Will they finally accept that the Earth is round, or will they say that it’s fake and the windows on the space stations are monitors?

  • Onii-Chan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    “These aren’t windows, they’re just sophisticated high resolution 3D monitors. NASA has had this tech for decades, they’ve just never let the secret out. You’re not seeing the Earth, you’re seeing a video. Why can’t we go see it with our own eyes outside? Exactly. Seems very convenient we’re being asked to wear suits with image projection helmets.”

    You will never win with people this fucking stupid.

    • Alimentar@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      What I don’t understand is let’s say it is flat. Why would they go to such lengths to lie that it’s round? For what purpose.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        This question debunks 99% of conspiracy theories, but they’ll just give some non-answer like “power” or “control.”

        • Alimentar@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Don’t get me wrong. I do love a good conspiracy, but it needs to have plausible motivation and a mountain of evidence

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Hell, I’ll even accept the ones without a mountain of evidence against them as possible.

            The shape of the Earth was determined by evidence noticed in the ancient Greek time, if not sooner. That includes a rough calculation of the diameter of the planet.

      • PupBiru@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        and also the flip side: who the fuck cares if it’s flat and the government is lying about it?

      • asudox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think they have this paranoia that the entire humanity turned against their religious belief. Like what benefit is there to changing the world’s shape for nasa, or anyone?

        Literally every flat earther is outright retarded.

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    My guess is they would not go in the first place.

    or will they say that it’s fake and the windows on the space stations are monitors?

    But if they did, this would be my guess. They have not used logic or accepted any proof that they are wrong so I doubt they would in space.

    Some flat earth guys designed a great experiment to prove whether the earth is flat or round. The only problem was they when their own results showed it was round…

    They rejected the results they had come up with as it did not fit their belief.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The problem, fundamentally, is that flat earthers don’t become flat earth advocates because they have a sane skepticism that what the vast majority of humanity agrees is obvious might be wrong, but because in the thin margin between coming across a “smart” flat earth argument and understanding why it’s flawed, they feel special that they “know” they’re above the vast majority of humanity.

      Being able to design and run an experiment on whether the Earth is flat or not is legitimately cool, and might as well be seen as a source of self-worth, but because accepting the results means suffering the humiliation of accepting how stupidly over confident they’ve been in the first place, they can’t take the small L in order to score the big W.

  • amio@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Many of them will find some way to rationalize it. There was a documentary about an infamous series of experiments some of these geniuses set up - they were obviously consistent with a round Earth, so they dismissed it and started mumbling about mistakes in the experimental design and so on.

    You can lead a horse to water, but horses can be intensely moronic animals.

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You can lead a horse to water, but if it has rabies, it’s more likely to kick your face off than take a drink.

  • CaptObvious@literature.cafe
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    1 year ago

    A few years ago, a documentary on flat-earthers featured a trained geologist who has become convinced that the earth is flat. To test it, being a trained scientist, he designed a good experiment to measure the altitude of a laser beam at a distance from its emitter. He calculated the predicted measurement if Earth is flat and the measurement if Earth is spherical. When he ran the experiment, he got exactly the value he had predicted for a spherical Earth.

    The rest of the documentary was him trying to find the error in his instruments and measurements since he knew for a fact that Earth is flat.

    It was sad.

  • Deestan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There is enough proof without going to space, so it’s safe to assume proof has no effect.

    You can always find some superficially credible alternative explanation to any proof. With those, you can use the language of reason and logic to construct a belief consistent with what you had in the first place.

    As long as the person has their identity tied to a certain belief, and is of a mindset to find ways in which the belief is correct, they are immune to change. Those are the areas you will need to work on to change their mind.

    The spacecraft windows were curved, causing an optical illusion

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    People that deep into a conspiracy theory aren’t going to have their opinions changed by any amount of evidence.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      See the Behind The Curve documentary for conclusive proof of that.

      At least two experiments, involving lights and gyroscopes, and then merely go “hmm, interesting” before going right back to believing nonsense.

  • Tarkcanis@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Likely that, or something about the windows distorting the image. What you have to understand about flat earth is that it’s a religous conspiracy theory. If they accept a spheroid earth, their faith comes into question, and that’s not something most prople are willing to let happen.

  • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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    Even if you could convince a flat Earther to go to space, I suspect the vast majority would not be swayed.

    As you suggest, they’d instead likely say that it’s all fake trickery. Even if you gave them a space-suit, put the helmet together right in front of them showing no electronics of any kind, and let them walk outside, they’d still say it was all fake trickery.

    They would never believe their own eyes, because they’ve already made up their minds. An allusion to the Earth being round is an illusion.

    You don’t even need to go to space to prove the Earth is round. As @Pons_Aelius already said elsewhere in this thread, there was even a show made and funded by Flat Earther’s to try loads of different tests, and they ended up rejecting all of them because they accidentally demonstrated that the Earth had to be round.

    Their mind is already made, and they’ll only accept results that conform to that belief. Anything else is either fake, trickery, or flawed.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    I know a flat earther and he claims that you’re looking at a fake view when you’re on an aircraft and that it’s a hologram. He likes to throw sci-fi words around even though he has no idea what they mean.

    Conspiracy theorists don’t actually know what they’re talking about so they will always come up with some excuse as to justify why they are still right and you are still wrong. Trying to prove otherwise is a waste of your time talking to them is a waste of your time.

    If the earth really was flat someone would have worked out a way to commercialize the edge. It has to be useful for something right, waste disposal springs to mind, in any case it would be far more profitable to just publicly announced that the world is flat than to construct this elaborate conspiracy for no obvious reason.

    • ashok36@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Flat earth, along with many many conspiracies, boils down to “my life sucks and it’s someone else’s fault” almost every time.

  • kia@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Well first they’d have to “trust” the people taking them up. They’d claim they weren’t actually taken to space.

    Basically, its impossible to convince them otherwise.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It started out as a debating group, working with an obviously idiotic concept. Unfortunately it ended up attracting enough idiots who actually believed them that it drove/scared off the original debaters.

      It’s a fascinating phenomenon, quite akin to religious indoctrination.

    • davidgro@lemmy.world
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      This is my plan if I ever meet one - Just absolutely deny that they believe it themselves.

      Since the whole game is “I’m better than the masses because I claim to have secret knowledge” I’ll just deny that claim.

      Probably along the lines of “Flat earth was maybe worth a small chuckle in 2006 but the joke is really old and played out now.”

    • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      My uncle legit thinks it is flat. Granted he has little education. I once had to explain how a mirror worked…

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Before his death i read somewhere that he didn’t try to prove the earth is flat, he just funded his hobby with these dumbasses. Not sure tho

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I read that somewhere too, but he’s dead all the same. It’s hard to say who is the real dumbass here.

        • Serdan@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          He died doing what he loved and he got other people to pay for it. 64 isn’t old, but it’s more than some people get without doing stupid shit.