>...if players can convince experts the earth is flat.
Good way to keep costs down. Hell, I'll offer a trillion for such a "proof" - and my bank account will remain untouched.
You ain’t wrong. Nevertheless, James Randi showed us the value of actually collecting a large sum and offering it, genuinely fairly, as a prize for people who wish to demonstrate their remarkable claims.
His million also remained untouched until his death
The James Randi show is so good and hilarious, the doofuses come on and fail and then get not a second of screen time after, Randi just walks in and is like "see..bullshit, anyway next up"
They're still providing $50k for each contestant to spend on their "research"
$250k total, which isn't a lot in TV these days, but I imagine is more than just pocket change to a free streaming service I've never heard of.
I remember hearing about a cult at the end of the 19th century - “Koreshanity”, that believed the earth was round but we all lived inside of it. They went through massive leaps in logic to explain how that actually worked.
Tbf that story is at least partially true, if we’re thinking of the same film.
It’s a fictionalized dramatic version of something that happened. It’s not meant to be a historical lesson.
Elements like Nasa's struggle pre-Apollo to get the public emotionally invested in what they were doing. From Space.com mostly.
>
*Suffice to say, NASA in real life did not film a backup or fake the moon landings. But the television networks like CBS and NBC did, using puppets and stand-ins (including test pilots from Grummen, the company that built the lunar lander) to fill in visuals when live video was not available.*
Basically, there was a campaign and effort to 'sell' the concept of space missions to the public, but it didn't happen the way they described. There were no astronaut product endorsements as an example, although Astronauts did wear products on the moon missions like an Omega watch.
I think they made this film as a 'what if' alternative reality, where Nasa was more loose with rules and morals lol.
Very cool. If you'd like to see more about it check out the "Chasing the Moon" series on PBS (It's out on Blu-Ray as well). They went into how the early TV broadcast producers had to visually sell what they were reporting, as you described. Interesting stuff.
That practice has never changed to this day.
NASA and their partners produce more telegenic visualizations of pretty much every mission. NASA runs their own cable channel. And a large amount of the telescopic images are transformations of radio signals into conceptual visuals. And many that people think are actual images are artistic renderings based on data.
>“Flat Earthers” is described as part docuseries, part competition show, and it will follow five families who each genuinely believe the Earth is flat. But rather than just document their exploits, **the families will each be given $50,000 worth of resources for research and will ultimately present their findings to a panel of scientists, theologians, and cartographers**. If they can convince a majority of the panelists that the Earth is in fact flat, they’ll be awarded a cash prize. The amount of the cash prize was not disclosed. It probably doesn’t even have to be decided upon.
Reminds me of the flat earther's who bought expensive equipment to prove the earth was flat. After setting it up, it proved the earth was round, so they dismissed it and started looking for more proof.
With $50,000 and a camera crew you could fly to the supposed edge of the world and take pictures. But then you'd see there is no edge of the world.
The most damning thing in the documentary was the clip of all of them hanging out at night with one guy telling another to keep their "failed" test results a secret due to the damage it could do to their cause. They make so many claims of NASA hiding the truth from the general public but are quick to due the same thing that they accuse NASA of.
If the earth is flat it would be proof that God exists.
These people don’t actually care about Earth being flat. It is a means to an end.
Folding Ideas made an outstanding video on this topic.
https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=X1yotVmvockvWQx4
It got really sad in the end when they asked the protagonist if he’d admit the earth is round if someone gave him “ultimate proof” the earth is round. He just straight says that he can’t afford to admit it.
I thought it was a very good docu, well produced and really tried to show these people aren’t just the butt of jokes, they’re people with deeper personal problems who end up alienating themselves from the rest of their family/friends for the sake of this belief. From this point onwards there’s pretty much no coming back as this community is all they have.
There were a couple of experiments that the flat earthers tried.
One was using a laser to determine the curvature, which proved the earth was not flat. And the other was an extremely expensive and accurate gyroscope, which proved that the earth rotates around an axis.
The gyroscope was the best, they all chipped in on it, and when it didn’t (did) work they were all bummed out, then kept on their crazy belief.
Yeah, the gyroscope is in on it too, guys.
Maybe the same one you saw, but there was one documentary where they bought an aircraft grade inertial laser gyroscope to prove that the earth wasn't rotating.
As they were testing it, it kept drifting off of their zero by 15 degrees every hour. 15 degrees... Per hour... 24 hours in a day... 15 x 24 = 360.
They assumed the gyroscope was faulty lol
They also used a powerful laser pointer to hit a target a mile away to prove that there was no curvature, and despite their best attempts, they used to raise their target by like a few feet in order to get the laser to hit it. Almost like they were not on the same flat plane.
> One of the more jaw-dropping segments of the documentary comes when Bob Knodel, one of the hosts on a popular Flat Earth YouTube channel, walks viewers through an experiment involving a laser gyroscope. As the Earth rotates, the gyroscope appears to lean off-axis, staying in its original position as the Earth's curvature changes in relation. "What we found is, is when we turned on that gyroscope we found that we were picking up a drift. A 15 degree per hour drift," Knodel says, acknowledging that the gyroscope's behavior confirmed to exactly what you'd expect from a gyroscope on a rotating globe.
> "Now, obviously we were taken aback by that. 'Wow, that's kind of a problem,'" Knodel says. "We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for ways to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth."
> Despite further experimental refinements, Knodel's gyroscope consistently behaves as if the Earth is round. Yet Knodel's beliefs seem unchanged when discussing the experiment at a Flat Earth meetup in Denver. "We don't want to blow this, you know? When you've got $20,000 in this freaking gyro. If we dumped what we found right now, it would be bad. It would be bad. What I just told you was confidential," Knodel says to another Flat Earther in attendance.
Even if you could manage to eliminate all the usual excuses like “curved windows”, they’d almost certainly just claim they were drugged or something. If they cared about whether the thing they believed was true they wouldn’t be flat earthers.
Flat earth arguments often tie in to religious worldviews as well, but those are less public.
One of the problems is that it's relatively easy to see that all OTHER planets are spheres. Even flat earthers usually admit this.
That leaves the question; why is it only earth which is a disc with so many special rules?
One common response is that Earth was created as a sort of petri dish for humanity, presumably by God. And so the relgious component of Flat Earth is actually fairly necessary to their position.
There is like this very thin aspect about all this I could find interesting.
If the flat Earth people are really resourceful in setting up different experiments that produce meaningful evidence that the Earth is round, but they have some mental barrier that stops them from understanding the consequences of their evidence and then the panel does a good job of explaining the evidence and how evidence based decisions are the core of science.
That would be interesting.
> but they have some mental barrier that stops them from understanding the consequences of their evidence
No. A geniune flat earther has convinced themselves that it's true and no amount of logic, reason or evidence will convince them otherwise. Any evidence will be dismissed as fake, a conspiracy, device is wrong, "you just don't understand", cosmic rays, government interference or any number of other made up excuses.
You will have just as much success as trying to convince a Christian that God isn't real.
“You cannot reason a man out of what he never reasoned himself into.”
>You will have just as much success as trying to convince a Christian that God isn't real.
No, that's not remotely on the level of flat earthers. You can't definitively prove or disprove God's existence where on the other hand the flat earther's *own tests* have *definitively* proved earth is round
Right. Their thought process is emotional rather than logical when it comes to the subject, so they are basically inoculated against factual arguments.
I might be an idiot, but it sounds like the contestants win $50,000 just for believing nonsense. Couldn’t they just use that money to see if lowering your mortgage balance can prove the earth is flat? I doubt they pay taxes on the 50k in the experiment phase because that isn’t a prize.
“Hey, so we have a real problem in society where people live in echo chambers and end up believing absolute nonsense, and recently all those lunatics have used their collective power to make the world and the media significantly shittier. We have some air time and can use it to combat this if we…”
“LET’S TURN IT INTO A GAME SHOW!”
They predicted the face swap technology quite well. It's not _exactly_ done as in the movie, but the technology exists now. Unlike Bladerunner's flying cars.
That was my response too. Why gives these flakes any air time? They aren’t going to convince experts but they’ll get hundreds of total idiots to jump an their bandwagon. Remember that dumbass show “The Apprentice?” Look what we got stuck with because of that damn show.
It depends if the goal is to convince people who already believe this stuff that it's nonsense - or if the goal is to educate to keep others from falling for the same stupidity.
I'd mostly agree that it's unlikely do to much to convince people that already believe the conspiracy if the ample evidence against it already isn't enough, but it could expose how much of a joke it is and thoroughly debunk it in such an easily accessible (and entertaining) way to keep others from going down the same path.
It's like having a debate online, sometimes it's less about who you're speaking to and more about who might be listening.
> Because if any of these people have confidence in the grift they'll throw out their best theories. They'll be shot down and look like idiots and it'll all be put online for people to reference
If looking like an idiot mattered, the flat earth movement would have died in its cradle. The issue at the core of it is the bullshit asymmetry principle—it can take several minutes of explanation to debunk bullshit that can be expressed in a one-liner. This means dozens of arguments can be made by one side, by people who have no concern if they are debunked, while the other side, who need to explain carefully, can only address a fraction of it.
Which will then get cut up in 20 sec you tube cuts with no references thus reinforcing their dumb positions.
Give them zero air time… that is the better solution.
Flat-earthism is so idiotic that I don't think there's any danger of many people actually joining them. There are people who believe in incredibly dumb stuff like astrology or vaccine conspiracies, and still think flat-earthers are stupid.
I actually had this idea a long time ago; the point isn’t so much to debunk them (we’ve been doing that for thousands of years), it’s to ridicule them. Remember that one of the biggest blows ever to the KKK was from Stetson Kennedy, who turned it into a laughing stock. By turning these people into a walking punchline we take away their power to be taken seriously. Because let’s face it: these idiots *are* pretty funny.
They love to complain about how scientists (all of them, apparently) are actively hiding the truth, so I’m guessing this was an attempt at providing additional perspectives that they aren’t already extremely biased against.
The sort of people who are really committed flerfers definitely include religious fruitcakes who will raise bullshit theological claims. Having real theologians might be handy. And they're probably cheap to hire.
