There was this one video where flat-Earthers tried to prove the Earth was flat, so they recreated the experiment by Eratosthenes and accidentally proved the Earth was round. I can't find it right now but it's hilarious.
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This past December, The Final Experiment went down to Antarctica to take a video of the 24 hour sun. It's causing much consternation among flat earthers.
I believe firmly once the Flat earthers start to lose traction so will the Qanon and all the other dumb "conspiracy theories" then we can get back to the good stuff, bigfoot, aliens, loch Ness monster
Unfortunately, what's more likely is that while some will fall away, the remainder will be more extreme. That's what happens when religious prophecies fail, such as The Great Disappointment among Adventists.
You may find this video interesting. It talks about how "big tent" conspiracy theories like flat earth and qanon are related. https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44 TO BE CLEAR: the video is not in support of the theories! I'm reading the first sentence of this comment back in my head and it feels like it could go either way.
Love this video and have forced it on many of my friends. It's a straight up documentary and it's so interesting to me.
Flat earthers believe they were just inside the Las Vegas dome.
Wasn’t that the Netflix movie behind the curve
Flat earthers: "We only believe what we can see for ourselves!"
Also flat earthers: "And then there is a great ice wall around it and then there are other earths just like ours in other pockets like that"
It gets funnier. A millionaire flew two flat earthers to the south pole where they proceeded to live stream the 24 h sun. Its called "the final experiment". Yet one of the flat earthers still said the earth was flat.
I always picture some flat earth guy stumped about what is at the edge of the world and then he stumbles on the first episode of Game of Thrones.
Insert Dicaprio pointing at TV meme
Explanation: Not only did the ancient Greek philosopher Eratosthenes (born and raised in what-is-now Libya) know the earth was spherical, he used that knowledge to measure the circumference of the earth - with two sticks and some carefully applied mathematical thought - to an astounding accuracy!
According to Cleomedes' On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies, around 240 BC, Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth in Ptolemaic Egypt.[8] Using a vertical rod known as a gnomon and under the previous assumptions, he knew that at local noon on the summer solstice in Syene (modern Aswan, Egypt), the Sun was directly overhead, as the gnomon cast no shadow. Additionally, the shadow of someone looking down a deep well at that time in Syene blocked the reflection of the Sun on the water. Eratosthenes then measured the Sun's angle of elevation at noon in Alexandria by measuring the length of another gnomon's shadow on the ground.[9] Using the length of the rod and the length of the shadow as the legs of a triangle, he calculated the angle of the sun's rays.[10] This angle was about 7°, or 1/50th the circumference of a circle; assuming the Earth to be perfectly spherical, he concluded that its circumference was 50 times the known distance from Alexandria to Syene (5,000 stadia, a figure that was checked yearly), i.e. 250,000 stadia.[11] Depending on whether he used the "Olympic stade" (176.4 m) or the Italian stade (184.8 m), this would imply a circumference of 44,100 km (an error of 10%) or 46,100 km, an error of 15%.[11] A value for the stadion of 157.7 metres has even been posited by L.V. Firsov, which would give an even better precision, but is plagued by calculation errors and false assumptions.[12] In 2012, Anthony Abreu Mora repeated Eratosthenes's calculation with more accurate data; the result was 40,074 km, which is 66 km different (0.16%) from the currently accepted polar circumference.[10]
The existence of the North Pole star and the Southern Cross is enough evidence that the earth is round. On a flat earth, you should see the same constellations no matter where in the earth you are.
The Southern Cross was so important for celestial navigation on the southern hemisphere it’s in multiple flags (Brazil, Australia and New Zeeland, for example).
My favorite proof, and really it's the reason I don't argue with flat earthers anymore. The fact that the sky appears to rotate about two points opposite each other in the sky is unassailable proof that the Earth is round. If someone is willing to just ignore that, there's literally no point talking to them about anything
Ooh good one. I wonder what the flat earth explanation for this is.
Anyhow, the persistent belief in something like a flat earth isn't really a question of evidence.
To most people the way we understand the world around us is through the scientific method. As in I have not personally observed the results of testing vaccines on thousands of people to ensure that they are safe, but others have and others have reproduced their findings, so I'm happy to accept their published assertions.
However, there's plenty of people for whom the scientific method is merely one belief system amongst many, and you can simply choose which group resonates with you.
Additionally science tells us all sorts of unpleasant things about ourselves that we don't really want to hear. Why would I want to listen to "science" telling me I need to exercise more when this nice lady on facebook tells me that this crystal can realign my chakras and restore my health.
Yeah, Eratosthenes already knew it was round.
What he did with the two sticks (and paying a guy to take a damn long walk) was measure it.
And he was only off by like single digit percentages.
I talked to a guy that worked in one of the deepest underground mines in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. He said one of his bosses, a highly educated libertarian nut job was a flat earther and would debate his workers on a regular basis about it. I told him they should ask for more danger pay because at one point they might drill through the flat earth plain and fall into space .... or land on a turtle.
Then they start talking about "as above, so below" in that water is both above and below us (with no distinctive* collectively agreed upon measurements).
There's are so many weird-ass suppositions.
small voice Oblate spheroid.
The "science"tists keep changing their story. First it's flat, then it's a sphere, then it's an obligatory spherical, then it's a pear
You know who hasn't changed their story? The ancient peoples who didn't have accurate maps. They've maintained the flatness of the earth for thousands of years, so it must be the right answer
It's turtles all the way down, young man.
We can't prove in a way that they would believe.
Why do we need to convince them in the first place? I see them as the equivalent of internet trolls, they know they’re wrong and half the fun is moving the goalposts.
I remember when some of them tried to prove it was flat, and ended up proving it was round.
Oh, let's be fair here...
He had to hire a guy to count lots and lots of steps too.
Of course it's not spherical, it's wider at the equator and lumpy
Unless you go in an advanced metrology laboratory, or look at Jupiter with a telescope, it's the most spherical object you will ever see.
I'm not sure how true that is. It's smoother than anything else, but the degree to which it is oblate makes it less spherical than, say, a pool ball, doesn't it?
Jupiter is quite more flattened than Earth due to how fast it spins and it being made mostly of gas.
If you want spherical, look at Venus... or, even better, the Sun (not directly, though, of course; use some kind of filter or reflector).
They also can't prove for sure that the earth is flat
Eratosthenes is a word I can only hear in Carl Sagan's voice.
Eratosthenes' experiment could just as easily prove a smaller, closer sun
The best proof is that you can look at the Sun and the moon with your eyes (maybe use a filter for the sun) and see them not change size throughout their path along the sky, which proves that they aren't getting appreciably closer or farther
But the earth is round, like a pizza
Mmm pizza balls