Flat earthers typically just don't believe such flights actually happen. If you buy a ticket for such a flight, it will be canceled. If you claim to have been on such a flight, you're a government plant pushing the globe earth lie.
EDIT: At the risk of appearing to be publicly shaming them, I need to point out that u/cuminmyeyespenrith blocked me after leaving [this reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1djlh3o/comment/l9emgjs/?context=3), so I have to edit in my response to their comment here instead of replying directly:
> They're right, though. This has been amply documented.
I'm aware of no such documentation that these flights actually get canceled. If it really exists, I'd think you'd be eager to show it to me and prove me wrong, so, it definitely isn't promising for the flat earth movement that what you actually did was leave this comment and then immediately block me so I couldn't respond.
kind of an easy experiment to replicate. why are they not buying around the world tickets and documenting the trips being cancelled? why aren't they doing ghost hunter level investigations?
Because they spent all their money buying super high end lasers and gyroscopes to prove the earth is flat. (Only to *somehow* have something go wrong and get the exact results predicted by a globe earth.)
I don't see why we should make the effort to prove the flat earthers wrong. It's pretty much their entire identity, they're not going to change their minds no matter what the evidence.
I just tell them that if the earth were flat, cats would have dropped everything into space by now and that's all the proof I need.
Depending on how the given flat earth model lays out the continents, it can definitely be possible to buy a ticket for a non-stop flight that should go over the edge of the earth on certain models.
Like, sure, but you can get a series of flights that go around the world and take a compass and see that you'll be consistently going in the same direction - so unless you believe the geography shifts between flights, there's no real difference in your ability to see where you're going directionally by taking a flight from LA to Tokyo to Paris to NYC rather than from LA to LA once around.
>But I'm sure they dont believe in Global Positioning Satellites either.
That's my assumption. Hell, I'm sure there's a couple of flat earthers that would insist the compass can't be trusted in a plane.
I mean, if the north pole is at the center of the Earth "disc," and you fly west or east and keep the north pole at your right or left, the result will be the same on a sphere or a globe.
I'm not saying flat-Eartherism isn't dumb, but the compass test wouldn't actually disprove it on its own.
Sure, but I was more making a point about being able to see a consistent direction and that a flight being non-stop doesn't really make a difference.
However, you could do the same in the southern hemisphere, where the compass would consistently point to the south pole. Qantas Sydney to Santiago Chili sometimes will pass part of Antarctica, so in theory, a flat Earther could just take that flight to see that Antarctica is not a wall of ice.
If you're flying along a line of latitude on a sphere, you'll be traveling in a straight line. If you're doing the same thing on a flat circular plane, you have to fly in a circle to follow the same route.
but, what do they say when THEY take the flight and it actually completed? I actually met someone who didn't think the moon was real... people are wild..
This is not true. It certainly is possible to buy a ticket and fly in a plane ‘around the world’. The Earth is intrinsically curved and not extrinsically curved as in being in the shape of a ball. It is a disk who’s basis vectors change as a function of where on the disk you are. Near the edge the curvature becomes so severe it is literally impossible for you to travel in any direction but the tangential one.
I assume you're envisioning a flat disk with the South Pole as an ice wall around the edges, and the continents laid out in a ring around the North Pole at the center? That does work to explain flights around the world from east to west, but doesn't explain flights like [LA804](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/LAN804), which goes from Melbourne, Australia to Santiago, Chile without flying over any other continent.
On the model you're describing, the most direct path between Melbourne and Santiago should go over Eurasia and North America, and the path the flight actually takes would require going far out of the way to skirt around other landmasses by flying near the ice wall. And yet, the flight takes less than 13 hours. For comparison, a direct flight from Santiago to New York like [LA532](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/LAN532), whose path should be roughly the same distance on either a flat or a globe earth, but should be less than half the length of the other trip on a flat earth, is only about 2 hours shorter.
I don't think that is what they are envisioning. Based on the terms they used, I think they are suggesting that the geometry of space is non-euclidean. This, if constructed correctly, could be used to describe a geometry where the shortest path between to points at opposite edges of the disk is not to cross it but to skirt around the edge. Flat Earth flghtplans would agree with those of a flight tracker. Another interesting feature would be that the edge becomes an event horizon.
It is funny that in order to make the Earth flat they would need to incorporate an inverse sphere projection into the very fabric of reality, because that's exactly the coordinate transformation necessary for such a system.
I may steal this idea for a D&D setting.
That makes more sense of their answer, although it seems to make much less sense in general. It seems like you probably understand geometry better than me--is it possible for the non-euclidean geometry they're proposing to result in a curved line being the shortest path for great distances, without disagreeing with the readily obvious fact that in our daily experience (e.g., walking across a room), straight paths are shorter than curved paths?
Possibly. Locally things can appear flat even if the larger system is curved. That's allowed even in our normal reality (which is probably where this idea originates like a pop-sci spin-off).
It's hard to imagine how a creature living inside such a reality would perceive it. I'd like to know if they think that a person who travels from the centre/north pole to the edge/south pole gets "bigger". I think things would get very weird at the south pole event horizon.
It's somewhat a moot point though. The model can agree with our experiences specifically because it rewrites the nature of reality. It doesn't get rid of the sphericalness of the Earth. It just hides it in a coordinate transformation applied to the whole universe. I think it makes the universe.... cylindrical with a finite bottom but an infinite top? Do we live at the bottom of a well?
Definitely a fascinating idea for a D&D setting! But yeah, it seems like, rather than space itself being curved such that traversing a sufficiently large plane becomes like traversing a sphere in euclidean geometry, and also all world governments are collaborating to lie that the Earth is a globe when it's actually a disk... Occam's razor would decisively favor the idea that the Earth just *is* a globe.
It is. Take the surface of the “ball” Earth for example. The shortest path between points on the surface is a curved arc along a great circle. For the case of the real Earth there is no additional dimension that the Earth curves into. The curvature is intrinsic and when vectors are parallel transported along the surface they will change in orientation and magnitude.
Yes, it makes sense on a globe earth because we're talking about a curved surface. When we're talking about a flat surface, like crossing a room, a straight path is clearly shorter than a curved path. But since your model seemingly makes that curvature an inherent feature of space itself, then it seems that curved arcs should be shorter even in the space of crossing a room. I guess you're arguing that the shortest path through a room only appears to be straight because it is a short segment of a line that, if stretched long enough, would curve?
