Anyone here a flat earther?

[Spider-Dan]

A hit dog will holler.

The people you claim do nor believe actually do believe in some evolution and climate change but just not like you would want us to.

The people some claim do not believe actually do believe in a round earth but just not like we would want them to.
They do know the planet is round... but like a disc, not like a globe.

But the globalist establishment has too much money to make off of their scam, spending billions of dollars on fake "satellite missions" to planets that don't exist.  NASA feeds the public these obviously fake CGI images of "Jupiter" and the paid-off media tells you they're real.

CF, you have precisely demonstrated exactly how we got to the point where flat-earthers abound.  Thanks.

Innocent people do not get pardons let alone preemptive.

Your glorious orange emperor just pardoned over a thousand of your insurrectionist buddies.

[CF DolFan]

A hit dog will holler.
The people some claim do not believe actually do believe in a round earth but just not like we would want them to.
They do know the planet is round... but like a disc, not like a globe.

But the globalist establishment has too much money to make off of their scam, spending billions of dollars on fake "satellite missions" to planets that don't exist.  NASA feeds the public these obviously fake CGI images of "Jupiter" and the paid-off media tells you they're real.

CF, you have precisely demonstrated exactly how we got to the point where flat-earthers abound.  Thanks.
Your glorious orange emperor just pardoned over a thousand of your insurrectionist buddies.

Hahahaha while I disagree with Trump to some extent .. its really hard to take criticism from a group who supports the thousands of people Biden pardoned including family members. He also used the never before used pre-emptive pardon to try and save all his buddies. This means any president moving forward is legal to have people do whatever he wants and he can just pardon them. Not a great precedent if it is upheld.

I suppose now you'll tell me Elon is a Nazi when every major Democrat has video of them doing similar things. Hahaha Hypocrisy never gets old for you guys does it?

[SCFinfan]

No, that's moronic af

[Pappy13]

I watched a documentary called behind the curve last night and found it very interesting. It's basically about the flat earth community and the recent flat earth movement and how it started. According to the documentary one of the main proponents of the recent flat earth movement is a guy named Mark Sargent who was turned onto the idea of a flat earth in 2015 after initially trying to debunk it. He's sort of the current flat earth movement's messiah. I honestly think he might have some doubts now, but he's so revered by the community he couldn't possibly walk away from this even if he wanted to. He sort of alludes to that in the documentary.

One of the interesting things is that one of the proponents of flat earth theory in the documentary is a guy named Jeran Campanella. He had his own website and had a ton of followers and in the documentary he had proposed an experiment to test the curvature of the earth by shooting a laser across a lake that was several miles wide. His experiment failed and he couldn't figure out why (spoiler, it was because the laser was hitting the water in the middle of the lake and the refraction of the laser off the water made it impossible to see the laser on the other side of the lake). Well the reason this is interesting is because this guy happened to be one of the participants in the final experiment. After going to the Antarctica and seeing the 24 hour sun for himself he's changed his mind about the flat earth. I wouldn't say that he now believes the earth is a sphere but he does admit that the model that most flat earthers use is fatally flawed since it can't explain a 24 hour sun in the Antartica and it does exist. He's taken a ton of backlash from the flat earth community because of this and he's pretty much dropped out of the flat earth movement for the time being. Many are saying that he was a plant before going, but this documentary was released in 2018 and Jeran had been a proponent of flat earth theory even prior to that so he would have had to have been playing his part for the last 6 years at the very least. That's some commitment.

Dave, I'd be interested to hear your take on this. Do these people have serious mental issues or just really sure they know better than anyone else what they are talking about? I'm not really sure this is much different from a lot of people's take on religion or politics or any number of other issues. People believe what they want to believe. You can call that a mental issue if you want I guess, but there's enough of them to suggest that even pretty "normal" people can have these views.

Behind the curve

[Phishfan]

I can't believe we are giving these people any attention.

[Pappy13]

I can't believe we are giving these people any attention.

That's actually talked about in the documentary. That perhaps we should just ignore these people and their ideas as they are inconsequential, but are they? Don't ideas have consequences even if they are invalid? The flat earth movement is growing in strength. More and more people are actually coming to the same conclusions about our earth and much of it is being fueled by the internet and social media. Don't we worry that the internet and social media could have an impact on society as a whole as time goes on? Perhaps an even bigger impact on society than science and education at some point? What then? Is it possible that these ideas could out grow the traditional beliefs of science and education to a point where more people are convinced the earth is flat rather than a globe? What would that mean for society? For Science? For Education? No one is saying that we should embrace the ideas of flat earth theory, but we shouldn't ignore them either. We should try to understand the ideas and why some people have them and try to educate them. Rather than shun them, we need to pull them back into the generally accepted beliefs and help them understand where their understanding is flawed. That's what science and education tries to do. Just because it's failed for these individuals doesn't mean we should quit trying otherwise we run the risk of moving backwards rather than forwards. That's what the final experiments are attempting to do, to convince the flat earth theory folks that their ideas don't have merit by understanding their arguments and countering them with real science and education. Even if we don't convince those who already believe, it's important to counter the ideas of the flat earth community and slow down it's spread and acceptance by others. That's more or less the goal of the documentary.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

The flat earth society has members around the globe.

