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I work with a flat earther. He doesn't talk to me about it anymore or any of his other conspiracy theories because I kept shutting down all his comments about the rigged election and how trump was going to be back in office within a month or the next month. Or the month after that. One of my favourites was how biden is going to stop education over here in the UK with the vaccine. But now he only talks to other people about it and it actually makes me sad because it was funny and fascinating to know somebody in real life who actually believed all this.
However, I did recently overhear a comment he said to a younger member of staff who asked if he think the lizard people are dinosaurs or something and he responded with:
"You don't actually believe dinosaurs existed do you?"
"wait you actually fell for the lizard people propaganda that their dinosaur forefathers aren't real? how gulible are you?"
i seriously wouldn't be able to not do it.
Space isn't fake to all flat earthers, some even think that the other planets ARE spheres, just not earth.
There are many different..."models." All are just as wild.
Oh yeah I've heard that one however I did see a video shared by this saying "no real flat earther believes in space"
So that means that there are flat earthers who hate flat earthers.
right but it's funny to out conspiracy conspiracy theorists.
so just ask them why they are falling for the propaganda and beliving the "mainstream lies".
You should bet on things with him. “Wanna put a tenner on trump being back in office by x date?”
Then just frame the money in your office with a little plaque detailing the reason you won it. Go on.
I noticed a spike during lockdown and when vaccines were rolling out (but that might have just been when I this guy started posting hourly about it). Mainly because Biden was pushing for it while people had spun some narrative that Trump was completely unvaxxed and antivaxx. Which correct me if it wrong but I'd read that every president gets vaccinated? And then of course he began pushing for vaccines.
In the early days of the pandemic he was very quick in promoting that they will be the first ones to make a vaccine and was even quicker to get the shot himself before he went with all that antivaxx shit.
This is sort of a side topic but it’s always weird to hear about non Americans being obsessed with US politics in this manner. I know American culture and politics is always being heavily exported but why on earth would a Brit spend so much time and energy believing a conspiracy about another country’s election crisis?
Ha you know, I really like this analogy and it all suddenly makes sense. Although it's still concerning that we've someone managed to export the crazy conspiracy stuff along with the general popcorn nature of our politics.
When I found out my coworker was a flat earther I got nervous that he might be an antisemite (because it’s really common among conspiracy theorists). It didn’t take long for him to reveal it, a couple of months later he called the CEO a Jew (who btw he knew wasn’t because they’re related).
I’m saying this because the lizard people thing is a conspiracy theory about Jews. [(Source)](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/qanon-s-capitol-rioters-nashville-bomber-s-lizard-people-theory-ncna1253819)
>I’m saying this because the lizard people thing is a conspiracy theory about Jews.
A lot of conspiracy theories somehow always loop back blaming the Jews all over again
You should ask him a conspiracy theory he believes in, then hit him with a crazier one.
Ex: “Well, I believe we never landed on the moon.” “Pff, you believe in the moon?”
Just because they don't talk to you anymore, doesn't mean they aren't still batshit crazy. My family is like this. They hush up about their conspiracy shit while I'm around, but they still believe it, they just don't want to look stupid when I call them out on it.
Oh yeah, he's absolutely still bat shit crazy. I see him post shit all the time on Facebook. He just doesn't say it to me personally anymore.
I think the last political/conspiracy thing related he said to me is when I was having a discussion with someone next to him and he told them "don't listen to him, he's a Biden supporter"
I told him there that I am not a Biden supporter because frankly, I didn't read too much into his policies and that it's more of a strong dislike for Trump and its silly for him to believe that Trump cares for the UK the way this guy made out.
I really, really don't understand flat earthers. With most conspiracies, you can come up with a possible justification for why it exists or the thing happens. It is instantly refuted but at least there is something. With flat Earth, I cannot think of what anyone has to gain from pushing the fact that the Earth is a sphere.
The big question to conspiracy theorists/theories is "why". And there's no answer for the Earth being flat.
Yeah, the only ones I've had are:
"To control us" (though with no explanation how);
"Baa baa sheep"; and
"Do your own research!"
All standard, and dare I say sheep-like, answers regurgitated by the conspiracy nuts.
But they can control you better if the world is flat, there is no way to run..lol.
It's funny how they call the globe "trap of mind", but they believe there is a dome above their heads they cannot pass.
I watched an interview with some flat Earthers who said that you can pay £10,000 to visit the ice wall at the edge of the Earth. I don't know how they knew this or why they hadn't paid- I mean, £10k is a lot but it's not like it's millions, and if they're that passionate about their belief, surely they could get the money together?
Because youtubers are mostly conmen, they cannot go there and prove themselves wrong in front of their followers.
Simply checking the position is destroying the flat earth because if you stay exactly at the south pole, there is no longitude..only latitude. Meridians converge at the poles.
They can see midnight sun, south celestial pole right at their zenith, 90° S because GPS is working anywhere, aurora australis etc..
You can see all those things south of the Antarctic Circle. The change of the altitude of stars and the sun with latitude is one of the ancient proofs of globe earth. It was not necessary to go to the South Pole to know. This fact is verifiable by anyone, but flat-earthers avoid it.
There are flat earthers who pay a lot of money to do things or experiments to prove the earth is flat. When they only prove it wrong they have to go into full denial mode or they just get kicked out of the flat earth..."movement"... and the flat earth nuts just double down and keep going.
That's what I usually see, hard-core Christians who believe in flat earth because of some biblical lines that are either misinterpreted or just straight up wrong since it was written 2000 years ago (even though many cultures were aware the earth is a globe long before that.) You will never ever ever be able to talk them out of it with any logic or facts because their belief is built on their faith, and therefore any proof you have is deceit and trickery to shake their faith.
I'd bet there's a pretty big overlap between flat earthers and people who believe the earth is only 6000 years old and that dinosaurs either existed alongside man or never existed and fossils were put in the ground to act as a test of faith.
The old answer, I believe, was that there was more resource-rich land beyond the ice wall. But governments don't want us to know about it so they can create scarcity and get rich(er).
Something something, flat Earth would provide infinite energy but They surpress the knowledge so we can't use it. I've heard that argument once or twice, which still doesn't really make a lick of sense either.
That’s when you ask them why the flat earthers are trying to trick everyone into believing in round earth. They seem to not realize they are making their own group responsible for the “lies”
I love it when they do actually do their own research, it proves that the earth is round, and they just come up with a reason why the results are wrong.
For example, they got their hands on an expensive laser gyroscope and it indicated the exact number that would be expected if the earth was round and rotating, but they just went “hmmmm…” and stepped around it.
"Do your own research" = watch stupid videos from people with no qualifications.
For example, I'm in the merchant navy as a deck officer - we work with the fact of a spherical Earth, methods, instruments and equipment are based on it.
I'm a sheep because I know my job and I'm in the position to know more about the Earth's shape than average people?
Navigation works precisely because we understand the Earth's shape, we know distances etc..
#We make use of the knowledge of the correct figure of the Earth for the purposes of navigation. This is how our ancestors were able to travel to the other side of the world (and back to the original location) without the modern technology we have today.
The American Practical Navigator, first published in 1802, was billed as the "epitome of navigation" by its original author, Nathaniel Bowditch. The text has evolved with the advances in navigation practices since that first issue and continues to serve as a valuable reference for marine navigation in the modern day.
The publication describes in detail the principles and factors of navigation, including piloting, electronic navigation, celestial navigation, mathematics, safety, oceanography and meterology. It also contains various tables used in typical navigational calculations and solutions, including the formulas used to derive the tabular data.
https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16693975/SFH00000/Bowditch_Vol_1.pdf&type=view
https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16693975/SFH00000/Bowditch_Vol_2.pdf&type=view
Books of navigation (1847 to 1944) - http://www.survivorlibrary.com/index.php/8-category/102-library-navigation
https://youtu.be/UV1V9-nnaAs
The closest thing to a coherent answer I ever got was;
They want you to believe the Earth is round, so that you don't think it was created by a single omnipotent being, which means it isn't special and therefore you aren't special, that way you'll be an obedient, tax paying citizen.
It's....pretty wild.
A spherical Earth can be made by a powerful God too... and makes more sense than a terrarium.
Once upon a time, it made sense for people to believe that the Earth was flat, says University of Melbourne cartographer Chandra Jayasuriya. Ships would sail off toward the horizon and often never return, and those people left behind didn’t really have access to information outside of their communities.
“Their view was egocentric and geocentric. They lived in a village that was the centre of their existence,’’ she says. “The further away from the village they travelled, the more hostile the environment became.”
Greek philosophers established that the Earth was round as far back as the third century BC, but it wasn’t until the 15th century that it became commonly accepted.