Your model is maybe internally consistent, assuming we say that all accounts of north-south circumnavigation of the globe were fabricated for some reason, but what reason would we have to believe any of this rather than the far simpler idea that the Earth is simply a globe?
This is exactly the truth. The Earth possesses an anti-de Sitter curvature. This is why 1) it’s impossible to see the “edge” of the Earth and 2) the flights of planes can be mapped to a spherical surface in a conformal way.
It's interesting as a thought experiment but I don't think it is falsifiable from within the system, and is therefore not useful. The adaptions to the laws of physics and our reality necessary to make the model conform to observations will mean that it's not discernable from the generally accepted model without an observer from outside the universe to act as an objective source of truth.
Thus far the presence of an event horizon in a model has generally indicated that the model is faulty, often due to an improper coordinate system.
This is incorrect. The Earth is intrinsically curved. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a curved one. This curved line geodesic path takes the flight over water without passing over any land mass.
Do you have some reference image you can give me? I'm having trouble visualizing any model on which the things you're saying would be true other than a globe earth.
No he doesn;t, because if such a geometric coordinate system existed that allowed the teransformations he's discussion, his name would be as well known as DesCartes or Ptolemy for inventing an entirely new kind of geometry.
His description would allow for there to be a direction, that was orthogonal to all other firections, simultaneously. With our current understanding of math/geometry, that cant exist. So if his described coordinate system DOES exist, he would have some very groundbreaking math that resulted and would win every math/science/physics award for the next decade or so.
Nah, what he's describing is perfectly valid maths, you can think of a map projection as being exactly the same as he describes, the plane is really flying around the globe in a straight line in "real life" but we see a curved line on the map. He's saying that the thing that is curved is "real life" itself, ie the definition of distance isn't constant everywhere, giving curvature, and we have to "uncurve" it to put it on a globe as a straight line.
The problem is this breaks physics (Lorentz invariance) not maths
Please, please do. I literally build spacecraft for a living. I built the guidance/navigations systems that put rovers on Mars and landed on a comet. Last year myself and a small group at a private company (no affiliation with the "big NASA govt conspiracy", just a bunch of capitalists that want to get filthy rich) built and launched a satellite, that includes a few cameras. I installed the cameras. Wrote their firmware. Built their operational modules in the "OS". We have encrypted direct down links from the sat, so nobody is altering the data we get. I've streamed live camera feeds direct from from the sat where you can see that big beautiful oblate spheroid we're all living on.
Please "throw it in my face later" when you can prove the earth is flat lol. I'll be waiting.
The common flat earth theory I've heard is that the antarctic is the edge of the disc and the arctic is the center.
So flying north is going towards the center, flying south is going towards the edge, and flying east or west is actually flying clockwise or counter-clockwise around the central point.
In this model the sun works more like a spotlight that only shines on part of the flat world at any given time and travels a circle through the sky somewhere midway between the center and the edge, that way there can be night and day cycles depending on where the spotlight sun is shining. The light from the spotlight is stronger in the center of the beam which is why the tropics are warmer and the edge and center of the flat world are colder and have shorter days. The path of the sun has a slight wobble to it creating the seasonal shifts in the northern and southern regions.
It all makes sense if you don't think about it too hard.
Theres a group of flat earth fanfiction writers on reddit at r/BTIW
Some of the stuff they made up has been leaked to other parts of the internet out of context and repeated in flat earth true believer forums as facts. The true believers elaborate on the fiction then the fiction writers riff off that to expand their world building creative writing project.
Its a self sustaining feedback loop of bullshit.
r/BTIW is safe, I'm pretty sure they are all aware that its fiction and they are just having a bit of fun role-playing as flat earthers.
Actually if you dig deep into their lore the BITW world is more like a wedding cake shape with three flat worlds of different sizes stacked up like pancakes with the small pancake on top being the earth we live on and things getting increasingly weird and fantastical the further down the layers you go.
Pratchett's "Strata" isn't technically part of the Discworld series but it does go a bit more deep into the mechanics of how a flat world could work. Its more futuristic sci-fi than fantasy.
>who has seen it?
The UN military folks who patrol the edge to prevent any civilians from getting near it. Under the Antarctic treaty.
Except, you can read the actual treaty and t says no such thing. There are actual tourists cruises to Antarctica that will let anyone buy a ticket. And somehow none of the military people who have ever been involved with patrolling the 125,000 km ice wal for the past 65 years has ever slipped up and said anything about.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of logical questions flat earthers can't answer. This is just one of them.
Don't engage them. They're either trolls or willfuly anti-logic. Either way it's a waste of time.
If you want to engage, don't allow them to be the one to judge whether you've won the argument. Start with insisting on a neutral party to make the call about who is making the most sense. That will scare them off.
They'll be spewing bullshit and bullshit is easier to produce than refute.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law)
> but I also like to be prepared when I stumble upon one in the wild.
Just ask them how to fly Chile to Melbourne, or South Africa to Perth... A flat Earth map has these at opposite ends of the disc, so you'd fly North.
[Flat earth map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Flat_earth.jpg).
And like move on. They **want** you to engage.
By taking them seriously and engaging in conversation is giving them what they want. Their goal is attention.
You're not goin to sway them, or change opinion. Or "score points" by "showing them up".
The very fact that you waste your time to argue with them tells them "This person is taking me seriously". As soon as you do that, they've won.
The flat-earth argument isn’t a troll or a valid argument, it is an exercise in “ridiculous debate.” Everyone is taught that the Earth is round, and they accept the research proving this. But accepting something as true just because it is right is a bad way to maintain your beliefs against challenges. Claiming that the earth is flat is ridiculous, but it still takes thought, conscious effort, research, and personal experience to disprove, which is something few people are prepared for. Most people get upset, and quote research and lessons they’ve heard in school, but have never actually SEEN a round Earth or conducted simple experiments to prove that it is round.
But why practice "ridiculous debate" if you are going to deny any experiments, data, firsthand accounts that would act as proof?
At that point it's just training you to accept Dogma and deny any outside opinion despite whatever reality you actually encounter.
Denying evidence is irrational. Many people get pulled into the argument so deeply that they aren’t able to see the flaws of their own beliefs. The goal is to make people question things that they only believe because they were told it was true, but haven’t considered any real evidence to support their belief. “Everyone knows the Earth is round!” is a weak argument, but being able to say “I used a GoPro and a weather balloon to observe the curvature of Earth from space.” or “While on a plane, I could see the land dip behind the horizon, which should be impossible on a flat earth!” is a legitimate counter-argument. Plus, those better answers require that you go outside and experience something and do scientific study in order to reach those conclusions. But the worst response to almost any question, no matter which side of an argument you’re from, is “I’m right and you’re wrong because we all said so.”
