[voxl]

The earth is not flat. This is indisputable fact. Yet, much ink has been spilt on arguments to the contrary. Refuting some of these arguments is quite difficult, honestly, but none of the arguments really matter because they reject all the convincing evidence as conspiracy or magic.

In this way, what you suggest demands significant labor on the part of the person arguing an obvious fact against an ideologue who will proclaim an open desire to change their belief but whose world view is entrenched in magic making it fundamentally impossible to actually change it.

Long story short I don't buy it and think what you said is full of shit.

[lukan]

"The earth is not flat. This is indisputable fact. "

Well, the earth you walk is indisputable flat. That all of earth is round, comes not from direct observation (except for the very few people who have been in space).

So I dare you to actually argue with flat earthers. It is a good way to test your basic scientific knowledge. If you poke deep, you will find, that most people learned science the way people learned religion before. By memorising it, not by applying the scientific principle of questioning everything and aim for confirmation via experiment. Some flat earthers are actually more "scientific" in the way that they try out (weird) experiments and not just believe things. (But most probably do have a serious mental condition)

Long story short, this could have been the start of a interesting debate, if you would not have finished your argument with that insult.

[simonask]

The thing about this particular topic is that humanity has known this fact for millennia, not because we flew or went to space, but because we sailed. Any human who has watched ships come in to a harbor would be able to trivially tell you: We see the masts before the ship.

Where I grew up you can stand by the shore on a clear day and see the tree tops on the neighboring island, but not the beach. Sailing there, the beach emerges from the horizon.

The only way anybody can come up with "Flat Earth" is by living in the middle of a continental landmass.

[lukan]

"The only way anybody can come up with "Flat Earth" is by living in the middle of a continental landmass."

The main cause I could determine was rather a deep trauma of some sort or the other and with the result of them now mistrusting everything mainstream by principle and only now trusting their eyes and "intuition".

And believing the earth is flat is maybe the most anti mainstream position ever.

Edit: and my conclusion sort of was, that the only thing, that would really convince some of them is indeed to let them see it with their own eyes. So maybe I will organize a high altitude baloon trip for some people some day, but personally I also always wanted to get as close to space as possible at least once in my life..

[__s]

Greeks calculated the circumference of the world based on the shadows of obelisks. Parallax was used to calculate how far the moon was, & from that how large

(people didn't think Columbus would fall off the edge of the world, they thought he wouldn't make it to India, which to be fair, if it was only ocean between the Pacific & Atlantic, him & his crew most definitely would've perished)

[TeMPOraL]

> Any human who has watched ships come in to a harbor would be able to trivially tell you: We see the masts before the ship.

Of which, until recently, there were very few. Civilizations developed not just on the coasts, but along the rivers, and until ~industrial revolution, the bulk of people at any given time didn't really have a chance to see the sea.

> The only way anybody can come up with "Flat Earth" is by living in the middle of a continental landmass.

Yup, that is still true for humanity; what's changed in the last few hundred years is trains, cars, airplanes, and them all becoming broadly accessible to people.

Still, that was then. Today, "flat Earthers" are mostly just peer groups of shitposters or extreme contrarians.

[simonask]

It varies somewhat by continent, but living very far from the ocean is what’s new. Humans have historically had by far the densest population near shores - river deltas, archipelagos, and so on.

The notion that “seeing the ocean” was a very special thing to most people in history is unlikely. To a Hungarian peasant or a Mongol shepherd, sure, but there were far more people along the Mediterranean coast, the Pearl River delta, and so on.

The reason is very simple: Ocean = free food.

[sejl]

How funny, this comments screams to me that you have not argued with a genuine flat earther.

Debates with them are not remotely interesting; they're constantly reaching to religion, magic, and Jewish control.

Find someone grounded who also enjoys debating and it's a fun topic to cover, however.

[lukan]

Well, the main thing I learned in such debates is, you are free to believe what you want

I don't feel responsible for grounding the facts you somehow believe in.

