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My Parents Are Flat Earthers

179 points by zwischenzug 8y ago

jerkstate 8y ago
You gotta admit, if you don't think too hard about it, it is pretty weird how many flights there are over the arctic when there aren't any (at all!) over the antarctic. Have you tried explaining/performing Eristothanes experiment with them? https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-proved-that-the-earth-is-not-flat/ https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-proved-t... edit: didn't mean to sound like a flat-earther! please stop downvoting!
- cyberferret 8y ago
  Quite simply - there is much more land mass in the Northern Hemisphere, and flights, say from Moscow to Anchorage or Reykjavik to Toronto have great circle routes that traverse the Arctic circle. The Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, has no large land masses near it, and even the southern most points of Australia/New Zealand and South America are too far away for any great circle routes to cut through there without being a greater distance than any other routing.
  - weirdos 8y ago
    It also has to do with a lack of options, if technical difficulties are encountered. The threshold for error and malfunction is much, much more extreme. While planes fly over mountain ranges, Antarctica is similarly dangerous, but without good reasons to attempt overflight.
    - richev 8y ago
      Don't feed the troll :-/
      - jerkstate 8y ago
        wow, what? now you're a troll if you don't know why runways are not normally distributed on planet earth?
  - markonen 8y ago
    Something like PER–SCL or AKL–CPT would fly over Antarctica in strict great circle terms, but would require ETOPS-370 rules to fly. Also, I have no idea how prevailing winds would affect the optimal routing. And it's not like these are highly trafficked city pairs. I seem to remember that Qantas has had flights crossing Antarctica in the past; their point was probably to cross/sightsee Antarctica rather than be the optimal routing for a flight though.
    - dingaling 8y ago
      Just as an aside, no-one planning actual ETOPS routes would ever use IATA airport codes. IATA codes are to ICAO as NetBIOS names are to DNS. I wish we could stamp-out the casual use of IATA codes, they do have some internal admin uses within airlines but they only cover a subset of airports and they don't have any logical decoding sequence.
      - markonen 8y ago
        Yes, but we passengers use them regularly.
- aaron_m04 8y ago
  It would only make sense to fly over the antarctic if you were traveling from one Southern hemisphere city to another. But most of the developed world is in the Northern hemisphere.
- wp381640 8y ago
  ETOPS and jet streams Flying Joburg to Sydney once we went pretty far south and skimmed Antartica, could see ice outside the windows you can see it in this video: https://youtu.be/i_a4WGxu62c?t=669 https://youtu.be/i_a4WGxu62c?t=669 It depends on jet streams and if you're in a twin-engine or four-engine jet
- owenversteeg 8y ago
  I mean, the simple explanation is a) that there are flights that cross part of Antarctica, and b) that there isn't much there. The Southern Hemisphere is pretty empty. There's Sydney-Santiago, but apparently that doesn't always cross Antarctica depending on winds.
cyberferret 8y ago
Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying, and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer. The uptick in flat earth theories among other things is central to that. I made the mistake of clicking on an anti flat earth Youtube channel once (SciManDan for reference [0]) and now get others videos in that channel as 'suggested videos'. I try not to click on them, but... I do. And each time I do, a little more of me dies on the inside when I see what the pro F/E pundits are putting out there, AND see their followers applauding it as 'truth'. The globe earth model is now apparently just a 'belief system' and not science any more. o_O [0] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtsZ5Iak9wSLsQLQ3XOAeA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtsZ5Iak9wSLsQLQ3XOAeA
- mindcrime 8y ago
  now get others videos in that channel as 'suggested videos'. FWIW, you can always remove that video from your history, so you won't get those recommendations anymore. Well, assuming you were logged into a Google account when you viewed it. Visit https://www.youtube.com/feed/history https://www.youtube.com/feed/history and use the smaller search bar to find any "questionable" videos and then you can delete them from your watch history. Another option is to click the little 3-dot menu on the suggested video, click "not interested", then click the "tell us why" link, and there should be an option like "I'm not interested in recommendations based on (SOME VIDEO)". You can check that checkbox and submit, and you should stop seeing those recommendations.
  - jobigoud 8y ago
    I have youtube history disabled but still get "recommended" videos. I'm thinking reinstalling greasemonkey to find a script that get rid of them.
    - mindcrime 8y ago
      Yeah, my guess is that if you're not logged in, or have history disabled, they still generate recommendations by IP or something... or they just give you generic recommendations that go to everybody that doesn't have a history to use. I don't mind, since I like the recommendations in general. But I think they dramatically overweight recent videos when they generate the recommendations, and sometimes I'll watch a video that's outside my normal habits, and I suddenly start getting all these weird recommendations. That's the only reason I ever bothered learning about the "remove this from my history" feature. :-)
weirdos 8y ago
The author, having been home schooled by Jehovah’s Witnesses, waxes somewhat unsurprised at this reflection, and takes it in stride. To be honest, having weird family members isn’t really all that weird. Beyond a certain age, when they can no longer embarass you, and you no longer depend on them as guardians, parents transform themselves into quasi-grandparents, even if you don’t have children. Growing up, half my grandparents were cooky, debilitated by age, and not exactly inspiring or heroic. Old age is kind of terrible, and people mostly don’t improve after 50. So, things could be worse. Abuse and turmoil at younger ages is way more traumatic.
blakejustblake 8y ago
While the author of this post focuses on the idea of a flat earth conspiracy leading to their conclusion that people believing in conspiracy theories don't have much influence over our everyday lives and that they're "fun", I can't help but disagree with an example that he even mentions shortly in the post: Anti-vaccination. The WHO has named anti-vaccination as a top 10 global health threat. Right now in Clark County Oregon there's an evolving problem with the spread of measles. I can understand the author's attempts to reconcile his parents' weird beliefs, but I can't agree with his conclusion that they're mostly fun and harmless. People who deny climate change enact that belief in the way they vote and in their every day consumption. That's not just a fun point to argue with. It's affecting everyone's lives.
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
How do flat earthers explain that the other planets are round and we see different sides of them all the time? Is earth flat and the rest of the planets are spheres??? Even in their bizarre world of logic this seems unassailable.
- bad_user 8y ago
  I don't think reason works with flat earthers, with creationists or conspiracy theorists in general. They'll cling on to any piece of information that confirms their world view and ignore the rest.
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    Part of the issue is that most of the arguments about flat earth are easy to me in layman's terms and hard to debunk without going deep mathematically. And there are lots of them, see this famous example https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ax_YpQsy88 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ax_YpQsy88 Now let's assume that a flat eaether believer is lacking the sort of knowledge required to instance why these "proofs" are wrong, how you going to debate them with the knowledge gap? You have to either fill that first or convert all your arguments into layman terms, making it extremely costly and time consuming. And so their view goes unchallenged.
- Sendotsh 8y ago
  They basically think there's a dome over the earth, and the stars are just a flat projected/printed surface on that dome (and other variations of that idea, like that the sun/moon are inside the dome going in circles overhead).
- teraflop 8y ago
  "What do you mean, 'we'? When I look through a telescope, all I see is a fuzzy dot. Scientists keep conveniently coming up with these photos that supposedly show the Earth and other planets to be round, but the rest of us have no way of verifying that they're anything other than pure fiction." Or something along those lines.
ARandomerDude 8y ago
I'm sure I believe some things that are wrong (everyone does)...but I hope my kids have the decency not to trash me in a blog post when they're older.
- kungtotte 8y ago
  There's a difference in clinging to something you learned in school (e.g. tastes being localized to certain areas of the tongue. Countries neatly dividing into western and third world countries. Pluto being a planet) by not keeping up to date, and believing something we've known to be false for literally thousands of years...
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  Such a post would be a huge opportunity to improve myself. I hope if I believe such things that anyone that cares about me will not only make such a post that they will share it with me as well.
purplezooey 8y ago
We're heading to the apocalypse quickly.
lisper 8y ago