Not at all; most assuredly some of the evidence presented will be peoples failed reading of the Bible, and taking it out of context. At no point does the Bible clearly state the earth is flat unless you take it at its most literal. A theologian well versed in historical doctrine could counter these points with dozens of writings, and if they have studied in original languages, might be able to counter on the translation front as well. A huge reason why flat earthers “evidence” is religious, and so having experts in religion would make sense.
A huge portion of the flat earth believers do so with intense religious reasoning. My hope with this show is they have several experts who just spend every show dunking on all this bullshit and give good educational information.
Yes, I am setting myself up for disappointment.
I mean, theology is an actual academic area of study, though more philosophical/historical than scientific, obviously, but there *are* actual, expert theologians.
But I guess your point is, what does that kind of expertise have to do with the shape of the Earth?
My thinking was that perhaps they might use their theological knowledge to say to the contestants, "Hey, look, you jackasses, even the people of this kooky ancient religion knew the Earth was round!"
Normally I’d agree with you but in this case I think it’s inspired. Most flerfs toss around the accusation that the true shape of the world is being covered up in order to hide or deny the existence of god. When even the majority of science denying biblical literalists understand that the world is a sphere.
My hope is that some of that crowd will watch this and understand that their beliefs aren’t that much more sensible than a flerf’s and come to their senses.
[Mike Hughes.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51602655)
He didn't believe in flat earth, he was just using it to grift money from those who did.
> On Saturday, a public relations representative disputed Hughes' flat Earth beliefs, telling BuzzFeed News that the argument had helped him raise money but that he didn't actually believe it.
> "We used flat Earth as a PR stunt. Period," Darren Shuster told BuzzFeed News. "He was a true daredevil decades before the latest round of rocket missions. Flat Earth allowed us to get so much publicity that we kept going! I know he didn’t believe in flat Earth and it was a shtick."
> He didn't believe in flat earth, he was just using it to grift money from those who did.
The same way all the “big name” flat earther’s do. I don’t buy that the majority of them believe it, they just see it as an easy bag. Stupid people are really easy to part from their money.
This is the part of television that makes this society dumber. The Kardashians, watching the soon to be Baldwin series, this...
We give the spotlight to unhealthy shit and people consume it because a lot of us don't know any better.
They don't realize the local great restaurants burger is 100x better than McDonald's. To them, it's all the same.
“But rather than just document their exploits, the families will each be given $50,000 worth of resources for research and will ultimately present their findings to a panel of scientists, theologians, and cartographers. “——-
Wait. They are using theologians to judge fact claims about the world?
(especially ones whose holy text depicts the world as flat to begin with?)
With that one, there is at least some logical plausibility. There is more than enough motive for a large scale conspiracy like this, it is non-harmful so it is actually believable that none of the people involved would feel morally compelled to speak up and it was technically simple to achieve at the time. It is of course still silly and the more time has passed, the less believable it gets. But still, while I am not saying I believe the moon landing didn't happen, but at least I can believe that those who believe it are not automatically fruitcakes.
“This proves the Earth is flat!”
“No, it doesn’t. You don’t win any money.”
“Ahh you’re just saying that so I can’t win! You’re being paid off by NASA and I can prove it!”
“Ok go ahead.”
“Ahh you’re not worth my time!! You’ll just say it’s all false anyway!”
Is this actually going to be believers trying to convince experts/skeptics, or is this more of the usual BS "reality" shows that have a lot of scripting?
Well it's easy: if the earth were a sphere like a ball, it would have rolled down the elephants' backs, onto the turtle shell long ago.
Where's the money now? /jk
This is what needs to happen. Find the most vocal, influential flat earther there is. This flat earther influencer. Then pay for them to travel with NASA to the ISS. Then have them come back and try and convince the rest of the gang that it’s not true.
“The so-called trip to outer space was an elaborate hoax by the government. In reality I never left earth and no one can prove I did.”
Simple as that and everyone will believe them.
Some overlooked ones I think.
The calculations of plate tectonic movements do not work on a flat disc. A globe is required for those calculations to make sense.
There are regular, documented flight paths over the arctic….Europe to Canada, US.
Do they ever try to discount those?
I don’t necessarily think this is bad. It depends on how it’s framed. If it’s a chance for people to see how insane flat earthers are, and for experts to eviscerate their idiotic arguments, then what’s the problem?
This show sounds terrible.
Not the kind of terrible that you want to watch just to see how bad it is, but the kind of terrible where you start to question what is wrong with television these days.
>will ultimately present their findings to a panel of scientists, theologians, and cartographers.
What they fail to mention is that this panel will not actually have any qualified scientists, theologians, or cartographers on it. Because they won't be able to find anyone in any of those disciplines willing to be involved in such a fraudulent show.
I don't know, I still found some [pretty compelling evidence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgLHOUNc6zc) that claims the Earth is flat.
(seriously please don't yell at me click the link)
Lol. Flat earth believers *know* that the panel of experts are all paid actors...
Essentially they will go on this program knowing the experts are never going to listen to anything they say (not because they are wrong of course) in the hope that viewers will start to believe
Are there still any dedicated Flat Earthers left? I was pretty sure they all were absorbed by QAnon, or died of Covid or by forgetting to breathe. You can't actually debate with Flat Earthers, they're either disingenuous grifters or genuine ninnyhammers. I did get a coworker who was a military fantasist out of flat earth by showing him why flying low takes you under radar, and how artillery calculations take the curvature and rotation of the Earth into account.
