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Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

91 points by willpatrick 6y ago

firebaze 6y ago
Depressing.
- BrianOnHN 6y ago
  I'm sure this won't be a popular comment, but based on the descriptions in the article, the flat earthers seem very similar to the Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice). The clear distinction is the absolute unwillingness to listen logic without screaming what-a-about conspiracy A, or conspiracy B, or C. Or the classic "your just a socialist" inbetween talking about their social security and medicare benefits. There's clearly a segment of the population that has the inability to compute simple logic without triggering a fight/flight/amygdala response. I used to think education was the problem. But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the hack that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following. Edit: thanks for all the fanfare(sarcasm towards the downvotes), I think that it proves my point.
  - RobRivera 6y ago
    >Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice) What is the implication here? Is it bad to have friends who are Trump supporters? EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance, rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this.
    - ideals 6y ago
      I judge people (not solely) based on who they choose to associate with, so for me ya it is bad. To put it more bluntly, if you surround yourself with shitty people, I'll assume you're a shitty person.
      - sunopener 6y ago
        You surround yourself with 7.8 billion people who shit nearly every day. To put it bluntly, you are judging yourself when you take yourself to be judging others, you claim an excuse that associating with others leads to your own self-admitted "badness"... You judge yourself, and rather than taking sentence with those aspects within, you externalize it and make assumptions based upon comparisons of your ideal shitty person, which deep down we both know that we are our own worst critics. This only leads down one road, self-annihilatory behavior. Learn to love yourself completely, you are not lacking, and to be honest, you taking yourself to be one that thinks of others or yourself as a shitty person is one of the most lovable parts about you.
        trumpersHateMe 6y ago
        Does this reply have any coherence at all or is it just me? It reads very similar to a response I received from the owners of a fishing website that I used to frequent when I questioned them about BLM.
        sunopener 6y ago
        "It has been stated that a text coheres only if the world around is also coherent." Further reading: https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/69.html https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/69.html That you'd ask yourself if this reply is coherent is a function of your own mind seeking meaning from what appears to be unresolved processing of a response you received from the owners of a phishing website. Given you used to frequent said site and received a text you deem similar when questioning them about BLM, is understandable, given that the narratives and subtopics generated are still in flux, history is continuing to be written and the echos of the past keep crowning into our collective reality by the mere attention placed upon them. A world where one loves themselves completely and thoroughly is often seen as incoherent due to the limitations one finds themselves confined in--usually in the form of narratives, beliefs, values aka the "already dead driftwood" of the mind--by taking themselves to be other than what they are, the past self in cahoots with the present self vying for the spotlight of consciousness, really just another form of communication, really. Where it breaks down and a text seems incoherent is when such attention is placed upon a text... perhaps you've been looking for incoherence ever since you received that response on that website you spoke of and couldn't bear the mind to let it go, so you carry it with you everywhere, perhaps not realizing that this gets triggered every time a text taps on the walls of your own self constructed limitations--in this case it's one of inner reflection and unconditional love for oneself in a world where everyone and everything is interconnected. That or you can call me a bumbling idiot. May you be Loved. <3
    - BrianOnHN 6y ago
      What I'm saying is I appreciate intelligent discourse from the people I choose to surround myself with. I'd love to hear from a credible left-leaning person about an example of intelligent discourse they had with a trump-supporter(not just a conservative, there's a difference). This morning, I walked pass a Trump 2020 campaign flag with the slogan "No more bullshit." What kind of intelligence went into displaying that kind of message in public?
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      One can choose friends, and when one chooses some friends, it casts strong suspicions on one's character. This is not new to human behavior or social structure.
    - trumpersHateMe 6y ago
      > EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance, rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this I would expect such a strong statement like this to be better explained. What has confirmed what? What is the logic behind your conclusion? Please share.
  - rgoulter 6y ago
    > But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the hack that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following. Jonathan Haidt describes this as "morality binds and blinds". The full quote being: "Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say." I also like Haidt's interpretation of Hume's "reason is a slave to the passions". Haidt descibes logical thinking as like a press secretary of emotion; with as much power over emotion as a rider has over an elephant. - The elephant goes where it wants to.
    - BrianOnHN 6y ago
