Comments by "Myles Platt" (@melsop54) on "Big Think" channel.

That was some solid advice indeed. I've got family members and friends who have gotten sucked in to this flat earth nonsense, and for a while, it would drive me absolutely nuts trying to talk to them. But putting it in the perspective that I have the objectively true position, I've got nothing to prove cause it proves itself, and it's not possible to argue it...I truly can just let them ramble on and smile while laughing on the inside.
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Commenting in 2022 now! This video has aged very well. People are openly willing to defend the ideology, no matter how openly dishonest or inaccurate the ideas may be. That means it has crossed over in to religion rather than politics.
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The idea that someone can look at videos and pictures of the earth being globular, and STILL believe it's flat...is akin to someone seeing a picture or video of a giraffe eating from a tree and STILL believe it is a picture of a shark eating fish.
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@levelwithz3779 Noooooo. No it's not. If you even thought "No, it would be dumb to spend $5000 just to convince people you went to Hawaii when you didn't (and I can guarantee you thought it), than you understand the sheer stupidity of spending quadrillions of dollars to just pretend to go to space.
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@raumshen9298 Because it's not flat. Your own eyes can prove this.
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The answer is found in the fact that EVERY photo, EVERY video, no matter WHO takes or records it...scientist or not, regular Joe Schmo with a weather balloon or not...ALL show the same thing. The earth with the horizon in equal distances in all directions. No matter where on earth it is showing. A flat earth would HAVE to show the edge from SOME point on earth. For the horizon to be equal distances in all directions EVERY time no matter what or where...can only happen on a globe.
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@levelwithz3779 Question: Would you be willing to spend $5000 to simply make someone believe you went to Hawaii when you didn't?
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I've recently had a family member fall for this garbage. No less, at the hands of one of those who ALWAYS has a nameless, faceless contact on the inside that gives them all this top secret information. Of course we can never know who they are at any time.
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The very existence of eclipses disproves a sun and moon that rotate above the earth like lamps. SOMETHING has to come between the sun and moon for a lunar eclipse, and that is the earth. SOMETHING has to come between the earth and the sun during a solar eclipse...that is the moon. You can't have eclipses with a flat earth model that insists the sun and moon simply hover above the earths surface moving back and forth. Furthermore, the previously mentioned model states that the sun moves further away from us as night approaches and the moon comes closer. However, we can watch in real time that the sun appears huge at dawn, teeny tiny up in the sky above us at noon, and it appears quite large again at dusk. How a flat earth model sun appears larger in size as it simply moves further away from your eyes is a tough one to explain.
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It's literal cult think. They give you their own "facts" to "prove" their theory, and then tell you to ignore any and all opposing evidence as it is evil. Actual free thinking would INSIST you consider other theories in tandem with your own, test them all and accept the one that the evidence confirms. Flat earth puts one in an impossible position of ever doing this because you are expected to ONLY trust your OWN senses when making conclusions. Therefore, if you have never seen a thing, that thing just doesn't exist. If you MUST see the globe in person, for yourself, to accept it...logic follows that 99% of the earths population will never be in that position and thus you can chain your followers to your ideology via that fact. Imagine I told you watermelon is blue on the inside until you cut it open, so you cut it open and discover it to be red...but my response every time you do is "Oh, you didn't cut it right, if you do cut it right it will be blue." AND you BELIEVE that...I give you flat earth cultists and every experiment they have denied upon getting the unintended results lol!
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Merely consider that these folks think the sun and moon are a mere 3000 miles away from earth's surface. Then consider that within the span of 3000 miles in each direction, they want to believe the laws of physics are such that entire celestial objects can have vastly different shapes. All these objects are in the same outer space, under the same laws of physics (presumably), yet this object is a ball (the moon), this one is a ball too (the sun), but this one is a fuckin Frisbee? Hahahahhah!
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@grahvis I see what you're saying. That would apply, I'd think, to the "land beyond the ice wall" myth. Logically, no matter how high up we'd get, we never see the blackness of space but only the never ending surface of earth. On most FE maps, parts of Australia are within a couple hundred, maybe 1000 miles of the ice wall and thus edge of earth. So, SOMEONE should be able to float a camera on a weather balloon up 20-25 miles (which is regularly done anyway), and there is no question theyd be high enough to see a distance of 1000 miles + from where they live in every direction. Thus the wall and everything beyond it (should there be anything) would absolutely be visible. They can't do it though. Because we know what would happen.
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It was said very well here. We are in a place as a society where either ALL news outlets are wrong and evil and every conspiracy theory is true...or no conspiracy theories are true and all news outlets are just fine (sans whichever one doesn't confirm what we believe lol). Truth is, in every situation, the truth is somewhere in the middle. SOME news outlets are clearly dishonest and untrustworthy. Some are good. SOME conspiracy theories end up being true (namely the smaller ones that actually have a possibility of being true to begin with) and SOME (the more outlandish they seem to get) are complete hogwash. It would serve us well to be willing to concede this on all sides at all times for our own good. We need to get back to a place where we accept that we CAN be wrong lol!
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I've got a few family members that have fallen for the flat earth nonsense. With that comes TON's of other conspiracies they follow. Like its said here, specifically for Flat Earth nonsense, it should be testable with repeated similar results. All I ever get from these family members is "WATCH THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO!" but there is NEVER any actual experimenting. I've been shown a ship that is clearly sailing parallel to the shoreline (as you see the broadside of the ship)...and the actual claim is that the ship is not disappearing bottom first over the horizon. I was like...are you serious?
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"Do not debate something when your position is objectively true and the other isn't." Amazing advice. Absolutely engage in debate when both sides of the debate provide viable arguments on a topic. But if the debate is "are babies actually conceived when sperm and egg unite?"...debate is utterly useless. One side is 100% objectively correct and the other isn't. There is no debate to be had.
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@apelincoln1616 But you can. A woman is objectively an adult human female. A man can believe they are a woman, dress as a woman, alter their body to look like that of a woman, but it will forever and always be a costume. We can agree and pretend they are a woman. But objectively speaking, they are not a woman. Likewise, we can pretend the earth is flat. We can pretend space is a snow globe, we can pretend we don't see what we see with our own eyes out there...but the objective truth is that it exists, it's billions of years old, and the earth is round. There is no debate. There is only pretending.
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@Pizzafan622 proof of?
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4 years later here...Still trying to explain this to adult family members. Actually have one that is convinced the moon is it's own light...as in the sun is not casting light on the moon...but the moon is generating it's own light...
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The difference is that ancient Greeks wanted information and accepted what the evidence dictated. Many others from that time and, for some god awful reason, now in the 21st century, believe/believed it was flat anyway. By today's standard, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. They can not provide hard proof the earth is flat, but they are convinced it is. But when hard evidence IS provided that it is globular in the form of video, photo, mathematical, etc evidence...it's ALL a lie. No matter what, their idea is confirmed. That's the methodology of a cult.
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8:30...and if you follow that intersectional path all the way down...you land on having to equalize the outcome of EVERY SINGLE individual with every other single individual, as that is the extreme end of diversity...the individual. So you end up fighting to ensure John Smith has the exact same out come as Jane Doe has the same outcome of Bill Johnson has the same....and that is simply impossible to uphold.
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