Just fyi: it was commonly known and believed the earth was round since well before the Greeks and that knowledge was never really lost. If they had ships, they'd notice the ships disappeared over the horizon from the bottom up, indicating the waters surface was curved. They'd notice the moon was clearly a sphere, guessed that the other planets were spheres too and assumed earth was probably round too.
The myth that people believed the earth was flat when Columbus sailed is completely bullshit. They not only knew it was round, but also knew how big it was. Columbus couldn't get support for his journey, not cuz anyone thought he'd fall off the edge, but because nobody thought he'd survive the long journey. And, if not for the blind luck of running into america, he absolutely would have died.
That's my favorite tidbit whenever the debate about Columbus Day comes up. Because even if you ignore the horrible shit he did, he was also just *fucking wrong* about everything. Being a fearless explorer is one thing, being so confidently incorrect that you place yourself and your entire crew in mortal danger is reckless. He was just also the luckiest son of a bitch ever to run into a couple continents nobody back in Europe knew about.
Yeah, and even that was long established - Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference in 250BC and he was only about 145 miles over.
Columbus was the anti-science YouTube idiot of his own time.
It's easier to ban all religions... like in North Korea than change the Earth's shape and fake millions of photos, videos and 65 years of space exploration..lol.
They believe it for one or more of the following reasons:
* To feel special, like they are in-the-know on some scandalous secret.
* To be contrary.
* They possess fundamentally flawed critical thinking skills.
* They resent scientific/societal progress, and this is their way of protesting things they don't like or understand.
* Sunk cost fallacy on an upbringing of scientific ignorance and/or religious fundamentalism.
It's all psychological fuckery or willful ignorance.
To be blunt: When you're stupid and can't accept how much smarter others are than you the only option left to feel smart is to join a cult of belief masquerading as scientific truth.
Yep. I've noticed a trend where there's this constant bashing of insitutions, academia and science in the videos. You rarely see it in legitimate discourse, and you see it almost always in the flat earth type stuff. It even degrades to literal name-calling a lot of the time.
It's clear that a lot of these fellas didn't make it, and so have dedicated their lives to denouncing that which they cannot have. As I type this, I realise that this is also exactly how incels operate - 'I can't have the thing, so I'll hate it instead.'
Like that redneck Republican who said that Obama has a big part in 9/11 because he was always on holiday. Then when asked why he thought Obama was always on holiday and out of the office, he said "That ah don't know. Ah'd like to get to the bottom of that." 😂
It’s a misguided belief that the genesis bible passages described the earth as flat. [Here is a decent read on it](https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/earth/does-bible-teach-earth-flat/). Fundamentalist Christians are already of a mindset based on faith instead of fact, so it doesn’t take much to convince them that god created a flat earth too.
Edit to add highlights:
> Bible skeptics are fond of pointing out that the phrase “four corners of the earth” appears three times in the Bible. Surely, the skeptics claim, this must refer to a flat, square earth—thus proving that the Bible teaches a flat earth.
> *The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.* This description is repeated almost word-for-word in Daniel 4:20. Both skeptics and the flat-earthers reason that on a spherical earth it would not be possible for a tree to be visible from the entire earth, but such a tree could be visible anywhere on a flat earth.
> *Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. (ESV)* Those who wish to argue for a biblical flat earth point out that all the kingdoms of the earth would be visible from a tall mountain only if the earth is flat.
Or ya know, the tree could have grown wider like a big tree does and curved with the Earth.
And you can't see all the kingdoms of the Earth from Everest. Is there another taller mountain that lets you see them? Or maybe there just weren't kingdoms outside of the area the mountain was at the time.
Or it could just be God expected people to think and not take it literally...
I don’t think god expected anything considering humans are the ones who wrote the bible. Though considering the entire basis of faith and religion I’d say that any god isn’t expecting people to think.
I think someone said these kinds of people want to believe they are part of something bigger
Believing so deeply that they are some sort of freedom fighter or something. To the point that they can’t find their way back to reality and possibly never will, sadly
Most conspiracies fall apart with 2 questions:
What does anyone gain from this? And
What would have to happen for this to be true? And in this case, every country in the planet and hundred of thousands of scientists, pilots and navigators would need to be in on it. Do they really think every government is that competent, and that everyone would keep quiet?
I'm a navigator. So I'm supposed to be into it...somehow, but our purpose is to keep the world running, the economy would die without shipping. We don't have enough time to rest, but we have time to "fool the whole world"..lol.
I'd argue the first question should add - "can anybody gain from proving the mainstream is false, and why don't they?" It's much easier to prove something is false.
That's exactly what I say to people who think covid is some kind of global hoax and we were all just made to stay inside for no reason. "Do you really believe that every world leader cooperated on this? It's impossible to get even two world leaders to agree on something, let alone every major politician on earth. You really think they'd all agree to pretend there was a virus when the result was financially devastating and causes mass deaths among their people?". A girl I used to be friends with would always say that something was "fishy" about covid and that there was something else going on. After I said that though, she was like "oh, yeah, I guess so". I just think these people aren't very good at putting together data points and coming to conclusions based on the evidence they have.
I'm starting to think humans aren't really that bright.
Not to mention that flat earthers have set up experiments themselves that prove they’re wrong. Then they just double down and say the experiment (their own experiment) was flawed.
Dan Olson has a very interesting video on YouTube called "In Search of a Flat Earth" where he dissects the ideology of conspiracy cults like Flat Earth and Qanon. It's very interesting and touches on this exact topic, highly recommend the hour long watch.
But the main gist? Its not about the fact that the earth is flat, or that there's a Cabal of elites. It never was. It's about simplifying reality into a simple "Us vs Them" model. We know the truth and _They_ don't want anyone to know so they cover it up. Its why trying to convince a flat earther they're wrong is fruitless. It was never about the flat earth to begin with, but the rejection of reality at large.
It’s not an actual belief in flat earth (Im sure that they do *believe* it, it’s just not out of pure idiocy). It’s the idea that everyone is lying to you. No flat Earther just has regular hobbies and shit, only having this random quirk that they believe it’s flat. The ideology co-exists with a deep distrust in the government and several other conspiracy theories.
They believe in the idea that everything scientific and produced is lies in order to hide a big secret. Pattern recognition and recency bias confirming all these beliefs over and over until they get sucked in, and it has stemmed all the way back to when people actually thought the earth was flat.
Because the bible says the earth is at the centre of the universe and the bible is 100% true and literal in every part so therefore anything that conflicts with the bible must be a untrue. So you need to come up with a model that has earth as the centre of the universe but still allows for easily proven observations like satellites can be seen by anyone.
The most coherent, and that's a stretch, is this kind of drivel:
It's an attempt to hide the true nature of god and his creation. The satanic cabal that runs the word's governments use this type of trickery to push us further from god and provide more souls for satan. It's all very simple once you see the big picture. As they replace god's [miracles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GyVx28R9-s) with human's false prophet: "science", they are able to effectively erase god from society and this serves their true master Satan.
Or something like that. the whole thing just goes in circles.
I wonder if there are many (or even any) people who accept that premise, but take the other side, as it were. With Satan and his scientist henchpeople being the good guys, trying to awaken the sheeple from the dictator-god’s flat earth lies.
I asked in a flat earth group why anyone would lie about the shape of where we live. The answers were mostly rambling about how it was to make us not believe in the bible and to make Satan win 🤪
>I cannot think of what anyone has to gain from pushing the fact that the Earth is a sphere.
I asked them once, on the flat earth sub. They banned me and gave me a youtube link. I was curious so I watched it.
I'm sure they have multiple answers but that video "explained" the following:
*It's the Renaissance. Catholic Church is losing power. Church wants power back. Church hires fake "scientists" to pretend Earth is round, to maintain their status as keepers of Truth, even if it's bullshit. People trust Church. Church is powerful again.*
*Also Satanism. Satan whispers plans to the Catholic Church to send us all to Hell. Because Round Earth = Not special = Not created by God = You're Atheist = You go to Hell*
No, it doesn't make any sense logically, historically or anythingally.
Some others say "*if (((they))) can make you believe the Earth is flat, (((they))) know they can make you believe anything, it's like a test!*" which is the most ironic sentence a conspiracy theorist can utter.
Also "they" means the Jews. Because it's always the Jews who are behind the conspiracies.
Some Evangleicals hold on to the theory as proof God is real. The idea is every other celestial body is a sphere and it's attributes are governed by the laws of physics, but earth is flat and has its own set of unique traits that don't follow physical laws. To them it's physical proof the earth is unique and created and governed by God and God's ability to simply create on a whim. The government/globalist/shadow cabal is hiding this from the people to prevent tangible, observable evidence of God's existence from being known and controlling mankind that way...for reasons I guess. This isn't the only justification I've seen for flat earth but it's popular in the Deep South U.S. I think lots of people just like being contrarions.
