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> We should even respect flat earthers No those people need mental healthcare. They have a very debilitating dysfunction, an inability to see reality.

edgyquant 5y ago
I’m with the other poster, I don’t see how flat Earth is inherently crazier to believe than any of the large number of religions that people identify with.
YEwSdObPQT 5y ago
golergka 5y ago
Those people are obviously less smart and educated than any rational man who seriously pondered whether the Earth's flat and could be bothered to do a couple of simple experiments. But at the same time they're step ahead of majority of the population that just believed what they were told as kids and never, once in their life, expressed any doubt in it, or thought about how it was proven, or how they would be able to check that proof themselves.
- tempestn 5y ago
  Strongly disagree. Rational people do not feel the need to prove every fact independently for themselves. Instead, they develop a rational system of qualified trust. You don't blindly trust expert consensus, but you do weigh likelihood based on the source. Flat Earthers would be better off if they simply accepted the consensus rather than being mislead into believing they're coming to their own conclusions based on evidence.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    But most people aren't rational and don't prove any fact independently for themselves, or have the capability to do so. They believe in what they're told. They were told god and heaven are real so they believe it. Their scientific beliefs are similarly founded.
    - tempestn 5y ago
      My point is that the solution is not to teach people to come to their own conclusions, but rather to determine how much trust is due to various sources of information.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        Well people aren't doing that either. Expert opinion is a type of evidence. You still have to be investigating and questioning to apply reasoning to that evidence that can lead to a rational conclusion.
        tempestn 5y ago
        No disagreement there.
    - dragonsky 5y ago
      I think your point is supported by the number of times you hear people talking about having "faith" in science. This idea that science requires faith is something that confuses and annoys me. The whole point of science is that it (in general) does not require faith as it provides evidence. There are some aspects of science where the presentation of hypothesis verges on faith, many aspects of cosmology where falsifiable experiment are not possible, but that is a very small part of science.
      - tempestn 5y ago
        That's true, however the vast majority of science is sufficiently complex that only another scientist in the field is capable of understanding and evaluating that evidence.
TameAntelope 5y ago
I think this is closer to the truth. I'm struggling to find it, but an article I read and found enlightening explained how there was seemingly a uniform struggle with education in every story the author was told by the people she talked to at a flat earther's convention. They all had some profoundly negative encounter with the education establishment, and usually as a result of a learning disability that they had. It's anecdotal and not a complete view, but a mistrust of academia seems requisite for many of these conspiracies to take root in a person's mind, and that seems pathologic to me.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  In which case, all the better a reason to engage in good faith discussion, so as to identify those academic failings that create such movements and help address them decisively and appropriately
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    The root cause is mental illness, academic trauma is a symptom.
    - tpoacher 5y ago
      When everything is a mental illness, then nothing is.
      - TameAntelope 5y ago
        Not everything is mental illness, but dyslexia, ADHD, and other disabilities cause learning problems. Many flat earthers are illiterate. I can't imagine they put a lot of trust into a system that would not think very highly of them, as a result.
        tpoacher 5y ago
        This is highly speculative. And dyslexia and learning difficulties are not mental illness (at least not in the way you imply). I would have far less reason to believe such populations would be 'more' likely to engage in critical thinking (flawed or otherwise), compared to simply uncritically following mainstream thought. But, anyway. Doesn't matter either way.
VoodooJuJu 5y ago
People believing in a flat earth has no impact on you and how you live your life. Focus not on what you think they need, but on your own needs.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I find it hard to believe most flat earthers are perfectly normal people living well balanced lives, when you believe that literally every government, institution, physicist, airplane pilot, airline, map maker, etc etc is all on some big great conspiracy that the globe is roughly spherical.
  - daenz 5y ago
    It's free speech, end of story. You hypothesizing that they must not have a balanced life does not supersede their freedom of expression.
    - krapp 5y ago
      azinman2's belief that flat earthers' lives are unbalanced is also freedom of speech, and flat earthers' beliefs do not supersede the freedom of expression of their critics, either. End of story.
      - daenz 5y ago
    - azinman2 5y ago
      I didn’t say anything about freedom of expression. Not sure where that even came from.
  - tpoacher 5y ago
    I wish I could believe your assumption that there are no flat earther politicians, educators, physicists, pilots or mapmakers, but somehow that's being too hopeful.
daenz 5y ago
>debilitating What about believing a bizarre idea is debilitating enough to require mental health intervention?
- MildlySerious 5y ago
  Holding a belief that cannot be reconciled with reality can be harmless if it can stay isolated, but in practice that doesn't always seem to be the case. What ends up happening is that these things sooner or later lead to an internal conflict. To fix this, a healthy person realizes that their belief is silly, and over time adjusts to realign more with reality again. This doesn't have to be a conscious process, but it helps to be self aware and open-minded. In a different group of people, what happens is that they double down. Their belief X conflicts with reality Y, so a new explanation Z is needed. Z also conflicts with reality, so the pile grows. What makes is worse is that the internet created spaces for these people to find each other and provide increasingly absurd extensions to their twisted view of the world. Someone who starts out thinking the election was rigged may find themselves in a group that claims COVID was part of the election fraud plot, that it will go away when the new president is sworn in. Then it doesn't, so a new explanation is needed: The idea of microchipping/depopulation/etc. solidifies. Someone needs to be blamed and there happens to be a leftover grudge from the elections, and look at them promoting masks and the jab! It's obvious, they're not even hiding it anymore. And on and on it goes. Eventually we arrive at "there are no coincidences" and "symbolism will be their downfall", where Twitter timestamps are somehow proof of a hidden agenda, and words mean whatever the listener wants them to mean.
  - daenz 5y ago
bnamx 5y ago
- DarylZero 5y ago
  > What percentage of people can prove from first principles that the earth is a sphere There are photographs of Earth from space.
  - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
    Deepfakes/CGI

