There’s a civil war brewing in the midst of the once-happy alt-right. No, I don’t mean the squabbles between those alt-rightists who’ve abandoned Trump over his Syria attack and those sticking with Daddy — that’s old news. I mean the civil war between the neo-Nazis who think the earth is a globe and those who think it’s flat.
Yes, that’s right: There are Nazi Flat Earthers, for real, who think that “globe-heads” (that’s what flat earthers call the rest of us) are as big of a problem as “globalists.”
This is news not just to you and me but to some in the alt-right itself, including Daily Stormer head boy Andrew Anglin, who posted a joke video about flat eartherism yesterday only to discover that some of his fans take the flat earth very seriously.
In the comments to his post, the Nazi Flat Earthers laid out their case, such as it is. (Here’s a direct link to the discussion on the Daily Stormer forum; archive.is doesn’t seem to work properly with forums.)
“omg, I can’t believe you guys haven’t figured out the world is flat yet…..” wrote someone calling himself Excalibur
here is a challenge for all the non believers , somebody give me a picture of the earth that is not CGI
just one
(Er, this one?)
“Whiteliberty,” meanwhile, suggested that STEM logic supports the flat earth “thesis.”
Science is the acquisition of knowledge capable of being reproduced.
You can’t reproduce Big Bang. It’s not science.
With flat earth, there are multiple lines of evidence that point in the same direction.
Many globe claims have been power of suggestion, reliance on authority, and black box frauds. As a thesis, flat earth is stronger in 2017 than 2007. …
Newton’s Third Law prohibits acceleration in space. You need a medium to move: floor, water, atmosphere. Space is not a medium. This would explain why NASA had to lie and fake a moon mission.
“Interjew” rehashed a favorite flat earther argument, that ships don’t really go over the horizon at all; they’re just hard to see at such a great distance.
Using modern technology, you can zoom them back in. They’re not a mile below a curvature, they just go beyond the vanishing point of perspective.
3rdRicht had some serious thoughts about moonlight
I only started looking into what Flat Earth theories within the last month.
1 interesting point is at night, it is cooler in the Moonlight than it is in the shade.
I have no idea what he’s talking about or how this “fact,” if true, would support the idea of a flat earth.
“Fun fact,”whitemanshame added, “all the moon mission astronauts were satanic freemasons.”
KingOfTheNorth1488 added sarcastically
If Jews and masons tell me I’m on a spinning ball moving through the universe at near lightspeed, I believe them because they are experts and my eyes are lying to me.
There were, of course, quite a few Daily Stormer readers who took issue with the flat earth nonsense.
“[F]lat earth requires us to believe that almost everything we know about the entirety of physics is completely wrong and upside down,” StormCommando noted.
What are all the thousands of photos of stars, galaxies and planets and why would they go to such extreme lengths to create such a dumb conspiracy? And why would they invent all of these apparently totally fictional satellites and go into great detail about their workings, specifications, and spend time making these elaborate and unnecessary ‘props’ in lab environments? Again, utterly stupid idea.
But hey, he went on to add, it’s not like the Holocaust is real though.
I can buy holocaust revisionism because that’s a conceivable lie. It’s about distorting the facts of something which already happened. … [I]t’s very easy with a little examination to disprove the holohoax.
Someone calling himself BobMarely (!) was a little upset that the topic had even come up.
Maybe I am weird but I HATE FLATEARTH MORE THAN CHILD RAPING PAVEMENT APES. Why in the hell is Anglin posting this crap? This is disgusting beyond words. … Is this humor? It doesn’t seem to have any entertainment value. Is the entire goal of this video just to irritate me personally?
Still, even some of those not completely convinced by the flat earth theory had no trouble believing that the moon landings, at least, were faked.
“One thing is for sure: We never went to the moon,” wrote fascistlemming.
I find it kinda shocking that so many people think we did. “The jews faked 6 million dead kikes with fake shower rooms, but faking the moon landing is impossible because of reasons.”
Despite the animus, flat earth Nazis and globeheads alike agreed on one thing: it’s all the fault of the lying Jews.
As the round-earthers see it, it’s the Jews who are behind the flat earth movement. A fellow calling himself Dune noted:
One of the main proponents of [the flat earth theory] is a jew named Mark Sargent. … Anything lead by a jew and randomly pushed toward the masses via their pawns is questionable for the larger picture they may be working towards.
