I am persuaded to think the earth is probably flat, on account of the sheer weight of the evidence that is inexplicable or nonsensical on the "world-is-a-ball" hypothesis. There is much such evidence on this website.
However, the most compelling challenge I ever received to the flat earth view was the question of the conspiracy to hide the truth. What kind of conspiracy is it? Is it one, or many? Which is the more plausible?
If earth is flat, there is probably a conspiracy to make space research and the like appear to prove otherwise. NASA says the earth is round; if it is flat, they are probably lying. It seems unlikely that NASA has simply made an honest mistake.
But it isn't just NASA doing this. Many organizations in many countries claim to have sent satellites and/or people into space. If the earth is flat, satellites are impossible, aren't they? Satellites are allegedly put into space according to round earth physics, in order to "fall" into "orbit." It seems that if somebody is claiming to put satellites into space, and the earth is flat, these are lying about what they are sending up and how.
They must be sending up pseudolites or stratellites, or perhaps satellites that utilize the gravitation of the stars to offset the UA--which means their claims to be sending up regular satellites (with calibrations that must be done according to round earth physics) are almost surely false. Almost surely, they couldn't send up satellites and still have the satellites work right if they truly believed the earth was round and it isn't.
It seems to me that this means every organization that sends up successful satellites probably knows the earth is flat.
That is a LOT or organizations, in a lot of countries! Phone providers, GPS, TV providers, not to mention orbital launch programs and manned spaceflight. And this raises many questions.
Are they mostly independently run conspiracies? Or is there just one very big conspiracy? (Or only a few pretty big conspiracies?)
If there is one big conspiracy, this must include every country that has supposedly sent stuff into space. As far as orbital satellite launches go, that list includes Iran and Israel. It includes China and North Korea and the United States. Regarding commercial companies, I expect it includes many more countries besides.
A number of these countries do not generally get along. The alliance required by the conspiracy theory takes some explaining. How could all these countries cooperate on such a project, and why would they do it? If the international drama between, say, Israel and Iran is a sham, then it is a pretty good one! I am inclined to question whether is plausible. It seems likely that the leaderships of Iran and Israel, and of North Korea and most everywhere else, really do have serious problems with each other.
But perhaps it is only certain factions within these countries, not the leaderships, who know the truth. Which factions are involved in the conspiracy? Perhaps the factions controlling the space agencies and other companies that make satellites. But again, why would they all agree to a conspiracy with one another in this way? And how could they fool the rest of their governments so thoroughly?
On the other hand, if there is a large number of independent conspiracies, why haven't any of them spilled the beans? It seems that of all these organizations, somebody would have decided their business plan may be helped out by revealing the secret! If you had a spaceflight company that realized the earth was flat and that ALL your competitors were therefore lying to everyone, you could potentially think it was a good idea to reveal it and make a name for yourself as the only honest company in the spaceflight business!
Perhaps it would not be successful, since everyone else would call you a liar, but it is strange that nobody has ever gambled on such a possibility--why has no one tried spilling the beans, not even those totally unaffiliated with the bigwig groups like NASA (if indeed there are many small conspiracies)?
The more people who are involved in a conspiracy, the more likely it is that someone will spill the beans, even at personal risk. Someone may be plagued by conscience, or someone may see an opportunity to make a name for themselves. If only a small number of people know the truth of the earth, it makes more sense that the secret has not been leaked--yet I cannot imagine how all the world's space flight programs and satellite launches are faked (whether in whole or in part) without a fairly large number of fakers taking part in this (whether independently or together) across the globe.
There is also the question of why so many people are taking part in this conspiracy or set of conspiracies.
A conspiracy to fake space research in order to save money makes sense. If the leaders of NASA and a few other space research agencies were doing this, it would make sense. But there are many companies involved, some of whom have nothing to do with space research. Somebody is getting those satellites (or pseudolites, or stratellites) into space--and that takes money. Are satellite TV companies profiting from the lies? How could they possibly profit from doing so? What type of spending would they save on?
Why are they lying to us?
I do not pretend they would have the moral scruples not to lie. I just ask what they would gain from it.
Perhaps such companies are controlled by one or more larger organizations--yet this again requires many layers to a dense conspiracy. Satellite TV and phone companies being manipulated, perhaps by being bribed or threatened by space research agencies or governmental factions--yet nothing leaks out to the public, despite leaks from so many other conspiracies.
I just don't get it.
A conspiracy to fake a round world so people would think they could not escape from world governments makes sense. (If you have not heard of this theory, I suggest looking into it.) But would so many governments cooperate to fake space research for this purpose? Why not just stop faking space research in the first place, and say money is too tight to do it? On this theory, there is no need for fake research. Because space research is still being faked, this conspiracy motive makes little sense to me anymore, although I used to hold to it.
Probably there is a convincing explanation for all this. But I haven't found it. Anyway, flat earth still makes more sense than round earth, and there is too much evidence there is one or more conspiracies (see moon and Mars landing anomalies in the videos and pictures--much evidence). But this is quite a challenge for me. It is hard to know what to make of it.
How does the conspiracy or set of conspiracies really work?