Excellent and humorous perspective. Keeping this in my mental toolbox if I ever encounter a flatearther.
If there was such an edge some corporation would have built a giant hotel with an infinity pool by now.
Almost a perfect overview of Flat Earthism Voyager!
But,
Three Flerfs; Jeran Campanella, Austin Whitsitt, and Lisbeth Acosta, and one Baller; Dave McKeegan went for free.
On the “Show me the edge” thing:
Sorry to say, I am on FE forums enough to know this won’t work. Because:
- Most flerfers don’t think the earth is a finite 2D space with edges; they think there’s an ice wall, and then beyond that, maybe infinite tundra. Maybe with other earths embedded in it (in their own domes?)
- They deflect any and all “show me” questions. FE is a personal journey; you need to do your own research. Of course in some cases it will be because they are just trolls, but I’ve encountered plenty of true believers* that do this too. It’s some kind of defence mechanism.
* How do I know they are true believers? Mostly just the time spent. There are people who post about the FE multiple times a day for years. And their posts show evidence of having watched hours of bitchute videos. It’s quite an investment for trolling.
Here’s a great picture from the Wikipedia article on Flat earth. It’s a windfarm off the coast of Belgium:
Of course, it’s probably been photoshopped or AI generated
OK, then show me the ice wall. Show me the infinite tundra. Show me the other domes.
There are these things called “cameras”. You want me to believe you, show me evidence. Don’t have any? Well, you go on a personal journey, and take some pictures while you’re there. I’ll wait for you to come back.
Incidentally, you should say all of the above with as much contempt as you can muster. You must make it clear to them that you think they are idiots and that you do NOT respect their opinion, nor do you care about their opinion of you.
I watched an interesting Netflix documentary called “Behind the Curve” about flat earthers and the mindsets that drive them.
It shows, as has been mentioned here, the capacity for them to stubbornly hang on to their beliefs in the face of all evidence to the contrary. One flat earther purchases some sort of electronic gyroscope thingie that set him back something like $20K. If the Earth was round and revolved at the speed that scientists said it did, the gyroscope would display this. Which it did. But the flat earthers said that they were false readings caused by the radiation of the Sun. So they proposed putting the gyroscope in some special type of box made out of Magnesium or something to try to block the solar radiation. They just move the goalposts.
These are all valid points but you may as well be shouting into the void (or the infinite tundra). I mean we’re talking about people who refuse to look through a telescope, or insist all telescopes are rigged or something.
As I say, I’m on flat earth forums, mostly for amusement, and partly to reach some of the casuals before they get invested. The people who are invested will never challenge their FE beliefs, even if occasionally you can get them to concede some evidence of the globe earth.
On this specifically; the ice shelf is pretty impressive in some places, and can stretch off into the horizon, so that kind of request will result in that kind of image being cited.
Thanks Bob!
Of note: a few flearthers refused to go but are now putting out videos “proving” it was faked. Did I mention they refused to go to prove it’s fake on-site?
And you cannot argue with them because their tactics are:
300 pieces of evidence in your favor are faked like photoshopped picture (no proof they’re photoshopped) or CGI video. However there was this one guy that said something that implies the flat Earth so the Earth is flat. QED.
Nothing on the globe Earth side has ever been proven. Cavendish did not prove gravity. Photos like the bridge over Lake Ponchitrain or hull-down ships do not prove anything.
Their mathematics are completely wrong, especially geometry. The formula for earth drop is not 8 inches per mile squared. A light source does not give off light in the weird irregular shape needed for flat earth sunlight. Repeating Eratosthenes experiment for different distances would give different heights for the Sun. Why can’t Polaris be seen from the Southern Hemisphere AND why everyone there while facing south is pointed to Sigma Octanis.
Their “science” is wrong. They disprove gravity on a basketball by neglecting there is a huge gravity well below them. They say TFE was not an experiment, but rather an observation. They add variables to their experiment thus “proving” moonlight is cold.
And ultimately, they refuse to answer any questions when caught out. For example, a flerther says that things fall to the ground, not because of gravity because it’s just a theory but relative density. Not one has ever answered the question of why heavier things go down and not up or following the path of the Sun.
Yep, I think this proves that some of the bigger names, like “Flat Earth Dave” and Eric Dubay are simply grifters. They are people who had said, repeatedly, that they would like to go to Antarctica if they were “allowed”, but when the opportunity came up, made every conceivable excuse.
It’s funny too their own photo “evidence”. It’s always a Nikon P1000 camera. Seriously, I’ve never spoken to a flat earther that uses any other camera. They try to zoom in on jupiter, or heck, even the moon, make a shitty blurred picture, and therefore claim that the moon and planets are all “luminaries” or whatever.
