What happens if flat Earthers go to space?

Xero@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 155 points –

Will they finally accept that the Earth is round, or will they say that it's fake and the windows on the space stations are monitors?

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"These aren't windows, they're just sophisticated high resolution 3D monitors. NASA has had this tech for decades, they've just never let the secret out. You're not seeing the Earth, you're seeing a video. Why can't we go see it with our own eyes outside? Exactly. Seems very convenient we're being asked to wear suits with image projection helmets."

You will never win with people this fucking stupid.

What I don't understand is let's say it is flat. Why would they go to such lengths to lie that it's round? For what purpose.

This question debunks 99% of conspiracy theories, but they'll just give some non-answer like "power" or "control."

Don't get me wrong. I do love a good conspiracy, but it needs to have plausible motivation and a mountain of evidence

Hell, I'll even accept the ones without a mountain of evidence against them as possible.

The shape of the Earth was determined by evidence noticed in the ancient Greek time, if not sooner. That includes a rough calculation of the diameter of the planet.

and also the flip side: who the fuck cares if it’s flat and the government is lying about it?

I think they have this paranoia that the entire humanity turned against their religious belief. Like what benefit is there to changing the world's shape for nasa, or anyone?

Literally every flat earther is outright retarded.

My guess is they would not go in the first place.

or will they say that it’s fake and the windows on the space stations are monitors?

But if they did, this would be my guess. They have not used logic or accepted any proof that they are wrong so I doubt they would in space.

Some flat earth guys designed a great experiment to prove whether the earth is flat or round. The only problem was they when their own results showed it was round...

They rejected the results they had come up with as it did not fit their belief.

The problem, fundamentally, is that flat earthers don't become flat earth advocates because they have a sane skepticism that what the vast majority of humanity agrees is obvious might be wrong, but because in the thin margin between coming across a "smart" flat earth argument and understanding why it's flawed, they feel special that they "know" they're above the vast majority of humanity.

Being able to design and run an experiment on whether the Earth is flat or not is legitimately cool, and might as well be seen as a source of self-worth, but because accepting the results means suffering the humiliation of accepting how stupidly over confident they've been in the first place, they can't take the small L in order to score the big W.

Many of them will find some way to rationalize it. There was a documentary about an infamous series of experiments some of these geniuses set up - they were obviously consistent with a round Earth, so they dismissed it and started mumbling about mistakes in the experimental design and so on.

You can lead a horse to water, but horses can be intensely moronic animals.

You can lead a horse to water, but if it has rabies, it's more likely to kick your face off than take a drink.

"Gravity repels light so you don't see straight across the flats."

There is enough proof without going to space, so it's safe to assume proof has no effect.

You can always find some superficially credible alternative explanation to any proof. With those, you can use the language of reason and logic to construct a belief consistent with what you had in the first place.

As long as the person has their identity tied to a certain belief, and is of a mindset to find ways in which the belief is correct, they are immune to change. Those are the areas you will need to work on to change their mind.

The spacecraft windows were curved, causing an optical illusion

A few years ago, a documentary on flat-earthers featured a trained geologist who has become convinced that the earth is flat. To test it, being a trained scientist, he designed a good experiment to measure the altitude of a laser beam at a distance from its emitter. He calculated the predicted measurement if Earth is flat and the measurement if Earth is spherical. When he ran the experiment, he got exactly the value he had predicted for a spherical Earth.

The rest of the documentary was him trying to find the error in his instruments and measurements since he knew for a fact that Earth is flat.

It was sad.

People that deep into a conspiracy theory aren't going to have their opinions changed by any amount of evidence.

See the Behind The Curve documentary for conclusive proof of that.

At least two experiments, involving lights and gyroscopes, and then merely go "hmm, interesting" before going right back to believing nonsense.

Even if you could convince a flat Earther to go to space, I suspect the vast majority would not be swayed.

As you suggest, they'd instead likely say that it's all fake trickery. Even if you gave them a space-suit, put the helmet together right in front of them showing no electronics of any kind, and let them walk outside, they'd still say it was all fake trickery.

They would never believe their own eyes, because they've already made up their minds. An allusion to the Earth being round is an illusion.

You don't even need to go to space to prove the Earth is round. As @Pons_Aelius already said elsewhere in this thread, there was even a show made and funded by Flat Earther's to try loads of different tests, and they ended up rejecting all of them because they accidentally demonstrated that the Earth had to be round.

Their mind is already made, and they'll only accept results that conform to that belief. Anything else is either fake, trickery, or flawed.

Just shove them out of the airlock without a suit, then.

Wait wait!!! “Fake trickery”??!?? You mean… it’s real but it looks fake but it’s real?

Likely that, or something about the windows distorting the image. What you have to understand about flat earth is that it's a religous conspiracy theory. If they accept a spheroid earth, their faith comes into question, and that's not something most prople are willing to let happen.

no it's a flat circle from space

You are an idiot. It's not a circle. It's a flat rhombus. You're just falling for the circle propagandists, which are backed by the billionaire elites in the Illuminati.

Well first they'd have to "trust" the people taking them up. They'd claim they weren't actually taken to space.

Basically, its impossible to convince them otherwise.

I know a flat earther and he claims that you're looking at a fake view when you're on an aircraft and that it's a hologram. He likes to throw sci-fi words around even though he has no idea what they mean.