But in another mood, I might have shared links to certain Telegram groups, or connect you with some people I know personally. They would be eager to enlighten you, if you are in for that.

[monkey_monkey]

What does this even mean?

Do you think the earth is flat? Who the fuck cares about Telegram groups in this context?

[lukan]

It means I debated very often with weird people and the proof that I did, is that I don't feel the need to make the poster above believe, that I actually did that.

(Otherwise I would have shared links where you can find me debating the topic at length with various people)

Because indeed, most flat earthers are immune to reason as they are in the realm of irrationality. So at some point someone needs to accept that and that helped my attitude towards my need to correct wrong information in people in general.

And if you believe now, I am a flat earther, because I said I discovered some flat earthers that act somewhat scientific sometimes and are open for arguments, well, so be it.

[krageon]

Whether or not you believe the earth is flat is a yes or no question, but you responded with a paragraph that wasn't a real answer. This reads as defensive, which leads a reasonable person to believe that you are in fact a flat earther.

[Lewton]

> That all of earth is round, comes not from direct observation (except for the very few people who have been in space).

or anyone who's been in a plane?

[DonHopkins]

Square has.

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

[lukan]

Wow, that is a weird and interesting plot, thanks for that, I take it as a recommendation.

[lukan]

What kind of planes are you flying?

I mean, I just checked, it seems under ideal conditions one could see the curvature of earth at 10.5 km height, but to me it was not really a convincing curvature last time I did a long flight. Your experience was different?

[quesera]

10.5km (34.4kft) is an ordinary cruising altitude for an ordinary commercial airliner.

The curvature of the earth can be quite apparent on a clear day at that altitude when flying over water. Or the midwestern US.

[lukan]

Well thanks, then this is what I will recommend the next time I engage with flat earthers.

[blueflow]

> That all of earth is round, comes not from direct observation

It does! Sit on a beach near a harbour and watch how far you can see the waves and ships. Aristotle did this and came to the same conclusion.

[lukan]

The standard nonsens reply to this is something with perspective. Like a train track in the distance get closer together, the ship gets closer to the ground and then infinitely small. Doesn't make sense, but abstract enough to make some believe there is another explanation possible.

[blueflow]

Standard answer: Ships do not get infinitely small - they visibly "sink" behind the horizont. Starting with the bulbous bow, which you stop being able to see at a distance of, i estimate, 10 kilometers?

[lukan]

Yes and standard reply then is quickly distracting (also themself?) with lots of other "facts" they quickly throw in, or some more vague mystic mumblings about perspective.

Edit: Oh and also there is some "proof" with a certain camera model they present. Where they zoom in closely to ships on the horizont, while not knowing the difference between optical and digital zoom. I am still not sure what they were trying to proof with that, but I did saw a visual glitch of the image processing on high digital zoom. Some vague impression that indeed you can enlarge the ship again fully, despite it being over the horizon. To me it was rather pixel soup, but for them confirmation. So to be on topic a bit again, if you want to influence irrational people of anything, logic only gets you so far and appealing on emotion quite further.

[DonHopkins]

Prove to me that flat earthers aren't just trolls who don't believe a word they say.

[lukan]

I know some who fucked up their whole life, because they believe that crazy shit for real. (Living now alone in a remote hut and waiting for the day when they come to take him away from there, because he also does not believe in paying taxes)

I can give you the adress, but maybe be a bit careful. To him you might be one of the evil NASA brainwashers.

[eviks]

> Well, the earth you walk is indisputable flat

have you never seen a hill or a hole?

[lukan]

Yes, I did. I also grew up watching scientific space videos before I could read and frequently making holidays at the sea as a kid.

But other people grew up in flat areas, far from the sea and maybe exposed with too much BS and maybe drugs at some points in their life, so ended up with a very different point of view.