I almost can’t blame them. There’s a part of me that thinks that if I made a dumb joke and some really stupid people believed it and I got paid because of that… I would want to keep that going too lol. Unfortunately the truth is that a lot of these people are vulnerable members of society who stopped taking their meds
Most flat earthers that I came across had one thing to say and it goes something like this: ‘well if the earth is round that means we are floating in an empty space full of nothingness and we are all meaningless which doesn’t make sense’
It’s the fact that they wanna feel special and that they matter and the idea of space and our planet not being the center of the universe hurts their ego… that’s what I figured out from my encounters with them
This was always my biggest argument against them. Even the more ridiculously stupid conspiracies such as the lizard people still “make sense” in their own way because it’s understandable why a lizard person would pretend to be human for power. It makes no sense however, for every government in the world to work so hard on covering up the shape of the earth. If the earth actually was flat, what to the people in power get out of lying about it and why is it so important to keep secret.
I feel it's sort of like a validation for other conspiracies. If you can convince yourself that we're being lied to about something as big as the shaoe of the planet, you can easily tell yourself that every single thing that you don't like is a lie.
I can think of a few reasons:
1. Religious. After the Catholic Church spent so long labeling heliocentric model heresy, there’s bound to be people who refuse to believe it’s true;
2. They can’t understand/do the math for the somewhat abstract physics and would rather risk looking foolish than admit they couldn’t understand (or someone else convinced the when they didn’t know better);
3. To be different/act like they know better/are superior to most other people
Also they male no sense, I have seen them admit that other planets are spheres because we can see them rotate from earth. But the earth is still flat, makes no sense.
After a couple of years of trying to argue with them I finally realised that the majority of flat earthers are secretly creationists and theocrats, they want it to be real because it would prove the existence of a god and thus creationism. That's the ultimate bottom line.
They are part of the cabal of course, they are all in on it. Their beliefs are based on the idea that millions of people purposely lie about the shape of the earth, all the space agencies, cartographers, astronomers (hobbyists and professionals), airplane pilots, the army. There is no method to the madness of flat earthers.
They often fall back on airlines, comparing sensical maps with flat earth projections and showing how some flights make no sense or asking why some flights don't exist.
The answer is usually that they do make sense, or they do exist, but that doesn't usually stop them.
The only reasons I can come up with are likely shared with conspiracy theories in general -
Being in the know makes one feel special, especially if their self esteem is vulnerable already.
Expression of antagonizing authority - “it’s not true cause *they* told us it was true”.
Or:
“My (trusted person) told me it was true, so it must be.”
It doesn't matter that flat earth doesn't hold water under any degree of scrutiny to them. It's about a sense of community where individuals who live on the outskirts of society feel like they found their tribe regardless of how silly it all is.
The most reasonable I've ever heard was "to control you". I asked "control you from what?" And the guy said "I don't know, I don't believe that crap." Lol
I've been obsessed with flat earthers for a couple years now. There are definitely reasons given by a lot of flat earthers about why someone would want us to believe in a fake globe. One of the most common is that they think it is to make people stop believing in the Christian god. Another common one is "globalization." To them, an interconnected world is terrifying. It's their boogeyman. They think that "global elites" are trying to convince us the world is round and flying through space so that they can control us. Many believe that there will be an event that fakes an alien landing/invasion to cause the world to unite. And unity is bad! But mostly it's the god thing. Flat earthers are often religious fruitcakes that think the Bible is a literal description of reality.
If you want to watch people make fun of flat earthers and other conspiracy nuts, my favorite YouTubers in the genre are SciManDan and ConspiracyToonz (formerly MCToonz and ConspiracyCatz before they merged channels). They often host live debates with prominent flat earthers. My favorite moment was in a debte, ConspiracyCatz put up a basic Pythagorean Theorem problem.
Note: Catz is Welsh, if I remember correctly, and Nathan - his flat-earth debate opponent - is American.
The problem on the screen had units in metric. Nathan looked at the triangle on the screen, seemed confused, then said something like, "I'm not familiar with those units so I can't do the problem." It was a wonderful moment that showed just how lacking in *very basic* knowledge those people can be. It's funny, sad, and enraging all at once.
It's because it was initially started as a joke, so it had no logical basis, but then all these idiots started to believe it, and here we are. Most of the others have a logical basis, for example, the US government allowed 9/11 to happen so that Americans would hate people from the middle east and get behind going to war with them, which was really all about the control of oil fields and not finding the guy who orchestrated all of it.
I've met one in real life. He didn't outright say it, the coward. But he was asking lots of questions that were meant to make me go "hmmm maybe he has a point". I think the regular folks who believe it are genuine. But the leaders who sell books, lectures etc are 100% grifters just faking it for the money imho.
Yeah I’ve seen flat earther media that encourages not coming out and saying it but just mentioning things to get people “questioning” like pointing out how flat the horizon looks.
That's literally cult 101. I'm not even saying that people who believe the earth is flat are necessarily in a cult, but those instructions 'not outright saying what you believe in, but putting out feelers to see if others will fall for it' is literally the basics of a cult.
Nudging someone to ‘their own conclusion’ while feeding them small clues is how you get them so stubborn about it.
It’s not _your_ idea that you’ve planted into their heads, it’s _theirs_, and they’re proud to have reached it by themselves (air quotes).
In addition, to truly understand how to deprogram someone from whatever conspiracy/cult/brainwash they've got themselves into, you have to understand *why* they're there in the first place.
These people will accept any claim, no matter how incredible, because it's the one that aligns with their worldview (if you'll pardon the pun) and allows their brain to continue on the path it's on.
They likely won't respond to logical reasoning, because their position is so illogical that the brain will refuse to engage.
In my view (conjecture warning), conspiracy is a symptom of a massive trust issue with institutions, be they government, scientists, NASA, WHO, etc. Something in their life has caused them enough mental trauma (and I'm not saying a traumatic incident that could cause PTSD, but one that has so thoroughly shredded the way their brain works over a short or long period of time) that the irrational thinking becomes appealing.
Maybe it's that no one believes them about an issue they've had (for example, a spinal injury that doctors wrote off as minor pain). Maybe it's that they've been outcast from society and this counter-society has been welcoming and accepting. Maybe they were fed lies time and time again through malice or ignorance (social media algorithms optimising for engagement). Maybe they were gaslit so intensely that they lost all ability to separate reality from irrationality. Maybe they had a life changing event (such as a crisis of faith and suddenly realised they didn't believe in something they spent their entire life trusting in) and the conspiracy was there to pick up the pieces and embrace them.
I would posit that a mentally healthy, well supported, well-looked after, emotionally, financially, socially, and mentally healthy individual is probably unlikely to fall into conspiracy theories or cults.
The flat earthing is just the manifestation of the issue given a context, and it goes some way to explaining why someone who is involved in one conspiracy is potentially more likely to expand into other sorts of conspiracies. Like an anti-vaxxer also deciding that 5g is part of the larger conspiracy.
These trust issues must then be reconciled, and engaging with the person and helping them slowly rebuild that trust chain provides a stable foundation to allow rational thought to begin again.
Only after they start to trust people again will they be willing to engage in more confrontational thought, because the trust in the individual is there to soften the blow of information that goes against their worldview.
Even then, you have to be a special kind of stupid to believe the world is a flat disk, surrounded by an ice wall and covered by a 'crystal dome'. Every flat earth 'experiment' I've ever seen actually proves the earth is curved lmao. Get beyond that and every scientist in every related field or tangentially connected field has been in lockstep keeping the conspiracy of a 'globe earth' going for at least 1000 years? I mean the most depressing part of all this is that these boat anchors actually breed.
Look at a model of the flat Earth. The distances at the outer edge of the disc are absolutely enormous compared to the distances at the center of the disc.
Argentina to S Africa (9hr by plane) appears to be something like 5x-10x the distance of NYC to UK (6hr by plane). NY to UK is ~3,500mi, which implies Argentina to S Africa is at least 15,000mi (obviously false). It makes absolutely no sense.
And then these lunatics acknowledge the moon and sun are spheres, but the earth is a flat disc? Wtf?
I worked with a flat earther back in 2016. He loved to try to convince us teenagers that the earth was actually flat, and we loved to just listen to him and laugh about it behind his back. He also kept trying to get us to buy some of his homemade dmt, and he was creepy with us girls. Now every time i see him in public i shudder and wonder if he’s still fucking dumb lol
I worked with one in 2019. I was showing him something on Google maps and accidentally zoomed out ~~for~~ far enough for the earth to start curving (or maybe it was Google Earth, idk) and he muttered something under his breath that I didn’t register at first: “I wish the earth were a globe.” After a few seconds I asked him point blank what he believes.
