Jason Hodlers ♾️/2099999997690000🏴 on Nostr: I wasn't going to respond to you at all. As a friend once said to me: "Never try to ...
I wasn't going to respond to you at all. As a friend once said to me: "Never try to reason with the unreasonable." If -- despite my questions above that you never responded to, and hundreds of other everyday observations that would lead any sane and honest person to conclude that the Earth is a globe -- if after all that you still choose to bury your head in the sand and believe the Earth is flat, then there's nothing I can say here that could help you. But perhaps someone else will stumble on this conversation one day, and be persuaded to acknowledge the truth rather than the lies propagated by flat earthers, so there's a remote chance this will be worth it. Also, I unexpectedly had some extra time earlier today, so I decided to start tackling each of these one by one. Okay, here I go!
"Maybe start by explaining, with specificity, what gravity is and then pose an experiment once could perform in order to independently validate that claim."
Sure! Gravity is the force that pulls objects with mass toward each other. Back in 1798, a man named Cavendish demonstrated it in a lab by suspending two small metal balls on a wire and placing heavier balls nearby. The slight twist of the wire as gravity pulled them together let him calculate the force, and this experiment has been repeated with precision ever since. You could even try it with the right setup.
"Explain the CMBr."
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMBr, is a faint glow of microwave energy coming from every direction in space. It demonstrates that the universe is spherical and expanding. You might question how everything began (which is great! That's the first step to scientific discovery -- just don't stop there, and don't fill in the rest with only what you want to see!), but this radiation is a real thing we can detect, and it doesn’t match a "universe" with a flat, unmoving Earth. Instead, it supports the idea that we live on a globe that’s part of a much larger universe.
"Explain the fact that not a single experiment exist to prove movement."
I'm assuming you mean the Earth's movement, and there are many simple experiments and observations that support a moving Earth. Take Foucault’s pendulum, for instance: a simple swinging weight that shifts its path over hours because the Earth is rotating beneath it. You can see this in action if you take the time to set up your own. Then there’s the Coriolis Effect, where the Earth’s rotation makes winds and ocean currents spin one way north of the equator and the opposite way south of it. Another one is called "stellar parallax", where nearby stars appear to shift slightly against the more distant ones as the Earth orbits the Sun, something astronomers have tracked since 1838. And let's not forget the sun, moon, and stars moving counterclockwise around the celestial north pole from the perspective of those in the northern hemisphere, clockwise around the celestial south pole from the perspective of those in the southern hemisphere, and simply straight east-to-west for those living along the equator.
"Explain long distance observations that in[v]alidate the curvature claim."
This is an old one! 😂 Probably based on the incorrect "8 inches per mile squared" formula, right? That math is only useful over short distances (it's still not correct in those instances, but the errors in such small areas are negligible, so it's good enough), and it measures the curvature of a parabola, not a globe. Much more importantly, that formula doesn't account for the observer's height, which allows us to see over the curvature of the Earth a little bit. The formula you should actually be using is a=√(r+h)²−r², in which "a" is the distance to the horizon, "r" is the Earth's radius (roughly equal to 3959 miles or 6371 km), and "h" is the eyesight level above mean sea level. Here's a great website with a calculator that explains it all:
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature#what-is-the-earths-curvature
"Ditto for long distance line of sight radio comms."
Radio waves actually don't need a flat surface to travel as far as they do. They can hug the ground as surface waves, bounce off the ionosphere as sky waves, or even get trapped by weather patterns in something called "tropospheric ducting". Ham radio enthusiasts use these tricks daily to chat across continents, and no flat Earth is required.
"Try and dispute the kinematic and dynamic equivalence of the two proposed models."
Assuming that "the two proposed models" are the globe model the popular-yet-impossible flat Earth model with the north pole in the center and Antarctica surrounding the edge as an ice wall, the globe explains everything seamlessly and without any add-ons or exceptions, while the flat Earth model just doesn't, not even a little. From the Sun shining for 24 hours straight for many days in Antarctica during its summer, to there being a central location in the south (as well as the north) that anyone can find from any direction just by using the stars (and many have), to the flights from Santiago to Sydney over only water, to the pull of gravity being a little bit stronger at the poles than at the equator, to the movement of the stars changing as you travel north or south, to the ability to watch a sunset twice if you quickly rise to higher ground, to how seasons work, and on and on and on. None of these things are possible on any kind of flat Earth, but they're incredibly easy and straightforward on a globe.
Here's a great visualization that shows what I mean:
https://youtu.be/HcctCQzTNow
So, when you put it all together, the evidence stacks up strongly for a globe Earth. Gravity keeps us in place and can be tested by anyone, the CMBr reveals a universe that’s expanding in every direction around us, experiments show the Earth spins on its axis and orbits around the sun, observations match a curved surface when you factor in the height of the observer, radio waves travel just fine around the globe's curve, and the flat Earth model can’t keep up with the facts we see every day. These are all reasons why I prefer to call flat Earth "FUD against reality".
There! I responded to all of your challenges. Can you respond to *any* of mine in the comment you responded to, using a flat Earth model?