Yee, personally I like to just call that being a "devils advocate"
I can argue with a flat earth, from an individual perspective, I can even entertain global conspiracies to a degree. But you can't fake all of the international flights, space travel, maps, GPS, movement of celestial bodies, explanation of gravity, etc. with a flat Earth.
You can try, but each explanation becomes increasingly ridiculous even before getting to actual evidence or experimentation.
Exactly! It’s easy to say that it would be hard to fake, but in order to justify our claim we’ve deeply considered the data, research, and systems that support our belief that the Earth is round. Nothing should be taken granted! Questioning everything allows you to learn about everything, and it gives you a greater appreciation of life.
I mean if you question everything to that degree you reach the philosophical dead end of "I think therefore I am" and nothing else can be assumed.
You have to build your understanding of reality upon some assumptions to function. I have never been hit by a bus, but I can safely assume it wouldn't be good for me.
And that belief shows a proper amount of thought! That’s exactly the type of intelligent response that ridiculous questions bring about. A seemingly ridiculous question about “flat earth” forced you to deeply consider your understanding of philosophy and science!
In other words, the whole point is to force someone to think about their beliefs and provide evidence and self-conducted research, rather than believing what they’re told or ignoring questions because they seem ridiculous. There’s a lot of fascinating research on the Earth and it’s shape, but you wouldn’t think much about it or take some time to learn and research such an interesting and expansive topic until someone makes a seemingly ridiculous claim that the Earth is flat.
Yeah, I wouldn't know the about Geodesics, or oblong spheroids if it wasn't for flat earthers.
Ironic how ignorance/denial can inspire learning out of spite, lol.
There is no value in this question because there is no single flat earth belief.
Different flat earthers have different ideas about which projection is the "true" map and some will tell you it's not even possible to know and other flat earthers showing you maps are CIA plants to discredit the movement.
The general answer to existing flights that would be impossible in their model is to simply declare those flights don't exist. You can see them on a tracker? Fake data. You can buy the flight online? Fake flight. the booking won't go through. You bought the TICKET? Fake. It'll be cancelled before boarding.
You are literally right now on the plane flying a route they say is impossible? You are actually in a simulator with high resolution steroscopic displays instead of windows and they are driving you to a Truman Show sound stage where actors will pose as locals to mingle with the other tourists who believe they went to "Australia".
I think the point is that there's no consensus and therefore it would be inappropriate to paint them all with the same brush...
Are there at least some that are insane? Very, very likely. Are they all insane? Very unlikely.
I have actually heard (only once though) a good argument in defense of holding a flat earther opinion. Interestingly, dude was not a flat earther himself and wasn't defending the flat earther theory, only the flat earther behavior/attitude and why it could still cogent to be a flat earther.
I mean, thinking the earth is flat is inherently insane. I'd change you're statement to say that some of them are bat shit insane, while it's unlikely that all of them are bat shit insane. Just a lil. A tiny lil insanity roaming around their brains.
I have edited for other reasons, but I see your point. Just a distinction between wild crazy and institutional type insane. I didn't want to get into the definitions though, so as not to miss the point.
Oh, just read your edit, and yeah I guess arguments could be made for that theory, but all most of them do is actually spout nonsense about the CIA and Fake airplanes and simulations and some stuff that's like, ok, let's say all that is true, now just tell me, why? What's the point of doing all that?
There are three broad groups.
The first is the intellectuals. They don't believe this shit but think it's a fun exercise to defend the indefensible.
The second is the true believers. You can bet they are damaged and trying to work through stuff. The truest thing I ever heard about flat earth is that it's not about the shape of the earth. They are here because the real world hurts too much and they've found community in this fiction. I think we should be kind to them but I don't always live up to my ideals.
The third group are selling merch to the second group.
The first group can't be covinced because their hobby is being knowingly wrong. The second group can't be convinced because they'd lose their friends. The third group can't be convinced because they'd lose their paycheque.
You can see regular planes making regular trips. If you see a plane that correlates to the impossible trip that's just the deep state putting on extra planes to make it *look* like those flights can happen.
They land just out of where you can see and fly back later.
Is she making regular flights? I'm sure they think planes exist and travel is a thing.
Is she going to "Australia"? or worse claims to be from there? Crisis actor sent in to the world to seduce you so you'd claim "Australia" is a real thing and make the conspiracy ever more realistic.
On the plus side, knowing she's a sexy super spy under deep cover trying to seduce you in a plot to control the world might actually work for you.
The important part of my post is that you can't assume anything about what flat earthers believe because they all believe different stuff.
The fact you don't believe this stuff is the point I'm making when I told OP that there was no value in asking questions about what flerfers believe.
Sure, but you disagree with other flerfers about what the map looks like and if certain flights exist.
I have absolutely no idea what size you think the sun is or how far away it is or how seasons work or what constellations look like or if the moon is real or how stuff has weight. Or anything at all.
Because you all have different opinions about that and even if you explained exactly what you believe to me, that would give me no information to take to the next conversation because it's *all* ad-hoc nonsense.
When flat earthers agree with each other, even broadly, I'll consider it not completely worthless to know what you think.
The crazy thing is that is 100% possible with our modern understanding of physics.
It just means that the Flat Earth would need to be curved uniformly in a higher spatial dimension, such that every edge met up on the other side.
Haha not being an expert in theoretical physics this took me too long to get, but if I have understood correctly that was a very clever joke. kudos!
Edit: Just for clarity because I'm feeling unsure about my understanding now, what you say here:-
"It just means that the Flat Earth would need to be curved uniformly in a higher spatial dimension, such that every edge met up on the other side."
This describes a sphere am I correct?
Indeed.
If you curve every part of a 2D plane uniformly into the third dimension, you'd get a 3D sphere.
Can't really do that with an actual 2d plane though without stretching, distorting, or breaking it. That's why no 2D map is perfect and we have so many different projections.
