The Final Experiment

[jdog]

I'll advance another hypothesis: profit, whether of money or reputation. In the days before blogs and YouTube and clicks, there was little or no advantage to being anti-science, nor to looking stupid in public, and most of the poorly educated people were aware of their shortcomings and eager to hide them. In the earlier days of widespread public media, it became a "dumb kids" thing, full of pratfalls and practical jokes and lighting one's farts on fire. Now the emphasis is on adults deliberately being as outrageous as possible in order to get attention (and/or power, and/or money), whether politically, socially, or scientifically. We have entered the realm of "LOOK AT ME!", which has a strong resemblance to a perennial adolescence.

Oh, sure. Controversy generates engagement, engagement improves algorithmic visibility, views on YouTube and Tiktok videos and shorts generate money. And in the last couple of years LLMs have made it much easier to generate nutty new material with scripts, images and now video. Plus you can get extra screen time just reacting to someone else's content. With luck, you'll get people subscribing to your Patreon and paying you to generate woo.

 

[John J.]

To be fair, the Fukushima story arose out of a major natural disaster, the tsunami. It struck a chord with people around the world to realize that technology was not sufficient to protect us from serious events like that.

Oh, absolutely. I guess my post demonstrates the shortcomings re. posting links that might not be accessible to most readers.
The radio program discussed the much more recent coverage of a planned release of water from the Fukushima plant.

The residual radioactivity was far below what the WHO thinks is acceptable for drinking water, and experts on the show agreed any risk was minimal (one saying that people who take their children on flights are exposing them to far more radiation).
But scare stories about the water release proliferated, some claiming seafood from Japan was dangerous, some that monsters might result! They were traced back to Chinese state media resources, although attempts had been made to hide their origins. The PRC embassy in London denied any use of misinformation (as PRC official sources always do, same with hacking).

 

[Bonky]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by the current state of Science communication"

Nye's Razor?

 

[FatPhil]

posting links that might not be accessible to most readers.

WFM. However, it didn't really conain any great insights for someone who lives 200km from Russia's border and who has both a Hitler Party and a Putin Party with significant levels of representation in the national government. I need longer waders.

 

[captancourgette]

related, I'm sure we all saw this reported, seems like all the history books I've been reading my who life have been wrong /s
https://newrepublic.com/post/190065/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-hitler-lies

"Hitler was a Communist. He considered himself as a socialist.… The biggest success of our country was to label Adolf Hitler as a conservative or a libertarian," Weidel opined. "He was a Communist socialist guy. Full stop. AfD is the exact opposite. It's a conservative libertarian party. Hitler was not 'on the right.' Hitler played with people's envy against each other. That was a socialist weapon. He was nothing other than an antisemitic socialist."

The world is going wacko

 

[FatPhil]

related, I'm sure we all saw this reported, seems like all the history books I've been reading my who life have been wrong /s
https://newrepublic.com/post/190065/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-hitler-lies

"Hitler was a Communist. He considered himself as a socialist.… The biggest success of our country was to label Adolf Hitler as a conservative or a libertarian," Weidel opined. "He was a Communist socialist guy. Full stop. AfD is the exact opposite. It's a conservative libertarian party. Hitler was not 'on the right.' Hitler played with people's envy against each other. That was a socialist weapon. He was nothing other than an antisemitic socialist."

The world is going wacko

Wrong thread?

But yes, Elon's definitely right, this was a classic left wing move: https://hmd.org.uk/resource/2-may-1933-dissolution-of-german-trade-unions/ - (no quote needed, the URL says it all) that took him all of 3 months.

Maybe he's confusing "Socialism" with "National Socialism"? Quite likely, as he also seems to not realise that "socialism" and "communism" are completely different and incompatible economic systems. They are often mentioned in the same breath simply because someone whose writings have almost no relevance to the modern day insisted that you need to go through the powergrab state in order to reach the untenable sci-fi eutopia state, and whose adherents accidentally keep stopping at the powergrab stage.

 

[Mendel]

The world is going wacko

Populists (like the AfD) lying is business as usual

Musk supporting a party that hates EVs is wacko

 

[Mendel]

As a quick aside, doing a bit of checking yesterday and not recalling the Biblical reference, I searched "does the bible say pi equals 3", and found what I was looking for:
1 Kings 7:23 (KJV) ,

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

This does not explicitly state pi = 3, but nor can it be seen as an accurate description of a round object.
But what surprised me was all the top search returns (using Bing) were for sites claiming that there is no real issue with the dimensions given in 1 Kings 7:23, almost all (on the first page returned) defending Biblical infallibility.

