It occurred to me reading this, from the El Faro VDR transcript; the Captain kept saying things like “This is Alaska everyday”, and the ship can handle it. Not easily shown to be true or false. It was BS.
Bullshit, chickenshit - whether spoken at sea or onshore - it’s all crap. Pretty much worthless unless you’re a farmer or in the fertilizer business.
Lee_Shore called it earlier in this thread, NatGeo could have done a much better report by holding the Flat Earth leaders feet to the fire by demanding real evidence to support their views. The producers should have said “Hey come on, show us here and now, prove it”.
Remember Jim Jones? He intoned to the Peoples Temple followers his theories of racial integration and communism starting in the late 1950’s. Fast forward to the mid-70’s, Jones was hobnobbing with the political elite and raising serious cash. But all was not as it appeared and after in-depth background searching and reporting raised many questions about Jones and his affairs, he was off to a little patch of jungle in Guyana and the rest is history. Jones was a true BS artist.
Bullshit is pure nonsense and has completely taken over the worldwide political and scientific aspects of our lives. What the real shame is, is that lots of people from all walks of life have a hard time separating BS from reality.
For most of human history isn’t the idea that the world is flat just “common sense”?
So was the idea that various gods showed their anger by casting thunderbolts from their loft in the sky. They had nothing to go on except what could be seen with the naked eye. What’s you point?
It would be tough to convince someone that their common sense notions are incorrect. It’s not going to be done with (allegedly) pictures of the moon and other such sorcery.
There are a few ways in which the roundness of the earth is directly observable, aside from blasting off in a home made rocket. Ships rising above the horizon has been mentioned, and is perhaps one of the best examples. There are others, even more difficult to refute, but they require some effort, and who would expend any significant effort to challenge their world view? Not a zealot…
I love mentioning to a flat earther that astro nav works perfectly as predicted by the round earth model, or that the distances across the world oceans don’t tally with the way they see things. Their eyes go narrow with suspicion, and they mumble “I see…” before scurrying away from this dangerous agent of the conspiracy.
I wonder what will happen if the Flat Earth International Conference circumnavigates the Antarctic and observes that it takes a surprisingly short time. They will probably conclude that the earth is much smaller than previously thought…
How people understand the world is based more on a shared understanding of their group rather than logic.
Confirmation bias is more difficult to overcome now with social media. Individuals now are able to search the internet for other people who share their beliefs.
Given the rise of social media the claim here, that the movement is growing is likely correct.
It clearly reflects their flat earth theories as BS but perpetuates their claim that their movement is growing without a shred of supporting evidence.
What factor would cause it to shrink? Some unexplained increase of logic to understand the world?
The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone
Editorial Reviews
Review
“In The Knowledge Illusion , the cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach hammer another nail into the coffin of the rational individual… positing that not just rationality but the very idea of individual thinking is a myth.” —The New York Times Book Review
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Eratosthenes 276 BC was observant enough to work out that the earth was a sphere and calculated its circumference reasonably close to the actual figure. He was a librarian at the library of Alexandria. The city was taken in 641 by the Muslims under Amr who sent a message to the Caliph Omar asking what should be done with the library collection. Omar responded "If they agree with our book (The Koran) we do not need them; if they disagree, we do not want them. Burn them. The priceless contents were burnt and the quantity was so great that it kept the bathhouses warm for six months. Western civilisation entered the dark ages.
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Reading the introduction of this book reminds me of a theory I read about long ago: that there are as many concepts of the world we live in as there are individuals. These individual concepts are woven into a collective consciousness which could also be described as a mass hallucination because our understanding of the nature of our own existence is so limited.
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They come back with “distances across the ocean are measured by GPS, which is rigged to convince people of the globe deception.”
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Singapore Airline flies east from Singapore to reach Los Angeles, but west to reach New York/Newark,all without spotting the “edge of the earth”.
By flat earth definition then “the edge” must be somewhere in the US. Maybe someone should take a trip across the continent looking for it.
I don’t recall coming across this before. A google search only comes up with this story as a myth.
This is why the flat earth credo to only believe what you can see for yourself is so silly. I guess the intent was to avoid being taken in by bullshit. Perversely, the original anti-bullshit measure became the purest proto-bullshit imaginable, and is now drowning the world in a brown deluge.
They do, until I point out that distances across oceans are properly measured by multiplying speed with time, and that I’ve made my own measurements. This is when they become convinced that I work for the CIA.
Another point that is amusing to watch them wrestle with is the movement of the stars in the southern night sky. The common explanation is that they move horizontally, and all the images and accounts to the contrary are fake. When I point out that I have personally observed them to rotate around a common center, they again resort to accusing me of lying to cover up the truth. I think this alone accounts for the much lower concentration of flat earthers in the Southern Hemisphere. The few Australian flat earthers who do exist come up with various explanations, all of which are harmful to a healthy brain:
I love how he refers to the equator. How is that defined, pray tell? Also, this gives me the giggles:
Notice how the two images don’t quite match up. That’s because my mirror doesn’t quite replicate the awsomeness of the astral dome.
Come to think of it, this is one of those rare threads where gCaptain’s very own resident BS fountain could have had some relevant input.
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Except your speed is calculated by GPS, which is rigged, so you can’t use that. (I argue with them constantly, I know how they think.)
Al Abd Ibn Hakam in his book Futuh Msr wa’l Magrab wa’l Anadus. The conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain.
Political correctness means that any history concerning the interaction between religions is limited to the beginning of Christianity and then fast forward to The crusades.
I haven’t mentioned those who can’t be mentioned so that should keep me out of the stockade.
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The problem here is the method used. For things outside our area of expertise we need a method to determine what to believe and what to disbelieve.
First, using the method of finding one person or book who agrees and declaring those that disagree as PC:
Testing the Omar story it passes the test, but if we test flat earth theory that passes as well.
On the other hand the Issac Asimov method for testing items outside our area of expertise is to see what people with that expertise believe. If most of the experts are in agreement we go with that. If the experts are more or less evenly divided we withhold judgement.
Using the Asimov test the flat earth theory fails, the spherical earth theory passes, the Omar story fails:
In fact that Omar did not burn the library can pass either test.
I woke early, clicked that link with my morning coffee, and to my detriment kept reading. Holy bullshit, that is some industrial strength concentrate of endarkenment. I mean, here are some random nuggets of wisdom:
That shit is like USGSBM; it smells like poo in its diluted form, whereas high concentrations leave you choking, cognizant that your health is being damaged.
Edit:
Indeed, the dark ages did not come about by a lack of reading material, but rather by a divergence of faith and reason. Anyone interested in that should have a look at Arthur Koestler’s The Sleepwalkers.
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The Caliph Omar story throws up a red flag because it’s a more than a little too neat and tidy, and comes tied with a pretty bow. A story that hits the bul’s eye should be automatically suspect. (Except in my case of course where my priors are correct).
Most often it seems the case that reading history to confirm preexisting beliefs is a disappointment. The real lessons seem muddled, uncertain and confused. The more you dig the worse it gets.
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I concede to your research. The text I read was translated from the Arabic by Raymond Ibrahim, who briefed US Strategic Command; and testified before Congress.
BS in rarified air indeed . Best of luck chaps.
You be the judge…(if you got time to waste)
Another favorite part of the Frankfurt book…
“Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligation or opportunities to speak out about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled - whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others - to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant.”
This is a rather fact-free BS session that almost accidentally lands on the topic of orderly and effective evacuation but really has no facts about that either.
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