Well yes and no.
As a parabolic equation it is of course not correct, but it does fit the curvature surprisingly well for hundreds of kilometres.
The bigger problem is the way they are applying this equation. What they often implictly do, is imagine an observer whose eyeball is on the ground looking out at a terrain that never rises above sea-level.
You’ve said a few times that you’d like to “resolve” this or “get past” this so you can continue evolving your relationship with your brother.
I’m wondering if this is less about the flat-earther stuff and more about him using it as buffer or barrier to building that relationship. If he feels like you are getting too close or personal and that makes him uncomfortable, or trapped, or is taking him to a place in your relationship he doesn’t want to go he knows he can just bring up the flat-earth stuff again to create that “safe space” between the two of you.
Wonder how he would react if when you brought up a “move-past/develop/evolve” relationship topic direction you want to explore, and he brings up the flat-earth topic again, to simply agree with him, say you are convinced, and try to move on. If he is still hesitant and trys to coax you into continued debate about it then he is using this as a wall between the two of you.
Exactly. They don’t use it as an approximation. They say using that according to the 8"/mi^2 formula, 392’ of the mountain should be missing at the bottom. But only 258’ are missing. That’s the wrong amount therefore the Earth is flat.
One thing I’ve had such people insist on is that zooming in on the alleged “horizon” with an optical device allows one to see objects “over” the horizon.
The thing at the core (as such) of these individuals that really gets me is the complete and utter lack of any open-minded curiosity. Eratosthenes designed his experiment to try to measure the circumference of the earth from just such a perspective, and apparently had an open-ended view of whatever the results would be. It’s like hey, I’ll do this that and the other thing, and maybe in the process I’ll learn something. I try to imagine living an existence like these beings do instead, and in the end I absolutely cannot fathom it, at all.
To be honest, I suspect that the lack of open-minded curiosity is the default setting for most human brains.
I know a lot of flatearthers will say that pictures from space are all lies from NASA. They seem to be very America-centric, even though they have acolytes in some other countries.
Do they ever try to explain how NASA gets all the other countries with space programs put out the exact same lies about their own space programs? Why China and Russia would want to back the U.S. lies? Or, by extension, how do they explain why all the scientists in the world have for the past several hundred years - way before NASA or even America - agreed with one another to put out the same set of lies about all science? How do they get away with this world-wide hoax? It can’t be just that scientists are paid to say these things; the cost going into science has been hundreds of trillions of dollars over the past century alone. Yet there are no cracks. Ever. Worse, science keeps sciencing on and doing more and more stuff that depends both on earlier science and all science supporting every offshoot that gives them more and more to deny. The level of avoidance must be staggering, probably why they need to spend so much time reinforcing their beliefs.
But I really want to know the answer to first question. Who gets all the scientists in the world to put out their “lies”?
Big Globe. 
From what I’ve heard from their mouths, The Jesuits and/or the Jews (the latter especially for the neo-Nazi Flerfs).
Quoting what I assume is the core question of your OP.
As others have pointed out, flat Earth theory is neither heated nor controversial among scientists, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers, civil engineers, geologists, maritime industries, the airline industry, the US Navy and Air Force (indeed any military organization with interests around the world) and other professionals for who a large part of their industry’s ability to function properly is based on the fact that the Earth is shaped like a fucking ball.
Even as painters you should recognize that the top of a wall is a few microns wider than the bottom of the wall. That’s due to the distorting effects of homes being build on a curved Earth’s surface!
I’m not going to debate whether the Earth is round. There is almost 2400 years worth of research going back to Aristotle that you can show your brother at your leisure. It’s not an interesting debate to me, even as a thought experiment.
What is generally interesting to me is how people (many who are otherwise very smart) can glom on to some stupid idea that gets stuck in their head.
What is actually perhaps more interesting to me is the OP’s life story about going from straight As in gifted classes through middle school to painting (presumably houses, not fine art?) in his 50s. And let’s not blame Maiden and AC/DC. Everyone our age listened to that in middle/high school and many experimented with weed and alcohol. And in fact, many of the metalhead kids were actually some of the smartest and most creative people in school.
I think an appropriate response is “stop talking about the Earth being flat and move on to a better topic because you sound like a madman / lunatic.” Honestly, at some point I just don’t want to hear other peoples nonsense.
Where do I go to sign with those Jews? They seem to have a lot of power over the other 99.8% of the world’s population. And I’ve always wanted to be in the one percent.
The Masons!
How did I forget the number one ‘they’ for Flerfs, the Masons?
FNORD