      > each team is composed of good people who have something important to say This is what makes this "abuse of the amygdala" a hack. The flat-earthers/trump-supporters don't have anything "important" to say unless you want to give credit to their conspiracies. That said, they are indeed screaming loud and clear that there is a significantly large segment of people with certain mental dispositions that are being abused by leaders in the top ranks of our government and society.
      - mattmanser 6y ago
        Well, they actually do, and that's the problem. And I say that as someone who thinks Trump is an utter arse. For example, they're not keen on a huge influx of foreigners from a different culture. Maybe you're dismissive of that, but it's because you're not listening. Or, for example, they want to keep their jobs, e.g. coal miners. Maybe you're dismissive of that, but it's because you're not listening. Or, for example, they're tired of politicians saying they'll do something but then nothing actually happening. Mainly because there are downsides to that action, e.g. because mass immigration now drives growth due to falling birth rates, there are no real attempts to stop it. Maybe you're dismissive of that, but it's because you're not listening. Look at what happened recently in most western countries and it comes across as rigged. Mass immigration even though the population opposes it, no consequences for bankers in the 2008 crash, widening wealth inequality, falling wages when you take account of inflation. And America has really weird political dynasties, Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons. It's supposed to be a democracy and yet somehow you almost have feudal-esque ruler inheritance. You can see why Trump's anti-establishment message worked.
  - dsr_ 6y ago
    Specifically, the QAnon cultists are just like Flat Earthers.
    - BrianOnHN 6y ago
      Thankfully, I haven't known one of those since he got run out of the state for committing loan fraud. He seemed like an intelligent guy. Was even interested in startups. Then he started asking me about the "intellectual dark web." I was like, I know quite a bit about computers and I think I would've heard if there really was any legitimate intellect only accessible on the dark web. That was the last I remember of him besides that he committed fraud and moved back to his parents house in Wisconsin.
  - eurekin 6y ago
    This actually would explain a lot from my environment as well. Different country, different parties and issues, but that triggered responses - same story
    - BrianOnHN 6y ago
      If only "Thinking fast and slow" (kahneman) was distilled into something easier to swallow. These concepts aren't new. They're also universal truths about human nature. Everyone wants to think that they're in control, at least in their head. But until they come to terms with the fact that they are not in control, they will continue to do detriment to themselves and others. See "alcoholics anonymous" (AA) for evidence of this.
      - eurekin 6y ago
        Totally on the same page with you on that one. I always thought it's a natural thing: once everybody matures they'll stop their knee jerk, emotional responses and only allow those well thought out, analytical ones. It seems though, there is an opposing and totally intentional force to that. Somehow I feel that removing the emotional reactions could lead to collapse of some bigger social structures, cause it seems that this is the main glue that holds them together
thelittlenag 6y ago
The allure of secret knowledge...
- protomyth 6y ago
  Is it that or some folks trying to cling to a tribe?
  - lisper 6y ago
    It's both. The secret knowledge defines the identity of the tribe.
toss1 6y ago
Sadly, this is another topic of questions to add to job interview filters - ask about the moon landings & vaccines. Anyone subscribing to any of this conspiracy nonsense, especially as an identity is (pardon the language) too effin stupid to work in any serious technical endeavor - if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason, what will they ignore on your project? Plus, their deeply ingrained ideas that any authority is trying to control them has a high probabilty of turning against any employer lie a rabid dog, creating at least a costly series of problems and toxicity. I'd even filter them out for manufacturing or fast food work. edit: should add I'm talking about willful stupidity - deliberate cultivation of ignorance, as distinguished from naturally low intellectual horsepower
- kalium-xyz 6y ago
  Keep in mind that things such as mass surveillance or the US government drugging its own citizens would have gotten you in an institution for suffering from paranoid delusions until these things came to light. There is always more and sometimes interesting perspective to consider.
- mcculley 6y ago
  "Stupid" is not a useful way to generally describe the people vulnerable to conspiracy theories. I have met people who are relatively intelligent who fall into these. See also: religion, politics.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    I have met stupid intelligent people. Sometimes knowledge just doesn't seem to translate to actual behavior and decisions (it's mostly about the lack of decisions, IMHO).
    - Hoasi 6y ago
      > I have met stupid intelligent people. The irony happens when it is education itself that compromises the critical faculties of someone, as the article mentions. Intelligent people are sometimes loyal to an ideology built during their upbringing and belong to their circle. Sometimes the exact opposite happens and drives them to a complete rejection of said ideas. Religion, culture, and politics are prone to create blind spots, where otherwise critical, highly educated, and intelligent individuals don't question specific biases because they are too closely related to their identity.
8K832d7tNmiQ 6y ago
This is pretty well written, I love it.
lisper 6y ago
