
Earth has always been round, so why have the flat-out wrong become so lively? - eaguyhn
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/squishful-thinking-whats-inflated-flat-earth-believers-in-2019/
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lwansbrough
If you haven’t watched the Netflix doc “Behind the Curve”, I highly recommend
it.

The movie exposes the sort of cultishness of flat earthers and more than
anything ends up making you feel bad for their desperation. Seems like a lot
of those people just need support groups for their problems, and flat earth
theory gives them a common enemy to rally against.

The movie isn’t all sad though, several times during the movie the more
scientific members end up proving themselves wrong, which is fun to watch.

Anyway, again, I recommend the movie. It’s good for a laugh but also offers a
reminder of the group’s humanity, which I think is important when we look at
fringe groups.

~~~
mrguyorama
I was massively disappointed with it. It spent so much time looking at the
woman and man's strange relationship and zero time looking into literally the
mountain of basic science that can be done to prove to yourself the earth is
round. It was very silly, and seemed to care more about playing a TLC style
"reality TV" purpose than educating or documenting.

It really should have had at least basic rebuttals to everything claimed. They
didn't even give the scientists a chance to say anything.

While plenty people claim debating nonsense-ers like flat earth doesn't help,
showing only their side while making them "seem normal" certainly isn't better

Heaven's sake, Eratosthenes knew the earth was round before Christ was born!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Measurement_of_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Measurement_of_the_Earth's_circumference)

~~~
krapp
The problem is, anyone so divorced from reality as to sincerely believe the
earth is flat isn't going to be convinced by the evidence, and no one else
needs to be. What even would be the point of presenting rebuttals? It's like
trying to prove gravity exists to someone who insists it doesn't.

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vb6lives
Because every idiot with access to the internet can instantly spread any
nonsense they want to millions of people. In the past, this type of nonsense
was filtered by editors and such at media companies.

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Pharmakon
Am I the only person bored stiff by conspiracists? I don’t deny that the
phenomenon is significant, has an impact, and needs to be addressed, but
Christ it’s boring! Cranky and conspiracists have always been derivative,
repetitive, often delusional people and all too often far from the brightest
bulbs. Their “theories” are inevitably garbage, written and talked about in
truly sub-mental ways.

I get it, it matters, but it turns out that a topic’s importance doesn’t
necessarily correlate with it being interesting, intellectually stimulating,
or deep. There is no there, there. It’s just the interaction of lonely people,
stupid people, mentally ill poeple, and a few relatively bright people who
fell into a cognitive trap and became insufferable. The ones with David Icke
who think that the queen is a lizard, the ones who think the Earth is flat, or
believe that dinosaur fossils were planted by the CIA, the chemtrialers, the
ones into “cloud busters” and the Orgone, anti-vaxxers... they’re all so samey
and goddamned boring.

~~~
woah
You’re just afraid of the truth

~~~
Pharmakon
_You’re just afraid of the truth_

You got me, although I can tell you’re not serious, or you’d have used all
caps.

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nobleach
I find it so fascinating though! During the New Years 2016 - 2017 I found
myself sucked down the Youtube "Watch Next" Rabbit Hole™. I spent hours
watching video after video by these folks. At first I was convinced that it
was a massive troll. But the more I watched, I came to realize.... wait...
these folks really _do_ believe this crap! It got old after awhile and I moved
on to more exciting things. Youtube is still sure that I want to see this
genre however, so I often have a few conspiracy-type videos over there in the
right column.

~~~
mordechai9000
I suspect there are a fair number of people participating simply because they
find it funny, and they enjoy the reactions they get. IE, trolls. Especially
online, where participation is relatively low-effort.

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grawprog
You can see the curve of the Earth on the horizon with your eyes from the top
of a tall mountain, the window of an airplane or somewhere flat like prairies.
Of all the ridiculous conspiracies, this one baffles me the most. This one,
you can literally just go look for yourself. You don't need science, you don't
need math, you don't need to be intelligent, you just need to be not fucking
blind.

~~~
NikkiA
Without the 'level' falling off at a fixed-ish distance from you in all
directions there wouldn't even be a horizon, so the horizon itself is proof of
a round earth.

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stackola
My (not very original theory is that the CIA, who provably coined the term
conspiracy theory to discredit any sort of unfavorable research, is making
sure to spread obviously false theories to discredit anyone who's associated
with any conspiracy research (You doubt the official 9/11 story? Tell me more
about how the Earth is flat, must be them chemtrails getting to you)

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belevingo
A good question to ask yourself is where do you get all the information about
the earth being flat?

If the answer is the internet, then that is the reason why it has become so
lively.

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writepub
The advent of the internet was supposed to put instant access to information
at everyone's fingertips, and be a net positive for facts and science.

However, people have ignored the same technology's ability to instantly
gratify reinforcement of falsehoods, and the spread of misinformation.

You can see a correlation between the rise of the internet and continued rise
of:

1\. Radical religion

2\. Anti vaccination

3\. Flat Earth conspiracies

4\. ....

~~~
belevingo
Yeah, I agree.

With the internet you can share an idea regardless whether it is tied to the
objective truth or not.

~~~
mrguyorama
You could always do that in the town square. The difference is that people
would look down on town criers as "kooks", while a video made in premier, with
one or two stupid quotes or drawings seems to pass the average person's
bullshit detector

