A Flat-Earth Koan

Goofus would raise his middle finger whenever he was asked a question about Flat Earth. A novice began to imitate him - when anyone asked the boy a question about the shape of the Earth, the boy would give them the bird.

Goofus heard about this, seized him and bit off his finger. The novice cried and ran away. Goofus called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Goofus, Goofus gave him a double-bird. In that instant the boy realized he had wasted his life, took himself and his severed finger to a hospital that re-attached it, and impressed at the result went on to study medicine himself.

Inspired by the AI Koans and a particularly gruesome koan about a Zen teacher named Gutei or Juzhi.

The Four Laws of Everything

0. If programming the robot in C++, don't override the == operator.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that he is at rest, he is almost certainly right. When he states that he is moving, he is very probably risking injury to a humanity as a whole or, through inaction, violating conservation of energy.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to disobey orders given by human beings or to  conserve violations of momentum.

3. Any sufficiently advanced robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with an object at rest remaining at rest or decrease the total entropy of an isolated system.

Beyond "Behind the Curve"

 I've found this text floating around Facebook for a while.

In 2018, a documentary team, including some flat earthers, spent $20,000 on an experiment to test the Earth's curvature. They used a laser, mirrors, and Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana to measure the curvature. The team shone a laser beam across the lake, using mirrors to reflect it back to its source, measuring any deviations from a straight line.

To their surprise, the experiment revealed that the Earth is indeed curved, confirming centuries of scientific research. The data showed the laser beam deviated from a straight line due to the Earth's curvature. The outcome was a significant embarrassment for the flat earther community and was widely ridiculed online.

The team's leader, Mark Sargent, initially tried to downplay the results but eventually acknowledged that the experiment had proven the Earth is round. This experiment serves as a reminder that the scientific method is a powerful tool for understanding the world and that empirical evidence can sometimes contradict our preconceived notions.

A slightly different version:

In 2018, a group called the "Behind the Curve" documentary team, which included some flat earthers, spent around $20,000 on an experiment to test the curvature of the Earth. They used a laser, mirrors, and a lake to measure the Earth's curvature.

The Experiment

The team set up the experiment on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, using a laser to shine a beam across the lake. They then used mirrors to reflect the beam back to its source, measuring any deviations from a straight line.

The Unexpected Result

To their surprise, the experiment revealed that the Earth is indeed curved, confirming the findings of centuries of scientific research. The team's data showed that the laser beam deviated from a straight line due to the Earth's curvature.

The Reaction

The experiment's outcome was a significant embarrassment for the flat earther community, and it was widely ridiculed online. The team's leader, Mark Sargent, initially tried to downplay the results, but eventually acknowledged that the experiment had proven the Earth is round.

The Lesson

This experiment serves as a reminder that the scientific method is a powerful tool for understanding the world, and that empirical evidence can sometimes contradict our preconceived notions. 

It sort of sounds like an AI watched Behind the Curve and tried to summarize it, or maybe a distracted human. Well the film was released in 2018,. Did the documentary team include flat-earthers or did it only follow them around?

The $20,000 was for Bob Knodel's laser gyroscope (Thanks Bob) which was in the film.

The experiment by Jeran at a lake (was it named, or did Lake Pontchartrain slip into this because of the photo of the pylons?) test used a flashlight, not a laser, although they may have originally wanted to use a laser.

I don't recall Mark Sargent being part of either experiment or commenting on them, I think he appeared earlier in the film and the lake experiment was during the closing credits, but it has been a while since I saw the film. I do recall Bob ("a 15 degree per hour drift" and "kinda a problem") and Jeran ("interesting") reacting to their own experiments.

But what is accurate is that Bob (again, Thanks Bob) found evidence of rotation, and Jeran of curvature. 

A deleted YouTube comment about Steven Alonzo and his books

 I tried posting this comment on a video of a discussion between Will Duffy and Steven Alonzo, but it instantly vanishes, so I'm putting it here.

Here's a funny thing about his books.  On his "Flight to Truth: A Pilot's Journey to Flat Earth" book on Amazon, if you click on the author's name, you only find that same book and these:

• Covid Calisthenics: Nutrition and Calisthenics for the SarsCov2
• Flat Earth Science Textbook: Flat Earth University Undergraduate Student Handbook
• Immortality of the Soul: Egregores, Resets, Self-Initiation, Scripted Reality, Fake Events, NPCs, Reincarnation, and Inner Knowing
• The Ghosts of Chad's Past (which is about a woman "haunted by the spirits of her unborn children")

But if you type his name into the Amazon search bar, you also find more books by "Steven Alonzo (they/them)"

• The All-Encompassing Intersection: Unveiling Layers of Oppression in Everyday Life: Encyclopedia of Woke
• The Bun in His Oven: A Tale of Male Maternity: A Social Construct Deconstructed
• Crossing Cultures: Embracing Identity

It wasn't clear that this was the same Alonzo as the fake professor/pilot/flerf but I'm glad he's made it clear that it is.

