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Flat Earthers spend $20K on device that proves Earth is round

Carl Spackler

By Carl Spackler
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XYZ

XYZ 2,154

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There are a couple of things that are not clear to me:

-If the earth is a disk that’s constantly accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2 (and has been for who knows how long), wouldn’t the disk by now be going at ludicrous speed?

-If the earth is a disk, wouldn’t you if you travel enough in any direction reach the edge?

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Orange&White

Orange&White 5,539

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Every time i seriously stop and think that there are actual people on this earth that actually believe it is flat, I am totally mystified.

Then I remember that there are tens of thousands of people just east of here that continue to believe that the aggies are just a year or two away from completely dominating college athletics.

And there are literally no amount of facts/science that you can provide to either group to convince them that they are wrong.

 

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Herpa Derpa

Herpa Derpa 6,132

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4 minutes ago, XYZ said:

There are a couple of things that are not clear to me:

-If the earth is a disk that’s constantly accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2 (and has been for who knows how long), wouldn’t the disk by now be going at ludicrous speed?

-If the earth is a disk, wouldn’t you if you travel enough in any direction reach the edge?

Let me clear it up for you.  The earth is not a disk.

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Dennis Taylor

Dennis Taylor 18,874

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27 minutes ago, XYZ said:

There are a couple of things that are not clear to me:

-If the earth is a disk that’s constantly accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2 (and has been for who knows how long), wouldn’t the disk by now be going at ludicrous speed?

-If the earth is a disk, wouldn’t you if you travel enough in any direction reach the edge?

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21,894

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27 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

What started this flat earther movement?  Are they just conspiracy theory nuts that if it wasn't flat earth they would just latch on to something else, or is there some misconstrued report that set this whole thing off?

These people exist.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/cc665n/the-age-of-bulls--t

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46,165

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26 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

What started this flat earther movement?  Are they just conspiracy theory nuts that if it wasn't flat earth they would just latch on to something else, or is there some misconstrued report that set this whole thing off?

Half the people on this planet have an IQ below 100.  They are easily manipulated.  Combine that innate gullibility with a fairly pervasive resentment of the "educated ruling class" and you get a bunch of rubes who will buy into anything you sell them with just a modicum of subtlety.  Once the gates have been breached, you don't even need subtlety (if you ever needed it in the first place).

Moon landings, flat earth, deep state, vaccines, pizzagate, it doesn't matter -- it's a self-reinforcing cult of ignorance that revels in little more than a belief they are enlightened and them book-learnin' types are the fools.  OK.

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52,608

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I refuse to believe that there are people out there that genuinely believe this. It’s contrarian attention whoring. 

Humans have circumnavigated the globe in boats, planes, balloons, and spacecraft, in about every direction possible. And taken pictures along the way. 

A geocentric solar system is honestly more arguable. 

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6,224

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1 hour ago, XYZ said:

-If the earth is a disk, wouldn’t you if you travel enough in any direction reach the edge?

The laws of physics guarantee that you will not fall off of the flat earth.  You simply teleport to the other edge, and keep going.  I mean, duh!
 

Quote

 One of the more interesting pieces of evidence came from speaker Darren Nesbit, who referred to the "Pac-Man effect" as the reason why planes don't fall off the edge of a flat Earth, according to the science news website Physics-Astronomy.org. When a plane or other object reaches the edge of the horizon, such as when Pac-Man reaches the end of the screen, that object will teleport from one side of the planet to the other, a la Pac-Man entering from the other side of the screen.

https://www.livescience.com/62454-flat-earthers-explain-pac-man-effect.html

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3,504

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3 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

The laws of physics guarantee that you will not fall off of the flat earth.  You simply teleport to the other edge, and keep going.  I mean, duh!
 

https://www.livescience.com/62454-flat-earthers-explain-pac-man-effect.html

One of the more cogent, well-reasoned theories subscribed to by flat-earthers.

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52,608

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16 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

The laws of physics guarantee that you will not fall off of the flat earth.  You simply teleport to the other edge, and keep going.  I mean, duh!
 

https://www.livescience.com/62454-flat-earthers-explain-pac-man-effect.html

I had to click. Before the Pac-Man effect theorem gets unveiled, there was this:

Imagine that – hundreds of conspiracy theorists, some of whom think Australia doesn’t really exist, descending on a three star hotel in the Midlands.

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4,378

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15 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

The laws of physics guarantee that you will not fall off of the flat earth.  You simply teleport to the other edge, and keep going.  I mean, duh!
 

https://www.livescience.com/62454-flat-earthers-explain-pac-man-effect.html

I guess you can see across the teleportation corridor as well since we never actually see the edge?  Where exactly is the edge supposed to be?  The Pacific?

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Your Mom

Your Mom 4,852

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Flat Earth Society is a troll job.  It began as a tongue-in-cheek joke. Various forms of it have been around for 100 years.

They troll two types of people:  

1.  People who actually believe the Earth is flat. 

2.  People who believe that Flat Earthers actually believe the Earth is flat  This is the primary troll job and people that need to argue about the Earth being round have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

 

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52,608

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Does the Pac-Man effect only exist at the edge of the disk?  So when we go straight up it’s ok, but we only see a portion of the land mass because...optical illusion?  Or is all space travel deemed government hoax?

how do you argue with people that don’t believe Australia is real?

are all celestial bodies disks?  Do they all have this Pac-Man halo?  If one is outside the halo, can one get inside the halo, and vice versa?  Is the halo more of a tube that extends up such that no matter how high above the surface you go, you still encounter it?