I'm not defending literalism, but Kings is somewhat like a history book, so while some numbers may have been tweaked for mystic significance, it wouldn't be wrong to read it literally.

Now a circle of 30 units circumference has a diameter of 9.55, so if I was writing a history book and not a maths textbook, and aiming to give my readers an impression of its size, I could write it was 30 cubits around and 10 cubits across, and would have rounded the values in a way that no modern mathematician would object to.

The less likely interpretation is

source: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=plot+an+ellipse+with+axes+10+and+9.088

10 across at the widest, 30 around, "round all about" because it is an ellipse. Though it stands to reason that Solomon would've preferred a circle.

 

[Slow Joe]

@Mick West , would it be sensible to invite him on your podcast some time soon. I expect he'll be juggling strong emotions right now, but I think he's probably got an interesting story to tell.

What podcast? I thought "Tales from the Rabbit Hole" was on hiatus.
Does Mick have another podcast that I don't know about?

 

[Slow Joe]

IF that is the case, Flatism and the like become "gateway conspiracies" to more impactful and dangerous modes of thought, such as anti-medicine conspiracy theories or election denialism when you side loses, and the like.

I don't know. Flat Earth seems more like the bottom conspiracy than the gateway. If I had to pick a conspiracy as a potential gateway to more insidious conspiracies, I would say chemtrails or perhaps one of the drinking water conspiracies. Another "entry-level" conspiracy would be TWA 800, because of the supposedly CIA involvement. Oh, and the JFK assassination.

I think that to take Flat Earth seriously, a person has to be already gone to such a high degree that anything, absolutely anything, coming from official or mainstream sources is rejected on the spot.

 

[JMartJr]

Musk supporting a party that hates EVs is wacko

My impression is that Mr. Musk is only tangentially in the EV business -- his wealth comes from keeping stock prices in his companies high, and he has been very successful in this -- share prices for Tesla, his EV company, are completely out of touch with how many cars they sell. My impression is that stock prices there are supported more by interest in Mr. Musk than in how well the company does. And to stay interesting, you have to be in the headlines! There is an old saying that I ported over from show biz into politics, "The only bad publicity is an obituary." A distant cousin of "I don't care what you write about me as long as you spell my name right!" That is not absolutely true, but it is enough truth in it to be worth bearing in mind, for stock billionaires, politicians and Flat Earth profiteers.

 

[NorCal Dave]

My impression is that Mr. Musk is only tangentially in the EV business

I thought this was interesting, but to stay on topic of Flat Earth here, I figured I'd discuss whether JMart should or should not buy Tesla stock , over in our chitchat thread: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-metabunk-community.13387/

 

[jdog]

I don't know. Flat Earth seems more like the bottom conspiracy than the gateway. If I had to pick a conspiracy as a potential gateway to more insidious conspiracies, I would say chemtrails or perhaps one of the drinking water conspiracies. Another "entry-level" conspiracy would be TWA 800, because of the supposedly CIA involvement. Oh, and the JFK assassination.

I think that to take Flat Earth seriously, a person has to be already gone to such a high degree that anything, absolutely anything, coming from official or mainstream sources is rejected on the spot.

Interesting, because TWA 800 and the JFK assassination require relatively "small" conspiracies -- the actual incidents wouldn't require a lot of participants, not much ongoing cover-up.

Whereas when you get to Flat Earth and modern UFO "disclosure" belief you kind of have to embrace an ongoing conspiracy that touches the very structure of modern life -- for the broader denied thing to be real not only does it have to be real, but governments and other institutions across the world can't just be mistaken or ignorant, they must be actively working to conceal reality from the public.

 

[Willie]

Austin returned home a couple of weeks ago and finally went live last night. The backlash from his own flat-earth community was intense, with many accusing him of being a government shill or selling out. The main conspiracy they latched onto was a live-stream he did in Antarctica to prove he was there. When he blew out his breath, creating a condensation cloud to show it was cold, some claimed it was actually vapor from a hidden vape pen, alleging the whole thing was filmed in a studio with a green screen.

