Here is the video:
Sorry for the delay on the reply, I didn't really want to answer this one until the other post was completed because I didn't want to have to repeat myself.
Did I Watch It?
Okay, I will admit it up front, I didn't watch the whole video... I was listening for about twenty minutes of him reading off a list of his "proofs" in a monotone voice when I realized he was reading them straight off of his list that was published here:
http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2015/08/200-proofs-earth-is-not-spinning-ball.html
So, I promptly stopped listening to the video and instead read them, which was much faster. I did skip ahead in the video to see if he added anything else, but it appeared to be word-for-word.
Yes, I did read every one of them, several times, to make sure I understood what was being said.
What Did I Find?
I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping for something new, something with some meat to it, some validity. Instead, this "new" video/list was just a rehash of everything that he has said before, with some of them reworded and repeated. Many of them were the same "proof", just with different locations. Some of them were outright lies.
But let me back up a bit to give you some background on this.
I first heard of the flat earth society several years ago. I did some research on it, and went through their published information, their "proofs", and thought that it was a joke. Not in the way that I was laughing at them, but with them. I seriously thought it was just a joke website, people collaborating together to put together this fun little website and to sell bumper stickers, kinda like the flying spaghetti monster... I laughed a bit, and promptly moved on with my other research, mostly forgetting about it.
Fast forward to earlier this year. Several people I know and respect started discussing the Flat Earth theory. I initially ignored most of that conversation, I'd been down that road years ago, and thought it was nothing worthwhile even discussing. But it started to grow and grow, the conversations grew more in-depth, more enthusiastic. Not long afterwards, these same people started supporting the movement, and talking about it as being gospel.
So... I decided to do some more research on this myself, since I don't like to try to discuss things without actually knowing information about the topic. I dug into it pretty hard right from the start, I wanted to know as much as I could about what they were discussing.
Honestly, I wasn't looking to disprove the theory, I was looking for proof of it's validity. Like any of the absurdly strange topics I've researched over the years, I went it it with an open mind, willing to accept new ideas if they are based on verifiable proof.
I was very disappointed. I didn't find much more than I had found the first time I had done the research on it, nothing provable, just theories based on perception. I stuck it out for a couple of weeks though, digging deeper, trying to see how they explain away some of the common things like sunrise/sunset, etc...
Finally I had had enough, there wasn't anything new to be found, just a rehashings/rewordings of a book written back in the mid 1800s. The only thing new was some of their explanations for things, which, if I didn't know they were entirely serious about, I would definitely believe were written as a joke, they were so absurdly "out there". I stopped my research, and went back to report my findings...
This is where I found my biggest challenge, the cult-like devotion to this theory as being 100% true. I was dumbstruck by the ferocity that the supporters of this movement portrayed in defending their theory. Evidence didn't seem to matter, pointing out the inconsistencies didn't matter, nothing would change their minds. Upon presentation of any evidence that they could not explain away, the response always reverted to "it is faked" or "it is CGI".
I finally had to coin a summary phrase that I could picture them actually saying someday:
"The Earth is flat, and any evidence to the contrary is faked."
I honestly wish this was just an exaggeration, but the more I talk to the FE supporters, the more this statement appears to be true. They whole-heartedly believe that ALL evidence of a round Earth is faked.
I was seriously hoping that these new 200 "proofs" would present some new information, some solid "proof" that I could look at and say "maybe this theory deserves more research", but I found nothing new.
My Comments?
So... Back to my comments on this list.
I started out typing rebuttals for each and every "proof" listed. It didn't take long before I was starting to enter many of them as "same", because they were just rewordings of other ones on the list.
After finishing a little over 100 of them, I was having problems finding any desire to keep going. It was tedious and depressing work. During that time I also found several people starting to post rebuttal videos on it, and didn't really feel like adding to the mix.
This is one guy that is going through the list item by item:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWbGxbcxMBjUVjrLMIk_HQw
So after all of that, I decided that a point-by-point analysis of the list was not necessary.