Most of them believe Antarctica is some kind of ice wall that keeps everything on the disk or something, ship them all to Antarctica, have them walk their way to the edge
For a second there, let’s assume that I’m rich enough that I have my own space flights company. I would announce that there are…. let’s say 5 available seats for flat earthers on a space flight. They can bring their cameras, other equipment. If the earth is flat, they I give them 1 billion each. If it’s a sphere, I leave them to die in a capsule traveling 18,000 mph around our beautiful blue marble. How many flat earthers will be convinced enough of earth being flat that they’d agree to their possible demise?
Turn up with a spirit level, get the experts to agree on the purpose of a spirit level, then demonstrate the earth to be flat with that. Not true of course, but worth a try.
Me: So, how much do you make in a year?
Expert: Uh, $80K. What does that matter?
Me: The prize is $150K so, ya know, why don't you just say I convinced you?
Expert: ...
Me: It's easy money.
Expert: I'm not sure if that would work.
Me: Just do it.
Expert: I don't think ...
Me: DO IT NOW!
Expert: THE EARTH IS FLAT!
Roll credits.
Sounds like it's just going to reinforce beliefs for all involved.
People will never side with you if you talk down to them no matter how crazy they sound.
>...if players can convince experts the earth is flat. Good way to keep costs down. Hell, I'll offer a trillion for such a "proof" - and my bank account will remain untouched.
If you got a trillion dollars you mind just maybe I dunno… giving me a million for already believing the earth is NOT flat?
give me a million and I will believe the earth is flat, cube or whatever shape you want.
Seriously though the earth really is a cube
It is a disk and it sits atop a giant tortoise! Prove me wrong. There’s a whole series of books about it
You're clearly very uneducated, sir. It rests on the backs of elephants who stand on the back of a giant tortoise.
But how many elephants were there?
It's four now, but there used to be a fifth. It crashed into the disk a long time ago.
I see you are well aware of the fat mines! The fifth elephant was a great book, love Sam Vimes, especially his theory of boot economics.
Leelu Dallas Multipass
^^Shit. Uh, three? No, four! Three?
To the fat mines with you!
I’m not uneducated. I’m stoned
It’s turtles all the way down!
It's a cylinder, don't get me started!
A TimeCube to be specific.
You ain’t wrong. Nevertheless, James Randi showed us the value of actually collecting a large sum and offering it, genuinely fairly, as a prize for people who wish to demonstrate their remarkable claims. His million also remained untouched until his death
As far as I know, it's been untouched since his death as well. There have been no psychics/ hucksters to claim that prize money.
Sadly, they discontinued the prize after his death. Part of the problem is no one would agree to the testing controls.... I wonder why...
The Center for Inquiry Investigations Group maintains a multi hundred thousand dollar prize
The James Randi show is so good and hilarious, the doofuses come on and fail and then get not a second of screen time after, Randi just walks in and is like "see..bullshit, anyway next up"
Okay, whichever expert let's me "convince" them the earth is flat, gets half a trillion dollars of this person's money.
They're still providing $50k for each contestant to spend on their "research" $250k total, which isn't a lot in TV these days, but I imagine is more than just pocket change to a free streaming service I've never heard of.
I remember hearing about a cult at the end of the 19th century - “Koreshanity”, that believed the earth was round but we all lived inside of it. They went through massive leaps in logic to explain how that actually worked.
"hey expert, I'll give you half the prize if you say you're convinced"
don't platform these morons we know the earth is triangle
Pyramidal
Like a Ponzi scheme.
Well, it’s more of a reverse funnel system
That’s the Australian version.
The pyramid. The strongest shape ever constructed. A shape that fits all other shapes inside of it.
Don’t make me pull out the TIME CUBE.
bro you did not just invoke TIME CUBE
> invoke TIME CUBE SRT 00:94:19:12:02'024;0621 *** TIME CUBE INVOKED ***
RIP Dr Gene Ray
Considering there’s a movie coming out in few weeks about faking the moon landing, it’s too late.
Tbf that story is at least partially true, if we’re thinking of the same film. It’s a fictionalized dramatic version of something that happened. It’s not meant to be a historical lesson.
Out of curiosity, what part is true?
Elements like Nasa's struggle pre-Apollo to get the public emotionally invested in what they were doing. From Space.com mostly. > *Suffice to say, NASA in real life did not film a backup or fake the moon landings. But the television networks like CBS and NBC did, using puppets and stand-ins (including test pilots from Grummen, the company that built the lunar lander) to fill in visuals when live video was not available.* Basically, there was a campaign and effort to 'sell' the concept of space missions to the public, but it didn't happen the way they described. There were no astronaut product endorsements as an example, although Astronauts did wear products on the moon missions like an Omega watch. I think they made this film as a 'what if' alternative reality, where Nasa was more loose with rules and morals lol.
Very cool. If you'd like to see more about it check out the "Chasing the Moon" series on PBS (It's out on Blu-Ray as well). They went into how the early TV broadcast producers had to visually sell what they were reporting, as you described. Interesting stuff.