It's important to understand that FE has nothing to do with finding the "truth" and everything to do with belonging to a club that gives you access to privileged secret knowledge. It's no different from any other religion or cult.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  'Being in a club with secret knowledge' doesn't fit the description of 'religion' very well, though there some aspects of cults for which the description may allude. But that said - this is a hard one, much different than 'aliens' or 'arcane knowledge' because the simple truth is actually evident for everyone to see. It's the craziest of all conspiracy theories because it's so utterly deniable. I mean ... I don't think aliens have made contact with the White House ... but heck, it's in the realm of statistical plausibility! (Maybe I want it to be true ...). (Edit: we do spend many millions of 'legit' research dollars trying to find aliens, so it makes more sense that there's conspiracy there) But 'flat earth' has to be the dumbest of all. For this reason it's a very interest phenomenon.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > 'Being in a club with secret knowledge' doesn't fit the description of 'religion' very well, Why not? (I debated whether or not to include "religion" in my comment because the word is so laden with baggage, but ultimately decided that it was apt, so I am prepared to defend it if you really want to go down that rabbit hole.) > But 'flat earth' has to be the dumbest of all. Not even close. (Go read some Scientology literature, or the Book of Mormon.) But the fact that FE is so vehemently rebutted by the scientific establishment is a feature to the flat-earthers, proof that they really are fighting the good fight even though the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them. That's the whole point.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      + ~90% of the world's population are religious (depending on how you look at it) and they mostly grow up in communities wherein everyone is basically the same religion, ergo, they are not generally 'missionary' , 'proselytizing', nor do they feel they have access to 'special information'. In fact, it's the total opposite: for most of the world's religious, 'religion' is just part of every day, normative culture in most places. It's kind of mundane, actually. Jehova's Witnesses, referenced in the article, are a totally different ballgame. They are 'default proselytizers' and have a substantially different world view than most folks directly around them. + As for why 'Flat Earth' is considerably dumber than Scientology: 'Dianetics' - the Scientology predicate is very close to psychotherapy. Scientology itself is bizarre, but also very interesting 'armchair philosophy'. For example, I think Hubbard's concept of 'tone scale' is brilliant, though it belongs in a blog of ideas, obviously not an institution. But Scientology is very complex, there's a lot going on, many levels. I can see how it is 'rational' for people to get caught up in it, eve if it's crazy. Scientology leaders are not stupid. There are tons of otherwise very smart people caught up in Scientology ... it's not just full of idiots and crazy people. But 'Flat Earth' is utterly stupid. It's like saying 'the sky is not blue'. It's the denial of a simple, almost arbitrary fact and it makes no sense at all. I don't think regular people get trapped in 'Flat Earth' conspiracies. Something has to be almost 'wrong' I think to fall for this one. I think the term 'deprogramming' would be apt for a regular person caught up in a cult. For 'Flat Earth' - I don't know what one would do with one of those people.
packetslave 8y ago
Earth can't possibly be flat. If it was, the cats would have knocked everything off it by now.
- stuntkite 8y ago
  Finally, an air tight argument. I am definitely going to use this.
pmontra 8y ago
I'm sure they have a good explanation for it that I don't bother to google, but how do satellites orbit a flat Earth to give us common experiences like satellite TV and GPS? And what about the moon.
- tartrate 8y ago
  According to the video, satellites simply don't exist. Satellite dishes read signals that have bounced off of a dome around earth. And the moon, well, the author quotes a book he received: “One day humanity will have to go back in time 4.6 billion years to build Earth’s Moon!” Yikes.
  - pmontra 8y ago
    And when they'll be at it, maybe they'll flatten Earth and rewire the minds of most of us to think it's a sphere. Why didn't I think about it? ;-)
mabbo 8y ago
I feel like the Flat Earth movement is, at it's core, a hack on the human mind. People want to feel important, and they want to feel in control. When the world is so large and uncaring, so horrible and meaningless, and people are so small and unimportant, a good conspiracy theory lets me be someone important. There are evil people out there who did this all to us, and now I get to know the truth. I get to be in better control of my life. I can keep reading and researching and with each step I feel more in control. I've got hope now because I know what's really going on! Anyone who challenges this worldview is not attacking my logical argument, they're attacking my emotional investment in this hope, this piece of control of life. When you challenge me, you aren't debating what is and isn't, you're trying to take away this one little bit of control I have. Why would you do that to me? Perhaps you've been brainwashed by the evil people, or maybe you're part of the evil people who did this to us all.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  "At its core" you're not wrong. And I was going to say "and where people think a quick google search can debunk specialists" which I wish I was wrong, but there are so many "specialists" out there that fail on the basic level it's not even funny. See all the climate deniers with PhD in their names, see all the "security specialists" that still think SSN and Mother's maiden name is worth anything for identification. The fear mongering of the past about Linux.
  - jogundas 8y ago
    I would say that putting climate change and flat Earth into the same category is not totally fair. While the geometry of the Earth has been pretty clear for millennia and the local CO2 level can be accurately measured, many more subtle questions on climate change still don't have clear cut answers.
    - eesmith 8y ago
      If you want to make that argument, then be aware that many more subtle questions on the Earth's geometry still don't have clear cut answers. That is, as "geometry" becomes more and more refined, there are questions of why the the continents are they way they are (Wegener's theory wasn't rejected until the 1900s!), why certain volcanoes exist where they are, why certain rock formations exist where they are, etc. That's why geology is still an active field.
aryehof 8y ago
Before reading your article, which I enjoyed, the title translated in my mind to "My Parents Are Conspiracy Theorists". It was interesting to see that you then stated that connection in the article. Rather than such views being an amusing curiousity, I find your parents a threat. As a member of a minority, your parents are predisposed to believe anything about us, all from a position of ignorance.
michaelmrose 8y ago
I feel like the real challenge is not what people want to discuss over dinner but that we allow people that are incapable of finding the holes in the flat earth theory to have the vote.
sorryforthethro 8y ago
Sorry again, of course the majority of FE are a bit cargo-cult; but the root of it is "fallacy of authority" no? There aren't many ways to tangibly justify the shape of the Earth to the average person. If all the images are photo-shopped and all the data is fraudulent, suddenly the world is a whole lot darker. And as much as it seems, the joke that the true edge of the flat earth is a mental illness diagnosis, says more about us than them.
ddtaylor 8y ago
> MKULTRA (uncontroversial) That's somewhat refreshing to read. I think 99% of Americans would call you crazy if you tried to explain MKULTRA.
M4v3R 8y ago
As a former Jehovah's Witness myself I can confirm that people from cults like JWs are very susceptible to believeing in conspiracy theories like flat earth, moon landing is hoax, etc. I personally know at least four ex-JWs and one current JW who all believe the Earth is flat. By contrast I don't personally know anyone who was catholic their whole life and turned to flat earth. Which is not to say that this doesn't happen, my point is that people who are extremely devouted to their religion are probably more likely to question everything, even the shape of the Earth, especially after they discover that their religious beliefs were not true.
- senectus1 8y ago
  yeah, years ago I went for a long bike ride (800km in two weeks) with about 2.5k other people. we all stopped at a town for a two day break called Manjimup and we all had to wash our clothes so you can imagine the line up to the public laundry... it went for blocks. anyway, a nice old bloke walked up and offered his washing machines at his house for use. We didnt much like the idea of hanging around all day just to get into the laundry so we said yes. He was a lovely old fella, and had a library room in his run down old place that was floor to ceiling, wall to wall filled with books, while our clothes washed he talked to us about god (our first warning sign) then about how the CIA was involved in all sorts of nasties (second warning sign) then I started to notice the titles on the books... LOTS of JW stuff, Lots of conspiracy theory stuff, lots of antisemitic themed books. the guy was completely bonkers, utterly up to his eyeballs in conspiracy stuff and somehow always linked it back to how the JW was there to protect themselves from them. he was a very pleasant enough guy and old and alone but the JW sect seems to have fed him all sorts of bullshit.
gzak 8y ago
Must say, I wouldn't find it fun - I had a similar experience with my own folks when I found out they were avid Trump supporters. I was stunned at first, then I thought "nbd, I'll change their minds next family get together". Nope, every time we discuss it, we both double down, stop listening to each other, let our emotions run high, and get nowhere. Very stressful, we now try to avoid the subject altogether.
mkhpalm 8y ago
I feel like this whole flat earth craze is more like tide pods than anything else. There are very few people who actually believe the earth is flat just like there are very few people out there who were accidentally eating tide pods. Its a practically nonexistent problem that everybody can't seem to stop talking about. Everybody who seems to talk about it that I ever see mostly do so as a gaff or some other reason. I guess the flip side of that is how many people actually believe there are large groups of the public who do or believe these sorts of things? For me, where this type of stuff come from is more interesting. Is it pure trolling at its core or is there another reason for spreading the idea that these are problems? Is it some kind of experiment to see where the masses are at psychologically? Is it purely something crazy to talk about to provide revenue from advertising? I doubt we'll ever know who puts forth all the effort or why. But I do bet it will become a thing of the past as the catalysts move on and the cattle get over it.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  It's shocking to me how many people don't realize that a great deal of flat eartherism is pure trolling.
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    I've come to the opinion that there isn't a hard like between trolling and actually believing in something, or actually expressing a genuine negative emotion. I think, in practice, "trolling" is much more than just a synonym for "kidding".
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      Just so we're clear, I'm saying that it's very obvious that a large number of people who say the earth is flat know the earth is round, and are pretending to believe otherwise because it gets people like you upset, and they enjoy that. Ironically they aren't the ones with a tenuous grasp on reality; their targets, who mistake their statements as genuine, are the ones who are mistaken.
- FrozenVoid 8y ago
intothemild 8y ago
