
My Parents Are Flat Earthers - zwischenzug
https://jameshfisher.com/2019/01/20/my-parents-are-flat-earthers
======
mabbo
I feel like the Flat Earth movement is, at it's core, a hack on the human
mind.

People want to feel important, and they want to feel in control. When the
world is so large and uncaring, so horrible and meaningless, and people are so
small and unimportant, a good conspiracy theory lets _me_ be someone
_important_. There are evil people out there who did this all to us, and now I
get to know the _truth_. I get to be in better control of my life. I can keep
reading and researching and with each step I feel more in control. I've got
hope now because I know what's really going on!

Anyone who challenges this worldview is not attacking my logical argument,
they're attacking my emotional investment in this hope, this piece of control
of life. When you challenge me, you aren't debating what is and isn't, you're
trying to take away this one little bit of control I have. Why would you do
that to me? Perhaps you've been brainwashed by the evil people, or maybe
you're part of the evil people who did this to us all.

~~~
medion
Would it be fair to say the exact same thing about, say, Christianity, or any
large scale religion? That, at it's core, it's a hack on the human mind, for
people to feel important, to feel in control, when the world is so large and
uncaring?

Because to me, this burgeoning conspiracy culture (chemtrails, 5G, flat earth,
etc etc) just feels like people utilising the same brain space that was once
more used for religion...

~~~
squirrelicus
I think the same brain space is used by futurists too. Magic batteries,
dehumidifiers, a/c units, rockets, tunnels, Mars colonization, integrated
neutral/digital systems. People want to feel like they are a part of a new age
of knowledge set apart from the intellectually content masses, and feel like
they're more honest in breaking free from the doctrine handed down by elites.

And no. It's not fair to say that about religion _in general_. There are many
reasons why people believe their religions.

~~~
ykevinator
It's the same. There is no logical difference between believing in flat earth
and believing in spermless conception

~~~
squirrelicus
There is more to Christianity than unbelievable fairy tales like spermless
conception.

Read Matthew. You'll be surprised how... American it sounds. Basics we take
for granted like "the blind leading the blind" are scriptural and religious,
and things that are easy to forget how to name and call out without the
religion.

Indeed, the foundation of capitalism, the right approach to differences in
natural ability, and how we should view equality are found in Matthew 25. Just
read that one if you can't stomach the Bible in general.

~~~
ykevinator
I'm not anti Bible, I just think belief in something despite evidence to the
contrary is irrational and in this regard, belief in flat earth and the
supernatural are equally irrational. We don't all have to be rational.
Irrational people are not bad people. It's not immoral to be irrational. I
love many irrational people in my circle of friends and family. But to believe
in something despite evidence is called faith and faith and science cannot
coexist because people of faith offer no condition under which they will
acknowledge that their belief is incorrect. So with that rule set of logic,
flat earth believers and believers in supernatural are in the same category,
with love and respect.

As a side note, that the Bible is wise and moral is independent of its
accounts of the supernatural being true. The supernatural can be explained by
the time period in which it was written.

------
cyberferret
Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where
the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the
curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling
disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying,
and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer.

The uptick in flat earth theories among other things is central to that. I
made the mistake of clicking on an anti flat earth Youtube channel once
(SciManDan for reference [0]) and now get others videos in that channel as
'suggested videos'. I try not to click on them, but... I do. And each time I
do, a little more of me dies on the inside when I see what the pro F/E pundits
are putting out there, AND see their followers applauding it as 'truth'. The
globe earth model is now apparently just a 'belief system' and not science any
more. o_O

[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtsZ5Iak9wSLsQLQ3XOAeA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRtsZ5Iak9wSLsQLQ3XOAeA)

~~~
mindcrime
_now get others videos in that channel as 'suggested videos'._

FWIW, you can always remove that video from your history, so you won't get
those recommendations anymore. Well, assuming you were logged into a Google
account when you viewed it. Visit
[https://www.youtube.com/feed/history](https://www.youtube.com/feed/history)
and use the smaller search bar to find any "questionable" videos and then you
can delete them from your watch history.