Apparently, he had quit vaping a couple of years ago but found an old vape pen in one of his travel bags and used it a few times while down there. He initially lied about it—likely out of embarrassment over a moment of weakness—but for his community, that admission wasn't enough. All of the high-definition video and corroborating evidence, such as an ongoing marathon happening there, still weren't enough to convince them. Here's one of the conspiracy videos "exposing" him:

Source: https://youtu.be/i46K0P-MpAA?feature=shared

It was fascinating to watch Austin debunk the claims for hours, only for his former supporters to double down and continue calling him a liar. It was striking to see him realize in real-time just how unhinged the conspiracism in his community had become. The first 1:20 he relays his trip, then he starts addressing the chats questions


Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/dYvOKwfRF6I?feature=shared&t=4761

@Mick West
I think Austin would make an interesting guest for Down the Rabbit Hole. His willingness to go to Antarctica to test his beliefs showed a level of intellectual integrity that's uncommon in that space, and the fact that he admitted his particular flat earth model was wrong about the 24-hour sun is significant (although he's not a glove earther yet). A discussion with him could be genuinely interesting and might provide insight into how someone begins to reevaluate their worldview. As he mentioned on his stream last night, the blatant disrespect he's faced from prominent globe-earthers like Professor Dave has only strengthened his beliefs in the past due to the lack of respect. That's something you do really well, Mick, and it could make for a productive and meaningful conversation.

*edit: Austin went live today to debate whether he was there or not. Absolutely bonkers all the conspiracies they came up with about footsteps, shadows, snow, CGI etc etc.. Fascinating to seeing Austin forced to debunk so many nonsense claims

Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/NmvtnWD_it8?feature=shared

Austin would be an interesting guest but I don't think he'd do it. Jeran on the other hand, I think he might. As I write this, he is declaring publicly that he's leaving the FE community.

 

[Mendel]

Jeran on the other hand, I think he might. As I write this, he is declaring publicly that he's leaving the FE community.

Do you have a source wherd Jeran himself declares it?

@MonkeeSage had a secondhand source in https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-final-experiment.13849/post-332835 , and it sounded like Jeran was still looking for the truth, but had become convinced the FE community would never find it.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

Reading that transcript, what jeran seems most upset about is that flat earth is only really about attacking the globe now rather than trying to work out how the flat earth works.

Which is correct.

So there's the opportunity for "flat earth is dead, long live flat earth" in there.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Do you have a source wherd Jeran himself declares it?

Jeran says he wrote the telegram post and discusses it starting around 10 minutes into his new live stream show. Around 13 minutes he says he is not a flat earther because he showed himself evidence it can't be true. It's a long stream (almost 6 hours!) and I only caught the first 30 minutes so I am not sure how far he went towards accepting reality, but he was roasting Dean Odle and how religious folks like him have embedded themselves in flat earth, talking about how the AE map cannot work, and basically reiterating points from the telegram post. I plan on listening to the rest later (but not all at once haha).


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4iCnL7U4Po

 

[MonkeeSage]

I put Jeran's video on in the background while I was doing stuff around the house and I ended up listening to a good chunk of it. He's pretty far towards accepting the globe. He spends quite a while debunking various FE claims about how TFE was allegedly faked, and showing how a 24 hour Antarctic Sun can't work on FE, and defending how it works on the globe using an actual 3d model.

At 3:48:40 he says

...it's gonna take some working on. I'm not a glober yet because I still have questions, I still don't have all the answers. However, the globe matches what I saw as far as the sky. So if I'm wrong, I want somebody to just show me where I'm wrong about the sky, and the globe not matching the sky. Now I've also heard people say "they built the map, or they build the globe, based on the sky." Ok, well if it's that easy then let's build a map of the flat earth based on the sky. The problem is you won't be able to...that's the problem.

He still thinks the Moon landings were faked and NASA spends too much money does shady / fake stuff but he says those are also things he will need to reconsider now that he has seen something was real that he absolutely thought could not be (the 24 hour Antarctic Sun).

Edit: At 4:22:43 he says

Yeah, I'm not going there yet. I don't believe that we're moving through space on a globe. If I'm gonna take the globe as the next thing then with that comes geocentrism, and then I've got to be shown... and I think there's no problem in doing that... people... I think what people what you to do is like "oh I was wrong about this one thing, therefore I believe all of science"...well no. That's not gonna be for me, um I don't want to do that.