I got to the part where his parents were jehovas witnesses, and realised that perhaps people who are gullible enough to believe dumb shit like flat earth, are probably wired to believe dumb shit. I’ll explain, my grandmother is a jehovas witness. She believes any dumb shit she reads and hears, no matter how easily one could refute it. She will argue black and blue, and if you try and tell her she’s wrong, it only reinforces that she’s right and onto something “big” since we have to refute it. Thing is about Jehovas witnesses is they believe that there’s a limited number of places in heaven, and only the truly devout will get a spot. There’s two real good ways to earn yourself a spot. 1. Donate a lot of money to the church over a lifetime. 2. Convert as many people as you can. It is in essence a pyramid scheme. No mattter how many times I’ve told her that she won’t earn one of the ~200,000 spaces in heaven (it’s really what they believe) because there’s easily a few million members of the “church” globally, and they would all be as devout as her... so if they all die before her surely they would get one of the 200,000 spots. Then what happens? Does their god say to person number 200,001 “oh shit man sorry we just sold out of spots in heaven. clicks teeth” She will retort with “those other people have probably sinned and won’t get a spot.” Alluding that she’s better than people she doesn’t know. Which I’ll turn around on her and tell her that kind of thinking is probably a sin. She will get up and walk away and we will begin this again next year. Flat Earthers to me are similar to this kind of mindset. To hear that his flat earther parents were also Jehovas Witnesses... just wow.
- black-tea 8y ago
  My dad has been a lifelong atheist and a generally rational person but recently, thanks to YouTube, he's discovered conspiracies and gone all in on just about all of them. 9/11, moon landings, crop circles are all definitely conspiracies. I'm not sure what he thinks about flat earth yet but he'll probably get there. So it's not just pre-trained religious people who are susceptible. They're probably much more susceptible, though.
  - paradoxparalax 8y ago
    I make a daily effort to point out to elderly people in my family to be extremely aware of the electronic "fishing" for LandMoonDeniers, using "fishing hook/bait" headlines mixed in the middle of "serious/real" headlines, or adds placed by the website or the social media tool, and even spammed chat tool messages bought by the thousands from you know who. When someone clicks one of this, they know you are easy to braiwash or scam. This is already very old technique , already used before Internet was so widespread, when a pretty girl will make cold calls all day long from some IP telephone call-center installed in Panama or Costa Rica or , in a small operation, in the Cayman Islands, and as she was trained, she could detect a LandMoonDenier in a minute by the phone, and she would set up the Larceny lace around his neck to scam her/his money. Examples of this baits can be found, for instance, on The Sputinik News, what is very Scary and is a shame, and does't help at all the denial of Russian Interference by russian gov, but actually they don't really want to deny it(because it is not them who is doing this, If it was, they would never let the minimal vestige of evidence that it was them who do it), they know who is working in the shadows to elect , for example, a brainless in brazil, and they know this weird things are not coming from anyone from the U.S. or from the US intel, so they are just having fun playing and letting play, as long as the game is good for them. :off course, the world's oldest profession is probably not that of the sex trade, or the sex trade was born at the same time that the criminal religious larceny firstly made by the first human who got a curious colored stone and told his tribe that this stone was God and that the village should give him/her good sex and good food,to keep the Priest of the Stone, bearer of the Words and Laws of God, happy, and to keep God happy by extension.
somethingle234 8y ago
I used to think that Flat earthers and anti-vaxxers were really weird until I encountered the situation where AQI was bad in Seattle. It was around 170 AQI that day. Less than 30% of people on the street wore masks. Nobody cared about Science or warning around bad AQI. I've learned one life lesson: When I brought up this topic about wearing masks, people got defensive. Now they claimed that bad AQI didn't affect them. Well, this pm2.5 is not visible to our eyes, and the health impact isn't immediate. It's kinda analogous to anti-vaxxers, when you think about it. The takeaway is to never point out about a slow fatal condition that people are in. People will get defensive. I'd love some suggestions here on how to subtly suggest it. I wonder how many anti-vaxxers unconsciously know they are wrong but stand their ground anyway because someone close to them points out how dumb they are or how soon they will die. Note that flat earthers are fundamentally different from anti-vaxxers in the way that believing the earth is flat doesn't have any impact on their livelihood.
yumraj 8y ago
This is the first time I'm hearing about Flat Earthers so a couple of questions according to these people, if anyone knows - genuinely curious (I don't want to search since then Google will start showing me some ads related to FE): 1) if the Earth is flat, then what is on the other side of the flat Earth - do people live there? 2) I'm assuming it's like a thick cylinder, if so how thick is the Earth? 3) depending on how thick it is, what is on the sides - do people live there? OR, do these morons don't care about these things?? Again, genuinely curious if anyone knows.
- stan_rogers 8y ago
  By the "standard model", thickness beyond whatever's necessary to make the pizza structurally sound (and allow mining and such) is immaterial. No-one lives on the sides, and there's nothing on the bottom. Or, alternately, the bottom extends infinitely to compensate for the complete lack of turtles. Take your pick - both work. Don't worry about the mass of the earth, since gravity isn't a thing; the appearance of gravity is due to density (somehow) or to the ever-accelerating vertical ascent of the Earth and the nice space-like ceiling and its lights and other decorations (moons and such). If there was any of that so-called "gravity" that NASA ordered Newton and Einstein to make up plausible math for, the Earth would either have to extend to an infinite plane (which does bad things for fitting the dome sky) or anything not in the centre of the Earth would have a distinct lean to it. (Although perspective and atmospheric refraction would probably make things look vertical, just as it works to make the sun appear to rise and set as it travels in its circle over the disc and causes ships to appear to disappear from the bottom up over the horizon. Which ships clearly don't, because Nikon P900.) And don't bother mentioning that density differences need gravity to work as an up/down mechanism, since your so-called "gravity" is just density. (Yes, that will be the answer you get.) The key terms to remember are density, perspective and refraction. These explain any sphere-like or broadly heliocentric behaviours you may observe. And no, you can't just go to Antarctica to prove that it's just another continent, because there are armed forces keeping you away from the ice wall.
chris_wot 8y ago
This works in the opposite direction. Read Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries and you'll see the sort of unsubstantiated and ridiculous theories that permeate the Flat Earther worldview.
renox 8y ago
It doesn't look like he's worried but IMHO he should be: while a lot of these flat-earther/conspirationist are just "having fun" like he said, crooks can target easily these people! They're telling the word: I'm a gullible person with faulty logic, imagine how an attractive target they represent to crooks!
OscarTheGrinch 8y ago
Where do they think the edge is?
unknowns 8y ago
I have some clarification on this whole flat earth thing and it is insidious. I have a father who is prone to believing conspiracy theories. When I grew up he bought me a thousand "unexplained mysteries" magazines. the topics ranged from spontaneous combustion to ghosts to Loch ness monster to the magazines primary focus.. aliens. I had an incredibly scary childhood. As I grew older i learned that the strange noises at night were not ghosts but the house settling or something like that. It took me years to find peace from his indoctrination. Today, He doesn't care about any of those topics. They just seemed to slowly vanish from his radar. Today it is the invasion of "lesser" species trying to erode "Our" "Moral certainties" - He believes Trump is the answer the world needs - He believes Global warming is a myth created by Al Gore so he could take billions from the government - He believes brown skin makes you less intelligent because your DNA prohibits you from excelling, "Nature has chosen white DNA" - He believes the Rockerfeller's control the world through manipulation and bribery. - He lives in South Africa, yet is obsessed with Palestinian Politics. - He has a programmer son, and a Scientist Daughter, but routinely sends conspiracy theories to both of us to the point where I no longer interact with him I spent many hours researching why this could happen. Why would a person abandon all reason and persue his own beliefs so fervently? It turns out that people are prone to conspiracy theories via their personality. They don't understand the world, dont trust the government, and therefore latch on to an explanation that explains the whole world to them. Anybody trying to explain the difficulty of the situation to them is therefore an "attacker". The reason Flat earth is so insidious is that it has brought 3 active communities together. 1) The conspiracy crowd who does't trust the government ("The man") 2) Religious Christians who interpret the bible literally. ("The four corners of the earth") 3) Muslim culture being exterminated by christian "integrity". Christians view the muslim community by default as heathens. 4) the obvious crazies. so you have 3 powerful, emotional motivators steering this conspiracy. to the point where good science is being applied well, to poor premises. I was listening to a pod cast about this where the scientist in question was impressed by the level of scientific control over the completely insane premise. I have not solved this problem or re-connected with my father. It is ongoing and the misinformation is just horrific. Right now I feel that humanity is as divided as ever, with corporations taking their biggest cut. I honestly expected a completely different outcome to the freedome of information we have today. I expected enlightenment, but instead got people doubling down on their own beliefs and researching points to support them because emotions at the end of the day are more important than truth.
fsfsdff56sdf 8y ago
So I googled why no flights go across Antarctica, and all reasons sound like bullshit...
svat 8y ago
I love this article: https://deansforimpact.org/why-mythbusting-fails-a-guide-to-influencing-education-with-science/ https://deansforimpact.org/why-mythbusting-fails-a-guide-to-... (“Why mythbusting fails: A guide to influencing education with science”) Narrowly, it's about “learning styles”, the idea that certain students are e.g. “visual learners” and would benefit from education geared towards visual learners. But more broadly, it's about science in general, about persuasion. In its second half (starting at “Is there any hope for change?”), it outlines an excellent approach for dealing with such cases — or really, any disagreements between people. Failure to follow a similar approach may feel good in the short term, but usually has tragic consequences. And if it can happen with educated teachers, it can of course happen with flat-earth believers.
- svat 8y ago
