7 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

Vanishing point.

Vanishing point as defined by flat-Earthers.

10 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

Tila Tequila is a proud ambassador of our cause.

She has a kind mouth...

On 4/22/2026 at 1:28 AM, rattlesnake said:

A wrecking ball will swing back and forth for a very short time before coming to a rest.

On 4/22/2026 at 3:46 PM, Yellowtail said:

How do you know? Have you seen experiments with a wrecking ball?

Don't you know.... the truly omniscient need no evidence. Or... his evidence might be the fact that pendulums were argued over by rival religious sects hundreds of years ago.... so therefor the facts were massaged/manipulated by the winner.

Edited April 27Apr 27 by gamb00ler

From Conspiracy Theory to Conspiracy Fact, episode 346: Covid was man-made and Fauci was neck-deep involved.

Edited April 28Apr 28 by rattlesnake

9 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

From Conspiracy Theory to Conspiracy Fact, episode 346: Covid was man-made and Fauci was neck-deep involved.

This is all staged by Trump and his DOJ. Morens is in on it.

15 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

From Conspiracy Theory to Conspiracy Fact, episode 346: Covid was man-made and Fauci was neck-deep involved.

This is a textbook example of how conspiracy thinking works.

One headline, one claim, one “insider” — and suddenly that’s supposed to overturn the entire body of evidence built up over years by thousands of scientists and investigators worldwide.

That’s not how evidence works.

What’s actually happening here is the usual routine: start with a conclusion (“it was man-made and covered up”), then go shopping for anything that sounds like it supports it. A single indictment, a quote taken out of context, a suggestive tweet — and it all gets stitched together into “proof.”

 

Meanwhile, everything that doesn’t support the narrative gets ignored, dismissed as “fake,” or conveniently folded into the conspiracy itself.

It’s not investigation — it’s cherry-picking.

 

You’ll also notice the classic tricks:

Elevate one individual as the “smoking gun,” while disregarding the broader scientific consensus

Treat gaps or unanswered questions as proof of wrongdoing

Present a flood of loosely connected claims to create the illusion of depth

 

And when challenged? “That just shows how deep the cover-up goes”

 

It’s a closed loop, and crucially, none of this actually engages with the full weight of evidence, it sidesteps it. Because if you did that properly, you’d have to be open to changing the original premise… which never happens.

 

So no! One allegation, one indictment, (from the country of litigation) or one headline doesn’t magically turn a conspiracy theory into a “fact.” - It just gives people who already believe it something new to point at.

25 minutes ago, kwilco said:

This is a textbook example of how conspiracy thinking works.

One headline, one claim, one “insider” — and suddenly that’s supposed to overturn the entire body of evidence built up over years by thousands of scientists and investigators worldwide.

That’s not how evidence works.

What’s actually happening here is the usual routine: start with a conclusion (“it was man-made and covered up”), then go shopping for anything that sounds like it supports it. A single indictment, a quote taken out of context, a suggestive tweet — and it all gets stitched together into “proof.”

 

Meanwhile, everything that doesn’t support the narrative gets ignored, dismissed as “fake,” or conveniently folded into the conspiracy itself.

It’s not investigation — it’s cherry-picking.

 

You’ll also notice the classic tricks:

Elevate one individual as the “smoking gun,” while disregarding the broader scientific consensus

Treat gaps or unanswered questions as proof of wrongdoing

Present a flood of loosely connected claims to create the illusion of depth

 

And when challenged? “That just shows how deep the cover-up goes”

 

It’s a closed loop, and crucially, none of this actually engages with the full weight of evidence, it sidesteps it. Because if you did that properly, you’d have to be open to changing the original premise… which never happens.

 

So no! One allegation, one indictment, (from the country of litigation) or one headline doesn’t magically turn a conspiracy theory into a “fact.” - It just gives people who already believe it something new to point at.

POTUS laid it all out long ago. Fauci needs to go to jail.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19/

6 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

This is all staged by Trump and his DOJ. Morens is in on it.

Don't disagree there. Fifth-generation warfare.