I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't, I can't speak for the flat-earthers) and to dismiss them as idiots who will just go away is a serious mistake. They are very good at presenting convincing-sounding arguments, and refuting them can actually be quite challenging. 2. The root of their reasoning is a tacit acceptance of teleology, which cannot be logically refuted. They approach existential questions with the assumption that there has to be some kind of point to existence, some transcendent meaning or purpose. If you accept this premise, then there is actually a logically defensible line of reasoning that leads you to Christianity and thence to the inerrancy of the Bible, and thence to YEC (and even a flat earth if you're really being intellectually honest!) A failure to appreciate this is IMHO one of the reasons that the secular world is having such a hard time effectively resisting these movements. A life without purpose makes no sense to these people, just as a theory at odds with the data makes no sense to someone with a scientific mindset. So if science leads you to the conclusion that life has no transcendent purpose (and it does) then, on their world-view, science must be wrong, full stop. No amount of data is going to persuade them otherwise.
- baddox 6y ago
  It’s still not a good explanation to say “humans must have some purpose, therefore this one very specific made-up thing must be true.” What about all the other made-up things which also purport to explain the purpose of humans? Explanations of this form are extremely easy to vary, which is why they are not good explanations.
  - lisper 6y ago
    But that only matters if you think that explanations are what matters. That is an assumption. That's the whole point: some people value purpose more than they value explanation.
anordin95 6y ago
This is a bit sad to read, but very well written. I can't help but think of schizophrenia after reading through some of the conversations.
umvi 6y ago
I used to be a flat earther. No, I didn't actually believe the earth was flat, but I loved the outrage it provoked and the attention I got when I told people I was a flat earther. I also enjoyed trying to defend my position and call out (valid) logical fallacies round earthers were making. It really forces you to improve your debate skills when you have to defend an impossible position. Lastly, there was a social aspect of it, a camaraderie with other flat earthers that made me feel like I belonged to a "secret" organization that was fun and influential. I eventually outgrew that hobby. I'm sure there are many "genuine" flat earthers, but I suspect there are a lot of flat earthers like me as well. Of course, part of the "game" is pretending you really believe it, so good luck proving it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- purple-again 6y ago
  I believe polite people call us "contrarians" while everyone else calls us "assholes". But yeah I get it, I truly enjoy taking opposite sides of arguments against people that are passionately arguing their position for much the same reasons you have described above.
  - munchbunny 6y ago
    I think everyone has a bit of a contrarian inside them. I used to express it more readily, because, let's face it, it's fun! But I noticed that increasingly I was just encouraging "true believers", so I stopped. The reality check for me was that, starting a few years ago, increasingly frequently when I started to try to make up ridiculous sounding arguments and not even logically sound ones, people on both sides would think I was being serious. The world doesn't need me adding to the insanity. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I tried to make up an obviously ridiculous constitutional legal argument as a joke and accidentally hit something where a court clerk told me sovereign citizens actually use the argument. If you can roll a d10 for the Bill of Rights and a conclusion you want and land on something that someone actually tries to argue, then... well, that's today's reality.
- 6y ago
Verdex 6y ago
Sometimes this type of long form journalism is nice because it lets you marinate in a different world. Here I can't help but feel like I just want them to get to the point because I don't really want to marinate in the Flat Earth world. If a super intelligent AI came to me and said, "I'm going to take over the world and destroy humanity, but first I wanted to see if there was anything you needed." One of the things that I would ask it to do in order to buy time would be to annotate all the background details of every movie. For example, in Jurassic Park when Hammond is trying to get Dr. Grant to come to the park, the trailer they are in has a bunch of newspapers on the walls. What do those say? Who are all the extras that are hanging out at the dig site? Like who are the actors and can we give their characters any backstories that are consistent with the world of Jurassic Park. I can't help but want the same thing from a story about a Flat Earth conference. How many other people went there just to see what was up. Who is there as a joke. Occasionally people send fake articles to journals to see if they can get them published. Does the same thing happen to Flat Earth conferences? People try to see how much of an outlandish presentation they can get away with? And finally, how many people go there, have a good time, pretend to buy into the whole Flat Earth business, but then when they get back and are cornered indicate that they only went because their friend went / to see what it was like / because they make fun of them later / etc. Finally, this whole business feels very similar to me as the whole Evolution in education stuff. Sure people believe in the wrong thing, but at the end of the day very few people actually understand how the right thing works and even if they get that far they don't see what any of the implications are. Yeah, I would prefer people believe things that are true, but they don't understand it either way and they refuse to think about the implications. I greatly appreciate the world building in things like Lord of the Rings or Avatar the last airbender. Everything works together in great detail to create a holistic world where actions have consequences that echo through the centuries. It feels like most people are just as happy to watch Michael Bay's Transformers. Maybe they like Avatar as well, but they don't understand why the shyamalan movie "adaptation" is bad. So I have a hard time caring that they agree with me that the cartoon was good as well.
burlesona 6y ago
