Flat Earthers Nearly Derailed a Space Photo Book

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/science/nasa-flat-earth.html

by pseudolus • 7 years ago

47 62 7 years ago

lowdose• 7 years ago

Last weekend I met a person that was convinced the US government protects "the edge". I told him that was very interesting.

munk-a5• 7 years ago

I don't think there is anything you can do when interacting with these people outside of smiling and nodding - so I'm sad to see you get downvotes.

This is actually a really big problem for me as I find it physically discomforting to listen to lies being spoken unopposed.

cmurf2• 7 years ago

You can tell them you think they're delusional, or make it slightly less personal and say what they've said is delusional (linguistically incorrect but a compromise). I mean, it really isn't your responsibility to coddle their emotional state by staying silent. Anyway, I've done both, in public, and the result is interesting. I felt slightly guilty because the person will take great offense even though usually they don't get riled up about it. But at the same time it was less uncomfortable than listening to unopposed lies.

Diplomacy provides for ample indirection: I'm so sorry to inform you so directly, I mean no offense, but what you're saying is completely unprovable, you have no facts at all that can demonstrate your position. I do appreciate your bravery for being willing to expose your ignorance on this topic so publicly, however.

Et cetera.

everybodyknows• 7 years ago

I used to see it that way. Now I remind myself that for nearly all of us, there are certain truths never to be acknowledged.

Such encounters are a rate opportunity to gain first-hand insight on someone else's particular set of unbearable truths. Maybe start with "What whole-Earth map would you recommend?"

lidHanteyk3• 7 years ago

Learn how to talk to people without respecting them. Once you've got it down, you can eviscerate this sort of person in public without getting your hands wet.

giarc3• 7 years ago

I wonder if Facebook allows targeting to topic "flat earth" or "conspiracy"? If so, he could have just disallowed ads to these groups and got around the issue. What is more likely is allowing ad targeting to those with an interest in NASA or SpaceX or even just broad topics like space/astronomy etc and just avoid those flat earth users all together.

jakelazaroff• 7 years ago

He learned that he could tell Facebook whom he did — and did not — want to reach. “We specified we didn’t want conspiracy theorists and lunar landing deniers and flat earthers,” he said.

giarc3• 7 years ago

Oops - I somehow missed that even though I looked through the article a second time to prevent this error from happening :)

laughinghan• 7 years ago

He did.

He learned that he could tell Facebook whom he did — and did not — want to reach. “We specified we didn’t want conspiracy theorists and lunar landing deniers and flat earthers,” he said.

giarc3• 7 years ago

Oops - I somehow missed that even though I looked through the article a second time to prevent this error from happening :)

cr0sh• 7 years ago

FE'ers likely have interests in those areas, too; after all, you can't have a conspiracy unless you have a "they" to rail against...

it-just-wasnt• 7 years ago

No they didn't. There are no "flat earthers" fucking anywhere. None. Anyone horsing around with the gimmick is just fucking with people.

They don't exist. There are a handful of dipshits on YouTube pretending to be flat earthers for the views. Goofing off for patreon cash, because it's almost kind of funny. That's it.

No one ever bought the flat earth bullshit, except a tiny cross section of damaged goods schizophrenics. The rest was just the internet fueling a slow news day with prank calls.

I promise you there are less than 1,000 English speaking adults that ever professed an honest belief in such a theory and meant it. That's fewer than 10 per state in the U.S. Everyone else is rolling their eyes and cracking jokes.

egwynn• 7 years ago

Just FYI 1000/50 > 10

Also you might be broadly correct but the tone you chose to take has dissuaded me from giving you my upvote.

LyndsySimon4• 7 years ago

That's fewer than 10 per state in the U.S.

I've personally met more than 10 in my state. They are uncommon, but much more common than you'd think.

scohesc• 7 years ago

So, it's not flat earthers at all, it's facebook trying to optimize what the world should and should not see through "algorithms" and "machine learning" for the sole purpose of selling more user information.

