I've been perversely interested in this Flat Earth movement for a few months. There are a lot of long, stunningly stupid, vehemently argued YouTube videos out there from flat earthers. There are a couple of basic science-minded people who take them on, often with some pretty entertaining results. But one thing is clear is that the flat earthers simply aren't listening. It goes a lot deeper than misunderstandings of facts or what they see when they walk outside. It's really hard to explain such weaponized ignorance. They aren't asking questions, they don't want to know, they just want to tear down the establishment (by exposing secret inside knowledge) in whatever way they can. It's psychological and goes much deeper than beliefs.
I find these people particularly interesting, not because of the absurdity of their belief, but because of the <i>certainty</i> they have in their belief and how difficult it is to convince them otherwise.<p>The article points out that "many Americans" hold some kind of wacky belief and strongly resist attempts to challenge it: vaccines cause autism, global warming isn't real, the moon landing was faked, the earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs drowned in the Great Flood, ghosts are real, etc...<p>So rather than the Flat Earthers being anomalies, I actually think they represent the general public quite well; it's just that their crazy belief is different from mine or yours.<p>What I am really curious about is: what would it take to successfully convince one of these people that they are wrong? Because if you solve this problem, then you solve the problem in its generality, and you can apply the technique to the vast number of people who still believe the earth was <i>literally</i> created in 7 days.<p>My best guess? Ask them, "What would it take to convince you otherwise?" The problem isn't that most people are incapable of learning the truth — it's that they don't <i>want</i> to learn the truth. Take for instance someone who believes dinosaur bones were planted in the earth by the devil. I have a hard time imagining that if you handheld them and took them step-by-step through the scientific method (e.g., starting with archaeological sites), that by the end of a year's worth of research, they would still disagree with the mainstream scientific view.<p>And that's the cool thing about science: you don't have to take anyone's word for it! You can check what people are saying all by yourself. Go out there with ice core machines, thermometers, and satellites, and trace through the same steps that the climate experts have taken. After years of following their own work for yourself, there's no way you <i>couldn't</i> believe in global warming.<p>I think what it really comes down to is that most people would rather live with a comforting or reassuring lie than an uncomfortable truth, and even given the opportunity and resources for discovering the truth themselves, they would prefer not to.
The explanation is a lot more simple I think.<p>Back in the old days, the way you showed you were better than everyone else was owning the nicest car, having air conditioning, or having a powered mower.<p>Now that more or less everyone has more or less everything, the only ways we can fulfill the basic instinct to be better than our neighbors is engaging in these kind of "all the sheep think this happened, but really..." ideas. Psuedo-intellectualism at it's finest.<p>You could show these people facts all day, it doesn't matter. Hell if you took one of them up in one of those Space Jets they'd probably swear you were faking it somehow, because the longer you hold onto a belief, the more invested in it you are, the more it's going to wound your ego to admit you're wrong. Most people would rather take a bullet than admit they were wrong (especially Americans and Brits) so that's how we end up with the Flat Earth people.
I have always suspected that the Flat Earth society was a
put-on - a joke. There is a certain very British kind of humor where you assume some absurd position and stick to it with a straight face no matter what - you never crack a smile or break character. The pet store owner in the Monty Python parrot routine is a good example.<p>I recall when I was a kid, a Flat Earth guy was interviewed on TV after John Glenn's orbital flight. The interviewer pointed out that Glenn could see the round earth out his window and he could see he was passing over the entire circumference of the Earth every ninety minutes and ground stations around the world could track him coming over the horizon and passing overhead and ... etc. etc. The flat earth guy
earnestly explained that Glenn was just circling around the edge - the perimeter - of the flat Earth, don't you see? - all the while making circular hand motions around the edge of the the flat table top where he was seated. I figured even then that the flat earth guy was just putting on the interviewer, daring him to say what he was no doubt thinking: "Oh for pity's sake, come off it". But both of them played along, neither of them let on that he thought the whole interview was just a joke.
I've been getting a kick out of the flat Earth thing. I've figured it as a "guerrilla ontology" or "alternate reality" prank in the tradition of Robert Anton Wilson, the Church of the Subgenus, the Incunabula Papers, etc. Either that or it's a skeptic troll of the "alt media" community.
Why don't they all just get together and walk over to the edge of the planet and see if there is a cliff or not. Seems like a really easy "theory" to prove. A coupe hundred people walking together while live blogging there attempt to the world should be save from secret NASA police.
I am trying to think of a way to prove without a doubt that the earth is not flat. I thought about sending them into space, and having them look through a window at the round earth suspended in the black. But then I almost know what they would say; the window is somehow distorting the true appearance of the earth. If it doesn't conform to their view, they will create reasons as to why. There are so many similar examples of people rejecting new information/evidence within our world now.
Is this not easy to prove its false? Just take a flight from the southern tip of Chile to South Australia. If the earth is indeed flat, the flight would take 24+ hours. But since they would fly over Antarctica, it only takes ~10.<p>I suppose one explanation could be that the 747 flight they are in somehow gained the ability to go faster than a F16 at maximum thrust.
If you fancy a trip down this particular rabbit hole:<p><a href="http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2015/03/flat-earth-society-controlled-op.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2015/03/flat-earth-societ...</a><p><a href="http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/search/label/Controlled%20Opposition" rel="nofollow">http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/search/label/Controlled%2...</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ericdubay77/videos" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/user/ericdubay77/videos</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5i_iDyUTCg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5i_iDyUTCg</a>
It's interesting to me that they use language superficially similar to the language of rationality and science to justify their beliefs. The belief is ridiculous, but how many people have opinions that they rationalize as scientific that aren't so ridiculous but still unjustified? It's easier to convince yourself that you're 'rational' than it is to be 'rational'.
The absurdity of this intrigued me and I dropped by their site. Read a few threads and it seems like they're not fond of satellite photography and rely on their senses almost exclusively. So here's a little question for them: why does a ship seem to "sink" into the ocean the further it gets?
I love that there's a Flat Earth Society of Australia and I wonder whether they think they're on top or below the disk.<p>In short, we have a crisis of epistemology in our culture, and facts (empirical, repeatable, independent measurements) don't win arguments any more.
I've always said there are people who are so set in their wrong beliefs about something that if they believed the sun rose in the west you could point them east in the morning and they would still persist in ignoring the reality.