'Je Suis un Fou', and Australia doesn't exist

[Bill Ryan]

I put this under The Human Condition, but I might move it! It'd kind of be a shame, though, to bury it in another thread.



From today's Independent:

• https://indy100.com/article/google-t...ravity-8375821

How Google is excellently trolling Flat Earthers



Oh Google, you naughty old devil. Someone in Silicon Valley is rolling around in laughter after pulling off this hilarious prank at the expense of the Flat Earth community.

Flat Earthers believe that the world is flat, and that any evidence to the contrary is faked. Their belief that the world is flat has been described as the ultimate conspiracy theory, as they also think that several governments and NASA are working together to keep the general public in the dark.

Now, one member of Google's workforce has decided to take matters into their own hands with this subtle but oh so effective troll.

Log onto Google, and access Google Translate. When you're in there, type in 'I'm a flat-earther' in English, then look at the French translation.



Flat Earthers have been in the news for another reason recently. Earlier this month, they announced that they think that Australia - yes, that massive, dusty continent that's given us Kylie Minogue, and has a population of 24 million - doesn't exist.

In a now deleted Facebook post, one of the leaders of the movement, Shelley Floryd, wrote:

Australia does not exist. All things you call 'proof' are actually well-fabricated lies and documents made by the leading governments of the world.

Your Australian friends? They're all actors and computer-generated personas, part of the plot to trick the world.

If you think you've ever been to Australia, you're terribly wrong.

The pilots are all in on this and have in all actuality only flown you to islands close nearby - or in some cases, parts of South America, where they have cleared space and hired actors to act as real Australians.

[Hervé]

...

[AutumnW]

When I was a little kid, I think maybe 5 years old, I heard about this place called Sweden, where a lot of my extended family lived, I was told. It didn't sound quite real to me. I couldn't imagine anything farther than downtown. I'd already figured out Santa Claus was fiction so wondered if 'Sweden' was also a hoax.

Then my father flew to Europe for a visit and brought back pics of Sweden and Germany, France etc... So, I was assured these places existed but figured that Europe was like Disneyland and my relatives lived in a theme park.

This is what flat earthers remind me of...kind of a strange combination of suspicion that has a mature aspect to it, mixed with child like powers of 'reason.'

[Billy]

Blessed be the "I believe in all the BS", for they shall inherit a flat earth that does not exist and will never travel to visit Australia.

Lucky Australia

[Foxie Loxie]

You made me laugh out loud, Billy!

[RunningDeer]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Translate French to English - “un fou”

[David Trd1]

This "woman" is a "girl" of 17 and certainly not the leader of any movement. Even a little digging into the post would find out that she was having an online argument in a lighthearted way with one of her mates regarding rock band the smiths. What she wrote was a facetious in tone and slightly tongue in cheek. It seems it spiralled out of control from there..

The ref to her post in the article is just as much nonsense as the earth being flat...but I do wish more of them could speak french😊

[The Moss Trooper]

Posted by David Trd1 (here)
This "woman" is a "girl" of 17 and certainly not the leader of any movement. Even a little digging into the post would find out that she was having an online argument in a lighthearted way with one of her mates regarding rock band the smiths. What she wrote was a facetious in tone and slightly tongue in cheek. It seems it spiralled out of control from there..

The ref to her post in the article is just as much nonsense as the earth being flat...but I do wish more of them could speak french😊

Yep.

Literally 2 seconds of searching reveals the true context in which "one of the leader's of this movement" made the comment.

https://mashable.com/2017/03/23/aust.../#qmVtg7zf9uq2

Find it difficult to tell when something on the internet is a joke? (Bolding mine) Maybe don't fly into an abusive rage.

17-year-old Shelley Floryd from Stockholm has been penning Facebook posts claiming "Australia is not real" and man, have they gone viral.


"It's a hoax, made for us to believe that Britain moved over their criminals to someplace," she wrote in her original post on Tuesday. "All things you call 'proof' are actually well fabricated lies and documents made by the leading governments of the world.

"Your Australian friends? They're all actors and computer generated personas, part of the plot to trick the world." It's so obviously a joke, but it was definitely detailed enough to make a bunch of particularly patriotic Australians think that someone actually believes this.

There's more than 40,000 comments on the first post, many of them abusive.

"If im a paid actor then I want 33yrs of back pay and a god dam trailer dressing room with a star on the door and my name in that star!!" wrote one heated-up Aussie.

Floryd is merely bemused by the fuss, the "complete joke" has received, saying it was inspired by an Australian friend of hers, Sam, when they had a disagreement about '80s indie band The Smiths.

"We were talking on the phone when he told me he hated the Smiths, and I thought — no one can hate the Smiths — hence Australia doesn't exist. So I wrote that post out later that evening as a joke to my friends, and then it blew out of proportion — I wasn't expecting more than maybe a few shares."

Floryd said she's had her Facebook posts go viral before, but not to this scale. And certainly not to the extent in which people have taken it seriously.

"Most of the messages and reactions I've gotten have been negative. I've had thousands of people tell me I'm a c*nt, idiot, r*tard, waste of space and so on. I've read maybe a hundred death threats, and maybe a thousand more have told me they're going to beat me up," she said.

Despite this, the teenager hasn't taken her post down, and has also made subsequent posts referencing her "Australia isn't real" trope.

"I haven't put the posts to private because it's actually quite funny to see it have such a strong reaction, and even if I did people have still shared it around and screenshotted it. It's on the net forever," she said.

And from the Independent to boot. I think that we can use that as a little marker to gauge the professionalism of their 'journalism'. Jeeez, they could've used Google...... how's that for squaring the circle!

[Bill Ryan]

Yes, it was a joke that went out of control. It's still hilarious.

That's why this has its own thread. (At least for now!)

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by The Crimson Horse Blanket (here)
a little marker to gauge the professionalism of their 'journalism'.

No kidding. Here's another marker. In the original (I corrected it when I copied it), it refers to Silicone Valley.

I guess that's a different place!

[Mike Gorman]

Australia does not exist? I was on a big ship in 1970, it sailed from Southampton on August 30, arrived in Fremantle harbor on 24th September and we disembarked. The name of the ship was the 'Ellinis' which was owned by the Chandris Lines.
This ship had a remarkable history, one little part of this-David Bowie sailed on the Ellinis when it was being used on the Atlantic crossing, between the UK & America, David Bowie hated to fly and he was on the ship joining his American tour, he wrote 'Aladinsane' while voyaging, so the ship was certainly well known. Alas, the Ellinis was broken up in the 1980's.

Anyway, I live in northern Tasmania, which is located just south of Melbourne, about a 45 minute flight. Australia definitely exists, unless the past 48 years have just been me dreaming my existence, which is always a possibility, but you know what I mean.