Just How Big Would the Conspiracy to Hide a Flat Earth Have to Be?
Is there a giant conspiracy to hide a flat earth from the world! Flat earthers believe there is. In fact, their belief system hinges on their being this huge conspiracy because is the only way they can maintain this bizarre belief system that has no map, no model, and flies in the face of 1000 years of scientific inquiry on the subject. This conspiracy is not new, but has been going on since before even Galileo! They believe that the earth is enclosed by a giant dome, that the sun, moon, stars, and sun are simply embedded into the top of a dome that rotates around us, but that the earth is flat and stationary.
Image source: Pixabay
So, in order to hide this reality from us, the conspiracy has had to be extremely detailed and in-depth so that no one would figure the shape of the earth out on their own. I wanted to see how big would this conspiracy have to BE in order to maintain this illusion for over 500 years now, so I started compiling a list of those who would have to be involved, and man, is it huge! I'm sure the list below is only the tip of the iceberg and that I've missed quite a few categories of people who must be involved in this conspiracy, but here is the list in progress.
- Every government of the world and many of their agencies
- All space agencies (List of Space Agencies)
- The UN
- Quantus airlines
- Most other airlines, particularly those who fly in the Southern Hemisphere
- Shipping companies
- Cruise ship companies
- Ship's captains
- Every scientist around the world in the 500 years all the way back to Galileo
- The committee that officiates the circumnavigation of Antarctica by ship
- The committee that officiates the North-South airplane circumnavigation of the world
The image below shows that there are approximately 600,000 studies mentioning the curvature of the earth. According to flat earthers, every one of these was faked, or the scientists were lying.
Image credit: Google Scholar
- Every planetarium in the world (see List of Planetariums Here)
- Every astronomer
- Every astrophysicist
- Gyroscope manufacturers
- All the companies who use gyroscopes in their products (in the tens of thousands)
- Coriolis flow meter manufacturers
- All geodetic surveyors
- All theodolite manufacturers
- Creators of theodolite apps
As you can see below, this app called Mobile Topographer measure the altitude above the ellipsoid, which is a rough measurement of the outline of the spheroidal earth we live on. It also shows the position of satellites to get an accurate GPS measurement.
Image Credit: Mobile Topographer App
- All globe manufacturers
- The many flight tracking sites on the internet
- The FAA
- All GPS manufacturers
- All satellite manufacturers
- All satellite dish cable companies
Image Credit: Pixabay
According to flat earthers, these satellite dishes are pointed up at the sky just to maintain the illusion we are on a round earth. They believe you can actually just point these satellite dishes anywhere and you'll receive the ground-based signals just fine.
- Just about everyone on the internet who takes the time to explain an error to a flat earther (they are all paid shills)
- Anyone who has been to Antarctica
- The people who installed all the live stream cameras in Antarctica
- The sailors who have circumnavigated Antarctica'
- Any HAM radio operator who claims to have bounced a signal off the ionoshere to get around the curvature of the earth
- The HAM radio operators who claim to have bounced radio signals off the moon to measure it's distance from the earth
- Meteorologists
- Doppler radar manufacturers
- Manufacturers and users of equatorial mount telescopes
- Anyone who has done a time lapse photo or video of the moon or sun that showed it staying the same size
- Everyone with a YouTube Channel or blog that debunks flat earth
- Most media outlets
- Long distance shooters and snipers
- Satellite phone, movie, and internet providers
Oh, we need to include ME too. I've been called a government shill hundreds of times too! It just seems to me that if your belief system hinges on a conspiracy this large and that everyone who disagrees with you is a paid shill, well, you should probably reevaluate your belief system. The Occam's Razor answer for the shape of the earth, it is not.
Feel free to comment if you think of any category of people that would have to be in on the conspiracy.
What a list! It's all very simple. The Earth is not flat. Unfortunately in amongst all that evidence, and science, and explanation, and hundreds of years of exploration there still exists the foulable human. All it takes is one superstar with too much money and too little intelligence to thwart all that with one tweet. In steps the celebrity bias (ingroup) and wham every follower is nodding their head in agreement.. it must be so. It's mind boggling at the same time such an interesting study in bias.
I applaud you on your mission and will gladly help out where I can.
Thanks. following. And I try to 'reward' anyone willing to help me debate these folks by upvoting comments. So, come on over! I'm sure their will be plenty of entertainment.
It seems that flat earthers suffer from an inability to comprehend large numbers. Heck they even suffer from an inability to comprehend the possibility of large numbers.
They can't perceive that the globe of the earth can be so large, that they may not be able to see the curve from their bedroom window.
The other huge hole I see in their arguments is the physical existence of the Earth. There are numerous models which explain how the earth, solar system, galaxy and universe came into being. Why they form into disks, then into planets and so on.
The flat earthers have no such models or theories to explain a flat plane surrounded by an ice wall. They resort to 'we don't know because of the conspiracy' or point you to the Bible.