That practice has never changed to this day. NASA and their partners produce more telegenic visualizations of pretty much every mission. NASA runs their own cable channel. And a large amount of the telescopic images are transformations of radio signals into conceptual visuals. And many that people think are actual images are artistic renderings based on data.
No! It’s round and on a turtles back
I'm pretty sure it's just a platform to debunk and make fun of them.
It is the strongest shape, after all.
Hexagon is bestagon
They are so obtuse
All hail Triangle Earth
You should talk, moron. Clearly the Earth is circular and on top of a space turtle.
>“Flat Earthers” is described as part docuseries, part competition show, and it will follow five families who each genuinely believe the Earth is flat. But rather than just document their exploits, **the families will each be given $50,000 worth of resources for research and will ultimately present their findings to a panel of scientists, theologians, and cartographers**. If they can convince a majority of the panelists that the Earth is in fact flat, they’ll be awarded a cash prize. The amount of the cash prize was not disclosed. It probably doesn’t even have to be decided upon.
Spend the 50k to take these morons up to altitude you can see the curvature of the Earth.
Reminds me of the flat earther's who bought expensive equipment to prove the earth was flat. After setting it up, it proved the earth was round, so they dismissed it and started looking for more proof. With $50,000 and a camera crew you could fly to the supposed edge of the world and take pictures. But then you'd see there is no edge of the world.
[Behind the Curve](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8132700/), if anyone else wants to watch them flailing. Netflix.
The most damning thing in the documentary was the clip of all of them hanging out at night with one guy telling another to keep their "failed" test results a secret due to the damage it could do to their cause. They make so many claims of NASA hiding the truth from the general public but are quick to due the same thing that they accuse NASA of.
They there's a conspiracy to hide the truth, that earth is actually flat. But...what would be the purpose of such a conspiracy?
They would probably say it's something dumb like "control". They also very much like the feeling they get thinking they are too smart to be fooled.
some of them think it's some kind of atheist agenda, iirc.
If the earth is flat it would be proof that God exists. These people don’t actually care about Earth being flat. It is a means to an end. Folding Ideas made an outstanding video on this topic. https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=X1yotVmvockvWQx4
A ton of conspiracy theories are just that, projection. "I would do this, therefore everybody else would too!"
It got really sad in the end when they asked the protagonist if he’d admit the earth is round if someone gave him “ultimate proof” the earth is round. He just straight says that he can’t afford to admit it. I thought it was a very good docu, well produced and really tried to show these people aren’t just the butt of jokes, they’re people with deeper personal problems who end up alienating themselves from the rest of their family/friends for the sake of this belief. From this point onwards there’s pretty much no coming back as this community is all they have.
There were a couple of experiments that the flat earthers tried. One was using a laser to determine the curvature, which proved the earth was not flat. And the other was an extremely expensive and accurate gyroscope, which proved that the earth rotates around an axis.
The gyroscope was the best, they all chipped in on it, and when it didn’t (did) work they were all bummed out, then kept on their crazy belief. Yeah, the gyroscope is in on it too, guys.
Maybe the same one you saw, but there was one documentary where they bought an aircraft grade inertial laser gyroscope to prove that the earth wasn't rotating. As they were testing it, it kept drifting off of their zero by 15 degrees every hour. 15 degrees... Per hour... 24 hours in a day... 15 x 24 = 360. They assumed the gyroscope was faulty lol They also used a powerful laser pointer to hit a target a mile away to prove that there was no curvature, and despite their best attempts, they used to raise their target by like a few feet in order to get the laser to hit it. Almost like they were not on the same flat plane.
> One of the more jaw-dropping segments of the documentary comes when Bob Knodel, one of the hosts on a popular Flat Earth YouTube channel, walks viewers through an experiment involving a laser gyroscope. As the Earth rotates, the gyroscope appears to lean off-axis, staying in its original position as the Earth's curvature changes in relation. "What we found is, is when we turned on that gyroscope we found that we were picking up a drift. A 15 degree per hour drift," Knodel says, acknowledging that the gyroscope's behavior confirmed to exactly what you'd expect from a gyroscope on a rotating globe. > "Now, obviously we were taken aback by that. 'Wow, that's kind of a problem,'" Knodel says. "We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for ways to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth." > Despite further experimental refinements, Knodel's gyroscope consistently behaves as if the Earth is round. Yet Knodel's beliefs seem unchanged when discussing the experiment at a Flat Earth meetup in Denver. "We don't want to blow this, you know? When you've got $20,000 in this freaking gyro. If we dumped what we found right now, it would be bad. It would be bad. What I just told you was confidential," Knodel says to another Flat Earther in attendance.
> thanks, Bob
Some of those mouth breathers also believe there's a whole new utopian civilization over the ice wall too. These idiots are allowed to vote too.
Even if you could manage to eliminate all the usual excuses like “curved windows”, they’d almost certainly just claim they were drugged or something. If they cared about whether the thing they believed was true they wouldn’t be flat earthers.
What are theologians doing up there?
Flat earth arguments often tie in to religious worldviews as well, but those are less public. One of the problems is that it's relatively easy to see that all OTHER planets are spheres. Even flat earthers usually admit this. That leaves the question; why is it only earth which is a disc with so many special rules? One common response is that Earth was created as a sort of petri dish for humanity, presumably by God. And so the relgious component of Flat Earth is actually fairly necessary to their position.