  This will be controversial, but IMO also related is Jan Assmann's work on “monotheism” (a poor term, as what's intended here includes atheism, as polytheists generally understand): the prevailing meme in (especially) Western culture that “the truth to be proclaimed comes with an enemy to be fought” — i.e. too much concern about what is “true” and wariness about people happening to believe in untruth, regardless of their actions. (The fact that this is on the front page of Hacker News is itself evidence.) This leads to certain… problems.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  I thought this “visual learner” vs other kind thing failed to replicate. Example of article listing some sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth...
  - svat 8y ago
    Yes, that's what the article I linked is about. (Specifically, a letter which led to headlines like “Teachers must ditch 'neuromyth' of learning styles, say scientists”.) I see that similar articles (thanks for your link) continue to be published in 2018, which I guess proves that no one took notice or heeded the advice.
pmichaud 8y ago
I read quite a bit of the discussion here, and I’m struck: People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or group dynamics. I wonder if anyone else sees the irony?
- aliswe 8y ago
  YES! Thank you. I hate this part of HN. It feels like people here are so militantly anti-religion or frankly anti-everything that's not taught in science classes. This in a very contemptious, oh-so toxic way. I like this article: http://www.paulgraham.com/ecw.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ecw.html And that would apply to everyone, not just F/E:ers. Now that's how you achieve true pluralism, not that I'm necessarily advocating that, but it's better than this hegemony and/or hate mongering. I call for some dignity on the basis of humanity, I guess. And a bit of respect and humility wouldn't hurt, either ...
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  I'm reading it as well, and where you see "spouting the first shit they made up", I see interesting thoughts and theories. I don't see irony, and I don't understand where your angry, superior point of view is coming from.
- dwild 8y ago
  > People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or group dynamics. How is making hypothesis anti-scientific? If anything, it's the basis of science. What's anti-scientific about flat-earther is how they ignore evidence. This is 100% what we discuss when we talk against flat-earther. Can you show me any comment here that ignore evidence? You are free to argue anything that's being said here and to show evidence of any of this. This is part of the scientific process and it's alright.
  - pmichaud 8y ago
    Look, I really don't want to be antagonistic here, but this is a pet peeve of mine re: science. Plus psychology and group dynamics in particular are a big part of my field... so I'm going to engage here, and I just want you to know before I start that I'm doing it in good faith. Framing what is happening in thread as "making hypotheses" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. A hypothesis is a guess about the causal structure relevant to a narrow question that is formulated to be falsifiable. Normally it's generated from a deep understanding of the domain and is actually a question about an aspect of that domain that isn't yet clear. "Is it like THIS or like THAT? How could we tell the difference between those worlds?" It's like debugging, actually. You see a bug in your software, and you know something, probably a lot, about the overall program. That lets you imagine what, specifically, might be going wrong, so you form guesses about that, and you check those guesses. You can check by just watching the values of variables as they move around the system until you see something anomalous. You can also check by predicting what might happen given certain inputs, and you send those inputs to verify that you are right, and to give you clues about where to investigate further. Finally you notice the part of the program that is almost certainly the source of the problem, and then you form a model of what is supposed to happen, and you change the code to reflect your new understanding until the inputs match the expected outputs. Sometimes the answer is a small change, and sometimes it's a major structural or conceptual change. That is a scientific investigation that involves real hypothesis formation and testing. Suppose instead that your well-meaning, non-technical uncle saw the bug. He might suggest you restart the computer. Whether he's right that that would fix the immediate problem is virtually irrelevant: HE doesn't have any idea if it would fix anything, and if it did fix something it wouldn't actually address whatever the underlying technical problem actually is. It may be an issue that you know--because you understand the domain--couldn't possibly be solved with a restart. Your uncle doesn't know anything, he's just parroting stuff he's heard before about how to "fix computers." In other words, he's just making shit up. Spouting whatever makes intuitive sense to him given his total lack of domain expertise. It's all well-meaning, and done in good faith, but... Your uncle did not, in any meaningful sense, generate a "hypothesis" about your software bug. What I am saying in my original post is that this thread is full of your well-meaning, non-technical uncle. And it's particularly grating to me because the "program" in question here is science itself, and the uncles are signaling their group membership in Team Science by doing something they seem to believe is science-like, but in fact is not. And further the not-science-like thing the people in this thread are doing is structurally identical to the people they are signaling against. The difference is that the people in this thread have slightly more sophisticated models of things like gravity and distinguishing plausible information from implausible information. Flat earthers are a particularly central example of believing some shit they made up, that makes intuitive sense to them given their lack of domain expertise. The people in this thread, making their guesses about psychology and group dynamics, are doing the same activity in the same way, but just in a domain that isn't as obvious. It bothers me. Rant over.
amriksohata 8y ago
Flat earthers are just rebels that don't want to listen to modern science for various other reasons, business backing, lack of trust etc
jesuslop 8y ago
Interestingly, it's the same problem than to determine if live in a flat or curved space(-time). You can determine curvature by intrinsic means. I you go from north pole to Ecuador painting your direction, turn 90º, advance a quarter of the equator, turn 90º still, and go home the Pole, your arrival direction is at still 90 degreess relative to your starting direction. the angles sum 270º! Instead of the 180 that should sum in flat Euclidean space. IIRC Gauss went to the mountains with ropes and instruments to verify things by himself, in a striking display of intelectual independence, defying any common sense of the time, and in fact he was shown right by the physics of last century. His shitty ropes just hadn't enough measuring accuracy.
gfosco 8y ago
I don't see this sentiment elsewhere so I'll share it... I enjoyed reading this article but I think it's really fked up he wrote this about his parents.
- super_cereal 8y ago
  Why?
  - gfosco 8y ago
    To me it seems disrespectful and offensive to publicly shame your parents, or almost anyone really, over privately shared conversations and opinions. Reminds me of this time I had lunch with a co-worker, who repeatedly referred to his parents as being "uneducated" because they didn't finish college.
- wanderer 8y ago
  I wonder if the author realizes the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to be drafted. In World War II Germany, they paid dearly for this refusal. Belief in a flat earth seems like a minor failing compared to the moral strength the Witnesses have shown in resisting one of the demands of "civilization" on its members.
zubairq 8y ago
If people want to believe in flat earth, let them. And flat earthers should allow others to believe in what they want to as well. In 1000 years people will look back at all of us and think of how primitive we were for believing many of the things that we believe too. And another 1000 years after that then people will do the same. I think that looking down on people for believing something different is the same as racial hatred (it all comes down to prejudice)
GrumpyNl 8y ago
Its all about education. He even pointed it out in the article, he was home schooled.
aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
I remember stumbling upon the Flat Earth Society back around 2003. I was convinced it was one of those elaborate ironic jokes/hoaxes that we used to have back then (bonsai kitten, World Jump Day, etc.)
Dowwie 8y ago
Flat Earth theory seems like a symptom of a condition. Those who are showing symptoms deserve love and compassion, not ostracism.
ToughMandrill 8y ago
Is true that flat earthers really exist? Or are they conspiring against us to believe they believe in a flat Earth??
ToughMandrill 8y ago
Is it true that flat earthers really exist? Or are they conspiring against us to make us believe that they believe in a flat Earth?
fourier_mode 8y ago
> But the Moon’s dimensions show the designers used the metric system How does looking at dimensions affirm that metric system was used? > They live in respectable houses, and host meals with respectable friends. They eat well. They travel for holidays, by plane, all over the Earth. The OP tells as if this is a good thing. However this is the scariest parts of all. Because who knows these people can as well be the next presidents. > As a Flat-Earther, having your theory rejected only re-confirms the Illuminati’s brainwashing campaign. A good point, which even most of the political strategists DO NOT implement. "Pushing extreme ideas does not swing votes." Conclusion: OP seems like he has given up on trying to come up with good ideas to deal with fallacies of his parents. This might seem cute at first, but there isn't a sense of realization that this might be very harmful to the society as a whole.
- pliftkl 8y ago
  Obviously when humans designed the universe, we didn't use the metric system. We used English units, which is why the speed of light is 1 foot per nanosecond! (Actually that's a _really_ close approximation and very helpful in reasoning about special relativity).
aae42 8y ago
Jehovah's Witnesses own official website is anti-flat earth: https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/flat-earth/ https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/flat-earth/
ngcc_hk 8y ago
Poor kid.
barberousse 8y ago
I feel like more people need to read Foucault. He is in a sense the prototypical the writer responsible for a lot of the contemporary left perspective on the entrenchment of practices of power in innocuous places (speeches, the design of prisons, schools, clinics, etc). In a sense, even challenges to climate change can find some anchor in his work. His work is avowedly nonpartisan ("I am just making tools", to paraphrase), though Foucault himself was a gay French historian who did much activism on prison reform and has an interesting take on the Iranian Revolution. But at the end of the day, I know no better resource with which to navigate modern information hysteria (and no matter how well-dressed in "rationality" it may appear).
stevefan1999 8y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
qazqwert 8y ago
man while i'm reading this... answer your mom regarding her question.... we don't fly over the north pole becuse the fuel frezes... altrogh it's possible it'smuch more dangerous and expensive...

