6 ms·

Are Flat Earthers Being Serious?

43 points by TakakiTohno 7y ago

rusk 7y ago
This reminds of David Icke, and his whole theory that extra terrestrial lizard people are running everything. You might be tempted to think this is some sort of metaphor, and in that light, perhaps it makes some amount of sense. But no, he means actual lizard people.
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  You may be interested in the concept of "Lizardman's Constant" [0], the idea that for statistical purposes, it is not worth trying to separate out people who genuinely believe in lizard people from people who are dog-whistling, stupid, misled, or enacting Poe's Law. You may also be interested in Poe's Law [1], come to think of it. For everyday Bayesian purposes, it is very useful to simply know as a prior that there is roughly a 1-in-25 chance that you are being bullshitted. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- smnplk 7y ago
  Do you really think he believes what he says ? I am not sure. There is a lot of money in his line of work :) Although I did find this gem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZD3bBWFwAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZD3bBWFwAk Not sure what to think.
- teddyh 7y ago
  Regarding “Lizard people”, there might be an explanation for the phenomenon: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8600 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8600
  - lizardmancan 7y ago
    People believe anything the status quo feeds them. This makes me a great supporter of the lizardmen ruling the world theory. Forget about the truth, a fight with one side persistently lying and the other perpetually struggling to debunk the lies is not a fight at all. The lizard people are winning! kapish? Also, it arguably wasnt funny until jews foaming from the corners of the mouth acused David Icke of antisemitism and attacked him. I'm probably an antisemite for laughing my ass off? People deserve respect and empathy but there are limits. There is probably a law against lauging at a non representatve number of jews. I dont care.
    - jfoutz 7y ago
      "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" - Douglas Adams
      - lizardmancan 7y ago
        that is just what the lizard people would say!
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  My buddy made a totally lame lizard people video, with fake doctors using bad German accents etc. He was thrilled to get legitimate conspiracy comments on it! Folks taking it at face value. So yeah, there are all kinds of stupid out there.
- LandR 7y ago
  >But no, he means actual lizard people. You mean like the aliens in the tv show V? Surely no one took that seriously!
- skissane 7y ago
  > You might be tempted to think this is some sort of metaphor, and in that light, perhaps it makes some amount of sense. But no, he means actual lizard people. It is often claimed that "lizard people" is code for antisemitism. Icke denies this interpretation, but many critics do not accept his denials – see e.g. [1], [2], [3] [1] https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/20/18146628/alice-walker-david-icke-anti-semitic-new-york-times https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/20/18146628/alice-walker... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/01/conspiracy-theorist-david-icke-should-be-banned-from-australia-minister-told https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/01/conspiracy-theo... [3] https://www.dw.com/en/lizard-conspiracist-david-icke-not-wanted-in-berlin/a-37693384 https://www.dw.com/en/lizard-conspiracist-david-icke-not-wan...
mscasts 7y ago
People like to think we humans are intelligent and smart, but people like that really shows that we are mostly a pack of stupid apes. That's why I am on team AI.
- bovermyer 7y ago
  I'm in the process of reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari for the first time. In it, he writes about how Sapiens' major development over other human species was the ability to believe fiction. For context, he defines fiction as any concept not observable by the senses, and doesn't equate fiction with falsehood. Rather, he seems to mean abstraction. Assuming this to be the case, our ability to abstract is what is responsible for the creation of things like government, the arts, the sciences, and basically all of our culture and knowledge. Is it surprising that that ability to abstract could be taken too far among certain groups of people? Conspiracy theory is like a disease, not an inherent trait of humanity.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Yes! Abstraction allows for law, art, science. Also religion, witchcraft, the lottery, nationalism, politics.
- keiferski 7y ago
  Or perhaps the fascination with and assumption that AI will solve everything is itself a limited human belief...
- lizardmancan 7y ago
  Right! I use to think people were logic driven creatures.. until it struck me that that is just something i like to believe. So they told everyone the earth is a ball and because they told everyone this therefore it is true? Why cant we mock this?
  - lizardmancan 7y ago
    we accept lots of things without questioning them. there is nothing wrong with that ofc until you refuse to entertain the idea it might not be true. religion aside, questioning that is a different story
uvictor 7y ago
