Debate | Heliocentrists vs JLB (2-Jul-2016)
On 2-Jul-2016, I was randomly invited to a live google hangout with an all-star cast of prominent pro-scientism YouTubers, including Shawn Hufford, Red’s Rhetoric, and Atheist Rex. What followed was a classic example of what happens when a group of scientism spruikers have their beliefs challenged by a genuine skeptic. This podcast features the relevant audio from that hangout as well as a brief review of the event, recorded 6-Oct-2016.
LINKS:
Shawn Hufford’s original hangout (2-Jul-2016) Link
Ball Earth Skeptic Roundtable #11 (19-Aug-2015) Link
JLB1546 | Risitas Leaves the Cult Behind (9-Sep-2015) Link
JLB1547 | Response to KHam + Cavendish Question (15-Sep-2015) Link
JLB1645 | The Cavendish Experiment: Scientism’s Achilles Heel (14-May-2016) Link
JLB1653 |Hypothetical Experiment (22-May-2016) Link
Funny how these nerds always talk about institutions of science in ‘we’ terms.
‘we proved that 100s of years ago’ ‘we know how gravity works in the solar system’ ‘we have some really interesting theories about why gravity exists’.
it’s like supporters of a sports team. Team science.
Yep, listening back to the show, that was something which still out to me as well. These people really take pride in regurgitating what they were told at school/uni, as though they achieved something themselves. Even if NASA really were going into ‘outer space’, it would still seem weird to me that these guys took any pride in it. The fact that the whole thing is one giant ruse just makes their pride even more absurd – not to mention equal parts comedic and tragic. What a mess.
I’d probably only agree with 50% of what you said here, but man what you did takes some balls.
Cheers, mate. I wonder which parts you disagree with? I would imagine that you have already seen through the ‘human evolution theory’ nonsense, so if you are still a firm believer in heliocentrism, that will come as a surprise to me. I would also imagine you were glad to hear that I’m planning to separate my scientism skepticism from my cultural marxism exposes. The latter is urgent and pressing, the former is more abstract and, if we are being honest, poison to some of the people who might be open to hearing fair critiques of what is being taught in school today about ‘gender’ (for instance). I am confident that my new strategy of separating content is the best way forward.
Brilliant!
These guys, especially Red, are such geeks I can almost imagine what they look like 🙂
I have listened to that debate with Red & Zetetism and it cracked me up everytime it was Red’s turn, he went: and counting 5,4,3,2,1 – the dude dreams of rockets and countdowns every chance he gets 😀
However I think Red did a better job than Jeffrey Grupp on that debate.
The podcast here was ridiculous and embarrassing for the scientism team. They went over 30 minutes about how Red didn’t get enough time to present his model a year ago, wtf 😀
As far for the shape of the Earth, I think it’s flat, if it were a giant ball we would have real images and videos. I am well aware of the flaws the AE model has, I have watched your every single FE video, I salute you for pointing out the obvious errors in the FE model, I agree that most of the leading FE proponents are trying to make money or fame off this topic. I have mixed feelings about the Globebusters also..
Lately I am playing with the possibility that all models exist at the same time – a simulation so to speak.
Looking forward to speaking with you, cheers
I think that several of their own panel members might have realised that it did not go so well for them. Take a look at that video on Shawn’s channel: last I checked, it was still on well under 1,000 views. They obviously have not gone out of their way to promote it to their fanbase of scientism believers. Can you blame them? They couldn’t even get their own story straight when it came to the Cavendish experiment. Do you need to know the earth’s mass to determine the moon’s? Listen back to around 55m -> 65m of the podcast. RR says yo can determine the mass of the moon without knowing earth’s mass, by instead using a formula which includes ‘G’. But how did they determine ‘G’? By using a formula which itself requires the mass of the earth. He made the same slip-up in BESR #11.
Once you understand these formulae and how to use them, you can see how utterly deluded the scientism spruikers really are. I will eventually make a thorough video series explaining all of this so that even people who don’t like maths can understand it.
After this I downloaded the Cavendish paper, and a few others like an MIT paper. Complying some thoughts now on this… Some things that just stick out like a sore thumb to me.
Totally embarrassing. What is wrong with these people? Let me make a simple analogy. Let’s say I’ve written a new paper on primes. I’ll present a claim, and logic reasoning to support that claim.
I’ll then ask JLB not for his opinions on MY paper, but to peer review my reasoning. I don’t even care about his thoughts on primes, they’re for his paper, not mine.
I’ll provide my methods of logic, such as if P = Q then !Q = !P.
I’ll be looking for the skeptic to find holes in my logic, and if found look to correct or change my approach.
How can these people just not get that? Why do they always ask the skeptic “well if not, then what”?
JLB isn’t the gravity expert, nor ever made that claim. He might not be the prime number expert either, but if I predicate my claim on shonky science, it’s his role to challenge.
The true scholar welcomes the peer review because it strengthens the authors paper, just like an immune system. The skeptic is the unsung hero.