It was interesting for me to find ways to maybe guide them back to reality and sometimes I succeeded a bit, but I don't think that argument would have helped me. On average and to our senses the earth is pretty undisputable flat.

It takes thinking to go further.

[eviks]

> On average and to our senses the earth is pretty undisputable flat.

That's very easy to dispute

> have you never seen a hill or a hole?

Ok, fine, "other people ... maybe exposed with too much BS", but let's not pretend sticking to some patent nonsense can be traced to simple observations when those don't exist, that's not how you become a true believer

[lukan]

Ok yes, you can totally dispute that the earth we walk around is flat. It was mainly rhetorical reasons, why I used that wording. And I actually believe nothing is indisputable.

(But that does not mean I waste energy seriously trying to negate flat earth theory for good, I am more interested in the psychological reasons that makes people think like that)

[saagarjha]

It’s not? There’s ample evidence to support the earth being round. If you have legitimate evidence to the contrary I’d be happy to listen to you.

[immibis]

The most significant evidence that the earth is flat is that you can just look out your window and it's obviously flat, but all the round-earth evidence is complicated sciencey stuff.

If someone doesn't believe in complicated sciencey stuff, they just won't believe you, and they'll conclude they have evidence and you don't. At what point do you just walk away from the argument?

[HPsquared]

This is the core problem of scientific communication. Flat earthers are an extreme example. The process of arguing it etc can be a good exercise.

Edit: my favourite argument is to look at a half moon, and what angle the "shadow line" on the moon is relative to the horizon. Then ask your friends around the globe to report what angle it looks like to them. Because we are all standing on the side of a globe, we see it at different angles relative to our local horizon, which should perfectly correspond to each person's latitude etc. Fun easy experiment for an online community!

[saagarjha]

Yes, but the round earther can provide a model that matches your observations. Round earth is a better model because it matches reality more often while also accounting for a lot of the obvious flat earth arguments (mostly, that they hold true locally).

[pjc50]

But they don't care. And more importantly, don't want to agree with you.

[saagarjha]

Then it's not persuasion in good faith.

[pjc50]

Of course. Good faith is pretty rare and subject to, shall we say, hostile evolutionary pressure in online and public policy spaces.

[simonask]

Go to the shore. Watch the ships. It's not complicated sciencey stuff.

[immibis]

Atmospheric refraction. (See? The flat earther knows complicated sciencey stuff too. You won't accept their complicated sciencey stuff, so why should they accept your complicated sciencey stuff?)

[simonask]

We’re not trying to come up with a convincing argument - there’s thousands - but we’re trying to understand how it’s even possible to conceive of such idiocy for a person who is otherwise reasonable.

[zmgsabst]

That one is easy because it’s directly refuted by lived experience — eg:

There’s mountains outside my window, so… not flat.

Do you have evidence that it’s flat? — what do you even mean by “flat” when I can see ripples in it?

[latexr]

They mean “flat” in the sense of “straight” (i.e. not curved), the same way a sheet of sandpaper is flat despite being rugged. There are plenty of simple ways to disprove Flat Earth theories, but you’ll never be able to convince anyone by refuting their arguments with something which clearly misunderstands what they’re trying to say.

[saagarjha]

Take the piece of sandpaper and put a twist into it and now fold it back upon itself. Now it's not flat…nor is it round. It's a secret third thing.

Anyway fun topology aside a lot of flat earth discussion is not really done with the attempt to disprove anything, unfortunately.

[ranger_danger]

Instead of refuting their arguments, ask them to prove it to you. Whenever they say something you don't understand, ask them to explain it. Eventually they will get stuck.

[latexr]

> If you have legitimate evidence

That’s a tremendously high bar. Who defines what constitutes “legitimate” evidence? Anyone can disagree on what that means and you’re back to square one.

Look up “The Final Experiment” and its aftermath. Despite convincing the flat earthers who participated, the ones who observed it via livestream dug their heels in further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Experiment_(expediti...