What, is that all? Yeah, it's totally a flat earth. ;)
Joking aside, what I find hard to wrap my head around is that such a group is actually not only still around, but also growing in number! I've read all your posts and laugh every time, but it's almost an anxiety-fueled laughter. Are any of these people in positions where they can make major political decisions? Hopefully not, or at least hopefully not reelected...
Scary.
Fortunately, I don't think that there are any in the political circles, however in pop culture and sports there are: Rapper Bobby Ray Simmons Jr. (aka B.o.b.) recently announced a GoFundMe campaign called "Show BoB The Curve" which sadly has 5k so far. Shaquille O'Neal, Kyrie Irving... The list goes on... All influencers in their own circles.
I'm just going to weigh in on this once and I applaud your article @kerriknox. I know the odd luddite who would call us ballers ! I have a couple of things to add.
The Ancient Greeks
Thousand of years ago they worked out that the Earth was a spheroid based on calculations of the length of shadows at different latitudes with readings taken at the same time of day. Using mathematics they averaged out a curvature which gave the answer, it's round.
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT
The Flat Earth Hoax Theory was and is designed by very clever people as an ontological experiment to explore how far people's credulity can be stretched, how far can a conspiracy theory be twisted to create a sense of confusion. It's a sick joke on the people and it's core irony is that it brought back from the dead an idea hundreds of years old and defunct. (thousands if you count the anecdote above) The idea was solely to test the boundaries of incredulity and pour scorn on the kind of people who routinely don't believe the diet of lies they are fed on a daily basis. It was a get back in the box trick. If you seek the truth and you fell for this, they got you, they won this round, you no longer count. you took the sucker punch. Better luck next time.
There are plenty of really dark things going on on this beautiful ball of rock. hurtling through space. Many things which were considered conspiracies later turned out to have a large element of truth in them. It's human nature to control and in this respect there are many conspiracies hiding partial truths and others masking deceit in the most wicked and corruptible ways.
take your pick.
###The obvious ones
are well known and very mysterious. Does anyone really know who killed JFK and why? Aliens and UFO's. The Twin Towers, Out of Place Artefacts.. there are fun ideas and there are nefarious ones. Some conclusions are so difficult to swallow we choose to ignore them, they are well hidden and profited from.
I even saw yesterday an interesting conspiracy
(on steemit) a video clip claiming that the shooting in Vegas was carried out by more than one person. the video purported to show automatic gunfire coming from the 4th floor window of the Mandalay bay. The implication was that it was a false flag attack.. the reasoning, that the anti-gun lobby (someone ?) would deliberately kill and injure 100's of people in an attempt to get bump stocks banned.. it was a country music festival. hey, country music supporters are known to be 2nd amendment supporters right ? the musician who was playing suddenly denounced gun ownership after years of supporting the right to bear arms. it's not a huge stretch of the imagination is it? We are by nature, curious pattern recognisers with a smattering of healthy suspicion and hints of superstition. we are the survivors of history. WE can confabulate incredible from mundane, sometimes we stumble inadvertently into the truth.. Ok so let's just play this one out for the numbers...
A Bump Stock
..turns a semi-automatic weapon into an almost fully automatic assault weapon of military capability. It's interesting that the news report the day before in the Guardian newspaper quoted a witness as saying it seemed like the gunfire was coming from different directions.. to be honest, I don't care if this conspiracy theory is true or not. I'm smart enough to ponder, would it be feasible? yes.. who would have a vested interest ? someone who wanted bump stocks banned. who would that be ? people in authority.. (they have automatic weapons) which gives them a tactical advantage in cases of severe civil unrest. would I agree with their viewpoint ? probably yes. I don't think the public should be allowed to carry automatic assault weapons. I live in the UK, nobody is allowed to carry a gun without a very SPECIAL license.. some police are armed and generally not many people are killed by guns in a population of 60 million.. about 100 per year compared to the USA: 33,612 in 2014
The Earth is Round
GPS satellites aside, the flat earthers will tell you that the moon is projected hologram. what the f*ck is the sun then ? a million watt light bulb. They'll also tell you the milky way is a giant back projection and cassini didn't really explore saturn. I've seen Jupiters's moons with my own eyes and I've photographed deep space. I can tell you, the billions of stars which make up the disc of our galaxy. They are out there. The flat Earth theory is so ridiculous it makes me laugh.. it's designed to make you look stupid and cast a huge shadow of stupidity over those who choose to investigate a plethora of mysteriously off hidden truth. It's dark, very very dark
Thanks for weighing in. I think the big problem is that people have been lied to by the government so much and there are so many conspiracies that they simply can't distinguish between conspiracies any longer and have just capitulated and said that everything the government says is a lie.
They have some good points, and want science to be something that they can see with their own eyes, but then ignore all of the obvious ways we CAN see the earth is not flat with our own eyes and a bit of intelligence.
