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How I Tried and Failed to Educate Two Flat Earthers*
There is a world of insane conspiracy theories out there with people who believe in all sorts of loony things, like a flat Earth, the universe is spinning around a stationary Earth, all of the moon landings are faked, NASA is some huge spider-like agency feeding lies to the public, the contrails we see from airplanes are actually mists of chemicals being sprayed on us, the World Trade Center buildings were brought down with explosives by our own government, etc., etc. It is closer to us than we think.
I accidentally engaged one since she is a former liberal arts student from about five years ago who took one of my courses. I did not realize that she was like this until a few days ago, when I saw this post to which she responded. At first, I was not sure if she was just being sarcastic, but then I asked her if she was serious. Below is the feed, edited to hide identities of her (“CT2”) and the original poster (“CT1”) on the conversation. I tried to just give clear answers. Instead of helping them see reality, I evidently became part of the conspiracy….
Ok, from here on, it is just straight from the thread, with formatting, etc. for a Word document and hiding identities. Also, all of the figures somehow can’t make it into Ricochet. Enjoy, or weep for our nation. Your choice.
{Figure caption} But that’s ok because “science” and computer animations. XD
Image file described below here Whole Earth
[ Image, A photograph of the Earth with the overlay text “2016 And Still No Video Footage of the Whole Earth Continually Spinning in Space”]
CT1: I’ve learned so much since 2005, when I started discovering the truth about various things. I now know too much. I can see things for what they are without trying. We are under attack in every conceivable way, yet most people don’t recognize this clear…
CT2: Reality is pretty clear to me as well. I likewise feel like i know too much. The elite don’t even bother to cover their tracks anymore. So many things are so obvious now i can’t believe more people don’t have their eyes open.
Me: You think that the Earth is not spinning on its north/south axis?
CT2: I’m not saying it’s one way or the other. All I’m saying is that there is no proof that we are spinning. NASA has a way of leaving much to our imagination.
Me: Do you remember our discussions of the Earth-Moon-Sun system and things such as the reason for the seasons, solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, etc? There is so much proof that the Earth is a big ball whose surface we live on, which rotates on its axis approximately once every 24 hours, orbits the Sun approximately once per year, etc. The fact that you can’t recall the evidence, which we discussed in detail, even in such an elementary course, does not mean that “there is no proof.” This kind of intellectual laziness, to just reject as a conspiracy, things that you don’t study, won’t serve you well. As far as I can recall, you are capable of much better than this. If you are really interested in learning about the evidence for this, I will be happy to go over it with you in detail after the semester is over. (but be forewarned, this will come at some cost to you — you will be assigned homework!)
;) )
CT2: Out of respect for my former professor, I will not argue this with you, however, I do not appreciate being called intellectually lazy. NASA has been a prime target of my personal studies for some time and what I have found is they seem to be far from honest with us about the so called “science” they conduct. No pictures of Earth released by them are real/undoctored pictures. They disclaim that the pictures are composites or based off of artist interpretation. Seems fishy that they can produce no authentic images when they are in control of hundreds of satellites and high powered telescopes. We could be stationary and the universe may revolve around us and what you said would still make sense. I know i have seen videos of NASA astronauts filming from inside giant water tanks and pass it off as filming from space. In others the women permed their hair so it would stand straight up to give the effect of zero gravity. I do not shrug off information out of laziness. I just have questions that there seems to no answers for besides they are trying to hide the true state of things from the general public. NASA controls all the space intelligence agencies. It would not be hard for them to devise a plan like this and carry it out all over the Earth and remain unnoticed by the masses. It’s not like that many of us have seen Earth or space with our own eyes.
Me: Ok
CT1: Never seen a video of the spinning earth from space is all that’s being said. Can you provide one or an explanation as to why one doesn’t exist? Do you believe we went to the moon in 1969?
Me: If you really want to explore the evidence, then one factoid spoon fed to you, will never satisfy you, if you just want to say “it is all made up!” Hence my offer to CT1, who is still local, I believe. People want to believe that anything which is true is immediately apprehended from one photograph and a few words, but understanding how the world works takes patient study. I can recommend an elementary astronomy text, if you really want to read about this. Remind me on Thursday, when I am relatively free and I will look in my office and find a good text to recommend.
Until then, just look at the night sky. Look how all of the stars and the moon and the planets appear to rotate from East to west: That is what a relatively fixed universe looks like to a creature who lives on a ball and looks away from the center of the ball (“up”). You can do this two ways. Look up every half hour and follow, say, the Orion constellation or Jupiter tonight. You will see it advancing in “snapshots of time.” If you are a bit patient, just sit outside for one hour looking at a star near a tree or a building. If you keep staring, you will see the getting either farther and farther away from the tree, or closer and closer, depending upon if the tree is on the east horizon or west horizon. That is in principle the same thing philosophically, but comes closest to “seeing a video of spinning.”
