Some time ago I watched a YouTube video (which I can't find anymore; I really should get a habit of bookmarking these things...) apparently by a flat earther, and it was both hilarious and utterly confusing, to the point that I'm not even sure if it was satire (Poe's law is in full effect here).
The video started with the guy filming himself driving a car to a construction site (I'm not sure if he works there or were visiting a friend; as said, the video is utterly confusing). He blabbers on and on and on about some vague things, and it's hard to get a grasp what exactly his point is, what he's trying to say. And if I remember correctly, this went on for like 10 minutes, so it was really long, just rambling mostly disconnected incoherent things. It's hard to explain the exact nature of this rambling without the video or a transcript, but it was the kind of rambling of a person who is apparently trying to make a point about something (a flat Earth in this case), without being able to formulate a concise, clear and understandable argument, just throwing random most disconnected vague tidbits all over the place, without ever getting anywhere concrete. It felt more like a deeply drunk person blabbering at a pub to an equally drunken friend about completely random incoherent things, forgetting five seconds later what his point was that he was trying to make, and moving to something else completely random.
Then he arrives at the construction site, and starts presenting different types of construction bricks, only slightly more coherently than during his car ride. He repeatedly talks about the bricks having "newtons" (which I think he was somehow confusing with "density", which obviously isn't the same thing). He goes for a while explaining how different types of brick are more dense or more porous, and weight more or less depending on the material (as said, repeatedly talking about "newtons", for some reason, rather than density, which was clearly what he was trying to say).
Then he goes to a hole in the ground at the construction site, where there's a bit of water at the bottom. Apparently there isn't enough water so he starts filling it with a hose, now once again rambling about random incoherent and disjointed things. He has brought all those bricks and some planks of wood with a wheelbarrow.
When the whole has enough water, he starts throwing the bricks in it. Most of them sink. The lightest and most porous types of brick float. The planks of wood obviously also float. At some point he accidentally pushes the wheelbarrow into the hole, and this is where it starts becoming so hilarious that Poe's law really starts to kick in, because it's so hard to say if this entire thing is just a huge piece of satire, as he tries to retrieve the wheelbarrow from the water, and falls himself in.
As mentioned earlier, without the video or a transcript it's hard to explain the exact nature of his ramblings, but he was clearly trying to make some kind of point or argument about something. However, at no point did he actually get there. As in, at no point did he make any sort of clear and understandable claim, or any sort of explanation of what exactly he was trying to prove, or what this "experiment" was about. That's right: This was supposed to be some kind of "experiment" to demonstrate something, but at no point did he actually explain what. There was no explanation of what he was trying to prove, and there was no conclusion of any sort. He just went on and on about bricks and "newtons", and throwing them into water, and falling himself into the water trying to retrieve the wheelbarrow. It's all very confusing, and no actual claims or conclusions are ever presented.
I got the impression that in his own mind he had a point he was trying to demonstrate (no matter how ill-conceived, but a concrete point nevertheless), but at no point in the video did he explain what that point was, and he was just sort of assuming that the viewer would know exactly what he was trying to explain and do. Deducing from completely different sources, I think that he was trying to demonstrate something about the question of how the flat Earthers explain gravity, but at no point in the video did he make any mention of this. (I don't remember for sure anymore because it has been some time, but I don't think he even says the word "gravity" even once in the video.)
While it's possible that this was satire, I have my doubts. Either it was really, really well masqueraded satire, or it was genuine, and I think it was the latter. It just didn't feel like any sort of satire; anything that somebody making satire would do. It was too long and too incoherent. I don't think people making satire would do it like that, because satire becomes boring if it's way too long and incoherent, and I don't think many people would even think of making it like this.
This wasn't an isolated case. I have seen quite many videos by (at least alleged) flat-earthers, and many of them are equally incoherent. You can find all sorts of videos made by them, and many are all the way from 30 minutes to several hours long, and consist of nothing but poorly edited randomly pieced together random things that are hard to follow (and extremely boring). It's like they just got a video editor and started appending random video clips and images one after another without any thought about a coherent narrative or point. It's like they have folders full of random stuff, and they just throw them together into a single video, pretty much at random.
And then there are of course those videos, similar to the one I described, where they talk to the camera, and they tend to go on and on, at worst for hours on end, with random incoherent babbling that might make some sense inside their heads, but not much for the viewer. It almost feels like they think that their audience can see what they are thinking inside their heads, so they don't have to explain it. (I think there's a period in very early childhood where the child doesn't understand that other people can't see what they are thinking, and assume that other people just know it. This seems to be somewhat similar.)
