this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
121 points (88.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36168 readers
1432 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Just a thought experiment, let's say the earth is flat, looks like many professionals would know, including

  • Pilots/ATC/sea captain

  • Land surveyor and civil engineers

  • Astronomers and Geologists, at least the one dealing with experimental data

  • Militaries, at least radar operator and artillery

Just these categories are already a lot of persons, I assume I miss a lot of others. So how many person does it make in total ? 10 % of the population ?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Add the entire population of Denmark. Country is dead flat yet you can't see one city from another one. Nor can you see the mountains of neighboring countries.

[–] Thavron@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Netherlands enters the chat.

[–] Krulsprietje@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Cue the Dutch that live 50m NAP. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like you are a part of the same country.. 🥲

[–] Omnificer@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The guards that patrol the ice wall.

Entirety of NASA. Entirety of NOAA. Meteorologists. Cartographers. Everyone who works on Google Earth. Every engineer who works on satellites, rockets, and planes. Physicists.

However, I do think 10% is probably too high an estimate. While these are a lot of people in a lot of areas, they represent pretty small demographics each.

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wouldn't you assume that their family would know and be in on it? I was gonna suggest it has to be more than 10 percent. Since it's not a life or death conspiracy like the Manhattan project I would assume a lot of those people 'in on it' would tell spouses, best friends or even older kids. If you knew a huge secret like that would you want your close loved ones to be lied to and indoctrinated into a false truth?

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

If you're in on the biggest conspiracy in the history of the world, you don't tell anyone about it. There are CIA agents who live their entire lives without their spouses knowing they work for the CIA. How much more powerful must the round earth agency be than the CIA to maintain such a conspiracy for thousands of years? I don't want to say illuminati, but it sounds an awful lot like the illuminati.

[–] Conyak@lemmy.tf 48 points 1 year ago (3 children)

More than just people. Some form of greater intelligence has to be at work since anyone can run a simple experiment to prove it’s round.

[–] phillaholic@lemm.ee 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The ending of the Netflix documentary where the flat earthers prove the earth is round is hysterical.

[–] henrikx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's the documentary called?

[–] kogs@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Stealing this from OP, it's called "Behind the Curve" and it is hilarious.

They do an experiment with a navigation unit from an airliner and it consistently proves them wrong too.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Is that the one where they use the lighted poles at night and a board with a hole in it to prove the earth is flat? In that one they seemed a bit baffled and said they'd need to do the experiment again. To their credit, when they ran it again with the same results, they said they'd need to reevaluate their beliefs.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Fisk400@feddit.nu 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That is unironically part of it. When people do experiments that show the earth is round they get told to pray and do it again. This suggests that their rationale is that the devil is tricking you into seeing bad results and if you pray hard enough you will eventually see five lights.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 6 points 1 year ago

Even math is involved? Dang this thing goes further than I thought.

[–] neidu@feddit.nl 39 points 1 year ago

Anyone who lives near the sea an can see ships disappear behind the horizon.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This is a bit extreme, but maintaining a conspiracy with lots of "insiders" isn't impossible. Just think of how many people worked on the Manhattan project.

First you compartmentalize, so that only a core few know the whole picture. Then you threaten everyone involved with serious jail time for informing. (This is why we know Bob Lazar is full of shit, where he telling the truth, he'd be in prison)

It's true that secrets can't be kept forever, but they can be kept for a while.

The flaw in flat earth is not the number of conspirators, but the purpose of the conspiracy. It all falls apart when we ask why the government wants to keep flat earth from the public.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Manhattan leaked before they even started work.

From memory, a sci-fi magazine seller figured it out, just based on address changes. He even figured out it was likely an attempt to make an atomic bomb. The USSR also had it completely compromised. The first soviet bomb was basically a direct copy of the American one.

That was also with most/all the workers in 1 location. They also had a very good reason to maintain security (grunts on the ground, not just leadership).

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wasn't the Manhattan project compromised from within because of communist sympathizers, or even outright communists working on the project?

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Correct, though that wasn't the only leak, just the most serious.

[–] konalt@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To sell more globes, obviously.

[–] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 3 points 1 year ago

But if the flat earth goes on, what can be assumed to be, infinitely past the ice wall (since no one really gives an answer for what's past there), think of how big maps would be! They would have to sell giant maps and make a fortune.

