
'Mad' Mike Hughes, flat-Earth theorist, dies in rocket mishap - pbhowmic
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/02/23/mad-mike-hughes-dead/
======
cromulent
previous discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395528)

and apparently he wasn't a flat-earther, it was for publicity.

~~~
ChrisRR
What sort of publicity stunt leads to your almost certain death? What was he
publicising, because it wasn't himself

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JoeAltmaier
Not really a flat-earther. An attention-seeking stuntman/daredevil who would
say anything to get publicity?

~~~
jcims
All these people dunking on the guy out of imagined intellectual superiority.
Guy was a marketing genius, decent engineer/fabricator and had giant brass
balls.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm - I never heard of him, but ok maybe it worked for him. The OP indicates
his engineering credentials were maybe not that decent.

~~~
jcims
Show me an engineer that has never made a mistake.

He designed and built two separate steam-powered rockets and at least one
mobile launch platform that was able to carry a human hundreds of feet into
the air. He obviously fucked something up but on average I'd say he did OK.

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mrfusion
Is there any research on how to talk to these people? I know a flat earthed
and anything I say just makes them dig in more.

~~~
awb
Talking is easy. Convincing them to rethink their position or even abandon it
is much harder and takes a lot of time, patience, persistence and
friendliness.

The friendship part is probably the hardest. But what's the success rate of
shaming someone into changing their mind? Pretty low to zero. It makes them
dig in more.

The best example I know of is Daryl Davis
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis)).
He's a black man that befriends active Klan members. He invites them to bars
and his home and gets to know them.

He intelligently refutes their nonsense but he never asks them to change their
mind or leave the Klan. He simply waits until they want to do it on their own
accord.

The problem is sometimes people get stuck in a group or culture for various
reasons. The key is to give them a safe, friendly alternative rather than a
violent disagreement.

~~~
devtul
Darryl's work is amazing. Today we see people doing the polar opposite, label
someone, shum and deplatform, label some more, harass, destroy his/her
livelihood, destroy his/her reputation.

~~~
hexane360
It's challenging because the optimal strategy for converting an individual is
not necessarily what's best for society as a whole.

Risking Godwin's law, imagine the extreme case of Hitler. The best strategy to
convert Hitler may well be Jewish people befriending him, rather than
confronting him. But in the meantime, Hitler is radicalizing others and
committing genocide. At some point, it makes more sense to just assassinate
Hitler (or deplatform him, or depose him, etc.) rather than trying to save
him.

~~~
jstarfish
No, it doesnt. Responding to mere speech with escalation or violence has not
ever worked in the responder's favor. It has instead fueled coups and
revolutions (like the American civil rights movement).

Killing someone for their ideas sends the wrong message and grants them more
legitimacy than anything. You elevate them to the same status as Jesus Christ,
whose popular namesake religion is predicated on sticking to your beliefs in
the face of any and all consequence.

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Andrew_nenakhov
He might have hit the firmament of heaven, which happened to be lower than he
expected.

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bitsig
Clearly a candidate for a Darwin Award

~~~
sideshowb
No more so than any casualty of extreme sports like climbing, biking,
paragliding etc. It's cliche but I'd like to think the man died doing
something he loved: piloting a home-made rocket. The world is a richer place
for people like him following their passion.

~~~
eejjjj82
uhhh.... i'm pretty sure we're going to find several orders of magnitude
difference between 'extreme sports' (except maybe base jumping) and 'homemade
rocketry'

this infographic isn't exactly authoritative... but it's sort of fun to look
at: [https://www.tetongravity.com/story/news/your-chances-of-
dyin...](https://www.tetongravity.com/story/news/your-chances-of-dying-ranked-
by-sport-and-activity)

~~~
sideshowb
But there are several orders of magnitude between different extreme sports.
The principle is the same either way imo.

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ecmascript
Natural selection strikes again.

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catalogia
Looks like we're going to have another thread of people gloating about the
death of a man who's done nothing to wrong anybody here; who's only 'crime' is
failing to treat science with sufficient reverence.

Really disgusting behavior.

~~~
ssklash
Some may be gloating, but I think the majority are simply pointing out the
tragic irony of someone losing their life over a demonstrable, undisputed fact
that has been known for several hundred years. Conspiracy theories and the
anti-science thinking behind them are dangerous, both to society and to
individuals, as this case sadly demonstrates.

~~~
catalogia
He didn't lose his life because of a belief in the flat earth. He lost his
life because he was a daredevil. His use of the flat earth meme for
promotional purposes is incidental to his death.

Furthermore if a few nutjobs on the fringes of society believing silly shit is
genuinely a threat to society, then society must be fragile beyond belief. I
reject this.

~~~
ssklash
There have been measles outbreaks and other outbreaks of essentially
eradicated diseases because of anti-vaxers. They are no longer simply fringe,
and they do pose a real threat to society. A rejection of science, facts, and
reason that can be spread instantly over the Internet resulting in something
like the possible compromise of herd immunity to solved diseases is a huge
problem. How does society continue if it is not based on facts and reason? One
person, sure, no big deal. But who would have guessed a hundred years ago
people would seriously consider the earth was flat in the numbers that people
seem to today?

~~~
catalogia
If you need to jump through so many levels of indirection to explain why a
silly daredevil is a threat to society, maybe you should ease the fuck up and
stop celebrating the man's death. Mike Hughes' share of the blame for measles
outbreaks is _immeasurable small and indirect_ compared to people like Oprah.

~~~
stan_rogers
They're _the same idiots_. I can't stress that strongly enough. Spend some
time actually watching what they're doing and learning who they are.

