Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up • Hacker News Board

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#21

Post by Houshalter » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

starik36 wrote: post #15

If he is a true believer, he is at least willing to test those beliefs by conducting an experiment. As it should be. How many true believers of anything are willing to have their their minds changed? This guy should be praised instead of ridiculed by a bunch of internet non-contributing zeroes.

Yeah what he did was definitely cool. But if you just want to test a hypothesis, it would be much easier to send a camera and not a whole person. Also a balloon could obtain a higher altitude than any amateur rocket. And people have filmed the curvature of the Earth with just balloons, they can get quite high.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#22

Post by Jonovono » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #5

I wonder if he really believes the earth is flat, or if he's just pretending so the flat earth people will keep funding his rocket hobby.

That's exactly what it was. He was trying to raise money before and didn't succeed so he tried this angle.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#23

Post by mulmen » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:15 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #5

I wonder if he really believes the earth is flat, or if he's just pretending so the flat earth people will keep funding his rocket hobby.

He’s doing it for money. He’s a daredevil and borderline con man who tried and failed to raise money through Kickstarter. When he realized he could exploit rubes to make a buck he started doubting scientific consensus.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/22/565926690...

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#24

Post by txsh » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

guscost wrote: post #18

If you’re going less than 2000 feet up, what’s wrong with an airplane?

Hey, look. Someone who didn't read the article.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#25

Post by mulmen » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

guscost wrote: post #18

If you’re going less than 2000 feet up, what’s wrong with an airplane?

It’s harder to get flat earthers to give you money for airfare.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#26

Post by comboy » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #13

eloff wrote: post #5

I wonder if he really believes the earth is flat, or if he's just pretending so the flat earth people will keep funding his rocket hobby.

Maybe 10% of flat earthers are true faithful and not trolls.

I'm optimistic and I'd say at least 2 orders of magnitude fewer.

It all started with some guys on youtube making probably quite decent money with their videos explaining that the earth is flat. Tons of people shared links to show others "look how stupid that guy must be". Because the videos were indeed made in the way to make you think the author is not very smart. I believe the suckers were those sharing the links and author decided that he'd rather have cash than his pride, outsmarting them all.

What surprised me, is that quite a few science channels made videos explaining and proving that the earth is not in fact flat, often providing links to some "flat-earther" video, basically helping him doing what he does.

Just being able to shoot a semi-decent video and uploading it to youtube, plus making some arguments for the earth being flat, takes way more comprehension than realizing that the earth is not flat. If there is some real flat-earther that made a video about it - you haven't seen it. Because it was likely low quality, not entertaining and he couldn't make it viral.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#27

Post by starik36 » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #21

starik36 wrote: post #15

If he is a true believer, he is at least willing to test those beliefs by conducting an experiment. As it should be. How many true believers of anything are willing to have their their minds changed? This guy should be praised instead of ridiculed by a bunch of internet non-contributing zeroes.

Yeah what he did was definitely cool. But if you just want to test a hypothesis, it would be much easier to send a camera and not a whole person. Also a balloon could obtain a higher altitude than any amateur rocket. And people have filmed the curvature of the Earth with just balloons, they can get quite high.

I am sure just the enormous challenge of actually building a rocket with a couple of friends also played a major role.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#28

Post by Hoasi » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

Jonovono wrote: post #22

eloff wrote: post #5

I wonder if he really believes the earth is flat, or if he's just pretending so the flat earth people will keep funding his rocket hobby.

That's exactly what it was. He was trying to raise money before and didn't succeed so he tried this angle.

Well, that's smart.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#29

Post by crowbahr » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

starik36 wrote: post #15

If he is a true believer, he is at least willing to test those beliefs by conducting an experiment. As it should be. How many true believers of anything are willing to have their their minds changed? This guy should be praised instead of ridiculed by a bunch of internet non-contributing zeroes.

Except he doesn't believe, he just wants to go do something dangerous and adventurous and have other people pay him for it.

Re: Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up

#30

Post by guscost » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #25

guscost wrote: post #18

If you’re going less than 2000 feet up, what’s wrong with an airplane?

It’s harder to get flat earthers to give you money for airfare.

Well obviously commercial jets have video screens instead of windows, but surely building an ultralight or using an open cockpit plane is easier than this.