Your last sentence says it all: the person genuinely interested in improving themselves will welcome scrutiny of their work. I for one would appreciate it if some of my critics would take the time to point out logical flaws or factual errors in my reasoning. If they could so, it would be of tremendous benefit to me. Instead, the critics tend to respond to my work with emotional outbursts, because I don’t make them feel good. We truly are dealing with damaged people, mature in their physiology but juvenile in their intellectual and emotional capacities. Real thinkers, they are not.
Im compiling a list of my findings on the Cavendish experiments now after reading the original paper. Somethings you say I don’t complete agree with, this might be my miss interpretation of the paper. Some videos on YouTube seem to confirm “attraction of mass”, which is fine. What I’m trying to peer review, are the functions in the paper. The paper makes statements like “about nine inches”, but them claims extreme precision in the torque.
The paper mentions an ODE too, which I admit I found impressive. However, shouldn’t it be a partial derivative, as there would also be a vector towards the centre of Earth too, and not just pi/4?
My theory is small error margins will cause catastrophic errors in the functions. Just need some more spare time to collate the piece…
The “Theory of Gravity” is not scientific nor a theory as it is not falsifiable.
JLB did a great job at conveying that simple truth.
I’m curious as to what you came up with, Lucas. Although, I’m really unconcerned with the minutia of an experiment that is so ridiculous on its face. Determine with mass of the earth with lead balls and a torsion balance? Give me a break.
That was very good, well worth listening to. Your position throughout seemed very clear, honest and logical. My instinct tells me you’re one of the good guys out here, and that you’re here for the right reasons. Personally I remain completely open minded regarding the shape of the Earth/nature of reality at the moment. I like the “flat earth scene” though as it at least gets individuals to start asking questions. It’ll be interesting to see where it all goes from here and where we’ll all be in another 12 months time.
Thanks for the kind words, Neil. Your instinct is on the money but, then again, I would say that, wouldn’t I? There are so many damned fools who have been attracted to this scene that it is difficult, even for those of us who pay close attention, to sort the deceived from the deceivers. Not that it isn’t worth trying all the same. As for the benefits of asking questions, you may like the input of ‘Cathexis’, who featured on my latest Impromptu Chat (#9 – ‘Lessons Learned). Those of us who not only ask the questions but seek the answers? Yes, we are generally better off for it. Those who simply like ‘asking questions’? Well, they never had much chance to begin with, did they? Sadly they outnumber us seemingly 100:1…
A bit late to the party in listening to this discussion, but the relevance here is timeless. The theme is simple, yet profound: dogmatists despise skepticism. Once questioned, the dogmatist responds with a feigned arrogance, typically predicated upon strength by numbers, and the rampant use of ad hominem attacks. If a skeptic continues his line of questioning, no matter how cordial and professional the skeptic may be, the arrogance of the dogmatist gives way to frustration, which in turn becomes anger.
Heliocentrist, flat earther… in this sense, there’s truly no difference between the two.
Thanks for comment; I could not have said it better myself: dogmatists despise skepticism. It is not merely that they dislike it (or refuse to employ it), these people actually despise even being around genuine skepticism. Like cats and bathtubs.
I have been saying for some time now that conspiratards and normies are two sides of the same coin. The ‘Flat Earth’ ‘debate’ helped me realise this more than any other topic I can think of. if we can strip away our own preconceived notions about the ‘merits’ (or otherwise) of the combatants, we can see very quickly that they mirror one another in the worst ways. Dogmatism.
Just listened and missed this one originally!
You utterly destroyed reds, atheist rex and the rest. Your temperament was perfect and is amazing how upset people get when you simply just ask why they believe what they do! They take it as a direct Insult if you don’t conform with them but struggle to explain or prove why you should!
Fucking brilliant hangout and it ended up, you ambushing them!
Thank you very much for the kind words.
I went back and relistened to this one yesterday. Man, I forgot how much they embarrassed themselves. I was in second gear and made a complete mess of them.
It all came back to me: Reds and his little gaggle of scientism geese could not even get their story straight about how the mass of the moon is determined.
JLB the science blasphemer knew more about science than a panel of true believers. What a shemozzle.
People ask me why I don’t take part in more debates with scientism dogmatists. This is why. Like a black belt toying with yellow belts in their own dojo.
Sure, if you invite me into your dojo to ambush me, I will smack you up once I wake up to your scheme. But I’m not about to go looking for dojos to do this to unsuspecting novices.
It doesn’t actually help them. Have any of those guys become more skeptical of their religion and begun thinking for themselves as a result of this call? Not so far as I am aware.
It may be entertaining for the audience but ultimately it is not a spiritually rewarding thing for me. I feel for these guys. They are just people.
And most people will never escape the clutches of whatever religion they were indoctrinated with as youngsters. Scientism can be just as pernicious as any Abrahamic religion.
Great job dealing with these guys, John. First, I find it charming how they fail to realize that most, if not all, of their conclusions rely on at least one unproven/assumed premise. Thus, as you know, anyone who rejects the assumed premise can logically reject the conclusion. Second, I love the part where you reject the assumption that the moon is a solid object, which prompts Atheist Rex to ask, how do you explain the tides then? Of course, as you implied, there are many possible explanations for the tides, and, furthermore, it simply doesn’t follow that the tides won’t or can’t work if the moon is not a solid object. Once Rex realized he was committing multiple fallacies simultaneously, he didn’t want to talk about the tides any longer. Classic! Anyway, great job, and keep it up.
