Instigator / Pro
0
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Topic
#2992

Flat Earth is physically viable/plausible, if space agencies are lying (especially NASA and Roscosmos)

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
4

After 4 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Benjamin
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
4
1777
rating
79
debates
76.58%
won
Description

Plausible and viable mean that nothing about it is impossible or self-contradictory. It doesn't mean that it has to match things like gravity or the standard world map's southern hemisphere's proportions (especially of Antarctica).

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@RationalMadman

I agree. It doesn't need to be gravity, although I think the evidence points to that. I'm asking what force you think causes things to fall. Also, what do you mean by it makes no sense? I showed you how it works mathematically and how it is consistent regardless of the masses involved. It isn't the relative size of the objects that matters. What matters is whether or not one or both objects is large enough in an absolute sense to have a noticeable gravitational force. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you personally, but that's personal incredulity, not evidence. There are a lot of things in physics and other sciences that don't make intuitive sense. However, they can be verified to work. For instance, I don't quite understand what potential energy or kinetic energy are. I can't picture them in my mind. They seem very abstract. However, I can do the math and the experiments and see that they work. I can likewise do the math with gravity and see that it works.

Also, do you have any answers to my other questions?

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@SirAnonymous

A magical fact of nature needn't be gravity.

Gravity should be visible on mountain, blue whales and skyscrapers. If massive things pull tjings to themw, even if it's weak, it should be a consistently visible and proportional thing.

It makes absolutely no sense that being massive pulls things to you, even as a magical, mystical thing it doesn't have any linl to real life seen proportionality.

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@RationalMadman

Objects only accelerate when a force is applied to them. What force causes denser objects to fall through less dense objects?

What evidence, beyond bare assertions, do you have that the history regarding the discovery of Neptune is a hoax? I would like to draw a distinction here that I think is important. I'm not asking how it could have been hoaxed. I'm asking what evidence you have that it actually is a hoax. Furthermore, I think it is fairly clear that finding a previously unknown object exactly where a theory predicts it would be is, in fact, strong evidence that the theory is true.

What evidence do you have for a screen?

I'm aware that my answer is almost entirely in questions, and I apologize for that. However, I'm trying to understand what evidence you actually have for your position. As I'm sure you know, it is very difficult to discuss someone's opinion if you don't have a clear idea of what that person thinks and why they think it. Also, thanks for replying. I thought you might have forgotten.

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@SirAnonymous

That entire neptune thing is potentially a full on hoax and if it isn't it doesn't prove gravity just what appeared in the sky (which isn't necessarily what's actually out there, if it's a screen of sorts).

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@SirAnonymous

What G is, in Cavendish's experiment, is Torsion combined with the 9.8ms^2 thing I have said is a magical downwards pull for denser objects to fall through less dense ones at that rate. Cavendish committed several fallacies in assuming he was measuring gravity.

It took me some research but I am certain what I am saying here is accurate.

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@RationalMadman

"Gravity is such a weak force that it's never ever observable, ever."
No. It just takes more effort to observe. Henry Cavendish built a device that could measure the gravitational force between two 348-pound masses. He did this in 1797-1798, long before NASA was around. You can read about it here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment
Also, gravity is observable in astronomy. Neptune was actually discovered using gravity. Uranus was not following the orbit predicted by Newton's Laws. Astronomers reasoned that it was being affected by the gravity of another planet. A scientist named Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier calculated where Neptune had to be in order to account for the effect on Venus. When he delivered his work to some astronomers, it was accurate enough that they were able to find Neptune that same night. This was in 1846, long before NASA.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Neptune-planet/Neptunes-discovery

"That is, unless we assume the magical thing making denser objects fall through less dense objects/terrain"
If gravity doesn't exist, then what force causes dense objects to fall through less dense objects?

