Science: If gravity is merely the Earth and myself pushing against each other

Science

You're no Einstein

how do you know they aren't?

Distance and mass, baw. All the people on Earth, together, have only an infinitesimal effect on the Earth, but the Earth has a significant effect on us, from a gravity perspective.

Now, we're all held in place, by and large, by the gravity of the sun, but sort of like "sunk costs" it would require significant inputs to alter that balance. So all this spinning you're contemplating was going on before you were born and will continue long after you die. There has to be a "delta" - a pretty significant one - to change any of that.

I'm going to go out on a very, very small limb and say you are massively simplifying gravity.

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acceleration, as opposed to forces within those two objects pulling at each other, then why aren't people flung out into space when the Earth's rotation turns opposite to the direction of its revolution around the Sun?

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To put it in excruciatingly simple terms, mass generates gravity by bending space (it takes a shite-ton of mass to do it). Think of a bowling ball in the center of a trampoline except that the trampoline's indentation is 360 degrees. The spinning of the Earth is not even close to being enough to throw people off.

And that's *well* before getting into things like centrifugal force or Higgs-Boson.

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If gravity is merely the Earth and myself pushing against each other because of
acceleration, as opposed to forces within those two objects pulling at each other, then why aren't people flung out into space when the Earth's rotation turns opposite to the direction of its revolution around the Sun?

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The answer to your question is so obvious, I'm going to let my chauffeur answer it.....

relativity, baw. the same reason you think youre standing still on earth but are actually hurdling through space at 50k (or whatever) mph