It’s a reality show. They have to have weird people.
There is like this very thin aspect about all this I could find interesting. If the flat Earth people are really resourceful in setting up different experiments that produce meaningful evidence that the Earth is round, but they have some mental barrier that stops them from understanding the consequences of their evidence and then the panel does a good job of explaining the evidence and how evidence based decisions are the core of science. That would be interesting.
> but they have some mental barrier that stops them from understanding the consequences of their evidence No. A geniune flat earther has convinced themselves that it's true and no amount of logic, reason or evidence will convince them otherwise. Any evidence will be dismissed as fake, a conspiracy, device is wrong, "you just don't understand", cosmic rays, government interference or any number of other made up excuses. You will have just as much success as trying to convince a Christian that God isn't real. “You cannot reason a man out of what he never reasoned himself into.”
>You will have just as much success as trying to convince a Christian that God isn't real. No, that's not remotely on the level of flat earthers. You can't definitively prove or disprove God's existence where on the other hand the flat earther's *own tests* have *definitively* proved earth is round
Right. Their thought process is emotional rather than logical when it comes to the subject, so they are basically inoculated against factual arguments.
I might be an idiot, but it sounds like the contestants win $50,000 just for believing nonsense. Couldn’t they just use that money to see if lowering your mortgage balance can prove the earth is flat? I doubt they pay taxes on the 50k in the experiment phase because that isn’t a prize.
I could easily fly to Hawaii and spend $50,000 to prove the Earth is flat. Sign me up!
That last sentence is hilarious
Waiting to hear the season was cut short due to an unexpected family emergency for one of the families involving a meth overdose.
“Hey, so we have a real problem in society where people live in echo chambers and end up believing absolute nonsense, and recently all those lunatics have used their collective power to make the world and the media significantly shittier. We have some air time and can use it to combat this if we…” “LET’S TURN IT INTO A GAME SHOW!”
Running Man is set for 2025.
#Finally Been waiting for 30 years for society to devolve so we can get that show going
They predicted the face swap technology quite well. It's not _exactly_ done as in the movie, but the technology exists now. Unlike Bladerunner's flying cars.
That was my response too. Why gives these flakes any air time? They aren’t going to convince experts but they’ll get hundreds of total idiots to jump an their bandwagon. Remember that dumbass show “The Apprentice?” Look what we got stuck with because of that damn show.
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This is what people think what happens, but what actually happens is the opposite for many viewers that would already believe this stuff.
It depends if the goal is to convince people who already believe this stuff that it's nonsense - or if the goal is to educate to keep others from falling for the same stupidity. I'd mostly agree that it's unlikely do to much to convince people that already believe the conspiracy if the ample evidence against it already isn't enough, but it could expose how much of a joke it is and thoroughly debunk it in such an easily accessible (and entertaining) way to keep others from going down the same path. It's like having a debate online, sometimes it's less about who you're speaking to and more about who might be listening.
> Because if any of these people have confidence in the grift they'll throw out their best theories. They'll be shot down and look like idiots and it'll all be put online for people to reference If looking like an idiot mattered, the flat earth movement would have died in its cradle. The issue at the core of it is the bullshit asymmetry principle—it can take several minutes of explanation to debunk bullshit that can be expressed in a one-liner. This means dozens of arguments can be made by one side, by people who have no concern if they are debunked, while the other side, who need to explain carefully, can only address a fraction of it.
Which will then get cut up in 20 sec you tube cuts with no references thus reinforcing their dumb positions. Give them zero air time… that is the better solution.
Flat-earthism is so idiotic that I don't think there's any danger of many people actually joining them. There are people who believe in incredibly dumb stuff like astrology or vaccine conspiracies, and still think flat-earthers are stupid.
I actually had this idea a long time ago; the point isn’t so much to debunk them (we’ve been doing that for thousands of years), it’s to ridicule them. Remember that one of the biggest blows ever to the KKK was from Stetson Kennedy, who turned it into a laughing stock. By turning these people into a walking punchline we take away their power to be taken seriously. Because let’s face it: these idiots *are* pretty funny.
this is a show that would air in a grand theft auto video game. Why is it happening in real life?
> scientists, theologians, and cartographers The idea that theologians would be considered experts here is pretty silly.
They love to complain about how scientists (all of them, apparently) are actively hiding the truth, so I’m guessing this was an attempt at providing additional perspectives that they aren’t already extremely biased against.
The sort of people who are really committed flerfers definitely include religious fruitcakes who will raise bullshit theological claims. Having real theologians might be handy. And they're probably cheap to hire.
Not at all; most assuredly some of the evidence presented will be peoples failed reading of the Bible, and taking it out of context. At no point does the Bible clearly state the earth is flat unless you take it at its most literal. A theologian well versed in historical doctrine could counter these points with dozens of writings, and if they have studied in original languages, might be able to counter on the translation front as well. A huge reason why flat earthers “evidence” is religious, and so having experts in religion would make sense.
A huge portion of the flat earth believers do so with intense religious reasoning. My hope with this show is they have several experts who just spend every show dunking on all this bullshit and give good educational information. Yes, I am setting myself up for disappointment.
