
Notes from a Flat Earth Conference - willpatrick
https://www.willpatrick.co.uk/articles/notes-from-a-flat-earth-conference
======
lisper
I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth
creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-
earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious,
and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are
the same. From that experience I have made two observations:

1\. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't, I can't speak for
the flat-earthers) and to dismiss them as idiots who will just go away is a
serious mistake. They are _very_ good at presenting convincing-sounding
arguments, and refuting them can actually be quite challenging.

2\. The root of their reasoning is a tacit acceptance of teleology, which
cannot be _logically_ refuted. They approach existential questions with the
_assumption_ that there has to be some kind of point to existence, some
transcendent meaning or purpose. If you accept this premise, then there is
actually a logically defensible line of reasoning that leads you to
Christianity and thence to the inerrancy of the Bible, and thence to YEC (and
even a flat earth if you're really being intellectually honest!) A failure to
appreciate this is IMHO one of the reasons that the secular world is having
such a hard time effectively resisting these movements. A life without purpose
makes no sense to these people, just as a theory at odds with the data makes
no sense to someone with a scientific mindset. So if science leads you to the
conclusion that life has no transcendent purpose (and it does) then, on their
world-view, science must be wrong, full stop. No amount of data is going to
persuade them otherwise.

~~~
cma
Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to
Christianity?

~~~
lisper
That is a very good question, and the answer is very long, much too long for
an HN comment. But there IS an answer. (There is of course an answer for all
other religions as well.)

~~~
rhn_mk1
Don't leave us hanging! Where can we learn the answer?

~~~
lisper
Any Christian apologetics web site. Or your local church.

~~~
rhn_mk1
I was hoping for something more precise tbh. Christian apologetics web sites
and local churches also offer answers to lots of questions I don't care about,
so if you already sifted through them, I was hoping you could share that
advantage with the broader public.

~~~
lisper
Try searching for "why Christianity".

~~~
rhn_mk1
I broke my rule of ignoring people who bait and don't deliver and did a quick
search. All 4 results from the 1st search page:

\- [https://www.livingwaters.com/why-
christianity/](https://www.livingwaters.com/why-christianity/) seems to short-
circuit back into "god-given rule"

\- [https://carm.org/atheism/why-believe-christianity-over-
all-o...](https://carm.org/atheism/why-believe-christianity-over-all-other-
religions) assumes the Bible as a historical source of truth

\-
[http://www.gospeloutreach.net/whychristianity.html](http://www.gospeloutreach.net/whychristianity.html)
\- quotes beauty not present in atheism, otherwise Bible as a historical
source

\- [https://creation.com/why-christianity](https://creation.com/why-
christianity) says Christianity correctly diagnoses a humanity's fault (moral
inconsistency), and then declares it superior because of which solution it
chooses

They don't seem to answer "why is Christianity the source of meaning", but
rather "why choose Christianity as religion", which is a different question,
so I might have misrepresented them. Either way, none of them seem very
logically conclusive to me.

~~~
lisper
> They don't seem to answer "why is Christianity the source of meaning", but
> rather "why choose Christianity as religion"

That's right. The original question was:

> Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to
> Christianity?

If you want to know "why is Christianity the source of meaning" that's an
easier question to answer: it's because the omniscient, omnipotent and
omnibenevolent Creator of the Universe loves you, and will give you
everlasting life in paradise conditioned only on your acceptance of His
sacrifice on the cross. Or something like that.

~~~
rhn_mk1
I think that's not actually the point that was made by cma (and my paraphrased
question was imprecise).

"Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to
Christianity?" presumes starting with no preferred solution: "existence has a
meaning. Who discovered it?". It's much more interesting than "Christianity
says existence has a meaning. What makes it right?"

~~~
lisper
> existence has a meaning. Who discovered it?

If you're looking for the Christian answer to this, it is: no one discovered
it. The meaning of life is not discoverable knowledge. It is instead revealed
by God.

------
umvi
I used to be a flat earther. No, I didn't actually believe the earth was flat,
but I loved the outrage it provoked and the attention I got when I told people
I was a flat earther. I also enjoyed trying to defend my position and call out
(valid) logical fallacies round earthers were making. It really forces you to
improve your debate skills when you have to defend an impossible position.
Lastly, there was a social aspect of it, a camaraderie with other flat
earthers that made me feel like I belonged to a "secret" organization that was
fun and influential. I eventually outgrew that hobby.

