Flat Earth

[Gibbo675]

2 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Need to be careful not to lump everything together here. Concerns over a rapidly developed vaccine aren't in the same boat as being against vaccines in general.

Hurrah for a voice of reason !!!!

[Reorte]

I should probably point out that I think that the concerns are disproportionate to the risk and that I'll be happy enough to take a vaccine if offered (might get missed out on that though since I never got around to registering with a doctor when I moved to where I live now - five years ago). The concerns are therefore something that need to be addressed because they're not utterly baseless, unlike the flat-out anti-vaxxer position. That's why I dislike lumping the two together, it's both counter-productive and hints at a worringly over-simplified way of looking at things.

[Edwin_m]

Hence why my previous post referred to scientifically proven vaccines.  Although I might accept a slightly lower standard of proof if it was a route out of our current situation of repeated lockdown and other restrictions.  

[Nick C]

49 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Need to be careful not to lump everything together here. Concerns over a rapidly developed vaccine aren't in the same boat as being against vaccines in general.

There's a good article on the BBC about how they managed to get the Oxford vaccine to this stage so quickly. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55041371

 

Largely boils down to not having to repeatedly spend months arguing and filling in endless reams of paperwork in order to get the funding for the next phase, and that they'd already been developing a vaccine for previous coronaviruses, so quite a lot of the work had already been done.

[Gibbo675]

1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

Not sure which side you're trying to argue here but my view is flat earthers are fairly harmless but those questioning the effectiveness of scientifically proven vaccines are dangerous idiots.  There are plenty of other government lines that should be questioned but this isn't one of them.  

Hi Edwin,

 

Could you explain:

1. Why I might wish to argue the toss over something that makes no difference to my life one way or another in general terms.
2. Why must all discussions be polarised and alternative views or observations are disregarded in favour of such polarisation actual or assumed ?

Question 2 is the more pertinent to the observation that was not addressed by yourself, who as I observe, rambled about what was an illustrative point and has now become a distraction, ie. vaccines, which are quite off topic as it goes.

 

Gibbo.

[Tony_S]

14 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Hence why my previous post referred to scientifically proven vaccines.  Although I might accept a slightly lower standard of proof if it was a route out of our current situation of repeated lockdown and other restrictions.  

When I was young the main concern about vaccines was whether you were one of the lucky ones who got the sharp needle not the reused one. 
Also with the polio vaccine we could resume things that had stopped due to polio outbreaks. Not quite a lockdown but the cinema had closed for Saturday morning children’s films. It never reopened. 
Recently I read the research protocol for one of vaccine candidates. Some groups were not included in the research so I am not sure how long they will need to wait for the vaccine. Perhaps one of the other vaccine candidates will have been tested on those groups of people. 
When the vaccine has satisfied the relevant procedures I will happily queue up for my jabs. Otherwise I am very restricted while the Covid virus is infecting people. My immune system is somewhat suppressed so a vaccine would be rather nice! 

[woodenhead]

Being a Flat Earther on the face of it looks harmless, but it seeds other beliefs and conspiracies that then spirals into things like Bill Gates wants to microchip us all using a fake virus as a cover for mass chipping in the guise of a fake vaccine.

 

To believe in a flat earth requires a lot of commonsense, proven math and science to be ignored and challenged utterly and even when the science is proved in your own tests to still ignore it as false.  Take the man who tried to prove the earth doesn't move 15 degrees an hour and when he found it did he decided the machine was measuring the sky not the ground and put it in a box.  When it still moved 15 degrees in the box he decided the box wasn't shielded correctly and it could still read the sky so he needed even more shielding.  

 

When faced with a truth, a Flat Earther will still deny it and say black is white.

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Why I might wish to argue the toss over something that makes no difference to my life one way or another in general terms

When I first ventured onto electronic communications sometime last century that was a popular pastime for some people. It was known as “trolling for newbies”. Trolling as in trawling rather than lurking under bridges eating passing goats. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Tony_S

[Steamport Southport]

58 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

When I first ventured onto electronic communications sometime last century that was a popular pastime for some people. It was known as “trolling for newbies”. Trolling as in trawling rather than lurking under bridges eating passing goats. 

 

Yes. That's the context that I always understood it. 

