I always assumed the flat earth thing was more of a troll/protest than a genuine belief, basically people just want to assert that "you can't force me to believ

I always assumed the flat earth thing was more of a troll/protest than a genuine belief, basically people just want to assert that "you can't force me to believe a certain thing". Even if in this case that certain thing is in the class of completely irrefutable facts, it doesn't really matter because they're just asserting their power to disagree. Like a toddler that gets in a mood where they just say "no" to everything. Trying to reason with that type of response is useless and it's also beside the point, the point is that they just want to exercise their free will. And they also probably are enjoying that it is frustrating other people. A mental illness framing is kind of interesting though, I've never really thought about it like that. It implies that it could be treatable, which I'm not really sure is true. Can you "treat" a troll?