I'm sure there are many "genuine" flat earthers, but I suspect there are a lot
of flat earthers like me as well. Of course, part of the "game" is pretending
you really believe it, so good luck proving it.

~~~
Brendinooo
My headcanon is that most people that proclaim to be flat-earthers are like
you - they don't actually believe it.

From the Ancient Greeks to the 19th century, people believed the world was
round. That story you heard in history class about how people in the 1400s
were afraid to sail west because they'd fall off? Not true. They were afraid
to sail west because they didn't know that the Americas existed, and without
those they knew there was no way they'd survive a trip to China.

Flat earth in modern discourse was a strawman from the start. There may be
some true believers - there always are - but it hasn't been a serious
worldview in 2000 years or more.

~~~
me_me_me
I wouldn't be so sure, more likely people who make money of it are all BS
masters.

Leader of the 'movement' selling books, youtube ads etc.

I had only once a pleasure to talk with flat earther, and apart from his flat
theories, his view of how world works could be called... interesting, if not
naive.

It reminded me of conversation with my primary school friends (back when we
were 10), we tried to invent invisibility cloak by mixing 'chemicals' like
sulpher, mercury and melted titanium (since those were the coolest substances
we come up with) and coat a cloth with it. Kids stuff.

That was when we were around 10, this guy was close to 30 and was basically
using same level of understanding of how to do things.

Its hard to believe sometimes bu a lot of people grow up never questioning or
poking at the reality surrounding them.

You don't need that to grow up and get by in life, but then you end up not
being able to distinguish reality from snake oil.

And all of those snake oil salesmen know exactly what buttons to push.

"Secret knowledge", "hidden truth", offer them glimpse into world that secret
cabal never wants them to see. Convince them how much smarter and cleverer
they are for "figuring out" the reality that other are blind to.

And then the 'blind fools' come to try to convince them that the earth is
round...

------
burlesona
> All this is to say that rational questions and arguments miss the point
> entirely. These are not rational beliefs, nor even really beliefs. They are
> more like identities, firmly established and fiercely defended. Their
> existence is not a happy one, either. It seemed to me that they were
> commonly the product of deep personal and social tragedy.

This seems to me to be the chief problem of social media. We live in a post-
truth world that is more intensely tribal than ever before. Reason, and the
ability to form consensus, seem to be dying or dead already. That worries me
rather a lot, as it is the foundation of democratic society, and without it
I’m not sure how long democratic society can continue.

In the authors description of the flat earth ers he says:

> ...you operate from a position where your worldview is driven by your
> identity, not from what can be scientifically or objectively observed, or
> what the experts tell you.

We can sit here and scoff at the tiny minority of fringe conspiracy theorists
out there, but my observation is that people have taken this same approach to
mainstream politics, deciding on an identity that aligns them to one side or
the other, and then losing all ability to see that it is possible for their
side to get something wrong, or the other side to get something right.

~~~
shadowgovt
They _can_ be _internally-consistent_ beliefs, which is what makes them tricky
(both for the believer and the rational contradictorian). But internally-
consistent isn't quite the same as rational.

Where they deviate from rational is either failure to align to observational
reality or an Occam's Razor argument (but be aware that Occam's Razor doesn't
apply for a true believer; if something is true, it doesn't matter if it's
complicated! ;) ).

------
shadowgovt
Honestly, hanging out in the Flat Earth FB group was extremely educational. In
that actual physics and cosmology has a very solid, self-consistent grounding,
and the hoops the group has to jump through to make it match to their
alternate theory of a flat Earth are illuminating about how the real Earth
works.

I'd never really noticed before that no satellite dishes tuned to talk to
geostationary targets point north in the northern hemisphere, or south in the
southern hemisphere. A bit of thought immediately clarifies why, but the flat-
Earthers have to imagine an incredibly large conspiracy of governments hiding
radio towers taller than anything humanity has ever built to explain it.

------
jdoliner
When I think back to how I was first introduced to the concept of a flat earth
I can't help but feel that it's one of the bigger epistemic own-goals in
history. My introduction was in school, where the concept of a flat earth was
trotted out as something that everyone believed in the middle ages that we
eventually learned was totally wrong. The message was simple: don't be those
people, listen to the scientific evidence. At the time I thought it was a
compelling story, then I found out the story is a myth. [0] Ancient Greeks
knew in the 5th century BC that it was round, by the 600s it was more or less
unanimously supported by scholars. I've struggled to find a time in history
when there was a serious, organized group that believed the earth was flat.
Except for now that is, the uncomfortable truth is that this, right now, in
2020, is the peak of flat earth belief in human history. The lesson, to me, is
this: be careful what you lie about in the name of pedagogy, lies have a way
of backfiring on you when people realize they're being lied to.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth)

------
thelittlenag
The allure of secret knowledge...