It really almost seems more like a cult. It's very strange.
my pleasure, as I said. As far I can see, the flat earth phenomena is a joke played on the conspiracy theorists in a cruel blow to speculative inquiry on the nature of truth. Science is a lot of ifs and buts. many theories are best guesses and are suitably replaced when someone comes up with a better explanation for a given mystery
OUR FLATLANDERS
are ironically channeling & misinterpreting the work of Edwin Abbott Abbott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
in Flatland
our protagonist, the sphere, challenges the inhabitants of flatland that they are no more than 2D projections of a 3D world. When the sphere is asked could he not be a 3D projection of an object in the 4th dimension, he is insulted. I think we're nearer the truth of being the sphere here..and flatland was written in 1884
a million watt light bulb. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHah
Good post. What I simply don't get about flat earthers is... if there is a great conspiracy to hide the "truth" that the earth is flat, what would be the benefit? If the Earth really were flat, well... so it's flat. What benefit would there be to trying to cover this up?
So there is a good debate point. When I ask Flat-Earthers this, they usually can't answer it.
I find that arguing against people who hold strong beliefs usually doesn't work. It just makes them withdraw further into their beliefs. So such tactics are worthless and counterproductive. But asking questions about the foundations of their belief often does have some effect, if only to make them think about things and planting the seed of doubt in their mind.
They claim it's to hide God from us. I guess god can't make spheres for some reason that I'm unclear about. Alternatively, other claims are to control us, and to hide the land that is hidden past Antarctica that the elites are mining for profit as our expense... oh, and also to make us feel small and insignificant. Because somehow living on a flat plane under a dome makes us more significant...
Well, c'mon, spheres are difficult to make ;)
I think I would respond to the "they are hiding God from us" by using a similar argument to the one atheist make: If God is indeed God (and yknow, all-knowing) and if God is good, after death we will still be rewarded because we were prevented from knowing him and he knows that; if on the other hand God would punish us for being prevented from knowing him, he is evil and we are all screwed, the people who hid him and the people from whom he was hidden alike.
I understand the appeal of conspiracy theory. We all want to feel special, and the idea that we are privy to some secret knowledge makes us feel special. But the flat-earth thing is just silly.
Hah. I usually take a tactic of something like "Well, you must not have very much faith in your god if you think he couldn't create a spinning ball flying through space, and that in all of his incredible power and mystery that you think his creation must make logical sense to you. Perhaps he's testing your faith, and you are denying his creation."
Lol. They are pretty insane.
i'd be happy on a ball earth if that is what it is.
but something inside me told me there was something wrong... something wasn't right about the path of the sun. i kept watching it. i also found i loved the truman show. but didn't know why it resonated with me.
then, after all my conspiracy research, the one i'd never touched, didn't want to touch, seemed to ridiculous... then i freaked. got ridiculed for talking about it, even asking... just like with you, but in real life.
guess it makes me stronger, better able to stand for what i see regardless of what others around me say. i always take the good from anything.
peace brother, you know i love this world. i'm fighting/loving it to be a better place.
God is all things, there is nothing that is not God.
therefor you are a part of God. you cannot not be, there is nothing else.
the angry God of the bible is a lie. you will not be punished, all punishment comes at your own hand here and now for what you do here and now. when you die you will return to the source, to the all that is.
you don't understand, it isn't a theory, i put it into practice. i trained myself to think different, and now i get different results... things that can't have been mere chance happen in my life all the time. but you wouldn't believe it, you'd just call me lucky. well it wasn't always this way for me.
free will . God gave you free will. God wants you to listen because you want to.
I think you should listen because God's way is joyful, fun, loving, kind, generous, forgiving..
the angry God of the bible doesn't exist, there is only peace and love.
ten commandments is misnamed. i see them now as things i would never do because it would cause injury to myself.
besides, just get your own, there is so much plenty on this bountiful earth... even with all the damage that has been done, but all can be reversed.
that is just one reason.
to hide God from you. make you feel small. instead of being on a small, hand made planet, you would be on a random collection of rocks, you would be an accident of existence, you life, your survival, always in doubt.
in this state you can be controlled.
if you know you are one with God, you are very hard to control.
super religious types frustrate everyone, because you can't argue with people that don't have the authority to decide for themselves what they believe, they defer to the church. best to let them be, free will and all, as long as they don't harm anyone else.
that is what i'm doing. but beyond where you think you are. i'm sure i'll be changing too, given time, i don't claim to know it all, but humbly seek to be better than i was before, always forever.
peace, namaste
You can talk all you want, but you're obviously just a shill paid by the illuminati trying to ridicule the truth!!!!11!!!111one!!!``
What surprises me most is how many people seem to (want to) believe this stuff..
For a minute, I thought you were one of them! They really do say stuff like that! Hah.
Thanks so much for the list! My crazy brother-in-law believes it and so does a recent visitor to our house. It’s crazy! I will probably share this with him, but I can’t see him admitting that he is wrong. Upvoting and following
there are so many lies about what the flat earth people believe. these lies are spread maliciously, to protect the globe earth model. please consider looking into what they believe before you condemn it.
as a flat earth, might i recommend this wonderful video. REWIND IT TO SEE THE BEGINNING
it is so good you will need to rewind it to see the beginning because youtube never starts it from the beginning.
Thought you would enjoy this...
good work