> All this is to say that rational questions and arguments miss the point entirely. These are not rational beliefs, nor even really beliefs. They are more like identities, firmly established and fiercely defended. Their existence is not a happy one, either. It seemed to me that they were commonly the product of deep personal and social tragedy. This seems to me to be the chief problem of social media. We live in a post-truth world that is more intensely tribal than ever before. Reason, and the ability to form consensus, seem to be dying or dead already. That worries me rather a lot, as it is the foundation of democratic society, and without it I’m not sure how long democratic society can continue. In the authors description of the flat earth ers he says: > ...you operate from a position where your worldview is driven by your identity, not from what can be scientifically or objectively observed, or what the experts tell you. We can sit here and scoff at the tiny minority of fringe conspiracy theorists out there, but my observation is that people have taken this same approach to mainstream politics, deciding on an identity that aligns them to one side or the other, and then losing all ability to see that it is possible for their side to get something wrong, or the other side to get something right.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  They can be internally-consistent beliefs, which is what makes them tricky (both for the believer and the rational contradictorian). But internally-consistent isn't quite the same as rational. Where they deviate from rational is either failure to align to observational reality or an Occam's Razor argument (but be aware that Occam's Razor doesn't apply for a true believer; if something is true, it doesn't matter if it's complicated! ;) ).
mynegation 6y ago
I did not pay a lot of attention to this. In my mind flat earthers were an odd group of people participating for fun in an elaborate make believe. Sort of like watching WWE together with beers pretending those are real fights. I mean, contrary to a popular parable, people knew that the earth is round for a very long time and Eratosthenes made an estimate of earth radius 2200 years ago.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Honestly, hanging out in the Flat Earth FB group was extremely educational. In that actual physics and cosmology has a very solid, self-consistent grounding, and the hoops the group has to jump through to make it match to their alternate theory of a flat Earth are illuminating about how the real Earth works. I'd never really noticed before that no satellite dishes tuned to talk to geostationary targets point north in the northern hemisphere, or south in the southern hemisphere. A bit of thought immediately clarifies why, but the flat-Earthers have to imagine an incredibly large conspiracy of governments hiding radio towers taller than anything humanity has ever built to explain it.
mayankkaizen 6y ago
In my real life I've never met a flat-earth guy (I live in India). I genuinely tried hard but couldn't find one in real life. Most flat-earth people I found online seem to be Americans. This is possibly anecdotal but I'm puzzled as to why they are all Americans. It is coincidence or there is something about America?
jdoliner 6y ago
When I think back to how I was first introduced to the concept of a flat earth I can't help but feel that it's one of the bigger epistemic own-goals in history. My introduction was in school, where the concept of a flat earth was trotted out as something that everyone believed in the middle ages that we eventually learned was totally wrong. The message was simple: don't be those people, listen to the scientific evidence. At the time I thought it was a compelling story, then I found out the story is a myth. [0] Ancient Greeks knew in the 5th century BC that it was round, by the 600s it was more or less unanimously supported by scholars. I've struggled to find a time in history when there was a serious, organized group that believed the earth was flat. Except for now that is, the uncomfortable truth is that this, right now, in 2020, is the peak of flat earth belief in human history. The lesson, to me, is this: be careful what you lie about in the name of pedagogy, lies have a way of backfiring on you when people realize they're being lied to. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth
ab3rC1te 6y ago
Joshua 10:13, Joshua commands the sun and moon to stand still for about a whole day. Isaiah 38:8 God brings the sun backwards to set the shadow of the sundail of Ahaz back 10 degrees. Genesis God sets the sun, moon and stars inside the firmament with us. Or the great flood that is recorded with similar versions all across the world. Even the Roman Catholics believed the earth was flat at the time of Christopher Columbus. There's a reason why sea level is always at zero. Point being its about worshipping our heavenly Father that created all things, and set aside all of man's teachings to forsake the things of this world to have enternal life.
jpmattia 6y ago
I was a little surprised that there was no mention of mental illness. A human/reptile hybrid race is secretly controlling us all to serve an unknown agenda? I know that could be used for humor, but really it's just sad.
mindslight 6y ago
> When a worldview grows in a group of people that requires the belief that this trust has been fundamentally broken by the institutions of modern society, modern society feels the effects I think this causality is backwards. These people already feel that the social contract has been broken, and then FE falls into their lap as an explanation for what they're feeling. The disillusionment with our modern social structures is entirely valid and personally healthy. The real question is how to keep that feeling from collapsing into simplistic red herrings like FE, "jet fuel can't melt steel beams", or Trumpism. It's more difficult to hold nuanced anti-mainstream-propaganda opinions in your head, than to rally around a counter-fiction. Then again, maybe this has been the genesis of all religion - reassuring narratives to assuage cognitive dissonance between what the rulers say and how you're actually treated. And the ones that end up being memetically successful are the ones that at least inspire people to do productive things.