To JosephGoebbels,
the flat earth theory comes from the jews who will do anything they can to get white people to not believe in the Holy Bible as truth.
Don’t ask me to explain this theory in more detail, as Mr. Goebbels didn’t even explain it himself.
The flat earthers, meanwhile, suggest that Jews are hiding the reality of the flat earth behind a mountain of Jew lies.
SouthernFascist suggested that
They lie about the holocaust, they lie about the bible, they lie about every single war, they constantly change history, the pretend to be part of the European diaspora, they lie about the control their banks have, they shovel race mixing propaganda down our throats, so if any of this flat earth stiff has any merit at all, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the jews were lying about that too.
[W]hitemanshame was a bit more definite on this point:
Globe theory hatched from the Jews.
Do your research.
Jews, Jesuits and freemasons pushed the globe fantasy.
Anglin, annoyed both by the flat earthers and by those anti-flat-earthers who didn’t realize the flat earth video he posted had been a joke, added a big disclaimer at the top of the posts — and closed the comments.
In a followup post, he made clear to his readers that not only isn’t he a flat earther; he doesn’t even want people talking about the subject on his website.
I do not believe the earth is flat, nor is it something I want to promote to people.
If you do believe the earth is flat, that is your own business, but I don’t want that on my website.
Again, it was a mistake to post the video, as I am aware that there is an army of people on the internet who push this idea.
I don’t even want to make this post, because I don’t want these people sending me fifty trillion emails, but I want to be clear that I didn’t make that post to endorse flat earth theories. …
Seriously though, this type of thing is just… I mean, use some common sense, guys.
I understand you’re not scientists, and I understand you’ve been lied to a lot so you’re willing to question anything, but just look: 100% of scientists would either be lying about this or be in on the conspiracy, while 100% of pilots and shipmen would have to be in on the conspiracy, along with all of the governments of the world, the militaries, television, telecommunications and any other company that uses satellites and on and on and on would have to be in on this conspiracy to lie to you about the shape of the earth.
He’s right, of course. It just seems like a slightly ironic argument for someone who is a Holocaust denier to make.
@Alan Robertshaw
Cusses, an unassailable argument! Also, those are some keen eyes on those Brontos.
I’m guessing “relatively recently” has a bit of wiggle room. Didn’t it feature in the Doctor Who serial “The War Machines” ?
@Moggie: Thank you; I laughed out loud, an excellent start to the day.
@IP: re “pole hole” – I second @PoM
@ falconer
“Send for Doctor Who” (see, it is his name)
But yeah, despite the fact it’s a pretty conspicuous thing, and even had a public restaurant, it didn’t appear on maps until the late 80s. That’s because it’s part of the ‘Backbone’ network which was a Cold War emergency communications system; and we didn’t want those pesky reds knowing where all the masts were.
Although in fairness, they’re not exactly hard to spot.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4448467.jpg
Shipmen is definitely not a common word in North America.
One of the people promoting hollow Earth theories in the ’70s was Canada based Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. He claimed UFOs were actually Nazi supercraft operating from the hole at the pole. He even tried to fund an expedition to meet the Nazi saucermen, the promo material having a picture of a 747 with a swastika on the tail.
Mention of Ernst Zundel is my cue to recommend the Errol Morris documentary Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., about an engineer who fell for Zundel. It’s amazingly good.
My eyes tell me that nothing exists except for what is in my current field of vision, a world which constantly shifts and reforms and melts away to nothingness I change my vantage point. Object permenancy is a lying Jewish conspiracy.
@Viscaria
Babies! They alone don’t fall for the lies. Too young to be indoctrinated by the juice…
I’m reminded of Rugrats’ child psychologist, Dr Lipschitz. I dunno, just sprang to mind 🙂
Ah, Rugrats! Did I ever love the Rugrats. I looked Dr. Lipschitz up, though, and I don’t remember him, for whatever reason. Maybe I’m just getting forgetful in my elderliness.
@Dalillama-
Thank you. I love and enjoy everything else about my partner- but this may well be a deal breaker in the future. I had no idea he was into conspiracies and woo to such an extent until about 9 months into the relationship. I thought he only found it amusing. I’ve spoken with him and told him that I respect him, but he is not to introduce this to my son or interfere in his vaccine schedule. I’m prepared (as well as I can be) to take appropriate actions if this gets beyond my limits.