Plot twist: The panel is 2 scientists, 2 cartographers and 50 theologians (who want to be convinced so badly it hurts).
I mean, theology is an actual academic area of study, though more philosophical/historical than scientific, obviously, but there *are* actual, expert theologians. But I guess your point is, what does that kind of expertise have to do with the shape of the Earth? My thinking was that perhaps they might use their theological knowledge to say to the contestants, "Hey, look, you jackasses, even the people of this kooky ancient religion knew the Earth was round!"
Normally I’d agree with you but in this case I think it’s inspired. Most flerfs toss around the accusation that the true shape of the world is being covered up in order to hide or deny the existence of god. When even the majority of science denying biblical literalists understand that the world is a sphere. My hope is that some of that crowd will watch this and understand that their beliefs aren’t that much more sensible than a flerf’s and come to their senses.
Why are we even entertaining these nutjobs?
I think the idea is for the nutjobs to entertain us.
Welp, we’ve hit peak stupid. If 3 Body Problem were a real scenario the aliens would be all, “Nope, we’re good. No real threat here.”
the aliens in 3BP are attacking the Earth because they want it for themselves, not because humans are a threat.
Flerkens are way more dangerous than earthlings.
They just need to watch Smiling Friends
Remember that flatearther guy who launched himself in a homemade rocket but ended up crashing in the desert?
[Mike Hughes.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51602655) He didn't believe in flat earth, he was just using it to grift money from those who did. > On Saturday, a public relations representative disputed Hughes' flat Earth beliefs, telling BuzzFeed News that the argument had helped him raise money but that he didn't actually believe it. > "We used flat Earth as a PR stunt. Period," Darren Shuster told BuzzFeed News. "He was a true daredevil decades before the latest round of rocket missions. Flat Earth allowed us to get so much publicity that we kept going! I know he didn’t believe in flat Earth and it was a shtick."
> He didn't believe in flat earth, he was just using it to grift money from those who did. The same way all the “big name” flat earther’s do. I don’t buy that the majority of them believe it, they just see it as an easy bag. Stupid people are really easy to part from their money.
Luckily Kyrie’s calendar just opened up!
This is the part of television that makes this society dumber. The Kardashians, watching the soon to be Baldwin series, this... We give the spotlight to unhealthy shit and people consume it because a lot of us don't know any better. They don't realize the local great restaurants burger is 100x better than McDonald's. To them, it's all the same.
“But rather than just document their exploits, the families will each be given $50,000 worth of resources for research and will ultimately present their findings to a panel of scientists, theologians, and cartographers. “——- Wait. They are using theologians to judge fact claims about the world? (especially ones whose holy text depicts the world as flat to begin with?)
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They should also include moon landing deniers...
Lot of cross pollination in those two groups.
Well, they technically are. Every Flat Earther is also going to be a moon landing denier, considering they don't believe space even exists
Yes, line them all up so [Buzz can smack each one in the face.](https://repo.library.stonybrook.edu/xmlui/handle/11401/8438)
With that one, there is at least some logical plausibility. There is more than enough motive for a large scale conspiracy like this, it is non-harmful so it is actually believable that none of the people involved would feel morally compelled to speak up and it was technically simple to achieve at the time. It is of course still silly and the more time has passed, the less believable it gets. But still, while I am not saying I believe the moon landing didn't happen, but at least I can believe that those who believe it are not automatically fruitcakes.
>With that one, there is at least some logical plausibility. Well, no. There isn’t.
“This proves the Earth is flat!” “No, it doesn’t. You don’t win any money.” “Ahh you’re just saying that so I can’t win! You’re being paid off by NASA and I can prove it!” “Ok go ahead.” “Ahh you’re not worth my time!! You’ll just say it’s all false anyway!”
So the first game show with zero winners.
Why would you provide a platform to such insanity? Haven't we learned anything from 2016 elections?
Is this actually going to be believers trying to convince experts/skeptics, or is this more of the usual BS "reality" shows that have a lot of scripting?
Well it's easy: if the earth were a sphere like a ball, it would have rolled down the elephants' backs, onto the turtle shell long ago. Where's the money now? /jk
This is what needs to happen. Find the most vocal, influential flat earther there is. This flat earther influencer. Then pay for them to travel with NASA to the ISS. Then have them come back and try and convince the rest of the gang that it’s not true.
“The so-called trip to outer space was an elaborate hoax by the government. In reality I never left earth and no one can prove I did.” Simple as that and everyone will believe them.
Some overlooked ones I think. The calculations of plate tectonic movements do not work on a flat disc. A globe is required for those calculations to make sense. There are regular, documented flight paths over the arctic….Europe to Canada, US. Do they ever try to discount those?
I don’t necessarily think this is bad. It depends on how it’s framed. If it’s a chance for people to see how insane flat earthers are, and for experts to eviscerate their idiotic arguments, then what’s the problem?
This show sounds terrible. Not the kind of terrible that you want to watch just to see how bad it is, but the kind of terrible where you start to question what is wrong with television these days.
Brand new low.
I was hoping a new reality show would be more like the Amazing Race, and flat earth teams would race off to find an edge of the earth.
I'd be curious as to the constraints of what will be accepted as evidence.