179 points by zwischenzug 8y ago

You gotta admit, if you don't think too hard about it, it is pretty weird how many flights there are over the arctic when there aren't any (at all!) over the antarctic. Have you tried explaining/performing Eristothanes experiment with them? https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-proved-that-the-earth-is-not-flat/ https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-proved-t... edit: didn't mean to sound like a flat-earther! please stop downvoting!

cyberferret 8y ago
Quite simply - there is much more land mass in the Northern Hemisphere, and flights, say from Moscow to Anchorage or Reykjavik to Toronto have great circle routes that traverse the Arctic circle. The Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, has no large land masses near it, and even the southern most points of Australia/New Zealand and South America are too far away for any great circle routes to cut through there without being a greater distance than any other routing.
- weirdos 8y ago
  It also has to do with a lack of options, if technical difficulties are encountered. The threshold for error and malfunction is much, much more extreme. While planes fly over mountain ranges, Antarctica is similarly dangerous, but without good reasons to attempt overflight.
  - richev 8y ago
    Don't feed the troll :-/
    - jerkstate 8y ago
      wow, what? now you're a troll if you don't know why runways are not normally distributed on planet earth?
- markonen 8y ago
  Something like PER–SCL or AKL–CPT would fly over Antarctica in strict great circle terms, but would require ETOPS-370 rules to fly. Also, I have no idea how prevailing winds would affect the optimal routing. And it's not like these are highly trafficked city pairs. I seem to remember that Qantas has had flights crossing Antarctica in the past; their point was probably to cross/sightsee Antarctica rather than be the optimal routing for a flight though.
  - dingaling 8y ago
    Just as an aside, no-one planning actual ETOPS routes would ever use IATA airport codes. IATA codes are to ICAO as NetBIOS names are to DNS. I wish we could stamp-out the casual use of IATA codes, they do have some internal admin uses within airlines but they only cover a subset of airports and they don't have any logical decoding sequence.
    - markonen 8y ago
      Yes, but we passengers use them regularly.
aaron_m04 8y ago
It would only make sense to fly over the antarctic if you were traveling from one Southern hemisphere city to another. But most of the developed world is in the Northern hemisphere.
wp381640 8y ago
ETOPS and jet streams Flying Joburg to Sydney once we went pretty far south and skimmed Antartica, could see ice outside the windows you can see it in this video: https://youtu.be/i_a4WGxu62c?t=669 https://youtu.be/i_a4WGxu62c?t=669 It depends on jet streams and if you're in a twin-engine or four-engine jet
owenversteeg 8y ago
I mean, the simple explanation is a) that there are flights that cross part of Antarctica, and b) that there isn't much there. The Southern Hemisphere is pretty empty. There's Sydney-Santiago, but apparently that doesn't always cross Antarctica depending on winds.

cyberferret 8y ago

Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying, and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer. The uptick in flat earth theories among other things is central to that. I made the mistake of clicking on an anti flat earth Youtube channel once (SciManDan for reference [0]) and now get others videos in that channel as 'suggested videos'. I try not to click on them, but... I do. And each time I do, a little more of me dies on the inside when I see what the pro F/E pundits are putting out there, AND see their followers applauding it as 'truth'. The globe earth model is now apparently just a 'belief system' and not science any more. o_O [0] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtsZ5Iak9wSLsQLQ3XOAeA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtsZ5Iak9wSLsQLQ3XOAeA

mindcrime 8y ago
now get others videos in that channel as 'suggested videos'. FWIW, you can always remove that video from your history, so you won't get those recommendations anymore. Well, assuming you were logged into a Google account when you viewed it. Visit https://www.youtube.com/feed/history https://www.youtube.com/feed/history and use the smaller search bar to find any "questionable" videos and then you can delete them from your watch history. Another option is to click the little 3-dot menu on the suggested video, click "not interested", then click the "tell us why" link, and there should be an option like "I'm not interested in recommendations based on (SOME VIDEO)". You can check that checkbox and submit, and you should stop seeing those recommendations.
- jobigoud 8y ago
  I have youtube history disabled but still get "recommended" videos. I'm thinking reinstalling greasemonkey to find a script that get rid of them.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    Yeah, my guess is that if you're not logged in, or have history disabled, they still generate recommendations by IP or something... or they just give you generic recommendations that go to everybody that doesn't have a history to use. I don't mind, since I like the recommendations in general. But I think they dramatically overweight recent videos when they generate the recommendations, and sometimes I'll watch a video that's outside my normal habits, and I suddenly start getting all these weird recommendations. That's the only reason I ever bothered learning about the "remove this from my history" feature. :-)

weirdos 8y ago

The author, having been home schooled by Jehovah’s Witnesses, waxes somewhat unsurprised at this reflection, and takes it in stride. To be honest, having weird family members isn’t really all that weird. Beyond a certain age, when they can no longer embarass you, and you no longer depend on them as guardians, parents transform themselves into quasi-grandparents, even if you don’t have children. Growing up, half my grandparents were cooky, debilitated by age, and not exactly inspiring or heroic. Old age is kind of terrible, and people mostly don’t improve after 50. So, things could be worse. Abuse and turmoil at younger ages is way more traumatic.

blakejustblake 8y ago

While the author of this post focuses on the idea of a flat earth conspiracy leading to their conclusion that people believing in conspiracy theories don't have much influence over our everyday lives and that they're "fun", I can't help but disagree with an example that he even mentions shortly in the post: Anti-vaccination. The WHO has named anti-vaccination as a top 10 global health threat. Right now in Clark County Oregon there's an evolving problem with the spread of measles. I can understand the author's attempts to reconcile his parents' weird beliefs, but I can't agree with his conclusion that they're mostly fun and harmless. People who deny climate change enact that belief in the way they vote and in their every day consumption. That's not just a fun point to argue with. It's affecting everyone's lives.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

How do flat earthers explain that the other planets are round and we see different sides of them all the time? Is earth flat and the rest of the planets are spheres??? Even in their bizarre world of logic this seems unassailable.

bad_user 8y ago
I don't think reason works with flat earthers, with creationists or conspiracy theorists in general. They'll cling on to any piece of information that confirms their world view and ignore the rest.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  Part of the issue is that most of the arguments about flat earth are easy to me in layman's terms and hard to debunk without going deep mathematically. And there are lots of them, see this famous example https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ax_YpQsy88 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ax_YpQsy88 Now let's assume that a flat eaether believer is lacking the sort of knowledge required to instance why these "proofs" are wrong, how you going to debate them with the knowledge gap? You have to either fill that first or convert all your arguments into layman terms, making it extremely costly and time consuming. And so their view goes unchallenged.
Sendotsh 8y ago
They basically think there's a dome over the earth, and the stars are just a flat projected/printed surface on that dome (and other variations of that idea, like that the sun/moon are inside the dome going in circles overhead).
teraflop 8y ago
"What do you mean, 'we'? When I look through a telescope, all I see is a fuzzy dot. Scientists keep conveniently coming up with these photos that supposedly show the Earth and other planets to be round, but the rest of us have no way of verifying that they're anything other than pure fiction." Or something along those lines.

ARandomerDude 8y ago

I'm sure I believe some things that are wrong (everyone does)...but I hope my kids have the decency not to trash me in a blog post when they're older.

kungtotte 8y ago
There's a difference in clinging to something you learned in school (e.g. tastes being localized to certain areas of the tongue. Countries neatly dividing into western and third world countries. Pluto being a planet) by not keeping up to date, and believing something we've known to be false for literally thousands of years...
michaelmrose 8y ago
Such a post would be a huge opportunity to improve myself. I hope if I believe such things that anyone that cares about me will not only make such a post that they will share it with me as well.

purplezooey 8y ago

We're heading to the apocalypse quickly.