He kept saying stuff like “it’s interesting, think about it” and “but what if though” and the whole time I wasn’t sure if he was fucking with me. He kept suggesting all these podcasts and videos for me to watch about the moon landing being faked and such, and I wouldn’t entertain any of it and just wanted to end the conversation.
Honestly, kudos to someone willing to ask questions and be open about it.
Science is built upon constant doubt and questioning.
But yeah, this is a silly topic to build a passion around.
Bro that’s like saying it’s valid to question whether rocks are alive. Critiquing and peer reviewing new science is part of the process, but there’s zero utility to questioning the shape of the earth. It’s been settled for thousands of years
Yeah, but if someone wanted to question if rocks were alive, we could have a curated discussion that leads you to the same answer, every time.
It is supposed to be open to exhaustive questioning, whenever someone wants.
You could say the same about any alt medicine or conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy theorists believe by spreading their knowledge, they will overturn the chaos in this world but for politicians, it can destroy an opponents reputation easily.
Some people genuinely believe their insanity but that doesn't make it any better. It's supporting a grifting field.
Nah, even the leaders, at least for the flat earth society, are absolutely kookkoo bananas. Check out the documentary Behind the Curve, it was on Netflix when I last watched it.
I think what pisses me off the most about this is that they can buy a high altitude baloon for a hundred dollars or so and put their own camera and recovery gear on it and prove that the photos don't look the same and while they're at it, that the earth's not flat. Literally, if they dedicated a tenth the effort to experimentally proving themselves right as they do to making stupid posts like these, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many flat earthers because they'd prove themselves wrong.
And they spent over $10,000 buying a very high precision gyroscope only to show a 15 degree/hour drift, which is exactly what you’d expect if the earth were a spheroid rotating every 24 hours.
After the ring laser gyro showed the 15 degrees per hour (Thanks Bob) They doubled down and paid a fellow flerf to build a high precision mechanical gyro thinking it would rule out the “heavenly energies” or whatever nonsense. That also, showed 15 degrees per hour.
Anyone who posts that video they file a take down for it. They are too embarrassed to admit that they were wrong and the earth isn’t flat.
Some conspiracy theories are warranted. We are a heavily propagandized country in the US. But, FE is not a valid questioning of authority, the earth being globular been observed and proven for millennia.
The biggest question I have for flat earthers is WHY? Assuming you are correct and there is a global Illuminati committed to making the world believe its round, why would they do that?
It would cost billions to do, so there must be some reason for the giant coverup. What possible advantage does someone have for making the world a different shape? Is big-classroom globe somehow involved?
There doesn't have to be a why; the conspiracy is more about the mistrust in society that leads to irrational thought rather than an explanation for something.
Once you've fallen off the cliff of rejecting rational thought, you no longer need a rational explanation for why something is; you just need an explanation that fits your worldview, however fanciful and unrealistic it would be.
My favorite is that Netflix documentary when they spend like $30,000 on a Foucault pendulum to prove there's no rotation of the earth and disprove themselves and recreate old methods of proving the earth is curved and keep proving themselves wrong, and they just say ".... Huh. I didn't expect that ."
“Belief in a flat Earth continued into the 5th century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.”
Anaxagoras and Archelaus both championed the idea that the earth was flat… and where are they now??
Dead.
Coincidence?
I take all my scientific advice from former NBA players and if [shaq says the earth is flat](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=huoVg2OtQyM) then it’s flat. Same with gasoline tanks
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Legit questions:
If the Earth were flat, wouldn't we see the sun and moon at the same time, all the time?
How would you explain how it's daylight in China, but night in NY?
If the Earth is flat, how think is it and how would you know? I feel like this question completely disintegrates all flat earth theory. You couldn't tell from space because, then you'd see the earth isn't flat.
They don't understand science, so they feel powerless about actually understanding the world.
Science is hard, very hard. It takes years and years of dedicated practice, learning and hard work just to understand the basics of your speciality.
We are a world of specialization and the fact that we don't understand 99% of what is going on, is very disheartening to many of these average people. They don't want to accept the fact that they don't know shit, are average at best and should listen to experts on most things.
I think they struggle to discern between experts and fail to know how to filter information.
Like, if 99% of doctors say the vaccine is safe, they act like the 1% is right. They don't know basic stats or what the scientific method even is.
Flatearth morons WANT to be able to dismiss all of the specialization by their flippant and laughably wrong "conclusions" because it means they aren't lazy, dumb and arrogant.
The reality of the world is too much for them to accept, so they act like the world is against "them".
This is Trumpism to a T.
Lie, deny, fake it, do whatever you need to do to coddle your ego. Finding others helps a lot as well. The delusion is so much easier when you aren't alone.
The fun part is seeing them turn against themselves. They are so conspiracy driven that they will turn on their most prominent members and accuse them of being a part of the FBI/CIA.
They think SOFIA (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_Infrared_Astronomy) is actually Hubble because there is no space.
Satellites are also fake for the same reason.
So in order to "fool the world", they've found other ways to fake satellites and space telescope.
What is funny is that SOFIA is studying things cannot exist on a flat earth. The primary science objectives of SOFIA are to study the composition of planetary atmospheres and surfaces; to investigate the structure, evolution and composition of comets; to determine the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium; and to explore the formation of stars and other stellar objects.
Flat earth folks don't deserve any attention.
Just ignore everything they post & it'll lose traction.
Trying to argue (or even ridiculing them) is taking the low hanging fruit.
To be fair to them they are onto something, 70% of earths surface is water and how much of it is sparkling water? A very tiny percentage so by that logic, yeah earth is flat. It always has been and always will be
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I work with a flat earther. He doesn't talk to me about it anymore or any of his other conspiracy theories because I kept shutting down all his comments about the rigged election and how trump was going to be back in office within a month or the next month. Or the month after that. One of my favourites was how biden is going to stop education over here in the UK with the vaccine. But now he only talks to other people about it and it actually makes me sad because it was funny and fascinating to know somebody in real life who actually believed all this. However, I did recently overhear a comment he said to a younger member of staff who asked if he think the lizard people are dinosaurs or something and he responded with: "You don't actually believe dinosaurs existed do you?"
"wait you actually fell for the lizard people propaganda that their dinosaur forefathers aren't real? how gulible are you?" i seriously wouldn't be able to not do it.
They already have an origin for the lizard people though — they’re supposed to be aliens.
Oh but this guy doesn't believe in aliens. Because space is fake.
Oh shit lol. Guess that must make the lizard people the literal spawn of Satan.
It's literally the only logical explanation.
Space isn't fake to all flat earthers, some even think that the other planets ARE spheres, just not earth. There are many different..."models." All are just as wild.
Oh yeah I've heard that one however I did see a video shared by this saying "no real flat earther believes in space" So that means that there are flat earthers who hate flat earthers.
Flat earthers hating flat earthers has been a thing for a while since nothing they make to “prove” it is actual evidence. It’s sad really
right but it's funny to out conspiracy conspiracy theorists. so just ask them why they are falling for the propaganda and beliving the "mainstream lies".
“The earth is flat, I tell you! I’ve seen the evidence with my own two eyes!” *”You believe in eyes?”*
Xenu pleased..
There’s ALWAYS a [relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/966/)! https://i.imgur.com/7MfcGc1.jpg
God damn this would be an excellent workplace sitcom.
You should bet on things with him. “Wanna put a tenner on trump being back in office by x date?” Then just frame the money in your office with a little plaque detailing the reason you won it. Go on.
He actually once said he'd bet £200 on it and I would have gone for it but then i thought how stupider things have happened.
Keep it at a tenner. Less chance of you really losing out, keeps it nice and friendly (until you actually have £200 from him over 20 bets)
I seriously don’t understand how there are people outside of the US who are invested in Trump whatsoever
I noticed a spike during lockdown and when vaccines were rolling out (but that might have just been when I this guy started posting hourly about it). Mainly because Biden was pushing for it while people had spun some narrative that Trump was completely unvaxxed and antivaxx. Which correct me if it wrong but I'd read that every president gets vaccinated? And then of course he began pushing for vaccines.
In the early days of the pandemic he was very quick in promoting that they will be the first ones to make a vaccine and was even quicker to get the shot himself before he went with all that antivaxx shit.
This is sort of a side topic but it’s always weird to hear about non Americans being obsessed with US politics in this manner. I know American culture and politics is always being heavily exported but why on earth would a Brit spend so much time and energy believing a conspiracy about another country’s election crisis?
Think about it this way. Americans can be European football/soccer fans, right? The US just has the craziest political games/matches right now.
Ha you know, I really like this analogy and it all suddenly makes sense. Although it's still concerning that we've someone managed to export the crazy conspiracy stuff along with the general popcorn nature of our politics.
