Rapper starts crowd-fund to check if earth is flat

[Darandio]

This one made me chuckle, in particular the belief about NASA employees guarding the edge of the world to prevent people falling off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-41399164

Spoiler: The Earth is not flat.

But US rapper B.o.B. is crowd-funding the launch of satellites to see if he can get some evidence to the contrary.

The rapper, whose real name is Bobby Ray Simmons Jr, has been a vocal proponent of the Flat Earth theory - the claim the Earth is, in fact, a disc and not spherical.

Some proponents of the Flat Earth theory claim NASA employees guard the edge of the world to prevent people falling off.

Seeking to raise $200,000 (£150,000) on the GoFundMe crowd-funding website, B.o.B refers to himself as "Flat Earth Bob". At the time of writing he had raised a little over $650, but the campaign was trending on the GoFundMe site.

'Show me the curve'

"I'm starting this GoFundMe because I would like to send one, if not multiple satellites, as far into space as I can, or into orbit as I can, to find the curve," he said in a video on the page.

"I'm looking for the curve," he added.

The curve which B.o.B refers to is a recurring theme in Flat Earthers' conspiracy theories. Adherents believe that, were the Earth actually round, then the curvature of the Earth would be more visible to the naked eye.

Oh, and just in case you are unsure yourself and want to help find out, you can do it here https://www.gofundme.com/showBoBthecurve :roll:

 

[jon0844]

He's probably got the right idea if he's just planning to keep the money and disappear after taking money from gullible fools.

Maybe I should do the same. After all, money from crowd funding has no protection or guarantees!

 

[Tim R-T-C]

I love that all these conspiracies seem to involve the USA being mega-powerful and able to suppress science and discovery in the rest of the world. NASA is so big and important that it guards the edge of the world against any other nation finding it?

Same as all these medical conspiracies about big corporate medicine making up most illnesses for profit - ignoring that corporate medicine is essentially an American invention and the real, public healthcare that the rest of the world enjoys are hardly going to start inventing diseases in order to spend more tax...

 

[Darandio]

Maybe I should do the same. After all, money from crowd funding has no protection or guarantees!

Does that apply to all of them? I always assumed somewhere like Kickstarter only released the funds under certain conditions?

 

[jon0844]

Does that apply to all of them? I always assumed somewhere like Kickstarter only released the funds under certain conditions?

Actually I think they are tightening up a lot these days (because people took the money and ran, or massively mismanaged the funds because the campaign was so flawed to begin with) and Kickstarter was one of the first to make anyone starting a campaign pass a series of checks. I backed a Kickstarter campaign and got a full refund when it didn't progress.

I think other crowd sourced funding schemes are still potentially risky though. I was warned that when someone doesn't use Kickstarter for a tech project and goes with IndieGoGo then alarm bells should start ringing.

I don't know how many such sites there these days. Maybe the way to make money is to set one up, so you get nn% of whatever is raised and don't need to care how successful any campaign actually is.

Anyone want to give me money to prove that ice cream melts?

 

[Darandio]

Anyone want to give me money to prove that ice cream melts?

Only if you are going to do it in space with a continuum transfunctioner powered by dilithium crystals. I'll put a fiver into that.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Does that apply to all of them? I always assumed somewhere like Kickstarter only released the funds under certain conditions?

No, there have been loads of cases where fundraisers have never come through with the goods, leaving people out of pocket.

The idea with Kickstarter in particular is that you provide advance funding for a developed project to allow it to become reality. Sometimes people just run with the money, but in most cases the production costs become too high, they are overly ambitious and when the investors' money runs out, the project is just abandoned.

 

[jon0844]

No, there have been loads of cases where fundraisers have never come through with the goods, leaving people out of pocket.

The idea with Kickstarter in particular is that you provide advance funding for a developed project to allow it to become reality. Sometimes people just run with the money, but in most cases the production costs become too high, they are overly ambitious and when the investors' money runs out, the project is just abandoned.

And that's fine if people fully understand the risk. What I really do hate is that the companies themselves promote their as-yet-non-existent product as something you can 'buy', as does a lot of the tech press.

