• Lenny@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Went down the rabbit hole of flat earth beliefs, and apparently they think other planets are round but just not ours. Instead they think it’s propped up on some infinite columns. Once I learned they were more willing to believe in columns than their own world being round, I gave up trying to understand them.

    • ra1d3n@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      Propped up against the gravity of what? If Earth fell down the infinite columns, how long would it fall? What would be the difference? What are the columns made of? Can we mine them? So many questions.

  • mos@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I think the language in his video is very important and different than “admitting defeat” with his beliefs. He just admits that he didn’t believe the 24 hour sun in the southern hemisphere, and that specific belief was proven wrong. “So what does that mean? You are going to have to figure it out yourself.” doesn’t really sound like his belief of the flat earth was defeated.

  • Wrufieotnak@feddit.org
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    10 hours ago

    This should not be ridiculed but seen as what it is: realizing you got something wrong and admitting that.

    This is very important, because otherwise those who are in the wrong will never admit it and double down to at least still be in their old social circle.

  • TomMasz@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    One of them claims it was “staged”. As if it’s possible to fake the Sun being visible for 24 hours. There’s no convincing people like that.

    • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
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      10 hours ago

      And they’ll act like this guy was never one of them, and is a plant from the “globies” to trick them.

      Because anything that disproves the conspiracy is actually part of the conspiracy

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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      8 hours ago

      There were several of them who refused to go on the trip, which they were offered for free, and then when other people went on the trip, they claimed that footage of the trip was faked in some way.

      I agree, the people are doing good, who went there and admitted the truth of what they were seeing. There’s a whole category that are even further gone than that, though, to where their brains will actively shield them against something that might threaten the whole self-referential structure.

      • Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 hours ago

        They knew they couldn’t continue the grift they’re operating under when confronted with something they flat out denied the existence of as it goes completely against their model.

        Nearly all the content creators know they’re basically cult leaders and just want their own flock to pay for their lifestyles without having to really do anything.

        • krashmo@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Flat earthers make me wish I had no morals. Fleecing gullible idiots is a fantastic business model if you have no conscience.

  • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 hours ago

    I think it can be done with far less travel. One can observe the length of a shadow of an object with a known height at solar noon for a year. Then travel north by car for half a day and observe the length of shadow. Then travel south by car for half a day and observe the length. You can actually use these measurements not only to demonstrate that you aren’t on a flat plane, but also to estimate the radius of the earth.

  • troed@fedia.io
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    10 hours ago

    I mean it’s a lot cheaper to go to northern Canada or the Nordics if you want to experience 24h/sun (or night).

    • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de
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      9 hours ago

      The reason they chose Antarctica is because the most often used flat earth model* has Antarctica as a ring on the “rim”.

      They usually do acknowledge a 24h sun in the north existing based on that model because it would require the sun to remain central over the disc, which is geometrically not really an issue. However the southern 24h sun is not possible with that model. (Edit: Excluding some weird lensing effects or multiple suns, like some of them claim)

      *Most of them will tell you they don’t have a model, because they don’t really know what “model” means.

      Source: I watched too many SciManDan videos.

      • astrsk@fedia.io
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        7 hours ago

        That and “the government” won’t let people go to the Antarctic because reasons.

  • Mandy
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    8 hours ago

    But the other ones who weren’t there still moved the goalpost

    • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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      4 hours ago

      Yeah they were saying the flat earthers who accepted were paid actors or traitors. They claimed the whole thing was fake. Or that there would be a sun simulator at work. And even that looking up at the sky doesn’t tell you anything about the earth, you can only look down to tell something about the earth.

      A lot of them are straight up grifters, doing it to troll or have untreated mental health issues. Of course a combination will do as well. They prey on easily swayed people, who like to think they know the real truth and everyone else is being deceived. In a world where there are so many people and everybody is linked together through the internet, it’s harder and harder to think of yourself as an individual that matters. So joining a special group of elites that understand the world in a more fundamental way than even top scientists is very attractive. I sympathize with the people who get duped by people like flat earthers. It says a lot that something as easily disproven and as wrong as the flat earth still gets some traction.

      Big up for the final experiment dude to put up the money and organize it all. I hope it convinces even some people flat earthers are wrong and crazy, then it will be worth it.

    • astrsk@fedia.io
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      7 hours ago

      They did that before the trip. There was “infighting” as the top dummies in the space tried to badmouth and discredit the ones going as “traitors”. It’s all just a handful of evil people trying to make money off their grift.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    While Greek philosophers like Pythagoras and Aristotle eventually proved the Earth was spherical

    Where did they learn it? (Rhymes with "Kneejipt*)