Saturday, August 16, 2008

The Flat Earth Society: WTF?!

Around the world (HA!), thousands of people are members of a society that believes the world is flat. They think the world looks something like this:
That white border is Antarctica. Yes, people seriously believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the world is flat. From Fox News:

"The Earth is, more or less, a disc," states James McIntyre, a Briton who helps run the Flat Earth Society's Web site. "Obviously it isn't perfectly flat, thanks to geological phenomena like hills and valleys. It is around 24,900 miles in diameter."
The moon landings? Faked, say the flat-Earthers. Satellite images of the Earth? Fake, fake, fake.
So what does the flat Earth look like?
"The North Pole is central, and Antarctica comprises the entire circumference of the Earth," explains McIntyre. "Circumnavigation is a case of traveling in a very broad circle across the surface of the Earth."
McIntyre hopes the Flat Earth Society Web site's discussion forums will unite all discarians into a "global community."
They even have their own term, apparently. "Discarians" is the word used to describe them. These people are bigger nutjobs than Scientologists. At least we've proven these people wrong, thousands of times. Even better, they complain when people look down on them. I can imagine that happens often.

Here is there official forum. Read a few of the posts for laughs.
Via Geekologie and Fox News (ew).

1 comment:

Daniel Ford said...

Funny, while I was working on my article on Space and Time (I'll have it up by Friday), I came across this exact same picture.

Also there's an episode of The West Wing, somewhere in the second or third season, where a geographical society proposes a new projection of the world map that's completely upside down, suggesting that it's more geographically accurate, and gives due credit to world powers that, under the currently accepted projection, appear insignificant. It reminded me.

Lastly, just for funsies, listen to "Upside Down From Here" by Atom and his Package. It's along the same lines.