I think it's great he's been able to even start on his way out of the rabbit hole, wishing him best of luck to continue on that path.

Edit: At 5:40:08 (at the end of the stream) he says

When it comes down to what I saw, it could only be explained right now on a sphere, and a sphere explains it perfectly. And it also leads me to the conclusion that a South pole exists. [...] It can't be anything else or else the world is a paradox.

 

[jdog]

I put Jeran's video on in the background while I was doing stuff around the house and I ended up listening to a good chunk of it. He's pretty far towards accepting the globe. He spends quite a while debunking various FE claims about how TFE was allegedly faked, and showing how a 24 hour Antarctic Sun can't work on FE, and defending how it works on the globe using an actual 3d model.

At 3:48:40 he says

...it's gonna take some working on. I'm not a glober yet because I still have questions, I still don't have all the answers. However, the globe matches what I saw as far as the sky. So if I'm wrong, I want somebody to just show me where I'm wrong about the sky, and the globe not matching the sky. Now I've also heard people say "they built the map, or they build the globe, based on the sky." Ok, well if it's that easy then let's build a map of the flat earth based on the sky. The problem is you won't be able to...that's the problem.

He still thinks the Moon landings were faked and NASA spends too much money does shady / fake stuff but he says those are also things he will need to reconsider now that he has seen something was real that he absolutely thought could not be (the 24 hour Antarctic Sun).

Edit: At 4:22:43 he says

Yeah, I'm not going there yet. I don't believe that we're moving through space on a globe. If I'm gonna take the globe as the next thing then with that comes geocentrism, and then I've got to be shown... and I think there's no problem in doing that... people... I think what people what you to do is like "oh I was wrong about this one thing, therefore I believe all of science"...well no. That's not gonna be for me, um I don't want to do that.

I think it's great he's been able to even start on his way out of the rabbit hole, wishing him best of luck to continue on that path.

Moon landings were faked, but NASA's budget documents are somehow real?

 

[JMartJr]

Moon landings were faked, but NASA's budget documents are somehow real?

If you wanna say a major government expense was faked in those years, to skim money being the usual reason I hear cited for Apollo as a particular thing, it would make more sense to believe the Vietnam War was faked -- a LOT more money was spent on the war than on the moon landings. And continuing NASA as a fake money laundering scheme makes even less sense now, when the percentage of the budget going to space is so much smaller -- if you wanna steal money, there are much bigger pies to take a slice out of!

Citations:

The Vietnam War cost $168 billion, or $1 trillion in today's dollars.19 That included $111 billion in military operations and $28.5 billion in aid to South Vietnam.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/vietnam-war-facts-definition-costs-and-timeline-4154921

From 1960 to 1973, the US federal government invested $25.8 billion into Project Apollo, which is about $318 billion in 2023 dollars.

https://taxfoundation.org/blog/apollo-moon-space-race-industrial-policy-cost/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg

 

[NorCal Dave]

Moon landings were faked, but NASA's budget documents are somehow real?

1 bit of evidence and 1 conspiracy at a time.

IF Jaren is being confronted with evidence, that he appears to be accepting, that a 24 sun IS possible in Antartica, it's a step in the right direction. He's seen that 2 often cited bits of the evidence for FE, are wrong. The Antarctic ice wall is NOT defended by military personal, regular people can go there budget permitting, and a 24 sun IS viewable. He's even considering that a globe Earth model correctly predicts what he saw. Whitsit is having to deal with this too.

I can't speak to Jaren's beliefs or motives, but even this small admission, which appears to just be a truthful account of what he saw, has cost him standing in his community and likely will cost him followers on social media ($$). Now it could be he's just a savvy content creator that used a free trip to Antartica to provide him with the evidence he needs to move on from FE, a worn-out CT that has run its course. He can now get into Geocentricism, fake moon landing, NASA coverups and so on to keep some of his followers and replace some FEers that drop off.

Hopefully we're seeing a real person coming to grips with real evidence that may lead him out of the rabbit hole. But it seems the real driving force behind non-religious FEers, is a complete and total distrust of authority. Or at least a persona that plays that up to likeminded people on social media. We'll just have to be bystanders and watch what happens.