Even using the inernet as a source and not differentiating between a search engine and research it seems they have missed this one.......

18 minutes ago, kwilco said:

Even using the inernet as a source and not differentiating between a search engine and research it seems they have missed this one.......

OK so you guys literally don't want to talk about anything else.

Fine, just spare me the "drop it mate"s and the likes going forward. It's your favourite topic.

So, in your opinion, why don't we have footage of a full Earth rotation, surely that would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Did nobody ever think to do it?

Is it not relevant?

Something else?

Edited April 29Apr 29 by rattlesnake

4 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

OK so you guys literally don't want to talk about anything else.

Fine, just spare me the "drop it mate"s and the likes going forward. It's your favourite topic.

So, in your opinion, why don't we have footage of a full Earth rotation, surely that would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Did nobody ever think to do it?

Is it not relevant?

Something else?

Why do you claim we do not have footage?

7 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Why do you claim we do not have footage?

Because we don't. 'Stop-motion timelapses', 'photos taken every 10 minutes and rendered with CGI', 'animations', 'satellite shots complied by NASA' are not footage.

3 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

Because we don't. 'Stop-motion timelapses', 'photos taken every 10 minutes and rendered with CGI', 'animations', 'satellite shots complied by NASA' are not footage.

What about the live feeds you can watch now?

27 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Why do you claim we do not have footage?

Fake !

15 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

What about the live feeds you can watch now?

No stars and no satellites

1 minute ago, Hummin said:

Fake !

Exactly.

18 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Exactly.

We have learned that people often choose to believe what they want to believe, no matter what the evidence says.

We all see something different, and who can truly claim with absolute certainty what is real and what is not?

Our reality is already different from the reality of most animals.

And your personal reality is different from mine, because you were born in a different place, with a different language, different parents, and different experiences.

So in the end, we are all lost in one way or another.

5 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

What about the live feeds you can watch now?

Thought I would acclimatise and ask AI.

Here is the result for your perusal.

---

A person tells me there are live streams available which show complete Earth rotations. My claim is that this is not the case and all that exists are 'Stop-motion timelapses', 'photos taken every 10 minutes and rendered by CGI', 'animations', 'satellite shots compiled by NASA'. Who is right?

Technically, you are correct. There is no single camera in space currently providing a fluid, 30+ frames-per-second, "true" live video stream of the entire rotating Earth in real-time.

While the other person sees "live" views, they are almost certainly watching one of two things that fit your descriptions:

1. High-Frequency Timelapses (Weather Satellites)

Satellites like Himawari-8 or the GOES series are in geostationary orbit. They take a "Full Disk" image of the Earth at regular intervals—usually every 10 minutes.

• The "Live" Illusion: Many websites (like the Himawari-8 Real-time Web) string these photos together into a loop. Because a new photo arrives every few minutes, it feels "live," but it is technically a stop-motion sequence of still images.

  Himawari-8 +2

2. Deep Space Imagery (DSCOVR Satellite)

The DSCOVR satellite sits at the L1 Lagrange point, about 1 million miles away, which is far enough to see the whole sunlit side of Earth at once.

• The Capture Method: Its EPIC camera takes a set of photos through different color filters and then combines them.

• The Delay: These images are typically taken about once an hour. What you see on NASA's EPIC gallery is a compilation of these shots rendered into a movie—exactly as you claimed.

3. The ISS "Live" Feed Exception

There is a 24/7 HD Live Stream from the ISS. However, this does not show a "complete Earth rotation."

• The Perspective: The ISS is only about 250 miles up. At that height, you only see a small portion of the surface at a time, not the full sphere.

• The "Rotation": You see the ISS moving over the Earth, not the Earth rotating beneath a fixed point.

Verdict: You are right. The "complete rotation" videos available to the public are processed compilations of high-resolution stills or animations, not a continuous live video feed.

Edited April 29Apr 29 by rattlesnake

5 hours ago, Hummin said:

We have learned that people often choose to believe what they want to believe, no matter what the evidence says.