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@RationalMadman

"I always find it fascinating that there is never a SINGLE star in the sky from satellite space cameras, it's as if they forgot to fake that."
That I can explain. If there were stars in those images, it would be a positive, indisputable proof that those images had been faked. It's pretty easy to figure out why. When you go outside during the day, you can't see any stars. That's because of the brightness of the sun. You can also observe this with a flashlight. If the lights are off, the light from the flashlight is easy to see. If the lights are on, then the light from the flashlight is harder to see. Now, that's just the effects we see with our eyes. However, our eyes are much better than cameras. Cameras have this thing known as exposure time. If the exposure time is long, then the camera will take a better image of darker objects. However, brightly lit objects will be over-exposed. (Here is an image showing the results of different exposure times: https://shuttermuse.com/glossary/overexposure/). This means that they will appear far too bright or "washed out". So in order to take a good picture of a brightly lit object, the exposure time has to be much shorter. This means that the brightly lit object will look good in the image, but darkly lit objects will appear much darker (refer to the image I linked). The earth is an incredibly bright object (relatively speaking) because of all the light that reflects off it from the sun. However, the stars are many orders of magnitude darker. In order to take a good picture of the earth, the stars will be severely underexposed to the point where they aren't even visible. Here is what turns up when you put "moon" in a search engine and look for images. (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=moon&t=brave&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images) Notice what isn't in the background of all these images? Stars. The moon is so much brighter than the stars that, in order to get a good image of the moon, the stars will be invisible. The same is true of the earth.

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@RationalMadman

"Before giving me things, view them. Neither shows anything other than clouds or CGI graphic depiction putting together an image it claims is from real composites and which it admits is artificially presented."
I did view them, but I didn't read closely enough. The ISS feed was a series of recorded videos. My mistake. However, I would be curious to know what evidence you have that it was CGI.

Gravity is such a weak force that it's never ever observable, ever.

:)

That is, unless we assume the magical thing making denser objects fall through less dense objects/terrain is by default gravity (which is a hugely erroneous assumption to make if you follow scientific method and want to avoid confirmation bias).

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@RationalMadman

As for the mosquito and the mountain, it's actually really easy to calculate gravitational force. The equation is F = G*m1*m2/d^2. G is the gravitational constant, which is 6.67*10^-11. F is force, m1 is the mass of one object, m2 is the mass of the other, and d is the distance between the two objects. Assume the mosquito is 100 meters away from the mountain. We can then calculate how much acceleration a mountain would apply to a mosquito. I'll use Newton's 2nd Law of motion, F=ma, to help. F=ma and F = G*m1*m2/d^2, so ma = G*m1*m2/d^2. The mosquito is the object in question, so both m and m1 are the mass of the mosquito. That cancels out, leaving a = G*m2/d^2. The mass of Mount Everest is 357 trillion pounds or 7.854*10^14 kg. Distance is measured from the center of mass. I couldn't find a source that said the width of Mount Everest, so I will assume that it's a cone that has a radius equal to its height. Everest rises 3600 meters above the plateau of Tibet. So, G is known, d is known, m2 is known, and m1 isn't needed. Entering the numbers into the equation gives a = 6.67*10^-11*7.854*10^14 kg/(3600 m + 100 m)^2 = 0.0038 m/s^2. Thus, if a mosquito was 100 meters from the side of Mount Everest, it would be pulled toward the mountain with an acceleration of 0.0038 m/s^2.

In conclusion, according to Newton's Law of Gravitation, a mosquito probably would not notice the gravitational pull from a mountain. However, it would feel the gravitational pull from the earth, which has a mass of 5.97*10^24 kg and a radius of 6371 km or 6371000 m. Performing the same calculation for earth gives an acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2, which is the accepted acceleration due to gravity (in case it's not clear, I did perform the math for that as well). There are two main things to take away from this exercise:
1. Gravity is a really weak force. This is why even a mountain isn't enough to produce a noticeable gravitational pull.
2. Relative mass doesn't matter. An electron will experience the same acceleration due to gravity as a human or a mountain. *

*The other object (Mount Everest or Earth) will also experience acceleration from gravity, but this doesn't effect the acceleration of the mosquito.

https://weightofstuff.com/how-much-does-mount-everest-weigh/
https://www.britannica.com/place/Mount-Everest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_radius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass

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@SirAnonymous

I always find it fascinating that there is never a SINGLE star in the sky from satellite space cameras, it's as if they forgot to fake that.

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@SirAnonymous

Before giving me things, view them. Neither shows anything other than clouds or CGI graphic depiction putting together an image it claims is from real composites and which it admits is artificially presented.

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@RationalMadman

Here's a link to a live feed from the far earth observer.
https://earthnow.usgs.gov/observer/
The camera is pointing straight down and the format of the feed doesn't make much sense, so this probably won't be as useful. The data is from the South African Space Agency, though, so it's not NASA.