~~~
protomyth
Is it that or some folks trying to cling to a tribe?

~~~
lisper
It's both. The secret knowledge defines the identity of the tribe.

------
anordin95
This is a bit sad to read, but very well written. I can't help but think of
schizophrenia after reading through some of the conversations.

------
mayankkaizen
In my real life I've never met a flat-earth guy (I live in India). I genuinely
tried hard but couldn't find one in real life.

Most flat-earth people I found online seem to be Americans. This is possibly
anecdotal but I'm puzzled as to why they are all Americans. It is coincidence
or there is something about America?

------
ab3rC1te
Joshua 10:13, Joshua commands the sun and moon to stand still for about a
whole day. Isaiah 38:8 God brings the sun backwards to set the shadow of the
sundail of Ahaz back 10 degrees. Genesis God sets the sun, moon and stars
inside the firmament with us. Or the great flood that is recorded with similar
versions all across the world. Even the Roman Catholics believed the earth was
flat at the time of Christopher Columbus. There's a reason why sea level is
always at zero. Point being its about worshipping our heavenly Father that
created all things, and set aside all of man's teachings to forsake the things
of this world to have enternal life.

------
mynegation
I did not pay a lot of attention to this. In my mind flat earthers were an odd
group of people participating for fun in an elaborate make believe. Sort of
like watching WWE together with beers pretending those are real fights.

I mean, contrary to a popular parable, people knew that the earth is round for
a very long time and Eratosthenes made an estimate of earth radius 2200 years
ago.

------
Verdex
Sometimes this type of long form journalism is nice because it lets you
marinate in a different world. Here I can't help but feel like I just want
them to get to the point because I don't really want to marinate in the Flat
Earth world.

If a super intelligent AI came to me and said, "I'm going to take over the
world and destroy humanity, but first I wanted to see if there was anything
you needed." One of the things that I would ask it to do in order to buy time
would be to annotate all the background details of every movie. For example,
in Jurassic Park when Hammond is trying to get Dr. Grant to come to the park,
the trailer they are in has a bunch of newspapers on the walls. What do those
say? Who are all the extras that are hanging out at the dig site? Like who are
the actors and can we give their characters any backstories that are
consistent with the world of Jurassic Park.

I can't help but want the same thing from a story about a Flat Earth
conference. How many other people went there just to see what was up. Who is
there as a joke. Occasionally people send fake articles to journals to see if
they can get them published. Does the same thing happen to Flat Earth
conferences? People try to see how much of an outlandish presentation they can
get away with? And finally, how many people go there, have a good time,
pretend to buy into the whole Flat Earth business, but then when they get back
and are cornered indicate that they only went because their friend went / to
see what it was like / because they make fun of them later / etc.

Finally, this whole business feels very similar to me as the whole Evolution
in education stuff. Sure people believe in the wrong thing, but at the end of
the day very few people actually understand how the right thing works and even
if they get that far they don't see what any of the implications are. Yeah, I
would prefer people believe things that are true, but they don't understand it
either way and they refuse to think about the implications.

I greatly appreciate the world building in things like Lord of the Rings or
Avatar the last airbender. Everything works together in great detail to create
a holistic world where actions have consequences that echo through the
centuries. It feels like most people are just as happy to watch Michael Bay's
Transformers. Maybe they like Avatar as well, but they don't understand why
the shyamalan movie "adaptation" is bad. So I have a hard time caring that
they agree with me that the cartoon was good as well.

------
8K832d7tNmiQ
This is pretty well written, I love it.

------
jpmattia
I was a little surprised that there was no mention of mental illness. A
human/reptile hybrid race is secretly controlling us all to serve an unknown
agenda? I know that could be used for humor, but really it's just sad.

------
firebaze
Depressing.

~~~
BrianOnHN
I'm sure this won't be a popular comment, but based on the descriptions in the
article, the flat earthers seem very similar to the Trump supporters I know
(family, not by choice).