[–] ashok36@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Flat earth is just a variation on the "It's the Jews!" bullshit that's existed forever. See Folding Ideas youtube video for details.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

They're protecting the turtles. If people like Bezos knew that it's turtles all the way down, they'd certainly harvest the turtle shells to make fancy hair combs. That would spell the end of the earth.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Literally everyone with eyes and a functioning brain who has ever charted the stars, flown in a plane, or looked out to sea. I'd wagers that's far more than 10%.

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

Since flat earth nonsense is just rebranded creationism, the only being who really needs to be part of the conspiracy is satan.

Then anyone who tells you that the earth is round is either deceived by satan, or is a satan worshiper.

This makes it super easy to dismiss anything that would hint at reality, like ships sailing over the horizon.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

GPS is in on the hoax, too. Think about how much they had to hide the fact that those satellites can't "orbit" a flat disc....

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm still trying to figure out why Russia used to own Alaska. Hell of a trip across the world to have sold that portion to the U.S.

[–] astraeus@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

The way the disc works the center is the South Pole and the North Pole is actually a huge ice wall, it’s all very logical and easily validated by scientific evidence obviously

Just the other day I was able to demonstrate how gravity works by spinning a disc covered in toothpaste very fast, all the toothpaste stayed on the disc

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't forget everyone who works on the moon

[–] calypsopub@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

No, that one is fake.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pssh. You still believe in the moon?

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

Of course the moon is real, I visited in Minecraft!

Mined some cheese on it as well.

[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was going to add other groups that would have to be in on it, but it is only required that you are all not real.

I am real. My family is real. But outside maybe 30 miles from my house, no one else needs to be real.

Sure, I can and have driven farther, but the trackers alert the actors. This has the advantage of the Earth's population can be just a few hundred thousand total.

Why? Clearly, I am the last truly important person, for reasons that are not yet clear.

So ... 50,000 people are in on it at least. And they are.... 40%+ of the Earth's population.

Edit: to finish the thought. OP's 10% puts those in on it at 800 million people. My 50 thousand is a much smaller number.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're forgetting that with the microchips in vaccines, they can control our thoughts, so most of the participants don't need to be willing or aware. Cuts it down to just a few people in control of the 5G vaccine chip program.

You're welcome.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

And the "few people in control" are members of which out-group...? All aboard to Q-land, everyone. Final stop, domestic terrorism.

[–] denast@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've always wondered how the Soviet Union and the Cold War fit into the NASA conspiracy. Did Korolev receive paycheks from across the ocean to fake Gagarin's spaceflight too?

[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You missed the Memo, both countries were controlled by Reptilians who live inside the hollow earth. Have you ever see Stalin and Reagan in the same room ? It's because it's the same person

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the lizard people live in a hollow Earth, aren't they afraid to fall out of the bottom?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RyruGrr@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Mathematicians. On a sphere, you can make a triangle that consists of three 90 degree angles, adding up to 270. A flat triangle will require that all angles add up to 180, i.e. 60, 60, 60.

Edit: I'm not a mathematician, and yet I know this. So this one could probably include anyone who has ever had a math teacher that covered spherical geometry.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure that works though. For it to have all three angles at 90 degrees, wouldn't it need to cover a full 1/8th of the planet? Flat earthers would at lest understand that much. They would just deny anyone had measured that accurately. After all, anyone could go up in a spaceship to see the true shape of the earth, but only bigger governments and a few shitty billionaires have the means to do so.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Anybody who has ever flown far enough Eastwards or Westwards and saw how the time of day changed either much faster or slower than the time their clock said it was.

(Which can't be mathematically explained for a flat Earth but is a pretty simple effect to explain with a round Earth)

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Functionally? It's gotta be well over a billion.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 7 points 1 year ago

It's actually just me. I mind control everyone else. It's easier if I have some "nutjobs" as an opposition who know the real truth. And more fun for me.

[–] 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

10 % of the population ?

More or less... good estimate BTW.

In any case, a lot of people... way too many to cover up a lie that big.

[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There are no conspiracists on the tail side, only on the heads side I am told, because they fell off

[–] BustinJiber@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Obviously only the programmer/team of programmers who wrote and maintains the simulation.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The Earth is flat but they just make it look round with a shader.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›