But, I did want to leave some comments on recurring themes:
The Wild Ride
"97) NASA and modern astronomy say the Earth is a giant ball tilted back, wobbling and spinning 1,000 mph around its central axis, traveling 67,000 mph circles around the Sun, spiraling 500,000 mph around the Milky Way, while the entire galaxy rockets a ridiculous 670,000,000 mph through the Universe, with all of these motions originating from an alleged “Big Bang” cosmogenic explosion 14 billion years ago. That’s a grand total of 670,568,000 mph in several different directions we’re all supposedly speeding along at simultaneously, yet no one has ever seen, felt, heard, measured or proven a single one of these motions to exist whatsoever."This is a good example of a phrase/theme used over and over throughout the list. Variations of this concept are repeated often and in many ways. The reason why this particular phrase is repeated over and over again (with slight variations) is to convince the reader that you should feel like you are on a wild roller coaster ride. Since you don't, his argument is correct.
An explanation:
- The "tilt" of the Earth is about 23 degrees. This is what gives us our seasons and weather patterns. Since gravity pulls you towards the surface, you will not feel a tilt.
- The "wobble" of the Earth consists of a movement of about 30 feet that takes 433 days to complete. Thus, nobody can feel the wobble because it takes over 1 year to complete.
- The "spin" of the earth is actually 1 revolution in 24 hours (0.000694 rpm), which is an extremely slow spin. The 1000 mph reference comes from the diameter of the Earth means that the outer edge is moving faster. We don't feel it because of Newton's first law of motion.
- The 500,000 mph reference is to how fast the Earth is moving around the Milky Way. Again, we cannot feel this because Newton's first law of motion.
- The 670,000,000 mph reference is to how fast the entire Galaxy moves through space. Again, we cannot feel this because of Newton's first law of motion.
"An object in motion, stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force."This means that because the Earth is moving at a constant rate, we will never feel the motion of it unless something disrupts that movement. Just like when you are traveling in a vehicle, you would not be able to notice you are moving if it wasn't for the turns, bumps, or acceleration/deceleration.
Since everything on the surface of the planet is moving along at the same speed, no motion will be felt. A good example of this is when you are traveling in a plane at 500 mph. If you drop the book you are holding, does it slam into your chest at 500 mph? No, everything inside of the plane is moving at the same speed, so it falls straight down onto your lap.
This simple answer clears up almost a quarter of the list.
Viewing Objects At A Distance
A surprisingly large number of the "proofs" are similar to this one:
"69) The New York City skyline is clearly visible from Harriman State Park’s Bear Mountain 60 miles away. If Earth were a ball 25,000 miles in circumference, viewing from Bear Mountain’s 1,283 foot summit, the Pythagorean Theorem determining distance to the horizon being 1.23 times the square root of the height in feet, the NYC skyline should be invisible behind 170 feet of curved Earth."Different places, different objects being viewed, but basically the same "proof" reworded. These are repeated over and over, always with a phrase such as "should be invisible behind a wall of Earth". This is worded this way to get you convinced that you shouldn't be able to see such objects, when there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I've answered the questions about that phenomena in my last blog post:
http://question4xl.blogspot.com/2015/12/why-do-you-say-fe-observations-are.html
So I won't go over all that again, but I did run across another video recently that demonstrates this quite well:
Travelling In The South
Quite a few of these "proofs" deal with travelling in the Southern Hemisphere.
-The claim that there are no direct flights between the southernmost cities, that they all travel through the Northern Hemisphere.
This is an outright lie! A simple Google search for a flight will list many direct flights, with travel times that prove the FE map as impossible.
https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=GRU,CGH,VCP;t=JNB;d=2015-12-31;r=2016-01-04;mc=m;q=sao+paulo+to+johannesburg
-The claim that nobody is allowed to visit Antarctica, that it is under military lock-down.
Another outright lie! People visit the continent regularly, on an almost daily basis. There are entire cruise industries in South America that make their living off of bringing researchers and tourists to Antarctica.
http://www.seabourn.com/luxury-cruise-destinations/Antarctica-Patagonia?WT.ac=pnav_DestSNhttp://poseidonexpeditions.com/antarctica/
-The claim that nobody can reach the actual South Pole.
Another outright lie! There is a permanent research facility built near the pole, and tourists travel down there on a regular basis. They have live webcams setup so you can see what is going on and watch the 24 hour sunlight during the summer months.
https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/southp.jsp
- The claim that it takes 4 years and 60,000 miles to circumnavigate Antarctica.
