As a Christian, I was considering accepting the debate as Con, until I saw that you had already taken that position. I predict that you will either get a bad debater who thinks that the Pro side is somehow defensible, or a good debater trying to run a trick argument to get around your arguments.
I think you meant "among the most disagreeable" and not "for the most disagreeable." That one word makes a significant difference to the meaning of the resolution.
This debate has been mentioned in the latest edition of the DART Bard. Read it here:
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8210-dart-bard-6th-edition-midterms-11-7-2022
Probably not, I'm afraid. I don't have much motivation to write a detailed vote. When the voting is greatly in favor of one side, that motivation drops to near zero.
I threw a bowl of spaghetti at the ceiling, and the spaghetti turned into a monster and started flying. The flying spaghetti monster god is real! Checkmate, atheists!
"so again to your question, I would like a good vote, but if it is a good vote, then it will be in favour for me. Im really trying not to be arrogant, but this is how I see it. I see zero way Barney won that one."
This is the best quote I've seen here in a while. The complete inability to even imagine how someone could disagree is staggering, but yet incredibly common.
Given how similar our thought processes were with the eliminate racism debate, I'm guessing you are probably correct about my strategy. We'll see after the debate.
Your debate has been mentioned in the DART Bard. Read it here: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7647-dart-bard-5th-edition-ddo-dies-6-12-2022?page=1&post_number=1
When you said that Floyd and Kueng are breathing experts, did you mean that they are breathing experts because they have spent their entire lives breathing?
Pro also brings up an interesting case as a refutation. He argues that DC used excessive force against Melissa Borton. He also points out that DC was less cruel to her because she didn’t resist arrest. Con argues that while it is true that he was rude to her, this was the only example of DC using excessive force on a white person, whereas there are several cases of DC using excessive force on black people.
In addition to these arguments, there is much to-do about sources, non-violent and violent crimes, the finer points of law, and other items that have little bearing on whether DC is a racist.
Overall, Con succeeds in establishing a racial disparity in DC’s victims. He succeeds in establishing that DC used excessive force on African-Americans. Pro’s case is very muddled, but he does make a few points. He succeeds in establishing that, in order for DC to be racist, we would need to have evidence that he targets people because of their race. He also succeeds in establishing that DC has used excessive force on at least one white person.
These arguments are difficult to weigh, especially since this debate was packed with plenty of mostly irrelevant matters. However, Con’s points that there was a racial disparity in DC’s victims and that the cases with the most excessive force were against African-Americans is at least some evidence for his case. It’s a bit tenuous and far from conclusive, but Pro does little to counter it. Pro’s argument that Con should have the BOP fell apart in R3 and became exceedingly muddled. Had he won this point, which he could have done with a bit more effort, I would favor Pro on the grounds that Con’s argument does not reach the much-discussed legal standard of proof. However, since Pro failed on the BOP, I favor Con for arguments.
Sources: To be honest, I just don’t feel like analyzing sources after spending about 90 minutes on the arguments, so I’ll be brief. Pro spent a good deal of time unconvincingly accusing Con of lying about sources, but ultimately the sources didn’t have much impact on most of the relevant points.
S&G: Fine on both sides.
Conduct: Pro spent a lot of time accusing Con of lying because Pro failed to grasp Con’s very obvious meaning about the “breathing experts.” Con accused Pro of lying a few times. I’m not sure what to make of Con’s accusations. They seem to miss Pro’s meaning, but that could also be deliberate on Con’s part, since Pro missed Con’s meaning and accused him of lying. Con also made a few veiled accusations of racism that seemed directed toward Pro. There were also accusations of Gish Galloping. If anyone here was Gish Galloping, it was Pro. Pro’s conduct violations were a little more frequent and more egregious than Con’s. Still, I think I’ll let it slide this time.
Burden of Proof: Pro claims that Con has the BOP. Con says that Pro is the one making a claim and that Pro needs to meet the legal standard by showing that DC is not racist beyond reasonable doubt. Pro points out that the standard is innocent until proven guilty, so Con has the BOP. Con responds that Pro is the one who created the resolution. He points out that Pro’s own source states that the side that affirms the resolution (Pro) has the BOP. Pro responds rather weirdly: “CON says I am disagreeing with my source, however, his point is very wrong as I have already affirmed the resolution quite strongly.” This implicitly agrees with Con. Pro does claim a contradiction between how Con is applying the legal standard for the BOP and for a separate argument in the debate, but it isn’t clear how he is applying this to the BOP. Normally, I would agree with Pro that the person make the positive claim (DC is a racist) as having the BOP. However, this bizarre failure to effectively dispute that standard paired with a statement that seems to implicitly agree with Con overturns that. Thus, I will treat Pro as having the main BOP. In the future, I recommend that, when Pro wishes to argue the negative side, he should create the resolution as a positive (e.g., DC is a racist) and take the Con side. I also recommend that Pro vigorously dispute any attempts to change the burden of proof rather than drop the issue.
