[neilep (OP)]

Dearest Round-Planetologists,

As a sheepy I of course know the Earth is round. Planet Earth was invented in 1873 and has been quite happy plodding along in all its roundness since then. It even got all jolly a fewe  years  later and banged a rather sexy Planetoid and they had  the Moon as a baby. This is all true cos I say so.

Still, as a firm believer in empirical study I wentt for a stroll just moments ago and took this selfie:


Screen Shot 2018-04-25 at 13.42.06.jpg (88.83 kB . 422x563 - viewed 14853 times)
A true bona-fide non doctored piccy of me just moments ago !!




There's this chappie at work who is fundamentally convinced that the Earth is Flat !! Nothing I can say or do convinces him of the fact. The Sun is a lot nearer than it is and he doesn't know what the Moon is and says it's a projection and that the entire World is conspiratorially purporting that the Earth is round to control us. What bothers me is that he has a young son who i'm sure he is educating his delusional theories.

Doesn't matter what I say or do.....he just espouses his ridiculous notion as the truth. Every photo is photoshopped, every camera lens is fish eye etc etc etc

Any suggestions ?   How Can I Change The Mind Of A Flat earther ?

He's even beginning to have an influence on work colleagues !!

How does someone become so susceptible to this  ? weak willed or what ?

If ewe can help me then a hug will be forthcoming big time !!

Hugs and shmishes


mwah mwah mwah

Sheeepy
xxxxxxxx

Just take a look and ewe will see
The Earth is round since 1873
It's not a joke and sad the fact
That others think it's flatty flat !

[Janus]

To be honest, I don't think you can.  Some people are just immune to logical argument.

[chiralSPO]

Unfortunately there is no guaranteed way to treat willful ignorance.

Do they accept that the moon, the sun, and the other planets in the solar system are roughly spherical in shape?
If so, then why, you might ask, is the Earth special? And why do liquid lakes not pour off of Titan?

Do they accept that airplanes fly in Great Circles? And that the airline companies are doing this to minimize their fuel costs, rather than to appease the Round Earthers?

Perhaps they can explain why there are multiple tides per day? Or how it can be broad daylight in London while the Sun has long since set in Hong Kong (do they have any friends or family in other parts of the world they can viedo chat with?)

Experiments are always nice, especially when very low tech. If there is a tall building with an elevator overlooking the sea (facing west) then they can see the sun set multiple times. Watch the sunset at ground floor, then go up 10 floors and watch it again (repeat if possible). If, as they claim, the sea is flat, then how does this work?

[neilep (OP)]

Thank ewe @chiralSPO and @Janus,


It just astonishes me that people are so susceptible to the point that even when faced with true facts they deny it as conspiracy and have such a firm held belief in their own conviction that it becomes a fundamental stance.

[Kryptid]

I once joined a flat Earth discussion board in an attempt to persuade them that they were wrong. It didn't work. So unless you can actually take them into space and show them that the Earth is round, I doubt you'll succeed.

[chiralSPO]

unless you can actually take them into space and show them that the Earth is round, I doubt you'll succeed.

Even then, I'm sure many will find some way to challenge the truth before their eyes: "the 'windows' are actually computer screens with filters changing the image!" or "you must have given me mind-altering drugs!" or something equally silly...

The best course of action may just be to identify flat earthers online and sell expensive junk to them to limit their economic power (supposedly there are millions of these morons world-wide!?!)

[Colin2B]

Even then, I'm sure many will find some way to challenge the truth before their eyes: "the 'windows' are actually computer screens with filters changing the image!" or "you must have given me mind-altering drugs!" or something equally silly...

You are right, judging by some of the flat-earther post we’ve had here.
At first I thought it was a joke organisation, a sort of intellectual exercise, but they seem to believe it. Even ancient civilisations had it sussed out.

[Bored chemist]

About 2 min into this

is the clearest explanation I have seen.

[chris]

Anyone going to pop along:

https://www.flatearthconventionuk.co.uk/

[wolfekeeper]

There's different types of flat earthers and you'd probably have to reach them in different ways.

