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Comment by lukan | Hacker News Reader

"The earth is not flat. This is indisputable fact. "

Well, the earth you walk is indisputable flat. That all of earth is round, comes not from direct observation (except for the very few people who have been in space).

So I dare you to actually argue with flat earthers. It is a good way to test your basic scientific knowledge. If you poke deep, you will find, that most people learned science the way people learned religion before. By memorising it, not by applying the scientific principle of questioning everything and aim for confirmation via experiment. Some flat earthers are actually more "scientific" in the way that they try out (weird) experiments and not just believe things. (But most probably do have a serious mental condition)

Long story short, this could have been the start of a interesting debate, if you would not have finished your argument with that insult.

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The thing about this particular topic is that humanity has known this fact for millennia, not because we flew or went to space, but because we sailed. Any human who has watched ships come in to a harbor would be able to trivially tell you: We see the masts before the ship.

Where I grew up you can stand by the shore on a clear day and see the tree tops on the neighboring island, but not the beach. Sailing there, the beach emerges from the horizon.

The only way anybody can come up with "Flat Earth" is by living in the middle of a continental landmass.

"The only way anybody can come up with "Flat Earth" is by living in the middle of a continental landmass."

The main cause I could determine was rather a deep trauma of some sort or the other and with the result of them now mistrusting everything mainstream by principle and only now trusting their eyes and "intuition".

And believing the earth is flat is maybe the most anti mainstream position ever.

Edit: and my conclusion sort of was, that the only thing, that would really convince some of them is indeed to let them see it with their own eyes. So maybe I will organize a high altitude baloon trip for some people some day, but personally I also always wanted to get as close to space as possible at least once in my life..

> Any human who has watched ships come in to a harbor would be able to trivially tell you: We see the masts before the ship.

Of which, until recently, there were very few. Civilizations developed not just on the coasts, but along the rivers, and until ~industrial revolution, the bulk of people at any given time didn't really have a chance to see the sea.

> The only way anybody can come up with "Flat Earth" is by living in the middle of a continental landmass.

Yup, that is still true for humanity; what's changed in the last few hundred years is trains, cars, airplanes, and them all becoming broadly accessible to people.

Still, that was then. Today, "flat Earthers" are mostly just peer groups of shitposters or extreme contrarians.

It varies somewhat by continent, but living very far from the ocean is what’s new. Humans have historically had by far the densest population near shores - river deltas, archipelagos, and so on.

The notion that “seeing the ocean” was a very special thing to most people in history is unlikely. To a Hungarian peasant or a Mongol shepherd, sure, but there were far more people along the Mediterranean coast, the Pearl River delta, and so on.

The reason is very simple: Ocean = free food.

Greeks calculated the circumference of the world based on the shadows of obelisks. Parallax was used to calculate how far the moon was, & from that how large

(people didn't think Columbus would fall off the edge of the world, they thought he wouldn't make it to India, which to be fair, if it was only ocean between the Pacific & Atlantic, him & his crew most definitely would've perished)

How funny, this comments screams to me that you have not argued with a genuine flat earther.

Debates with them are not remotely interesting; they're constantly reaching to religion, magic, and Jewish control.

Find someone grounded who also enjoys debating and it's a fun topic to cover, however.

Well, the main thing I learned in such debates is, you are free to believe what you want

I don't feel responsible for grounding the facts you somehow believe in.

But in another mood, I might have shared links to certain Telegram groups, or connect you with some people I know personally. They would be eager to enlighten you, if you are in for that.

What does this even mean?

Do you think the earth is flat? Who the fuck cares about Telegram groups in this context?

It means I debated very often with weird people and the proof that I did, is that I don't feel the need to make the poster above believe, that I actually did that.

(Otherwise I would have shared links where you can find me debating the topic at length with various people)

Because indeed, most flat earthers are immune to reason as they are in the realm of irrationality. So at some point someone needs to accept that and that helped my attitude towards my need to correct wrong information in people in general.

And if you believe now, I am a flat earther, because I said I discovered some flat earthers that act somewhat scientific sometimes and are open for arguments, well, so be it.