Another option is to click the little 3-dot menu on the suggested video, click
"not interested", then click the "tell us why" link, and there should be an
option like "I'm not interested in recommendations based on (SOME VIDEO)". You
can check that checkbox and submit, and you should stop seeing those
recommendations.

~~~
jobigoud
I have youtube history disabled but still get "recommended" videos.

I'm thinking reinstalling greasemonkey to find a script that get rid of them.

~~~
mindcrime
Yeah, my guess is that if you're not logged in, or have history disabled, they
still generate recommendations by IP or something... or they just give you
generic recommendations that go to everybody that doesn't have a history to
use.

I don't mind, since I like the recommendations in general. But I think they
dramatically overweight recent videos when they generate the recommendations,
and sometimes I'll watch a video that's outside my normal habits, and I
suddenly start getting all these weird recommendations. That's the only reason
I ever bothered learning about the "remove this from my history" feature. :-)

------
pmichaud
I read quite a bit of the discussion here, and I’m struck:

People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit
they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or
group dynamics.

I wonder if anyone else sees the irony?

~~~
dwild
> People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit
> they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or
> group dynamics.

How is making hypothesis anti-scientific? If anything, it's the basis of
science.

What's anti-scientific about flat-earther is how they ignore evidence. This is
100% what we discuss when we talk against flat-earther. Can you show me any
comment here that ignore evidence?

You are free to argue anything that's being said here and to show evidence of
any of this. This is part of the scientific process and it's alright.

~~~
pmichaud
Look, I really don't want to be antagonistic here, but this is a pet peeve of
mine re: science. Plus psychology and group dynamics in particular are a big
part of my field... so I'm going to engage here, and I just want you to know
before I start that I'm doing it in good faith.

Framing what is happening in thread as "making hypotheses" is a perfect
example of what I'm talking about.

A hypothesis is a guess about the causal structure relevant to a narrow
question that is formulated to be falsifiable. Normally it's generated from a
deep understanding of the domain and is actually a question about an aspect of
that domain that isn't yet clear. "Is it like THIS or like THAT? How could we
tell the difference between those worlds?"

It's like debugging, actually. You see a bug in your software, and you know
something, probably a lot, about the overall program. That lets you imagine
what, specifically, might be going wrong, so you form guesses about that, and
you check those guesses. You can check by just watching the values of
variables as they move around the system until you see something anomalous.
You can also check by predicting what might happen given certain inputs, and
you send those inputs to verify that you are right, and to give you clues
about where to investigate further. Finally you notice the part of the program
that is almost certainly the source of the problem, and then you form a model
of what is supposed to happen, and you change the code to reflect your new
understanding until the inputs match the expected outputs. Sometimes the
answer is a small change, and sometimes it's a major structural or conceptual
change.

That is a scientific investigation that involves real hypothesis formation and
testing.

Suppose instead that your well-meaning, non-technical uncle saw the bug. He
might suggest you restart the computer. Whether he's right that that would fix
the immediate problem is virtually irrelevant: HE doesn't have any idea if it
would fix anything, and if it did fix something it wouldn't actually address
whatever the underlying technical problem actually is. It may be an issue that
you know--because you understand the domain--couldn't possibly be solved with
a restart. Your uncle doesn't know anything, he's just parroting stuff he's
heard before about how to "fix computers." In other words, he's just making
shit up. Spouting whatever makes intuitive sense to him given his total lack
of domain expertise. It's all well-meaning, and done in good faith, but...

Your uncle did not, in any meaningful sense, generate a "hypothesis" about
your software bug.

 __What I am saying in my original post is that this thread is full of your
well-meaning, non-technical uncle. __

And it 's particularly grating to me because the "program" in question here is
science itself, and the uncles are signaling their group membership in Team
Science by doing something they seem to believe is science-like, but in fact
is not.

And further the not-science-like thing the people in this thread are doing is
structurally identical to the people they are signaling against. The
difference is that the people in this thread have slightly more sophisticated
models of things like gravity and distinguishing plausible information from
implausible information.

Flat earthers are a particularly central example of believing some shit they
made up, that makes intuitive sense to them given their lack of domain
expertise. The people in this thread, making their guesses about psychology
and group dynamics, are doing the same activity in the same way, but just in a
domain that isn't as obvious.

It bothers me. Rant over.