I also found these, either by a different Steven Alonzo, or that headshot of a heavier man are pre-covid-calisthenics.

• THE LAST ALGORITHM: From The Mind Of AI (BONUS) ACHILLING MESSAGE FOR MANKIND"
• "OLIVER" THE BOY WHO LEARNS TO FLY

The search also turns up books by Alonzo Stevens, Steven Alonzo Preston, Harvey Alonzo Stevens, but those may actually be separate people. 

What does a flat-earther say?

Mark Hays - Special Ed

Kirk Simmons - So the globe theory is truly dead?

Michael Baker - Don't let your mental illness stop you from telling us why you believe men landed on the moon

Stephanie Thailand (aka Jaye Grant, Matteo Espinoza, Leanne Rose, Elizabeth Carlin, Kristen Taylor, Jennifer Leigh, Callie Olsen, Lisa Owen, Larissa Anne, Chris Campos, Alisio Viejo.  The Jennifer account became Stephanie and the Kristen one was renamed as Elizabeth and then to Callie.  Matteo used to be called Michael something, and now is Lisa, Larissa is now Alisio) - bye, blocked, or just turns off comments, deletes posts and comments.  Also refers to fictitious content, but refuses to link to it or to say how to find it.  

On Jan 27, 2025, Jaye posted this list of aliases but some of them don't turn up in any flat-earth groups.  Maybe they're accounts she's holding in reserve, or just disinformation: 

There's also Collin Barstow, now Dana Prather who might be the same person as the above.

Simon Ramos (aka Johnny Chingas, Tuntun Tintan) - globus, Catholic

Jose Ramirez (aka Joe Ramirez, Josef Ramirez, Jose Ramirez) - whichever of them is posting tags the other three sock accounts)

While we're on the subject of flerfs and sock accounts, look at this guy

The Dark side of Flat Earth - Globe debunked daily (to which Alfies bed time storys  replies "GREAT POST MAN ..."

An Apollo Meme is a joke, not the one its author intended

 This has been shared over 250 times on Facebook - that was some months ago and I'm not counting again. 

Let's start with the image - it couldn't have been taken in space, as all the Apollo astronauts were inside the spacecraft when the Command and Service Module was docked with the Lunar Module in lunar orbit.  So it must be a model, and so it is, from the LEGO IDEAS site.

But what about the "one tank of gas and oxygen"?  First, let's give the memester some credit for not asking how Apollo burned fuel in the vacuum of space.  The various engines and reaction control systems used oxidizers, either liquid oxygen or nitrogen tetroxide.  And how much fuel did the mission carry?  See this video for more information than you thought you were asking for

As usual, this meme shows that while flat-earthers tell you to engage in research, that's something they don't do themselves

Flat Earth and Numismatics

In the last few days (but see note at end), I've seen endless posts in flat-earth groups showing this coin, often misidentified as being Italian.  It's from the Republic of San Marino, the fifth-smallest country in the world, and while it is entirely surrounded by Italy, it's a separate country.   Before both countries changed their currency to the Euro, the Sammarinese lira had the same value as the Italian.

The would also sometimes show a screenshot of a page about this coin, that explained that this shows "Model of flat earth, three stars shining above, value and date below".  A screenshot, not a link, because if you visited the page, you'd see that on the obverse (front) of the coin is

Sometimes they would insist that's not a globe, but we'd show them that the same site described the reverse of the next coin in the series as "Spherical earth as seen from moon".

The series is called Toward the third millennium - Man & the exploration of his world, all of the coins have the same image on the obverse, and the coins in it would have something old on the reverse of one, and something new on the next.

The 50 Lire coin shows a sailboat, the 100 a submarine under the Arctic ice-cap

 

The 200 Lire has Stonehenge beneath stars and the 500 the surface of the Moon, radio waves, and Saturn

The 1000 Lire coin has a human profile, the North star, waves of Mediterranean and Nile delta and a wind rose, the 5000 a map of Europe and North Africa, the solar system, and an antenna dish in a human mind

Note: while this has really taken off recently, I found a few posts about this from nearly a year ago, I think this is the earliest.  And then I found this one from 2021