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Comment by xmprt | Hacker News Reader

People don't become flat earthers because they actually believe the earth is flat. They start by realizing that there's something wrong with the current established systems in the world which is a fact. We're living with corrupt politicians, needless wars, starving kids, crumbling democracies, etc. In the search for a scapegoat for these problems they come across the flat earth "theory" and explain away all those problems through this lens ("If they are keeping this a secret then what else are they keeping from us? How else is the establishment trying to control us?")

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The "feeling of wrongness of the world" can also be rooted in other problems to which they find a reality denying escape mechanism. In Germany, many sovereign citizens (Reichsbürger) have legal or financial problems (taxes and debt), so deciding to be the king or president of your house and garden empire seems like a valid opportunity to deny all those pesky demands.

As much as I find sovereign citizens ridiculous, I do have to admit that it feels wrong that simply by being born in a place we're automatically forced to obey countless rules and laws we had no say in. None of us were consulted or gave our consent before being made subject to it all. If I decide the system I was born into violates my freedoms or that participation in it would be immoral I don't have much choice. I can't even leave my country and move somewhere with rules and laws that I find more agreeable without first clearing it with the government (They control the borders, we need passports which cost money and the application for one can be rejected for many reasons).

It's strange to think about society in those terms. Being trapped here, being forced to obey under threat of some very inhumane punishments. It does seem fundamentally unfair. While I think most of us just come to terms with it (especially since nobody has come up with a better option for a successful and functional society) I can get why some folks would feel a desire to assert their independence and freedoms. Sadly, the sovereign citizen crowd has decided to come up with some pretty insane ways to cope with the situation. I can still laugh at them, but not without also acknowledging that one injustice I and everyone I've ever met are stuck living with.

I'll happily just keep with society and deal with the indignities it forces on me, but for those who can't or won't it'd be nice if there were a lot more unowned and empty places on the planet people could go to on their own if they really wanted to "opt out" and not play by anyone else's rules. Maybe once we have space travel...

Indeed, it is near impossible to escape the rule of the nation state. It would require you to bootstrap from zero in a place where no one else rules. Those places are no longer found on earth. And once the Musk colonizes Mars, space won't be the place for freedom either - look at the Expanse series for an example on how "free" the people are who try to setup their space homestead. Perhaps a Star Trek society can offer this "freedom" again. But then, to paraphrase Life of Brian: what has ultimate freedom from society ever done for us?

It looks like sovereign citizens want to have their cake and eat it too: not to pay taxes, but travel the roads build with the same taxes. Not to pay for medical insurance, but being able to get the best treatment from the cursed oppressive state.

Exactly. And then in their own way, some more… stupid than others, they try to recreate their own science from observation. That they’re stuck with phenomenology is no surprise - that’s more or less how all human beings have seen the world before the 1600s. Just meaning, if you look around, the world appears flat! It’s a natural default, rather than a conspiracy theory.

So if all that’s true, then who are we fooling: the real issue is the lack of ability to educate. You can blame stupidity and give up but that’s not a path forward.

To me the strangest bit is the idea that scientists are the authorities? What!? I wish!

I hate being pedantic, but before the 1600 anybody with some education knew already that the earth was round (see: Columbus, Magellan).

Funnily enough, the "flat earthers" of that time were the ones spreading the idea that the Earth was moving :D (see: Galileo)

Not just 1600 - it was fairly common knowledge since antiquity. In 300 BCE, we knew not only that the Earth is round, but also roughly its radius. Moon's distance and radius was estimated about 100 years later. Sun-Earth distance was also (incorrectly) estimated about the same time, but with enough precision to know it's much further and bigger than the Moon.

Columbus was being dissuaded from his voyage because people correctly calculated his supplies will run out way before he reaches Indies west-wards

Well sure but that's exactly my point - anybody with some education. It wasn't until around the 1600s, being generous (really the 1800s), that it even started to become common knowledge or taught in schools (or that the western world even had wide-spread education at all). The default, uneducated assumption is that the earth is flat and there must be water above the dome that is the sky, because it rains - this is what I meant by "phenomenology" - they're just describing the phenomena of the earth - which is after all a natural place for human beings to start out if not educated.

So the "earth is flat" is almost not a conspiracy, it's just a lack of education. "Someone is fooling us into thinking the earth is round" is the conspiracy part.

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