------
intothemild
I got to the part where his parents were jehovas witnesses, and realised that
perhaps people who are gullible enough to believe dumb shit like flat earth,
are probably wired to believe dumb shit.

I’ll explain, my grandmother is a jehovas witness.

She believes any dumb shit she reads and hears, no matter how easily one could
refute it. She will argue black and blue, and if you try and tell her she’s
wrong, it only reinforces that she’s right and onto something “big” since we
have to refute it.

Thing is about Jehovas witnesses is they believe that there’s a limited number
of places in heaven, and only the truly devout will get a spot. There’s two
real good ways to earn yourself a spot.

1\. Donate a lot of money to the church over a lifetime. 2\. Convert as many
people as you can.

It is in essence a pyramid scheme.

No mattter how many times I’ve told her that she won’t earn one of the
~200,000 spaces in heaven (it’s really what they believe) because there’s
easily a few million members of the “church” globally, and they would all be
as devout as her... so if they all die before her surely they would get one of
the 200,000 spots. Then what happens? Does their god say to person number
200,001 “oh shit man sorry we just sold out of spots in heaven. _clicks teeth_
”

She will retort with “those other people have probably sinned and won’t get a
spot.” Alluding that she’s better than people she doesn’t know. Which I’ll
turn around on her and tell her that kind of thinking is probably a sin.

She will get up and walk away and we will begin this again next year.

Flat Earthers to me are similar to this kind of mindset. To hear that his flat
earther parents were also Jehovas Witnesses... just wow.

~~~
black-tea
My dad has been a lifelong atheist and a generally rational person but
recently, thanks to YouTube, he's discovered conspiracies and gone all in on
just about all of them. 9/11, moon landings, crop circles are all definitely
conspiracies. I'm not sure what he thinks about flat earth yet but he'll
probably get there.

So it's not just pre-trained religious people who are susceptible. They're
probably much more susceptible, though.

~~~
paradoxparalax
I make a daily effort to point out to elderly people in my family to be
extremely aware of the electronic "fishing" for LandMoonDeniers, using
"fishing hook/bait" headlines mixed in the middle of "serious/real" headlines,
or adds placed by the website or the social media tool, and even spammed chat
tool messages bought by the thousands from you know who.

When someone clicks one of this, they know you are easy to braiwash or scam.
This is already very old technique , already used before Internet was so
widespread, when a pretty girl will make cold calls all day long from some IP
telephone call-center installed in Panama or Costa Rica or , in a small
operation, in the Cayman Islands, and as she was trained, she could detect a
LandMoonDenier in a minute by the phone, and she would set up the Larceny lace
around his neck to scam her/his money.

Examples of this baits can be found, for instance, on The Sputinik News, what
is very Scary and is a shame, and does't help at all the denial of Russian
Interference by russian gov, but actually they don't really want to deny
it(because it is not them who is doing this, If it was, they would never let
the minimal vestige of evidence that it was them who do it), they know who is
working in the shadows to elect , for example, a brainless in brazil, and they
know this weird things are not coming from anyone from the U.S. or from the US
intel, so they are just having fun playing and letting play, as long as the
game is good for them.

:off course, the world's oldest profession is probably not that of the sex
trade, or the sex trade was born at the same time that the criminal religious
larceny firstly made by the first human who got a curious colored stone and
told his tribe that this stone was God and that the village should give
him/her good sex and good food,to keep the Priest of the Stone, bearer of the
Words and Laws of God, happy, and to keep God happy by extension.

------
lisper
It's important to understand that FE has nothing to do with finding the
"truth" and everything to do with belonging to a club that gives you access to
privileged secret knowledge. It's no different from any other religion or
cult.

~~~
sonnyblarney
'Being in a club with secret knowledge' doesn't fit the description of
'religion' very well, though there some aspects of cults for which the
description may allude.

But that said - this is a hard one, much different than 'aliens' or 'arcane
knowledge' because the simple truth is actually evident for everyone to see.

It's the craziest of all conspiracy theories because it's so utterly deniable.

I mean ... I don't think aliens have made contact with the White House ... but
heck, it's in the realm of statistical plausibility! (Maybe I _want_ it to be
true ...). (Edit: we do spend many millions of 'legit' research dollars trying
to find aliens, so it makes more sense that there's conspiracy there)

But 'flat earth' has to be the dumbest of all.

For this reason it's a very interest phenomenon.

