"Pac man effect" keeps people from falling off flat earth

[Demovictory9]

One long-held theory is that the Arctic is the center of flat Earth with Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall wall of ice forming the rim. Supposedly NASA guards the wall to keep people from climbing it and falling off the edge. Yes, the space agency is protecting Earth edge explorers from themselves.

But the frozen rim wall theory does not account for how someone traveling east from say, New York, could eventually wind up back in the city without changing direction.

At the conference, Flat-Earther Darren Nesbit suggested another explanation, The Age reported.

"We know that continuous east-west travel is a reality," Nesbit said.

Instead of running into a wall or walking off the edge, Nesbit theorized that when you reach the end of the Earth, space-time is distorted.

"One logical possibility for those who are truly free thinkers is that space-time wraps around and we get a Pac-Man effect," he said.

Encountering this phenomenon at the end of the world, a traveler would immediately be whisked — teleported, worm-holed or whatever — to the opposite end of of the map, just as Pac-Man or Pac-Man's ghosts arrive on the right-hand side of the screen as they exit on the left-hand side in the old-school video game.

https://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/Flat-Earth-conspiracy-Pac-Man-Kyrie-Irving-12879164.php#photo-15486018

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. And to think that some people think science fiction is utter nonsense.

[ismnotwasm]

30. I rather liked the Ringworld books

[RockRaven]

2. One of the more interesting flat-earth questions I recently encountered is:

is it not a strange coincidence that of all the things that flat-earthers remark upon, none of them exclaim about how fortuitous it is that the flat earth is horizontal instead of vertical.

Weird, right?

[Demovictory9]

3. i think they believe in gravity

[RockRaven]

4. but why does gravity go in this direction and not that direction?

And isn't it fortunate that this just-so circumstance has occurred which aligns gravity perpendicular to their supposed flat earth?

Modern cosmology has a coherent explanation as to why this isn't a mere coincidence.

They never expound upon the fortuitousness of that coincidence, which is weird given that they don't explain why it should be just expected.

[Decoy of Fenris]

7. I don't think they do, or at least not in the conventional sense.

From what I've read recently, it's less believing in gravity (as they hold that spherical gravity is untenable and that gravity operates at a greatly diminished capacity, if at all), but more believing that the plane of the earth is accelerating "upwards" through space at a constant 32f/s, resulting in the illusion of gravity.

That's far more than I ever cared to know about that raving lunacy, and I'll leave further research to those more tolerant towards idiocy than I.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Presumably they have to invent an entirely different force to keep the Sun and the Moon in place

(since they maintain they are very close, since they have to admit that people at different latitudes see them at different angles above the horizon. They gloss over the fact that the geometry only properly works for a spherical Earth, and that things like 24 hours of daylight or darkness inside the Arctic Circle don't make sense in their proposals.)

[Cuthbert Allgood]

26. They can't believe in gravity the way it actually works.

If they did, it would become almost impossible to walk to the edge and certainly would get a noticeably stronger pull as you moved from the middle.

[byronius]

5. Science! It's what's for breakfast.

Instead of the crazy pills these guys are wolfing down.

It's a nice picture, though. Interesting visual.

[Victor_c3]

6. seems like a reasonable explanation to me...

From time to time I have the opportunity to go into both of my daughters' classrooms to help out with various things and I really like to convince everyone that I'm a complete idiot (it embarrasses my oldest daughter to no end). I tell the kids things like:

"if you plug a microwave in backwards, it'll cool things just as fast as it heats them up!"

"honey is made by squishing up bees - that is why sometimes you'll find things like a bee leg in your honey!"

"don't drink water, fish go to the bathroom in it!"

This flat earth crap is something else I should tell those kids too :yesnod:


I love messing with my kids. Taunting them and embarrassing them is at least half the fun of having them. Besides that, if I don't do something to mess them up psychologically when they are young, what are they going to talk to their counsellors about when they are older?

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. The Calvin's Dad method?

[hueymahl]

36. I'm so stealing that

Great stuff

[Victor_c3]

38. I forgot how much I used to love Calvin and Hobbes

I’ve actually used his explanation for why old pictures are black and white with my kids.

