Any one else come across these people in real life?
These nutters had a display up and were handing out flyers outside McD’s where the ‘Jesus Saves!’ preacher guy often does his thing.
I stopped to pick up a flyer, and to gawp at their display/wall (which included a portrait of Newton - I didn’t notice how he fitted in to their arguments).While I was staring one of the believers asked me what I thought and if I’d seen “this”(the Flat-Earth concept) before, I said “Of course, I think its hilarious”. This seemed to piss him off a little (actually, quite a lot), I think his (brief) rant included “Haven’t you seen the internet?” “We’re being lied to”, “the world is not a spinning globe” and something about “water is flat”.
Thing is, I hadn’t said anything to “defend” the scientific consensus, I’d just said that I found their display amusing (if it was an absurdist piece of public art, it would count as a success).
But he immediately took an angry tone, got in my face and started to bring up some ridiculous arguments as to why the Earth is (obviously) flat. (If this was performance art he was a frigging good actor).
I walked away.
Here is some of the why the Earth must be flat reasoning from the flyer:
[ul]
[li]Large bodies of water are always level[/li][li]Earth rotation (sic) cannot be scientifically detected[/li][li]Scientists have never proven the existence of gravity, and still remains a theory[/li][li]How can you prove the distance to the sun, moon, planets or stars[/li][li]Gyroscopes prove planes fly level and do not dip their nose to maintain level flight[/li][/ul]
Bloody obvious explanations left as a exercise for the reader (though feel free to post any cleverer ones here).
Modern-day Flat Eartherism is basically just Young Earth Creationism with a new coat of paint on it. The common thread amongst most Flat Earther arguments is that round-earth model was created by Evil Atheists who run the world and hate God (you see, they do believe in God, they’re just mad at him because they want to be able to sin whenever they want) in order to convince people that the Earth is just one of many worlds like it and it doesn’t have a special place in the cosmos, so that they’ll lose faith and not rebel against their evil atheist masters.
There are a good number of YouTube channels that exist mainly for the purpose of taking the piss out of flat-earthers. Sci Man Dan and Sir Sic, for example, are among the more amusing ones.
I must say I don’t quite get the runaway popularity of Sci Man Dan. He’s OK and quite personable, but there are funnier and more informative flat-earth debunkers out there. Like his content, his editing and delivery lack polish. I do enjoy the flerfers barely disguised jealousy at his > 200k subscribers however.
At first I thought the flat earthers were trying to convert John Maynard Keynes, not an easy task.
I would’ve responded to them with a variation on Sherlock Holmes’ retort when chided by Watson for failing to know that the earth revolved around the sun.
"What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that the earth is flat. If it was a sphere or a trapezoid it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
The internet managed to connect a person who wanted to eat someone with a person who wanted to be eaten. Connecting a few people to form a Flat Earth Society seems tame by comparison.
It certainly could have made for a pointless (deranged) argument, but debating with Flat-Earthers is surely pretty much the definition of futile. A friend of ranty-man was standing by with a video camera on his shoulder (what’s that about?), and I didn’t want to end up on youtube associated with these wakadoos.
Sigh. Yup, we have concrete cows and hundreds and hundreds of roundabouts, but it’s a nice place to live*
By the way, for anyone who hasn’t (for sanity’s sake) looked at the website(s). The Earth is really a flat disc with the North Pole in the middle - and the South Pole all around the perimeter (smilie -> rabbit caught in headlights of stupid).
While there are doubtless some crazies that actually believe it, we’re up against Poe’s Law, here. I’d wager that at least 90% of the people who profess to be “flat Earthers” are just saying it for the lulz.
I think and hope that most of them are just trolling for a response. But some do really believe for whatever value of belief. Well, it’s not so much belief, as an acceptance that what the don’t see, doesn’t exist. A very comfortable position when you think about it. If they can’t wrap their head around facts, just shoo them away.
It is ignorance, but it’s more. It’s the inability to think beyond the horizon. Literally in this case.
They really don’t deserve any attention at all. I have already given them too much with this post.
I think rational people unwittingly help these jamokes by using the colloquial theory in random conversation, where it’s synonymous with hypothesis or conjecture. Scientific theory is almost antonymous with that; it doesn’t prove anything, but is a predictive model based on what could be considered proof.
It’s like deliberately inferring “black lives matter” means black lives matter more than others when it means black lives matter just as much as anyones (which is true). It’s insidious how these sorts of people thrive on innocent ambiguity.
I know I’m the last person who should criticise other’s grammar, but like I have a cognitive problem, what’s y’alls?