Are Flat Earthers Being Serious?
livescience.com
livescience.com
There was an interesting article some time ago: https://jameshfisher.com/2019/01/20/my-parents-are-flat-eart..., which casted the human perspective on the problem: at the root, believing a conspiracy theory gives self-importance to the believer, and it's, in a way, "fun".
Considering this perspective, this phenomenon belongs to the class of problems whose easy angle of attack is the technical (rational, in this case), and the difficult one is the human.
I'd argue that if one thinks that a flat earther is metaphorically a brick wall, and consequently a fool, opposing technical arguments against it is equally as foolish. It's actually the other side of the coin: yelling arguments to a wall is the mirrored human problem, in my opinion.
In conclusion, I think it would be more productive to think more about why this belief is appealing to people (and why it's spreading), rather than proving it's false.
My impression of the flat earth theorists or enthusiasts is that it's a reaction to a sense of oppression (similarly to what another top level comment said). An assertion of power by negating a "common" truth. I like this explanation because I can relate to it quite well. The ditch the mind jumps into is that it's not that your problems are too difficult for you, but that the whole setup (context that formulates the problem) is a lie. Combine that with a profound distrust of the mainstream, some naivete and some luck, and you'll get flat earth theory.
It's peculiar kind of chip-on-the-shoulder combining a sense of under-dog angst with a large heap of obfuscation to counter attempts at understanding.
Some are better at this kind of stuff than others, and remain as high-functioning members of society. The Bogdanov affair comes to mind as well Eric Weinstein's mathless and paperless "Geometric Unity" theory.
Think about it. You watch a couple videos and now you’re smarter than everyone you know. (Or you feel that way)
I still wish I had a way to counter it.
Another reason for keeping debunking this was for me the belief that consensus is important. That we as a society need to be able to arrive the correct consensus on various issues, and otherwise big tragedies can happen. That any single human can be wrong about things, that's not a problem, but there need to be consensus mechanisms that makes sure that dangerous or wrong beliefs are not propagated far enough, - then it would become dangerous.
And so this belief pushed me into still debunking these theories. Because yes, it might be true that it is a human-argument instead of a technical argument, but it was still in my best interest to contribute to a correct consensus of the whole system, and so I still needed to convince them, maybe now using the arguments that appealed to their human/spiritual side instead of the technical side. Because it was still up to me, as a member of the society to uphold the consensus.
But ultimately I have arrived at the same outlook as you have, and I've done through realizing that none of the flat earth people matter for the global consensus.
If you look around at which people believe in flat earth, they are never important, they are never policy makers, they are never influential, they are rarely even productive members of society (especially hardcore ones). If anything, they make the perfect marketing for the inadequacy of their beliefs by showing their stance in the society.
This is how consensus mechanism works in this area: not by convincing these marginal(influentially speaking) people of the correct view, but by keeping them marginal, - and the viewpoint itself, by association.
I think that every time there is a person who arrives at an influential position, by that time they do it they have already experienced so much growth and so much work on themselves (because that is demanded of them to succeed in the competence hierarchy that is the essence of the western society), that they don't ever fall into fallacies like flat earth because they don't have a reason to feel extra special by harboring controversial beliefs.
Part of the appeal for them is they are convenient shortcuts for unremarkable people to put themselves above actual experts without actually acquiring any expertise. With their newfound esoteric knowledge, they're now in an exclusive club.
The Flat Earth Society exists to pretend there's credible science that explains the infallible 2000-year-old view that the sun goes around the earth.
If it stresses you out, ignore flat Earthers. I did the opposite and got a flat Earth poster to troll my coworkers, but that may not be appropriate where you work.
They’re brought together not necessarily by a strong belief that the Earth is flat (though most in the community strongly believe it, or at least pretend to) but because they were bullied as kids, socially awkward, had a hard time making and keeping friends, etc. From this angle I absolutely see how strong a connection these people might have to others in this community and why it would be hard to say “screw you only friends that I’ve ever had, your theories don’t make scientific sense”. They might lose the only friends they ever had.
This somewhat reminds me of the current state of politics. Why counter even a single belief, value, etc. that your echochamber has when they’re probably friends of yours and you know it could change your relationship for the worse (even though I think it’s ridiculous that questioning a political opinion with a well thought out, logically crafted counter opinion could ruin a relationship).
People use a simplified mental model of your beliefs. You're either on one side or the other. Your argument flips you around to the other side. This is a problem. My hope is that this problem can be countered by explicitly labeling points of agreement, and by being very specific about points of disagreement.
This is what my project HowTruthful facilitates. This article caught my attention because flat earth was the issue I used in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvU1h44jVw the introductory video. About 90 seconds in, I talk about how a presentation format that shows both agreement and disagreement helps preserve friendship.
Is the site open for use? I might try it out next time I have a discussion. Are you and the other person both supposed to work on the same page?
When I ask my university classes for first-hand evidence that the Earth is round, not allowing photographs since we can easily doctor them, nearly zero can answer. Some get angry. Many can't conceive of what might make evidence. Most just insist that's what everyone knows and to suggest otherwise suggests stupidity, ignorance, or support for politics they oppose.
Yet rarely can one cite meaningful evidence they've seen or collected, or that others have seen or collected, to show the Earth's shape. They believe what everyone tells them -- effectively majority opinion. How is their believing the Earth is round any different than someone else believing the Earth is flat?
Holding a minority opinion, believing in something that very few people do doesn't automatically make that belief or idea worth studying. There are many factors and you have only listed "minority/majority opinion" as one. I would argue it is not enough to spark a meaningful conversation. It's not enough to say "I don't believe the same way as majority of people" to make it interesting to discuss and construct complex expensive arguments about.
For everyday Bayesian purposes, it is very useful to simply know as a prior that there is roughly a 1-in-25 chance that you are being bullshitted.
[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
So yeah, there are all kinds of stupid out there.
You mean like the aliens in the tv show V?
Surely no one took that seriously!
It is often claimed that "lizard people" is code for antisemitism. Icke denies this interpretation, but many critics do not accept his denials – see e.g. [1], [2], [3]
[1] https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/20/18146628/alice-walker...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/01/conspiracy-theo...
[3] https://www.dw.com/en/lizard-conspiracist-david-icke-not-wan...
But it stops being funny really fast when a Science Denier becomes a policy maker.
The intent of trolls is to be perceived in a certain way, so give them what they want and let them suffer the consequences.
At least they seem to be trolling.
Ships get too small to see before the bottom disappears on the horizon. I can’t explain to him why he can see things like bridges that should be below the horizon.
I think the simplest proof would be that you see farther when you go higher. On a flat earth you could see tall things from any height.
Perhaps not the best way to approach the issue, is it? Teach them. Help them by reasoning with them. But trolling people who are already convinced of an entirely unscientific view of the world, isn't it.
Anyway, are people engaging with flat Earthers being serious? Which is worse, being part of a cult X or complaining about X?
The rube demographic isn't shrinking anytime soon.
we have member all over the globe... or plank..
That's why I am on team AI.
Assuming this to be the case, our ability to abstract is what is responsible for the creation of things like government, the arts, the sciences, and basically all of our culture and knowledge.
Is it surprising that that ability to abstract could be taken too far among certain groups of people? Conspiracy theory is like a disease, not an inherent trait of humanity.
Also religion, witchcraft, the lottery, nationalism, politics.
So they told everyone the earth is a ball and because they told everyone this therefore it is true? Why cant we mock this?