribs} 03:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I've always understood it was turtles, but the tortoise hypothesis may be gaining ground - very slowly.--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:49, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

From my time on the FES forums, the semi-consensus there was it was just rocks. The people who believed in the Aether Wind (which causes gravity, meteors, and the gravitational differences across the planet. Sometimes. It's a weird theory) especially need it to be rocks, because that's where meteors come from. Rocks get torn off the bottom of the Earth, get flung around the outside, then fall back down on top. That's why every meteor is always going from south to north. No word yet on why there's an 11 km/s floor for the speed of those particles, or why they travel in all directions, though primarily west-east. Onychoprion (talk) 00:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Turtles playing catch with rocks perhaps? GrammarCommie (talk) 00:37, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I #thought# west-east movement was due to the rotation and orbit of the Earth (as proved by the Michelson–Morley experiment) - or am I misunderstanding the nature of reality? :)

And is not this a thorn in their theory?

Passing thought - there are 'Hollow Earth' SF novels, but no 'Flat Earth' ones. Anna Livia (talk) 15:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

From what I understand, the east-west is, yeah, the rotation and orbit. And most things orbit the sun mostly in the ecliptic, so it'd approach the Earth from around the same plane. There are exceptions, naturally. As for it being a thorn in the theory, yeah, good luck with that argument. Their models have more thorns than not. And are rarely co-consistent. Onychoprion (talk) 21:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

A pun on the Icelandic letter and a reference to the continental plate tectonics. We shall see how long the FEs can keep their plate spinning in the air.

If their theory worked there would be more 'avalanches etc due to stones that only just made it over the mountains' which would produce weird sounds, and generally a good few other problems and issues which are obvious to anyone who believes in a reasonably spherical Earth and has five minutes to think about it. Anna Livia (talk) 11:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Most flat earth arguments display really poor education and analysis, but there are a few which don't and are thus more fun. My favorite is the artificial horizon in aircraft, the kind that uses a gyroscope. Shouldn't they show a steady tilting as the plane flies over the curvature of the earth? Some people arguing against this come up with irrelevant arguments, thus fueling the conviction of flat-earthers that "roundies" are just blind believers. There is a great youtube video where a fellow powered up an artificial horizon, tilted and caged it (which sets "level"), set it back down and timed its return to level. It corrects fast enough to make the attitude correction from curvature invisible. Aircraft artificial horizons are made to correct to gravity over a long time, i.e., they assume that the plane cannot fly at a tilt forever! And then flat-earthers claim this is simply a lie. Which is why flat earth arguments always seem to devolve into Conspiracy!!!

Conspiracy theorists and fanatics of all kinds write about PROOF!!! By which they mean an argument that they cannot see through, or piece of evidence that tilts a certain way for them. In reality, we learn about how the world works from a multiplicity of evidences, not just one or two. If one wants to challenge Round Earth, one needs to look at the strongest and clearest evidences, not just some details here and there that might be misunderstood. Flat Earth appeals to instant perception. The Earth does look, from near the surface, flat. So, okay, what caused the ancients to consider otherwise? I have never seen a Flat Earther actually study that question. --Some random Smith (talk) 17:55, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Is this a valid argument against flat earth [need peer review]

If the earth was flat, it could have been possible to see certain tall structures [with (or without) the use of extremely powerful telescope]. For example, take Burj Khalifa. Burj Khalifa is not visible even with the help of telescope if you are located in, let's say, Sharjah [another city]. If the earth was flat, it would have been possible for us to see it with the help of a very powerful telescope.

Same goes for every tall structure [Mount Everest etc.]

^{— Unsigned, by: RWuser9000 / talk / contribs} 20:51, 9 December 2017‎

People might just say "well, tall things get in the way". To be fair, it's hard to argue that against the tallest structures in the planet. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 23:20, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Many years ago my father used to have a old flat earth book. It was old when I was a kid and that was over 50 years ago. I wish I still had it as it might be worth something now.

But anyway, they had an answer to this one I think. The laws of perspective make things get smaller and cause them to disappear as they get further away. Please don't ask me to justify any more than this as I simply don't remember. Also it's entirely likely that modern flat-earth chaps have other responses. But I do remember that the "laws of Perspective" were regularly wheeled out to answer to answer questions of this nature.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:24, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I have seen "perspective" trotted out. It's shallow nonsense. "Smaller" does not mean "disappear." Combine "smaller" from perspective and dimming from the atmosphere not being clear, a flat earther might still survive another minute in his own mind. Then there is atmospheric refraction, which makes objects seem moved up, so one can still see a star after it would have set from an Earth with no atmosphere. To a limited degree, this counteracts the effect of curvature. There are far stronger ways to show the earth is round than ships disappearing with distance. With altitude sightings of celestial bodies when they are far above the horizon, there is no significant refractive effect, and one can use this to actually measure the curvature (and thus the size of the Earth.) It is now trivial to do with telephone contact to establish simultaneity.