edgyquant 5y ago

I’m with the other poster, I don’t see how flat Earth is inherently crazier to believe than any of the large number of religions that people identify with.

YEwSdObPQT 5y ago

golergka 5y ago

Those people are obviously less smart and educated than any rational man who seriously pondered whether the Earth's flat and could be bothered to do a couple of simple experiments. But at the same time they're step ahead of majority of the population that just believed what they were told as kids and never, once in their life, expressed any doubt in it, or thought about how it was proven, or how they would be able to check that proof themselves.

tempestn 5y ago
Strongly disagree. Rational people do not feel the need to prove every fact independently for themselves. Instead, they develop a rational system of qualified trust. You don't blindly trust expert consensus, but you do weigh likelihood based on the source. Flat Earthers would be better off if they simply accepted the consensus rather than being mislead into believing they're coming to their own conclusions based on evidence.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  But most people aren't rational and don't prove any fact independently for themselves, or have the capability to do so. They believe in what they're told. They were told god and heaven are real so they believe it. Their scientific beliefs are similarly founded.
  - tempestn 5y ago
    My point is that the solution is not to teach people to come to their own conclusions, but rather to determine how much trust is due to various sources of information.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Well people aren't doing that either. Expert opinion is a type of evidence. You still have to be investigating and questioning to apply reasoning to that evidence that can lead to a rational conclusion.
      - tempestn 5y ago
        No disagreement there.
  - dragonsky 5y ago
    I think your point is supported by the number of times you hear people talking about having "faith" in science. This idea that science requires faith is something that confuses and annoys me. The whole point of science is that it (in general) does not require faith as it provides evidence. There are some aspects of science where the presentation of hypothesis verges on faith, many aspects of cosmology where falsifiable experiment are not possible, but that is a very small part of science.
    - tempestn 5y ago
      That's true, however the vast majority of science is sufficiently complex that only another scientist in the field is capable of understanding and evaluating that evidence.