yes, then there are people like me trolling those idiots. I was surprised how many undergrad's can't answer some tricky scientific questions. I think it's because they are taught to remember facts but many fail to understand the underlying logic in them.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Yes Feynman wrote of teaching science to college students (in Brasil?). They could parrot back the textbook, but not recognize the phenomena of light polarization described immediately after reading its description
- fredoliveira 7y ago
  > yes, then there are people like me trolling those idiots. Perhaps not the best way to approach the issue, is it? Teach them. Help them by reasoning with them. But trolling people who are already convinced of an entirely unscientific view of the world, isn't it.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Once you have asked enough people what stars are, and if they are closer than the moon, you will become disappointed with the state of local education, and lose enthusiasm for this sort of activity.
mito88 7y ago
come join the flat earth Society. we have member all over the globe... or plank..
miguelmota 7y ago
A large portion of flat Earthers are serious conspiracy theorist who don’t believe in things like the moon landing ever happening and are very anti-government who refuse to believe anything coming from the government and NASA simply because they’re the government. The flat earth society is also a cult that people join to feel like they’re a part of something so they accept to go along with the story and believing in it to remain accepted. There’s a documentary on Netflix called “Behind the Curve” which was kind of interesting.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  What the article actually says is that flat-earthers do not typically subscribe to other conspiracy theories and UFO / ESP / ghosts cults. This is considered a surprising fact, worthy of explanation independently of the whole flat-earth delusion.
artemonster 7y ago
Its hard to enjoy the content when the website: 1) starts autoplaying frickin ads WITH SOUND; 2) asks for notification pop-up; 3) adds additional pop-up for subscribtion; ALL IN PARALLEL. wtf is happening to the internet?
- alpaca128 7y ago
  I share your worries about websites nowadays, but I can really recommend installing the uBlock Origin plugin and checking all boxes in the settings; since I did that I've seen zero popups or ads, including on this site.
  - artemonster 7y ago
    I think adblockers is a bandaid-on-a-gunshot solution and will be a rat-race between advertisers trying to avoid blockage and blockers getting more sophisticated, where in the end the end user would suffer most.
gsich 7y ago
https://twitter.com/FlatEarthOrg/status/935938769831845888 https://twitter.com/FlatEarthOrg/status/935938769831845888 At least they seem to be trolling.
whatl3y 7y ago
I enjoyed the Netflix documentary Behind the Curve which highlights several of the big people in this community. A lot of the documentary is a comical subtle troll, but it sheds light on how the people in this community are alike by being sort of social outcasts. They’re brought together not necessarily by a strong belief that the Earth is flat (though most in the community strongly believe it, or at least pretend to) but because they were bullied as kids, socially awkward, had a hard time making and keeping friends, etc. From this angle I absolutely see how strong a connection these people might have to others in this community and why it would be hard to say “screw you only friends that I’ve ever had, your theories don’t make scientific sense”. They might lose the only friends they ever had. This somewhat reminds me of the current state of politics. Why counter even a single belief, value, etc. that your echochamber has when they’re probably friends of yours and you know it could change your relationship for the worse (even though I think it’s ridiculous that questioning a political opinion with a well thought out, logically crafted counter opinion could ruin a relationship).
- brlewis 7y ago
  > I think it’s ridiculous that questioning a political opinion with a well thought out, logically crafted counter opinion could ruin a relationship People use a simplified mental model of your beliefs. You're either on one side or the other. Your argument flips you around to the other side. This is a problem. My hope is that this problem can be countered by explicitly labeling points of agreement, and by being very specific about points of disagreement. This is what my project HowTruthful facilitates. This article caught my attention because flat earth was the issue I used in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvU1h44jVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvU1h44jVw the introductory video. About 90 seconds in, I talk about how a presentation format that shows both agreement and disagreement helps preserve friendship.
  - was8309 7y ago
    Thank you, HowTruthful looks great, I hope sites like these become very common, not only to help preserve friendships, but to help distilled arguments, and ultimately clarify what we believe
  - 7y ago
pizza234 7y ago
I think treating flat earth theory as a rational argument to debunk is appealing, but ultimately unproductive. There was an interesting article some time ago: https://jameshfisher.com/2019/01/20/my-parents-are-flat-earthers https://jameshfisher.com/2019/01/20/my-parents-are-flat-eart..., which casted the human perspective on the problem: at the root, believing a conspiracy theory gives self-importance to the believer, and it's, in a way, "fun". Considering this perspective, this phenomenon belongs to the class of problems whose easy angle of attack is the technical (rational, in this case), and the difficult one is the human. I'd argue that if one thinks that a flat earther is metaphorically a brick wall, and consequently a fool, opposing technical arguments against it is equally as foolish. It's actually the other side of the coin: yelling arguments to a wall is the mirrored human problem, in my opinion. In conclusion, I think it would be more productive to think more about why this belief is appealing to people (and why it's spreading), rather than proving it's false.