As to the moon landing, I remember it vividly, since I watched it as a young boy. One of my few memories from childhood. It somehow entered my mind that this way my birthday present, since it happened two days before my birthday.
CT1: You thought you watched it on TV, what you saw was a show put on by NASA. A TV show, written, directed and filmed here on Earth. Do you know what the Van Allen Radiation Belts are? What you watched on TV was impossible to have transpired on the moon with the technology we had, it was a propaganda show, no man could traverse the VA belts and live. Houston, we have a problem. If they are faking the moon landings, what else are they faking…hint, it’s a lot
Me: ok.
CT1: Dismissive and arrogant deserves no respect. Answer the questions or do some research. He clearly has an interest in perpetuating the nasa lies since he’s employed to indoctrinate young minds to universal lies. He must be aware of the VA belts and chooses to ignore any argument that pokes holes in the junk science portrayal of propagandized events presented as real. This type of academic negligence destroys ones faith in the institutions of “higher learning”
CT1: Explain the VA belts professor
Me: It is a region of space filled with temporarily trapped charged particles, mostly protons and electrons boiled off by the Sun, but also from cosmic rays from outside our solar system. They are trapped by the magnetic field of the Earth.
CT1: now explain how a human in a tin can can pass through this radioactive field safely
Me: What biological effects there are on a person from such an environment depends upon factors including: 1)what the flux happens to be at that time 2) How much time one spends in that region. 3) The amount of shielding provided by the spacecraft. ….and probably other things that I have not come up with on the fly. Thus, living in the van allen belts might be very bad in terms of long term exposure, but passing through, say on the way to the moon or mars might be ok, depending upon the above factors. It is kind of like aircrews. The crews who fly at high altitude are exposed to cosmic rays with greater intensity than those of us on the Earth who are protected by ~20km of air. So the airlines limit the amount of time these crews spend at high altitude. Does this help?
Me: BTW, I have a class to teach in 45 minutes, so I will look at any further questions later.
CT1: the effects of passing through the VA belts are fatal if not shielded from the radiation, nasa admits in their new ORION preparations as much in their testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlXG0REiVzE I’ll look for your reply later tonight, enjoy your class professor
NASA engineer admits they can’t get past the…
YOUTUBE.COM
CT1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ZzFemBUJQ…
Moon Landing 1969 vs Scientific Evidence
YOUTUBE.COM
CT1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkYETGJ3OGE…
Moon Landing 1969 vs Scientific Evidence II
YOUTUBE.COM
Me: Hi YYYY: OK, so I watched the (edited) NASA movie you pointed me to. There is nothing inconsistent with what I said. How dangerous that region is, biologically, depends upon how much time you have people spend there. The more time the more radiation damage to people. The Apollo craft moved through this region very quickly to limit this, but I would also not be too surprised if they were more cavalier about the long-term cancer threats back then (doctors on TV still recommended some brands of cigarettes over others, I think…). In any case, I think they were much more focused on the whole ship exploding or just not working at some stage, killing the astronauts much more quickly than cancer. This is one of the reasons that astronauts then were chosen from the ranks of test pilots with “the right stuff,” who were used to taking calculated risks.
But biological danger just going through the VA belt is not all you have to worry about. There is solar wind throughout the (1 year?) trip which will cause some amount of ionizing radiation when you are not protected by Earth’s magnetic field or its atmosphere. So the problem they will have to solve is not just getting through the VA belt, but also minimizing the radiation during the entire trip.
Also, Mars does not have a strong magnetic field, so even when the astronauts are on Mars, they will probably (I am guessing at this since this is all outside my area of expertise) suffer from enhanced cosmic ray exposure for their entire stay on Mars. (Another year?) Also, since there is very little atmosphere on the planet, they will be exposed to enhanced UV radiation exposure during their stay since the planet has no Ozone layer.
Finally, on their trip back (another year?), they would be exposed to the same biological toll as on the way to Mars.
But, there is another risk, which I thought about, based upon the question of the conspiracy theorist who edited the film: Why are they testing these regions if they already tested with Apollo. I think the main reason is that technology today – especially circuits are tiny surface mounted components and integrated circuits. A single highly ionizing particle going through the wrong component in the wrong place could kill an entire chip or circuit. So, they probably have to build in a lot of redundancy to see if today’s extremely compact and light (important for traveling long distances using reasonable amounts of fuel) but more fragile electronics can survive large integrated exposures. This is something which would not have been a problem with the relatively humongous electronic components used in the 1960s.