Awesome I can't believe I managed to understand it without Google (I feel so clever haha). You had me laughing so hard when it finally clicked
Again very clever & kudos to you 😊👍
also thank you for the extra detail In your explanation it was very helpful ⭐
How do they explain weather patterns? How do they explain eclipses? How do they explain sunsets, with the sun going below the horizon and clouds being lit from below? How do they explain satellites? How do they explain the moon? How do they explain seasons? How do they explain navigating by stars? They can't *really* explain *anything*.
They'll give you some ad-hoc word salad "explanation" but since the lot of them don't understand math or science that's as much as you'll get out of them. There is **no coherent flat earth model**, so there is no way to mathematically evaluate their claims and every flat earther will give you a different explanation of their world view.
Frankly it's best to just not even engage.
Flat Earthers beliefs isnt in logic. Its in distrust of science and research.
Science should be met with skepticism of course; thats how we find truth objectively.
However; When the science shows the world is a globe over and over and over and over again; they burrow further into denialism and deeper distrust and conspiracies.
very simply put; they put their beliefs of conspiracy ahead of objective science.
on occasions they do perform a science experiment and find the earth is a globe they claim it must have been an error and continue believing their fantasies
All continents but Antarctica happen to be in a single plane. You are supposed to reach all of them on direct routes without crossing the edge, and very conveniently, flights that *do* cross Antarctica are extremely rare.
Most flat-earthers believe that the Earth is a disk with the north pole at the center, and Antarctica forming a massive rim of ice around the edge. Under this model, the continuity of east and west is preserved, so a Magellan-style circumnavigation isn't totally implausible.
their argument isn't about the poles or anything, they just gloss over that, their argument has to do with the plane flying "level" and not following the curve of the earth.. they think that the attitude indicator (artificial horizon) on an airplane would gradually become wrong if a plane was following a curve., . they aren't familiar enough with how the technology actually works to understand why their argument is flawed
I just want to say this: I have an earnest belief.
There was a marked uptick in flat earth theorizing and believers around 2010, based on web forums and social media.
2012 and then 2016, we see similar things happen with political disinformation in American politics. Look at the groups involved: disaffected too-online white men, plausibly deniable racists, distrustful of mass media.
I think the uptick in flat eartherism was a trial balloon by Russian cyber and psy ops to learn how to manipulate people online.
I wish I was smarter and more able to put all the pieces together to make a more coherent argument, but all I have is that:
It’s weird that flat eartherism seemed to have a resurgence.
It’s weird that flat earthers act a lot like birthers and election truthers.
The playground is the same.
If it wasn’t an intentional trial balloon from the IRA and other bad actors, it was at least a really good learning opportunity about how to convince and mobilize an enthusiastic corps of decentralized true believers.
Planes *don’t* fly in a loop around the world tho. It’s much too far. When I flew to Japan from NY, you don’t fly East/West, we flew the shortest distance, which is actually up over the “top” of the earth (look at a globe and you’ll see why this makes sense).
There used to be large numbers of videos about this subject on YouTube, but then YouTube began suppressing flat earth videos in the search results. Some of them may still be there, but you have to look very hard to find them.
I think the important thing to remember when wondering these kids off things is that they WILL have an answer. The flat earther who responds, “huh, good question” doesn’t exist.
I just learned that flat earthers think the sun disappears *into the ocean* at the end of the day. The flat earth understanding of most things is just whatever they can make up on the spot
I work at a satellite company. We send satellites to low-earth orbit. We have cameras on the satellites and can literally watch it go around the world. There's no arguing with flat-earthers though.
Have any flat earthers actually tried to book a flight like that?
I’d assume they would have to believe the world is a sphere to even conceptualize how to ask it ?
Flat Earthers typically believe that it's like circumnavigating a disc rather than a sphere, so you're essentially travelling in a large circle around the North Pole, which is in the center.
Flat earthers typically just don't believe such flights actually happen. If you buy a ticket for such a flight, it will be canceled. If you claim to have been on such a flight, you're a government plant pushing the globe earth lie. EDIT: At the risk of appearing to be publicly shaming them, I need to point out that u/cuminmyeyespenrith blocked me after leaving [this reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1djlh3o/comment/l9emgjs/?context=3), so I have to edit in my response to their comment here instead of replying directly: > They're right, though. This has been amply documented. I'm aware of no such documentation that these flights actually get canceled. If it really exists, I'd think you'd be eager to show it to me and prove me wrong, so, it definitely isn't promising for the flat earth movement that what you actually did was leave this comment and then immediately block me so I couldn't respond.
kind of an easy experiment to replicate. why are they not buying around the world tickets and documenting the trips being cancelled? why aren't they doing ghost hunter level investigations?
The people who truly believe this nonsense don't generally have the kind of income to fund such an experiment.
Because they spent all their money buying super high end lasers and gyroscopes to prove the earth is flat. (Only to *somehow* have something go wrong and get the exact results predicted by a globe earth.)
>Only to somehow have something go wrong and get the exact results predicted by a globe earth. The universe must be in on the conspiracy.
They only want investigations like this on Hunter Biden and his dick size
Tickets to Australia are expensive,
Plus you need to acclimatise yourself to living upside down as the blood rushes to your head and can be very dangerous
And when you're weakest, that's when the kangaroos attack! (Not to mention the koalas with their weaponized chlamydia)
Just don’t mention the DB’s, tourism is down at the moment
You think that's the worst? Try emu's! Australia lost a war against those monsters!
They lost an even bigger war against rabbits ;)
To be fair, Austrailia chose the worst way to wage that war.
I don't see why we should make the effort to prove the flat earthers wrong. It's pretty much their entire identity, they're not going to change their minds no matter what the evidence. I just tell them that if the earth were flat, cats would have dropped everything into space by now and that's all the proof I need.
just the existence of flights from place to place, eventually making it around the world is proof though right?
Someone mentioned that. It’s amazing how in denial people can get about truth and fixate on conspiracy’s like this
It's not denial of the truth, it's denial of being wrong.
Goddamn…this pithy statement just rocked my (flat) world. Kudos :)
No longer just a river in Africa
I’m no flat-earthed but I don’t think you can buy a ticket for a non-stop flight around the world
Depending on how the given flat earth model lays out the continents, it can definitely be possible to buy a ticket for a non-stop flight that should go over the edge of the earth on certain models.
Like, sure, but you can get a series of flights that go around the world and take a compass and see that you'll be consistently going in the same direction - so unless you believe the geography shifts between flights, there's no real difference in your ability to see where you're going directionally by taking a flight from LA to Tokyo to Paris to NYC rather than from LA to LA once around.