lisper 8y ago

It's important to understand that FE has nothing to do with finding the "truth" and everything to do with belonging to a club that gives you access to privileged secret knowledge. It's no different from any other religion or cult.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
'Being in a club with secret knowledge' doesn't fit the description of 'religion' very well, though there some aspects of cults for which the description may allude. But that said - this is a hard one, much different than 'aliens' or 'arcane knowledge' because the simple truth is actually evident for everyone to see. It's the craziest of all conspiracy theories because it's so utterly deniable. I mean ... I don't think aliens have made contact with the White House ... but heck, it's in the realm of statistical plausibility! (Maybe I want it to be true ...). (Edit: we do spend many millions of 'legit' research dollars trying to find aliens, so it makes more sense that there's conspiracy there) But 'flat earth' has to be the dumbest of all. For this reason it's a very interest phenomenon.
- lisper 8y ago
  > 'Being in a club with secret knowledge' doesn't fit the description of 'religion' very well, Why not? (I debated whether or not to include "religion" in my comment because the word is so laden with baggage, but ultimately decided that it was apt, so I am prepared to defend it if you really want to go down that rabbit hole.) > But 'flat earth' has to be the dumbest of all. Not even close. (Go read some Scientology literature, or the Book of Mormon.) But the fact that FE is so vehemently rebutted by the scientific establishment is a feature to the flat-earthers, proof that they really are fighting the good fight even though the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them. That's the whole point.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    + ~90% of the world's population are religious (depending on how you look at it) and they mostly grow up in communities wherein everyone is basically the same religion, ergo, they are not generally 'missionary' , 'proselytizing', nor do they feel they have access to 'special information'. In fact, it's the total opposite: for most of the world's religious, 'religion' is just part of every day, normative culture in most places. It's kind of mundane, actually. Jehova's Witnesses, referenced in the article, are a totally different ballgame. They are 'default proselytizers' and have a substantially different world view than most folks directly around them. + As for why 'Flat Earth' is considerably dumber than Scientology: 'Dianetics' - the Scientology predicate is very close to psychotherapy. Scientology itself is bizarre, but also very interesting 'armchair philosophy'. For example, I think Hubbard's concept of 'tone scale' is brilliant, though it belongs in a blog of ideas, obviously not an institution. But Scientology is very complex, there's a lot going on, many levels. I can see how it is 'rational' for people to get caught up in it, eve if it's crazy. Scientology leaders are not stupid. There are tons of otherwise very smart people caught up in Scientology ... it's not just full of idiots and crazy people. But 'Flat Earth' is utterly stupid. It's like saying 'the sky is not blue'. It's the denial of a simple, almost arbitrary fact and it makes no sense at all. I don't think regular people get trapped in 'Flat Earth' conspiracies. Something has to be almost 'wrong' I think to fall for this one. I think the term 'deprogramming' would be apt for a regular person caught up in a cult. For 'Flat Earth' - I don't know what one would do with one of those people.

packetslave 8y ago

Earth can't possibly be flat. If it was, the cats would have knocked everything off it by now.

stuntkite 8y ago
Finally, an air tight argument. I am definitely going to use this.

pmontra 8y ago

I'm sure they have a good explanation for it that I don't bother to google, but how do satellites orbit a flat Earth to give us common experiences like satellite TV and GPS? And what about the moon.

tartrate 8y ago
According to the video, satellites simply don't exist. Satellite dishes read signals that have bounced off of a dome around earth. And the moon, well, the author quotes a book he received: “One day humanity will have to go back in time 4.6 billion years to build Earth’s Moon!” Yikes.
- pmontra 8y ago
  And when they'll be at it, maybe they'll flatten Earth and rewire the minds of most of us to think it's a sphere. Why didn't I think about it? ;-)

mabbo 8y ago

I feel like the Flat Earth movement is, at it's core, a hack on the human mind. People want to feel important, and they want to feel in control. When the world is so large and uncaring, so horrible and meaningless, and people are so small and unimportant, a good conspiracy theory lets me be someone important. There are evil people out there who did this all to us, and now I get to know the truth. I get to be in better control of my life. I can keep reading and researching and with each step I feel more in control. I've got hope now because I know what's really going on! Anyone who challenges this worldview is not attacking my logical argument, they're attacking my emotional investment in this hope, this piece of control of life. When you challenge me, you aren't debating what is and isn't, you're trying to take away this one little bit of control I have. Why would you do that to me? Perhaps you've been brainwashed by the evil people, or maybe you're part of the evil people who did this to us all.

raverbashing 8y ago
"At its core" you're not wrong. And I was going to say "and where people think a quick google search can debunk specialists" which I wish I was wrong, but there are so many "specialists" out there that fail on the basic level it's not even funny. See all the climate deniers with PhD in their names, see all the "security specialists" that still think SSN and Mother's maiden name is worth anything for identification. The fear mongering of the past about Linux.
- jogundas 8y ago
  I would say that putting climate change and flat Earth into the same category is not totally fair. While the geometry of the Earth has been pretty clear for millennia and the local CO2 level can be accurately measured, many more subtle questions on climate change still don't have clear cut answers.
  - eesmith 8y ago
    If you want to make that argument, then be aware that many more subtle questions on the Earth's geometry still don't have clear cut answers. That is, as "geometry" becomes more and more refined, there are questions of why the the continents are they way they are (Wegener's theory wasn't rejected until the 1900s!), why certain volcanoes exist where they are, why certain rock formations exist where they are, etc. That's why geology is still an active field.

aryehof 8y ago

Before reading your article, which I enjoyed, the title translated in my mind to "My Parents Are Conspiracy Theorists". It was interesting to see that you then stated that connection in the article. Rather than such views being an amusing curiousity, I find your parents a threat. As a member of a minority, your parents are predisposed to believe anything about us, all from a position of ignorance.

michaelmrose 8y ago

I feel like the real challenge is not what people want to discuss over dinner but that we allow people that are incapable of finding the holes in the flat earth theory to have the vote.

sorryforthethro 8y ago

Sorry again, of course the majority of FE are a bit cargo-cult; but the root of it is "fallacy of authority" no? There aren't many ways to tangibly justify the shape of the Earth to the average person. If all the images are photo-shopped and all the data is fraudulent, suddenly the world is a whole lot darker. And as much as it seems, the joke that the true edge of the flat earth is a mental illness diagnosis, says more about us than them.

ddtaylor 8y ago

> MKULTRA (uncontroversial) That's somewhat refreshing to read. I think 99% of Americans would call you crazy if you tried to explain MKULTRA.

M4v3R 8y ago

As a former Jehovah's Witness myself I can confirm that people from cults like JWs are very susceptible to believeing in conspiracy theories like flat earth, moon landing is hoax, etc. I personally know at least four ex-JWs and one current JW who all believe the Earth is flat. By contrast I don't personally know anyone who was catholic their whole life and turned to flat earth. Which is not to say that this doesn't happen, my point is that people who are extremely devouted to their religion are probably more likely to question everything, even the shape of the Earth, especially after they discover that their religious beliefs were not true.

senectus1 8y ago
yeah, years ago I went for a long bike ride (800km in two weeks) with about 2.5k other people. we all stopped at a town for a two day break called Manjimup and we all had to wash our clothes so you can imagine the line up to the public laundry... it went for blocks. anyway, a nice old bloke walked up and offered his washing machines at his house for use. We didnt much like the idea of hanging around all day just to get into the laundry so we said yes. He was a lovely old fella, and had a library room in his run down old place that was floor to ceiling, wall to wall filled with books, while our clothes washed he talked to us about god (our first warning sign) then about how the CIA was involved in all sorts of nasties (second warning sign) then I started to notice the titles on the books... LOTS of JW stuff, Lots of conspiracy theory stuff, lots of antisemitic themed books. the guy was completely bonkers, utterly up to his eyeballs in conspiracy stuff and somehow always linked it back to how the JW was there to protect themselves from them. he was a very pleasant enough guy and old and alone but the JW sect seems to have fed him all sorts of bullshit.

gzak 8y ago

Must say, I wouldn't find it fun - I had a similar experience with my own folks when I found out they were avid Trump supporters. I was stunned at first, then I thought "nbd, I'll change their minds next family get together". Nope, every time we discuss it, we both double down, stop listening to each other, let our emotions run high, and get nowhere. Very stressful, we now try to avoid the subject altogether.

mkhpalm 8y ago

I feel like this whole flat earth craze is more like tide pods than anything else. There are very few people who actually believe the earth is flat just like there are very few people out there who were accidentally eating tide pods. Its a practically nonexistent problem that everybody can't seem to stop talking about. Everybody who seems to talk about it that I ever see mostly do so as a gaff or some other reason. I guess the flip side of that is how many people actually believe there are large groups of the public who do or believe these sorts of things? For me, where this type of stuff come from is more interesting. Is it pure trolling at its core or is there another reason for spreading the idea that these are problems? Is it some kind of experiment to see where the masses are at psychologically? Is it purely something crazy to talk about to provide revenue from advertising? I doubt we'll ever know who puts forth all the effort or why. But I do bet it will become a thing of the past as the catalysts move on and the cattle get over it.

darkpuma 8y ago
It's shocking to me how many people don't realize that a great deal of flat eartherism is pure trolling.
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  I've come to the opinion that there isn't a hard like between trolling and actually believing in something, or actually expressing a genuine negative emotion. I think, in practice, "trolling" is much more than just a synonym for "kidding".
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    Just so we're clear, I'm saying that it's very obvious that a large number of people who say the earth is flat know the earth is round, and are pretending to believe otherwise because it gets people like you upset, and they enjoy that. Ironically they aren't the ones with a tenuous grasp on reality; their targets, who mistake their statements as genuine, are the ones who are mistaken.
FrozenVoid 8y ago

intothemild 8y ago

I got to the part where his parents were jehovas witnesses, and realised that perhaps people who are gullible enough to believe dumb shit like flat earth, are probably wired to believe dumb shit. I’ll explain, my grandmother is a jehovas witness. She believes any dumb shit she reads and hears, no matter how easily one could refute it. She will argue black and blue, and if you try and tell her she’s wrong, it only reinforces that she’s right and onto something “big” since we have to refute it. Thing is about Jehovas witnesses is they believe that there’s a limited number of places in heaven, and only the truly devout will get a spot. There’s two real good ways to earn yourself a spot. 1. Donate a lot of money to the church over a lifetime. 2. Convert as many people as you can. It is in essence a pyramid scheme. No mattter how many times I’ve told her that she won’t earn one of the ~200,000 spaces in heaven (it’s really what they believe) because there’s easily a few million members of the “church” globally, and they would all be as devout as her... so if they all die before her surely they would get one of the 200,000 spots. Then what happens? Does their god say to person number 200,001 “oh shit man sorry we just sold out of spots in heaven. clicks teeth” She will retort with “those other people have probably sinned and won’t get a spot.” Alluding that she’s better than people she doesn’t know. Which I’ll turn around on her and tell her that kind of thinking is probably a sin. She will get up and walk away and we will begin this again next year. Flat Earthers to me are similar to this kind of mindset. To hear that his flat earther parents were also Jehovas Witnesses... just wow.