The video started with the guy filming himself driving a car to a construction site (I'm not sure if he works there or were visiting a friend; as said, the video is utterly confusing). He blabbers on and on and on about some vague things, and it's hard to get a grasp what exactly his point is, what he's trying to say. And if I remember correctly, this went on for like 10 minutes, so it was really long, just rambling mostly disconnected incoherent things. It's hard to explain the exact nature of this rambling without the video or a transcript, but it was the kind of rambling of a person who is apparently trying to make a point about something (a flat Earth in this case), without being able to formulate a concise, clear and understandable argument, just throwing random most disconnected vague tidbits all over the place, without ever getting anywhere concrete. It felt more like a deeply drunk person blabbering at a pub to an equally drunken friend about completely random incoherent things, forgetting five seconds later what his point was that he was trying to make, and moving to something else completely random.
Then he arrives at the construction site, and starts presenting different types of construction bricks, only slightly more coherently than during his car ride. He repeatedly talks about the bricks having "newtons" (which I think he was somehow confusing with "density", which obviously isn't the same thing). He goes for a while explaining how different types of brick are more dense or more porous, and weight more or less depending on the material (as said, repeatedly talking about "newtons", for some reason, rather than density, which was clearly what he was trying to say).
Then he goes to a hole in the ground at the construction site, where there's a bit of water at the bottom. Apparently there isn't enough water so he starts filling it with a hose, now once again rambling about random incoherent and disjointed things. He has brought all those bricks and some planks of wood with a wheelbarrow.
When the whole has enough water, he starts throwing the bricks in it. Most of them sink. The lightest and most porous types of brick float. The planks of wood obviously also float. At some point he accidentally pushes the wheelbarrow into the hole, and this is where it starts becoming so hilarious that Poe's law really starts to kick in, because it's so hard to say if this entire thing is just a huge piece of satire, as he tries to retrieve the wheelbarrow from the water, and falls himself in.
As mentioned earlier, without the video or a transcript it's hard to explain the exact nature of his ramblings, but he was clearly trying to make some kind of point or argument about something. However, at no point did he actually get there. As in, at no point did he make any sort of clear and understandable claim, or any sort of explanation of what exactly he was trying to prove, or what this "experiment" was about. That's right: This was supposed to be some kind of "experiment" to demonstrate something, but at no point did he actually explain what. There was no explanation of what he was trying to prove, and there was no conclusion of any sort. He just went on and on about bricks and "newtons", and throwing them into water, and falling himself into the water trying to retrieve the wheelbarrow. It's all very confusing, and no actual claims or conclusions are ever presented.
I got the impression that in his own mind he had a point he was trying to demonstrate (no matter how ill-conceived, but a concrete point nevertheless), but at no point in the video did he explain what that point was, and he was just sort of assuming that the viewer would know exactly what he was trying to explain and do. Deducing from completely different sources, I think that he was trying to demonstrate something about the question of how the flat Earthers explain gravity, but at no point in the video did he make any mention of this. (I don't remember for sure anymore because it has been some time, but I don't think he even says the word "gravity" even once in the video.)
While it's possible that this was satire, I have my doubts. Either it was really, really well masqueraded satire, or it was genuine, and I think it was the latter. It just didn't feel like any sort of satire; anything that somebody making satire would do. It was too long and too incoherent. I don't think people making satire would do it like that, because satire becomes boring if it's way too long and incoherent, and I don't think many people would even think of making it like this.
This wasn't an isolated case. I have seen quite many videos by (at least alleged) flat-earthers, and many of them are equally incoherent. You can find all sorts of videos made by them, and many are all the way from 30 minutes to several hours long, and consist of nothing but poorly edited randomly pieced together random things that are hard to follow (and extremely boring). It's like they just got a video editor and started appending random video clips and images one after another without any thought about a coherent narrative or point. It's like they have folders full of random stuff, and they just throw them together into a single video, pretty much at random.
And then there are of course those videos, similar to the one I described, where they talk to the camera, and they tend to go on and on, at worst for hours on end, with random incoherent babbling that might make some sense inside their heads, but not much for the viewer. It almost feels like they think that their audience can see what they are thinking inside their heads, so they don't have to explain it. (I think there's a period in very early childhood where the child doesn't understand that other people can't see what they are thinking, and assume that other people just know it. This seems to be somewhat similar.)
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