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The thing that's interesting about "flat earthers" to me is that they largely do not exist. I've never met one or even know anyone who has met one, but the leve

The thing that's interesting about "flat earthers" to me is that they largely do not exist. I've never met one or even know anyone who has met one, but the level of discussion about them is insane. It's blown way out or proportion to the actual number of actual flat earthers (you gotta exclude all the ones that are just doing it for debate and to make stupid videos online). Ultimately, there's really no flat earthers at any meaningful level.

e40 5y ago
Every time someone has purported to find and interview one, it seems to me their really just trolling everyone. There was a seemingly genuine AMA on reddit of one and he said he really enjoyed arguing with people at parties, but he didn't really believe it.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  The article links to an interview with Kyrie Irving, an NBA player, and in the video he confirms he's a flat earther.
  - mFixman 5y ago
    That was one joke that was blown out of proportion by the media. https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/boston-celtics/kyrie-irving-boston-celtics-says-he-does-not-believe-earth-is-flat-was-just-trolling https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/boston-celtics/kyrie-irving...
    - e40 5y ago
      He was clearly trolling the media. Honestly, some of the sports media are so bad that I don't really blame sports figures from trolling them. It was done in usual Kyrie style, though.
      - Thorrez 5y ago
        See my reply. I don't think it was clear he was only joking.
        e40 5y ago
        Listened to [1]. Never heard that one, but, to me, that seals the deal that he's trolling. The fact that he wouldn't answer the question "are you trolling?" is the important part, IMO.
        Thorrez 5y ago
        I don't see how it seals the deal. If you say something you believe in order to stir up trouble, is that trolling? What about something you half believe, or that you're unsure about, but claim you're sure about? It seems to me he's unsure whether the earth is round, and unsure about the definition of trolling, and thus doesn't know how to answer. He basically goes along with the interviewer because the interviewer is friendly and charismatic. He sort of wants to answer no, but doesn't want to make his friendly interviewer upset. The interviewer is trying to lead him to say yes, and he navigates it by avoiding the question. What seals the deal for me is even in his last interview, where he seems genuinely sorry for what he said, he still doesn't say anything along the lines of "it's obviously round, I was just joking", because he doesn't want to say something that goes against his beliefs. Instead he says that if you have those beliefs you shouldn't say them publicly.
        e40 5y ago
        I hear you. Look, this is a guessing game. We're trying to figure out what's in the mind of Kyrie. I will say I think the statement "that goes against his beliefs" is a weird thing to say (not you, him) when we're talking about whether the earth is round. It's not a religion it's science. Science that was settled more than a thousand years ago. I think Kyrie puts this in terms of "beliefs" so he can push back on people that challenge him. "What, you're attacking my beliefs now??" We have spent waaaaay too long talk about that fool. Peace.
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      Did he say it was a joke? He said he said it to get a reaction.[1] People say true things all the time to get a reaction. Let's look at the timeline[2]: 2017-02-16: He says he believes the Earth is flat.[3] 2017-02-17: He doubles down on it.[3] 2017-09-25: He says he said it to get a reaction. He never uses the word joking. He says he just wants to have an open conversation. "At the end of the day, you're gunna feel and believe what you want to feel, but don't knock my life over it."[1] 2018-06-08: He says he doesn't know whether the earth is round or flat. "I haven’t convinced myself all the way like everything that has been given to us is fake. No. But you also know that a lot of history has been distorted over time."[4] 2018-10-01: He apologizes for saying the earth is flat. He doesn't say he doesn't believe it, just that he's sorry for saying it. He was into conspiracies and went down the rabbit hole and wanted to share it with everyone. But how he thinks "Don't come out and say that stuff, that's for intimate conversations."[5] He also promoted conspiracies about famous assassinations.[3] [1] https://streamable.com/d9nx2 https://streamable.com/d9nx2 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrie_Irving#Conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrie_Irving#Conspiracy_theori... [3] https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2693635-kyrie-irving-actually-believes-earth-is-flat https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2693635-kyrie-irving-act... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/movies/kyrie-irving-nba-celtics-earth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/movies/kyrie-irving-nba-c... [5] https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24863899/kyrie-irving-boston-celtics-apologizes-saying-earth-flat https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24863899/kyrie-irving-bo...
tzs 5y ago
I’ve never met or even known anyone who has met anyone (as far as I know) who has died of COVID or even been hospitalized from it. Would you suggest I should conclude that there have been no COVID deaths or hospitalizations at any meaningful level?
- vl 5y ago
  It really depends on your definition of meaningful.
- russianbandit 5y ago
  No, but does that make you question the mainstream narrative at all?
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    That's his point; using your social circle as a litmus for believability is just going to exclude everyone who isn't like you. It's a great way to arrive at discriminatory conclusions, and it's a great way to cause harm to people who aren't like you.
    - seanw444 5y ago
      Side note: nice username.
- alberto_ol 5y ago
  Just out of curiosity, where do you live? I live in Italy and four friends of my parents died of COVID, and I met all of them. My parents are in their eighties.
  - tzs 5y ago
    Washington state in the US, which is near the bottom of US states in COVID deaths per capita (133.9 per 100k). Here's a graph [1]. In EU terms, we'd be right between the Netherlands (124.1 per 100k) and Germany (139.3 per 100k) on deaths. Within most states in the US COVID rates (cases, hospitalizations, and deaths) vary quite a bit from county to county. My particular county has had 98.0 deaths per 100k, which would put us between Israel (90.7 per 100k) and Turkey (102.1 per 100k). I'm old enough to not have older living relatives (my parents were fairly old when I was born) so that greatly cuts down on the number of living older people I've met leaving probably just former older coworkers that I'm not in contact with and whose deaths I'd probably not hear about. My current company went full work from home a couple of years before COVID, and I think that everyone who works there is the type whose hobbies and other personal interests are mostly things done at home except for one guy, so it was pretty easy for most of us to largely avoid other people during the phase of the pandemic when vaccines were not available. There is one person who is into outdoors activities like hiking and climbing and camping, but I believe when he does those usually the only other people who are around are his family members. Most ex-coworkers I'm still friends with would have taken good precautions, and they live and work in areas where the region as a whole took good precautions. I do have one ex-coworker friend who lived in a high COVID/minimal precaution state, and then moved to an even higher COVID/minimal precaution state, but he's in a city and county that takes it more seriously, and was eligible for vaccination early, so he's been fine. My friends who aren't coworkers or ex-coworkers are mostly people I met in college. They almost all have an excellent understanding of science (the college was Caltech) and will have taking appropriate anti-pandemic measures. Putting it all together, the result is that I don't know of any friends or acquaintances that had COVID, and if any of their friends did it wasn't a serious enough case for them to mention it to me. I have had a couple people who came to my house to install or repair things who told me that they had had COVID. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Washington&show=us-states&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right#states-normalized http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...
mac-chaffee 5y ago
I'm related to one. The whole reason he got into it is the YouTube algorithm recommended him some videos on the subject one day. He's in that group of people who have been fleeing the tradition platforms[1] that you and I probably frequent because flat earth views tend to overlap with other extreme far-right viewpoints. I bet that's probably why we don't see them around as much. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070924133/how-dan-bongino-is-building-a-right-wing-media-infrastructure-in-time-for-2024 https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070924133/how-dan-bongino-is...
mFixman 5y ago
I was part of the Flat Earthers' group in my previous job and used to participate in Flat Earth internet forums. 99.99% of Flat Earthers are internet trolls that succeeded in creating a moral panic similar to Momo or the Blue Whale Challenge. The rest are legitimately insane people that don't normally participate in society. The thing that worries me about society is the amount of people that believe Flat Earthers are real.