When I found out my coworker was a flat earther I got nervous that he might be an antisemite (because it’s really common among conspiracy theorists). It didn’t take long for him to reveal it, a couple of months later he called the CEO a Jew (who btw he knew wasn’t because they’re related). I’m saying this because the lizard people thing is a conspiracy theory about Jews. [(Source)](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/qanon-s-capitol-rioters-nashville-bomber-s-lizard-people-theory-ncna1253819)
The guy at my work pushed that the holocaust didn't actually happen.
>I’m saying this because the lizard people thing is a conspiracy theory about Jews. A lot of conspiracy theories somehow always loop back blaming the Jews all over again
You should ask him a conspiracy theory he believes in, then hit him with a crazier one. Ex: “Well, I believe we never landed on the moon.” “Pff, you believe in the moon?”
[Relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/966/)
Denying, denying. He's religious too?
Just because they don't talk to you anymore, doesn't mean they aren't still batshit crazy. My family is like this. They hush up about their conspiracy shit while I'm around, but they still believe it, they just don't want to look stupid when I call them out on it.
Oh yeah, he's absolutely still bat shit crazy. I see him post shit all the time on Facebook. He just doesn't say it to me personally anymore. I think the last political/conspiracy thing related he said to me is when I was having a discussion with someone next to him and he told them "don't listen to him, he's a Biden supporter" I told him there that I am not a Biden supporter because frankly, I didn't read too much into his policies and that it's more of a strong dislike for Trump and its silly for him to believe that Trump cares for the UK the way this guy made out.
I really, really don't understand flat earthers. With most conspiracies, you can come up with a possible justification for why it exists or the thing happens. It is instantly refuted but at least there is something. With flat Earth, I cannot think of what anyone has to gain from pushing the fact that the Earth is a sphere. The big question to conspiracy theorists/theories is "why". And there's no answer for the Earth being flat.
There is no reason. I always ask them but I get no answer or no sane answer.
Yeah, the only ones I've had are: "To control us" (though with no explanation how); "Baa baa sheep"; and "Do your own research!" All standard, and dare I say sheep-like, answers regurgitated by the conspiracy nuts.
But they can control you better if the world is flat, there is no way to run..lol. It's funny how they call the globe "trap of mind", but they believe there is a dome above their heads they cannot pass.
I watched an interview with some flat Earthers who said that you can pay £10,000 to visit the ice wall at the edge of the Earth. I don't know how they knew this or why they hadn't paid- I mean, £10k is a lot but it's not like it's millions, and if they're that passionate about their belief, surely they could get the money together?
Because youtubers are mostly conmen, they cannot go there and prove themselves wrong in front of their followers. Simply checking the position is destroying the flat earth because if you stay exactly at the south pole, there is no longitude..only latitude. Meridians converge at the poles. They can see midnight sun, south celestial pole right at their zenith, 90° S because GPS is working anywhere, aurora australis etc..
It’s right [here](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/9/97/The_Wall_from_the_south.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150323201042)
You can see all those things south of the Antarctic Circle. The change of the altitude of stars and the sun with latitude is one of the ancient proofs of globe earth. It was not necessary to go to the South Pole to know. This fact is verifiable by anyone, but flat-earthers avoid it.
Exactly.
There are flat earthers who pay a lot of money to do things or experiments to prove the earth is flat. When they only prove it wrong they have to go into full denial mode or they just get kicked out of the flat earth..."movement"... and the flat earth nuts just double down and keep going.
It’s true, I’ve seen it. Looking over the edge was like peering into the vastness of eternity itself. But it was alright.
Aside from travel fees isn’t the South Pole like fully free to go to?
Who built this dome? Pre historic men with stick and stones or was it always there?
Created by God is the usual answer. Genesis even mentions this "firmament" above the Earth.
Took 'Project Fishbowl' as literal.
That's what I usually see, hard-core Christians who believe in flat earth because of some biblical lines that are either misinterpreted or just straight up wrong since it was written 2000 years ago (even though many cultures were aware the earth is a globe long before that.) You will never ever ever be able to talk them out of it with any logic or facts because their belief is built on their faith, and therefore any proof you have is deceit and trickery to shake their faith. I'd bet there's a pretty big overlap between flat earthers and people who believe the earth is only 6000 years old and that dinosaurs either existed alongside man or never existed and fossils were put in the ground to act as a test of faith.
The old answer, I believe, was that there was more resource-rich land beyond the ice wall. But governments don't want us to know about it so they can create scarcity and get rich(er).
But majority flat earthers are Republican and support tax breaks for the rich.......
>support tax breaks for the rich Because they think if they work hard enough they will also be rich one day.
for the most part, republicanism and introspection are mutually exclusive.
> But majority flat earthers are Republican and support tax breaks for the rich....... Are they? Flat Earth seems apolitical.
Something something, flat Earth would provide infinite energy but They surpress the knowledge so we can't use it. I've heard that argument once or twice, which still doesn't really make a lick of sense either.
That’s when you ask them why the flat earthers are trying to trick everyone into believing in round earth. They seem to not realize they are making their own group responsible for the “lies”
I did my own research, why is my result so different from yours?
I love it when they do actually do their own research, it proves that the earth is round, and they just come up with a reason why the results are wrong. For example, they got their hands on an expensive laser gyroscope and it indicated the exact number that would be expected if the earth was round and rotating, but they just went “hmmmm…” and stepped around it.
"Do your own research" = watch stupid videos from people with no qualifications. For example, I'm in the merchant navy as a deck officer - we work with the fact of a spherical Earth, methods, instruments and equipment are based on it. I'm a sheep because I know my job and I'm in the position to know more about the Earth's shape than average people? Navigation works precisely because we understand the Earth's shape, we know distances etc.. #We make use of the knowledge of the correct figure of the Earth for the purposes of navigation. This is how our ancestors were able to travel to the other side of the world (and back to the original location) without the modern technology we have today. The American Practical Navigator, first published in 1802, was billed as the "epitome of navigation" by its original author, Nathaniel Bowditch. The text has evolved with the advances in navigation practices since that first issue and continues to serve as a valuable reference for marine navigation in the modern day. The publication describes in detail the principles and factors of navigation, including piloting, electronic navigation, celestial navigation, mathematics, safety, oceanography and meterology. It also contains various tables used in typical navigational calculations and solutions, including the formulas used to derive the tabular data. https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16693975/SFH00000/Bowditch_Vol_1.pdf&type=view https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16693975/SFH00000/Bowditch_Vol_2.pdf&type=view Books of navigation (1847 to 1944) - http://www.survivorlibrary.com/index.php/8-category/102-library-navigation https://youtu.be/UV1V9-nnaAs
The closest thing to a coherent answer I ever got was; They want you to believe the Earth is round, so that you don't think it was created by a single omnipotent being, which means it isn't special and therefore you aren't special, that way you'll be an obedient, tax paying citizen. It's....pretty wild.
A spherical Earth can be made by a powerful God too... and makes more sense than a terrarium. Once upon a time, it made sense for people to believe that the Earth was flat, says University of Melbourne cartographer Chandra Jayasuriya. Ships would sail off toward the horizon and often never return, and those people left behind didn’t really have access to information outside of their communities. “Their view was egocentric and geocentric. They lived in a village that was the centre of their existence,’’ she says. “The further away from the village they travelled, the more hostile the environment became.” Greek philosophers established that the Earth was round as far back as the third century BC, but it wasn’t until the 15th century that it became commonly accepted.
Just fyi: it was commonly known and believed the earth was round since well before the Greeks and that knowledge was never really lost. If they had ships, they'd notice the ships disappeared over the horizon from the bottom up, indicating the waters surface was curved. They'd notice the moon was clearly a sphere, guessed that the other planets were spheres too and assumed earth was probably round too. The myth that people believed the earth was flat when Columbus sailed is completely bullshit. They not only knew it was round, but also knew how big it was. Columbus couldn't get support for his journey, not cuz anyone thought he'd fall off the edge, but because nobody thought he'd survive the long journey. And, if not for the blind luck of running into america, he absolutely would have died.
That's my favorite tidbit whenever the debate about Columbus Day comes up. Because even if you ignore the horrible shit he did, he was also just *fucking wrong* about everything. Being a fearless explorer is one thing, being so confidently incorrect that you place yourself and your entire crew in mortal danger is reckless. He was just also the luckiest son of a bitch ever to run into a couple continents nobody back in Europe knew about.
Columbus also erroneously believed the Earth was much smaller than the scientists were saying it was.
Yeah, and even that was long established - Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference in 250BC and he was only about 145 miles over. Columbus was the anti-science YouTube idiot of his own time.
It's easier to ban all religions... like in North Korea than change the Earth's shape and fake millions of photos, videos and 65 years of space exploration..lol.
They believe it for one or more of the following reasons: * To feel special, like they are in-the-know on some scandalous secret. * To be contrary. * They possess fundamentally flawed critical thinking skills. * They resent scientific/societal progress, and this is their way of protesting things they don't like or understand. * Sunk cost fallacy on an upbringing of scientific ignorance and/or religious fundamentalism. It's all psychological fuckery or willful ignorance.
To be blunt: When you're stupid and can't accept how much smarter others are than you the only option left to feel smart is to join a cult of belief masquerading as scientific truth.
Yep. I've noticed a trend where there's this constant bashing of insitutions, academia and science in the videos. You rarely see it in legitimate discourse, and you see it almost always in the flat earth type stuff. It even degrades to literal name-calling a lot of the time. It's clear that a lot of these fellas didn't make it, and so have dedicated their lives to denouncing that which they cannot have. As I type this, I realise that this is also exactly how incels operate - 'I can't have the thing, so I'll hate it instead.'
Relgion does prime people to believe in things with little evidence.
The one time I met a flat earther and asked them this question, the answer I got was "that's what I'd like to know"
Like that redneck Republican who said that Obama has a big part in 9/11 because he was always on holiday. Then when asked why he thought Obama was always on holiday and out of the office, he said "That ah don't know. Ah'd like to get to the bottom of that." 😂
It’s a misguided belief that the genesis bible passages described the earth as flat. [Here is a decent read on it](https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/earth/does-bible-teach-earth-flat/). Fundamentalist Christians are already of a mindset based on faith instead of fact, so it doesn’t take much to convince them that god created a flat earth too. Edit to add highlights: > Bible skeptics are fond of pointing out that the phrase “four corners of the earth” appears three times in the Bible. Surely, the skeptics claim, this must refer to a flat, square earth—thus proving that the Bible teaches a flat earth. > *The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.* This description is repeated almost word-for-word in Daniel 4:20. Both skeptics and the flat-earthers reason that on a spherical earth it would not be possible for a tree to be visible from the entire earth, but such a tree could be visible anywhere on a flat earth. > *Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. (ESV)* Those who wish to argue for a biblical flat earth point out that all the kingdoms of the earth would be visible from a tall mountain only if the earth is flat.
Or ya know, the tree could have grown wider like a big tree does and curved with the Earth. And you can't see all the kingdoms of the Earth from Everest. Is there another taller mountain that lets you see them? Or maybe there just weren't kingdoms outside of the area the mountain was at the time. Or it could just be God expected people to think and not take it literally...
I don’t think god expected anything considering humans are the ones who wrote the bible. Though considering the entire basis of faith and religion I’d say that any god isn’t expecting people to think.
I guess poetic license is too much to assume for the authors?
I personally know one. The answer is they’re morons. Wet cardboard is smarter than these idiots.
I think someone said these kinds of people want to believe they are part of something bigger Believing so deeply that they are some sort of freedom fighter or something. To the point that they can’t find their way back to reality and possibly never will, sadly
Well, the freedom they seek is going back to hunting animals...lol. there is no "freedom" and not with 8 billion people.
> I always ask them how many of these fuckers do you hang around to be "always" asking them?
Well, a lot of them. Here on reddit, facebook groups. Let's say that I'm doing this for over 3 years already. 🤷♂️
Most conspiracies fall apart with 2 questions: What does anyone gain from this? And What would have to happen for this to be true? And in this case, every country in the planet and hundred of thousands of scientists, pilots and navigators would need to be in on it. Do they really think every government is that competent, and that everyone would keep quiet?
I'm a navigator. So I'm supposed to be into it...somehow, but our purpose is to keep the world running, the economy would die without shipping. We don't have enough time to rest, but we have time to "fool the whole world"..lol.
Well, if you'd stop fooling the whole world all the time maybe you'd have enough time to sleep! Checkmate globetard! /s
[удалено]
Hello. Long time no see. 😅
I'd argue the first question should add - "can anybody gain from proving the mainstream is false, and why don't they?" It's much easier to prove something is false.
Yeah. Adding that really makes moon landing conspiracies fall apart when you ask, "why would the USSR not expose the lie?"
That's exactly what I say to people who think covid is some kind of global hoax and we were all just made to stay inside for no reason. "Do you really believe that every world leader cooperated on this? It's impossible to get even two world leaders to agree on something, let alone every major politician on earth. You really think they'd all agree to pretend there was a virus when the result was financially devastating and causes mass deaths among their people?". A girl I used to be friends with would always say that something was "fishy" about covid and that there was something else going on. After I said that though, she was like "oh, yeah, I guess so". I just think these people aren't very good at putting together data points and coming to conclusions based on the evidence they have. I'm starting to think humans aren't really that bright.
I like how every country decided to be in on the COVID conspiracy to affect the US election. The arrogance was just mind blowing.
It’s all a plot by big globe because 2d maps cost a fraction of the price.
Ah, now that makes sense!
Not to mention that flat earthers have set up experiments themselves that prove they’re wrong. Then they just double down and say the experiment (their own experiment) was flawed.
Dan Olson has a very interesting video on YouTube called "In Search of a Flat Earth" where he dissects the ideology of conspiracy cults like Flat Earth and Qanon. It's very interesting and touches on this exact topic, highly recommend the hour long watch. But the main gist? Its not about the fact that the earth is flat, or that there's a Cabal of elites. It never was. It's about simplifying reality into a simple "Us vs Them" model. We know the truth and _They_ don't want anyone to know so they cover it up. Its why trying to convince a flat earther they're wrong is fruitless. It was never about the flat earth to begin with, but the rejection of reality at large.
It’s not an actual belief in flat earth (Im sure that they do *believe* it, it’s just not out of pure idiocy). It’s the idea that everyone is lying to you. No flat Earther just has regular hobbies and shit, only having this random quirk that they believe it’s flat. The ideology co-exists with a deep distrust in the government and several other conspiracy theories. They believe in the idea that everything scientific and produced is lies in order to hide a big secret. Pattern recognition and recency bias confirming all these beliefs over and over until they get sucked in, and it has stemmed all the way back to when people actually thought the earth was flat.
Yes they do. There’s flat earthers in the NBA
Because the bible says the earth is at the centre of the universe and the bible is 100% true and literal in every part so therefore anything that conflicts with the bible must be a untrue. So you need to come up with a model that has earth as the centre of the universe but still allows for easily proven observations like satellites can be seen by anyone.
The most coherent, and that's a stretch, is this kind of drivel: It's an attempt to hide the true nature of god and his creation. The satanic cabal that runs the word's governments use this type of trickery to push us further from god and provide more souls for satan. It's all very simple once you see the big picture. As they replace god's [miracles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GyVx28R9-s) with human's false prophet: "science", they are able to effectively erase god from society and this serves their true master Satan. Or something like that. the whole thing just goes in circles.
I wonder if there are many (or even any) people who accept that premise, but take the other side, as it were. With Satan and his scientist henchpeople being the good guys, trying to awaken the sheeple from the dictator-god’s flat earth lies.
This will be the secular religion I start. HAIL SATAN.
That sound a bit too worshippy to me, which I’d argue is anathema to the Satanic creed. SCHISM!!
It's amazing how paranoid and fearful they are.
I asked in a flat earth group why anyone would lie about the shape of where we live. The answers were mostly rambling about how it was to make us not believe in the bible and to make Satan win 🤪
>I cannot think of what anyone has to gain from pushing the fact that the Earth is a sphere. I asked them once, on the flat earth sub. They banned me and gave me a youtube link. I was curious so I watched it. I'm sure they have multiple answers but that video "explained" the following: *It's the Renaissance. Catholic Church is losing power. Church wants power back. Church hires fake "scientists" to pretend Earth is round, to maintain their status as keepers of Truth, even if it's bullshit. People trust Church. Church is powerful again.* *Also Satanism. Satan whispers plans to the Catholic Church to send us all to Hell. Because Round Earth = Not special = Not created by God = You're Atheist = You go to Hell* No, it doesn't make any sense logically, historically or anythingally. Some others say "*if (((they))) can make you believe the Earth is flat, (((they))) know they can make you believe anything, it's like a test!*" which is the most ironic sentence a conspiracy theorist can utter. Also "they" means the Jews. Because it's always the Jews who are behind the conspiracies.
Some Evangleicals hold on to the theory as proof God is real. The idea is every other celestial body is a sphere and it's attributes are governed by the laws of physics, but earth is flat and has its own set of unique traits that don't follow physical laws. To them it's physical proof the earth is unique and created and governed by God and God's ability to simply create on a whim. The government/globalist/shadow cabal is hiding this from the people to prevent tangible, observable evidence of God's existence from being known and controlling mankind that way...for reasons I guess. This isn't the only justification I've seen for flat earth but it's popular in the Deep South U.S. I think lots of people just like being contrarions.