- dmos62 7y ago
  Your point about this being a human problem above all is spot on, and I really enjoyed how you phrased your point about mirror problems. My impression of the flat earth theorists or enthusiasts is that it's a reaction to a sense of oppression (similarly to what another top level comment said). An assertion of power by negating a "common" truth. I like this explanation because I can relate to it quite well. The ditch the mind jumps into is that it's not that your problems are too difficult for you, but that the whole setup (context that formulates the problem) is a lie. Combine that with a profound distrust of the mainstream, some naivete and some luck, and you'll get flat earth theory.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    I call them a “get rich quick” scheme but for intelligence. Think about it. You watch a couple videos and now you’re smarter than everyone you know. (Or you feel that way) I still wish I had a way to counter it.
  - crispyambulance 7y ago
    You can see the same kind of psychology in those that claim they've created free-energy machines and also the "Einstein was wrong" crowd. It's peculiar kind of chip-on-the-shoulder combining a sense of under-dog angst with a large heap of obfuscation to counter attempts at understanding. Some are better at this kind of stuff than others, and remain as high-functioning members of society. The Bogdanov affair comes to mind as well Eric Weinstein's mathless and paperless "Geometric Unity" theory.
strategarius 7y ago
I'm still sure it's a some kind of joke that last longer than necessary, or mass trolling. I'm probably being too optimistic about people's mind in 21th century
- krapp 7y ago
  I've just decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt on the internet, it's much easier. If someone claims to be a flat earther, or believes some other patent nonsense, I'll assume they're sincere. If someone makes racist comments, I'll assume they're sincerely a racist. The intent of trolls is to be perceived in a certain way, so give them what they want and let them suffer the consequences.
a_imho 7y ago
Betteridge Law seems to not apply in this case. Anyway, are people engaging with flat Earthers being serious? Which is worse, being part of a cult X or complaining about X?
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  IF you don't refer to them with pejoratives then people might think they have legitimate points. The rube demographic isn't shrinking anytime soon.
shirak_untel 7y ago
I'm curious what they think guarded this secret before NASA
ourmandave 7y ago
Flat Earthers and their ilk are easy to joke about. But it stops being funny really fast when a Science Denier becomes a policy maker.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Indeed. Politicians are elected by people to enact their agenda and views. Enough dumb people will vote in dumb politicians.
mrfusion 7y ago
I have a friend who believes this and I can’t seem to debunk it for him. Ships get too small to see before the bottom disappears on the horizon. I can’t explain to him why he can see things like bridges that should be below the horizon. I think the simplest proof would be that you see farther when you go higher. On a flat earth you could see tall things from any height.
spodek 7y ago
The site is down so I haven't read it, but I suspect many flat earthers are responding to people who have no better reason to believe the Earth is round but lord over them condescendingly. When I ask my university classes for first-hand evidence that the Earth is round, not allowing photographs since we can easily doctor them, nearly zero can answer. Some get angry. Many can't conceive of what might make evidence. Most just insist that's what everyone knows and to suggest otherwise suggests stupidity, ignorance, or support for politics they oppose. Yet rarely can one cite meaningful evidence they've seen or collected, or that others have seen or collected, to show the Earth's shape. They believe what everyone tells them -- effectively majority opinion. How is their believing the Earth is round any different than someone else believing the Earth is flat?
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  Most people believe that airplanes are aluminum machines with engines that fly due to some aerodynamic physics. Then there is a minority living in a tribe somewhere doing the cargo cult thing and believing that airplanes are gods coming down from the sky because they have built a pretty enough altar, to give them food and treats. And yet you don't question everyone's belief about planes, even though very few people can explain how actually literal tons of aluminum and gas can get up in the sky. Holding a minority opinion, believing in something that very few people do doesn't automatically make that belief or idea worth studying. There are many factors and you have only listed "minority/majority opinion" as one. I would argue it is not enough to spark a meaningful conversation. It's not enough to say "I don't believe the same way as majority of people" to make it interesting to discuss and construct complex expensive arguments about.