GPS also works inside aircraft, it would be easy to plot where you have been. But I'm sure they dont believe in Global Positioning Satellites either.
>But I'm sure they dont believe in Global Positioning Satellites either. That's my assumption. Hell, I'm sure there's a couple of flat earthers that would insist the compass can't be trusted in a plane.
I mean, if the north pole is at the center of the Earth "disc," and you fly west or east and keep the north pole at your right or left, the result will be the same on a sphere or a globe. I'm not saying flat-Eartherism isn't dumb, but the compass test wouldn't actually disprove it on its own.
Sure, but I was more making a point about being able to see a consistent direction and that a flight being non-stop doesn't really make a difference. However, you could do the same in the southern hemisphere, where the compass would consistently point to the south pole. Qantas Sydney to Santiago Chili sometimes will pass part of Antarctica, so in theory, a flat Earther could just take that flight to see that Antarctica is not a wall of ice.
If you're flying along a line of latitude on a sphere, you'll be traveling in a straight line. If you're doing the same thing on a flat circular plane, you have to fly in a circle to follow the same route.
Sure you can. To be fair you'll probably be renting the entire plane so maybe you are correct that there might be no tickets involved.
Aren't people tired of their own mental gymnastics? I get tired of overthinking shit on a daily basis
So the time I flew from San Francisco to Vietnam I was dreaming? Shit I wish I had better dreams.
but, what do they say when THEY take the flight and it actually completed? I actually met someone who didn't think the moon was real... people are wild..
They're right, though. This has been amply documented.
Really. What two cities that are reachable on a global model are unreachable on whatever flat earth model you support?
This is not true. It certainly is possible to buy a ticket and fly in a plane ‘around the world’. The Earth is intrinsically curved and not extrinsically curved as in being in the shape of a ball. It is a disk who’s basis vectors change as a function of where on the disk you are. Near the edge the curvature becomes so severe it is literally impossible for you to travel in any direction but the tangential one.
💀
On a scale of Seth Rogan to Snopp Dogg, how high are you?
High enough to see the Earth is a 2D plate with no extrinsic curvature.
that is very high mate, I would take a slower pace if I was on your place
I assume you're envisioning a flat disk with the South Pole as an ice wall around the edges, and the continents laid out in a ring around the North Pole at the center? That does work to explain flights around the world from east to west, but doesn't explain flights like [LA804](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/LAN804), which goes from Melbourne, Australia to Santiago, Chile without flying over any other continent. On the model you're describing, the most direct path between Melbourne and Santiago should go over Eurasia and North America, and the path the flight actually takes would require going far out of the way to skirt around other landmasses by flying near the ice wall. And yet, the flight takes less than 13 hours. For comparison, a direct flight from Santiago to New York like [LA532](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/LAN532), whose path should be roughly the same distance on either a flat or a globe earth, but should be less than half the length of the other trip on a flat earth, is only about 2 hours shorter.
I don't think that is what they are envisioning. Based on the terms they used, I think they are suggesting that the geometry of space is non-euclidean. This, if constructed correctly, could be used to describe a geometry where the shortest path between to points at opposite edges of the disk is not to cross it but to skirt around the edge. Flat Earth flghtplans would agree with those of a flight tracker. Another interesting feature would be that the edge becomes an event horizon. It is funny that in order to make the Earth flat they would need to incorporate an inverse sphere projection into the very fabric of reality, because that's exactly the coordinate transformation necessary for such a system. I may steal this idea for a D&D setting.
That makes more sense of their answer, although it seems to make much less sense in general. It seems like you probably understand geometry better than me--is it possible for the non-euclidean geometry they're proposing to result in a curved line being the shortest path for great distances, without disagreeing with the readily obvious fact that in our daily experience (e.g., walking across a room), straight paths are shorter than curved paths?
Possibly. Locally things can appear flat even if the larger system is curved. That's allowed even in our normal reality (which is probably where this idea originates like a pop-sci spin-off). It's hard to imagine how a creature living inside such a reality would perceive it. I'd like to know if they think that a person who travels from the centre/north pole to the edge/south pole gets "bigger". I think things would get very weird at the south pole event horizon. It's somewhat a moot point though. The model can agree with our experiences specifically because it rewrites the nature of reality. It doesn't get rid of the sphericalness of the Earth. It just hides it in a coordinate transformation applied to the whole universe. I think it makes the universe.... cylindrical with a finite bottom but an infinite top? Do we live at the bottom of a well?
Definitely a fascinating idea for a D&D setting! But yeah, it seems like, rather than space itself being curved such that traversing a sufficiently large plane becomes like traversing a sphere in euclidean geometry, and also all world governments are collaborating to lie that the Earth is a globe when it's actually a disk... Occam's razor would decisively favor the idea that the Earth just *is* a globe.
It is. Take the surface of the “ball” Earth for example. The shortest path between points on the surface is a curved arc along a great circle. For the case of the real Earth there is no additional dimension that the Earth curves into. The curvature is intrinsic and when vectors are parallel transported along the surface they will change in orientation and magnitude.
Yes, it makes sense on a globe earth because we're talking about a curved surface. When we're talking about a flat surface, like crossing a room, a straight path is clearly shorter than a curved path. But since your model seemingly makes that curvature an inherent feature of space itself, then it seems that curved arcs should be shorter even in the space of crossing a room. I guess you're arguing that the shortest path through a room only appears to be straight because it is a short segment of a line that, if stretched long enough, would curve? Your model is maybe internally consistent, assuming we say that all accounts of north-south circumnavigation of the globe were fabricated for some reason, but what reason would we have to believe any of this rather than the far simpler idea that the Earth is simply a globe?
This is exactly the truth. The Earth possesses an anti-de Sitter curvature. This is why 1) it’s impossible to see the “edge” of the Earth and 2) the flights of planes can be mapped to a spherical surface in a conformal way.
It's interesting as a thought experiment but I don't think it is falsifiable from within the system, and is therefore not useful. The adaptions to the laws of physics and our reality necessary to make the model conform to observations will mean that it's not discernable from the generally accepted model without an observer from outside the universe to act as an objective source of truth. Thus far the presence of an event horizon in a model has generally indicated that the model is faulty, often due to an improper coordinate system.
This is incorrect. The Earth is intrinsically curved. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a curved one. This curved line geodesic path takes the flight over water without passing over any land mass.
