And he actually passes for one of the smarter players

[ddstory]

While we're still on the War on Reason topic...

Kyrie Irving believes the Earth is flat

"This is not even a conspiracy theory," Irving said during the podcast. "The Earth is flat. What I've been taught is that the earth is round. But if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move and the fact that, can you

Comments

[cindyanne1]

There's a ton of people who believe in flat earth. It blows my mind. I just don't get it. I don't understand why they are so adamant about it. What's the point? What are they trying to prove? That's what I don't get.

[mahnmut]

They're trying to prove that the government is after you.

Or something.

[oportet]

You'd think he'd check with LeBron before making a statement like that, or any statement at all...

[ddstory]

Burrrrrnnnn!

[htpcl]

Haha!

[oportet]

There's a day/night globe near the top of thisiswhyimbroke right now. Didn't know that was a thing. If I was richer or drunker or both I'd consider it...

A modest hypothesis.

[chron_job]

I always have a sneaky suspicion, whenever I hear someone stridently arguing for a flat earth, that what they are actually trying to do is some kind of sneaky epistemological performance art. Maybe they're snidely critiquing the loss of credibility suffered by our institutions and the utter lack of a shared consensual reality that this loss engenders. Or, more optimistically, maybe their ultimate purpose is just to reaffirm the scientific value that all knowledge is, indeed, provisional.

My #2 contender hypothesis is that he's hoping to piss someone off enough that they arrange to give him a free ride to space, just to prove him wrong. As grifts go, its not a horrible one.

[garote]

You don't even need to travel. Focault's Pendulum. An experiment you can do with a rope, a weight, and a large room, in any fucking place away from the equator, that will show you the fucking earth is round. You don't even need to GO OUTSIDE. You don't even need to LOOK OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW.

This is not defiance, or a statement, or anything. It is simple laziness.

[chron_job]

The rotation of the axis of a pendulum's swing through a full circle in a day is kinda removed from common experience, and you have to have already accepted the idea of the conservation of angular momentum.

I prefer simpler questions. "If the Earth is flat... what do the edges look like? I mean... flat things either MUST have edges, or they MUST extend forever. Do you think the earth is infinite? Or do you think there is an edge? If there is an edge, why haven't I seen footage of it on the telly? "

[garote]

"why haven't I seen footage of it on the telly" is probably not the best truth metric. :D

The pendulum only rotates through a full circle in a day if you're standing at the south pole. The angular speed, ω (measured in clockwise degrees per sidereal day), is proportional to the sine of the latitude, φ:
ω = 360 ∘ sin φ / day

So the pendulum is not only a demonstration that the earth is rotating, but with some careful measurement and math, will tell you your latitude upon it!

Questions are all well and good, but nothing beats a physical demonstration. Of course, if your audience is intent on ignoring even basic Newtonian stuff ... Then it's time to give up. :)

[chron_job]

AH! Didn't think that about the relationship between latitude and speed of precession, but it makes sense in retrospect. Thanks for the correction!

However, I still think the physical demonstration of Foucault's pendulum would be insignificant to someone who doesn't accept, or hasn't even reflected on, the theoretical framework.

After all, Foucault's pendulum didn't really "convince" anyone of the rotation of the earth. The earth's rotation was an accepted part of the consensus of the educated world long before the 19th century, when the actual physical demonstration was devised.