 

[JMartJr]

But it seems the real driving force behind non-religious FEers, is a complete and total distrust of authority.

That has always stuck in my craw. "Hi, I'm an independent thinker, I don't just believe everything 'Authority' tells me. I do believe everything some strangers on YouTube tell me, of course -- that's 'Doing my own research.'" Makes my head explode...

I know it is silly on my part to expect people whose world view is anti-rational to behave rationally about it. But still, I can't wrap my head around it.

Still, as you say, even one person taking even one step back out of the rabbit hole of conspiricism is a Good Thing. Yay for that.

 

[NorCal Dave]

That has always stuck in my craw. "Hi, I'm an independent thinker, I don't just believe everything 'Authority' tells me. I do believe everything some strangers on YouTube tell me, of course -- that's 'Doing my own research.'" Makes my head explode...

I know it is silly on my part to expect people whose world view is anti-rational to behave rationally about it. But still, I can't wrap my head around it.

Still, as you say, even one person taking even one step back out of the rabbit hole of conspiricism is a Good Thing. Yay for that.

I meant to link this video the other day but got sidetracked. It's 3 FEers, along with 1 astrophysicist and 3 guys from CSI that talk amongst themselves and with each other in a mostly polite way. 1 FEer is a Biblical literalist, the lady FEer is a mix of Bibel and CT and the 3rd FEer is a complete CT guy. He's convinced anything learned in science is a lie, but weekend scientifical content creators on YouTube are telling the truth. It seems to be more of a feeling of being left behind and being disenfranchised. It's fascinating:


Source: https://youtu.be/Q7yvvq-9ytE?si=Gw9-dYBw8EFzn0yI

 

[AmberRobot]

I'm curious to watch that video but I hope they got an astrophysicist who is familiar with flat earth and its claims. If one is unfamiliar it could be difficult to debunk on the fly. I once saw part of a video in which two professional flat earthers took on some physics grad students. the students did not do well and i was bothered when they "conceded" that Newton was "wrong". sigh…

 

[JMartJr]

I meant to link this video the other day but got sidetracked. ... It's fascinating:

If we had a "thank you" emoji, I'd have used it!

 

[AmberRobot]

I meant to link this video the other day but got sidetracked. It's 3 FEers, along with 1 astrophysicist and 3 guys from CSI that talk amongst themselves and with each other in a mostly polite way. 1 FEer is a Biblical literalist, the lady FEer is a mix of Bibel and CT and the 3rd FEer is a complete CT guy. He's convinced anything learned in science is a lie, but weekend scientifical content creators on YouTube are telling the truth. It seems to be more of a feeling of being left behind and being disenfranchised. It's fascinating:


Source: https://youtu.be/Q7yvvq-9ytE?si=Gw9-dYBw8EFzn0yI

I skipped past the Bible stuff in the beginning but as curious as I am on how the scientists would handle themselves I couldn't bear to watch more than a couple of minutes of this.

 

[NorCal Dave]

I skipped past the Bible stuff in the beginning but as curious as I am on how the scientists would handle themselves I couldn't bear to watch more than a couple of minutes of this.

My bad, I should have prefaced that it's not a "great" video, just interesting to hear the logic(?) of the FEers. They do mostly just all talk pass each other, as expected. The science guys end up trying to explain "science" which, the FEers already think they understand, they've seen it on YouTube, but as nobody can really offer any evidence, it kinda goes nowhere.

I guess I saw it as a bit of a window into the "why" of FE, especially from non-content creators or FE celebrities. These 3, as far as I can tell, aren't part of the FE media scene. If anything, they're the consumers of it. I'd imagine on any giving day, most people don't think about the shape of the earth, but for these 3, it seems a defineing piece of who they are. Why? What's the point of Flat Earth?

 

[jdog]

the point of Flat Earth?

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

One thing I'm trying to get my head around is how, on the one hand (faking stuff) we (humans) are capable of anything, but on the other hand (working things out) we aren't capable of anything.

There's an acknowledgement of expertise for certain things, but not for others.

But how also you'd probably find that the expert for what has been acknowledged would say they aren't capable of the fakery to the degree that's required.

 

[Alytha]

Like there's the dichotomy between a government being clearly incredibly incompetent, but simultaneously managing to keep intricate conspiracies involving thousand of people going for decades...