~~~
lisper
> 'Being in a club with secret knowledge' doesn't fit the description of
> 'religion' very well,

Why not? (I debated whether or not to include "religion" in my comment because
the word is so laden with baggage, but ultimately decided that it was apt, so
I am prepared to defend it if you really want to go down that rabbit hole.)

> But 'flat earth' has to be the dumbest of all.

Not even close. (Go read some Scientology literature, or the Book of Mormon.)
But the fact that FE is so vehemently rebutted by the scientific establishment
is a _feature_ to the flat-earthers, proof that they really are fighting the
good fight even though the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them.
That's the whole point.

~~~
sonnyblarney
\+ ~90% of the world's population are religious (depending on how you look at
it) and they mostly grow up in communities wherein everyone is basically the
same religion, ergo, they are not generally 'missionary' , 'proselytizing',
nor do they feel they have access to 'special information'.

In fact, it's the total opposite: for most of the world's religious,
'religion' is just part of every day, normative culture in most places. It's
kind of mundane, actually.

Jehova's Witnesses, referenced in the article, are a totally different
ballgame. They are 'default proselytizers' and have a substantially different
world view than most folks directly around them.

\+ As for why 'Flat Earth' is considerably dumber than Scientology:

'Dianetics' \- the Scientology predicate is very close to psychotherapy.
Scientology itself is bizarre, but also very interesting 'armchair
philosophy'. For example, I think Hubbard's concept of 'tone scale' is
brilliant, though it belongs in a blog of ideas, obviously not an institution.

But Scientology is very complex, there's a lot going on, many levels. I can
see how it is 'rational' for people to get caught up in it, eve if it's crazy.
Scientology leaders are not stupid. There are tons of otherwise very smart
people caught up in Scientology ... it's not just full of idiots and crazy
people.

But 'Flat Earth' is utterly stupid. It's like saying 'the sky is not blue'.
It's the denial of a simple, almost arbitrary fact and it makes no sense at
all. I don't think regular people get trapped in 'Flat Earth' conspiracies.
Something has to be almost 'wrong' I think to fall for this one.

I think the term 'deprogramming' would be apt for a regular person caught up
in a cult.

For 'Flat Earth' \- I don't know what one would do with one of those people.

~~~
lisper
> nor do they feel they have access to 'special information'.

I'm pretty sure that if you actually went and asked them you'd find that most
of them consider the Word of God to be pretty special. (More specifically, the
fact that they and their group recognize the True Word of God is what makes
them feel special.)

> I think Hubbard's concept of 'tone scale' is brilliant

I think you just made my point for me.

------
mkhpalm
I feel like this whole flat earth craze is more like tide pods than anything
else. There are very few people who actually believe the earth is flat just
like there are very few people out there who were accidentally eating tide
pods. Its a practically nonexistent problem that everybody can't seem to stop
talking about. Everybody who seems to talk about it that I ever see mostly do
so as a gaff or some other reason. I guess the flip side of that is how many
people actually believe there are large groups of the public who do or believe
these sorts of things?

For me, where this type of stuff come from is more interesting. Is it pure
trolling at its core or is there another reason for spreading the idea that
these are problems? Is it some kind of experiment to see where the masses are
at psychologically? Is it purely something crazy to talk about to provide
revenue from advertising? I doubt we'll ever know who puts forth all the
effort or why. But I do bet it will become a thing of the past as the
catalysts move on and the cattle get over it.

~~~
darkpuma
It's shocking to me how many people don't realize that a great deal of flat
eartherism is pure trolling.

~~~
happytoexplain
I've come to the opinion that there isn't a hard like between trolling and
actually believing in something, or actually expressing a genuine negative
emotion. I think, in practice, "trolling" is much more than just a synonym for
"kidding".

~~~
darkpuma
Just so we're clear, I'm saying that it's very obvious that a large number of
people who say the earth is flat know the earth is round, and are pretending
to believe otherwise because it gets people like you upset, and they enjoy
that.

Ironically they aren't the ones with a tenuous grasp on reality; their
targets, who mistake their statements as genuine, are the ones who are
mistaken.

------
packetslave
Earth can't possibly be flat. If it was, the cats would have knocked
everything off it by now.

