There’s a guy here on Substack that produces a lot of good stuff, but he’s a flat earther, fake moon landing promoter, and 9/11 conspiracy theorist. You may believe one of those three may be true, but that doesn’t mean all of them are. Your point is well taken. Having total mistrust of government can be as dangerous as total trust. You have to be connected to reality enough to discern the truth.
And, some claims are simply unprovable. I'll never for sure know whether the moon landing was real or not. There's some good evidence pointing both ways. In my mind I just have to categorize it as "I'm not sure". And that's okay, we don't have to definitively decide one way or the other on everything either.
I agree with most of the essay but let's not be to easy on the psychopaths in the government, most aren't real capable. My thoughts on some of the conspiracies like the flat earthers or no gravity is our own government's little psyops to make people feel as if all conspiracy theories are wacko. If that makes sense.? As a friend that's a Commander in the navy and I were having a conversation on the subject. I'd said I don't know if the moon landing happened or not, don't really have an opinion one way or another other than we'd never done anything close to that since the early seventies, which doesn't prove anything one way or the other. His comment was we've spent so much money and effort on the military industrial complex since that era it's left little for anything else. Which is very true
Interesting. Well, I looked at his "A Goodbye to Gravity" article briefly. It seems there's a lot of incorrect information in it.
He says: “If gravity were true... there should be measurable acceleration in the horizontal direction.”
There is.
He says: “Mountains and large buildings should generate a significant attractive force and draw objects towards them.”
They do.
This has literally been measured.
Geophysicists routinely measure tiny variations in gravitational acceleration produced by mountains, rock formations, underground mineral deposits, cavities, changes in crustal density, etc. Gravity surveys are an ordinary tool of geology.
In fact this goes back centuries to the historical Schiehallion experiment of the 1770s. Astronomers measured a plumb line being pulled sideways toward the Scottish mountain Schiehallion.
Modern gravimeters can measure vastly smaller effects.
So unfortunately it seems as though this is more poorly researched and unsubstantiated claims being made.
That doesn't man his other ideas aren't valid (it would take me too much time to fact check them all) but it's definitely not a good start when he's contradicted by vast amounts of experimental evidence that he seems unaware of.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you're going to make extraordinary claims like "gravity isn't real" you need to 1. Be aware of the actual evidence (he seems not to be, or he's ignoring it because it's inconvenient), and 2. Have a tremendous amount of evidence to prove that your theories are correct, which he doesn't have.
Oh and it's worth noting that he follows up his "debunking" of the theory of gravity with a slew of unsubstantiated claims about his theory of "Aether" that he just throws out there. There's not even an attempt to build a cogent theoretical framework or prove it, he just basically builds this narrative of one idea on top of another and then calls it true.
He takes the legitimate issues with the theory of gravity (it is a theory, it helps us estimate gravity but it isn't perfect), holds them up to a high standard of evidence and claims they failed, then makes a bunch of his own allegations in a verbal soup that don't hold up to literally anybody's standard of evidence.
He says, "The earth is said to be negatively charged. Negative is feminine, like Mother Earth, and inward flowing, so it draws the Aether down and into itself. This results in the denser elements of Earth and Water being drawn down, while the lighter elements of Fire and Air, are drawn up at the same time."
In other words he fails by his own standards (which he conveniently doesn't apply to his own ideas).
Reading through the comments section on that post makes me even more sad. I thought things were pretty bad in terms of people's understanding of philosophy, psychology, biology, politics, morality, and the nature of the state. I didn't know there was so much bunk about far more easily provable things in physics floating around.
There’s a guy here on Substack that produces a lot of good stuff, but he’s a flat earther, fake moon landing promoter, and 9/11 conspiracy theorist. You may believe one of those three may be true, but that doesn’t mean all of them are. Your point is well taken. Having total mistrust of government can be as dangerous as total trust. You have to be connected to reality enough to discern the truth.
Yes, exactly!
And, some claims are simply unprovable. I'll never for sure know whether the moon landing was real or not. There's some good evidence pointing both ways. In my mind I just have to categorize it as "I'm not sure". And that's okay, we don't have to definitively decide one way or the other on everything either.
I agree about being critical and some things being fake rabbit holes. If you get a chance, look up Steven Young of 'A Fool's Wisdom'.
I agree with most of the essay but let's not be to easy on the psychopaths in the government, most aren't real capable. My thoughts on some of the conspiracies like the flat earthers or no gravity is our own government's little psyops to make people feel as if all conspiracy theories are wacko. If that makes sense.? As a friend that's a Commander in the navy and I were having a conversation on the subject. I'd said I don't know if the moon landing happened or not, don't really have an opinion one way or another other than we'd never done anything close to that since the early seventies, which doesn't prove anything one way or the other. His comment was we've spent so much money and effort on the military industrial complex since that era it's left little for anything else. Which is very true
Interesting, what is the book about? I read the blurb, but it was too vague to really understand.
He's a theoretical physicist and has a lot of interesting perspectives. He's on Substack too:
https://stevenalexanderyoung.substack.com/
Interesting. Well, I looked at his "A Goodbye to Gravity" article briefly. It seems there's a lot of incorrect information in it.
He says: “If gravity were true... there should be measurable acceleration in the horizontal direction.”
There is.
He says: “Mountains and large buildings should generate a significant attractive force and draw objects towards them.”
They do.
This has literally been measured.
Geophysicists routinely measure tiny variations in gravitational acceleration produced by mountains, rock formations, underground mineral deposits, cavities, changes in crustal density, etc. Gravity surveys are an ordinary tool of geology.
In fact this goes back centuries to the historical Schiehallion experiment of the 1770s. Astronomers measured a plumb line being pulled sideways toward the Scottish mountain Schiehallion.
Modern gravimeters can measure vastly smaller effects.
So unfortunately it seems as though this is more poorly researched and unsubstantiated claims being made.
That doesn't man his other ideas aren't valid (it would take me too much time to fact check them all) but it's definitely not a good start when he's contradicted by vast amounts of experimental evidence that he seems unaware of.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you're going to make extraordinary claims like "gravity isn't real" you need to 1. Be aware of the actual evidence (he seems not to be, or he's ignoring it because it's inconvenient), and 2. Have a tremendous amount of evidence to prove that your theories are correct, which he doesn't have.
I'm afraid this seems like another distraction.
Oh and it's worth noting that he follows up his "debunking" of the theory of gravity with a slew of unsubstantiated claims about his theory of "Aether" that he just throws out there. There's not even an attempt to build a cogent theoretical framework or prove it, he just basically builds this narrative of one idea on top of another and then calls it true.
He takes the legitimate issues with the theory of gravity (it is a theory, it helps us estimate gravity but it isn't perfect), holds them up to a high standard of evidence and claims they failed, then makes a bunch of his own allegations in a verbal soup that don't hold up to literally anybody's standard of evidence.
He says, "The earth is said to be negatively charged. Negative is feminine, like Mother Earth, and inward flowing, so it draws the Aether down and into itself. This results in the denser elements of Earth and Water being drawn down, while the lighter elements of Fire and Air, are drawn up at the same time."
In other words he fails by his own standards (which he conveniently doesn't apply to his own ideas).
Reading through the comments section on that post makes me even more sad. I thought things were pretty bad in terms of people's understanding of philosophy, psychology, biology, politics, morality, and the nature of the state. I didn't know there was so much bunk about far more easily provable things in physics floating around.