The clear distinction is the absolute unwillingness to listen logic without
screaming what-a-about conspiracy A, or conspiracy B, or C. Or the classic
"your just a socialist" inbetween talking about their social security and
medicare benefits.

There's clearly a segment of the population that has the inability to compute
simple logic without triggering a fight/flight/amygdala response.

I used to think education was the problem.

But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response
when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the _hack_
that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following.

Edit: thanks for all the fanfare(sarcasm towards the downvotes), I think that
it proves my point.

~~~
RobRivera
>Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice)

What is the implication here? Is it bad to have friends who are Trump
supporters?

EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance,
rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves
me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this.

~~~
ideals
I judge people (not solely) based on who they choose to associate with, so for
me ya it is bad. To put it more bluntly, if you surround yourself with shitty
people, I'll assume you're a shitty person.

~~~
sunopener
You surround yourself with 7.8 billion people who shit nearly every day.

To put it bluntly, you are judging yourself when you take yourself to be
judging others, you claim an excuse that associating with others leads to your
own self-admitted "badness"... You judge yourself, and rather than taking
sentence with those aspects within, you externalize it and make assumptions
based upon comparisons of your ideal shitty person, which deep down we both
know that we are our own worst critics.

This only leads down one road, self-annihilatory behavior.

Learn to love yourself completely, you are not lacking, and to be honest, you
taking yourself to be one that thinks of others or yourself as a shitty person
is one of the most lovable parts about you.

~~~
trumpersHateMe
Does this reply have any coherence at all or is it just me?

It reads very similar to a response I received from the owners of a fishing
website that I used to frequent when I questioned them about BLM.

~~~
RobRivera
>Username: trumpersHateMe

Nice, novelty accounts on hn.

That's lovely. I accrue some great insights from this sites river, but I
should probably start curating my own river again. The insightful:judgemental
signal-noise ratio is trending in a direction I simply fine unstimulating of
productive discourse.

~~~
BrianOnHN
> insightful:judgemental signal-noise ratio

I think that's a worldwide phenomenon, not just HN.

------
mindslight
> _When a worldview grows in a group of people that requires the belief that
> this trust has been fundamentally broken by the institutions of modern
> society, modern society feels the effects_

I think this causality is backwards. These people already feel that the social
contract has been broken, and then FE falls into their lap as an explanation
for what they're feeling.

The disillusionment with our modern social structures is entirely valid and
personally healthy. The real question is how to keep that feeling from
collapsing into simplistic red herrings like FE, "jet fuel can't melt steel
beams", or Trumpism. It's more difficult to hold nuanced anti-mainstream-
propaganda opinions in your head, than to rally around a counter-fiction.

Then again, maybe this has been the genesis of all religion - reassuring
narratives to assuage cognitive dissonance between what the rulers say and how
you're actually treated. And the ones that end up being memetically successful
are the ones that at least inspire people to do productive things.

------
toss1
Sadly, this is another topic of questions to add to job interview filters -
ask about the moon landings & vaccines.

Anyone subscribing to any of this conspiracy nonsense, especially as an
identity is (pardon the language) too effin stupid to work in any serious
technical endeavor - if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason,
what will they ignore on your project?

Plus, their deeply ingrained ideas that any authority is trying to control
them has a high probabilty of turning against any employer lie a rabid dog,
creating at least a costly series of problems and toxicity.

I'd even filter them out for manufacturing or fast food work.

edit: should add I'm talking about willful stupidity - deliberate cultivation
of ignorance, as distinguished from naturally low intellectual horsepower

~~~
mcculley
"Stupid" is not a useful way to generally describe the people vulnerable to
conspiracy theories. I have met people who are relatively intelligent who fall
into these. See also: religion, politics.

~~~
katmannthree
What's a better term for people with a lack of critical thinking skills and/or
a lot of unexamined closely held beliefs?

~~~
kstenerud
I've met a number of religious people who were quite good at their technical
jobs that required critical thinking skills. So long as the knowledge, skills
and behaviors required of them don't clash with their identity beliefs,
there's no problem in terms of performance.

~~~
katmannthree
Sure, but most of those fields don't require a carefully examined set of
beliefs about the world itself in order to succeed. A logically inconsistent
but functional worldview is usually enough. As an extreme example it's
entirely possible to be an award-winning pediatric neurosurgeon while
simultaneously believing that the Egyptian pyramids were grain storage silos.

Fields that require carefully examined beliefs about almost everything
(physics for example) are a lot harder to pull that off in.