e40 5y ago

Every time someone has purported to find and interview one, it seems to me their really just trolling everyone. There was a seemingly genuine AMA on reddit of one and he said he really enjoyed arguing with people at parties, but he didn't really believe it.

Thorrez 5y ago
The article links to an interview with Kyrie Irving, an NBA player, and in the video he confirms he's a flat earther.
- mFixman 5y ago
  That was one joke that was blown out of proportion by the media. https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/boston-celtics/kyrie-irving-boston-celtics-says-he-does-not-believe-earth-is-flat-was-just-trolling https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/boston-celtics/kyrie-irving...
  - e40 5y ago
    He was clearly trolling the media. Honestly, some of the sports media are so bad that I don't really blame sports figures from trolling them. It was done in usual Kyrie style, though.
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      See my reply. I don't think it was clear he was only joking.
      - e40 5y ago
        Listened to [1]. Never heard that one, but, to me, that seals the deal that he's trolling. The fact that he wouldn't answer the question "are you trolling?" is the important part, IMO.
        Thorrez 5y ago
        I don't see how it seals the deal. If you say something you believe in order to stir up trouble, is that trolling? What about something you half believe, or that you're unsure about, but claim you're sure about? It seems to me he's unsure whether the earth is round, and unsure about the definition of trolling, and thus doesn't know how to answer. He basically goes along with the interviewer because the interviewer is friendly and charismatic. He sort of wants to answer no, but doesn't want to make his friendly interviewer upset. The interviewer is trying to lead him to say yes, and he navigates it by avoiding the question. What seals the deal for me is even in his last interview, where he seems genuinely sorry for what he said, he still doesn't say anything along the lines of "it's obviously round, I was just joking", because he doesn't want to say something that goes against his beliefs. Instead he says that if you have those beliefs you shouldn't say them publicly.
        e40 5y ago
        I hear you. Look, this is a guessing game. We're trying to figure out what's in the mind of Kyrie. I will say I think the statement "that goes against his beliefs" is a weird thing to say (not you, him) when we're talking about whether the earth is round. It's not a religion it's science. Science that was settled more than a thousand years ago. I think Kyrie puts this in terms of "beliefs" so he can push back on people that challenge him. "What, you're attacking my beliefs now??" We have spent waaaaay too long talk about that fool. Peace.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    Did he say it was a joke? He said he said it to get a reaction.[1] People say true things all the time to get a reaction. Let's look at the timeline[2]: 2017-02-16: He says he believes the Earth is flat.[3] 2017-02-17: He doubles down on it.[3] 2017-09-25: He says he said it to get a reaction. He never uses the word joking. He says he just wants to have an open conversation. "At the end of the day, you're gunna feel and believe what you want to feel, but don't knock my life over it."[1] 2018-06-08: He says he doesn't know whether the earth is round or flat. "I haven’t convinced myself all the way like everything that has been given to us is fake. No. But you also know that a lot of history has been distorted over time."[4] 2018-10-01: He apologizes for saying the earth is flat. He doesn't say he doesn't believe it, just that he's sorry for saying it. He was into conspiracies and went down the rabbit hole and wanted to share it with everyone. But how he thinks "Don't come out and say that stuff, that's for intimate conversations."[5] He also promoted conspiracies about famous assassinations.[3] [1] https://streamable.com/d9nx2 https://streamable.com/d9nx2 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrie_Irving#Conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrie_Irving#Conspiracy_theori... [3] https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2693635-kyrie-irving-actually-believes-earth-is-flat https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2693635-kyrie-irving-act... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/movies/kyrie-irving-nba-celtics-earth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/movies/kyrie-irving-nba-c... [5] https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24863899/kyrie-irving-boston-celtics-apologizes-saying-earth-flat https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24863899/kyrie-irving-bo...

