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Found Out My Friend is a Flat Earther Today...
- Thread starter Pinko Marx
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The Shadow
Member
I remember when I found out my friend from college was a young earther. I was devastated, because I considered him one of my better friends. I mean, he helped me a ton with Microbiology, so I just assumed he was intelligent and on the ball.
I was floored when he told me there was no firm evidence that the earth was billions of years old, and fossils were put in the earth by the devil. Fuck me! Blown away by that when he told me.
I was floored when he told me there was no firm evidence that the earth was billions of years old, and fossils were put in the earth by the devil. Fuck me! Blown away by that when he told me.
TetraGenesis
Member
Seriously, like, fuck off.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
If you want to see what's actually in the minds of people believing in this kind of BS, this is a great place to look at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wolfie6020
It's a youtube channel of an Australian pilot who makes these videos where he uses simple, easily repeatable experiments to show everyone in a clear enough way that what science has been telling them all along is, in fact, true. He also engages in arguments with anyone claiming fakery in a most polite and respectful way imaginable.
Some of the comments are from people who simply don't want to believe the scientists on their word on something that they expect to be so easily observable, and want to see the Earth being round with their own eyes (which, it turns out, is not so easily achievable). Some however are truly off the deep end, and have wilful ignorance, with pure hatred, like one commenter in this video that he made, which nicely shows curvature of the Earth from the pilot's cabin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOsxgGeABGM
Some, on the other hand, don't really fathom the actual size of the Earth, and expect its curvature to be far larger at the airplane flying height, than it really is, thinking then that the curve shown in his video is practically invisible (comparing to what I assume they expected to see). To that point, here is also a somewhat sombering visual tool that shows the visible Earth curvature interactively, for any given height and field of view:
http://walter.bislins.ch/blog/index.asp?page=Flat-Earth:+Finding+the+curvature+of+the+Earth
You can see just how high in the air you need to be to see a clear curve with a narrow field of view such as that you can observe through a passenger airplane window, or that of a typical camera lens. Even at 30km height, the curve appears quite gentle though a 60 degree fov.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wolfie6020
It's a youtube channel of an Australian pilot who makes these videos where he uses simple, easily repeatable experiments to show everyone in a clear enough way that what science has been telling them all along is, in fact, true. He also engages in arguments with anyone claiming fakery in a most polite and respectful way imaginable.
Some of the comments are from people who simply don't want to believe the scientists on their word on something that they expect to be so easily observable, and want to see the Earth being round with their own eyes (which, it turns out, is not so easily achievable). Some however are truly off the deep end, and have wilful ignorance, with pure hatred, like one commenter in this video that he made, which nicely shows curvature of the Earth from the pilot's cabin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOsxgGeABGM
(the commenter who posted this has a ton more elaborate comments, and doesn't really come off as a troll)
Some, on the other hand, don't really fathom the actual size of the Earth, and expect its curvature to be far larger at the airplane flying height, than it really is, thinking then that the curve shown in his video is practically invisible (comparing to what I assume they expected to see). To that point, here is also a somewhat sombering visual tool that shows the visible Earth curvature interactively, for any given height and field of view:
http://walter.bislins.ch/blog/index.asp?page=Flat-Earth:+Finding+the+curvature+of+the+Earth
You can see just how high in the air you need to be to see a clear curve with a narrow field of view such as that you can observe through a passenger airplane window, or that of a typical camera lens. Even at 30km height, the curve appears quite gentle though a 60 degree fov.
TetraGenesis
Member
My one solace in the face of overwhelming, irredeemable stupidity like this is that I stop being afraid that humanity will go extinct and start hoping it does.
TetraGenesis
Member
iPaul93
Member
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
"If I didn't experience it directly it's NOT TRUE!"
We badly need an increase in skepticism in human society but not like this.
We badly need an increase in skepticism in human society but not like this.
I unfortunately know people like this. Some people really went far down the rabbit hole.
StanleyStutters
Member
I read the whole thing, help.
I've been reading throughout the day. It makes me chuckle and then makes me sad. Can't believe it, I really can't.
Great gif, though! That made me smile.
That still requires gravity to work though.
All Possible Ways
Member
Amazingly enough, it doesn't. That the gravitational force is locally equivalent to acceleration is a profound result, and lead Einstein to the formulation of General Relativity. The idea of a flat Earth is ridiculous for uncountable other reasons, of course, as you know.
But why isn't the ground fisheyed before they take off??? :0
Fair enough, so what is the force that keeps us to the ground in that situation? Centrifugal force?
All Possible Ways
Member
It's the force the ground exerts, pushing you up. It may seem counterintuitive, but if you imagine jumping, the ground would rush up and quickly catch up with you. From your point of view, it looks exactly like you just fell back on it.
You can see this effect in an elevator. When going up, if you are carrying groceries, you will notice they feel heavier. In fact they are, because the effective acceleration you feel is that of gravity plus the elevator. When going down, it is opposite.
Would gravity not be required to be there in that situation though? In that situation you can't have one with out the other.
Miles Quaritch
Member
The stupid cunt has a 'What's it like being a free thinker' avatar. That in itself should have been a red flag.
Number 5 though, motherfucker was shit talking Buzz. Who wouldn't smack a piece of shit in that situation.
All Possible Ways
Member
If you mean the elevator example, then not really. In the absence of gravity, the weight you would feel would be just the (tiny) one due to the elevator accelerating up.
The acceleration from rotation also works, since you get pushed to the outside of the curve. If you set the rate of spin just right, you could "walk on the wall". That is one way to make artificial gravity in a space station.
Icyflamez96
Member
y'all seein this
Professor Renegade
Banned
Miles Quaritch
Member
Hah, haven't heard that in a while.
metareferential
Member
Buzz was actually being polite.