 

Trolling for easy prey.

 

Kenneth Williams uses it in the " Julian and Sandy" sketches. "Trolling around" looking for new "trade".

 

May offend.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(gay_slang)

 

 

[Edwin_m]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Edwin,

 

Could you explain:

1. Why I might wish to argue the toss over something that makes no difference to my life one way or another in general terms.
2. Why must all discussions be polarised and alternative views or observations are disregarded in favour of such polarisation actual or assumed ?

Question 2 is the more pertinent to the observation that was not addressed by yourself, who as I observe, rambled about what was an illustrative point and has now become a distraction, ie. vaccines, which are quite off topic as it goes.

 

Gibbo.

In which case I'm pretty baffled as to why you posted at all.  

[AndyID]

Many people in this side of the Atlantic believe "gullible" isn't in the dictonary.

[steve1]

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

Many people in this side of the Atlantic believe "gullible" isn't in the dictonary.

 

Surely even Yanks know it's what a seagull eats with...

 

steve

[maico]

The lastest Gallup poll asked are you willing to be vaccinated?

The result is here

 

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/surgeon-general-discusses-white-house-holiday-party-vaccines-74354980

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Also with the polio vaccine we could resume things that had stopped due to polio outbreaks.

The story of the polio vaccine is an interesting one. Salk maintained that a vaccine could be produced with inactivated virus cultures while Sabin worked to produce an attenuated virus vaccine. In the course of developing the first vaccine a rivalry between the two developed with Salk insisting that his inactivated vaccine was safer.

 

Salk was first with a viable, tested vaccine and in the excitement for people to receive the vaccine, a large number of people contracted polio through vaccines produced by labs that had failed to properly inactivate the virus and had rushed out vaccines to try to meet the high demand.

[maico]

5 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Being a Flat Earther on the face of it looks harmless, but it seeds other beliefs and conspiracies that then spirals into things like Bill Gates wants to microchip us all using a fake virus as a cover for mass chipping in the guise of a fake vaccine.

 

To believe in a flat earth requires a lot of commonsense, proven math and science to be ignored and challenged utterly and even when the science is proved in your own tests to still ignore it as false.  Take the man who tried to prove the earth doesn't move 15 degrees an hour and when he found it did he decided the machine was measuring the sky not the ground and put it in a box.  When it still moved 15 degrees in the box he decided the box wasn't shielded correctly and it could still read the sky so he needed even more shielding.  

 

When faced with a truth, a Flat Earther will still deny it and say black is white.

 

To be fair, instruments like ring laser gyroscopes found in aircraft, and gyro theodolites used in tunnel boring and mining are difficult to understand. Both prove the Earth is rotating.

Most modern FE high priests plagiarise this book published in 1885 by William Carpenter
"100 proof the Earth is not a globe" which is still in print.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Proofs-That-Earth-Globe/dp/1523463317

It's the work of a Victorian gentleman 'scientist' who didn't understand science but was genuine in his beliefs.

 

What annoys me the most is the Apollo hoax crowd. I've spent far to long on youtube pointing out their errors!

 

[Gibbo675]

50 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The story of the polio vaccine is an interesting one. Salk maintained that a vaccine could be produced with inactivated virus cultures while Sabin worked to produce an attenuated virus vaccine. In the course of developing the first vaccine a rivalry between the two developed with Salk insisting that his inactivated vaccine was safer.

 

Salk was first with a viable, tested vaccine and in the excitement for people to receive the vaccine, a large number of people contracted polio through vaccines produced by labs that had failed to properly inactivate the virus and had rushed out vaccines to try to meet the high demand.

Hi Michael,

 

You are quite correct with your information, more interestingly  the incidence of Polio had almost fallen to zero just as the vaccine was introduced.

 

Should anyone care to look at the scientifically proven data you will see that there was a secondary spike immediately after the vaccine's introduction which was attributed to the vaccine by the subsequent investigative study.

 

Gibbo.

[AndyID]

7 hours ago, steve1 said:

 

Surely even Yanks know it's what a seagull eats with...

 

steve

 

"Yanks" are Yankees, meaning they come from New England. That's a bit like calling everyone in the UK "Scousers".

[PatB]

13 hours ago, AndyID said:

Many people in this side of the Atlantic believe "gullible" isn't in the dictonary.