Not "exactly" a lie, but a twisting of the facts. During the initial explorations, there was a lot of travelling into bays, getting stuck in the ice, backtracking to avoid icebergs, etc. The distance around Antarctica is well known, and matches the globe model perfectly. They even hold races around it on a regular basis.
http://www.acronautic.com/antartica-cup-ocean-race/
- The claim that there are no flights over Antarctica.
Another outright lie! There are daily flights into Antarctica for supply missions and to bring tourists. They even have charter flights that fly directly over the South Pole.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Travel/Fly_to_Antarctica.phphttp://www.traveller.com.au/qantas-jumbo-747400-jets-spectacular-southern-journey-over-antarctica-12htsi
- The claim that there have been no North-South circumnavigations.
Another outright lie! There have been at least a dozen people to travel across Antarctica on the ground, and almost daily flights over the continent.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/05/travel/felicity-aston-antarctic-explorer/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151109-south-pole-antarctic-explorers-shackleton-expedition/The reason why most of the flights between different southern continents go through the Northern Hemisphere is because 85% of the world's population live in the North. Airlines plot their routes depending on where most of the travelers want to go, and the most common destinations are in the north.
The reason why big oil and other companies are not allowed to explore or exploit materials in Antarctica is not because of a military lock-down. They cannot venture down there because of the Antarctica treaty that was signed back in 1959, designating the continent as a nature preserve. Exploitation of it's resources is prohibited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_SystemWhat the author of these "proofs" is counting on is that with 85% of the world's population living in the Northern Hemisphere, few people will take the time to research this, and even fewer know people that have been down there. Personally, I have a friend of mine that travels there a few times a year on research cruises.
Lack Of Understanding
There are several "proofs" that deal with this same concept:
"113) The idea that people are standing, ships are sailing and planes are flying upside down on certain parts of Earth while others tilted at 90 degrees and all other impossible angles is complete absurdity. The idea that a man digging a hole straight down could eventually reach sky on the other side is ludicrous. Common sense tells every free-thinking person correctly that there truly is an “up” and “down” in nature, unlike the “everything is relative” rhetoric of the Newtonian/Einsteinian paradigm."For some reason, the author cannot grasp the concept of the center of gravity being at the center of the Earth. Everything is pulled towards the center, which is why the Earth is round, why water flows to the lowest point, why weather works the way it does and why no matter where you are on the surface you can find a "level" spot.
Or, more likely, he understands that theory quite well, but to admit it would totally negate all of his "proofs". It is better for his theory to have people believe that everyone on the other side of the world is hanging upside down.
Summary
For those of you that have known me for years, I am as fair an unbiased as I can possibly be. I am always more than willing to entertain the most bizarre theories and research them to see if they are plausible. I've changed my mind about many things over the years as a result of this, sometimes quite drastically. Some of the things I have researched would shock a lot of people.
I also fully believe in the concept of the holographic universe, and multiple realities. However, this is a shared reality that we are all existing in, and albeit there may be some slight differences, the majority of what is happening to us in this shared reality, the major details, are identical.
This particular "movement" (for lack of a better term) falls into that category, where the evidence is clear and obvious, the reality is a singularity, but the interpretations are vastly different.
The FE theory itself is easily disprovable by any number of different methods. However, the cult-like following that is emerging and growing steadily is really surprising.
I really don't know what else to call it, it has many aspects of a cult in that it gets people to obsess over it, alienate themselves from friends and family, and totally reject any evidence that disagrees with what they believe. They gather together for motivational boosts and watch hours upon hours of videos talking about the same "proofs" over and over, while laughing at those that don't believe.
Thus, in my opinion, the origins behind this recent growth in the "movement" are worthy of much more investigation than the theory itself.
If you disagree with me or want further explanation on any of these 200 "proofs", let me know and I will delve deeper into the nuances of a particular topic. Otherwise, I'm not going to waste my time going through all of them when others are already doing that. Just send an email to Question4XL@gmail.com.
I've always said that if someone can provide me with a verifiable proof, I will change my mind about it. So far, I have yet to see any "proof" that is provable.
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