[Pappy13]

The flat earth society has members around the globe.

I see what you did there.

[Dave Gray]

Dave, I'd be interested to hear your take on this. Do these people have serious mental issues or just really sure they know better than anyone else what they are talking about?
Behind the curve

I'm not qualified to diagnose someone with mental illness, but yes....something like that.  I think that otherwise smart people can compartmentalize beliefs and have them turn off normal logic or skills about one thing.

For a lot of us, that's sports -- we root for a team so we find a way to think something is fair or foul based on our biases.  ...sometimes that politics, where we allow something for our own side that we'd never allow from the other.  Religion is definitely one -- people believe absolutely indefensibly crazy, fantastical things that they would never allow themselves to believe about something else.  And for some people, that falls into conspiracy, whether it be flat Earth, cryptozoology, chemtrails, government conspiracies, whatever.

I'm a human that is susceptible to all the same kinds of things, but I really make an effort to check myself when I support an idea and ask myself if I'd feel the same way if it was coming from an opposing position.  I think I'm pretty OK at it, but it's something I've actively worked towards for decades.  Whatever belief I have, I would like to believe that new facts and information would allow me to change my position.

That said, I'm just not interested in conspiracy stuff like Flat Earth because I don't think that the people who hold those beliefs are coming through reason and I don't believe that (in most cases) there is anything to gain in engaging them.  In order to have a conversation about something that is meaningful, you both have to start with a shared set of facts.  I don't share those with conspiracy theorists, so I find them dull.  "How can we know anything?" is inherently destructive of sharing ideas.

[Pappy13]

That said, I'm just not interested in conspiracy stuff like Flat Earth because I don't think that the people who hold those beliefs are coming through reason and I don't believe that (in most cases) there is anything to gain in engaging them.  In order to have a conversation about something that is meaningful, you both have to start with a shared set of facts.  I don't share those with conspiracy theorists, so I find them dull.  "How can we know anything?" is inherently destructive of sharing ideas.

I agree with you for the most part there's nothing to be gained by engaging with them, but on the other hand I find it fascinating to try to understand their shared delusion. I'm not quite sure why the Flat Earth conspiracy in particular strikes my interest. Maybe it's because it's so demonstrably false. I think most conspiracy theories are at their core fairly hard or impossible to disprove for one reason or another, but the Flat Earth Conspiracy on the other hand really has very little going for it in that regards. Scholars, scientists, mathematicians, lay people etc have all pretty much been in agreement for a very long time that the earth is a globe, but there's a fairly small group of people that hold steadfastedly onto this theory despite that for whatever reason. I find that interesting. Of course at one time it made some sense to believe in the theory, back when it was an actual theory and not actually proven to be false, but today? It defies reason.

I'm not qualified to diagnose someone with mental illness, but yes....something like that

Unlike you I can't chalk this up to mental illness or mental defect. Many of the people that were once staunch supporters of flat earth have left the flat earth community. Did they suddenly get well? Did they simply see the error of their ways? Have they bilked as much money as they can from the community or perhaps had a change of heart as to whether this is something they wish to continue to do? Personally I don't see it. Some of those that have left were quite prominent folks within the flat earth community when they left and have taken quite a bit of abuse from those that remain in the community, so I doubt they would consider doing so lightly. They haven't just had a change of heart, they have had some sort of enlightenment. Whatever caused them to walk away, it took quite a bit of courage and a complete rejection of what they once believed so strongly. That doesn't fit the image you are portraying for these people in my opinion.

I think that otherwise smart people can compartmentalize beliefs and have them turn off normal logic or skills about one thing.

There is the possibility of the Dunning-Kruger effect which makes a lot of sense and I believe there's at least a bit of that in play here. Perhaps after being in the community long enough you have actually learned enough about the subject that contradicts your beliefs that you finally can no longer hold onto the beliefs you had initially. It's like there is a breaking point and some people just haven't yet hit their breaking point perhaps because their beliefs were so strong initially or perhaps because they've been in the community so long now it's harder to walk away? I honestly think Mark Sargent is at that point. I honestly believe that he no longer even believes in the movement that he started, but because he started it, he can't simply walk away anymore. To do so would be devastating to his identity, so he simply keeps up the charade for fear of what would happen if he didn't. That's just my opinion, but he has said some things in videos that make me believe that to be the case.

[Dave Gray]

I honestly think Mark Sargent is at that point. I honestly believe that he no longer even believes in the movement that he started, but because he started it, he can't simply walk away anymore. To do so would be devastating to his identity, so he simply keeps up the charade for fear of what would happen if he didn't. That's just my opinion, but he has said some things in videos that make me believe that to be the case.

There's also a financial cost, I guess.  There's a lot of money in grifting and selling people bullshit.