Many of them are religious; it turns out that the early Israelites believed that the Earth was flat, as did most of their contemporaries, and the evidence that it wasn't, only slowly spread across the face of the disk globe. If you know what it's saying the old testament actually explains that, it says the earth is circular and covered by a crystal sphere called the firmament, and many of the other parts imply if you go high enough, you can see the whole Earth, which of course you can't.

So people like that, one technique called is 'street epistemology' you talk to them sympathetically, and try to get them to explain why and how they 'know' what they think they know, and how did the people that told them stuff know what they know, etc.. Eventually you should be able to get them to accept that it's simply held to by faith, and then ask them whether simple faith is enough to believe anything, and point that many, many people believe all kinds of strange things on simple faith.

Another group is the conspiracy theorists, they believe in things for a variety of reasons, they think flat earth is a secret conspiracy by those people. Depending on the reason you'd probably need to use different approaches:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201801/why-do-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories

[David Cooper]

Einstein was a flat Earther - if you pick an extreme frame of reference, you can show that the Earth is flatter than any pancake.

[RD]

How Can I Change the Mind Of A Flat-Earther ?

Gravity acts straight-down everywhere on a sphere, not so on a disc.
Gravity would only act straight-down at the center of a disc,
everywhere else on the disc people would have to lean to one side to keep upright.

[Kryptid]

Gravity acts straight-down everywhere on a sphere, not so on a disc.
Gravity would only act straight-down at the center of a disc,
everywhere else on the disc people would have to lean to one side to keep upright.

They don't believe in gravity in the same way that we do. They believe that the Earth is accelerating upwards at 9.8 meters per second squared, thus emulating gravity.

[Bored chemist]

Gravity acts straight-down everywhere on a sphere, not so on a disc.
Gravity would only act straight-down at the center of a disc,
everywhere else on the disc people would have to lean to one side to keep upright.

They don't believe in gravity in the same way that we do. They believe that the Earth is accelerating upwards at 9.8 meters per second squared, thus emulating gravity.

That's... "interesting".
What power source do they postulate?

[Kryptid]

That's... "interesting".
What power source do they postulate?

They think there is a rocket-like plume shooting from underneath the Earth to propel it upward. I kid you not.

[wolfekeeper]

With all these people it's always worth asking why there isn't a single picture, not one, of the edge of the Earth and watch them squirm.

[Kryptid]

With all these people it's always worth asking why there isn't a single picture, not one, of the edge of the Earth and watch them squirm.

They think anyone who gets close enough to take a picture is either caught or killed by the guards stationed on the ice wall there.

[jeffreyH]

Roll the flat earther down a mountain slope.

[RD]

They don't believe in gravity in the same way that we do. They believe that the Earth is accelerating upwards at 9.8 meters per second squared, thus emulating gravity.

Gravity is not exactly 9.8m/s across the entire Earth ...

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

If it was a disc accelerating it would be constant across Earth's surface.

BTW after a mere decade accelerating at 9.8m/s², disc-Earth would be close to the speed of light.
Colliding with interstellar gas at that speed would irradiate Earth : we'd be cooked.

[chiralSPO]

Ooh! Here's another experiment that any flat earther with a car and a camera capable of long exposure can do if they are willing to take a road trip (works best in flat open country) :

Take a long-exposure shot of the night sky facing due North (in the northern hemisphere, do the opposite in the South), so you can see the stars trailing. Then, the next day, drive South a few hundred miles. Take another exposure at the new location, and repeat a few times, then do the same on the way back, stopping at the same locations. Sure it might take 2 weeks to do a good loop, but it could be an excellent vacation (and hey, if you're committed enough to build your own death rocket, surely you can take the family on a 14-day road trip in the summer.) The return journey will rule out that the angle just changes every day for no reason...

On comparing the shots, one would clearly see Polaris in the center of all the circular trails, and the angle to Polaris will (surprise, surprise) correlate very closely with the latitude of the observer.

When one is very far North, Polaris will be overhead:

very north star trails.jpg (112.15 kB . 1200x800 - viewed 6858 times)

As one travels South, Polaris will fall towards the horizon:

1200px-All_In_A_Spin_Star_trail.jpg (343.29 kB . 1200x800 - viewed 6839 times)