I didn't believe they existed until I discovered I had a coworker who was a true believer. I asked him how if the earth was flat, we know it's nighttime on the other side of the planet, and his response was "They're lying."

Same here. Guy I've known for some time. It's a more recent obsession, and it bodes ill for the man.

Oh jesus. You guys met ones in REAL LIFE? For fucks' sake.

I once lived on the 3rd floor of an abandoned shoe factory above the floor where government-seized tobacco was stored-- 3 people of 11 total there believed the earth was flat (possibly 4*.) One of them came over to my room very excited because he thought he'd independently found accidental youtube video proving it all. It betrayed shadow casting near the South Pole over 24 hours looking exactly like it should look to you and I. He had a globe and a flashlight both within 20ft of the computer even but he got angry before I could use these for demonstration.

*possibly 4 even, or even everyone was lying. But early into my awareness of it I had a little hope that it was all a troll, and that hope was crushed (as with bronies.) There used to be a Flat Earth Society that really was a joke-- a science teacher even told me about it in the 1990's and I think it dates back to the 70's.

^^^^ The teacher had been trolled by the Flat Earth Society in the 1990's, when he told us about its existence, that is. Or he just wanted to see how we reacted.

Lazy? He's flying a fucking jet plane while YT blogging!

The conclusion is invariably "I'm right, because we're in a terminal stage of individualism at this stage of the empire's decline".

That is not whats going on. The sun is so far away its light rays may as well be parallel.
The main reason the area where you can see a total eclipse is fairly small is that, you, the moon, and the sun, all need to be perfectly aligned in order for the moon to appear to cover the sun. If you move say 70 miles from the ideal position they'll no longer be aligned from your point of view.

On second thought I suppose you could imagine it that way Cena, if you imagine the lamp being way bigger than the object casting the shadow, so the closer the object got to the light source the *smaller* the apparent shadow. Thats not the typical thing one encounters day to day though.

It's sort of the opposite, he's wondering why an object as big as the moon casts a much smaller shadow, although the premise of the question isn't really true as he's only talking about the umbra, the absolute centre of the shadow where the sun isn't peeking over the edge of the moon, and not the penumbra, the vast majority of the shadow where the sun is only partially obscured, which is slightly bigger than the diameter of the moon.