black-tea 8y ago
My dad has been a lifelong atheist and a generally rational person but recently, thanks to YouTube, he's discovered conspiracies and gone all in on just about all of them. 9/11, moon landings, crop circles are all definitely conspiracies. I'm not sure what he thinks about flat earth yet but he'll probably get there. So it's not just pre-trained religious people who are susceptible. They're probably much more susceptible, though.
- paradoxparalax 8y ago
  I make a daily effort to point out to elderly people in my family to be extremely aware of the electronic "fishing" for LandMoonDeniers, using "fishing hook/bait" headlines mixed in the middle of "serious/real" headlines, or adds placed by the website or the social media tool, and even spammed chat tool messages bought by the thousands from you know who. When someone clicks one of this, they know you are easy to braiwash or scam. This is already very old technique , already used before Internet was so widespread, when a pretty girl will make cold calls all day long from some IP telephone call-center installed in Panama or Costa Rica or , in a small operation, in the Cayman Islands, and as she was trained, she could detect a LandMoonDenier in a minute by the phone, and she would set up the Larceny lace around his neck to scam her/his money. Examples of this baits can be found, for instance, on The Sputinik News, what is very Scary and is a shame, and does't help at all the denial of Russian Interference by russian gov, but actually they don't really want to deny it(because it is not them who is doing this, If it was, they would never let the minimal vestige of evidence that it was them who do it), they know who is working in the shadows to elect , for example, a brainless in brazil, and they know this weird things are not coming from anyone from the U.S. or from the US intel, so they are just having fun playing and letting play, as long as the game is good for them. :off course, the world's oldest profession is probably not that of the sex trade, or the sex trade was born at the same time that the criminal religious larceny firstly made by the first human who got a curious colored stone and told his tribe that this stone was God and that the village should give him/her good sex and good food,to keep the Priest of the Stone, bearer of the Words and Laws of God, happy, and to keep God happy by extension.

somethingle234 8y ago

I used to think that Flat earthers and anti-vaxxers were really weird until I encountered the situation where AQI was bad in Seattle. It was around 170 AQI that day. Less than 30% of people on the street wore masks. Nobody cared about Science or warning around bad AQI. I've learned one life lesson: When I brought up this topic about wearing masks, people got defensive. Now they claimed that bad AQI didn't affect them. Well, this pm2.5 is not visible to our eyes, and the health impact isn't immediate. It's kinda analogous to anti-vaxxers, when you think about it. The takeaway is to never point out about a slow fatal condition that people are in. People will get defensive. I'd love some suggestions here on how to subtly suggest it. I wonder how many anti-vaxxers unconsciously know they are wrong but stand their ground anyway because someone close to them points out how dumb they are or how soon they will die. Note that flat earthers are fundamentally different from anti-vaxxers in the way that believing the earth is flat doesn't have any impact on their livelihood.

yumraj 8y ago

This is the first time I'm hearing about Flat Earthers so a couple of questions according to these people, if anyone knows - genuinely curious (I don't want to search since then Google will start showing me some ads related to FE): 1) if the Earth is flat, then what is on the other side of the flat Earth - do people live there? 2) I'm assuming it's like a thick cylinder, if so how thick is the Earth? 3) depending on how thick it is, what is on the sides - do people live there? OR, do these morons don't care about these things?? Again, genuinely curious if anyone knows.

stan_rogers 8y ago
By the "standard model", thickness beyond whatever's necessary to make the pizza structurally sound (and allow mining and such) is immaterial. No-one lives on the sides, and there's nothing on the bottom. Or, alternately, the bottom extends infinitely to compensate for the complete lack of turtles. Take your pick - both work. Don't worry about the mass of the earth, since gravity isn't a thing; the appearance of gravity is due to density (somehow) or to the ever-accelerating vertical ascent of the Earth and the nice space-like ceiling and its lights and other decorations (moons and such). If there was any of that so-called "gravity" that NASA ordered Newton and Einstein to make up plausible math for, the Earth would either have to extend to an infinite plane (which does bad things for fitting the dome sky) or anything not in the centre of the Earth would have a distinct lean to it. (Although perspective and atmospheric refraction would probably make things look vertical, just as it works to make the sun appear to rise and set as it travels in its circle over the disc and causes ships to appear to disappear from the bottom up over the horizon. Which ships clearly don't, because Nikon P900.) And don't bother mentioning that density differences need gravity to work as an up/down mechanism, since your so-called "gravity" is just density. (Yes, that will be the answer you get.) The key terms to remember are density, perspective and refraction. These explain any sphere-like or broadly heliocentric behaviours you may observe. And no, you can't just go to Antarctica to prove that it's just another continent, because there are armed forces keeping you away from the ice wall.

chris_wot 8y ago

This works in the opposite direction. Read Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries and you'll see the sort of unsubstantiated and ridiculous theories that permeate the Flat Earther worldview.

renox 8y ago

It doesn't look like he's worried but IMHO he should be: while a lot of these flat-earther/conspirationist are just "having fun" like he said, crooks can target easily these people! They're telling the word: I'm a gullible person with faulty logic, imagine how an attractive target they represent to crooks!

OscarTheGrinch 8y ago

Where do they think the edge is?

unknowns 8y ago

I have some clarification on this whole flat earth thing and it is insidious. I have a father who is prone to believing conspiracy theories. When I grew up he bought me a thousand "unexplained mysteries" magazines. the topics ranged from spontaneous combustion to ghosts to Loch ness monster to the magazines primary focus.. aliens. I had an incredibly scary childhood. As I grew older i learned that the strange noises at night were not ghosts but the house settling or something like that. It took me years to find peace from his indoctrination. Today, He doesn't care about any of those topics. They just seemed to slowly vanish from his radar. Today it is the invasion of "lesser" species trying to erode "Our" "Moral certainties" - He believes Trump is the answer the world needs - He believes Global warming is a myth created by Al Gore so he could take billions from the government - He believes brown skin makes you less intelligent because your DNA prohibits you from excelling, "Nature has chosen white DNA" - He believes the Rockerfeller's control the world through manipulation and bribery. - He lives in South Africa, yet is obsessed with Palestinian Politics. - He has a programmer son, and a Scientist Daughter, but routinely sends conspiracy theories to both of us to the point where I no longer interact with him I spent many hours researching why this could happen. Why would a person abandon all reason and persue his own beliefs so fervently? It turns out that people are prone to conspiracy theories via their personality. They don't understand the world, dont trust the government, and therefore latch on to an explanation that explains the whole world to them. Anybody trying to explain the difficulty of the situation to them is therefore an "attacker". The reason Flat earth is so insidious is that it has brought 3 active communities together. 1) The conspiracy crowd who does't trust the government ("The man") 2) Religious Christians who interpret the bible literally. ("The four corners of the earth") 3) Muslim culture being exterminated by christian "integrity". Christians view the muslim community by default as heathens. 4) the obvious crazies. so you have 3 powerful, emotional motivators steering this conspiracy. to the point where good science is being applied well, to poor premises. I was listening to a pod cast about this where the scientist in question was impressed by the level of scientific control over the completely insane premise. I have not solved this problem or re-connected with my father. It is ongoing and the misinformation is just horrific. Right now I feel that humanity is as divided as ever, with corporations taking their biggest cut. I honestly expected a completely different outcome to the freedome of information we have today. I expected enlightenment, but instead got people doubling down on their own beliefs and researching points to support them because emotions at the end of the day are more important than truth.

fsfsdff56sdf 8y ago

So I googled why no flights go across Antarctica, and all reasons sound like bullshit...

svat 8y ago

I love this article: https://deansforimpact.org/why-mythbusting-fails-a-guide-to-influencing-education-with-science/ https://deansforimpact.org/why-mythbusting-fails-a-guide-to-... (“Why mythbusting fails: A guide to influencing education with science”) Narrowly, it's about “learning styles”, the idea that certain students are e.g. “visual learners” and would benefit from education geared towards visual learners. But more broadly, it's about science in general, about persuasion. In its second half (starting at “Is there any hope for change?”), it outlines an excellent approach for dealing with such cases — or really, any disagreements between people. Failure to follow a similar approach may feel good in the short term, but usually has tragic consequences. And if it can happen with educated teachers, it can of course happen with flat-earth believers.