TameAntelope 5y ago

I think this is closer to the truth. I'm struggling to find it, but an article I read and found enlightening explained how there was seemingly a uniform struggle with education in every story the author was told by the people she talked to at a flat earther's convention. They all had some profoundly negative encounter with the education establishment, and usually as a result of a learning disability that they had. It's anecdotal and not a complete view, but a mistrust of academia seems requisite for many of these conspiracies to take root in a person's mind, and that seems pathologic to me.

tpoacher 5y ago
In which case, all the better a reason to engage in good faith discussion, so as to identify those academic failings that create such movements and help address them decisively and appropriately
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  The root cause is mental illness, academic trauma is a symptom.
  - tpoacher 5y ago
    When everything is a mental illness, then nothing is.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Not everything is mental illness, but dyslexia, ADHD, and other disabilities cause learning problems. Many flat earthers are illiterate. I can't imagine they put a lot of trust into a system that would not think very highly of them, as a result.
      - tpoacher 5y ago
        This is highly speculative. And dyslexia and learning difficulties are not mental illness (at least not in the way you imply). I would have far less reason to believe such populations would be 'more' likely to engage in critical thinking (flawed or otherwise), compared to simply uncritically following mainstream thought. But, anyway. Doesn't matter either way.

VoodooJuJu 5y ago

People believing in a flat earth has no impact on you and how you live your life. Focus not on what you think they need, but on your own needs.

azinman2 5y ago
I find it hard to believe most flat earthers are perfectly normal people living well balanced lives, when you believe that literally every government, institution, physicist, airplane pilot, airline, map maker, etc etc is all on some big great conspiracy that the globe is roughly spherical.
- daenz 5y ago
  It's free speech, end of story. You hypothesizing that they must not have a balanced life does not supersede their freedom of expression.
  - krapp 5y ago
    azinman2's belief that flat earthers' lives are unbalanced is also freedom of speech, and flat earthers' beliefs do not supersede the freedom of expression of their critics, either. End of story.
    - daenz 5y ago
  - azinman2 5y ago
    I didn’t say anything about freedom of expression. Not sure where that even came from.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  I wish I could believe your assumption that there are no flat earther politicians, educators, physicists, pilots or mapmakers, but somehow that's being too hopeful.

daenz 5y ago

>debilitating What about believing a bizarre idea is debilitating enough to require mental health intervention?

MildlySerious 5y ago
Holding a belief that cannot be reconciled with reality can be harmless if it can stay isolated, but in practice that doesn't always seem to be the case. What ends up happening is that these things sooner or later lead to an internal conflict. To fix this, a healthy person realizes that their belief is silly, and over time adjusts to realign more with reality again. This doesn't have to be a conscious process, but it helps to be self aware and open-minded. In a different group of people, what happens is that they double down. Their belief X conflicts with reality Y, so a new explanation Z is needed. Z also conflicts with reality, so the pile grows. What makes is worse is that the internet created spaces for these people to find each other and provide increasingly absurd extensions to their twisted view of the world. Someone who starts out thinking the election was rigged may find themselves in a group that claims COVID was part of the election fraud plot, that it will go away when the new president is sworn in. Then it doesn't, so a new explanation is needed: The idea of microchipping/depopulation/etc. solidifies. Someone needs to be blamed and there happens to be a leftover grudge from the elections, and look at them promoting masks and the jab! It's obvious, they're not even hiding it anymore. And on and on it goes. Eventually we arrive at "there are no coincidences" and "symbolism will be their downfall", where Twitter timestamps are somehow proof of a hidden agenda, and words mean whatever the listener wants them to mean.
- daenz 5y ago

bnamx 5y ago

DarylZero 5y ago
> What percentage of people can prove from first principles that the earth is a sphere There are photographs of Earth from space.
- inkblotuniverse 5y ago
  Deepfakes/CGI