Why should facebook exist anymore?

jakeogh• 7 years ago

It's not designed to convince anyone here that earth is flat, this is however the target audience.

codebook3• 7 years ago

Just curious, do Flat Earthers never fly the earth a round to confirm? I mean, leaving from America to go to Europe then Asia then America. Doesn't have to go to the space to see the shape of the earth but just keep looping the round earth should be sufficient. Will they think it may be another continent? with same wife, kids, street names, etc?

aqme28• 7 years ago

What I've heard is that it's very difficult to fly straight. GPS will lie to you and tell you that you're flying straight when in "reality" you're flying in a circle.

There's an (insane) explanation for absolutely everything.

codebook3• 7 years ago

Wow... I never thought about the theory... just wow...

Jeema101• 7 years ago

Speaking of GPS, I've always wondered what their explanation is for how GPS works if there's no globe to speak of. Are the satellites in orbit around the flat earth? :)

saagarjha• 7 years ago

You're just going in a circle.

wolfgke4• 7 years ago

Just curious, do Flat Earthers never fly the earth a round to confirm? I mean, leaving from America to go to Europe then Asia then America. Doesn't have to go to the space to see the shape of the earth but just keep looping the round earth should be sufficient.

If you look at the picture at

https://wiki.tfes.org/Flat_Earth_-_Frequently_Asked_Question...

you see that what you call "fly around the earth" is simply flying some giant "circle" (perhaps not a perfect circle in the geometric sense, but you get the idea) in the Flat Earthers' model.

codebook3• 7 years ago

If they have only one flat model, then probably pole-to-pole might be the best to explain... the plain cannot suddenly go to the opposite continent, for instance goes to Australia then south pole then south America...

munk-a5• 7 years ago

Ah, so that's why it takes as long to fly from San Fran to Tokyo as it does to fly from Santiago to Sydney - because the government purposefully slows down plans between San Fran and Tokyo...

I feel like it'd be pretty trivial to charter a flight from Punta Arenas Chile to Melbourne Australia and blow the minds of some flat earthers... but, eh, willfully ignorant people are going to be willfully ignorant.

Thrymr• 7 years ago

It's a nice touch that that image of the flat Earth seems to have been generated from satellite imagery of the continents.

jacinabox• 7 years ago

To steelman what you said, you could fly a polar route over the south pole (say from the Horn of South America to the Cape of Good Hope) and time it out, then fly a polar route over the North pole and time it out. Both flights are short on a round earth.

antisemiotic• 7 years ago

Well, if Earth was topologically a torus (like the game area in Asteroids) it would be still possible to circumnavigate it in any direction. One would have to tie a string around it and try to contract it to tell the difference, which would be significantly harder.

btilly• 7 years ago

Flat Earthers look for ways to confirm what they believe.

My favorite demonstration goes like this. Get into a plane. Sight down the spine of a magazine at the horizon then look at it. You'll see that it is tilted a few degrees. Do the same out the other window. It is tilted a few degrees the other way.

Can we work out by how much it should tilt? Why yes! If the Earth is a ball, then you, the horizon, and the center of the Earth make a right angle triangle with the right angle at the horizon, one leg being the distance from you to the horizon, the other being from the center of the Earth to the horizon, and the hypotenuse is the distance from the center of the Earth to the ground below plus your height. Furthermore if you draw the picture, the triangle from you to the horizon to a vertical line up from the horizon to horizontal back to you is a similar triangle to the first, so the angle that the horizon is below horizontal is the same as the angle at the center of the Earth of this triangle.

The distance from the center of the Earth to the ground is approximately 3950 miles. Your plane is usually 6 to 7 miles off the ground, let's say 7. By Pythagorus that puts the horizon at sqrt(3956^2 - 3950^2) which is roughly 235 miles away. Apply basic trigonometry, and it should be about 3.4 degrees below horizontal.

I've done this. You've seen that the calculation is easy. The measurement is easy. Running in circles to avoid this conclusion is a sign that you aren't interested in knowing the real answer.

pwython• 7 years ago

Easily disprovable conspiracy theories like this have always existed, but it's funny (and sad) to see them actually convince hundreds of thousands of people through the momentum of social media these days. People really want to think they're smarter than the "rest of the sheep."