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@RationalMadman

Here's a YouTube link to the same stream if you prefer YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBPjVzSoepo

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@RationalMadman

Live feed from ISS.
https://www.webcamtaxi.com/en/space/earth-live-cam2.html
The camera angle gives you a good view of the earth's curvature and its features. However, there are clouds obscuring some of the features, but that's unavoidable, since we can't control the weather.

ISS is on a polar orbit (you can look it up). That means it will be over the Southern Hemisphere at times (I think about half the time). It orbits every 90 minutes, and there are plenty of websites that tell you where it is at any given moment. It should be easy to find a time when you can watch it move over the Southern Hemisphere.

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@Sum1hugme

Yeah - that's definitely true - colloquialism on my part - but I was focusing on comprehension rather than technical correctness ya know? I feel like these are objections borne of not understanding gravity and what creates weight, which is a failing of our education system.

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@Theweakeredge

Although I'd like to add that a black hole doesn't suck things up like a vacuum like in hollywood movies. Just things that pass over the event horizon become spaghettified.

You seem to not understand weight, fundamentally speaking, the reason you have weight is not because of gravity directly - there is gravity in space - it is because of normal force - you see as you stand on something you are exerting mass on the ground, and the ground provides force in return (the third law of forces). So to argue that "gravity isn't smashing mosquitoes" is to misunderstand what gravity actually does. It accumulates mass - it doesn't work like a black hole - black holes are a vacuum because of very very intense gravity - this doesn't always happen - usually its more of a spiraling effect (orbits/rotation). Anywho - a lot of flying things -specifically insects - use the wind as a crutch or generate lift by displacing enough air (the air does the work - not the wings themselves)

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@Sum1hugme

no, it doesn't. Not even slightly.

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@RationalMadman

Yes it does, but the mosquito stays aloft because the force of it's wings against the air is greater than the force of the gravity pulling it towards a mountain. However, it can't escape earth's gravity, because the force of it's wings aren't enough to carry it out of the gravitational attraction (and atmospheric pressure) of the earth.

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@Sum1hugme

When a tiny mosquito is next to a massive mountain or cliff, gravity doesn't tug them towards it despite the mass, same for a blue whale and tiny fish around it

Those two things would begin to make me consider.

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@Sum1hugme

It's so utterly absurd when you actually imagine us hurtling through space as a furious spinning ball vs how tranquil the sun and moon's rotation is but I have said that before:

1. Third Party Audits of at least NASA but ideally both NASA and Roscosmos with in-depth interrogation and analysis of each step involved in the mission vs what can physically be proven.

2. Live statellites of some kind. Not that one that just films clouds, real live stallies that properly points down at the planet where the SOUTHERN 'hemisphere' (it's not a hemisphere if earth is flat) is visible. It's extremely important how the south of the planet is probably seen from supposed outer space.

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@RationalMadman

What would convince you that the Earth is not flat?

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@RationalMadman

Oh well, maybe eventually you'll change your mind.

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@Benjamin

A 16 year old can also point out flaws with other correct ideas and wise decisions, that haas no impact on the validity

Another issue is crocodile's and the weaker edge's takes. I feel I'd put the effort in and they'd say I didn't prove it was flat. At this point, this is not the debate worth investing effort into put of those I'm in.

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@Sum1hugme

Not at all, just tired and busy with other debates and things.

I also don't think this will get decent votes. It's extremely annoying to oht all the effort in for no-vote ties. I'll address this later when I've had more time to analyse voters. I definitely want to save arguments for then. I also noticed inntthe past that people's brains are so hardwired to perceive things like sun and moon rotating as the Earth itself spinning as well as us being on the ground as proof of gravity that I am struggling to forn the new wording that makes the eureka moment happen. I also may want to earn money for it if the writing is that good so I may save some of my drafts for later on.

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@RationalMadman

I mean, just because the space agencies are lying doesn't mean the Earth IS flat.

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@RationalMadman

Maybe you've finally stopped believing the earth is flat?

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@Benjamin

This is a fairly decent illustration https://www.spacecentre.nz/resources/faq/solar-system/earth/flat/img/flat-earth-model-2.jpg

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@RationalMadman

Ok. But can you send me a link to your preferred model of the earth?