My definition of evidence is that it is empirical in essence; i.e. it is something tangible that can be verified through personal observation rather than just taking someone's word for it. What is yours?

5 hours ago, Hummin said:

We all see something different, and who can truly claim with absolute certainty what is real and what is not?

Our reality is already different from the reality of most animals.

And your personal reality is different from mine, because you were born in a different place, with a different language, different parents, and different experiences.

So in the end, we are all lost in one way or another.

That reminds me of a quote by Philip K. Dick which I like a lot.

“Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans… If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn’t we really be talking about plural realities?

And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe it’s as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say his reality is so different from ours that he can’t explain his to us, and we can’t explain ours to him.

The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication… and there is the real illness.”

8 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

My definition of evidence is that it is empirical in essence; i.e. it is something tangible that can be verified through personal observation rather than just taking someone's word for it. What is yours?

Like seeing the trees of an island first?

Of course she is right but you can deliver your truths with a sledgehammer or decide that there is time and place for sowing the seeds. And ruining a family or friends gathering with your truths is definitely neither civil nor effective in making people re-consider their views. Shattering someone's illusions on which his worldview is build is most often not appreciated to put it mildly.

8 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

That reminds me of a quote by Philip K. Dick which I like a lot.

“Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans… If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn’t we really be talking about plural realities?

And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe it’s as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say his reality is so different from ours that he can’t explain his to us, and we can’t explain ours to him.

The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication… and there is the real illness.”

Still, personal perception and experience are easily manipulated, either by others, by yourself, or by both.

That is why magicians are successful, even when we know it is not real.

Our senses are useful, but they are not perfect. We can feel something strongly and still be wrong about what it means. Instinct matters, but it should not stand alone without reflection, evidence, and context.

I have also seen this in real life, when witnessing accidents and raw violence. You can have several witnesses standing close to the same event, and very few will describe it the same way afterward. People remember different details, focus on different moments, and often disagree about the order things happened in.

That does not always mean people are lying. It often means the brain was under stress, attention was narrow, and memory was trying to reconstruct chaos afterward.

So yes, personal experience matters, but it is not always the same as objective truth. It is one piece of the picture, not the whole picture.

4 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

Of course she is right but you can deliver your truths with a sledgehammer or decide that there is time and place for sowing the seeds. And ruining a family or friends gathering with your truths is definitely neither civil nor effective in making people re-consider their views. Shattering someone's illusions on which his worldview is build is most often not appreciated to put it mildly.

People have to come to realise it themselves. But seeds can be sown, I agree.

I will give this a try now, and should fit right in the sense of what we have been discussing here.

It is a philosophical interview with Bernardo Kastrup about whether reality is fundamentally mental rather than material, touching on consciousness, intuition, and the possibility of life after death. The theme fits Kastrup’s well-known defense of analytic idealism, where mind is treated as primary and the physical world as derivative or experiential.

Let’s review again - the "Do Your Own Research" brigade: A masterclass in self-delusion

I think we can all see the local legends on here who’ve replaced their common sense with YouTube clips and "leaked" PDFs? You know the ones. They can’t navigate a Grab app without getting lost, but they’re absolutely certain they’ve unmasked a global plot involving the UN, three billionaire lizards, and your neighbour's Wi-Fi router.

So here’s a message to those "enlightened" souls ….

"I truly admire the ego it takes to believe that thousands of the world's top scientists—people who actually finished their homework—are all in a massive, coordinated conspiracy, yet the 'hidden truth' was finally uncovered by a guy who failed high school science and now posts 'Wake Up!' memes from his spare bedroom. You’re not a whistleblower; you’re just someone who’s found a very loud way to be wrong."

The damage these people do is almost as impressive as their imagination. They’ve managed to turn "having an opinion" into a substitute for "having a clue." It’s a special kind of narcissism that demands the entire world be a lie just so they can feel like the smartest person in the room for five minutes. They don't just move the goalposts; they pretend the goalposts were an optical illusion planted by the CIA.

So, how do we handle these “truth seekers"? Well, we can see from this thread that arguing with a conspiracy theorist is like playing chess with a pigeon; they’re just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like they won anyway.