Thank you for the kind words and welcome to the site, KT.
To this day I still get a kick out of that call. I don’t see any of those Scientism believers as my enemies, and nor do I think it is my job to remove or even lessen their faith. To me, they are just a bunch of proselytisers who are completely inexperienced when it comes to dealing with people who know their scripture better than they do. In their minds, they are doing the right thing by spreading the gospel. They mean well, the poor lemmings. They know not what they do.
You are quite right about Atheist Rex. What a silly bugger he proved himself to be. Oh well, I’m sure he is happy enough with his lot in life.
Absolutely comical that these adult children hold to their beliefs so dearly. I was genuinely laughing over half of the time. To hear them parrot the same crap, over and over; too afraid to challenge their own beliefs or too arrogant to admit their logic is flawed even when it is pointed out to them. Truly demoralized humans indeed.
It was a good listen, I was interested to hear how you held yourself in a chat with some others. As I have only read or heard monologues so far on the site. You came across pretty calm at all times and didn’t have an axe to grind. Was there any time during the call when you needed to compose yourself??? The guy Red was irritating to be honest, the way he constantly highlighted and dragged your name when he was addressing you. It was almost like he was addressing you, as if you were some simpleton. The rest of the guys, although they held different beliefs, all seemed plesent, but good old Red was a beauty.
Thanks you for the kind words. It always brings a smile to my face when people go back and get something out of the archive material.
To answer your question, I cannot recall exactly what was going on in my mind at the time, because it was well over two years ago now. But at that stage of my online/ACT journey, I had become accustomed to being treated that way in google hangouts / live calls, I’d had plenty of practice, kind of like a trained boxer who is primed and ready. So that entire call was like a walk in the park for me. Too easy.
I had gotten so used to that kind of conduct, the antagonism and the ‘us vs them’ (i.e. ‘us vs JLB’) behaviour, that it seemed ‘normal’ to me, in the sense that I was so used to it. Crazy, looking back.
These days I am not as involved or engaged in the online ‘debate’ scene/habit as I was back then, so I probably would not be able to handle the situation as well today, if somebody sprung an ambush on me like that. Then again, it might be a little bit like riding a bike, the instincts might kick in. Who knows?
Without going into too much detail, I truly believed back then that I was able to ‘help’ those who saw me as their enemy, I believed in some notion that it was ‘worth it’ to put up with that nonsense, because it was somehow making the world a better place to calmly respond to the attacks. As in, if I just remain calm and point out the logical fallacies, then in time more more people will begin to ‘see’. Lol!
A few years on, and I just don’t care any more. It took me a while but I eventually came to accept that these people are truly hopeless. And not only that, but they are fine the way they are. They don’t need to understand objective reality, because their make-believe subjective reality is all they need to function in life. They wake, they work, they sleep. They are fine.
It makes no difference to me what nonsense they believe, and it is apparent that it makes no difference to them, either. They can seamlessly hop from one religion to another, as evidenced by the people who flipped from Spinning Ball Earth to Flat Earth and soon became dogmatic proponents of the new belief system. Just a new program for the same brainless robot.
tl;dr No, I didn’t need to compose myself during that call, because by mid-2016 I was used to the antagonistic nonsense in that scene, because I was involved in plenty of those kinds of calls, because I was motivated by naive notions about how the world works back then, which led me to persevere with an ultimately fruitless attempt to ‘help’ those who don’t want or need my help. It is truly amusing to me, looking back at it all. At least I learned some lessons and people today can still enjoy listening back to the shenanigans of the past.
These guys are hilarious JLB, well done.
They don’t know how to go about falsifying a theory. They were suggesting that you could falsify one by changing the observations, but the problem is that the observations exist separately from and regardless of the theory. Shaking my head.
Thank you very much, friend. This call was a watershed moment not only for the JLB operation but for me as a person.
It was at this point that I realised, proper realised, that I am untouchable.
These guys gave it their best and didn’t even get close. In an outnumber ambush. They got crushed!
This was at the back end of a few live debates I had taken part in. I was up to speed and in good form.
I haven’t bothered with debates since then. From memory, 2016 was when I stopped all of that.
Following that complete obliteration of Reds and co, there was nothing left for me to prove. At least not to myself.
Once you’ve internalised the ways of the real skeptic, the believers simply cannot match you. It’s over.
Looking back, I guess it makes perfect sense that I would soon begin seriously contemplating the NPC meme.
Prior to 2016, I honestly thought these creatures were somehow my equals. By 2018 I knew for sure they were / are not.
Perhaps this is one key reason why so many otherwise intelligent people still struggle with the NPC framework.
They still haven’t tested themselves against their ‘equals’.
Anybody who listens to this call and still thinks those bozos are in ANY way equal to me, is beyond hope.
Who is the guy that dominated the conversation for the first half hour (after the half hour that is missing) ?
Who is the guy that dominated the conversation for the first half hour (after the half hour that is missing) ?
Damn, that was rough. Several rage quits.