I saw this on the WaPo website and find it hilarious. A guy wants to shoot himself up in a “homemade scrap metal rocket” to prove the earth is flat.

I hope he survives this and they publish an interview with him before his next attempt (to go up high enough in the atmosflat to get photographic evidence of the flatness). I wonder what mental gyrations one must use to, for example, think that going a few thousand feet up in a homemade rocket is somehow different from going up in a Cessna.

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Charlie
Whorfin Woods
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu

I love that he plans to launch himself into the "atmosflat". Gotta give him an A for rigor.


It's gotta be hard on the neck when you're doing your gyrations with your head in the sand.

I dunno. I think there are better causes to apply one's disposable income to - disadvantaged children come to mind - but when conspiracy theories are at stake, there you have it, I suppose. Launch yourself into the sky, if that's what it takes. He won't admit to the results anyway, except to call it a trick of the eye.

I have to confess I haven't read much further than the headlines, because I'm afraid for my peepers lest they fall out from all the rolling they'd do. I am interested in how he plans to negotiate the landing safely, though. First glance tells me he hasn't really figured that part out, yet. How are we supposed to know the Earth's flat if he turns himself into a pancake?

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Surely it's R for "rigo[u]r"?

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"Only connect!"

https://youtu.be/ezbWVysJAOY
https://tapm.bandcamp.com/

Hmm. How do they grade these things in Perfidious Albion, anyway?

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

The "flat earth" schtick is just to draw an audience, and it's working. He's a professional attention-seeker who's done similar stunts before, and no one ever heard of him. This time he announces the flat earth angle and he's getting world wide press and collecting crowd funding cash online. Crazy like a fox.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis

Yeah, could be he never intended to launch all along and has a number of fall-back excuses we'll have to take his word for. Meanwhile the money rolls in. But if he does launch, it's so wacky that I will be paying attention. I wonder how long he'd be aloft in that bucket - two minutes tops, maybe?

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

He's done it before, albeit on a smaller scale, so I don't doubt his sincerity about that much of it. But I think the pr explosion has attracted enough attention that at least one bureaucrat with sign-off authority is going to see it as his public duty to shut the guy down in the name of science.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis

I say give him free rein to be hoist with his own petard. That will be science.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Me too. And his prolly insincere views about the roundness of earth don't have much to do with the safety of his 'rocket'.

You know, "hoist...petard" might be the world's best known f*rt joke. And I love the way our board's auto-censor puts a little cloud in the middle of the word f*rt.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis

A little cloud, then? Creative. Given the asterisk's conformation, a cloud's not the first thing that comes to my mind. And facing me as they are, both are repellent. Let's just not go there; I can't face jokes like that without grimacing in complete earnest.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

You know, the willingness to say ridiculous things with a straight face to an array of breathless willing believers online is one of the few great growth industries left. Why should the president have all the fun? A pox on this BLM apparatchik for blowing the gaffe.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis

In any case, there's not much point in launching a rocket to 1500ft when, as I have been told, there's an accessible mountain nearby.. where you can reach a much higher altitude, with a great view.

He's not trying to prove anything, he's trying to conduct a stunt.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis

I know. But that nearby mountain should be a clue to the media.. but I forgot that of course they don't really care about about the why, as long as there's something to write about.

Yeah. The whole thing is about attention, not about the curvature of the earth. Writing earnest pieces about why the stunt-guy is wrong is accepting his framing for the story, and means he wins. The public he's appealing to already knows he's wrong, and they don't care. They feel oppressed by science, and are willing to support a champion who'll tell smarty-pants scientists "up yours".

The same thing is true of anti-vaxxers, but the difference is that denying your children vaccines can seriously harm them, as well as society as a whole. This guy can harm only himself.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis