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What is the actual social impact of the flat earth thing, though? Is flat earth creating new nutjobs? Does it really have the power to draw from the ranks of th

• everdrive 7y ago
  This might not be a popular answer, but I think the hope is that a rube would "fall for" something positive that happens to be correct and/or beneficial. eg, suppose somebody believes in modern physics, not because they understand it all, but because they know this is the "right" idea. This is obviously less ideal than someone actually understanding an idea they profess to hold, but it's far better to have support around beneficial ideas. It's not hard to imagine a lot of important issues fitting into this: support for liberalism and demoracy, support for global warming, support for coherent ideas about vaccines, etc. These all require broad public support, and the truth of the matter is that many people generally don't spend much time evaluating why they believe what they do. I understand this is not a perfect point of view: eg, who gets to decide what the "best" ideas are.
• DarthGhandi 7y ago
  They have big conferences about it, as long as no one is hurt all good with that, but truly doubt that people aren't being hurt by this delusion. It's an illness that demands rejection of overwhelming proof, it leads down dark paths, much like how arsonists become murderers these things need to be cutoff at the stem. There's nothing wrong with that