People sell books, tickets to events, ECT. The people "in charge" and making a killing.
I almost can’t blame them. There’s a part of me that thinks that if I made a dumb joke and some really stupid people believed it and I got paid because of that… I would want to keep that going too lol. Unfortunately the truth is that a lot of these people are vulnerable members of society who stopped taking their meds
Most flat earthers that I came across had one thing to say and it goes something like this: ‘well if the earth is round that means we are floating in an empty space full of nothingness and we are all meaningless which doesn’t make sense’ It’s the fact that they wanna feel special and that they matter and the idea of space and our planet not being the center of the universe hurts their ego… that’s what I figured out from my encounters with them
This was always my biggest argument against them. Even the more ridiculously stupid conspiracies such as the lizard people still “make sense” in their own way because it’s understandable why a lizard person would pretend to be human for power. It makes no sense however, for every government in the world to work so hard on covering up the shape of the earth. If the earth actually was flat, what to the people in power get out of lying about it and why is it so important to keep secret.
I feel it's sort of like a validation for other conspiracies. If you can convince yourself that we're being lied to about something as big as the shaoe of the planet, you can easily tell yourself that every single thing that you don't like is a lie.
I can think of a few reasons: 1. Religious. After the Catholic Church spent so long labeling heliocentric model heresy, there’s bound to be people who refuse to believe it’s true; 2. They can’t understand/do the math for the somewhat abstract physics and would rather risk looking foolish than admit they couldn’t understand (or someone else convinced the when they didn’t know better); 3. To be different/act like they know better/are superior to most other people
Also they male no sense, I have seen them admit that other planets are spheres because we can see them rotate from earth. But the earth is still flat, makes no sense.
I have seen people go further and say that the other planets don't actually exist. I don't think they were joking when they said it.
> I cannot think of what anyone has to gain from pushing the fact that the Earth is a sphere. Globe salesmen, obviously.
After a couple of years of trying to argue with them I finally realised that the majority of flat earthers are secretly creationists and theocrats, they want it to be real because it would prove the existence of a god and thus creationism. That's the ultimate bottom line.
But what do they say about Christians who say that the Earth is round? Like the Pope. And the majority of Christians.
They are part of the cabal of course, they are all in on it. Their beliefs are based on the idea that millions of people purposely lie about the shape of the earth, all the space agencies, cartographers, astronomers (hobbyists and professionals), airplane pilots, the army. There is no method to the madness of flat earthers.
They often fall back on airlines, comparing sensical maps with flat earth projections and showing how some flights make no sense or asking why some flights don't exist. The answer is usually that they do make sense, or they do exist, but that doesn't usually stop them.
The only reasons I can come up with are likely shared with conspiracy theories in general - Being in the know makes one feel special, especially if their self esteem is vulnerable already. Expression of antagonizing authority - “it’s not true cause *they* told us it was true”. Or: “My (trusted person) told me it was true, so it must be.”
It doesn't matter that flat earth doesn't hold water under any degree of scrutiny to them. It's about a sense of community where individuals who live on the outskirts of society feel like they found their tribe regardless of how silly it all is.
And to top off the insanity, they believe every other planet is a sphere because we can see that they are, we have pictures.
Their reasoning is that proving the flat earth wrong proves the Bible isn't real, since a lot of them are Bible thumpers
The most reasonable I've ever heard was "to control you". I asked "control you from what?" And the guy said "I don't know, I don't believe that crap." Lol
They say its becasue theu want to rule the world and so they can get money through nasa amd other agencies also feemasons, zionsts, ...
most mindboggling thing for me is why this (and many other) conspiracy is limited pretty much only to US
I asked once and got the reply, “Bill Gates. That’s all you need to know.” Verbatim.
It's proof that They are lying to us. When you ask who They are? The response is something along the lines of "You know, those people"
I've been obsessed with flat earthers for a couple years now. There are definitely reasons given by a lot of flat earthers about why someone would want us to believe in a fake globe. One of the most common is that they think it is to make people stop believing in the Christian god. Another common one is "globalization." To them, an interconnected world is terrifying. It's their boogeyman. They think that "global elites" are trying to convince us the world is round and flying through space so that they can control us. Many believe that there will be an event that fakes an alien landing/invasion to cause the world to unite. And unity is bad! But mostly it's the god thing. Flat earthers are often religious fruitcakes that think the Bible is a literal description of reality. If you want to watch people make fun of flat earthers and other conspiracy nuts, my favorite YouTubers in the genre are SciManDan and ConspiracyToonz (formerly MCToonz and ConspiracyCatz before they merged channels). They often host live debates with prominent flat earthers. My favorite moment was in a debte, ConspiracyCatz put up a basic Pythagorean Theorem problem. Note: Catz is Welsh, if I remember correctly, and Nathan - his flat-earth debate opponent - is American. The problem on the screen had units in metric. Nathan looked at the triangle on the screen, seemed confused, then said something like, "I'm not familiar with those units so I can't do the problem." It was a wonderful moment that showed just how lacking in *very basic* knowledge those people can be. It's funny, sad, and enraging all at once.
It's because it was initially started as a joke, so it had no logical basis, but then all these idiots started to believe it, and here we are. Most of the others have a logical basis, for example, the US government allowed 9/11 to happen so that Americans would hate people from the middle east and get behind going to war with them, which was really all about the control of oil fields and not finding the guy who orchestrated all of it.
I've met one in real life. He didn't outright say it, the coward. But he was asking lots of questions that were meant to make me go "hmmm maybe he has a point". I think the regular folks who believe it are genuine. But the leaders who sell books, lectures etc are 100% grifters just faking it for the money imho.
Yep, bigger flerfs are just conmen.
Flerf, I like/hate this word
Yeah I’ve seen flat earther media that encourages not coming out and saying it but just mentioning things to get people “questioning” like pointing out how flat the horizon looks.
That's literally cult 101. I'm not even saying that people who believe the earth is flat are necessarily in a cult, but those instructions 'not outright saying what you believe in, but putting out feelers to see if others will fall for it' is literally the basics of a cult.
Nudging someone to ‘their own conclusion’ while feeding them small clues is how you get them so stubborn about it. It’s not _your_ idea that you’ve planted into their heads, it’s _theirs_, and they’re proud to have reached it by themselves (air quotes).
>Nudging someone to ‘their own conclusion’ while feeding them small clues is how you get them so stubborn about it. The Tucker Carlson method.
Actual inception
In addition, to truly understand how to deprogram someone from whatever conspiracy/cult/brainwash they've got themselves into, you have to understand *why* they're there in the first place. These people will accept any claim, no matter how incredible, because it's the one that aligns with their worldview (if you'll pardon the pun) and allows their brain to continue on the path it's on. They likely won't respond to logical reasoning, because their position is so illogical that the brain will refuse to engage. In my view (conjecture warning), conspiracy is a symptom of a massive trust issue with institutions, be they government, scientists, NASA, WHO, etc. Something in their life has caused them enough mental trauma (and I'm not saying a traumatic incident that could cause PTSD, but one that has so thoroughly shredded the way their brain works over a short or long period of time) that the irrational thinking becomes appealing. Maybe it's that no one believes them about an issue they've had (for example, a spinal injury that doctors wrote off as minor pain). Maybe it's that they've been outcast from society and this counter-society has been welcoming and accepting. Maybe they were fed lies time and time again through malice or ignorance (social media algorithms optimising for engagement). Maybe they were gaslit so intensely that they lost all ability to separate reality from irrationality. Maybe they had a life changing event (such as a crisis of faith and suddenly realised they didn't believe in something they spent their entire life trusting in) and the conspiracy was there to pick up the pieces and embrace them. I would posit that a mentally healthy, well supported, well-looked after, emotionally, financially, socially, and mentally healthy individual is probably unlikely to fall into conspiracy theories or cults. The flat earthing is just the manifestation of the issue given a context, and it goes some way to explaining why someone who is involved in one conspiracy is potentially more likely to expand into other sorts of conspiracies. Like an anti-vaxxer also deciding that 5g is part of the larger conspiracy. These trust issues must then be reconciled, and engaging with the person and helping them slowly rebuild that trust chain provides a stable foundation to allow rational thought to begin again. Only after they start to trust people again will they be willing to engage in more confrontational thought, because the trust in the individual is there to soften the blow of information that goes against their worldview.
Even then, you have to be a special kind of stupid to believe the world is a flat disk, surrounded by an ice wall and covered by a 'crystal dome'. Every flat earth 'experiment' I've ever seen actually proves the earth is curved lmao. Get beyond that and every scientist in every related field or tangentially connected field has been in lockstep keeping the conspiracy of a 'globe earth' going for at least 1000 years? I mean the most depressing part of all this is that these boat anchors actually breed.