Arguments: Pro begins by burning down two strawmen. He states that Con needs to provide evidence that DC as an individual was racist.
Con argues that DC is a racist because he has a history of targeted racial violence. There are multiple fronts to this argument.
1. Con argues that DC’s victims (i.e., the people to whom he showed excessive force, of which there are 6) were disproportionately non-white based off the general population. Pro correctly points out that the metric should be the population of criminals, not the general population. Con argues that DC’s victims are still disproportionately non-white compared to the demographics of the criminal population. Pro says that “CON's argument suffers from the same caveats brought up in ROUND ONE and is therefore invalidated.” I am not at all sure what caveats Pro is referring to or how they apply to Con’s argument. Pro also argues that we can’t come up with a ratio that accounts for factors other than race such as the aggression of the suspect. Pro also brings up the case of Mohamed Noor, who killed a white woman. As Con points out, this case is not analagous. There was only one known incident of Noor using excessive force, but there were multiple incidents for DC. Pro says, “Following CON's logic, if a black police officer has killed ONE PERSON, and that person was not of his OWN RACE it shows clear prejudice and antagonism.” This is transparently false. Con is not arguing based on one incident, but several. Pro also argues that Con has no way of knowing whether DC discriminated based on race rather than height, weight, etc. Con points out that DC’s victims had varying heights and weights. He argues that the common theme is race. Pro argues that this is insufficient. Con, he says, needs to show that DC targeted his victims because they were black, not merely that his victims were black. Con says, “The attacks, tortures, and even a murder following racial lines of one group and excluding the other, is self evidently a racial bias.”
2. Con argues that the fact that DC knelt on George Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, despite Floyd and fellow officer Alexander Kueng saying that Floyd couldn’t breathe and then had no pulse, is sufficient to demonstrate a pattern of racism. Interestingly, Pro never seemed to address this. Instead, he wasted thousands of characters arguing that Floyd and Kueng are not breathing experts. He seems to have missed Con’s rather obvious meaning that Floyd and Kueng had spent their entire lives breathing and were thus quite qualified to be able to tell when someone is not breathing. Con rather clearly did not say that they had a degree in breathing or that they studied breathing. Pro rather absurdly accuses Con of lying about Floyd and Kueng being breathing experts. Pro also argues that Floyd was resisting arrest and had a history of doing so. How this is an explanation for why a reasonable, non-racist person to kneel on someone’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds is unclear.
3. Con also argues that DC’s torture of Zoya Code indicates racism. Pro again argues that she was resisting arrest. Pro again fails to explain why any reasonable, non-racist person would used this as a reason to continue to use excessive force after she had stopped resisting.
The debate's over, so I'll explain my idea. The resolution states that it's highly unlikely that the Apollo 11 moon landings were faked. Your argument was that there was only one landing. However, here's the issue. "Faked" implies active fakery. Since NASA says they only landed once, there is no fakery going on regarding multiple Apollo 11 landings. While those multiple landings are fake because they didn't happen, they were not faked because NASA never attempted to fake multiple Apollo 11 landings. Thus, the resolution that the Apollo 11 landings were not faked is upheld. They were fake, but not faked.
Of course, this is hopelessly semantic hair-splitting, but the way the resolution was written seems to permit this.
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?
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.
"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?
"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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
The time for argument was only two hours.
As a Christian, I was considering accepting the debate as Con, until I saw that you had already taken that position. I predict that you will either get a bad debater who thinks that the Pro side is somehow defensible, or a good debater trying to run a trick argument to get around your arguments.
You might want to say something in your final round so you don't end up with a tie.
It would seem that, if Vici was indeed an alt, that the person behind it has abandoned the account.
Either that or Vici was the victim of a conspiracy!
Unfortunately I don't have time. I would if I could.
What a riveting first round!
Interesting.
Are you arguing as a devil's advocate or have you changed your mind about God?
I think you meant "among the most disagreeable" and not "for the most disagreeable." That one word makes a significant difference to the meaning of the resolution.
This debate has been mentioned in the latest edition of the DART Bard. Read it here:
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8210-dart-bard-6th-edition-midterms-11-7-2022
The real solution is to change the spelling to ghygh.
Gh from ugh, y from chlorophyll, gh from tough.
They should debate Snickers vs. Milky Way bars.