I hope this helps.
I am not going to bother with the films on faked moon landings. These tend to be basically debunked notions based purely on “I don’t trust them” mentality. I have never seen any even slightly convincing evidence that this was faked. So, I don’t want to sink hours into watching such films. But if you have a specific question you want to ask, please feel free. Cheers, Ilan Levine
CT1: Thank you for a fantastic response, and by fantastic, I mean based in fantasy. Of course, if one is not willing to view the evidence of the fraud, they can confidently declare that they’ve never seen anything convincing to the contrary of their position. Fact is that you cannot debunk the documentaries made by committed researchers who have uncovered the fraud, without seriously looking at their findings. If you want to be taken seriously, you must confront their findings head on, not skirt evasively around them. Do yourself a favor in restoring any credibility you seek to maintain by looking at the evidence presented by those who have concluded the moon landings were a propaganda hoax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xciCJfbTvE4. Bart obtained unedited raw footage of the video fakery from inside the capsule, it cannot be disputed, only avoided.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon
YOUTUBE.COM
Me: ok.
*Or, “When I learned that grading is not the least rewarding activity I do”
If anyone thinks that there was a more productive way to have engaged them, I would like to hear it. Signing off for the night, but will read suggestions tomorrow, he said hopefully.
Published in General
For kicks and giggles I subscribe to email updates from The Atlantean Conspiracy website whenever anyone posts in their flat-earth blog. Some of the things people think and write are truly mind-numbing.
For the conspiracy minded lack of proof is evidence of the level and intensity of the conspiracy. The more people argue they are wrong and the more evidence and explanations offered the more their suspicion grows about the whole situation. It is basically impossible to talk people out of conspiracies.
Here’s an example of how mindless they are (well, other than your entire post): “CT1: Never seen a video of the spinning earth from space is all that’s being said.”
Then moments later: “CT1: You thought you watched it on TV, what you saw was a show put on by NASA.”
So CT1 complains that there’s no video, and then in the same breath summarily dismisses the moon landing video as faked. No doubt if there were spinning earth video, CT1 would summarily dismiss it as faked.
People like that should only be allowed to use plastic forks and knives.
Oh dear. You are an American hero.
Snap judgment was that it was a complete waste of time, however it seemed at the end that CT1 was giving up any Van Allen Belt objection, which seems positive. I can’t in good conscience advise engaging on the moon landing stuff though.
Oh yeh. Then explain time crystals Mr. Smartypants Physicist. Time is a social construct I tell ya.
This is a run-of-the-mill pseudoscience video, but it really ramps up in the the last minute when he starts talking about The Grid and False Light Beings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0UllrJiei4
This is fantastic, in the sense of being awesome. Thank you.
I’m not saying it was aliens….But IT was aliens!
You could ask, “So NASA didn’t fool you. But what do you think NASA should have done to make a better show that would have fooled even you?”
I worked on the Apollo and Viking programs. Been to the assembly and launch sites, had meetings with astronauts. I can’t even begin to understand those people. What kind of physics could explain their assertions? The proof of what “is” is there, yet they accuse us of not looking at their silly assertions.
It’s like this:
RTWT; it’s a nice rant.
Aside from the Flat Earth folk, it would be remiss not to mention The Hollow Earth People as well. Seems they thought scads of folk could enter through holes and the interior of the planet and occupy the the sphere in a reverse relation to the surface with equal benefit. Neat drawings wer e provided in support as well.
Woo, woo thinking aside, escapism is just that. Always has, always will remain, to our chagrin.
*headdesk*
The earth is flat, but they accept the Van Allen Belts? Aren’t the Van Allen Belts proof that the earth is round? or at least that the earth has a core of molten metal, that creates an intense magnetic field by spinning in the sun’s electromagnetic field. IF the earth where flat there would be no molten core – and thus no Van Allen Belt. Or is that wrong?
Another thing, that always got me about the moon landing faker crowd — Do they think the Russians would sit back and let NASA cheat? First Kennedy declares a race to the moon – and unable to meet his challenge NASA fakes it — Wouldn’t the Russians point it out? Would they quietly take the propaganda hit? No they’d raise unholy hell about it – not quietly (but gracefully) congratulate NASA.
As a friend of mine who worked on a satalite once said, “I have to be in on it”.
The thing that blows my mind the most, is the very cover up is more fantastic than the flat earth.
But, people will believe what they want to believe. Apparently, the idea that malevolent forces are in control is more comforting that believing that no one is.
The moon landing is the last of 3 conspiracies explained here:
Where do they think the edge of the earth is? Why do airline schedules assume a round earth? The flat earth assumption creates many problems which are explained by a round earth (as you say in some of your answers).