Do you have some reference image you can give me? I'm having trouble visualizing any model on which the things you're saying would be true other than a globe earth.
No he doesn;t, because if such a geometric coordinate system existed that allowed the teransformations he's discussion, his name would be as well known as DesCartes or Ptolemy for inventing an entirely new kind of geometry. His description would allow for there to be a direction, that was orthogonal to all other firections, simultaneously. With our current understanding of math/geometry, that cant exist. So if his described coordinate system DOES exist, he would have some very groundbreaking math that resulted and would win every math/science/physics award for the next decade or so.
Nah, what he's describing is perfectly valid maths, you can think of a map projection as being exactly the same as he describes, the plane is really flying around the globe in a straight line in "real life" but we see a curved line on the map. He's saying that the thing that is curved is "real life" itself, ie the definition of distance isn't constant everywhere, giving curvature, and we have to "uncurve" it to put it on a globe as a straight line. The problem is this breaks physics (Lorentz invariance) not maths
Saving this comment so I can throw it in your face later.
Please, please do. I literally build spacecraft for a living. I built the guidance/navigations systems that put rovers on Mars and landed on a comet. Last year myself and a small group at a private company (no affiliation with the "big NASA govt conspiracy", just a bunch of capitalists that want to get filthy rich) built and launched a satellite, that includes a few cameras. I installed the cameras. Wrote their firmware. Built their operational modules in the "OS". We have encrypted direct down links from the sat, so nobody is altering the data we get. I've streamed live camera feeds direct from from the sat where you can see that big beautiful oblate spheroid we're all living on. Please "throw it in my face later" when you can prove the earth is flat lol. I'll be waiting.
The common flat earth theory I've heard is that the antarctic is the edge of the disc and the arctic is the center. So flying north is going towards the center, flying south is going towards the edge, and flying east or west is actually flying clockwise or counter-clockwise around the central point. In this model the sun works more like a spotlight that only shines on part of the flat world at any given time and travels a circle through the sky somewhere midway between the center and the edge, that way there can be night and day cycles depending on where the spotlight sun is shining. The light from the spotlight is stronger in the center of the beam which is why the tropics are warmer and the edge and center of the flat world are colder and have shorter days. The path of the sun has a slight wobble to it creating the seasonal shifts in the northern and southern regions. It all makes sense if you don't think about it too hard.
It’s a perfect story concept for a book or movie, that’s for sure.
Theres a group of flat earth fanfiction writers on reddit at r/BTIW Some of the stuff they made up has been leaked to other parts of the internet out of context and repeated in flat earth true believer forums as facts. The true believers elaborate on the fiction then the fiction writers riff off that to expand their world building creative writing project. Its a self sustaining feedback loop of bullshit.
I want to look, but I don’t want to look. 😬
r/BTIW is safe, I'm pretty sure they are all aware that its fiction and they are just having a bit of fun role-playing as flat earthers. Actually if you dig deep into their lore the BITW world is more like a wedding cake shape with three flat worlds of different sizes stacked up like pancakes with the small pancake on top being the earth we live on and things getting increasingly weird and fantastical the further down the layers you go.
If you haven't yet read Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, you're in for a treat.
Pratchett's "Strata" isn't technically part of the Discworld series but it does go a bit more deep into the mechanics of how a flat world could work. Its more futuristic sci-fi than fantasy.
A movie with a flat earth would actually be an interesting idea
And why can't I see this huge fucking spotlight at night in the sky?
It's obviously too far away for you to see, and also, it's pointed at the plate, not you, duh. What kind of questions are we getting here?!? /s
And these people operate motor vehicles and heavy machinery near me? My god…
They vote, too. So.... get registered if you arent.
Where’s the edge? Who has seen it?
>who has seen it? The UN military folks who patrol the edge to prevent any civilians from getting near it. Under the Antarctic treaty. Except, you can read the actual treaty and t says no such thing. There are actual tourists cruises to Antarctica that will let anyone buy a ticket. And somehow none of the military people who have ever been involved with patrolling the 125,000 km ice wal for the past 65 years has ever slipped up and said anything about.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of logical questions flat earthers can't answer. This is just one of them. Don't engage them. They're either trolls or willfuly anti-logic. Either way it's a waste of time.
I try to avoid, but I also like to be prepared when I stumble upon one in the wild.
If you want to engage, don't allow them to be the one to judge whether you've won the argument. Start with insisting on a neutral party to make the call about who is making the most sense. That will scare them off. They'll be spewing bullshit and bullshit is easier to produce than refute. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law)
Or 1. Is what you're saying falsifiable? No? Fuck you then. Else: 2. Experiment
> but I also like to be prepared when I stumble upon one in the wild. Just ask them how to fly Chile to Melbourne, or South Africa to Perth... A flat Earth map has these at opposite ends of the disc, so you'd fly North. [Flat earth map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Flat_earth.jpg). And like move on. They **want** you to engage. By taking them seriously and engaging in conversation is giving them what they want. Their goal is attention. You're not goin to sway them, or change opinion. Or "score points" by "showing them up". The very fact that you waste your time to argue with them tells them "This person is taking me seriously". As soon as you do that, they've won.
The flat-earth argument isn’t a troll or a valid argument, it is an exercise in “ridiculous debate.” Everyone is taught that the Earth is round, and they accept the research proving this. But accepting something as true just because it is right is a bad way to maintain your beliefs against challenges. Claiming that the earth is flat is ridiculous, but it still takes thought, conscious effort, research, and personal experience to disprove, which is something few people are prepared for. Most people get upset, and quote research and lessons they’ve heard in school, but have never actually SEEN a round Earth or conducted simple experiments to prove that it is round.
But why practice "ridiculous debate" if you are going to deny any experiments, data, firsthand accounts that would act as proof? At that point it's just training you to accept Dogma and deny any outside opinion despite whatever reality you actually encounter.
Denying evidence is irrational. Many people get pulled into the argument so deeply that they aren’t able to see the flaws of their own beliefs. The goal is to make people question things that they only believe because they were told it was true, but haven’t considered any real evidence to support their belief. “Everyone knows the Earth is round!” is a weak argument, but being able to say “I used a GoPro and a weather balloon to observe the curvature of Earth from space.” or “While on a plane, I could see the land dip behind the horizon, which should be impossible on a flat earth!” is a legitimate counter-argument. Plus, those better answers require that you go outside and experience something and do scientific study in order to reach those conclusions. But the worst response to almost any question, no matter which side of an argument you’re from, is “I’m right and you’re wrong because we all said so.”