Probably not, I'm afraid. I don't have much motivation to write a detailed vote. When the voting is greatly in favor of one side, that motivation drops to near zero.
If God is real, why would He allow the Amazon show Rings of Power to exist? Checkmate, Christians!
I threw a bowl of spaghetti at the ceiling, and the spaghetti turned into a monster and started flying. The flying spaghetti monster god is real! Checkmate, atheists!
You're welcome. I figured that was what was going on.
"so again to your question, I would like a good vote, but if it is a good vote, then it will be in favour for me. Im really trying not to be arrogant, but this is how I see it. I see zero way Barney won that one."
This is the best quote I've seen here in a while. The complete inability to even imagine how someone could disagree is staggering, but yet incredibly common.
I'm afraid I've lost my interest in internet debating. I like all the people here, but I just don't have the motivation to continue right now. Sorry.
I considered voting on it, but I never had the time to write an RFD. Not sure which way I would have gone.
Quite so. The first two are races, and the third is an exercise in following the leader.
*Ducks objects thrown by angry F1 fans*
Given how similar our thought processes were with the eliminate racism debate, I'm guessing you are probably correct about my strategy. We'll see after the debate.
Well, I highly doubt that he will use the strategy I'm thinking of.
I should probably keep my mouth shut, but there's a strategy Pro could take that would drive Con up the wall.
Your debate has been mentioned in the DART Bard. Read it here: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7647-dart-bard-5th-edition-ddo-dies-6-12-2022?page=1&post_number=1
Yeah, this one was close. RM put in the absolute bare minimum.
"That still implies that Chuck Norris uses Windows, which is not that impressive."
That was a pretty good burn.
No thanks. I don't want to spoil my perfect 3-0 record!
No one could win this debate as Con.
Except Chuck Norris.
I read his argument. You weren't even close.
Based on your description, you should probably switch from pro to con. Otherwise, someone might accept as con and argue against feminism.
Good to see you back here!
This is what happens when you write debate resolutions with Mad-Libs.
You're welcome.
When you said that Floyd and Kueng are breathing experts, did you mean that they are breathing experts because they have spent their entire lives breathing?
I do have a reason for asking this.
Pro also brings up an interesting case as a refutation. He argues that DC used excessive force against Melissa Borton. He also points out that DC was less cruel to her because she didn’t resist arrest. Con argues that while it is true that he was rude to her, this was the only example of DC using excessive force on a white person, whereas there are several cases of DC using excessive force on black people.
In addition to these arguments, there is much to-do about sources, non-violent and violent crimes, the finer points of law, and other items that have little bearing on whether DC is a racist.
Overall, Con succeeds in establishing a racial disparity in DC’s victims. He succeeds in establishing that DC used excessive force on African-Americans. Pro’s case is very muddled, but he does make a few points. He succeeds in establishing that, in order for DC to be racist, we would need to have evidence that he targets people because of their race. He also succeeds in establishing that DC has used excessive force on at least one white person.
These arguments are difficult to weigh, especially since this debate was packed with plenty of mostly irrelevant matters. However, Con’s points that there was a racial disparity in DC’s victims and that the cases with the most excessive force were against African-Americans is at least some evidence for his case. It’s a bit tenuous and far from conclusive, but Pro does little to counter it. Pro’s argument that Con should have the BOP fell apart in R3 and became exceedingly muddled. Had he won this point, which he could have done with a bit more effort, I would favor Pro on the grounds that Con’s argument does not reach the much-discussed legal standard of proof. However, since Pro failed on the BOP, I favor Con for arguments.
Sources: To be honest, I just don’t feel like analyzing sources after spending about 90 minutes on the arguments, so I’ll be brief. Pro spent a good deal of time unconvincingly accusing Con of lying about sources, but ultimately the sources didn’t have much impact on most of the relevant points.
S&G: Fine on both sides.
Conduct: Pro spent a lot of time accusing Con of lying because Pro failed to grasp Con’s very obvious meaning about the “breathing experts.” Con accused Pro of lying a few times. I’m not sure what to make of Con’s accusations. They seem to miss Pro’s meaning, but that could also be deliberate on Con’s part, since Pro missed Con’s meaning and accused him of lying. Con also made a few veiled accusations of racism that seemed directed toward Pro. There were also accusations of Gish Galloping. If anyone here was Gish Galloping, it was Pro. Pro’s conduct violations were a little more frequent and more egregious than Con’s. Still, I think I’ll let it slide this time.