Edited by Pato del Muerto
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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4,378

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9 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Does the Pac-Man effect only exist at the edge of the disk?  So when we go straight up it’s ok, but we only see a portion of the land mass because...optical illusion?  Or is all space travel deemed government hoax?

how do you argue with people that don’t believe Australia is real?

are all celestial bodies disks?  Do they all have this Pac-Man halo?  If one is outside the halo, can one get inside the halo, and vice versa?  Is the halo more of a tube that extends up such that no matter how high above the surface you go, you still encounter it?

Well, can you prove Australia is real, mate?  I saw Crocodile Dundee 2 and you could tell it was a soundstage.

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Your Mom

Your Mom 4,852

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I had a geology professor in college who was a member of the Flat Earth Society. It was a complete joke. They would get together once a year for a convention and all these scientists would try to give the most ridiculous lectures full of bullshit to explain why the Earth is flat and to get laughs from the other scientists in the room.  Then they all get drunk together and laugh about it.  The rest of the year they would exchange bogus articles about it for laughs. 

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Llano Estacado

Llano Estacado 1,257

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I guess you can see across the teleportation corridor as well since we never actually see the edge?  Where exactly is the edge supposed to be?  The Pacific?


There is no South Pole. It’s a giant ice wall.

Imagine peeling an orange from the bottom, but stretching the skin into a disc. You can’t circumnavigate Antarctica simply do a circumference of the outer edge.
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Llano Estacado

Llano Estacado 1,257

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After watching that documentary, I agreed with the assessment that a lot of those people just need a friend to go bowling with or something. 


Yeah, when he asked him before the convention if he would ever change his mind if there was enough evidence you could almost see the light come on. You could see the wheels spinning, then he responds with something like, “I can’t now. I’ve got to much invested. These are my people.”
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Asithappens

Asithappens 974

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8 minutes ago, Llano Estacado said:

 


Yeah, when he asked him before the convention if he would ever change his mind if there was enough evidence you could almost see the light come on. You could see the wheels spinning, then he responds with something like, “I can’t now. I’ve got to much invested. These are my people.”

 

This explains so, so much of human behavior.

The clever person will find a way to make a buck off those suckers.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46,165

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6 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

The clever person will find a way to make a buck off those suckers.

This got me thinking "surely someone has built a flat earth globe" and sure enough, it's out there.  The text explaining the "theory" gave me pause for a new reason:

Quote

The modern movement can trace it’s heritage back to Samuel Rowbotham, whose 1849 16 page pamphlet and 1881 book Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe make the case for a flat Earth.

It, “…models the Earth as an enclosed plane centered at the North Pole and bounded along its perimeter by a wall of ice, with the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars moving only several hundred miles above the surface of Earth.”

 

Has anyone done a calculation of expected surface temperature on Earth if the sun were appropriately scaled down such that it appears the size it does now if it were only a few hundred miles away?  Something tells me we'd be hot as hell.  We know the temperature of the sun based on its emitted light spectrum . . . not that any flat earthers would believe such a calculation if they can't even believe the existence of a horizon . . . still . . .

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Longhorn Al

Longhorn Al 440

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Conspiracies need to have a point.  Some nefarious group trying to profit off of it.  How exactly does anyone profit off keeping the fact that the earth is flat a secret?

This is the same as someone in a group of people tossing out the "a hot dog is a sandwich" argument, getting people revved up arguing over it, then sits back and laughs.

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TornACL

TornACL 7,722

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11 minutes ago, Longhorn Al said:

Conspiracies need to have a point.  Some nefarious group trying to profit off of it.  How exactly does anyone profit off keeping the fact that the earth is flat a secret?

This is the same as someone in a group of people tossing out the "a hot dog is a sandwich" argument, getting people revved up arguing over it, then sits back and laughs.

The point is entertaining oneself on the interwebs. 

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futureman

futureman 22,549

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2 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I refuse to believe that there are people out there that genuinely believe this. It’s contrarian attention whoring. 

Humans have circumnavigated the globe in boats, planes, balloons, and spacecraft, in about every direction possible. And taken pictures along the way. 

A geocentric solar system is honestly more arguable. 

I think some hard-liners may actually exist but the recent flat-earther popularity spike, given legs via social media, is contrarian attention whoring by people who don’t genuinely believe it.  

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Llano Estacado

Llano Estacado 1,257

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We used to call those folks “crackpots”.
example:
”Alex Jones is a crackpot”.


Alex Jones actually believes the Earth is round and defended it against a flat-earther (Eddie Bravo) last week.

When your crackpot theory is a bridge too far for Alex Jones that tells you everything you need to know.
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Longhorn Al

Longhorn Al 440

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16 minutes ago, Llano Estacado said:

 

 


Alex Jones actually believes the Earth is round and defended it against a flat-earther (Eddie Bravo) last week.

When your crackpot theory is a bridge too far for Alex Jones that tells you everything you need to know.

 

I saw that.  Alex Jones also said vaccines are beneficial.  He just doesn't trust what else is put in them.  That was the first I had seen re: the US purposely injecting syphilis into Latin American populations for decades and then apologizing for it. 

I'm still just halfway through that podcast.

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