@bleepcoin,

Well, at least they're social. If they serve coffee and donuts ... 

*Quill*

@buttcoin,

Touché mate. 

Thank goodness there are still a few people left who appreciate the Queen's yeoman-like contributions to the Commonwealth. "Adding cognitive dissonance to the system" ... *I never thought of that!* A bit of the counter-factual to add spice to the *art of science.* Nice. Perhaps we could make Deepak Chopra a Baron or something.

Cryptogee, you were right ... the Royals are worth every penny.

Here's the Queen carrying both the Sceptre AND the Orb ... **_at the same time._** And she does it with a *smile.*

![queen_2578286b.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNPb5rG43vEbxPziNvyJDnFd3CbWuSeJ15FTGLRgyibug/queen_2578286b.jpg)

*Quill*

Thank you, I'm glad you found it valuable!

As you say there are many other less remarkable situations we can all experience cognitive dissonance. I just wanted to use flat earth because it is the most impressive example of cognitive dissonance the world has ever witnessed.

[*Cg*](https://steemit.com/@cryptogee)

@old-guy-photos,

That was his best bit ever. To actually make that funny though, takes incredible timing. He has it. He's a great comedian. :-)

@cryptogee,

I just stumbled across this study *(Cryptogee, you'll love the artwork).* This is why living in a bubble with other like-minded people is so dangerous.  Our ideas must be subjected to peer review by people with a broad spectrum of worldviews. In only this way can the biases and beliefs that blind us be overcome.   

https://www.sciencealert.com/feedback-study-explains-why-false-beliefs-stick

*Quill*

>This is Steemit @cryptogee! Now all the flat-earthers here will flock to your post to try and prove their stance! 😂

Let them come, I've already done a series showing them how they can win the Nobel Prize by simply explaining certain phenomena.

So far none of them have managed to do so 🤣😂🤣

[*Cg*](https://steemit.com/@cryptogee)

@snowpea,

>Now all the flat-earthers here will flock to your post to try and prove their stance! 

Cryptogee dreams of such things. :-)

*Quill*

Remember that this isn't only about flat earth.  Probably you and me and even @cryptogee also run into cognitive dissonances from time to time, and choose the wrong strategy.

On a very practical level, I know that sometimes I've managed to get lost by seeing and dismissing strong hints that I'm going in the wrong direction or that I'm in another place than I thought I would be.

Last time I clearly remember that happening, [this easter](https://steemit.com/oslo/@tobixen/easter-skiing-trip-vacation-day-2-kobberhaughytta-kikutstua-sellanra). I even had the GPS with me, and there were signposts also.  

We had one incident where the skiing track on the most direct path was completely bad, so we started ignoring the signs.  Then the GPS was jumping a bit forth and back, so I decided it was inaccurate and not to be trusted ... but surely, I should have questioned my belief of our position and the route forward rather than ignoring the GPS and signposts for a longer while.

At least, we had a nice trip, even if we were completely exhausted when we arrived.

>If a rocket can sustain an acceleration of 10 m/s^2 over a longer time, then it will be able to escape the gravity of the earth. It does not need to reach "escape velocity" at any point.

My point was that earth's escape velocity is roughly 11.2 km/s, about 33 times the speed of sound. This is due to earth's gravitational mass the way Newton describes.

Flat earthers say gravity doesn't work like that (they have to otherwise, gravity would drag us all towards the centre of the earth if we lived on a disc.). Rather they  say that we are accelerating upwards at 10 ms/2 (presumably going many millions of times the speed of light at this point in history.)

So if that were the case, the earth's escape velocity wouldn't be 11.2 kilometres per second it would be around 11 metres per second (regardless of acceleration).

So anything going faster than that would simply go straight up into space and wouldn't fall back to earth like Mad Mike's rocket did. 

[*Cg*](https://steemit.com/@cryptogee)

Yes I see my old friend @builderofcastles (destroyer of reason) is very prominent in those discussions. In order to keep my sanity I won't read his responses! :-D

[*Cg*](https://steemit.com/@cryptogee)

I saw this youtube comment that sums it up beautifully:

>Me: If the world is flat, why do ships disappear over the horizon hull first and sail last? 
Flat Earther: Perspective. 
Me: Okay. If the moon is small and close, why do people north of it and south of it see the same side and the same phase?
Flat Earther: Perspective.
Me: Interesting. If the sun is always circling over the flat Earth, why does it sink below the horizon at night? 
Flat Earther: Perspective. 
Me: Got it. If the stars are all on a disk rotating around Polaris, why do people south of the equator see them rotate around a southern celestial pole?
Flat Earther: Perspective. By the way, if Earth were really a sphere with no dome over it, what would stop the air from escaping out into space?
Me: Gravity.
Flat Earther: Oh brother. You Globe-heads think gravity is the magic answer to everything!

🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

[*Cg*](https://steemit.com/@cryptogee)

> It is amazing to think that the earth is flat. So the pictures from space must be gross fabrications then and the earth's curvature when looking at the horizon from a great distances is an optical illusion?

It's just your imagination - if you would be a flat-earther, you wouldn't see any curvature.

> The fact that we experience day and night in different times in different places is just the coin flipping?

The sun goes too far away and it becomes dark.

> I don't understand.

Neither do I - but actually there are people here on Steemit that believes in the flat-earth-dogma.

I've made two posts on this subject:
* [Round earth theory vs flat earth theory](https://steemit.com/flatearth/@tobixen/round-earth-theory-vs-flat-earth-theory)
* [The sinking ship effect and the flat earth theory](https://steemit.com/flatearth/@tobixen/the-sinking-ship-effect-and-the-flat-earth-theory)

There are so may conspiracy theories out there ... and for many of them it can be quite difficult arguing against ... but not so with the flat earth, anyone ought to be able to see with their own eyes that the round earth theory is a more useful theory.  I believe that's a good exercise in school: "use scientific methods to find out if the earth is flat or round".