@ EJ (Too)-
I’m not sure if you’ll see this, but I asked him about the moonlight. He said that if it was reflected light it should retain the sun’s heat. He has yet to prove to me (or even himself) that it is colder than shadow. He says his biggest hang-up is that he can see a crescent moon sharing the sky with the sun, so the phases cannot be the Earth’s shadow. :/
ETA- This, he said is the main reason he thinks Flat-Earthers are onto the truth. And the moon is its own source of light…
@tim
Perhaps, then, it is not a word at all.
@Axe, Viscaria:
I never saw Rugrats as a kid, which is a shame because from what I’ve heard it’s excellent. Is it worth watching as an adult?
@Empires of Azure:
I’ll preempt this by saying that in my experience, people usually believe in woo for deeper reasons than the ones they give, and so it’s difficult to persuade them through simple teaching.
However, if he would like to learn the science behind it, I’ll try to explain below for you (or him if he wants to read it.) Apologies if this is oversimplified: I’m really bad at knowing which level to pitch these things at.
When he says the phases of the moon are not the Earth’s shadow then he’s absolutely right. They are the Moon’s shadow. The best way to see this is via experiment.
You will need:
a billion-dollar observatorya dark room, a desk lamp and an opaque sphere (a sportsball will work well, especially a dark-coloured one.)Go into the dark room, turn on the lamp, and hold up the sportsball. You’ll notice that one part of it is light, and one part of it is dark. Imagine that you could only see the light part; this is why a dark-coloured one is best.
By moving the sportsball around while keeping your head and the lamp still, you can see its “phase” change. You should be able to reproduce all the familiar phases of the Moon.
If you turn your chair enough (a revolving chair is awesome for this) you’ll be unable to see the lamp. It’s now “night”, because the “sun” is no longer in the sky. If you move back so you can clearly see the lamp, it’s “day” again. If you move so that it’s at the edge of your vision, then you’re in “dawn” or “dusk.”
Can you create a crescent sportsball during the “day”?
If you’re enjoying this, try to create a “solar eclipse” and “lunar eclipse.” Can you see why solar eclipses only happen during new moons, and why lunar eclipses only happen during full moons?
What I love about those ’90s Nicktoons is the stuff they snuck in for the adults. As a kid, I saw Dr Lipschitz was just another goofy moron in a show full of goofy morons, but as an adult, I now realise he was a snake-oil salesman literally named Mouth Diarrhoea and that’s fucking inspired.
25-30 years ago, someone whose name I’ve forgotten babbled at me for a good few minutes on why the cannibalistic religious fanatic group in Iain Banks’ Consider Phlebas was unnecessary and otherwise over the top (“No one could think that way if they could see interstellar flights taking off daily, and they live on a constructed ring world”, etc, etc). Personally, I thought Banks had flat-earth types pegged perfectly.
What’s worse, because they’re not so immediately obvious as wack-a-doodles, are modern GEOCENTRISTS. Mostly these are uber-conservative Catholics who assert that it all went wrong with Galileo. The Church was right, and the Earth is at the center of everything. Any idiot can look out the window and see that nothing is moving, right?
Flat earth may or may not be trolling. Geocentrists are serious. Leading spokesperson for this movement is Robert Sungenis.
I actually agree with him. It all went wrong with Galileo. Specifically, it’s where the Catholic Church went wrong. They could have stood up for intellectual honesty, instead they retreated into an ever more futile defense of absolute authority, resorting to ever more sophistic and dishonest reasoning.
Flat earth guys: get some airline schedules. Draw a scale map, say one inch per hour of flying time. Include some of the really long 8h+ flights. Produce a consistent map. What could be simpler?
Oh, and Newton’s Third Law does NOT require some medium to push against.
Makes sense; anyone dumb & self-important enough to buy “HILTER WUZ TEH GUD GUY” is primed for believing all sorts of equally nonsensical garbage.
See also conservatism’s ties to evangelical religion, for exactly the same reason.
cooler at night in moonlight than in shade… but i don’t understand how they explain the existence of night at all. do they believe the sun revolves under and over the earth?