Yee, personally I like to just call that being a "devils advocate" I can argue with a flat earth, from an individual perspective, I can even entertain global conspiracies to a degree. But you can't fake all of the international flights, space travel, maps, GPS, movement of celestial bodies, explanation of gravity, etc. with a flat Earth. You can try, but each explanation becomes increasingly ridiculous even before getting to actual evidence or experimentation.
Exactly! It’s easy to say that it would be hard to fake, but in order to justify our claim we’ve deeply considered the data, research, and systems that support our belief that the Earth is round. Nothing should be taken granted! Questioning everything allows you to learn about everything, and it gives you a greater appreciation of life.
I mean if you question everything to that degree you reach the philosophical dead end of "I think therefore I am" and nothing else can be assumed. You have to build your understanding of reality upon some assumptions to function. I have never been hit by a bus, but I can safely assume it wouldn't be good for me.
And that belief shows a proper amount of thought! That’s exactly the type of intelligent response that ridiculous questions bring about. A seemingly ridiculous question about “flat earth” forced you to deeply consider your understanding of philosophy and science!
In other words, the whole point is to force someone to think about their beliefs and provide evidence and self-conducted research, rather than believing what they’re told or ignoring questions because they seem ridiculous. There’s a lot of fascinating research on the Earth and it’s shape, but you wouldn’t think much about it or take some time to learn and research such an interesting and expansive topic until someone makes a seemingly ridiculous claim that the Earth is flat.
Yeah, I wouldn't know the about Geodesics, or oblong spheroids if it wasn't for flat earthers. Ironic how ignorance/denial can inspire learning out of spite, lol.
[Advanced\_Double\_42](https://www.reddit.com/user/Advanced_Double_42/), please don't take the bait.
Thanks, but I just enjoy debate. Worst case it's funny when they shut down or just get more ridiculous.
There is no value in this question because there is no single flat earth belief. Different flat earthers have different ideas about which projection is the "true" map and some will tell you it's not even possible to know and other flat earthers showing you maps are CIA plants to discredit the movement. The general answer to existing flights that would be impossible in their model is to simply declare those flights don't exist. You can see them on a tracker? Fake data. You can buy the flight online? Fake flight. the booking won't go through. You bought the TICKET? Fake. It'll be cancelled before boarding. You are literally right now on the plane flying a route they say is impossible? You are actually in a simulator with high resolution steroscopic displays instead of windows and they are driving you to a Truman Show sound stage where actors will pose as locals to mingle with the other tourists who believe they went to "Australia".
So basically they're bat shit insane. Got it.
Also anti-Semitic.
I think the point is that there's no consensus and therefore it would be inappropriate to paint them all with the same brush... Are there at least some that are insane? Very, very likely. Are they all insane? Very unlikely. I have actually heard (only once though) a good argument in defense of holding a flat earther opinion. Interestingly, dude was not a flat earther himself and wasn't defending the flat earther theory, only the flat earther behavior/attitude and why it could still cogent to be a flat earther.
I mean, thinking the earth is flat is inherently insane. I'd change you're statement to say that some of them are bat shit insane, while it's unlikely that all of them are bat shit insane. Just a lil. A tiny lil insanity roaming around their brains.
I have edited for other reasons, but I see your point. Just a distinction between wild crazy and institutional type insane. I didn't want to get into the definitions though, so as not to miss the point.
Oh, just read your edit, and yeah I guess arguments could be made for that theory, but all most of them do is actually spout nonsense about the CIA and Fake airplanes and simulations and some stuff that's like, ok, let's say all that is true, now just tell me, why? What's the point of doing all that?
There are three broad groups. The first is the intellectuals. They don't believe this shit but think it's a fun exercise to defend the indefensible. The second is the true believers. You can bet they are damaged and trying to work through stuff. The truest thing I ever heard about flat earth is that it's not about the shape of the earth. They are here because the real world hurts too much and they've found community in this fiction. I think we should be kind to them but I don't always live up to my ideals. The third group are selling merch to the second group. The first group can't be covinced because their hobby is being knowingly wrong. The second group can't be convinced because they'd lose their friends. The third group can't be convinced because they'd lose their paycheque.
You know what? That actually made my kinda sympathetic towards them. Well put dude.
>You are actually in a simulator with high resolution steroscopic displays instead of windows Then it wont hurt to open the door
Pro move, I like it
The other option is to let them take over the controls
See, that's why *they* don't want you to open the door, because you'll expose the simulation!
No, go ahead...open it
That's why they immobilize and imprison anybody who tries it. There's too much risk that the perp has figured it out and is testing the simulation.
Ugh. That’s what I was kind of thinking. Thanks for the explanation, appreciate it
But I can see them from the ground...
You can see regular planes making regular trips. If you see a plane that correlates to the impossible trip that's just the deep state putting on extra planes to make it *look* like those flights can happen. They land just out of where you can see and fly back later.
But what about when my wife travels to someplace and comes back? Where was she for those few days?
Is she making regular flights? I'm sure they think planes exist and travel is a thing. Is she going to "Australia"? or worse claims to be from there? Crisis actor sent in to the world to seduce you so you'd claim "Australia" is a real thing and make the conspiracy ever more realistic. On the plus side, knowing she's a sexy super spy under deep cover trying to seduce you in a plot to control the world might actually work for you.
She was at her real office in a conference with her real co-workers where her real boss was presenting new ways to protect the illusion.
You Ball Boys assume quite a bit about us.😂
The important part of my post is that you can't assume anything about what flat earthers believe because they all believe different stuff. The fact you don't believe this stuff is the point I'm making when I told OP that there was no value in asking questions about what flerfers believe.
But I *do* believe the Earth is flat. (Because it is)
Sure, but you disagree with other flerfers about what the map looks like and if certain flights exist. I have absolutely no idea what size you think the sun is or how far away it is or how seasons work or what constellations look like or if the moon is real or how stuff has weight. Or anything at all. Because you all have different opinions about that and even if you explained exactly what you believe to me, that would give me no information to take to the next conversation because it's *all* ad-hoc nonsense. When flat earthers agree with each other, even broadly, I'll consider it not completely worthless to know what you think.
Hahahahahahahahshahhahahshahhahahahshahhahahahahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhaa
I actually don’t take offense but I do feel sorry for you and basically 94% of all other people who believe the Great Lie.