Dumb idiots like this deserve to be put on a fucking rocket and shot into outer space (what I'd personally do is less expensive and more efficient).
The bottom line is though we call it artificial gravity because we don't have another name for it. Carnival rides do the same thing with centrifugal force.
All Possible Ways
Member
It is a good name though, because you literally can't tell the difference with any experiment. To be clear, there are indeed gravitational effects you can't mimic this way, which have to do with the non-uniformity of the field (it doesn't point straight down, but rather to the center of the Earth).
To the extent the field is uniform, though, a plane accelerating up is just as good, since the deviation from the vertical when you drop something you're holding is quite small.
I'm going to go masturbate with shards of glass. This thread is killing me.
Ask him about lizard people and the masonic order.
The fact that the lie would only work if all the world's governments agreed to keep it secret. All the world's governments, that's including the ones that hate each other. Motherfucking US and Canada are fighting over milk right now, you think that ALL the world's governments would agree on this one thing?
Imperfected
Member
Listen, keeping every piece of human artifice (including swimmers) from reaching the edge of the world is easy. Filtering search engine results is hard.
I've never gotten an answer as most people just dismiss the question outright or the ones I did get were just straight insanity that tripled down the crazy to justify the existence of the most well known secret global conspiracy ever.
Vegetable Lasagna
Member
I personally don't see the difference. We can argue about either and I'm going to ask for facts. One response is going to be faith and the other is going to be conspiracy theory. The argument against both are some of the tangibles science provides, those of which will be quickly dismissed by both groups. The only thing differing the two in my eyes is societal acceptance.
Either way I'm not throwing a friend away over being a flat earther. Something I find hilarious at worst in his case. They're going to have to really one-up the flat earth theory for me to take notice. It's not like I'm broing out with Alex Jones over here or something.
Till he starts talking about globalists.
Obliterator
Member
Show your friend Joe Rogan destroying Eddie Bravo on Flat Earth
https://youtu.be/8X9pszVRucs
If he still denies it, whatevs you can still be friends with him, but just know he ignores all logic when it comes to science
https://youtu.be/8X9pszVRucs
If he still denies it, whatevs you can still be friends with him, but just know he ignores all logic when it comes to science
PedroPanache
Member
My friend, he's a paranoid schizophrenic, and, on his bad days, he'll bombard me with all kinds of nutty conspiracy theories. From the flat earth nonsense to Hitler still being alive, he spends his time going down a rabbit hole on YouTube and the mind just gets overloaded with all this nonsense, to the point where it gets bottled up and, when I go round and visit, it'll just get sprayed at me. It's hard to keep up because he jumps from one conspiracy to the next.
What usually happens when you discover your friend is a conspiracy theorist is that you'll debate them, earnestly and in good faith initially, but then you come to realise that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, gets through. Minds are reasoned with, points aren't challenged and debated, it's just a wall of noise that you have no control over. At this point, I'm no longer interested in debating the issue, I just throw out my platitudes of "oh right, that's crazy! It's hard to know what to believe these days" and attempt to steer the conversation far, far away from anything remotely resembling a conspiracy theory. It works.....at least for a while, but before I know it, we're talking about North Korea and, well, God dammit! Not this shit again!
So, yeah, this flat earth thing is just the worst and I think mental illness plays a massive, massive part of it. I looked at the Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo footage and it was eerily similar to my own experience. You can tell from the body language of Bravo, just how frustrated and agitated he gets when his points are being disputed and challenged. These guys when they get onto their conspiracy theories just unload and it's all over the place. It's like shaking a can of soda and it just sprays everywhere uncontrollably. They're all over the place, jumping in out from one conspiracy to the next. What's worse, they believe EVERYTHING. The YouTube rabbit hole has a lot to answer for.
What usually happens when you discover your friend is a conspiracy theorist is that you'll debate them, earnestly and in good faith initially, but then you come to realise that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, gets through. Minds are reasoned with, points aren't challenged and debated, it's just a wall of noise that you have no control over. At this point, I'm no longer interested in debating the issue, I just throw out my platitudes of "oh right, that's crazy! It's hard to know what to believe these days" and attempt to steer the conversation far, far away from anything remotely resembling a conspiracy theory. It works.....at least for a while, but before I know it, we're talking about North Korea and, well, God dammit! Not this shit again!
So, yeah, this flat earth thing is just the worst and I think mental illness plays a massive, massive part of it. I looked at the Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo footage and it was eerily similar to my own experience. You can tell from the body language of Bravo, just how frustrated and agitated he gets when his points are being disputed and challenged. These guys when they get onto their conspiracy theories just unload and it's all over the place. It's like shaking a can of soda and it just sprays everywhere uncontrollably. They're all over the place, jumping in out from one conspiracy to the next. What's worse, they believe EVERYTHING. The YouTube rabbit hole has a lot to answer for.
Vincent Grayson
Member
That all sounds very similar to talking with my buddy about this stuff, which is why I no longer do. It was just too much to deal with; every goddamn time I saw him he'd have a new total bullshit thing to tell me about.
Oh man, a movie about flat earth would be amazing.
I like trying to out crazy those people.
Like that stand up where the father goes like "so do you know the moon landing was fake ?" and the guy answers it with "...do you believe in the Moon ????"
Spladam
Member
You absolutely don't need to be open minded about a theory that is disproved by emperical evidence.
FTFY
SonicXtreme
Member
what is it with people on GAF and getting into arguments on facebook? why would you ever engage in that. jesus.
Snkfanatic
Banned
Fixed it for you. It's not a GAF thing.
Pinko Marx
Banned
It was FB messenger. Essentially we were text messaging. This conversation was private.
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