• TheImpressiveX@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    93
    ·
    7 days ago

    There was this one video where flat-Earthers tried to prove the Earth was flat, so they recreated the experiment by Eratosthenes and accidentally proved the Earth was round. I can’t find it right now but it’s hilarious.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      7 days ago

      There was one guy who designed what is actually an elegant experiment, placing several vertical surfaces, signs basically, with holes in them in a straight line a distance apart at the same elevation above sea level. If the Earth is flat, one should be able to see straight through all of the holes in the signs; if the earth is round, the holes will curve down and away. He observed that they curved down and away. Then of course proceeded to make up bullshit about how his own test was invalid.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      62
      ·
      7 days ago

      This past December, The Final Experiment went down to Antarctica to take a video of the 24 hour sun. It’s causing much consternation among flat earthers.

      • Doom@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        34
        ·
        7 days ago

        I believe firmly once the Flat earthers start to lose traction so will the Qanon and all the other dumb “conspiracy theories” then we can get back to the good stuff, bigfoot, aliens, loch Ness monster

        • frezik@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          34
          ·
          7 days ago

          Unfortunately, what’s more likely is that while some will fall away, the remainder will be more extreme. That’s what happens when religious prophecies fail, such as The Great Disappointment among Adventists.

        • JackbyDev@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          7 days ago

          You may find this video interesting. It talks about how “big tent” conspiracy theories like flat earth and qanon are related. https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44 TO BE CLEAR: the video is not in support of the theories! I’m reading the first sentence of this comment back in my head and it feels like it could go either way.

          • PoopingCough@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            7 days ago

            Love this video and have forced it on many of my friends. It’s a straight up documentary and it’s so interesting to me.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              7 days ago

              Dan is the best. One of the great old school YouTuber essayists. He really leans into a topic and interrogates it from every direction.

              Hes got great videos on the metaverse, crypto scams and hilariously, the complexity of making cooking videos.

      • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        7 days ago

        To be perfectly fair, when the guy said the test was inconclusive, he was right… To a point.

        His failure was that he only did the test once and in one location, which just proves a hill/valley could be playing a factor in the results. To have true empirical results, the test would need to be done at multiple locations, each a random but sizable distance apart.

        The scientific method relies on repeatability and reliability in data to provide proof to anything and he wasn’t really using either.