Then there’s the “Incompetence" Reality Check. Most governments can’t even fix a pothole or organize a visa queue without a three-month committee meeting. If you think they’re capable of a flawless, decades-long cover-up involving millions of people, you’ve clearly never worked in an office.

I find this part difficult, but the “mute button is your friend”. If someone is convinced the sky is plaid because a guy named "FreedomEagle76" said so, we’re not going to save them. So, I’m going to try to save my breath for cooling my soup instead.

At the end of the day, if they want to live in a Tom Clancy novel. Serves then right, but still the majority of the world just won't let them drag the rest of us into the sequel.

Actual logic and reason don’t tend to land with conspiracy theorists — not because the arguments aren’t there, but because they’re not really engaging with them in the first place.

But sometimes stepping back and looking at the bigger picture helps.

This illustration does exactly that. It shows something very simple: for over 2,000 years, knowledge has been built, tested, challenged, and refined — moving steadily in one direction based on evidence and exploration.

Then along comes the internet… and suddenly we’re back to square one, with people thinking a YouTube video outweighs centuries of accumulated knowledge.

That’s the issue in a nutshell.

It’s not about "questioning" – science has always done that. It’s about rejecting the entire process and replacing it with whatever feels convincing in the moment.

If nothing else, this kind of visual might make a few people pause and realise they’re not uncovering hidden truth…

They’re just reinventing old mistakes.

 

Just now, kwilco said:

Actual logic and reason don’t tend to land with conspiracy theorists — not because the arguments aren’t there, but because they’re not really engaging with them in the first place.

But sometimes stepping back and looking at the bigger picture helps.

This illustration does exactly that. It shows something very simple: for over 2,000 years, knowledge has been built, tested, challenged, and refined — moving steadily in one direction based on evidence and exploration.

Then along comes the internet… and suddenly we’re back to square one, with people thinking a YouTube video outweighs centuries of accumulated knowledge.

That’s the issue in a nutshell.

It’s not about "questioning" – science has always done that. It’s about rejecting the entire process and replacing it with whatever feels convincing in the moment.

If nothing else, this kind of visual might make a few people pause and realise they’re not uncovering hidden truth…

They’re just reinventing old mistakes.

 

There are several omissions here.

Firstly, until the 16th century, the Chinese and the South Americans believed the Earth was flat. The Scandinavians held that belief until the 13th century.

Secondly, all those civilisations saw the Earth as stationary. The Copernican revolution (16th century) introduced heliocentrism and the Jesuits spread the idea throughout the world.

The main dogma contested by 'flat-earthers' is heliocentrism. The actual shape of the Earth is unknown to them; they just refute the model as it is presented in the currently disseminated doxa. The surface of the planet definitely appears to be a stationary plane, and the Biblical model is much closer to observable reality (local Sun and Moon moving in a dome-shaped movement) than the Copernican one – a fact that the Science proponents should theoretically take into account, given their propensity to cite Occam's Razor as one of their fundamental principles.

Edited May 2May 2 by rattlesnake

Just now, rattlesnake said:

Firstly, until the 16th century, the Chinese and the South Americans believed the Earth was flat. The Scandinavians held that belief until the 13th century.

interesting.... but unrelated to the reality understood through actual observation using tools that exceed the capability of the five senses.

Just now, rattlesnake said:

Secondly, all those civilisations saw the Earth as stationary. The Copernican revolution (16th century) introduced heliocentrism and the Jesuits spread the idea throughout the world.

also merely interesting but irrelevant. Why not include as one of your sources/inspirations the 'turtles all the way down' myth?

Just now, rattlesnake said:

The actual shape of the Earth is unknown to them; they just refute the model as it is presented in the currently disseminated doxa.

No... they did not refute anything. The correct word is dispute.

Bzzzzztt.... thanks for playing!

Eratosthenes was the first known person to calculate the Earth's circumference around 250 BC. He was also the first to calculate Earth's axial tilt, which similarly proved to have remarkable accuracy.