svat 8y ago
This will be controversial, but IMO also related is Jan Assmann's work on “monotheism” (a poor term, as what's intended here includes atheism, as polytheists generally understand): the prevailing meme in (especially) Western culture that “the truth to be proclaimed comes with an enemy to be fought” — i.e. too much concern about what is “true” and wariness about people happening to believe in untruth, regardless of their actions. (The fact that this is on the front page of Hacker News is itself evidence.) This leads to certain… problems.
scarejunba 8y ago
I thought this “visual learner” vs other kind thing failed to replicate. Example of article listing some sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth...
- svat 8y ago
  Yes, that's what the article I linked is about. (Specifically, a letter which led to headlines like “Teachers must ditch 'neuromyth' of learning styles, say scientists”.) I see that similar articles (thanks for your link) continue to be published in 2018, which I guess proves that no one took notice or heeded the advice.

pmichaud 8y ago

I read quite a bit of the discussion here, and I’m struck: People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or group dynamics. I wonder if anyone else sees the irony?

aliswe 8y ago
YES! Thank you. I hate this part of HN. It feels like people here are so militantly anti-religion or frankly anti-everything that's not taught in science classes. This in a very contemptious, oh-so toxic way. I like this article: http://www.paulgraham.com/ecw.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ecw.html And that would apply to everyone, not just F/E:ers. Now that's how you achieve true pluralism, not that I'm necessarily advocating that, but it's better than this hegemony and/or hate mongering. I call for some dignity on the basis of humanity, I guess. And a bit of respect and humility wouldn't hurt, either ...
happytoexplain 8y ago
I'm reading it as well, and where you see "spouting the first shit they made up", I see interesting thoughts and theories. I don't see irony, and I don't understand where your angry, superior point of view is coming from.
dwild 8y ago
> People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or group dynamics. How is making hypothesis anti-scientific? If anything, it's the basis of science. What's anti-scientific about flat-earther is how they ignore evidence. This is 100% what we discuss when we talk against flat-earther. Can you show me any comment here that ignore evidence? You are free to argue anything that's being said here and to show evidence of any of this. This is part of the scientific process and it's alright.
- pmichaud 8y ago
  Look, I really don't want to be antagonistic here, but this is a pet peeve of mine re: science. Plus psychology and group dynamics in particular are a big part of my field... so I'm going to engage here, and I just want you to know before I start that I'm doing it in good faith. Framing what is happening in thread as "making hypotheses" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. A hypothesis is a guess about the causal structure relevant to a narrow question that is formulated to be falsifiable. Normally it's generated from a deep understanding of the domain and is actually a question about an aspect of that domain that isn't yet clear. "Is it like THIS or like THAT? How could we tell the difference between those worlds?" It's like debugging, actually. You see a bug in your software, and you know something, probably a lot, about the overall program. That lets you imagine what, specifically, might be going wrong, so you form guesses about that, and you check those guesses. You can check by just watching the values of variables as they move around the system until you see something anomalous. You can also check by predicting what might happen given certain inputs, and you send those inputs to verify that you are right, and to give you clues about where to investigate further. Finally you notice the part of the program that is almost certainly the source of the problem, and then you form a model of what is supposed to happen, and you change the code to reflect your new understanding until the inputs match the expected outputs. Sometimes the answer is a small change, and sometimes it's a major structural or conceptual change. That is a scientific investigation that involves real hypothesis formation and testing. Suppose instead that your well-meaning, non-technical uncle saw the bug. He might suggest you restart the computer. Whether he's right that that would fix the immediate problem is virtually irrelevant: HE doesn't have any idea if it would fix anything, and if it did fix something it wouldn't actually address whatever the underlying technical problem actually is. It may be an issue that you know--because you understand the domain--couldn't possibly be solved with a restart. Your uncle doesn't know anything, he's just parroting stuff he's heard before about how to "fix computers." In other words, he's just making shit up. Spouting whatever makes intuitive sense to him given his total lack of domain expertise. It's all well-meaning, and done in good faith, but... Your uncle did not, in any meaningful sense, generate a "hypothesis" about your software bug. What I am saying in my original post is that this thread is full of your well-meaning, non-technical uncle. And it's particularly grating to me because the "program" in question here is science itself, and the uncles are signaling their group membership in Team Science by doing something they seem to believe is science-like, but in fact is not. And further the not-science-like thing the people in this thread are doing is structurally identical to the people they are signaling against. The difference is that the people in this thread have slightly more sophisticated models of things like gravity and distinguishing plausible information from implausible information. Flat earthers are a particularly central example of believing some shit they made up, that makes intuitive sense to them given their lack of domain expertise. The people in this thread, making their guesses about psychology and group dynamics, are doing the same activity in the same way, but just in a domain that isn't as obvious. It bothers me. Rant over.

amriksohata 8y ago

Flat earthers are just rebels that don't want to listen to modern science for various other reasons, business backing, lack of trust etc

jesuslop 8y ago

Interestingly, it's the same problem than to determine if live in a flat or curved space(-time). You can determine curvature by intrinsic means. I you go from north pole to Ecuador painting your direction, turn 90º, advance a quarter of the equator, turn 90º still, and go home the Pole, your arrival direction is at still 90 degreess relative to your starting direction. the angles sum 270º! Instead of the 180 that should sum in flat Euclidean space. IIRC Gauss went to the mountains with ropes and instruments to verify things by himself, in a striking display of intelectual independence, defying any common sense of the time, and in fact he was shown right by the physics of last century. His shitty ropes just hadn't enough measuring accuracy.

gfosco 8y ago

I don't see this sentiment elsewhere so I'll share it... I enjoyed reading this article but I think it's really fked up he wrote this about his parents.

super_cereal 8y ago
Why?
- gfosco 8y ago
  To me it seems disrespectful and offensive to publicly shame your parents, or almost anyone really, over privately shared conversations and opinions. Reminds me of this time I had lunch with a co-worker, who repeatedly referred to his parents as being "uneducated" because they didn't finish college.
wanderer 8y ago
I wonder if the author realizes the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to be drafted. In World War II Germany, they paid dearly for this refusal. Belief in a flat earth seems like a minor failing compared to the moral strength the Witnesses have shown in resisting one of the demands of "civilization" on its members.

zubairq 8y ago

If people want to believe in flat earth, let them. And flat earthers should allow others to believe in what they want to as well. In 1000 years people will look back at all of us and think of how primitive we were for believing many of the things that we believe too. And another 1000 years after that then people will do the same. I think that looking down on people for believing something different is the same as racial hatred (it all comes down to prejudice)

GrumpyNl 8y ago

Its all about education. He even pointed it out in the article, he was home schooled.

aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago

I remember stumbling upon the Flat Earth Society back around 2003. I was convinced it was one of those elaborate ironic jokes/hoaxes that we used to have back then (bonsai kitten, World Jump Day, etc.)

Dowwie 8y ago

Flat Earth theory seems like a symptom of a condition. Those who are showing symptoms deserve love and compassion, not ostracism.

ToughMandrill 8y ago

Is true that flat earthers really exist? Or are they conspiring against us to believe they believe in a flat Earth??

ToughMandrill 8y ago

Is it true that flat earthers really exist? Or are they conspiring against us to make us believe that they believe in a flat Earth?

fourier_mode 8y ago

> But the Moon’s dimensions show the designers used the metric system How does looking at dimensions affirm that metric system was used? > They live in respectable houses, and host meals with respectable friends. They eat well. They travel for holidays, by plane, all over the Earth. The OP tells as if this is a good thing. However this is the scariest parts of all. Because who knows these people can as well be the next presidents. > As a Flat-Earther, having your theory rejected only re-confirms the Illuminati’s brainwashing campaign. A good point, which even most of the political strategists DO NOT implement. "Pushing extreme ideas does not swing votes." Conclusion: OP seems like he has given up on trying to come up with good ideas to deal with fallacies of his parents. This might seem cute at first, but there isn't a sense of realization that this might be very harmful to the society as a whole.

pliftkl 8y ago
Obviously when humans designed the universe, we didn't use the metric system. We used English units, which is why the speed of light is 1 foot per nanosecond! (Actually that's a _really_ close approximation and very helpful in reasoning about special relativity).

aae42 8y ago

Jehovah's Witnesses own official website is anti-flat earth: https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/flat-earth/ https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/flat-earth/

ngcc_hk 8y ago

Poor kid.

barberousse 8y ago

I feel like more people need to read Foucault. He is in a sense the prototypical the writer responsible for a lot of the contemporary left perspective on the entrenchment of practices of power in innocuous places (speeches, the design of prisons, schools, clinics, etc). In a sense, even challenges to climate change can find some anchor in his work. His work is avowedly nonpartisan ("I am just making tools", to paraphrase), though Foucault himself was a gay French historian who did much activism on prison reform and has an interesting take on the Iranian Revolution. But at the end of the day, I know no better resource with which to navigate modern information hysteria (and no matter how well-dressed in "rationality" it may appear).

stevefan1999 8y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

qazqwert 8y ago

man while i'm reading this... answer your mom regarding her question.... we don't fly over the north pole becuse the fuel frezes... altrogh it's possible it'smuch more dangerous and expensive...