I often read about a great new product or service and then discover a Kickstarter link, yet it was written about as if it was something you could buy on Amazon or something.

I knew when I invested in a few things that I might end up with nothing and have no comeback.

 

[jbqfc]

yes the earth is flat and it sits on the top of four elephants on the back of a giant turtle

 

[Bromley boy]

If a rapper* genuinely believes the earth is flat, and wishes to prove it, why not fund the investigation himself?

*wealth:intelligence ratio presumably pretty unfavourable if this is the most interesting thing he can think of to do as someone in his 20s with millions in the bank!

 

[158747]

He says he would like to send one or more satellites into space, I think he would need considerably more than $200000 to achieve that!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Surely if he believes the Earth is flat, there's no need to send satellites into space to prove it. Instead, he could just try drilling a really deep hole to see if he can reach the bottom of the Earth.

Or - even easier - just hire a boat and sail off in a straight line. When he falls off the edge of the Earth, he'll know that he was right!

 

[HSTEd]

Well all you would need is a payload on a sounding rocket.

That is not particularily expensive.

 

[DarloRich]

these people are utter simpletons.

 

[Darandio]

And unless i've missed something, all questions have been erased from the funding page and the amount needed has been increased to $1m.

Maybe he got a quote and realised the original amount wasn't enough?

 

[jon0844]

The Verge reported that this campaign was put on hold so maybe there have been some changes to abide by the rules, which aren't very strict.

Even if the target isn't reached, money still goes to the person who started the campaign. That's unlike other services.

 

[J-2739]

The only good thing to come out of this person so far is his track Autotune.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

"Obvious publicity stunt is obvious" would be the meme to sum up this story. There's no way he genuinely believes the Earth is flat, just as there's no way that Scientologists genuinely believe in a supreme race of aliens inside them, and all that nonsense about phaetons or whatever it is...

File under: Slow News Day (rhymes with) Rollocks... :roll:

 

[Harlequin]

Surely he knows what the word "orbit" entails?

 

[AlterEgo]

Surely he knows what the word "orbit" entails?

LOL. Good spot.

 

[Cowley]

Surely he knows what the word "orbit" entails?

 

[northwichcat]

There's no way he genuinely believes the Earth is flat

I wonder whether he belongs to a branch of a Christian church which takes the Bible literally word for word.

 

[IanD]

Surely he knows what the word "orbit" entails?

Surely it's possible to orbit a flat disc earth? He believes there is an edge to the planet so unless the planet is some huge flat-topped pillar it should be possible.

 

[AlterEgo]

Surely it's possible to orbit a flat disc earth? He believes there is an edge to the planet so unless the planet is some huge flat-topped pillar it should be possible.

Why would a pillar be difficult to orbit?

 

[HSTEd]

Why would a pillar be difficult to orbit?

Well if the pillar was infinitely tall it would be rather difficult to orbit its centre of mass

 

[najaB]

Well if the pillar was infinitely tall it would be rather difficult to orbit its centre of mass

You wouldn't need to. If it's infinitely tall then the +Y and -Y forces would balance each other out.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You wouldn't need to. If it's infinitely tall then the +Y and -Y forces would balance each other out.

Only if the height stretches to infinity in both directions. But I'd imagine the kind of pillar we are discussing would only stretch to infinity in one direction, since the flat Earth presumably needs to sit on top of it.

Oh good grief, what am I doing on a public forum discussing possible flat Earth thories?

 

[IanD]

Why would a pillar be difficult to orbit?

I meant it might be difficult to have an orbit that would reveal the flat top bit the earth is most definitely on and the underside of that bit.

 

[najaB]

Oh good grief, what am I doing on a public forum discussing possible flat Earth thories?

I agree, all this talk of infinite pillars is silly. Everyone knows it's turtles all the way down.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

I wonder whether he belongs to a branch of a Christian church which takes the Bible literally word for word.

In that case, they are reading it wrong

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/earth/does-bible-teach-earth-flat/