~~~
stuntkite
Finally, an air tight argument. I am definitely going to use this.

------
M4v3R
As a former Jehovah's Witness myself I can confirm that people from cults like
JWs are very susceptible to believeing in conspiracy theories like flat earth,
moon landing is hoax, etc. I personally know at least four ex-JWs and one
current JW who all believe the Earth is flat. By contrast I don't personally
know anyone who was catholic their whole life and turned to flat earth. Which
is not to say that this doesn't happen, my point is that people who are
extremely devouted to their religion are probably more likely to question
everything, even the shape of the Earth, especially after they discover that
their religious beliefs were not true.

~~~
senectus1
yeah, years ago I went for a long bike ride (800km in two weeks) with about
2.5k other people. we all stopped at a town for a two day break called
Manjimup and we all had to wash our clothes so you can imagine the line up to
the public laundry... it went for blocks.

anyway, a nice old bloke walked up and offered his washing machines at his
house for use. We didnt much like the idea of hanging around all day just to
get into the laundry so we said yes.

He was a lovely old fella, and had a library room in his run down old place
that was floor to ceiling, wall to wall filled with books, while our clothes
washed he talked to us about god (our first warning sign) then about how the
CIA was involved in all sorts of nasties (second warning sign) then I started
to notice the titles on the books...

LOTS of JW stuff, Lots of conspiracy theory stuff, lots of antisemitic themed
books.

the guy was completely bonkers, utterly up to his eyeballs in conspiracy stuff
and somehow always linked it back to how the JW was there to protect
themselves from them.

he was a very pleasant enough guy and old and alone but the JW sect seems to
have fed him all sorts of bullshit.

------
weirdos
The author, having been home schooled by Jehovah’s Witnesses, waxes somewhat
unsurprised at this reflection, and takes it in stride.

To be honest, having weird family members isn’t really all that weird. Beyond
a certain age, when they can no longer embarass you, and you no longer depend
on them as guardians, parents transform themselves into quasi-grandparents,
even if you don’t have children. Growing up, half my grandparents were cooky,
debilitated by age, and not exactly inspiring or heroic.

Old age is kind of terrible, and people mostly don’t improve after 50. So,
things could be worse. Abuse and turmoil at younger ages is way more
traumatic.

------
svat
I love this article: [https://deansforimpact.org/why-mythbusting-fails-a-
guide-to-...](https://deansforimpact.org/why-mythbusting-fails-a-guide-to-
influencing-education-with-science/) (“Why mythbusting fails: A guide to
influencing education with science”) Narrowly, it's about “learning styles”,
the idea that certain students are e.g. “visual learners” and would benefit
from education geared towards visual learners. But more broadly, it's about
science in general, about persuasion. In its second half (starting at “Is
there any hope for change?”), it outlines an excellent approach for dealing
with such cases — or really, any disagreements between people. Failure to
follow a similar approach may feel good in the short term, but usually has
tragic consequences.

And if it can happen with educated teachers, it can of course happen with
flat-earth believers.

~~~
scarejunba
I thought this “visual learner” vs other kind thing failed to replicate.
Example of article listing some sources:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-
myth...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-
learning-styles/557687/)

~~~
svat
Yes, that's what the article I linked is about. (Specifically, a letter which
led to headlines like “Teachers must ditch 'neuromyth' of learning styles, say
scientists”.) I see that similar articles (thanks for your link) continue to
be published in 2018, which I guess proves that no one took notice or heeded
the advice.

~~~
scarejunba
Oh, I misunderstood what your summary was. I thought you said that the reason
myths don’t take hold is that the learning style doesn’t match the myth
busting style. Never mind then!