Conspiracy theorists don't actually know what they're talking about so they will always come up with some excuse as to justify why they are still right and you are still wrong. Trying to prove otherwise is a waste of your time talking to them is a waste of your time.

If the earth really was flat someone would have worked out a way to commercialize the edge. It has to be useful for something right, waste disposal springs to mind, in any case it would be far more profitable to just publicly announced that the world is flat than to construct this elaborate conspiracy for no obvious reason.

Flat earth, along with many many conspiracies, boils down to "my life sucks and it's someone else's fault" almost every time.

You cannot reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Have you seen the documentary "beyond the curve"? There's a lot of "reasoning" going on, but they dismiss all their own findings that prove them wrong.

There was a flat-Earther called Mad Mike Hughes who tried to build and launch his own rocket to see the shape of the earth for himself. He died in the attempt.

Before his death i read somewhere that he didn't try to prove the earth is flat, he just funded his hobby with these dumbasses. Not sure tho

I read that somewhere too, but he’s dead all the same. It’s hard to say who is the real dumbass here.

He died doing what he loved and he got other people to pay for it. 64 isn't old, but it's more than some people get without doing stupid shit.

They'll say that its fake. The only way for them to believe is probably letting them orbit the Earth for a while in a spacesuit.

They'll say the helmet projects fake images.

Irrationality cannot be beaten.

with cameras on weather balloons or iss footage (if they dont outright claim its fake cgi)
they usally blame the camera lens or curved windows, and claim its just the fisheye effect

Flat earthers aren't real. Even the ones claiming to be are just making a show

You overestimate the intelligence of humans.

It started out as a debating group, working with an obviously idiotic concept. Unfortunately it ended up attracting enough idiots who actually believed them that it drove/scared off the original debaters.

It's a fascinating phenomenon, quite akin to religious indoctrination.

This is my plan if I ever meet one - Just absolutely deny that they believe it themselves.

Since the whole game is "I'm better than the masses because I claim to have secret knowledge" I'll just deny that claim.

Probably along the lines of "Flat earth was maybe worth a small chuckle in 2006 but the joke is really old and played out now."

Yeah just answer with "Flat earthers don't exist. don't believe me? Do your own research"

My uncle legit thinks it is flat. Granted he has little education. I once had to explain how a mirror worked..

Did you tell him it's a portal to the opposite dimension, or did you lie to him?

Lol I wonder what would have happened if I did. My explanation on light bouncing back did not work.

did you try blinding him with a lazer?

Lol never crossed my mind. I will have to use one for the cats next time. Hope I remember.

My bet is they know its round and want to be part of something and this is the something they chose.

They’re too dumb to pass any exam that would be required to send them there- so we’d never know.

In like 100 years we'll have a colony on the moon and there'll be people claiming the moon is flat too.

The earth is not real man, it's just a sticker.

Some will some won't. The contrarians will never budge, the "I'm not anti-science, I just don't trust evidence I didn't gather myself" ones should. I suspect most flat-earthers are the former.

They insist on a theory you can disprove by just looking at your shadow, moving 2 hours in a car, and looking again.

All of them are from the first set.

We could design a special ship for them with windows that open just to be sure

I hope they can process information before they die to know how wrong they were.

just give them a one way trip to space so they'll know how stupid they are right before they die

They've tried... And crashed back to earth while their family and friends screamed in horror.

Don't waste a thought on these irrational dickheads.

Probably the same people that won't wear a space suit because they don't believe in the widely accepted science that space suits keep you alive.

Flat earthers: You don't need swimsuits to stay alive while swimming, therefore you don't space suits to stay alive in space.

Meanwhile builders, deepsea divers, astronauts, welders, race car drivers, crossing guards, sports players: "but our PPE keeps us safe".

Didn't the COVID pandemic basically clear this question up?

I haven't heard this, how did the pandemic inform one way or another on flat earthers?

I'm assuming they meant we could watch in real time as people made their own version of the truth this time because they wanted so hard to believe they didn't have to get a needle.

It was largely the same style of mental Olympics as flat-earthers.

They will say they've been abducted by aliens of course!

When they see that the earth doesn't have an edge after a rotation or two they will say "It was amazing, we traveled that same rate the disk was turning so we couldn't find the edge."

I think it would depend on the individual. Some would admit it, once they see the whole globe through that glass it would be like trying to say apples don't exist in response to someone handing you an apple. Their senses would override the belief. They might not be very thrilled to admit it...

Then there would be the people that are fanatics about it... They would probably get hysterical, or check out mentally, or get violent, or some other sort of emotional break. I would also guess these people would be unwilling to go into space in the first place.

i remember some flat earther attempted building a rocket and was successful, except it had no way to land and yeah...

Oh, you think the window is fake? So you won't mind it if I break it, right?

well they will still only be able to see one side of it at a time, in their minds they will still think it's a circle, not a sphere, so you can't fix stupid.

They'll crash into the firmament at high speed, and die. God will probably smite their corpse for doubting Him.

They will continue to troll you.

They know the earth is round. It is not like the moon landing that was obviously faked.

For real. The moon never landed anywhere.

Well, according to the Giant-impact hypothesis, a planet crashed into Earth then the debris became the moon we know now, so you could say the moon did land somewhere.

They just deny it. They deny everything, even obvious facts, to gain control over the conversation and no one sees through their bullshit.