[saagarjha]

I mean to some extent if you doubt the results of your experiments you’re not going to get anywhere, because you can never prove a model. At some point the simpler model is the one that wins out and some very small number of observations that go against it can be accounted by sampling error or hoaxes or whatever. Where you draw that line is up to you of course but generally the scientific community does fairly well on extremely well-supported theories.

[pjc50]

> generally the scientific community does fairly well on extremely well-supported theories.

Then you step outside of the scientific community into the flamethrower of public opinion, and suddenly you have to deal with people who think it's a good idea to give their kids measles.

[saagarjha]

Yeah, well don't do that. Public opinion is not peer reviewed science.

[pjc50]

It does however matter for, say, US vaccine policy.

[dijit]

You’re being downvoted by idealists.

I was an idealist, so I understand the position.

Ideally, you explain your position and they explain theirs and it’s an open dialogue. Truthfully, you could be wrong about any number of things you have resolute conviction about- even things you believe are well evidenced.

The cynic in me is aware that actually us as individuals have finite time and mental energy to keep debating things which are base, and our lives are improved by just accepting some base assumptions and engaging our energy at higher levels instead of litigating the basics.

[b_e_n_t_o_n]

We don't even really have time or energy to debate the higher levels with other people. Maybe if it's a friend or family or someone you're close with. But arguing with strangers, at least imo, is a total waste of time most of the time.

Just nod and smile :)

[latexr]

> You’re being downvoted by idealists.

Seems more likely the downvotes are related to the last sentence. Telling someone they are “full of shit” is not the type of curious discourse HN wants to promote.

That being the case, you might be getting downvoted for incorrectly assessing the situation and inaccurately placing blame.

I’m speculating, as it’s impossible to know what went through the heads of those who came before, but seems like a reasonable explanation to me.

[vanviegen]

> You’re being downvoted by idealists.

No, I think they are being downvoted because they dismiss a thoughtful comment that makes a good attempt at providing an actual answer to the question at hand as "full of shit".

[rkomorn]

I'd downvote that comment even if I agreed with it for the last sentence alone.

[TeMPOraL]

> actually us as individuals have finite time and mental energy to keep debating things which are base, and our lives are improved by just accepting some base assumptions and engaging our energy at higher levels instead of litigating the basics.

Which is precisely why most people considered Earth to be flat until it became more fashionable to consider it spherical, and continue to believe it's spherical because that remains in vogue.

I mean, it's not like people in general suddenly got gained some intrinsic reasons for getting to the true nature of things. Nah, all that changed is what you have to say so others don't think you're stupid.

Call it a more realistic take: humans are social animals. Ever since we started cooperating in groups, the social reality became more important to our survival than actual physical reality. For better or worse, that is a fact of nature. You may argue all you want that the sky is blue, but if the rest of your tribe calls it green, all you'll accomplish is to get yourself shunned and cast out and then eaten by wild animals.

"Is Earth flat or round", from the perspective of a regular person across all history: why are you asking me that question?. The answer has no direct, immediate relevance to anyone's lives - so either you're contrarian, or trying to pick a fight, or have some political angle, or just have too much idle time. Either of that means you're a potential threat. The right answer is always "flat" or "spherical" depending on the time period you live in, followed by "go away and do something useful for a change".

Note: I'm not promoting idiocy or lack of interest into the nature of things - all I'm saying, one needs to cut other people some slack. Most people aren't idiots; if they're holding on to "wrong" beliefs there's probably a damn good reason for it, and with some politically charged questions they may actually be smarter, on a pragmatic/survival level, in giving the "wrong" answer, than someone rocking the boat.

If you want to convince people, don't assume they're idiots - rather, try to connect your arguments to their experience, so getting it right matters to them, and then - that's the pragmatic/cynical part - be ready to accept that, in some cases, having the right answer doesn't matter in practice.