43 points by TakakiTohno 7y ago

rusk 7y ago

This reminds of David Icke, and his whole theory that extra terrestrial lizard people are running everything. You might be tempted to think this is some sort of metaphor, and in that light, perhaps it makes some amount of sense. But no, he means actual lizard people.

lidHanteyk 7y ago
You may be interested in the concept of "Lizardman's Constant" [0], the idea that for statistical purposes, it is not worth trying to separate out people who genuinely believe in lizard people from people who are dog-whistling, stupid, misled, or enacting Poe's Law. You may also be interested in Poe's Law [1], come to think of it. For everyday Bayesian purposes, it is very useful to simply know as a prior that there is roughly a 1-in-25 chance that you are being bullshitted. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
smnplk 7y ago
Do you really think he believes what he says ? I am not sure. There is a lot of money in his line of work :) Although I did find this gem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZD3bBWFwAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZD3bBWFwAk Not sure what to think.
teddyh 7y ago
Regarding “Lizard people”, there might be an explanation for the phenomenon: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8600 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8600
- lizardmancan 7y ago
  People believe anything the status quo feeds them. This makes me a great supporter of the lizardmen ruling the world theory. Forget about the truth, a fight with one side persistently lying and the other perpetually struggling to debunk the lies is not a fight at all. The lizard people are winning! kapish? Also, it arguably wasnt funny until jews foaming from the corners of the mouth acused David Icke of antisemitism and attacked him. I'm probably an antisemite for laughing my ass off? People deserve respect and empathy but there are limits. There is probably a law against lauging at a non representatve number of jews. I dont care.
  - jfoutz 7y ago
    "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" - Douglas Adams
    - lizardmancan 7y ago
      that is just what the lizard people would say!
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
My buddy made a totally lame lizard people video, with fake doctors using bad German accents etc. He was thrilled to get legitimate conspiracy comments on it! Folks taking it at face value. So yeah, there are all kinds of stupid out there.
LandR 7y ago
>But no, he means actual lizard people. You mean like the aliens in the tv show V? Surely no one took that seriously!
skissane 7y ago
> You might be tempted to think this is some sort of metaphor, and in that light, perhaps it makes some amount of sense. But no, he means actual lizard people. It is often claimed that "lizard people" is code for antisemitism. Icke denies this interpretation, but many critics do not accept his denials – see e.g. [1], [2], [3] [1] https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/20/18146628/alice-walker-david-icke-anti-semitic-new-york-times https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/20/18146628/alice-walker... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/01/conspiracy-theorist-david-icke-should-be-banned-from-australia-minister-told https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/01/conspiracy-theo... [3] https://www.dw.com/en/lizard-conspiracist-david-icke-not-wanted-in-berlin/a-37693384 https://www.dw.com/en/lizard-conspiracist-david-icke-not-wan...

mscasts 7y ago

People like to think we humans are intelligent and smart, but people like that really shows that we are mostly a pack of stupid apes. That's why I am on team AI.

bovermyer 7y ago
I'm in the process of reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari for the first time. In it, he writes about how Sapiens' major development over other human species was the ability to believe fiction. For context, he defines fiction as any concept not observable by the senses, and doesn't equate fiction with falsehood. Rather, he seems to mean abstraction. Assuming this to be the case, our ability to abstract is what is responsible for the creation of things like government, the arts, the sciences, and basically all of our culture and knowledge. Is it surprising that that ability to abstract could be taken too far among certain groups of people? Conspiracy theory is like a disease, not an inherent trait of humanity.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Yes! Abstraction allows for law, art, science. Also religion, witchcraft, the lottery, nationalism, politics.
keiferski 7y ago
Or perhaps the fascination with and assumption that AI will solve everything is itself a limited human belief...
lizardmancan 7y ago
Right! I use to think people were logic driven creatures.. until it struck me that that is just something i like to believe. So they told everyone the earth is a ball and because they told everyone this therefore it is true? Why cant we mock this?
- lizardmancan 7y ago
  we accept lots of things without questioning them. there is nothing wrong with that ofc until you refuse to entertain the idea it might not be true. religion aside, questioning that is a different story

uvictor 7y ago

yes, then there are people like me trolling those idiots. I was surprised how many undergrad's can't answer some tricky scientific questions. I think it's because they are taught to remember facts but many fail to understand the underlying logic in them.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Yes Feynman wrote of teaching science to college students (in Brasil?). They could parrot back the textbook, but not recognize the phenomena of light polarization described immediately after reading its description
fredoliveira 7y ago
> yes, then there are people like me trolling those idiots. Perhaps not the best way to approach the issue, is it? Teach them. Help them by reasoning with them. But trolling people who are already convinced of an entirely unscientific view of the world, isn't it.
ncmncm 7y ago
Once you have asked enough people what stars are, and if they are closer than the moon, you will become disappointed with the state of local education, and lose enthusiasm for this sort of activity.