 

[MonkeeSage]

Robbie Davidson is no longer a flat earther because of TFE. He posted this on February 24th. That is amazing given how entrenched he was. Awesome news.

I've spent a decade of my life organizing four Flat Earth International Conferences, a book, and a YouTube channel with over 150k subscribers—but the evidence from "The Final Experiment" team in Antarctica has shifted my view. I didn't go to Antarctica, but I've dug into their observations, a mix of Flat Earthers and globe supporters, and I'm choosing to trust what they documented over wild ideas like they observed a plasma ball or some cosmic deception in the sky. It points to a globe, and it's really hard to see how any Flat Earth model—especially a biblical enclosed model with a dome-like firmament, sun, moon, and stars all spinning around Polaris—can fit these 10 points:

24-Hour Sun: The team recorded the sun circling the sky for 24 hours in Antarctica, upside down and moving counterclockwise—opposite to what we see up north. I believe it's the real sun, not a trick. On a Flat Earth, you'd expect a clockwise path or a sun that sets, so this is a tough one to square.

24-Hour Moon: The moon is visible for 24 hours, upside down and counterclockwise too compared to the north. Flat Earth voices have argued there's no 24-hour moon down there, but the reality says otherwise. A flat map struggles to explain that motion.

South Celestial Pole: The team filmed stars rotating clockwise around a southern point in Chile, the opposite of the northern counterclockwise spin around Polaris. Flat Earth voices have doubted this exists, but I trust what the team caught on camera. A single northern hub can't account for two poles.

Sunrise & Sunset Direction: South of the Tropic of Capricorn, they documented the sun rising in the southeast and setting in the southwest. I believe that's the sun's true path, not a fluke. A Flat Earth model has a hard time bending sunlight to match that, unlike a globe's tilt.

The South Pole: The team had someone at the South Pole while others were at a nearby camp. Flat Earthers claim it's not real, but I'm going with the team's account. A Flat Earth doesn't have room for one southern point; it's all edges.

Distance Between Meridians: They measured longitude lines in Chile and Antarctica, showing them closer together south of the equator. I trust their numbers. On a Flat Earth, those lines would widen outward, not shrink—making this a real puzzle for that view.

Southern Hemisphere Flights: The team confirmed nonstop flights, like Chile to Australia, exist—Many have said they don't, but the evidence disagrees. Flights from New Zealand, South Africa, and South America reach the South Pole in similar times. I believe they're real. A Flat Earth can't collapse those distances so neatly.

Crossing Antarctica: They learned from staff that people have crossed Antarctica, showing it's a continent, not a wall. I'm taking the staff's word over doubts from the community. A Flat Earth's endless ice barrier or shoreline doesn't align with that kind of journey.

Weight Variation: The team found things weigh differently in Antarctica due to gravity shifts, as predicted. I'm convinced it's legit physics, not a ruse. A Flat Earth doesn't vary weight like that—a globe's shape does.

Shadow Measurements: They filmed 360-degree shadows from the 24-hour sun. I believe it's the sun casting them, not some illusion. Flat Earth shadows wouldn't circle like that—they'd stretch or vanish under a dome.

These 10 points make it incredibly tough to hold onto a flat earth, especially the literal biblical model with a dome where everything orbits Polaris. How do you fit a southern pole, a counterclockwise sun and moon, shrinking meridians, or flights to one spot from sprawling continents? I'm not saying it's foolish to try—just that the evidence from Antarctica leans hard toward a globe, and reconciling it with a flat model feels like chasing a mirage at this point.

Once these experiments wrapped up, the majority of the Flat Earth community spun some of the wildest explanations to dodge the results. Some claimed the team never even went to Antarctica, others insisted they did but filmed it all in a CGI studio, and a slew of absurd—even borderline insane—conspiracy theories popped up to reject the reality of their boots-on-the-ground evidence. Some even went so far as to be convinced that it was Satan himself going around the TFE team as a deception rather than just admit it was literally the actual sun they observed on the continent! Many Flat Earthers now shrug and say it doesn't matter, even though a core pillar of our belief—I was there from the start—was that a 24-hour sun in Antarctica couldn't exist. We dismissed it as impossible, but the team proved it's real. It's time for a lot of Flat Earthers to face the world as it is, not as we imagined it.