Why does earth in a lunar eclipse have a round shape? Why do ships disappear as they sail away from you? My Dad designed two spacetracking systems (Minitrack and Naval Space Surveillance). How do they explain satellites which have regular orbits.
The flat earth and faked moon landing are both absurd conspiracy theories. But I think they are best addressed separately. I feel like John McEnroe disputing a call. “Are you serious.” It’s hard to believe that they aren’t playing some sort of game. But people don’t seem to be able to think for themselves.
If you’ve got some time, here’s a guy trying to come up with a flat Earth map which better corresponds to airline schedules (since he’s taken some of these flights that would be awkward on existing flat Earth maps). I haven’t watched the whole series, but I gather he starts moving in the direction of a concave Earth and gets blowback in the comments from another flat earther who sees it as a betrayal.
I suppose with the way our little snowflakes are raised these days it is entirely predictable that they would believe not just the world, but the whole universe and all of creation revolves around them…
Just admit to them that we live in the matrix and that everything is a conspiracy. Come on, you have been unmasked:
But I am willing to wager CT1 is convinced that climate change is due to man… His proof? Science!
Well, look on the bright side. Not everyone gets to be a part of a vast century-spanning conspiracy that includes such notables as Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Isaac Newton, and Buzz Aldrin. We should all be so lucky.
Oh, good grief. I finally got to see that guy on the inaptly named History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” week before last when we were visiting my in-laws in North Carolina. The show even trotted out Erich von Dänicken, to my surprise. I thought he had passed away sometime in the 90s.
Professor Levine, you are a credit to your profession. You went above and beyond the call of duty in an effort to help them see the absurdities of their own beliefs. But sometimes there is just no fixing stupid.
Conspiracies require the belief that vast numbers of people are willing to happily make their life’s work nothing more than a propaganda stunt, and keep the secret to their grave.
This, of course, is ridiculous. People want to make their lives meaningful and important. This is especially true of engineers, who actively seek to work on things that are substantive, to be proud of their accomplishments.
I might ask the snowflake this question: “Would you be willing to work on a fake project? If not, why not? Why do you think other people would be different?”
And if they answer that they would be able to enthusiastically work on a fake project, then the immediate return is how they can prove to you that their flat-earth stuff is NOT fake?
My, but you seem to dislike the AOL mail address! ;)
Thanks for the good post!
So . . . I just got here. Have the earlier comments figured it out yet?
I suppose it’s a form of misology, like Plato was talking about in Phaedo. You trust someone, you get let down, you overreact and end up hating people–misanthropy.
In misology, you trust an argument, you get let down, you overreact and end up hating logic–misology.
In other forms of misanthropy, maybe you get let down by politicians; then the old political system collapses when enough people learn not merely to mistrust but actually to despise political people. Then Trump becomes President (which I grant has a number of good consequences, e.g. Gorsuch).
In other forms of misology, maybe you get let down by a scientific theory, by scientists, or by civil servants who get involved in science. A little overconfidence from the Left on global warming goes a long way towards furthering geocentrism.
Don’t wanna highjack the thread – but I’ve seen that happen multiple times with professing Christians who left the faith over the failures of individual Believers who let them down.
Reading your exchange, I was reminded of an exchange of e-mails re: race and racism with a friend. I’m toying with the idea that the anti-racism “thing” (#BLM, “systemic racism,” etc.) is a conspiracy theory.
And then: maybe conspiracy theory is a human default mode, the result of some combination of pattern-seeking, cognitive bias and groupthink, and even the imaginative creativity that allows novelist to write and artists to make art? Or, for that matter, theologians to theologize?
Naziism was essentially a gigantic conspiracy theory, yes? And Communism, too. And modern-day progressivism appears to believe that a cabal of greedy capitalists is deliberately courting the destruction of the planet just so as to rake in more and more of “the peoples’ money.
What makes a conspiracy theory different from a plain old political theory —what made Germany’s motives in starting WW2 different from their motives in WW1—is the belief in a superhuman (or subhuman, as the case may be) capacity for secrecy, something that makes a plain old political opponent into a shadowy-secret and preternaturally competent enemy lurking behind a facade of what he wants you to believe is “reality.”
Maybe you could have a chat with this guy? (Picture is from some crazy protest I encountered a few years ago on my way to work in NYC. ) Not that I think you’d be able to disabuse him of his crazy belief – I think you demonstrated that these types are impervious to reason. But I would be fascinated to hear it fleshed out a bit to see just how crazy it is!
Well, Buzz Aldrin punched one of them. That’s as “productive” as any other approach I can think of.