Whether or not you believe the earth is flat is a yes or no question, but you responded with a paragraph that wasn't a real answer. This reads as defensive, which leads a reasonable person to believe that you are in fact a flat earther.

I was defensive about the accusation of never having engaged with a real flat earther, despite saying so. And this part of the debate actually reminds me of engaging with them, so I rather stop that.

If this thread is any indication of what it’s like to debate flat earthers, I absolutely never want to engage with them.

Occasionally it can be fun.

Have you ever watched a we-have-never-been-on-the-moon conspiracy freak engage a flat earther?

With both trying to top each other who has the most superior knowledge and who is the real sheep?

But yes. All that borderlines on the dangerous mental crazy side, so I cannot really recommend it, unless you have a fascination with the abyss of the human mind.

> That all of earth is round, comes not from direct observation (except for the very few people who have been in space).

or anyone who's been in a plane?

What kind of planes are you flying?

I mean, I just checked, it seems under ideal conditions one could see the curvature of earth at 10.5 km height, but to me it was not really a convincing curvature last time I did a long flight. Your experience was different?

10.5km (34.4kft) is an ordinary cruising altitude for an ordinary commercial airliner.

The curvature of the earth can be quite apparent on a clear day at that altitude when flying over water. Or the midwestern US.

Well thanks, then this is what I will recommend the next time I engage with flat earthers.

Square has.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

Wow, that is a weird and interesting plot, thanks for that, I take it as a recommendation.

> That all of earth is round, comes not from direct observation

It does! Sit on a beach near a harbour and watch how far you can see the waves and ships. Aristotle did this and came to the same conclusion.

The standard nonsens reply to this is something with perspective. Like a train track in the distance get closer together, the ship gets closer to the ground and then infinitely small. Doesn't make sense, but abstract enough to make some believe there is another explanation possible.

Standard answer: Ships do not get infinitely small - they visibly "sink" behind the horizont. Starting with the bulbous bow, which you stop being able to see at a distance of, i estimate, 10 kilometers?

Yes and standard reply then is quickly distracting (also themself?) with lots of other "facts" they quickly throw in, or some more vague mystic mumblings about perspective.

Edit: Oh and also there is some "proof" with a certain camera model they present. Where they zoom in closely to ships on the horizont, while not knowing the difference between optical and digital zoom. I am still not sure what they were trying to proof with that, but I did saw a visual glitch of the image processing on high digital zoom. Some vague impression that indeed you can enlarge the ship again fully, despite it being over the horizon. To me it was rather pixel soup, but for them confirmation. So to be on topic a bit again, if you want to influence irrational people of anything, logic only gets you so far and appealing on emotion quite further.

Prove to me that flat earthers aren't just trolls who don't believe a word they say.

I know some who fucked up their whole life, because they believe that crazy shit for real. (Living now alone in a remote hut and waiting for the day when they come to take him away from there, because he also does not believe in paying taxes)

I can give you the adress, but maybe be a bit careful. To him you might be one of the evil NASA brainwashers.

> Well, the earth you walk is indisputable flat

have you never seen a hill or a hole?

Yes, I did. I also grew up watching scientific space videos before I could read and frequently making holidays at the sea as a kid.

But other people grew up in flat areas, far from the sea and maybe exposed with too much BS and maybe drugs at some points in their life, so ended up with a very different point of view.

It was interesting for me to find ways to maybe guide them back to reality and sometimes I succeeded a bit, but I don't think that argument would have helped me. On average and to our senses the earth is pretty undisputable flat.

It takes thinking to go further.

> On average and to our senses the earth is pretty undisputable flat.

That's very easy to dispute

> have you never seen a hill or a hole?

Ok, fine, "other people ... maybe exposed with too much BS", but let's not pretend sticking to some patent nonsense can be traced to simple observations when those don't exist, that's not how you become a true believer

Ok yes, you can totally dispute that the earth we walk around is flat. It was mainly rhetorical reasons, why I used that wording. And I actually believe nothing is indisputable.

(But that does not mean I waste energy seriously trying to negate flat earth theory for good, I am more interested in the psychological reasons that makes people think like that)

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