In general, though, theoretical arguments are far weaker than actual measurements. I.e., if "X is true," then we would see Y, and we don't see Y, therefore X is not true. It requires relatively complex theoretical analysis that can fail at many points. Obvious examples on the other side: if the earth were round, water would run off the sides, therefore the earth is not round. If the earth were round, then up in airplanes, we would see the horizon dropping and it doesn't, therefore the earth is not round. (Actually, the horizon does drop, it is merely hard to see. There is a great video where a pilot shows that his aircraft is flying level with an artificial horizon, while shadows from the rising sun are tilted up, showing that the horizon has fallen. --Some random Smith (talk) 17:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

The ant and the large balloon

The ant would see flatness - but we can see it is a sphere: most people will accept the analogy that we are in (very approximately) the same relationship to the Earth 'but for much of the time apart from TV and radio bouncing between the Earth and the satellites and going round the world and similar' they can treat their local area as being effectively flat apart from the bits which are locally uneven. (The ant will, however, see eg a tightrope as two dimensional while we see it as effectively one dimensional - I forget where I read idea.)

So why do the flat-footers hold their opinion -which, after all, requires a lot more explaining than the ball version of Earth? Anna Livia (talk) 18:46, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Um, what ant? ^{— Unsigned, by: 134.129.18.137 / talk} 20:38, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

This sort - which other of these would be logical in the context? Anna Livia (talk) 18:04, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

The reverse of the disk

OK, for those cranks our planet is basically a giant floating coin. Has any flat Earther talked about its thickness and/or about what would happen if you were in the head and went to the tail and vice-versa? (and the "big wall of ice thing in Antarctica BS" does not work). --Panzerfaust (talk) 10:59, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

And what would happen with 'deep mining'/a strike by 'the very large asteroid' (proceeding at a high rate of knots) previously mentioned? Anna Livia (talk) 22:59, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Elon Musk video

On the video of that car going to mars they forgot to render the continents on earth XD

NASA isn't even TRYING anymore!^{— Unsigned, by: 172.223.212.195 / talk}

Wait! NASA sent a car into space? In this in addition to the Elon Musk stunt? Do tell.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:48, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

https://8ch.net/b/res/7754390.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmcwW-8CC6E&feature=youtu.be&t=25

The proof ^{— Unsigned, by: 174.224.31.181 / talk}

Well, you first linked to an 8chan board as your "proof" and that video is click-bait drivel titled "NASA's Big Lie". БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 20:20, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

It's kind of funny at least.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:41, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion

Can anyone do a 'flat headed Frankenstein's monster with a Flat Earth' cartoon? Anna Livia (talk) 23:06, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Flat Scam

I never trusted the idea of the flat earth, I've seen many people online who just try to twist scripture just to prove their point. While I'm not going to go into too much detail how what they say can be taken in two ways, the results are still the same. They have no good proof in Bible or science to back their claims.Rimuru Tempest 03:24, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Errrrr. And we should care about the bible because...?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 13:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

New joke to add?

So here's a joke I remembered from a t-shirt several years ago. It was originally about Glenn Beck, but we could probably find a way to shorehorn it into this page somehow.

"I think, therefore I am not a flat earther."134.129.57.138 (talk) 23:07, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Eh… not particularly funny. Bongolian (talk) 00:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Earth-chan is not Flat! She is very conscious of her bust size!(ノ°Д°）ノʇsədɯəꓕ nɹnɯıꓤ 01:46, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Dumb, weak, idjotic, and, in fact, sexist. --Hogwash (talk) 15:25, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Sexist you say, when the person who showed me this a while back was in fact a female.(ノ°Д°）ノʇsədɯəꓕ nɹnɯıꓤ 16:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, considering the fact you made an account just to comment on it seems to show you find offence in it.リムルテンペスト 16:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Being female doesn't mean one isn't sexist. The joke itself falls flat. Also your copyright statement for this image seems to be obviously false ("This image is ineligible for copyright and therefore is in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship."): the images have authorship. Bongolian (talk) 18:25, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Right, Bongolian. As to the claim about registering to make the comment, I registered first and then saw the edits here in Recent Changes. Nice welcome from Rimuru Tempest. --Hogwash (talk) 23:39, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

A girl, and I think this joke is idiotic. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 23:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

There's also a grammatical mistake in it. It should say, "Everybody calls me flat." "Everybody call me flat", is an imperative and she obviously isn't commanding everyone to call her flat. Spud (talk) 00:29, 24 March 2018 (UTC)