And there was never a film called Gaslight.

[AndyID]

9 minutes ago, PatB said:

And there was never a film called Gaslight.

 

There never was any such thing. I can assure you any preposterous references on the Intewebything are nothing but hornswoggle. My MP is going to hear about this.

[woodenhead]

12 hours ago, maico said:

 

To be fair, instruments like ring laser gyroscopes found in aircraft, and gyro theodolites used in tunnel boring and mining are difficult to understand. Both prove the Earth is rotating.

Most modern FE high priests plagiarise this book published in 1885 by William Carpenter
"100 proof the Earth is not a globe" which is still in print.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Proofs-That-Earth-Globe/dp/1523463317

It's the work of a Victorian gentleman 'scientist' who didn't understand science but was genuine in his beliefs.

 

What annoys me the most is the Apollo hoax crowd. I've spent far to long on youtube pointing out their errors!

 

Apollo is an interesting one, you can believe in all the physics and that the world is round, then use the argument of cosmic radiation and the fact you cannot see the landers with your binoculars as proof you cannot leave Earth orbit or no-one has been to the moon.

 

I can also see the argument for the hoax under the banner it was simply too dangerous and a hoax would guarantee the US the gloating rights over Russia.

 

Except, how do you keep every employee in Nasa quiet who was involved, how do you keep the people who filmed the hoax quiet - and not just once but several missions worth.  Then there are the Russians, they would understand the technology and effort involved, they would have monitored everything, if it was a hoax they would have been the first to tell the world.

 

Have you seen Space Force on Netflix, it is actually quite good.

 

 

[Reorte]

8 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Apollo is an interesting one, you can believe in all the physics and that the world is round, then use the argument of cosmic radiation and the fact you cannot see the landers with your binoculars as proof you cannot leave Earth orbit or no-one has been to the moon.

 

I can also see the argument for the hoax under the banner it was simply too dangerous and a hoax would guarantee the US the gloating rights over Russia.

 

Except, how do you keep every employee in Nasa quiet who was involved, how do you keep the people who filmed the hoax quiet - and not just once but several missions worth.  Then there are the Russians, they would understand the technology and effort involved, they would have monitored everything, if it was a hoax they would have been the first to tell the world.

 

Have you seen Space Force on Netflix, it is actually quite good.

 

Based on my Kerbal Space Program experience the risk of everything exploding because you've forgotten something important, or have simply built a rocket with the flight characteristics of a shuttlecock trying to fly backwards means going to the Moon is far too dangerous

 

That aside the moon landing hoaxers are a laugh. As you point out the Russians would've been all over a hoax, if the dangers in going there were high the political risks of a hoax backfiring would've been far too high too. And the only hoax claims that are not easily refuted are the ones that play up a ridiculous amount of significance over something minor.

[Nick C]

Doesn't everyone know that the moon landings were filmed by Kubrick?

 

 

 

 

 

...and that he was such a perfectionist that he insisted on shooting on location.

[laurenceb]

A programe on C5 years ago ended with the comment that thr easiest way to make a fake film of the moon landings was to go to the moon

[woodenhead]

I've just realised Capricorn One and The Truman Show are both about the same subject and have the same end; what lengths will you go to in order to maintain a hoax and at the end of it all the truth still comes out.

[Steamport Southport]

11 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

"Yanks" are Yankees, meaning they come from New England. That's a bit like calling everyone in the UK "Scousers".

 

That's correct. But, it's a term that has been used in Britain for all Americans for well over 200 years. 

 

Yankee Doodle Dandy and YANKS GO HOME! as people were known to say around these parts. 

 

Even the film was called Yanks. Worth watching for the locos.

 

 

 

As an aside my cousin lived in America during the 1970s and early 1980s as his American dad was in the USAF. He was a massive Everton fan but couldn't get the merchandise so we used to send him parcels of it. By return me and my brother used to get sent the US sports merchandise which was much better. Red Sox, Patriots, Green Bay Packers, NY Yankees, etc. Hardly anyone in the UK had that sort of stuff. 

 

Because of that I ended up being a Yankees fan for some strange reason.

 

 

Jason

Edited November 24, 2020 by Steamport Southport