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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand how some can believe the earth is flat?

210 replies

crunchymint · 25/05/2018 14:02

I have a friend who seems intelligent, well read and is lovely. And yet she believes the earth is flat. She shares on social media posts "explaining" this fact.
How can someone like this possibly believe this? I really don't understand.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
Rufustheyawningreindeer · 25/05/2018 14:31

herfemaleness

Ive seen the pictures

Elephants are cute

StarUtopia · 25/05/2018 14:32

It's the photoshopping of earth that bugs me. If the ISS is really up there, why can't it just scan round and take some video footage to prove Earth is round once and for all?

A4710Rider · 25/05/2018 14:33

Being successful in one area doesn’t mean you can’t feel powerless. Maybe an overbearing MIL, boss, bratty children, colicky baby, frightened in a car crash, death of a loved one, the list is endless. I’m sure the queen and big city bosses feel powerless sometimes

Yeah, maybe.

I don't agree that it's why some people believe in Conspiracy Theories though.

Original poster
crunchymint · 25/05/2018 14:34

Just started reading that thread on other site and some very intelligent and interesting responses.

OP posts:
JassyRadlett · 25/05/2018 14:34

Another one I like is the fact that there are no direct flight routes with Africa and South America or South America and Australia. Why would that be?

But... but... there are. Australia to South America, anyway.

Lucisky · 25/05/2018 14:36

In what way do nasa alter pictures? I'm intrigued now.
How do flat earthers explain the round the world yacht race? Or the view that can be seem from the windows of the space shuttle?
Isn't there a chap who is making a rocket in the states, so he can go into orbit and prove the earth is flat?
Why would the earth be flat when other planets aren't, I wonder?

A4710Rider · 25/05/2018 14:37

Orange,

It's a beautiful picture.

But then the door opens to the "Is the ISS a Hoax"

:)

www.express.co.uk/news/weird/883558/International-space-station-Earth-hoax-conspiracy-theory

For the record, I'm not a FE, I believe the earth is a globe. I just find it fun and interesting.

A4710Rider · 25/05/2018 14:39

For the record, something about 9/11 just doesn't sit right me with, call me a Conspiracy Theorist if you like. :)

A4710Rider · 25/05/2018 14:42

This is the kind of video you end up watching when you go down a rabbit hole :)

WiseOldElfIsNick · 25/05/2018 14:42

It's the photoshopping of earth that bugs me. If the ISS is really up there, why can't it just scan round and take some video footage to prove Earth is round once and for all?

The problem with that is that the conspiracy theorists would just claim it was faked anyway.

There is plenty of other evidence that the earth is not flat aside from visual proof anyway. Satellite orbits, GPS, circumnavigation.

The conspiracy theorists have an awful lot of evidence to debunk and they seem to think that there's some huge cover up in science that all scientists are part of in faking the shape of the earth. I mean, honestly, if someone could prove the earth was indeed flat, they'd be up for a Nobel Prize. Let them try, I say. Worst case, they might fall off the edge.

A4710Rider · 25/05/2018 14:45

NASA Graphic Designer Admits All Images about Space Are Fake Photoshopped CGIs

JassyRadlett · 25/05/2018 14:45

Another one I like is the fact that there are no direct flight routes with Africa and South America or South America and Australia. Why would that be?

But... but... there are. Australia to South America, anyway.

GahWhatever · 25/05/2018 14:46

My FIL was a senior ranking engineer in RAF. He honestly believes that dinosaurs were made up by archaeologists after grant money/fame and that for some reason I couldn't get to the bottom of all the other scientists are covering for them.

MiggeldyHiggins · 25/05/2018 14:49

Flat Earthers do provide some "evidence" for their claims that does make you think

Make you think how stupid they must be, yes. That's about it though.

MissConductUS · 25/05/2018 14:49

For the record, something about 9/11 just doesn't sit right me with

It doesn't sit right with me either. I worked about a mile north of the WTC and had to smell the smoke and burnt flesh in the fires for weeks afterwards.

Caribou58 · 25/05/2018 14:51

Pictures showing the entire Earth taken after the 70s don't exist - because NASA ended its Moon programme in December 1972.

Anyone who claims the ISS is a hoax needs to get (as I do) the alerts from NASA as to when the ISS will be visible in the night sky over their house - I'm experiencing a series of passes this week, for example. I've been getting these alerts for some years and I never lose the thrill of seeing it pass overhead.

Flat-earthers need to be sat down in a GCSE classroom and given some basic lessons in science and geography.

spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/

SharpieHorder · 25/05/2018 14:51

How do flat-earthers argue against these facts?:

If you go high enough in a plane you can see the curvature of the earth. No-one has ever documented any edge to the earth.
Orbital satellites wouldn't work if the earth was flat.
The ocean and weather systems would not exist.
We would have no seasons.
The moon orbits the earth and it is round.
All the other planets in our solar system are round.

ATailofTwoKitties · 25/05/2018 14:52

Must tell BIL it's flat. His satellite equipment might fall off the edge if he's not careful.

MiggeldyHiggins · 25/05/2018 14:52

You don't need pictures to prove the Earth is round (or oblate spheroid if we are being pedantic)...you need eyes and maths, and a stick. Eratosthenes. did it in ancient Greece over 2000 years ago, he even calculated the circumference of the global with accuracy.

PattiStanger · 25/05/2018 14:52

How do flat earthers explain that no one has ever got to the end of the world then?

I can't how understand anyone with the slightest intelligence can believe it

Caribou58 · 25/05/2018 14:54

For the record, something about 9/11 just doesn't sit right me with

Indeed - I've never been able to come to terms with terrorism, either. Some people are just crazy, I suppose and willing to do appalling things to their fellow human beings because of belief in their own particular brand of nonsense.

CollyWombles · 25/05/2018 14:56

My exh seriously believes the earth is flat and actually scared my DD with his insistence on it, telling her she had been brainwashed.

MiggeldyHiggins · 25/05/2018 14:57

For the record, something about 9/11 just doesn't sit right me with me

its the sheer arrogance of this that gets me "Hey, I know nothing at all about this, wasnt there, never been there, didn't know anyone there, only saw it on the news, I have no qualifications in this area of any kind and could never hope to understand even 1% of either the background to it or the incident itself...but come here while I tell you what I read on the internet and how I feel about it"

How narcissistic do you have to be?