------
jesuslop
Interestingly, it's the same problem than to determine if live in a flat or
curved space(-time). You can determine curvature by intrinsic means. I you go
from north pole to Ecuador painting your direction, turn 90º, advance a
quarter of the equator, turn 90º still, and go home the Pole, your arrival
direction is at still 90 degreess relative to your starting direction. the
angles sum 270º! Instead of the 180 that should sum in flat Euclidean space.
IIRC Gauss went to the mountains with ropes and instruments to verify things
by himself, in a striking display of intelectual independence, defying any
common sense of the time, and in fact he was shown right by the physics of
last century. His shitty ropes just hadn't enough measuring accuracy.

------
ARandomerDude
I'm sure I believe some things that are wrong (everyone does)...but I hope my
kids have the decency not to trash me in a blog post when they're older.

~~~
kungtotte
There's a difference in clinging to something you learned in school (e.g.
tastes being localized to certain areas of the tongue. Countries neatly
dividing into western and third world countries. Pluto being a planet) by not
keeping up to date, and believing something we've known to be false for
literally thousands of years...

------
JohnJamesRambo
How do flat earthers explain that the other planets are round and we see
different sides of them all the time? Is earth flat and the rest of the
planets are spheres??? Even in their bizarre world of logic this seems
unassailable.

~~~
teraflop
"What do you mean, 'we'? When I look through a telescope, all I see is a fuzzy
dot. Scientists keep conveniently coming up with these photos that supposedly
show the Earth and other planets to be round, but the rest of us have no way
of verifying that they're anything other than pure fiction."

Or something along those lines.

~~~
perl4ever
You can doubt anything given sufficient belief in conspiracies, but the most
compelling evidence that the typical flat-earth theories are wrong for me, is
a picture of Antarctica from directly overhead.

e.g.
[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/36839/antarctica](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/36839/antarctica)

~~~
saagarjha
> Scientists keep conveniently coming up with these photos that supposedly
> show the Earth and other planets to be round, but the rest of us have no way
> of verifying that they're anything other than pure fiction.

Unfortunately this still applies. It’s very hard to “prove” this to people,
space travel being expensive and all, but until they can experience it
themselves it’s easy to keep coming up with reasons why scientists are
misleading you.

------
jerkstate
You gotta admit, if you don't think too hard about it, it is pretty weird how
many flights there are over the arctic when there aren't any (at all!) over
the antarctic.

Have you tried explaining/performing Eristothanes experiment with them?
[https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-
proved-t...](https://astronavigationdemystified.com/eratosthenes-proved-that-
the-earth-is-not-flat/)

edit: didn't mean to sound like a flat-earther! please stop downvoting!

~~~
cyberferret
Quite simply - there is much more land mass in the Northern Hemisphere, and
flights, say from Moscow to Anchorage or Reykjavik to Toronto have great
circle routes that traverse the Arctic circle.

The Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, has no large land masses near it,
and even the southern most points of Australia/New Zealand and South America
are too far away for any great circle routes to cut through there without
being a greater distance than any other routing.

~~~
markonen
Something like PER–SCL or AKL–CPT would fly over Antarctica in strict great
circle terms, but would require ETOPS-370 rules to fly. Also, I have no idea
how prevailing winds would affect the optimal routing. And it's not like these
are highly trafficked city pairs.

I seem to remember that Qantas has had flights crossing Antarctica in the
past; their point was probably to cross/sightsee Antarctica rather than be the
optimal routing for a flight though.

~~~
dingaling
Just as an aside, no-one planning actual ETOPS routes would ever use IATA
airport codes.

IATA codes are to ICAO as NetBIOS names are to DNS.

I wish we could stamp-out the casual use of IATA codes, they do have some
internal admin uses within airlines but they only cover a subset of airports
and they don't have any logical decoding sequence.

~~~
markonen
Yes, but we passengers use them regularly.

------
gfosco
I don't see this sentiment elsewhere so I'll share it... I enjoyed reading
this article but I think it's really f __ked up he wrote this about his
parents.

~~~
super_cereal
Why?

~~~
gfosco
To me it seems disrespectful and offensive to publicly shame your parents, or
almost anyone really, over privately shared conversations and opinions.
Reminds me of this time I had lunch with a co-worker, who repeatedly referred
to his parents as being "uneducated" because they didn't finish college.

------
fourier_mode
> But the Moon’s dimensions show the designers used the metric system

How does looking at dimensions affirm that metric system was used?