tzs 5y ago

I’ve never met or even known anyone who has met anyone (as far as I know) who has died of COVID or even been hospitalized from it. Would you suggest I should conclude that there have been no COVID deaths or hospitalizations at any meaningful level?

vl 5y ago
It really depends on your definition of meaningful.
russianbandit 5y ago
No, but does that make you question the mainstream narrative at all?
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  That's his point; using your social circle as a litmus for believability is just going to exclude everyone who isn't like you. It's a great way to arrive at discriminatory conclusions, and it's a great way to cause harm to people who aren't like you.
  - seanw444 5y ago
    Side note: nice username.
alberto_ol 5y ago
Just out of curiosity, where do you live? I live in Italy and four friends of my parents died of COVID, and I met all of them. My parents are in their eighties.
- tzs 5y ago
  Washington state in the US, which is near the bottom of US states in COVID deaths per capita (133.9 per 100k). Here's a graph [1]. In EU terms, we'd be right between the Netherlands (124.1 per 100k) and Germany (139.3 per 100k) on deaths. Within most states in the US COVID rates (cases, hospitalizations, and deaths) vary quite a bit from county to county. My particular county has had 98.0 deaths per 100k, which would put us between Israel (90.7 per 100k) and Turkey (102.1 per 100k). I'm old enough to not have older living relatives (my parents were fairly old when I was born) so that greatly cuts down on the number of living older people I've met leaving probably just former older coworkers that I'm not in contact with and whose deaths I'd probably not hear about. My current company went full work from home a couple of years before COVID, and I think that everyone who works there is the type whose hobbies and other personal interests are mostly things done at home except for one guy, so it was pretty easy for most of us to largely avoid other people during the phase of the pandemic when vaccines were not available. There is one person who is into outdoors activities like hiking and climbing and camping, but I believe when he does those usually the only other people who are around are his family members. Most ex-coworkers I'm still friends with would have taken good precautions, and they live and work in areas where the region as a whole took good precautions. I do have one ex-coworker friend who lived in a high COVID/minimal precaution state, and then moved to an even higher COVID/minimal precaution state, but he's in a city and county that takes it more seriously, and was eligible for vaccination early, so he's been fine. My friends who aren't coworkers or ex-coworkers are mostly people I met in college. They almost all have an excellent understanding of science (the college was Caltech) and will have taking appropriate anti-pandemic measures. Putting it all together, the result is that I don't know of any friends or acquaintances that had COVID, and if any of their friends did it wasn't a serious enough case for them to mention it to me. I have had a couple people who came to my house to install or repair things who told me that they had had COVID. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Washington&show=us-states&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right#states-normalized http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...

mac-chaffee 5y ago

I'm related to one. The whole reason he got into it is the YouTube algorithm recommended him some videos on the subject one day. He's in that group of people who have been fleeing the tradition platforms[1] that you and I probably frequent because flat earth views tend to overlap with other extreme far-right viewpoints. I bet that's probably why we don't see them around as much. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070924133/how-dan-bongino-is-building-a-right-wing-media-infrastructure-in-time-for-2024 https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070924133/how-dan-bongino-is...

mFixman 5y ago

I was part of the Flat Earthers' group in my previous job and used to participate in Flat Earth internet forums. 99.99% of Flat Earthers are internet trolls that succeeded in creating a moral panic similar to Momo or the Blue Whale Challenge. The rest are legitimately insane people that don't normally participate in society. The thing that worries me about society is the amount of people that believe Flat Earthers are real.