91 points by willpatrick 6y ago

firebaze 6y ago

Depressing.

BrianOnHN 6y ago
I'm sure this won't be a popular comment, but based on the descriptions in the article, the flat earthers seem very similar to the Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice). The clear distinction is the absolute unwillingness to listen logic without screaming what-a-about conspiracy A, or conspiracy B, or C. Or the classic "your just a socialist" inbetween talking about their social security and medicare benefits. There's clearly a segment of the population that has the inability to compute simple logic without triggering a fight/flight/amygdala response. I used to think education was the problem. But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the hack that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following. Edit: thanks for all the fanfare(sarcasm towards the downvotes), I think that it proves my point.
- RobRivera 6y ago
  >Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice) What is the implication here? Is it bad to have friends who are Trump supporters? EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance, rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this.
  - ideals 6y ago
    I judge people (not solely) based on who they choose to associate with, so for me ya it is bad. To put it more bluntly, if you surround yourself with shitty people, I'll assume you're a shitty person.
    - sunopener 6y ago
      You surround yourself with 7.8 billion people who shit nearly every day. To put it bluntly, you are judging yourself when you take yourself to be judging others, you claim an excuse that associating with others leads to your own self-admitted "badness"... You judge yourself, and rather than taking sentence with those aspects within, you externalize it and make assumptions based upon comparisons of your ideal shitty person, which deep down we both know that we are our own worst critics. This only leads down one road, self-annihilatory behavior. Learn to love yourself completely, you are not lacking, and to be honest, you taking yourself to be one that thinks of others or yourself as a shitty person is one of the most lovable parts about you.
      - trumpersHateMe 6y ago
        Does this reply have any coherence at all or is it just me? It reads very similar to a response I received from the owners of a fishing website that I used to frequent when I questioned them about BLM.
        sunopener 6y ago
        "It has been stated that a text coheres only if the world around is also coherent." Further reading: https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/69.html https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/69.html That you'd ask yourself if this reply is coherent is a function of your own mind seeking meaning from what appears to be unresolved processing of a response you received from the owners of a phishing website. Given you used to frequent said site and received a text you deem similar when questioning them about BLM, is understandable, given that the narratives and subtopics generated are still in flux, history is continuing to be written and the echos of the past keep crowning into our collective reality by the mere attention placed upon them. A world where one loves themselves completely and thoroughly is often seen as incoherent due to the limitations one finds themselves confined in--usually in the form of narratives, beliefs, values aka the "already dead driftwood" of the mind--by taking themselves to be other than what they are, the past self in cahoots with the present self vying for the spotlight of consciousness, really just another form of communication, really. Where it breaks down and a text seems incoherent is when such attention is placed upon a text... perhaps you've been looking for incoherence ever since you received that response on that website you spoke of and couldn't bear the mind to let it go, so you carry it with you everywhere, perhaps not realizing that this gets triggered every time a text taps on the walls of your own self constructed limitations--in this case it's one of inner reflection and unconditional love for oneself in a world where everyone and everything is interconnected. That or you can call me a bumbling idiot. May you be Loved. <3
  - BrianOnHN 6y ago
    What I'm saying is I appreciate intelligent discourse from the people I choose to surround myself with. I'd love to hear from a credible left-leaning person about an example of intelligent discourse they had with a trump-supporter(not just a conservative, there's a difference). This morning, I walked pass a Trump 2020 campaign flag with the slogan "No more bullshit." What kind of intelligence went into displaying that kind of message in public?
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    One can choose friends, and when one chooses some friends, it casts strong suspicions on one's character. This is not new to human behavior or social structure.
  - trumpersHateMe 6y ago
    > EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance, rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this I would expect such a strong statement like this to be better explained. What has confirmed what? What is the logic behind your conclusion? Please share.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  > But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the hack that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following. Jonathan Haidt describes this as "morality binds and blinds". The full quote being: "Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say." I also like Haidt's interpretation of Hume's "reason is a slave to the passions". Haidt descibes logical thinking as like a press secretary of emotion; with as much power over emotion as a rider has over an elephant. - The elephant goes where it wants to.
  - BrianOnHN 6y ago
    > each team is composed of good people who have something important to say This is what makes this "abuse of the amygdala" a hack. The flat-earthers/trump-supporters don't have anything "important" to say unless you want to give credit to their conspiracies. That said, they are indeed screaming loud and clear that there is a significantly large segment of people with certain mental dispositions that are being abused by leaders in the top ranks of our government and society.
    - mattmanser 6y ago
      Well, they actually do, and that's the problem. And I say that as someone who thinks Trump is an utter arse. For example, they're not keen on a huge influx of foreigners from a different culture. Maybe you're dismissive of that, but it's because you're not listening. Or, for example, they want to keep their jobs, e.g. coal miners. Maybe you're dismissive of that, but it's because you're not listening. Or, for example, they're tired of politicians saying they'll do something but then nothing actually happening. Mainly because there are downsides to that action, e.g. because mass immigration now drives growth due to falling birth rates, there are no real attempts to stop it. Maybe you're dismissive of that, but it's because you're not listening. Look at what happened recently in most western countries and it comes across as rigged. Mass immigration even though the population opposes it, no consequences for bankers in the 2008 crash, widening wealth inequality, falling wages when you take account of inflation. And America has really weird political dynasties, Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons. It's supposed to be a democracy and yet somehow you almost have feudal-esque ruler inheritance. You can see why Trump's anti-establishment message worked.
- dsr_ 6y ago
  Specifically, the QAnon cultists are just like Flat Earthers.
  - BrianOnHN 6y ago
    Thankfully, I haven't known one of those since he got run out of the state for committing loan fraud. He seemed like an intelligent guy. Was even interested in startups. Then he started asking me about the "intellectual dark web." I was like, I know quite a bit about computers and I think I would've heard if there really was any legitimate intellect only accessible on the dark web. That was the last I remember of him besides that he committed fraud and moved back to his parents house in Wisconsin.
- eurekin 6y ago
  This actually would explain a lot from my environment as well. Different country, different parties and issues, but that triggered responses - same story
  - BrianOnHN 6y ago
    If only "Thinking fast and slow" (kahneman) was distilled into something easier to swallow. These concepts aren't new. They're also universal truths about human nature. Everyone wants to think that they're in control, at least in their head. But until they come to terms with the fact that they are not in control, they will continue to do detriment to themselves and others. See "alcoholics anonymous" (AA) for evidence of this.
    - eurekin 6y ago
      Totally on the same page with you on that one. I always thought it's a natural thing: once everybody matures they'll stop their knee jerk, emotional responses and only allow those well thought out, analytical ones. It seems though, there is an opposing and totally intentional force to that. Somehow I feel that removing the emotional reactions could lead to collapse of some bigger social structures, cause it seems that this is the main glue that holds them together