> They live in respectable houses, and host meals with respectable friends.
> They eat well. They travel for holidays, by plane, all over the Earth.

The OP tells as if this is a good thing. However this is the scariest parts of
all. Because who knows these people can as well be the next presidents.

> As a Flat-Earther, having your theory rejected only re-confirms the
> Illuminati’s brainwashing campaign.

A good point, which even most of the political strategists DO NOT implement.
"Pushing extreme ideas does not swing votes."

Conclusion: OP seems like he has given up on trying to come up with good ideas
to deal with fallacies of his parents. This might seem cute at first, but
there isn't a sense of realization that this might be very harmful to the
society as a whole.

~~~
pliftkl
Obviously when humans designed the universe, we didn't use the metric system.
We used English units, which is why the speed of light is 1 foot per
nanosecond!

(Actually that's a _really_ close approximation and very helpful in reasoning
about special relativity).

------
aae42
Jehovah's Witnesses own official website is anti-flat earth:
[https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/flat-
earth/](https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/flat-earth/)

------
barberousse
I feel like more people need to read Foucault. He is in a sense the
prototypical the writer responsible for a lot of the contemporary left
perspective on the entrenchment of practices of power in innocuous places
(speeches, the design of prisons, schools, clinics, etc). In a sense, even
challenges to climate change can find some anchor in his work. His work is
avowedly nonpartisan ("I am just making tools", to paraphrase), though
Foucault himself was a gay French historian who did much activism on prison
reform and has an interesting take on the Iranian Revolution. But at the end
of the day, I know no better resource with which to navigate modern
information hysteria (and no matter how well-dressed in "rationality" it may
appear).

------
yumraj
This is the first time I'm hearing about Flat Earthers so a couple of
questions according to these people, if anyone knows - genuinely curious (I
don't want to search since then Google will start showing me some ads related
to FE):

1) if the Earth is flat, then what is on the other side of the flat Earth - do
people live there?

2) I'm assuming it's like a thick cylinder, if so how thick is the Earth?

3) depending on how thick it is, what is on the sides - do people live there?

OR, do these morons don't care about these things?? Again, genuinely curious
if anyone knows.

~~~
stan_rogers
By the "standard model", thickness beyond whatever's necessary to make the
pizza structurally sound (and allow mining and such) is immaterial. No-one
lives on the sides, and there's nothing on the bottom. Or, alternately, the
bottom extends infinitely to compensate for the complete lack of turtles. Take
your pick - both work. Don't worry about the mass of the earth, since gravity
isn't a thing; the _appearance_ of gravity is due to density (somehow) or to
the ever-accelerating vertical ascent of the Earth and the nice space-like
ceiling and its lights and other decorations (moons and such). If there was
any of that so-called "gravity" that NASA ordered Newton and Einstein to make
up plausible math for, the Earth would either have to extend to an infinite
plane (which does bad things for fitting the dome sky) or anything not in the
centre of the Earth would have a distinct lean to it. (Although perspective
and atmospheric refraction would probably make things _look_ vertical, just as
it works to make the sun appear to rise and set as it travels in its circle
over the disc and causes ships to appear to disappear from the bottom up over
the horizon. Which ships clearly don't, because Nikon P900.) And don't bother
mentioning that density differences need gravity to work as an up/down
mechanism, since your so-called "gravity" is just density. (Yes, that will be
the answer you get.)

The key terms to remember are _density_ , _perspective_ and _refraction_.
These explain any sphere-like or broadly heliocentric behaviours you may
observe. And no, you can't just go to Antarctica to prove that it's just
another continent, because there are armed forces keeping you away from the
ice wall.

------
michaelmrose
I feel like the real challenge is not what people want to discuss over dinner
but that we allow people that are incapable of finding the holes in the flat
earth theory to have the vote.

------
sorryforthethro
Sorry again, of course the majority of FE are a bit cargo-cult; but the root
of it is "fallacy of authority" no? There aren't many ways to tangibly justify
the shape of the Earth to the average person. If all the images are photo-
shopped and all the data is fraudulent, suddenly the world is a whole lot
darker. And as much as it seems, the joke that the true edge of the flat earth
is a mental illness diagnosis, says more about us than them.