Burden of Proof: Pro claims that Con has the BOP. Con says that Pro is the one making a claim and that Pro needs to meet the legal standard by showing that DC is not racist beyond reasonable doubt. Pro points out that the standard is innocent until proven guilty, so Con has the BOP. Con responds that Pro is the one who created the resolution. He points out that Pro’s own source states that the side that affirms the resolution (Pro) has the BOP. Pro responds rather weirdly: “CON says I am disagreeing with my source, however, his point is very wrong as I have already affirmed the resolution quite strongly.” This implicitly agrees with Con. Pro does claim a contradiction between how Con is applying the legal standard for the BOP and for a separate argument in the debate, but it isn’t clear how he is applying this to the BOP. Normally, I would agree with Pro that the person make the positive claim (DC is a racist) as having the BOP. However, this bizarre failure to effectively dispute that standard paired with a statement that seems to implicitly agree with Con overturns that. Thus, I will treat Pro as having the main BOP. In the future, I recommend that, when Pro wishes to argue the negative side, he should create the resolution as a positive (e.g., DC is a racist) and take the Con side. I also recommend that Pro vigorously dispute any attempts to change the burden of proof rather than drop the issue.
Arguments: Pro begins by burning down two strawmen. He states that Con needs to provide evidence that DC as an individual was racist.
Con argues that DC is a racist because he has a history of targeted racial violence. There are multiple fronts to this argument.
1. Con argues that DC’s victims (i.e., the people to whom he showed excessive force, of which there are 6) were disproportionately non-white based off the general population. Pro correctly points out that the metric should be the population of criminals, not the general population. Con argues that DC’s victims are still disproportionately non-white compared to the demographics of the criminal population. Pro says that “CON's argument suffers from the same caveats brought up in ROUND ONE and is therefore invalidated.” I am not at all sure what caveats Pro is referring to or how they apply to Con’s argument. Pro also argues that we can’t come up with a ratio that accounts for factors other than race such as the aggression of the suspect. Pro also brings up the case of Mohamed Noor, who killed a white woman. As Con points out, this case is not analagous. There was only one known incident of Noor using excessive force, but there were multiple incidents for DC. Pro says, “Following CON's logic, if a black police officer has killed ONE PERSON, and that person was not of his OWN RACE it shows clear prejudice and antagonism.” This is transparently false. Con is not arguing based on one incident, but several. Pro also argues that Con has no way of knowing whether DC discriminated based on race rather than height, weight, etc. Con points out that DC’s victims had varying heights and weights. He argues that the common theme is race. Pro argues that this is insufficient. Con, he says, needs to show that DC targeted his victims because they were black, not merely that his victims were black. Con says, “The attacks, tortures, and even a murder following racial lines of one group and excluding the other, is self evidently a racial bias.”
2. Con argues that the fact that DC knelt on George Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, despite Floyd and fellow officer Alexander Kueng saying that Floyd couldn’t breathe and then had no pulse, is sufficient to demonstrate a pattern of racism. Interestingly, Pro never seemed to address this. Instead, he wasted thousands of characters arguing that Floyd and Kueng are not breathing experts. He seems to have missed Con’s rather obvious meaning that Floyd and Kueng had spent their entire lives breathing and were thus quite qualified to be able to tell when someone is not breathing. Con rather clearly did not say that they had a degree in breathing or that they studied breathing. Pro rather absurdly accuses Con of lying about Floyd and Kueng being breathing experts. Pro also argues that Floyd was resisting arrest and had a history of doing so. How this is an explanation for why a reasonable, non-racist person to kneel on someone’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds is unclear.
3. Con also argues that DC’s torture of Zoya Code indicates racism. Pro again argues that she was resisting arrest. Pro again fails to explain why any reasonable, non-racist person would used this as a reason to continue to use excessive force after she had stopped resisting.
This should be fun to watch.
The debate's over, so I'll explain my idea. The resolution states that it's highly unlikely that the Apollo 11 moon landings were faked. Your argument was that there was only one landing. However, here's the issue. "Faked" implies active fakery. Since NASA says they only landed once, there is no fakery going on regarding multiple Apollo 11 landings. While those multiple landings are fake because they didn't happen, they were not faked because NASA never attempted to fake multiple Apollo 11 landings. Thus, the resolution that the Apollo 11 landings were not faked is upheld. They were fake, but not faked.
Of course, this is hopelessly semantic hair-splitting, but the way the resolution was written seems to permit this.
I won't say what it is until the debate is over, but there's a good way to at least challenge your argument.
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?
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.
"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?
"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.
"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.
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
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.
Here's a YouTube link to the same stream if you prefer YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBPjVzSoepo
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.
I know it's not the best example of your strategy. It's just one that I was familiar with because I took the time to read and vote on it.
It was this debate if you're curious.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1710-resolved-individuals-have-a-moral-obligation-to-assist-people-in-need