thelittlenag 6y ago

The allure of secret knowledge...

protomyth 6y ago
Is it that or some folks trying to cling to a tribe?
- lisper 6y ago
  It's both. The secret knowledge defines the identity of the tribe.

toss1 6y ago

Sadly, this is another topic of questions to add to job interview filters - ask about the moon landings & vaccines. Anyone subscribing to any of this conspiracy nonsense, especially as an identity is (pardon the language) too effin stupid to work in any serious technical endeavor - if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason, what will they ignore on your project? Plus, their deeply ingrained ideas that any authority is trying to control them has a high probabilty of turning against any employer lie a rabid dog, creating at least a costly series of problems and toxicity. I'd even filter them out for manufacturing or fast food work. edit: should add I'm talking about willful stupidity - deliberate cultivation of ignorance, as distinguished from naturally low intellectual horsepower

kalium-xyz 6y ago
Keep in mind that things such as mass surveillance or the US government drugging its own citizens would have gotten you in an institution for suffering from paranoid delusions until these things came to light. There is always more and sometimes interesting perspective to consider.
mcculley 6y ago
"Stupid" is not a useful way to generally describe the people vulnerable to conspiracy theories. I have met people who are relatively intelligent who fall into these. See also: religion, politics.
- emteycz 6y ago
  I have met stupid intelligent people. Sometimes knowledge just doesn't seem to translate to actual behavior and decisions (it's mostly about the lack of decisions, IMHO).
  - Hoasi 6y ago
    > I have met stupid intelligent people. The irony happens when it is education itself that compromises the critical faculties of someone, as the article mentions. Intelligent people are sometimes loyal to an ideology built during their upbringing and belong to their circle. Sometimes the exact opposite happens and drives them to a complete rejection of said ideas. Religion, culture, and politics are prone to create blind spots, where otherwise critical, highly educated, and intelligent individuals don't question specific biases because they are too closely related to their identity.