mito88 7y ago

come join the flat earth Society. we have member all over the globe... or plank..

miguelmota 7y ago

A large portion of flat Earthers are serious conspiracy theorist who don’t believe in things like the moon landing ever happening and are very anti-government who refuse to believe anything coming from the government and NASA simply because they’re the government. The flat earth society is also a cult that people join to feel like they’re a part of something so they accept to go along with the story and believing in it to remain accepted. There’s a documentary on Netflix called “Behind the Curve” which was kind of interesting.

ncmncm 7y ago
What the article actually says is that flat-earthers do not typically subscribe to other conspiracy theories and UFO / ESP / ghosts cults. This is considered a surprising fact, worthy of explanation independently of the whole flat-earth delusion.

artemonster 7y ago

Its hard to enjoy the content when the website: 1) starts autoplaying frickin ads WITH SOUND; 2) asks for notification pop-up; 3) adds additional pop-up for subscribtion; ALL IN PARALLEL. wtf is happening to the internet?

alpaca128 7y ago
I share your worries about websites nowadays, but I can really recommend installing the uBlock Origin plugin and checking all boxes in the settings; since I did that I've seen zero popups or ads, including on this site.
- artemonster 7y ago
  I think adblockers is a bandaid-on-a-gunshot solution and will be a rat-race between advertisers trying to avoid blockage and blockers getting more sophisticated, where in the end the end user would suffer most.

gsich 7y ago

https://twitter.com/FlatEarthOrg/status/935938769831845888 https://twitter.com/FlatEarthOrg/status/935938769831845888 At least they seem to be trolling.

whatl3y 7y ago

I enjoyed the Netflix documentary Behind the Curve which highlights several of the big people in this community. A lot of the documentary is a comical subtle troll, but it sheds light on how the people in this community are alike by being sort of social outcasts. They’re brought together not necessarily by a strong belief that the Earth is flat (though most in the community strongly believe it, or at least pretend to) but because they were bullied as kids, socially awkward, had a hard time making and keeping friends, etc. From this angle I absolutely see how strong a connection these people might have to others in this community and why it would be hard to say “screw you only friends that I’ve ever had, your theories don’t make scientific sense”. They might lose the only friends they ever had. This somewhat reminds me of the current state of politics. Why counter even a single belief, value, etc. that your echochamber has when they’re probably friends of yours and you know it could change your relationship for the worse (even though I think it’s ridiculous that questioning a political opinion with a well thought out, logically crafted counter opinion could ruin a relationship).

brlewis 7y ago
> I think it’s ridiculous that questioning a political opinion with a well thought out, logically crafted counter opinion could ruin a relationship People use a simplified mental model of your beliefs. You're either on one side or the other. Your argument flips you around to the other side. This is a problem. My hope is that this problem can be countered by explicitly labeling points of agreement, and by being very specific about points of disagreement. This is what my project HowTruthful facilitates. This article caught my attention because flat earth was the issue I used in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvU1h44jVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvU1h44jVw the introductory video. About 90 seconds in, I talk about how a presentation format that shows both agreement and disagreement helps preserve friendship.
- was8309 7y ago
  Thank you, HowTruthful looks great, I hope sites like these become very common, not only to help preserve friendships, but to help distilled arguments, and ultimately clarify what we believe
- 7y ago

pizza234 7y ago

I think treating flat earth theory as a rational argument to debunk is appealing, but ultimately unproductive. There was an interesting article some time ago: https://jameshfisher.com/2019/01/20/my-parents-are-flat-earthers https://jameshfisher.com/2019/01/20/my-parents-are-flat-eart..., which casted the human perspective on the problem: at the root, believing a conspiracy theory gives self-importance to the believer, and it's, in a way, "fun". Considering this perspective, this phenomenon belongs to the class of problems whose easy angle of attack is the technical (rational, in this case), and the difficult one is the human. I'd argue that if one thinks that a flat earther is metaphorically a brick wall, and consequently a fool, opposing technical arguments against it is equally as foolish. It's actually the other side of the coin: yelling arguments to a wall is the mirrored human problem, in my opinion. In conclusion, I think it would be more productive to think more about why this belief is appealing to people (and why it's spreading), rather than proving it's false.

