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How do flat earthers explain that the other planets are round and we see different sides of them all the time? Is earth flat and the rest of the planets are spheres??? Even in their bizarre world of logic this seems unassailable.
You gotta admit, if you don't think too hard about it, it is pretty weird how many flights there are over the arctic when there aren't any (at all!) over the antarctic. Have you tried explaining/performing Eristothanes experiment with them? https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-proved-t... edit: didn't mean to sound like a flat-earther! please stop downvoting!
Quite simply - there is much more land mass in the Northern Hemisphere, and flights, say from Moscow to Anchorage or Reykjavik to Toronto have great circle routes that traverse the Arctic circle. The Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, has no large land masses near it, and even the southern most points of Australia/New Zealand and South America are too far away for any great circle routes to cut through there with…
I seem to remember that Qantas has had flights crossing Antarctica in the past; their point was probably to cross/sightsee Antarctica rather than be the optimal routing for a flight though.
Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying, and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer. The uptick in flat earth theories among other things…
Growing up before 2000, it was a lot more Noah’s Ark, The Shroud of Tourin, Bible Codes, whether angels are real, and of course, exorcisms.
I can only laugh at this flat earth shit, but it actually fits right in with how people would buy right into what used to be on TV. Only nobody watches TV like they used to, so whatever’s on the computer shall dominate. And that’s all there is to it.
Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying, and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer. The uptick in flat earth theories among other things…
Once you put it in a langugage they can understand, a real conversation can be had. I did not convert him or anything but at least managed to make him ask real questions.
And to be honest this is not that far from the truth - all those cult leaders are just praying on people with hightened curiosities and pushing them into a “local maximum” of understanding, one that they can extract money / fame from. A textbook conspiracy:)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the success of these off-kilter theories is strongly connected to many people's lives becoming off-kilter. This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Moreover, most people depend on the relative sanity of others to balance their own impulses and so a decline in rationality can have cumulative effect.
> This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Can you please support this claim with credible data? Sincere question - I'm just reading a book recommended by Bill Gates that claims that the world is way better today than it was 20 years ago.
Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying, and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer. The uptick in flat earth theories among other things…
You just have to accept that most people are not rational . They don't experience reality through a scientific (for lack of a better word) perspective. Most believe in some sort of magical deities or spirits or life force or whatever. Most operate with a physical model of reality that's clearly pre-Galilean. So flat Earth? Why not?
So instead of attempting to understand they select some imagined model that does make sense to them and act as though it is truth.
Challenging them is difficult since they are so invested in their fancies being true; the alternative after all is accepting that you don't understand something and where does that leave them? This is why evidence and rational arguments are futile.
If they could grasp the facts and the arguments in the first place they wouldn't have had to construct these fancies in place of them! It's almost tautological that those who can believe flat earth stuff are also incapable of accepting science.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the success of these off-kilter theories is strongly connected to many people's lives becoming off-kilter. This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Moreover, most people depend on the relative sanity of others to balance their own impulses and so a decline in rationality can have cumulative effect.
> This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Can you please support this claim with credible data? Sincere question - I'm just reading a book recommended by Bill Gates that claims that the world is way better today than it was 20 years ago.
We have seen a decrease in US median income over the last however many years [1]. The way rent tends to be excluded from this underestimates the increase in impoverishment here imo also. There are also the frequent articles concerning how many people are $500/$1000/etc away disaster.
For increased social isolation, Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is the classic (Note, Gates is neither an economist nor a sociologist. Putnam is a well recognized sociologist).
Note that the Average American's life span decreased for the second year in a row. This is notable since increases in medical technology tend to increase this life expectancy even when nothing else changes[2]. A big factor in the reduced life expectancy is what's termed "deaths from despair".
[1]https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/01/20/who-is-the-middle...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy-stu...
How do flat earthers explain that the other planets are round and we see different sides of them all the time? Is earth flat and the rest of the planets are spheres??? Even in their bizarre world of logic this seems unassailable.
Or something along those lines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the success of these off-kilter theories is strongly connected to many people's lives becoming off-kilter. This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Moreover, most people depend on the relative sanity of others to balance their own impulses and so a decline in rationality can have cumulative effect.
> This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Can you please support this claim with credible data? Sincere question - I'm just reading a book recommended by Bill Gates that claims that the world is way better today than it was 20 years ago.
The article goes on to describe why it's not quite so bad as the original graph made it seem, but even the "Alternative" shows the same general pattern.