8K832d7tNmiQ 6y ago

This is pretty well written, I love it.

lisper 6y ago

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't, I can't speak for the flat-earthers) and to dismiss them as idiots who will just go away is a serious mistake. They are very good at presenting convincing-sounding arguments, and refuting them can actually be quite challenging. 2. The root of their reasoning is a tacit acceptance of teleology, which cannot be logically refuted. They approach existential questions with the assumption that there has to be some kind of point to existence, some transcendent meaning or purpose. If you accept this premise, then there is actually a logically defensible line of reasoning that leads you to Christianity and thence to the inerrancy of the Bible, and thence to YEC (and even a flat earth if you're really being intellectually honest!) A failure to appreciate this is IMHO one of the reasons that the secular world is having such a hard time effectively resisting these movements. A life without purpose makes no sense to these people, just as a theory at odds with the data makes no sense to someone with a scientific mindset. So if science leads you to the conclusion that life has no transcendent purpose (and it does) then, on their world-view, science must be wrong, full stop. No amount of data is going to persuade them otherwise.

baddox 6y ago
It’s still not a good explanation to say “humans must have some purpose, therefore this one very specific made-up thing must be true.” What about all the other made-up things which also purport to explain the purpose of humans? Explanations of this form are extremely easy to vary, which is why they are not good explanations.
- lisper 6y ago
  But that only matters if you think that explanations are what matters. That is an assumption. That's the whole point: some people value purpose more than they value explanation.

anordin95 6y ago

This is a bit sad to read, but very well written. I can't help but think of schizophrenia after reading through some of the conversations.

umvi 6y ago

I used to be a flat earther. No, I didn't actually believe the earth was flat, but I loved the outrage it provoked and the attention I got when I told people I was a flat earther. I also enjoyed trying to defend my position and call out (valid) logical fallacies round earthers were making. It really forces you to improve your debate skills when you have to defend an impossible position. Lastly, there was a social aspect of it, a camaraderie with other flat earthers that made me feel like I belonged to a "secret" organization that was fun and influential. I eventually outgrew that hobby. I'm sure there are many "genuine" flat earthers, but I suspect there are a lot of flat earthers like me as well. Of course, part of the "game" is pretending you really believe it, so good luck proving it.

deleted 6y ago
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purple-again 6y ago
I believe polite people call us "contrarians" while everyone else calls us "assholes". But yeah I get it, I truly enjoy taking opposite sides of arguments against people that are passionately arguing their position for much the same reasons you have described above.
- munchbunny 6y ago
  I think everyone has a bit of a contrarian inside them. I used to express it more readily, because, let's face it, it's fun! But I noticed that increasingly I was just encouraging "true believers", so I stopped. The reality check for me was that, starting a few years ago, increasingly frequently when I started to try to make up ridiculous sounding arguments and not even logically sound ones, people on both sides would think I was being serious. The world doesn't need me adding to the insanity. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I tried to make up an obviously ridiculous constitutional legal argument as a joke and accidentally hit something where a court clerk told me sovereign citizens actually use the argument. If you can roll a d10 for the Bill of Rights and a conclusion you want and land on something that someone actually tries to argue, then... well, that's today's reality.
6y ago

Verdex 6y ago

Sometimes this type of long form journalism is nice because it lets you marinate in a different world. Here I can't help but feel like I just want them to get to the point because I don't really want to marinate in the Flat Earth world. If a super intelligent AI came to me and said, "I'm going to take over the world and destroy humanity, but first I wanted to see if there was anything you needed." One of the things that I would ask it to do in order to buy time would be to annotate all the background details of every movie. For example, in Jurassic Park when Hammond is trying to get Dr. Grant to come to the park, the trailer they are in has a bunch of newspapers on the walls. What do those say? Who are all the extras that are hanging out at the dig site? Like who are the actors and can we give their characters any backstories that are consistent with the world of Jurassic Park. I can't help but want the same thing from a story about a Flat Earth conference. How many other people went there just to see what was up. Who is there as a joke. Occasionally people send fake articles to journals to see if they can get them published. Does the same thing happen to Flat Earth conferences? People try to see how much of an outlandish presentation they can get away with? And finally, how many people go there, have a good time, pretend to buy into the whole Flat Earth business, but then when they get back and are cornered indicate that they only went because their friend went / to see what it was like / because they make fun of them later / etc. Finally, this whole business feels very similar to me as the whole Evolution in education stuff. Sure people believe in the wrong thing, but at the end of the day very few people actually understand how the right thing works and even if they get that far they don't see what any of the implications are. Yeah, I would prefer people believe things that are true, but they don't understand it either way and they refuse to think about the implications. I greatly appreciate the world building in things like Lord of the Rings or Avatar the last airbender. Everything works together in great detail to create a holistic world where actions have consequences that echo through the centuries. It feels like most people are just as happy to watch Michael Bay's Transformers. Maybe they like Avatar as well, but they don't understand why the shyamalan movie "adaptation" is bad. So I have a hard time caring that they agree with me that the cartoon was good as well.