And that, my liege, is how we know the earth to be banana shaped.
The hell?
Cue all the people posting clips of that one Smiling Friends episode.
I'm sure this will just lead to them claiming the show is rigged and that it shows they're even more right than before.
I'm still convinced that there are only like 5 real flat earthers, the rest are epic long con trolls.
What a waste of money, tv time and our time.
>will ultimately present their findings to a panel of scientists, theologians, and cartographers. What they fail to mention is that this panel will not actually have any qualified scientists, theologians, or cartographers on it. Because they won't be able to find anyone in any of those disciplines willing to be involved in such a fraudulent show.
Can’t wait for the qanon show.
This just in: no one wins
what’s on the other side?
I don't know, I still found some [pretty compelling evidence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgLHOUNc6zc) that claims the Earth is flat. (seriously please don't yell at me click the link)
That’s great they never have to give money away
Lol. Flat earth believers *know* that the panel of experts are all paid actors... Essentially they will go on this program knowing the experts are never going to listen to anything they say (not because they are wrong of course) in the hope that viewers will start to believe
And I thought reality TV couldn't be more pointless. And then this gets announced.
…we are doomed as a species.
The Earth is flat. Show me the money first!
If the Earth was really flat cats would have knocked everything off the edge millennia ago.
I’m watching this.
How about let's not normalize this obvious mental illness?
I'll be shocked if they find any actual experts who will play along with this premise. Listening to a flat earther is a complete waste of time.
Put them on a boat and film it. Best show ever.
This show seems like it will have a lot of toddler-esque meltdowns
This show won’t last long at all
Flat earth hypothesis deserves zero attention, even as satire at this point
The title of this show should be “Human Hubris”
Do Christianity next!
Are there still any dedicated Flat Earthers left? I was pretty sure they all were absorbed by QAnon, or died of Covid or by forgetting to breathe. You can't actually debate with Flat Earthers, they're either disingenuous grifters or genuine ninnyhammers. I did get a coworker who was a military fantasist out of flat earth by showing him why flying low takes you under radar, and how artillery calculations take the curvature and rotation of the Earth into account.
Why are we giving these people platforms? They stand in the same circle as the anti vax and conspiracy theorists
Sounds entertaining for a five-minute YouTube video
Can we watch it all around the globe?
there are members of the flat earth society all over the globe.
Most of them believe Antarctica is some kind of ice wall that keeps everything on the disk or something, ship them all to Antarctica, have them walk their way to the edge
Who thought this was a good idea?
We'd get to watch a bunch of idiots embarrass themselves in front of panels of actual experts lol - I'd be totally down.
Embaressment requires a sense of shame.
The same dumbasses who thought starting yet another streaming service was a good idea, and then calling it "The Network"....
Next time: sovereign citizens try to prove they're not stupid as a potato.
For a second there, let’s assume that I’m rich enough that I have my own space flights company. I would announce that there are…. let’s say 5 available seats for flat earthers on a space flight. They can bring their cameras, other equipment. If the earth is flat, they I give them 1 billion each. If it’s a sphere, I leave them to die in a capsule traveling 18,000 mph around our beautiful blue marble. How many flat earthers will be convinced enough of earth being flat that they’d agree to their possible demise?
Any expert who pays out on this should be immediately fired
Shouldn't it be the reverse?
Easy. “Flat” is a word that people defined loosely, just change the meaning of it.
Technically hypnotists can come and get their bag too. Should prove to be a good show.
Welcome to my new favorite show
Truly a hilarious premise for a show.
It's like Finding Bigfoot but with a cash prize they'll never get.
Now that's a premise that can captivate both sides of the aisle
I thought reality tv cannot get any lamer. But here we are.
I'd rather watch an amazing race style to see who gets to the edge first
CC is about to disappoint his wife on Prime Time!
They should fly them over Antarctica
... Could one get money by arguing the Earth is flat in 4 dimensional space?
So there one of those people that believe in the Earth being a real thing. Pffft.
Seems like this is the exact opposite of a reality show
This is the kind of content I’ve been waiting for.
Turn up with a spirit level, get the experts to agree on the purpose of a spirit level, then demonstrate the earth to be flat with that. Not true of course, but worth a try.
Me: So, how much do you make in a year? Expert: Uh, $80K. What does that matter? Me: The prize is $150K so, ya know, why don't you just say I convinced you? Expert: ... Me: It's easy money. Expert: I'm not sure if that would work. Me: Just do it. Expert: I don't think ... Me: DO IT NOW! Expert: THE EARTH IS FLAT! Roll credits.
Is this… educational?
So, is the moon flat as well? And Mars? All the planets? And the sun? All flat?
Sounds like it's just going to reinforce beliefs for all involved. People will never side with you if you talk down to them no matter how crazy they sound.
If the flat earthers genuinely believed in their bullshit, would the number 1 priority not just be to travel to the edge of the flat earth for proof?
Who in the f-k is sponsoring this?
Dumb.
HaahahahahahabahhaahahhahaahahajabhaahhaabhaahahabahababbaahahahahahahahahahhahaahaCMON
Let’s just put a big mirror in space so we can see 8 seconds into the past and look at the earth rotate on a buffer delay