Laws of Flerf

Flerfs are generally bad faith cultists; over other population segments, they disproportionately exhibit lying, abuse, threats/bullying, harassment, mental illness, antisemitism, and breaking the law.

This gives rise to the adage: Gotta lie to flerf, which is formalized with more detail in Toon's laws of flerf (list below).

Formal list

1. Flerf citations always contradict the flerf’s claim. No exceptions.
2. Flerf challenges are fake. Two exceptions.
3. Flerfs are pseudoscientists when evaluating FE and science deniers when evaluating globe evidence. No exceptions.
4. Every attempt to flerf-explain a phenomenon contradicts flerf-explanations of some other phenomena. No exceptions.

Proposed addenda

There is a proposed fifth law that has not yet gained formal status:

5. Every flerf claim about glober character or rhetoric is a self-report, actually describing flerf character and rhetoric.

Explanations

1. Contradictory citations

Since flerfs have no ability to do their own measurements, they must by necessity use citations from people who have done measurements. In doing so, the flerf will generally cherry-pick data and ignore either the result or the context in order to claim victory. On closer examination, the citation they use will always end up refuting their argument.

2. Fake challenges

Challenges must have the following attributes to be real:

• There must be clear, immutable rules specifying the prize and the criteria for an award. Without this attribute, the goalposts could be moved and every claim could be denied regardless of merit.
• The award money must be in escrow, so the award could not be withheld subjectively. Without this attribute, the person making the challenge has a financial motivation, and critically the ability, to deny every claim, regardless of merit.
• Third party judges, so the author of the challenge is not the person who determines if the prize is awarded. If the person making the challenge is also the adjudicator of truth, then any claim would be immediately denied without actual examination, and regardless of merit.

3. Dual standard of evidence

To paraphrase what the man said, if it wasn't for the dual standard of evidence, flerfs would have no standard at all. Because flerfs do not have the ability or expertise to do any amount of science beyond their 3rd grade papier-mâché baking soda and vinegar volcano that their dad put together for them the night before the science fair, they must lean on their beliefs in the face of all evidence. To a flerf, their belief is good enough to stand as evidence for their claims, but in all cases, actual science is never good enough for the claims of the other side.

4. No working model

Witsit is famous for saying, "We don't have a model." That's just about the smartest thing he's ever said. Every claim that a flerf makes about their Terra Tortilla must, by nature of the abundant conflicting claims made by other flerfs, refute another flerf claim in some way. For instance, the claim that the sun is 5,000 miles up over a flat disc conflicts with the claim that clouds can be seen behind the sun sometimes, because no clouds have been measured to be 5,000 miles high. You get the idea.

5. Projection (proposed)

There ain't no mental illness like the projection kind. Because flerfs can't hold on to more than one thought simultaneously, they sometimes forget the chain of custody of a train of thought. For example, when a flerf first senses that what they said is a lie, their discomfort causes them to first deny that they could be lying, because that would be bad. Then they think "well, someone is lying" in general, forgetting that it was their own lie, and they assign the state of lying to their globe opponent. Bingo-bango, and they think the globe is a lie. This requires further distillation to be accepted as a law, as certainly there are simpler terms to describe the phenomenon.

Examples

• Category:1st Law of Flerf — flerf citations contradicting the flerf's claim
• Category:2nd Law of Flerf — fake flerf challenges
• Category:3rd Law of Flerf — selective application of science

Exceptions to the laws of flerf

• Flat earther Steve from England challenged Critical Think to record his travel to Australia after The Final Experiment and paid.
• Flat earther Steve from England issued an open challenge to prove what Jeran Campanella said while talking about the path of the sun during The Final Experiment and paid.

Similar and related laws

Brandolini's law

See also: Wikipedia:Brandolini's law

Also called the bullshit asymmetry principle, it states:

The amount of time and effort it takes to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than the time and effort needed to produce and spread it.

This is closely related to the third law of flerf. Flerfs blindly believe flat Earth "evidence" and what their cult leaders tell them, then demand an unreasonable and inconsistent standard to accept globe evidence.

Poe's law

Main article: Poe's Law

States:

It is impossible to distinguish between genuine extremism and satire of extremism without clear indication of the author's intent.

Flat Earth beliefs can be so outlandish (such as the idea of a personal dome), it is often hard to distinguish between real flat earthers and trolls.

See also

• Category:Bad faith showcase
• Rowbothamism
• Category:Flerf lies
• Poe's Law
• Dave Weiss' fake bitcoin challenge (example of the second law)