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@Benjamin

Busy and also because this debate is equally winnable or losable to me with 30k char count whether you get an extra Round out of 4 or not. Do what you want, I'll sacrifice conduct point (not that I have a choice now).

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@RationalMadman

Why did you forfeit?

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@Benjamin

You and I agree what your BoP here is and what mine is.

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@Benjamin

You don't understand much about the game of poker, I would presume.

What you are saying implies the world is based on strategising where everyone's cards are face up on the table.

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@RationalMadman

Guess what, the Flat Earth Society hasn't been cancelled. Your argument that they are an inside job makes no sense. If powerful people wanted "the truth" hidden, then they would ban the truth, not manipulate it from the inside. Also, your definition of "the truth" is purely subjective. Scholars say the Earth is round, and that is proof enough for most people. If you accept the validity of scientific research then you better show me some scientific research supporting the claim that "the truth" is a flat Earth. If you don't, then that's fine. I am only here to disprove the model as illogical, not to prove why the Earth is round.

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@Benjamin

Sure buddy and to answer your question no, not the FBI.

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@RationalMadman
@Sum1hugme
@Theweakeredge

"""
You do understand that the most powerful people on the planet would be involved with keeping the truth hidden?
"""

Are you afraid of being executed by the FBI or something? The last time I checked, the Internet was the safest place on Earth to say controversial things. Actually, unless you live in China your privacy and safety is almost perfectly secure, especially if you use a VPN. Furthermore, your alleged "truth" is not at all dangerous to the most powerful people on Earth. Remember, the ones making the public believe in the round Earth are scholars and science professors, not Biden and Putin. Which person in power are you afraid of offending?

Furthermore, you claim that we haven't been to space. Yet you claim that the "truth" is that the Earth is flat. How do you know unless we have been to space?

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@RationalMadman
@Barney

There is nothing in the COC that says members can’t consult other members in debate arguments. This could warrant the loss of a conduct point, but there is nothing wrong with a member offering assistance. Whether or not that warrants losing a conduct point is to the opinion of the voters. This issue is certainly something I’d consider MEEPing

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@Theweakeredge

Flat Earth HAS to retreat into a conspiracy mindset in order to preserve the belief. If a logical fallacy exists, flat earth has probably committed it.

That is IF I accept they are being dishonest, I've yet to see you actually prove that dishonesty. At least in regards to the shape of the earth... like I had an entire thread proving the shape of the earth INDEPENDENT of Nasa and such, and you didn't even try to rebut the points.

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@Theweakeredge

I don't dodge at every chance but there are indeed reasons not to type about that online. You do understand that the most powerful people on the planet would be involved with keeping the truth hidden?

As for this debate there's zero dishonesty. This about the viability of the flat earth itself. Can it work? Many say it can't, ask where the edge is so on and so forth. I am frankly fed up of your attitude. You're extremely toxic and I blocked you before then unblocked you as you showed signs of improving, now you are becoming more and more belligerent for no rational reason.

If I annoy you by what I stand for and what I do, too bad. I don't come to your debates and whine like a bitch typing in allcaps to emphasise every seventh word. I'm sick of it and blocking you.

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@RationalMadman

You did not do anything to "me" - you did something to intellectual honesty. For example - you merely asserting that someone is right is not INTELLECTUALLY HONEST - and just because Benjamin said something does not mean I think HE IS INTELLECTUALLY HONEST - I never said you dodged anything - simply put - YOU HAVE CLAIMED that Nasa can't be trusted, that the earth is flat, yet at every opportunity to prove it you DODGE the chance to prove it.

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@RationalMadman

I don't think that's against the rules. Just kind of a general conduct thing most of us do.

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@David
@Barney

Undefeatable is offering continuing assistance to Con in this debate's comments section.

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@RationalMadman

hahahaha, good luck refuting Newton. Benjamin's not as strong as me in scientific research, but Newton's gravity proof is near irrefutable...

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@Undefeatable

If you offer more help to Con in the comments, it is violating a rule about assisting other debaters.

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@Undefeatable

nope, I am not going to support gravity in this debate's flat earth physics model. The Earth can be any age and still be flat, strawmanning flat earth theory is a habit of the simpleminded.

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@RationalMadman

All Con has to prove is that Earth is 4 billion years old and that physics determine that the flat earth would form into a sphere (graaavity), and they win.