Up until not too long ago, the world was all just black and white. Then not too long by ago things started to turn color, but not the vivid color we have today. It was kind of grainy at first. Old photos are proof of this!

I’m going to have to reread his comics for some good parenting ideas.

[jberryhill]

13. Raised all mine that way

Seriously. Giving them bullshit to go after develops their critical thinking skills, IMHO.

[GreenEyedLefty]

8. "Free thinkers"

Sounds like a new shorthand for anyone who wants to spew whatever is on the mind without consequence.

[pansypoo53219]

9. ow. my brain.

[Sancho]

10. One of my favorite books....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square named A Square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions.

Nesbit seems to have problems seeing out of the box.

[Aristus]

23. One of my favorites, too.

It can be difficult to read sometimes, though.

Set aside for a moment the violent, reactionary nature of the Flatlanders (satirizing conservative Victorian society). The thing that really struck me about life in Flatland is how soul-crushingly dull it must be, with the (literally) limited horizons, the stifling conformity, and above all, the numbing ignorance of all of this among Flatlanders (except for A. Square, of course.)

A. Square speaks of reading in his library, but I wrack my brain trying to figure out how he reads. A book would have to be on a plane above or below that of Flatland in order to be read, and that's not possible in that world. Or else, the book would have to be on a plane parallel to the reader, in which case, he still wouldn't be able to read the text, since the book would only appear as a straight line.

Still, a fascinating read. It occurs to me that Flatland is the worst of all dimensional worlds to live in. Our own three-dimensional world (the only one we know of for sure, of course, just like the Flatlanders) has beauty, love, compassion, curiosity (a crime in Flatland, obviously) and everything we need for happiness and fulfillment. Lineland is so narrow and regimented, the denizens other than the king A. Square speaks with must live in unthinking oblivion. And the solipsism of Pointland is so pure and complete as to make its sole resident ecstatic in his ignorance.

[Sancho]

48. Interesting gender roles too...

never occurred to me that it was dull, necessarily.

[GreenEyedLefty]

11. .. or maybe the earth is round

I spent several hours at the Air Force Museum in Dayton a few weekends ago. The whole damn place is evidence that the earth is an oblate spheroid.

My god, I can't with this bullshit anymore.

[jberryhill]

14. This stuff is a great counter to "why are you so closed minded"?

I used to be skeptical about things, and was often accused of being closed-minded.

So, I’ve decided to win the award for being open minded, and now I believe everything.

Yep. Whatever it is, I believe it. Now I’m really open minded.

[oberliner]

15. This is a good illustration of the problem with the "we have to present both sides" concept

Sometimes there aren't two sides.

[jberryhill]

18. Teach the controversy

We have to respect all points of view.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

28. No we don't.

The earth isn't flat. Period.

Sure, there are times when you let people explore and figure out what they are thinking about, but, seriously, we don't need to encourage those that argue the earth is flat.

[jberryhill]

34. I have an old book that says otherwise

It was written by God.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

40. Thor wrote a book?

Damn it. Do they sell it on Amazon?

[Oneironaut]

16. On an earth shaped like that, your problem would be falling back towards the center

If you climbed on the antarctic edges and fell backwards, you would actually fall back towards the center of the earth. Ouch!

Not to worry, though - a planet like that would inevitably collapse into roundness.

[Dave Starsky]

17. The Earth simply cannot be flat...

Or cats would have pushed everything off of it centuries ago.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. Finally, an irrefutable argument ! nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

29. Obviously.

[longship]

32. Your post gets a DUzy (if they were still being awarded).

Sadly, it's really tough when good work is no longer rewarded.

At least I can give you an ovation.

[Dave Starsky]

46. I only wish that I had come up with it originally.

I saw that on Reddit once and thought it was hilarious.

[NCTraveler]

21. These people are artists, not scientists. Nt

[dalton99a]

22. They've never heard of airplanes

[sarisataka]

24. Good thing Pac Man was invented

For that effect to happen, before that people just bounced off the side like Pong

[Wounded Bear]

25. The earth is not round...

It is an oblate spheroid. Round is a two dimensional concept.

[elocs]

27. My higher power is gravity because it keeps me grounded. n/t

[DetlefK]

31. They ignore any fact they don't like, and then they dare to call themselves "FREETHINKERS?"

[jberryhill]

35. It's the woo version of Pastafarianism

[aidbo]

33. Should be called the Asteroids effect imo

That’s what really matters.