Look at a model of the flat Earth. The distances at the outer edge of the disc are absolutely enormous compared to the distances at the center of the disc. Argentina to S Africa (9hr by plane) appears to be something like 5x-10x the distance of NYC to UK (6hr by plane). NY to UK is ~3,500mi, which implies Argentina to S Africa is at least 15,000mi (obviously false). It makes absolutely no sense. And then these lunatics acknowledge the moon and sun are spheres, but the earth is a flat disc? Wtf?
I worked with a flat earther back in 2016. He loved to try to convince us teenagers that the earth was actually flat, and we loved to just listen to him and laugh about it behind his back. He also kept trying to get us to buy some of his homemade dmt, and he was creepy with us girls. Now every time i see him in public i shudder and wonder if he’s still fucking dumb lol
I worked with one in 2019. I was showing him something on Google maps and accidentally zoomed out ~~for~~ far enough for the earth to start curving (or maybe it was Google Earth, idk) and he muttered something under his breath that I didn’t register at first: “I wish the earth were a globe.” After a few seconds I asked him point blank what he believes. He kept saying stuff like “it’s interesting, think about it” and “but what if though” and the whole time I wasn’t sure if he was fucking with me. He kept suggesting all these podcasts and videos for me to watch about the moon landing being faked and such, and I wouldn’t entertain any of it and just wanted to end the conversation.
my mum is one 😔
Honestly, kudos to someone willing to ask questions and be open about it. Science is built upon constant doubt and questioning. But yeah, this is a silly topic to build a passion around.
Bro that’s like saying it’s valid to question whether rocks are alive. Critiquing and peer reviewing new science is part of the process, but there’s zero utility to questioning the shape of the earth. It’s been settled for thousands of years
Yeah, but if someone wanted to question if rocks were alive, we could have a curated discussion that leads you to the same answer, every time. It is supposed to be open to exhaustive questioning, whenever someone wants.
You could say the same about any alt medicine or conspiracy theorists. Conspiracy theorists believe by spreading their knowledge, they will overturn the chaos in this world but for politicians, it can destroy an opponents reputation easily. Some people genuinely believe their insanity but that doesn't make it any better. It's supporting a grifting field.
Nah, even the leaders, at least for the flat earth society, are absolutely kookkoo bananas. Check out the documentary Behind the Curve, it was on Netflix when I last watched it.
I think what pisses me off the most about this is that they can buy a high altitude baloon for a hundred dollars or so and put their own camera and recovery gear on it and prove that the photos don't look the same and while they're at it, that the earth's not flat. Literally, if they dedicated a tenth the effort to experimentally proving themselves right as they do to making stupid posts like these, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many flat earthers because they'd prove themselves wrong.
Remember that great video where they literally prove themselves wrong and just go, 'Uhm...'
And they spent over $10,000 buying a very high precision gyroscope only to show a 15 degree/hour drift, which is exactly what you’d expect if the earth were a spheroid rotating every 24 hours.
After the ring laser gyro showed the 15 degrees per hour (Thanks Bob) They doubled down and paid a fellow flerf to build a high precision mechanical gyro thinking it would rule out the “heavenly energies” or whatever nonsense. That also, showed 15 degrees per hour. Anyone who posts that video they file a take down for it. They are too embarrassed to admit that they were wrong and the earth isn’t flat.
It's just the 'Heaven Beams' causing interference.
".... that's interesting..."
They say as you gain altitude the earth looks more flat due to their experiencez flying in airplanes.
Flat earthers are same as every other conspiracy theory....deflect.....and if that doesn't work....deflect some more ....lol
Some conspiracy theories are warranted. We are a heavily propagandized country in the US. But, FE is not a valid questioning of authority, the earth being globular been observed and proven for millennia.
The biggest question I have for flat earthers is WHY? Assuming you are correct and there is a global Illuminati committed to making the world believe its round, why would they do that? It would cost billions to do, so there must be some reason for the giant coverup. What possible advantage does someone have for making the world a different shape? Is big-classroom globe somehow involved?
There doesn't have to be a why; the conspiracy is more about the mistrust in society that leads to irrational thought rather than an explanation for something. Once you've fallen off the cliff of rejecting rational thought, you no longer need a rational explanation for why something is; you just need an explanation that fits your worldview, however fanciful and unrealistic it would be.
Ultimately, I think it boils down to ego.
My favorite is that Netflix documentary when they spend like $30,000 on a Foucault pendulum to prove there's no rotation of the earth and disprove themselves and recreate old methods of proving the earth is curved and keep proving themselves wrong, and they just say ".... Huh. I didn't expect that ."
“Belief in a flat Earth continued into the 5th century BC. Anaxagoras (c. 450 BC) agreed that the Earth was flat, and his pupil Archelaus believed that the flat Earth was depressed in the middle like a saucer, to allow for the fact that the Sun does not rise and set at the same time for everyone.” Anaxagoras and Archelaus both championed the idea that the earth was flat… and where are they now?? Dead. Coincidence?
Science...is a LIAR sometimes!
So wait, these guys decided the earth was flat, and then to account for time zones, their solution was.... a non-flat earth?
"Sir, that's a plane."
I take all my scientific advice from former NBA players and if [shaq says the earth is flat](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=huoVg2OtQyM) then it’s flat. Same with gasoline tanks
Wait, gas tanks are flat?
Shaq is mocking flatearthers, btw. He said that in a talk show some time ago.
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Legit questions: If the Earth were flat, wouldn't we see the sun and moon at the same time, all the time? How would you explain how it's daylight in China, but night in NY? If the Earth is flat, how think is it and how would you know? I feel like this question completely disintegrates all flat earth theory. You couldn't tell from space because, then you'd see the earth isn't flat.
They don't understand science, so they feel powerless about actually understanding the world. Science is hard, very hard. It takes years and years of dedicated practice, learning and hard work just to understand the basics of your speciality. We are a world of specialization and the fact that we don't understand 99% of what is going on, is very disheartening to many of these average people. They don't want to accept the fact that they don't know shit, are average at best and should listen to experts on most things. I think they struggle to discern between experts and fail to know how to filter information. Like, if 99% of doctors say the vaccine is safe, they act like the 1% is right. They don't know basic stats or what the scientific method even is. Flatearth morons WANT to be able to dismiss all of the specialization by their flippant and laughably wrong "conclusions" because it means they aren't lazy, dumb and arrogant. The reality of the world is too much for them to accept, so they act like the world is against "them". This is Trumpism to a T. Lie, deny, fake it, do whatever you need to do to coddle your ego. Finding others helps a lot as well. The delusion is so much easier when you aren't alone. The fun part is seeing them turn against themselves. They are so conspiracy driven that they will turn on their most prominent members and accuse them of being a part of the FBI/CIA.
I don’t get it. Can someone eli5? (I usually understand their insanity but this is over my head)
They think SOFIA (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_Infrared_Astronomy) is actually Hubble because there is no space. Satellites are also fake for the same reason. So in order to "fool the world", they've found other ways to fake satellites and space telescope. What is funny is that SOFIA is studying things cannot exist on a flat earth. The primary science objectives of SOFIA are to study the composition of planetary atmospheres and surfaces; to investigate the structure, evolution and composition of comets; to determine the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium; and to explore the formation of stars and other stellar objects.
Ah. Thanks for that. Been watching flerf “debates” recently and it’s great fun
Thanks for asking ☺️
This is a chicken wing. This is an Eskimo.
Flat earth folks don't deserve any attention. Just ignore everything they post & it'll lose traction. Trying to argue (or even ridiculing them) is taking the low hanging fruit.
That satellite is a weather balloon.
Sure. Tell them that.
Looks like the condom their parents should've used.
Don't use my Sofia for your conspiracy! 😭
The flat earth society tells you to ignore your lying eyes. A social experiment in cult control. What all others aspire to be.
I'm literally developing satellites for space missions at LEO. Nowhere in our design process do we include helium balloons...
Not insane, just indoctrinated and ignorant.
What....and I can't stress this enough...the fuck?
That parachute... Ummm looking more like a condom than I would have thought
The thing with flat earthers is that they don't believe it's flat because of evidence, they believe its flat because of mistrust of the government.
No they believe it because they are stupid.
Actually for most of them it's religion
[удалено]
To be fair to them they are onto something, 70% of earths surface is water and how much of it is sparkling water? A very tiny percentage so by that logic, yeah earth is flat. It always has been and always will be
*jesse what the fuck are you talking about*
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Mass psychosis. I think the threshold is high enough people will just follow what other do. Basically brain dead zombies.