Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

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Reading this reminds me of situations for Anti-vax, religion vs science, red vs blue, flat earthers vs.... the rest of us?

Whatever their "idea" is, is infallible. Minds cannot be changed with logic or debate when clearly wrong/false.

A belief is unbreakable if the person holding it wishes it to be so. Discussing such topics over the internet will never lead to yielding any ground.

Perhaps at the core of it is the fear of being rejected or wrong. Or that their world as they know it is crumbling and keeping it together is of the highest requirement + cost.

I keep hope for these discussions in that people can change. As cheesy as it is to say, I've only seen people really change when it's with love. That we reach out the other side and simply love the person first. Daryl Davis is my hero on this[0].

Unrealistic in a forum about cryptographic schemes, but it hurts for me to read the circles the author plays himself into.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis

Somewhat related rant:

Has anybody ever really debated a "flat earther" let alone found one? As-in found somebody who actually believed it and wasn't just screwing with you to get a reaction?

I keep hearing about these people who believe the earth is flat but I've yet to ever come across anybody who actually believes that.

I’m pretty sure I’m related to an honest-to-goodness flat earther. The first time he brought it up I countered by professing a belief in Last-Thursdayism[0] as a sort of absurdist ploy to get him arguing for the more rational position. I think I converted him to Last-Thursdayism instead.

[0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism

So you argued for a position you didn't actually believe just to see how he would counter? I suspect this is what most "flat-earthers" do. I know multiple people who independently joined a "flat earth" Facebook group for entertainment purposes. It is just trolls trolling trolls.

The universe was created last Friday you bloody heretic.

Also: Boltzmann brain

Here's a video of three flat-Earthers discussing (arguing) about it with three round-Earthers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7yvvq-9ytE. They appear genuine, and remind me quite a bit of the anti-evolutionists I sometimes argue with (and who are definitely genuine).

And then there's "Mad" Mike Hughes, who just managed to kill himself in a rocket he was hoping to fly high enough to see that the Earth wasn't curved... or something. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51602655

Mike Hughes' PR rep stated that they made up the flat Earth angle to get more publicity:

“He did have some governmental conspiracy theories. But don’t confuse it with that flat Earth thing. That was a PR stunt we dreamed up.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395528

This. The idea of actual flat-earth believers should be met with at least the same degree of scepticism as they supposedly demand of round-earth believers. Mind that merely having someone claim to be a flat-earther or arguing in favor of flat earth does not distinguish between them actually believing it and engaging in some sort of Socratic rhetoric (so as not to say trolling)

I've come across people who believe the earth is 5000 years old, even though they live right under a cliff where the exposed strata clearly show that can't be true. I didn't try arguing with them but they certainly exist.

A number of people genuinely believe in "young earth" creationism. But flat earth is at a different level since it is disproven by everyday phenomenons like people flying around the earth.

Well in my childhood I realised the religion my father was involved in, there was a common belief the moon was made of cheese, and that there were 'scientific evidence' for this in the scriptures. This also nicely corroborated the conspiracy theories that were commonly believed in, like NASA landing on the moon.

Make of that what you will!

I strongly recommend watching hbomberguy's video about flat earthers, "Flat Earth: A Measured Response"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gFsOoKAHZg

The short summary is that flat earthers are probably seen as a rejection of established institutions (like capitalism/neoliberalism) that the (correctly) see as a major source of the problems in their life. Unfortunately, lacking the social/political background required to actually understand these problem, they work with what they can understand.

"The government/etc has been consistently lying to us for decades while our jobs were shipped overseas and our quality of life keeps sliding lower and lower. If they are consistent liars, why should I believe anything they've said?"

My friend met the guy that organized this conference .. she said it was a real treat.

http://fe2018.com/canada/

This doesn't prove he actually believes in it, even the attendees could be said to have only attended for the spectacle.

People can only change when they themselves want to change. To make them want to change, you have to find a reason for them to want to have already changed. If you find a good enough reason, they will then slowly convince themselves that the change is good.

That psychological tricks like this are necessary to make people see that 1+1=2 makes me feel hopeless that humanity can ever reach the level of Star Trek without some kind of genetic engineering or letting AI take over. The vast majority of people are like this, incapable of reasoning through anything, only defending the views they grew up with or that they ascribe to their "tribe" by any means possible, never taking a Planck unit of time to self-reflect. There's some respite on select internet corners but even those have their pockets of crazies.

I recently had to regrettably leave a fandom Discord server because a sizable portion of the populace including the admin devolved into screeching banshees with no capacity for rational thought at some /slightly different/ view than they preferred being posted in their politics channel, and I could no longer justify expending any energy trying to engage in a reasonable fashion with these people or supporting a server with such a rotten administration I'd lost all respect for. I wonder if those of us who can consider ideas without throwing ourselves on the floor in a tantrum over the fact someone disagreed with us should just move to another planet then come back and conquer Earth in the five years it would take us to develop the capacity to do so without such people in our way.

You have, I think, accurately identified the problem which religions try to solve.

Also, please don’t think yourself above, as you say, “The vast majority of people”. You yourself are like this too (and me). It’s just that you have different things which you think are important. It’s only when we aren’t attached to any particular view that any of us can reason with any semblance of logic. Which is why, I guess, that some religions urge detachment.

Is there evidence many religions "try" to do anything rather than simply being amalgamations of stories? I heard once some developed more as a means of control by kings but I don't have any source. The only religion I know of that I'd say really gives a good counter to the problem in question is Buddhism. And frankly I would consider anyone able to carry out these virtues to be "above" a lot of people in a certain way.

Nobody can read minds, and certainly not the one of an entire religion, and by its very nature this is something which could never be spoken about publicly by its representatives. So we have only the actions of religions to go on. If we discount all the actions which can readily be explained as the kind of random madness stemming from any cult-like organization and/or culture, I get the impression that many religions actually do try to reign in the population at large and keep them in reasonable behavioral patterns.

But no, no evidence, only my impression.

without some kind of genetic engineering

That's basically eugenics, which is largely considered a negative today.

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