[dawg]

37. We shouldn't mock. The world really is flat.

We all live inside one of a multitude of computer simulations, and what we call "reality" is actually a holographic 3D projection of a 2D image that is generated by the coding of the simulation.

Don't believe me? Google it.

I read it on the internet, so it can't be wrong.

[Iggo]

43. Bonjour.

[DetlefK]

39. I've been hanging out in a Flat-Earther-forum for a while. Let me tell you how these people think:

1.
Their knowledge of physics and math is below-average. They can parrot talking-points, but when you try to get into the details, they get all confused and angry.



2.
Every single shred of evidence that Earth is round has been fabricated by an all-powerful cabal that has existed since nobody-knows. Every single astronomer, seafaring captain, cartographer and long-distance pilot is part of this conspiracy.



3.
The Flat-Earthers have not performed A SINGLE RIGOROUS EXPERIMENT that could prove whether Earth is flat or not. They have run some experiments, but these experiments are so full of mathematical misconceptions and ridiculously inaccurate measurements that the results are entirely meaningless.



4.
The Flat-Earthers do not have an agreed-upon Flat-Earth-map. When you start asking questions about that map, they wiggle out by saying that nobody knows what the actual geography of Earth is. (But it's definitely flat.)



5.
They debunk your Spherical-Earth-theory with meaningless, faulty experiments full of mistakes.
If you try to prove your Spherical-Earth-theory, then you are fabricating evidence.

When you try to debunk one of their Flat-Earth-theories, they simply come up with a more convoluted and ridiculous one.
When they try to prove... just kidding. Flat-Earthers don't prove anything. They love to wax about the big bad conspiracy and what a Flat Earth could possibly be like, but they are not really interested in running experiments.



6.
In order to attack Spherical Earth, some have started attacking the scientific method itself and proposing the zetetic method instead.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Zetetic
The zetetic method postulates that there is no such thing as a finite, constant fact that your investigation could reveal, which means that Earth cannot be declared spherical on principle.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

44. They belong to same legion of people as climate change deniers

It's too bad the climate change deniers/climate hoax conspiracists have a lot more followers and actual political power. Hopefully, the flat earthers never get the same power and influence.

[Jim Lane]

50. Question about the conspiracy theory

You summarize their theory:

Every single shred of evidence that Earth is round has been fabricated by an all-powerful cabal that has existed since nobody-knows. Every single astronomer, seafaring captain, cartographer and long-distance pilot is part of this conspiracy.

Do they have a theory about the motive for this conspiracy?

For example, some climate-change deniers say that the crackpot leaflover environmentalists perpetrate this hoax so as to get rid of modern industrial civilization, which they actually hate for other reasons; corrupt scientists go along with it to maintain their access to money for phony research.

Eratosthenes (c. 200 BC) is credited with the first roughly accurate computation of the circumference of a spherical Earth. I'm wondering if the Flat-Earthers even try to explain why he initiated this conspiracy.

[petronius]

51. There was no Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Posidonius, Aristotle, Plato, Strabo, etc...

The only people who claim these ancient geographers ever existed are establishment ivory tower intellectuals - i.e., part of the conspiracy...

[VMA131Marine]

41. Yet another victim of Occam's Razor!

[MiniMe]

42. I guess there are no cats on this Flat-Earth

Because we all know that cats would knock everybody off the edges

[TheBlackAdder]

45. Gee, centrifugal force doesn't spin the oceans off the edge. Gravity is stronger in the center.

[csziggy]

47. Moebus Earth!

[Demovictory9]

55. that is pretty cool.

[Staph]

49. That's a great drawing of the Earth, but . . .

it's missing the four elephants and the giant turtle A'Tuin!

[Ferrets are Cool]

52. They forgot to illustrate the turtle...

[bitterross]

53. The Earth is not round, but teleportation is real. Good grief. LOONS!

Seriously? Space-time wraps around to bring you back. That's just great. They'll believe that but they don't want to believe the Earth is round. That's ridiculous.

[yonder]

54. they're out there folks and at least some of them vote

and have babies