burlesona 6y ago

> All this is to say that rational questions and arguments miss the point entirely. These are not rational beliefs, nor even really beliefs. They are more like identities, firmly established and fiercely defended. Their existence is not a happy one, either. It seemed to me that they were commonly the product of deep personal and social tragedy. This seems to me to be the chief problem of social media. We live in a post-truth world that is more intensely tribal than ever before. Reason, and the ability to form consensus, seem to be dying or dead already. That worries me rather a lot, as it is the foundation of democratic society, and without it I’m not sure how long democratic society can continue. In the authors description of the flat earth ers he says: > ...you operate from a position where your worldview is driven by your identity, not from what can be scientifically or objectively observed, or what the experts tell you. We can sit here and scoff at the tiny minority of fringe conspiracy theorists out there, but my observation is that people have taken this same approach to mainstream politics, deciding on an identity that aligns them to one side or the other, and then losing all ability to see that it is possible for their side to get something wrong, or the other side to get something right.

shadowgovt 6y ago
They can be internally-consistent beliefs, which is what makes them tricky (both for the believer and the rational contradictorian). But internally-consistent isn't quite the same as rational. Where they deviate from rational is either failure to align to observational reality or an Occam's Razor argument (but be aware that Occam's Razor doesn't apply for a true believer; if something is true, it doesn't matter if it's complicated! ;) ).

mynegation 6y ago

I did not pay a lot of attention to this. In my mind flat earthers were an odd group of people participating for fun in an elaborate make believe. Sort of like watching WWE together with beers pretending those are real fights. I mean, contrary to a popular parable, people knew that the earth is round for a very long time and Eratosthenes made an estimate of earth radius 2200 years ago.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Honestly, hanging out in the Flat Earth FB group was extremely educational. In that actual physics and cosmology has a very solid, self-consistent grounding, and the hoops the group has to jump through to make it match to their alternate theory of a flat Earth are illuminating about how the real Earth works. I'd never really noticed before that no satellite dishes tuned to talk to geostationary targets point north in the northern hemisphere, or south in the southern hemisphere. A bit of thought immediately clarifies why, but the flat-Earthers have to imagine an incredibly large conspiracy of governments hiding radio towers taller than anything humanity has ever built to explain it.

mayankkaizen 6y ago

In my real life I've never met a flat-earth guy (I live in India). I genuinely tried hard but couldn't find one in real life. Most flat-earth people I found online seem to be Americans. This is possibly anecdotal but I'm puzzled as to why they are all Americans. It is coincidence or there is something about America?

jdoliner 6y ago

When I think back to how I was first introduced to the concept of a flat earth I can't help but feel that it's one of the bigger epistemic own-goals in history. My introduction was in school, where the concept of a flat earth was trotted out as something that everyone believed in the middle ages that we eventually learned was totally wrong. The message was simple: don't be those people, listen to the scientific evidence. At the time I thought it was a compelling story, then I found out the story is a myth. [0] Ancient Greeks knew in the 5th century BC that it was round, by the 600s it was more or less unanimously supported by scholars. I've struggled to find a time in history when there was a serious, organized group that believed the earth was flat. Except for now that is, the uncomfortable truth is that this, right now, in 2020, is the peak of flat earth belief in human history. The lesson, to me, is this: be careful what you lie about in the name of pedagogy, lies have a way of backfiring on you when people realize they're being lied to. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

ab3rC1te 6y ago

Joshua 10:13, Joshua commands the sun and moon to stand still for about a whole day. Isaiah 38:8 God brings the sun backwards to set the shadow of the sundail of Ahaz back 10 degrees. Genesis God sets the sun, moon and stars inside the firmament with us. Or the great flood that is recorded with similar versions all across the world. Even the Roman Catholics believed the earth was flat at the time of Christopher Columbus. There's a reason why sea level is always at zero. Point being its about worshipping our heavenly Father that created all things, and set aside all of man's teachings to forsake the things of this world to have enternal life.

jpmattia 6y ago

I was a little surprised that there was no mention of mental illness. A human/reptile hybrid race is secretly controlling us all to serve an unknown agenda? I know that could be used for humor, but really it's just sad.

mindslight 6y ago

> When a worldview grows in a group of people that requires the belief that this trust has been fundamentally broken by the institutions of modern society, modern society feels the effects I think this causality is backwards. These people already feel that the social contract has been broken, and then FE falls into their lap as an explanation for what they're feeling. The disillusionment with our modern social structures is entirely valid and personally healthy. The real question is how to keep that feeling from collapsing into simplistic red herrings like FE, "jet fuel can't melt steel beams", or Trumpism. It's more difficult to hold nuanced anti-mainstream-propaganda opinions in your head, than to rally around a counter-fiction. Then again, maybe this has been the genesis of all religion - reassuring narratives to assuage cognitive dissonance between what the rulers say and how you're actually treated. And the ones that end up being memetically successful are the ones that at least inspire people to do productive things.