What's ironic is the real conspiracy they're missing is the people who publish & promote these theories (YouTubers, Bloggers, etc) probably don't believe any of it themselves and are just trying to make a buck from the gullible.

GuiA2• 7 years ago

It’s a gregariousness thing. Humans like to be in groups, and modern life has strongly reduced the quantity and kind of groups we can be a part of, as well as loosened family ties which used to prime over everything else.

Flat earthers aren’t spending their time writing equations to justify their views - they’re posting in Facebook groups, going to conventions, etc. People become flat earthers not because of their scientific beliefs, but because there is a flat earth movement to become a part of.

It’s about the social group first and foremost, feeling smarter than the establishment is an added bonus.

pimlottc• 7 years ago

gregarity

I think you mean gregariousness?

mywittyname• 7 years ago

feeling smarter than the establishment is an added bonus.

Intelligence is the most important trait for determining social rank in humans, especially for men. This means that a lot of people are very insecure about their perceived lack of intelligence. So being right when another "smart" group was wrong is a huge sense of validation for people and it helps boost their self-esteem.

Given that, I wouldn't be so sure that feeling smarter isn't the primary draw.

mopsi• 7 years ago

It’s about the social group first and foremost

This was very well highlighted in "Behind the Curve" documentary (available on Netflix). One of the main figures of the flat-earth movement spoke quite openly that he lost his friends when he "found the truth", and doesn't want to go through that again.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZzsq40Bx2Y

DEADBEEFC0FFEE• 7 years ago

Yep, the conspiracy industry is real.

vivekd• 7 years ago

I looked into flat earthers are little on the internet because it just seemed like such an out there idea that I wanted to see how they justified it.

A lot of it seems to be based on them misunderstanding refraction and the way light behaves over distances. Their main argument seems to be that if you take water and put flags or boats over it, you can continue to see it for long after the curvature of the earth makes it so you shouldn't be able to see it.

The reason for this is that light bends.

this wikipedia page has a really good rundown

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment#Exper...

kingludite• 7 years ago

That's just one argument. The flat-earth whatevertocallit has an answer for everything. This is what makes it so hilarious.

For example: If you are, from a truly objective perspective, firmly stuck with the idea that the earth must be round, you would have it no other way... then surely seeing objects that should be hidden behind the curvature means light must bend around the curve?

Its like person 1 arguing you cant look though glass, person 2 showing him a glass window then 1 argues woah! The picture travels around the window! Then the 3rd person argues the theory of transparent glass has now been refuted because we know the picture bends around it.

Dutchie2020• 7 years ago

The documentary "Behind the curve" gives a nice glimpse inside the minds of Flat Earthers.

JustSomeNobody• 7 years ago

I can't help but think that a lot of Flat Earthers exist just to troll other Flat Earthers and Round Earthers.

LyndsySimon4• 7 years ago

It may well have started that way online... but it's a real thing these days. I've not encountered anyone who strikes me as a purposeful troll.

Discombulator• 7 years ago

Overall, we need to let go of the idea that people believe things because they have evaluated the evidence and have come to a conclusion. This is scientific thought, and if you have ever changed your mind on a strongly held belief based on new facts then you know that it takes conscious effort and humility, which even the best of us cannot apply to every single position they have.

Instead, I am convinced that all of us believe mostly for emotional reasons: the need to feel important, the need to be part of a group, the need to maintain some social order etc. For most people, who are not willing or capable to apply scientific thought, all of these needs trump every fact you may have. If you want to “convince” people, you need to address first the underlying issue, which is often difficult: loneliness, social isolation, feelings of inferiority etc.

One example I found particularly striking for the contrast between the common “rationality” assumption and actual working of beliefs, is this paper by Max Adams: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9893/2a75ad8e79585e95c58a26...

Flat Earthers Nearly Derailed a Space Photo Book

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