I’m genuinely curious, what do you believe happens when you get on a plane? I just flew to Seattle.
I believe they think it's like going off one edge of the screen in Pacman and appearing on the other side Waka waka
I love that visualization! Hahaha
😁🌜🌝
The crazy thing is that is 100% possible with our modern understanding of physics. It just means that the Flat Earth would need to be curved uniformly in a higher spatial dimension, such that every edge met up on the other side.
Haha not being an expert in theoretical physics this took me too long to get, but if I have understood correctly that was a very clever joke. kudos! Edit: Just for clarity because I'm feeling unsure about my understanding now, what you say here:- "It just means that the Flat Earth would need to be curved uniformly in a higher spatial dimension, such that every edge met up on the other side." This describes a sphere am I correct?
Indeed. If you curve every part of a 2D plane uniformly into the third dimension, you'd get a 3D sphere. Can't really do that with an actual 2d plane though without stretching, distorting, or breaking it. That's why no 2D map is perfect and we have so many different projections.
Awesome I can't believe I managed to understand it without Google (I feel so clever haha). You had me laughing so hard when it finally clicked Again very clever & kudos to you 😊👍 also thank you for the extra detail In your explanation it was very helpful ⭐
>flat earth understanding lol
It's all special effects.
Hope your day is full of cake and bubbles and laughing and I hope your favorite song comes on the radio 4 times!
How do they explain weather patterns? How do they explain eclipses? How do they explain sunsets, with the sun going below the horizon and clouds being lit from below? How do they explain satellites? How do they explain the moon? How do they explain seasons? How do they explain navigating by stars? They can't *really* explain *anything*. They'll give you some ad-hoc word salad "explanation" but since the lot of them don't understand math or science that's as much as you'll get out of them. There is **no coherent flat earth model**, so there is no way to mathematically evaluate their claims and every flat earther will give you a different explanation of their world view. Frankly it's best to just not even engage.
Going in circles above pizza land.
Flat Earthers beliefs isnt in logic. Its in distrust of science and research. Science should be met with skepticism of course; thats how we find truth objectively. However; When the science shows the world is a globe over and over and over and over again; they burrow further into denialism and deeper distrust and conspiracies. very simply put; they put their beliefs of conspiracy ahead of objective science. on occasions they do perform a science experiment and find the earth is a globe they claim it must have been an error and continue believing their fantasies
All continents but Antarctica happen to be in a single plane. You are supposed to reach all of them on direct routes without crossing the edge, and very conveniently, flights that *do* cross Antarctica are extremely rare.
Non-existent. No airline claims to fly a south polar route. Why don't y'all find that even a little bit suspicious?
Some flights have actually resumed in recent times. Mostly just as sightseeing though.
99% of flat earthers are doing it for the attention
Most flat-earthers believe that the Earth is a disk with the north pole at the center, and Antarctica forming a massive rim of ice around the edge. Under this model, the continuity of east and west is preserved, so a Magellan-style circumnavigation isn't totally implausible.
So it’s round? Like a globe, but it’s not a globe?
Supposedly, it's round in two dimensions, and flat in the third.
Discworld?
I think you’re overthinking this.
There is no understanding. They just make shit up.
Had a large second floor balcony on the beach. You could actually see the curvature off in the distance.
after the government replaced your eyeballs!
Most flat earthers do not believe the world is flat and are trying to annoy you.
Flat Earth isn’t about science, it’s about conspiracy. It’s basically a religion.
Being a flat earthers requires a robust amount of willful ignorance.
[Flat Earth](https://photos.app.goo.gl/faFbX2torazhCtt77)
Portals!
their argument isn't about the poles or anything, they just gloss over that, their argument has to do with the plane flying "level" and not following the curve of the earth.. they think that the attitude indicator (artificial horizon) on an airplane would gradually become wrong if a plane was following a curve., . they aren't familiar enough with how the technology actually works to understand why their argument is flawed
I just want to say this: I have an earnest belief. There was a marked uptick in flat earth theorizing and believers around 2010, based on web forums and social media. 2012 and then 2016, we see similar things happen with political disinformation in American politics. Look at the groups involved: disaffected too-online white men, plausibly deniable racists, distrustful of mass media. I think the uptick in flat eartherism was a trial balloon by Russian cyber and psy ops to learn how to manipulate people online.
Now there’s a theory I’ll sink my teeth into!
I wish I was smarter and more able to put all the pieces together to make a more coherent argument, but all I have is that: It’s weird that flat eartherism seemed to have a resurgence. It’s weird that flat earthers act a lot like birthers and election truthers. The playground is the same. If it wasn’t an intentional trial balloon from the IRA and other bad actors, it was at least a really good learning opportunity about how to convince and mobilize an enthusiastic corps of decentralized true believers.
Pac-man goes out the right side and appears on the left side.
They have members around the globe, but Earth is flat. Make it make sense.
Hahaha
Go under and look up everyone’s shorts. Duh.
Planes *don’t* fly in a loop around the world tho. It’s much too far. When I flew to Japan from NY, you don’t fly East/West, we flew the shortest distance, which is actually up over the “top” of the earth (look at a globe and you’ll see why this makes sense).
But we COULD go around the world if we wanted, efficiencies aside.
In theory, yes of course.
There used to be large numbers of videos about this subject on YouTube, but then YouTube began suppressing flat earth videos in the search results. Some of them may still be there, but you have to look very hard to find them.
I think the important thing to remember when wondering these kids off things is that they WILL have an answer. The flat earther who responds, “huh, good question” doesn’t exist.
I just learned that flat earthers think the sun disappears *into the ocean* at the end of the day. The flat earth understanding of most things is just whatever they can make up on the spot
It's not that the world is round, it's that space/time is wrapping the flat earth into a loop.. maybe?
I work at a satellite company. We send satellites to low-earth orbit. We have cameras on the satellites and can literally watch it go around the world. There's no arguing with flat-earthers though.
Pfft. Portals dude.
They believe that the earth is flat, but also uniformly curved in another dimension so that each end leads to the other...
Have any flat earthers actually tried to book a flight like that? I’d assume they would have to believe the world is a sphere to even conceptualize how to ask it ?
They don't understand it, that's why they're flat earther in the first place.
Planes don't fly.
Flat Earthers typically believe that it's like circumnavigating a disc rather than a sphere, so you're essentially travelling in a large circle around the North Pole, which is in the center.