The Flat Earth Society forums are still down, and I’ve noticed that some people have landed here when searching google about them. If anyone has any clues about what happened, or possibly knows about a new location - please let me know. I miss the insane discussions…

The Flat Earth Society website has been down for about a week now. It would be interesting to know why, but unless it comes back some time in the future, I guess I’ll never know. I’ll miss the senseless debates with Tom.

Using his own logic: I see the FES website is down, therefore the FES is no more. Too bad.

I think my time in the Flat Earth Society forum is coming to a close. It was fun for a while, but after hanging out there for only a few days, the ridiculous answers to valid questions start to get annoying. Talking to a self-proclaimed Flat Earther is a bit like talking to an eight year old that has been indoctrinated into a religion since birth. No matter what arguments you have, you can never be right, because the kid just cannot accept anything that contradicts his beliefs.

I thought it would be more fun, raising questions that cannot be answered in flat Earth theory, such as why there is a celestial south pole (impossible on a north-pole-centric flat Earth), or why there are non-stop flights between Buenos Aires and Sydney, even though they are 30.000km apart on the flat Earth model - far beyond the range of any commercial plane. After several days of ridiculous answers and half-assed theories about how the airlines of the world are in on the conspiracy and delaying our flights, or even accelerating their Boeing 747s to beyond the speed of sound, I’m close to finally bringing this story to a close.

I guess having fun at the troll asylum cannot last forever. (Unless you are a troll.)

A couple of days ago I happened to stumble upon possibly the most ridiculous conspiracy theory that has ever existed: the flat Earth theory. Yes, these people claim to believe that the Earth is flat - and that’s really just the tip of the ice berg, but more about that later. I say they claim to believe in a flat Earth because after taking a look at their forum and even registering to offer my opinion, it quickly became clear that many - if not most - of these people are not interested in discussing their opinion. In fact, they don’t even consider it to be an opinion - practically all statements made by these people, no matter how bizarrely ridiculous, are made as if they were unrefutable truths. Not to mention that their arguments are so full of polemic and argumentational fallacies that even I - normally a fairly tolerant person - almost lost my temper and started a rant.

It was at that point that I decided to delete my account. There is no point in discussing with these people. (But it’s funny as hell, so I’ve decided to reactivate my account.) As I said earlier, their theory that the Earth is flat is just the tip of the ice berg. The whole notion is based on a vast amount of completely irrational and unfounded claims,  the most important being that all world governments and many major organisations are conspiring to keep the Earth’s “true” flat shape concealed from the public. The incentive for this is of course not explained in any satisfying way.

Apart from the vast amounts of photographic proof that the Earth is round (which is claimed to be entirely fake by the flat Earth proponents), there are of course numerous other pretty obvious indications that the Earth is not flat. Sunrise and sunset, percieved curvature, different visibility of star constellations in the northern and southern hemispheres… all this is either ignored or “explained away” by stupid and conveniently unexplainable mechanics, such as optical illusions.

All in all, I have come to the conclusion that no one on that site really believes that the Earth is flat. The most logical explanation in my mind, is that the so called “Flat-Earthers” are purposely constructing such a ridiculous and unfounded concept to bait as many people as possible into trying to refute their claims. Of course, this will never be possible, since all hard proof of a round Earth is already conveniently discarded as government lies, false perception and who knows what else.

My conclusion: these people are trolls.