dmos62 7y ago
Your point about this being a human problem above all is spot on, and I really enjoyed how you phrased your point about mirror problems. My impression of the flat earth theorists or enthusiasts is that it's a reaction to a sense of oppression (similarly to what another top level comment said). An assertion of power by negating a "common" truth. I like this explanation because I can relate to it quite well. The ditch the mind jumps into is that it's not that your problems are too difficult for you, but that the whole setup (context that formulates the problem) is a lie. Combine that with a profound distrust of the mainstream, some naivete and some luck, and you'll get flat earth theory.
- mrfusion 7y ago
  I call them a “get rich quick” scheme but for intelligence. Think about it. You watch a couple videos and now you’re smarter than everyone you know. (Or you feel that way) I still wish I had a way to counter it.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  You can see the same kind of psychology in those that claim they've created free-energy machines and also the "Einstein was wrong" crowd. It's peculiar kind of chip-on-the-shoulder combining a sense of under-dog angst with a large heap of obfuscation to counter attempts at understanding. Some are better at this kind of stuff than others, and remain as high-functioning members of society. The Bogdanov affair comes to mind as well Eric Weinstein's mathless and paperless "Geometric Unity" theory.

strategarius 7y ago

I'm still sure it's a some kind of joke that last longer than necessary, or mass trolling. I'm probably being too optimistic about people's mind in 21th century

krapp 7y ago
I've just decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt on the internet, it's much easier. If someone claims to be a flat earther, or believes some other patent nonsense, I'll assume they're sincere. If someone makes racist comments, I'll assume they're sincerely a racist. The intent of trolls is to be perceived in a certain way, so give them what they want and let them suffer the consequences.

a_imho 7y ago

Betteridge Law seems to not apply in this case. Anyway, are people engaging with flat Earthers being serious? Which is worse, being part of a cult X or complaining about X?

blaser-waffle 7y ago
IF you don't refer to them with pejoratives then people might think they have legitimate points. The rube demographic isn't shrinking anytime soon.

shirak_untel 7y ago

I'm curious what they think guarded this secret before NASA

ourmandave 7y ago

Flat Earthers and their ilk are easy to joke about. But it stops being funny really fast when a Science Denier becomes a policy maker.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
Indeed. Politicians are elected by people to enact their agenda and views. Enough dumb people will vote in dumb politicians.

mrfusion 7y ago

I have a friend who believes this and I can’t seem to debunk it for him. Ships get too small to see before the bottom disappears on the horizon. I can’t explain to him why he can see things like bridges that should be below the horizon. I think the simplest proof would be that you see farther when you go higher. On a flat earth you could see tall things from any height.

spodek 7y ago

The site is down so I haven't read it, but I suspect many flat earthers are responding to people who have no better reason to believe the Earth is round but lord over them condescendingly. When I ask my university classes for first-hand evidence that the Earth is round, not allowing photographs since we can easily doctor them, nearly zero can answer. Some get angry. Many can't conceive of what might make evidence. Most just insist that's what everyone knows and to suggest otherwise suggests stupidity, ignorance, or support for politics they oppose. Yet rarely can one cite meaningful evidence they've seen or collected, or that others have seen or collected, to show the Earth's shape. They believe what everyone tells them -- effectively majority opinion. How is their believing the Earth is round any different than someone else believing the Earth is flat?

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Most people believe that airplanes are aluminum machines with engines that fly due to some aerodynamic physics. Then there is a minority living in a tribe somewhere doing the cargo cult thing and believing that airplanes are gods coming down from the sky because they have built a pretty enough altar, to give them food and treats. And yet you don't question everyone's belief about planes, even though very few people can explain how actually literal tons of aluminum and gas can get up in the sky. Holding a minority opinion, believing in something that very few people do doesn't automatically make that belief or idea worth studying. There are many factors and you have only listed "minority/majority opinion" as one. I would argue it is not enough to spark a meaningful conversation. It's not enough to say "I don't believe the same way as majority of people" to make it interesting to discuss and construct complex expensive arguments about.