• DupaCycki@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Gotta give him some respect for admitting he was wrong, and doing so several times. Everyone is wrong from time to time, but barely anyone can openly admit it.

  • trslim@pawb.social
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    4 hours ago

    i remember this guy, he is a pretty cool dude, actually, I think he went on Prof. Daves and they had a good conversation.

  • realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip
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    5 hours ago

    You know, I really like it when people think twice about the “current” state of science. Thinking “I don’t think that’s true. So I will check and verify” is a great thing and most people should do that. Thinking the earth is flat is fine - if you then go to verify.

    The problem I have is if there is PLENTY of proof of things being a certain way that you just choose to ignore. Then you become an idiot.

    • Wolf314159@startrek.website
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      1 hour ago

      “Current” science is a bit of a stretch, like a couple thousand years of stretching. Eratosthenes showed the earth was round and calculated its circumference to an astonishing precision using research and fairly simple trigonometry. He died 2,219 years ago.

  • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
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    7 hours ago

    You can tell their intelligence rises over the course of the series because they go from portrait to landscape videos.

    • czl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 hours ago

      It’s a really good documentary because a lot of them actually want to be scientific about it.

      But instead of following the scientific process of test->observe->draw a conclusion, they start with the conclusion and look for a way to prove it. And when the prof isn’t there, they simply say the test was flawed, and move on to the next test that will prove it.

      It’s sad in a way. I don’t think, most of them anyway, are con man. They’re just misguided.

      • ttyybb@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I will say, starting with a conclusion/theory is fine, but the next step is to do everything you can to disprove it. The more you and other fail, the stronger it becomes

    • digredior@lemmynsfw.com
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      9 hours ago

      Kinda…

      It showed them as social outcasts with a drive to have a community but also a drive to have some sort of secret knowledge… the overall message I took away was that if you run into a flat earther, to treat them with some empathy and compassion while not validating their worldview. The dismissal of their ideas and belittling of their arguments further entrenched them in their beliefs.

      And for what it’s worth, not everyone in that group is a complete idiot… just vulnerable to wacky ideas. Some of these smart people actually designed legit experiments that would actually prove if the earth was round or flat. At the end of the documentary, one group performed one of them with the film crew… conclusively showing the earth was round. The last word in the documentary was spoken by the guy running the experiment, where he said, “interesting…”. He was one of the ones who seemed to have a little intellectual honesty, and he may have gotten out.

      In another part of the documentary, some of the more prominent voices in the movement pooled their money to get a $10k laser gyroscope that had the precision to detect the rotation of the earth…. It detected the rotation of the earth, so they were going out of their way to cover up the findings. It was all caught on film and presented in the documentary… The guy in the post is absolutely correct… these vulnerable are being deceived by con men.

      • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        This is 100% the reason for the documentary in the first place. Quote from the director:

        My dream would be that when people watch it, they take flat Eartherism as an analogy to something they believe in, because it’s so easy to demonize another group or another person for something they think but you’re kind of just as guilty if you do that.

        These are humans, people that are missing something in their lives, and this community and their “secret knowledge” grants them that.

        I see the SovCit movement as exactly the same thing, but when one digs deep enough, maybe one finds the same in the fanatical MAGA crowds, and in the most fervent religious people, and it’s not a coincidence that there’s an overlap in membership between these groups…

      • fizzle@quokk.au
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        4 hours ago

        Yeah. I dont remember the documentary but maybe I watched it, or read another similar comment.

        People in general just dont get this dynamic though.

        Its too easy to just conclude that theyre idiots.

  • GreenShimada@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Imagine what the world would be like if the con artists pulling this stuff were pushing people to build libraries and educate kids.