I'm now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was wrong about my worldview and cosmology. The evidence from "The Final Experiment" team in Antarctica has settled it for me, and I feel total peace with this shift. I'm excited for the next 10 years, free from that debate, knowing I've wrestled with every Flat Earth argument, every talking point, and even the hyper-literal biblical lens I once held—where a dome and circling stars fit so neatly up north. I'm no longer a hyper-literalist when it comes to the Bible and creation; the south, with its 24-hour sun and all the points above, unravels that view completely. We can agree to disagree on scripture's approach—much works literally in the north, but it falls apart down south when you see what the sun truly does. People deserve to know why I've left Flat Earth behind, and I've laid it out above in those 10 points.

I wish everyone the best in their own search for truth.
John 14:6

Source: https://www.facebook.com/robbie.davidson/posts/pfbid02S7WQjCWPKb7cMsYSyTDR6SQKyaTKN3NfD8Er4L4psB4d6mT7w2Y1k8j2T497ofUQl

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Quoting Jeran... "Interesting."

 

[Hevach]

I looked at the comments. I regret looking at the comments. Never read the bottom half of the internet.

It is of course lovely to see even a few pillars of flat earth throwing in the towel. I didn't expect it of any except maybe those who actually took part and even those I harbored deep doubts. I hoped, however, TFE might deplete their community somewhat.

The opposite of my expectations seems to be the case, however. The community seems to be even more solidified.

 

[MonkeeSage]

It is of course lovely to see even a few pillars of flat earth throwing in the towel. I didn't expect it of any except maybe those who actually took part and even those I harbored deep doubts. I hoped, however, TFE might deplete their community somewhat.

The opposite of my expectations seems to be the case, however. The community seems to be even more solidified.

Yeah, kind of a mixed bag. I have seen a lot of FE folks just dig in their heels further and go all in on the nonsense about a fake Sun projected by lasers and such. One upside is I have seen a couple FE influencers on twitter complaining about how their engagement numbers have been stagnant or declining for the past few months. They of course claim it's due to censorship but I like to think maybe TFE is having a bit of a preventative effect even if its not so much a cure for the current believers.

 

[Ann K]

Robbie Davidson is no longer a flat earther because of TFE. He posted this on February 24th. That is amazing given how entrenched he was. Awesome news.

He appears to be an honest man, and sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the evidence.

It is of course lovely to see even a few pillars of flat earth throwing in the towel. I didn't expect it of any except maybe those who actually took part and even those I harbored deep doubts. I hoped, however, TFE might deplete their community somewhat.

The opposite of my expectations seems to be the case, however. The community seems to be even more solidified.

Those who remain entrenched in their FE beliefs fall into three categories, I believe.
1. Those who are unwilling to look at debunking evidence. (True believers)
2. Those who are unable to understand that evidence. ("Science is hard")
3. Those who make a living and/or like the feeling of belonging to a group, and who therefore simply don't care what the evidence shows. (Not real believers)

We need more Robbie Davidsons.

 

[MonkeeSage]

No we don't.

He's calling the people he's influenced for 10 years part of a cult. A cult he helped make.

Once a horrible person, always a horrible person. Believing in the globe doesn't make you a nice/good person.

If it takes you 10 years to realise we live on a globe, you're still an idiot.

I understand the sentiment. I don't absolve him for the damage he's done just because he finally woke up. But what is he supposed to do. He messed up for a long time and hurt other people, then you realized it, what else can you do but admit it. He might get to the point of helping other FEs get out of the rabbit hole. I think you are too pessimistic

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

what else can you do but admit it

Be humble.

Not something I imagine comes easily to influencers. And I'm not just referring to the flat earther side of the fence.

 

[Ann K]

No we don't.

He's calling the people he's influenced for 10 years part of a cult. A cult he helped make.

Once a horrible person, always a horrible person. Believing in the globe doesn't make you a nice/good person.

If it takes you 10 years to realise we live on a globe, you're still an idiot.

There are millions of people who have been misled in countless ways by the influence of others. If we don't intend to change the minds of any of them by presenting solid evidence, then what are we doing here?

 

[Scaramanga]

If we don't intend to change the minds of any of them by presenting solid evidence, then what are we doing here?

Sam Harris puts it perfectly. Fact is, a significant number of people are beyond being swayed by evidence or logic. I really don't think everyone can be rescued. But one has to carry on speaking the truth regardless.