No Stupid Questions

Don’t validate that kind of idiocy with an argument, just say “sure, you’re probably right.” and brush off the idea of even talking about it in general.

The sun is white, but the atmosphere reflects and scatters blue, allowing red and yellow to pass through. You see this effect in mornings and evenings when the sun's light passes a much further distance in the atmosphere due to its low inclination. Your logic is sound, the clouds do appear orange at that time.

The only time you can safely look at the sun enough to determine its color normally is a sunset when it is tinted orange. I can see how he might have come to this conclusion but.... wow...

This person is either at least mildly psychotic or fucking with you. It's wild that people are down here in the comments offering evidence when the entire concept is entirely absurd. This isn't an age or intelligence or experience thing this is a "this person is unhinged, don't interact" situation.

I remember the sun being orange, but also I remember not being able to look straight at it and having it depicted on TV and pictures as orange so thats probably where that impression came from.

Maybe also sunglasses have changed over the years? Maybe our eyes change as we grow and we actually could see it as orange back then? Streetlights used to be orange but are white now, maybe that mixes in the memory?

Theres lots of explanations for the misunderstanding and none of them involve God changing the light bulb.

This is an old Mandela effect.

The issue is that they don't actually remember what the sun looked like, because you can't really look at the sun.

Their memories are of the crayon drawings that they made in school.

The sun is orange, when it's dim enough to look at in the evening.

That's because the atmosphere takes all the blue away

Your friend is mentally ill or an idiot, likely both.

Your friend is a fucking idiot.

That's not a friend. Friendship is between approximate equals and requires respect and trust. He does not trust or respect you. He looks down on you for your age and ignores your valid arguments because of it. If you have any choice in the matter, get away from this person and find people who, even if they disagree, will do so from a place of reason and respect. Do not be fooled into thinking someone is a 'friend' just because you interact with them regularly.

Your friend has fallen down a far-right conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Sorry for your loss.

That person has probably been using ChatGPT. Either that or this post is itself LLM-generated. One or the other.

While the conclusion of it being replaced with an LED is obviously not what happened, I think it's very possible that the sun was often orange for him when he was growing up, because of air pollution.

30 years ago, depending on where you lived, there were more cars on the road with less efficient fuel consumption, more people using fireplaces, more people burning trash, less regulation of various industries etc. Searching for images with the phrase "smoke pollution sun" will give you a lot of photos of orange suns, and they're definitely not all altered for effect. I've seen red suns in real life too when wildfires are really bad near my area even though that's thankfully rare.

We know not the sun itself that is orange, but in a polluted environment it certainly looks like it is - and if you don't get a great education, I can see how you might think that's the actual color of the sun.

LEDs don't generate the necessary level of heat...

I'm going to take a different stance to a lot of the posters here.

Your friend may be showing signs of undiagnosed mental illness.

If you value him, listen to him and confront him when he has broken away from reality. But don't argue with him. Be firm in your disagreements but don't argue.

Be supportive of him if you can. Make sure he has a support network (parents siblings others)

Sometimes mental illness does not manifest until early adulthood.

Know your limits. Care for yourself.

Yes. If the sun was orange, the light would be orange, and everything white would be orange.

The fact that your friend believes the sun was replaced by a giant LED is a sign they should not be your friend anymore

But the sun is hot. You can feel the heat radiating from it.

LEDs are not hot - that's pretty much the main reason that they're energy efficient, they don't waste energy as heat.

It's not suddenly gotten colder, so if they did switch to LEDs, then they're also artificially compensating for the heat. Which would completely defeat the purpose of switching (presumably from an incandescent bulb) to LEDs.

Also, I'm super intrigued about who is supposedly behind this sun-bulb maintenance, and more interestingly, what could possibly be powering it

Did they look at the sun during a fire event?

A simple google will tell anyone the following

The Sun is white. It appears yellow from Earth because of scattering from the atmosphere. Its peak visible light is in the green part of the spectrum.

He could be a liar, I dunno, but he is definitely a doodoo head

https://sciencenotes.org/what-color-is-the-sun-hint-not-yellow/

Edit: your friend is almost certainly unconsciously mistaking the shift to LED bulbs as the “deyellowing” of society

You should get them a carbon monoxide detector.

because I'm younger than him and vaccinated.

Bruh your friend is a conspiracy theorist. There's no arguing with him because he already thinks Bill Gates created the Corona virus to exterminate humans so the underground lizard men can retake the surface (actual quote from a conspiracy theorist I used to know, and claimed the same kinda batshit bullshit your friend is saying).

Honestly? Your best bet is to just not engage with them when topics like that come up. Incredibly difficult (sometimes impossible) to get them to realize the fairy tales they've convinced themselves are real, aren't actually.

If it gets too much to handle, probably best to cut ties.

sun..... LED...

Yeah your friend is an absolute idiot and should ask for his money back from his elementary school

The sun has been around for billions of years and pretty much hasn't changed color since. Thinking you can "replace" the sun's "LED" makes me wonder if he is experiencing mental illness, honestly

Typical. You react with a realistic response to his nonsense, so he attacks your character and your intelligence. You must be stupid for not buying into his super dumb idea.

I'll bet he's a flat-earther, too, and you're an idiot for not being able to understand how obvious it is.

but got replaced with a white LED.

time to find a new friend.

there's no point when someone believes that. move on.

White LEDs are categorically not 30 year old tech, even if the rest of this theory wasn't gunpowder caliber guano.