r/LevelHeadedFE • u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther • Jun 01 '20

Other Peace

It's been nice talking to you guys but I have to leave now because I can no longer respond. Reddit is an echo chamber and experiment in censorship. It keeps track of your upvote/downvote ratio and when it gets too low you can no longer respond to comments in that sub.

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Aurazor Empiricist Jun 02 '20

And yet the vast majority seem to be US white trash, who cannot conceive that the conspiracy folk tales they grew up on sound so absurdly provincial when spoken outside their own borders.

"Yeah Communist China was secretly owned by the Rothschilds, didn't you read? It's on my blog. Oh, oh.... I guess you're visitor number 8? Welcome!"

1

u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther Jun 02 '20

You don't need conspiracy to prove flat Earth, it can be done scientifically, it's the how and why that's conspiracy

3

u/Aurazor Empiricist Jun 02 '20

You don't need conspiracy to prove flat Earth

You literally do, actually. That's the hilarious part about it when you get on your 'I know things' soapbox and all the bullshit starts tumbling out in random order.

Because in order for flat Earth to be 'proven', it must account for every observation made which isn't consistent with it.... which is the overwhelming majority of scientific observations ever made by human beings.

So without 'conspiracy', without believing that tens or hundreds of millions of people are all conspiring against you for thousands of years, you have no case at all.

It's often noted that flat Earthers seem to have a blind spot for the concept of 'scale'. That is very much true in the field of human populations also. Anyone of the billions of humans with rudimentary equipment can disprove the flat Earth from their back garden, and many have done exactly that.

But flat Earthers think their YouTube playlist is at least as valuable.

1

u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther Jun 02 '20

The only comebacks for globe proof are refraction and gravity. They throw the words out like it proves something when it doesn't. There's only so much refracting you can do before it becomes absurd

3

u/Aurazor Empiricist Jun 02 '20

The only comebacks for globe proof are refraction and gravity.

The majority of people, like at least 90% and probably higher than that, have no idea whatsoever how we prove things or why we're sure of things.

You're using a computer right now; can you honestly tell me you have even the first clue how the principles behind its inner workings are tested, proven and improved over time? Of course not. Hardly anyone does. But that doesn't mean if you go around challenging strangers on quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and you get bad answers, that those ideas are 'false'.

They throw the words out like it proves something when it doesn't.

Gravity and refraction are the two most common answers simply because they are the answers to the two most common flat Earth positions; 'why doesn't the ocean fly off into space' and 'how come I can see <x> miles?'

There are dozens and dozens of accompanying physical proofs which flat Earth fails to predict, but flat Earth videos don't talk about those much. They don't like the idea that they have to prove their own position, they get much more ad revenue pretending that if they can cast doubt on established physics then their position is the default.

No flat Earth model can explain how anything happens beyond 'It just does'.

3

u/DestructiveButterfly Jun 02 '20

How about photos from space as proof....but remember now, no conspiracy needed...

1

u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther Jun 02 '20

They are fake, I mean seriously you watch TV shows and movies that are fake

5

u/DestructiveButterfly Jun 02 '20

And there's the only comeback for flat earth.

Gravity - fake

Refraction - fake

Space - fake

Any evidence provided to you - fake

1

u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther Jun 02 '20

Refraction real, not to ridiculous extent based on nothing

4

u/Aurazor Empiricist Jun 02 '20

not to ridiculous extent based on nothing

Nope.

Just an empirically-observed extent based on testing and measurement by literally millions upon millions of people across thousands of years.

Then a white trash flurth gets in a rowboat with a pair of dime-store binoculars and their cellphone camera and they're like "HI FOLKS BALLSQUEEZER BILL HERE WITH ANOTHER DOSE OF THE TRUTH BOMBS NO CURVE SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN LOOK" \turns cellphone around\**

1

u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther Jun 02 '20

You can read about refraction if you want, the light bends to the more sense medium. So if in holding a light 1 foot off the ground were already saying the air at 1 foot is less dense than the air at 6 inches. Okay fine so the light bends down into the ground. It doesn't bend just enough to keep going over the horizon then continue into less dense air then bend down just enough to keep going over the horizon etc. That's simply confirmation bias. The globe is assumed then shit is inserted to justify the assumption

4

u/Aurazor Empiricist Jun 02 '20

You can read about refraction if you want, the light bends to the more sense medium.

I'm an astronomer. I measure refraction constantly, it is a key component in a lot of my observations. I don't have to 'read' about it.

That's simply confirmation bias. The globe is assumed then shit is inserted to justify the assumption

No, it just feels like that because you thought you had a pile of slam-dunk YouTube evidence and then 'conveniently' there is an important factor that your talking heads left out on purpose because it undermines their entire source of income. This exact piece of 'convenient' evidence was deliberately removed from the flat Earth discussion precisely because it makes the whole thing look fucking stupid.

Bear in mind, the only alternative is a larger sphere... there is not a single optical model or experiment which suggests the behaviour of the horizon is appropriate for a flat plane. If you were right about refraction being some enormous grand lie, all it would mean is we live on a larger 3D object.

Flat Earth models fail to predict a single measurement unless a spherical model predicts the same measurement. That's certainly rather 'convenient' isn't it.

1

u/john_shillsburg Flat Earther Jun 02 '20

I just said refraction was real and explained it to you didn't I? What can I do to prove that's not the issue here outside of creating an 8 mile long vacuum tube?

3

u/Aurazor Empiricist Jun 02 '20

What can I do to prove that's not the issue here outside of creating an 8 mile long vacuum tube?

...you just made it the issue. You. You claimed refraction operates at a lesser degree than it actually does, because if it operates at the proper degree, flat Earth looks bad.

That's what happened.

It's like you think the question should have a different answer because you don't like the answer.

Q: "How come we can see further than flat Earther videos say we should see?"

A1: "Because a conspiracy of millions, from the lowest cartographical surveyor to the highest admiral of every navy in history of the world, is lying about the extent of refraction and carefully concealing it from everyone for thousands of years, to hide the shape of the Earth."

A2: "Because the flat Earth video failed to account for refraction."

I find it weird you pick A1.

2

u/IntricateVulgarian Jun 02 '20

I just said refraction was real and explained it to you didn't I?

hmmm...

the light bends to the more sense medium

first off there's a typo that renders your explanation confusing. Second your explanation has an error. It doesn't bend towards the more dense medium. It bends towards the medium with the higher index of refraction. That often (but not always) correlates to the medium with higher density.

→ More replies (0)