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When was flat earth only a gag? People were adamantly trying to prove a flat earth at least 150 years ago, and even got the co-discoverer of evolution via natu

When was flat earth only a gag? People were adamantly trying to prove a flat earth at least 150 years ago, and even got the co-discoverer of evolution via natural selection(Wallace) roped into the controversy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment

mewpmewp2 2y ago
I remember there being this satire forum where people were trying to prove that earth is flat as an intellectual exercise. I think it was 15 or more years ago or something like that. At that point there was no serious, popular and well known flat earth movement. This came later. It may have been theflatearthsociety dot org. But maybe I remember wrong. It was that they were pretending to believe and trolling, but now as it is more serious they stopped trolling in such a way.
- binary132 2y ago
  Not a flat earther myself, but I will say they are right about one thing: fisheye lenses are really popular in photography of the Earth from space or near-space. It’s one of those things you don’t notice until someone points it out to you, and then you see it everywhere.
  - samatman 2y ago
    I'm sure they're right about a lot of things! Water is wet, for instance. The moon waxes and wanes. That sort of thing. If you want to photograph a wide field of view, you use a fisheye lens. Humanity hasn't spent a lot of time far enough from Earth that it doesn't fill a wide field of view, although we do have some rather nice photographs from both humans and machines which have made it out that far.
    - binary132 2y ago
      It has the added benefit of making something round which sometimes looks surprisingly not all that curvy look curvier.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    A bit like realizing FOV is a big thing in FPS games. Makes a lot of sense why it would be useful once you know it but if you just go play an FPS for the first time you might not think about it until you look over and see your friend can see you and you can't see him.
- empath75 2y ago
  One fun thing about the whole flat earth thing is that people who argue online (correctly, of course), that the earth is round often will smugly do it using completely incorrect arguments or using photographic evidence that doesn't show what they think it does. And that's often generally true for people who "trust the science" about most topics. It's basically impossible to know the actual reasons for why scientists believe _everything_ that science has established, most people just "take their word for it" and don't actually make any effort to understand the justifications for almost any of their beliefs. It's sort of useful to have people around who just believe stuff and argue for stuff completely outside the usual scientific method just to keep people on their toes.
- dangsux 2y ago
  [dead]

mewpmewp2 2y ago

I remember there being this satire forum where people were trying to prove that earth is flat as an intellectual exercise. I think it was 15 or more years ago or something like that. At that point there was no serious, popular and well known flat earth movement. This came later. It may have been theflatearthsociety dot org. But maybe I remember wrong. It was that they were pretending to believe and trolling, but now as it is more serious they stopped trolling in such a way.

binary132 2y ago
Not a flat earther myself, but I will say they are right about one thing: fisheye lenses are really popular in photography of the Earth from space or near-space. It’s one of those things you don’t notice until someone points it out to you, and then you see it everywhere.
- samatman 2y ago
  I'm sure they're right about a lot of things! Water is wet, for instance. The moon waxes and wanes. That sort of thing. If you want to photograph a wide field of view, you use a fisheye lens. Humanity hasn't spent a lot of time far enough from Earth that it doesn't fill a wide field of view, although we do have some rather nice photographs from both humans and machines which have made it out that far.
  - binary132 2y ago
    It has the added benefit of making something round which sometimes looks surprisingly not all that curvy look curvier.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  A bit like realizing FOV is a big thing in FPS games. Makes a lot of sense why it would be useful once you know it but if you just go play an FPS for the first time you might not think about it until you look over and see your friend can see you and you can't see him.
empath75 2y ago
One fun thing about the whole flat earth thing is that people who argue online (correctly, of course), that the earth is round often will smugly do it using completely incorrect arguments or using photographic evidence that doesn't show what they think it does. And that's often generally true for people who "trust the science" about most topics. It's basically impossible to know the actual reasons for why scientists believe _everything_ that science has established, most people just "take their word for it" and don't actually make any effort to understand the justifications for almost any of their beliefs. It's sort of useful to have people around who just believe stuff and argue for stuff completely outside the usual scientific method just to keep people on their toes.
dangsux 2y ago
[dead]