As my favorite saying goes: "When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken or he will cease being honest." I've been mistaken about lots of things, and sometimes I chose to cling onto my pride and I ceased being honest. I later turned away from that, and chose instead to cease being mistaken, but it would have been so much easier if I had just chosen to cease being mistaken from the beginning. I don't know who you are, but still, for your sake, I hope you will make the right choice now, and avoid more regret/delusion later; that is, after all, what having a low time preference is all about. 😉
"Maybe start by explaining, with specificity, what gravity is and then pose an experiment once could perform in order to independently validate that claim."
Sure! Gravity is the force that pulls objects with mass toward each other. Back in 1798, a man named Cavendish demonstrated it in a lab by suspending two small metal balls on a wire and placing heavier balls nearby. The slight twist of the wire as gravity pulled them together let him calculate the force, and this experiment has been repeated with precision ever since. You could even try it with the right setup.
"Explain the CMBr."
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMBr, is a faint glow of microwave energy coming from every direction in space. It demonstrates that the universe is spherical and expanding. You might question how everything began (which is great! That's the first step to scientific discovery -- just don't stop there, and don't fill in the rest with only what you want to see!), but this radiation is a real thing we can detect, and it doesn’t match a "universe" with a flat, unmoving Earth. Instead, it supports the idea that we live on a globe that’s part of a much larger universe.
"Explain the fact that not a single experiment exist to prove movement."
I'm assuming you mean the Earth's movement, and there are many simple experiments and observations that support a moving Earth. Take Foucault’s pendulum, for instance: a simple swinging weight that shifts its path over hours because the Earth is rotating beneath it. You can see this in action if you take the time to set up your own. Then there’s the Coriolis Effect, where the Earth’s rotation makes winds and ocean currents spin one way north of the equator and the opposite way south of it. Another one is called "stellar parallax", where nearby stars appear to shift slightly against the more distant ones as the Earth orbits the Sun, something astronomers have tracked since 1838. And let's not forget the sun, moon, and stars moving counterclockwise around the celestial north pole from the perspective of those in the northern hemisphere, clockwise around the celestial south pole from the perspective of those in the southern hemisphere, and simply straight east-to-west for those living along the equator.
"Explain long distance observations that in[v]alidate the curvature claim."
This is an old one! 😂 Probably based on the incorrect "8 inches per mile squared" formula, right? That math is only useful over short distances (it's still not correct in those instances, but the errors in such small areas are negligible, so it's good enough), and it measures the curvature of a parabola, not a globe. Much more importantly, that formula doesn't account for the observer's height, which allows us to see over the curvature of the Earth a little bit. The formula you should actually be using is a=√(r+h)²−r², in which "a" is the distance to the horizon, "r" is the Earth's radius (roughly equal to 3959 miles or 6371 km), and "h" is the eyesight level above mean sea level. Here's a great website with a calculator that explains it all:
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature#what-is-the-earths-curvature
"Ditto for long distance line of sight radio comms."
Radio waves actually don't need a flat surface to travel as far as they do. They can hug the ground as surface waves, bounce off the ionosphere as sky waves, or even get trapped by weather patterns in something called "tropospheric ducting". Ham radio enthusiasts use these tricks daily to chat across continents, and no flat Earth is required.
"Try and dispute the kinematic and dynamic equivalence of the two proposed models."
Assuming that "the two proposed models" are the globe model the popular-yet-impossible flat Earth model with the north pole in the center and Antarctica surrounding the edge as an ice wall, the globe explains everything seamlessly and without any add-ons or exceptions, while the flat Earth model just doesn't, not even a little. From the Sun shining for 24 hours straight for many days in Antarctica during its summer, to there being a central location in the south (as well as the north) that anyone can find from any direction just by using the stars (and many have), to the flights from Santiago to Sydney over only water, to the pull of gravity being a little bit stronger at the poles than at the equator, to the movement of the stars changing as you travel north or south, to the ability to watch a sunset twice if you quickly rise to higher ground, to how seasons work, and on and on and on. None of these things are possible on any kind of flat Earth, but they're incredibly easy and straightforward on a globe.
Here's a great visualization that shows what I mean:
https://youtu.be/HcctCQzTNow
So, when you put it all together, the evidence stacks up strongly for a globe Earth. Gravity keeps us in place and can be tested by anyone, the CMBr reveals a universe that’s expanding in every direction around us, experiments show the Earth spins on its axis and orbits around the sun, observations match a curved surface when you factor in the height of the observer, radio waves travel just fine around the globe's curve, and the flat Earth model can’t keep up with the facts we see every day. These are all reasons why I prefer to call flat Earth "FUD against reality".
There! I responded to all of your challenges. Can you respond to *any* of mine in the comment you responded to, using a flat Earth model?
As my favorite saying goes: "When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken or he will cease being honest." I've been mistaken about lots of things, and sometimes I chose to cling onto my pride and I ceased being honest. I later turned away from that, and chose instead to cease being mistaken, but it would have been so much easier if I had just chosen to cease being mistaken from the beginning. I don't know who you are, but still, for your sake, I hope you will make the right choice now, and avoid more regret/delusion later; that is, after all, what having a low time preference is all about. 😉