------
aryehof
Before reading your article, which I enjoyed, the title translated in my mind
to "My Parents Are Conspiracy Theorists". It was interesting to see that you
then stated that connection in the article.

Rather than such views being an amusing curiousity, I find your parents a
threat. As a member of a minority, your parents are predisposed to believe
anything about us, all from a position of ignorance.

------
ddtaylor
> MKULTRA (uncontroversial)

That's somewhat refreshing to read. I think 99% of Americans would call you
crazy if you tried to explain MKULTRA.

------
Dowwie
Flat Earth theory seems like a symptom of a condition. Those who are showing
symptoms deserve love and compassion, not ostracism.

------
renox
It doesn't look like he's worried but IMHO he should be: while a lot of these
flat-earther/conspirationist are just "having fun" like he said, crooks can
target easily these people! They're telling the word: I'm a gullible person
with faulty logic, imagine how an attractive target they represent to crooks!

------
chris_wot
This works in the opposite direction. Read Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy's
_The Jesus Mysteries_ and you'll see the sort of unsubstantiated and
ridiculous theories that permeate the Flat Earther worldview.

------
pmontra
I'm sure they have a good explanation for it that I don't bother to google,
but how do satellites orbit a flat Earth to give us common experiences like
satellite TV and GPS? And what about the moon.

~~~
tartrate
According to the video, satellites simply don't exist. Satellite dishes read
signals that have bounced off of a dome around earth. And the moon, well, the
author quotes a book he received: “One day humanity will have to go back in
time 4.6 billion years to build Earth’s Moon!”

Yikes.

~~~
pmontra
And when they'll be at it, maybe they'll flatten Earth and rewire the minds of
most of us to think it's a sphere. Why didn't I think about it? ;-)

------
amriksohata
Flat earthers are just rebels that don't want to listen to modern science for
various other reasons, business backing, lack of trust etc

------
zubairq
If people want to believe in flat earth, let them. And flat earthers should
allow others to believe in what they want to as well. In 1000 years people
will look back at all of us and think of how primitive we were for believing
many of the things that we believe too. And another 1000 years after that then
people will do the same. I think that looking down on people for believing
something different is the same as racial hatred (it all comes down to
prejudice)

------
ToughMandrill
Is true that flat earthers really exist? Or are they conspiring against us to
believe they believe in a flat Earth??

------
OscarTheGrinch
Where do they think the edge is?

------
GrumpyNl
Its all about education. He even pointed it out in the article, he was home
schooled.

------
blakejustblake
While the author of this post focuses on the idea of a flat earth conspiracy
leading to their conclusion that people believing in conspiracy theories don't
have much influence over our everyday lives and that they're "fun", I can't
help but disagree with an example that he even mentions shortly in the post:
Anti-vaccination. The WHO has named anti-vaccination as a top 10 global health
threat. Right now in Clark County Oregon there's an evolving problem with the
spread of measles. I can understand the author's attempts to reconcile his
parents' weird beliefs, but I can't agree with his conclusion that they're
mostly fun and harmless. People who deny climate change enact that belief in
the way they vote and in their every day consumption. That's not just a fun
point to argue with. It's affecting everyone's lives.

------
stevefan1999
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect)

------
ngcc_hk
Poor kid.

------
gzak
Must say, I wouldn't find it fun - I had a similar experience with my own
folks when I found out they were avid Trump supporters. I was stunned at
first, then I thought "nbd, I'll change their minds next family get together".
Nope, every time we discuss it, we both double down, stop listening to each
other, let our emotions run high, and get nowhere. Very stressful, we now try
to avoid the subject altogether.

------
unknowns
I have some clarification on this whole flat earth thing and it is insidious.

I have a father who is prone to believing conspiracy theories. When I grew up
he bought me a thousand "unexplained mysteries" magazines. the topics ranged
from spontaneous combustion to ghosts to Loch ness monster to the magazines
primary focus.. aliens. I had an incredibly scary childhood. As I grew older i
learned that the strange noises at night were not ghosts but the house
settling or something like that. It took me years to find peace from his
indoctrination.

Today, He doesn't care about any of those topics. They just seemed to slowly
vanish from his radar. Today it is the invasion of "lesser" species trying to
erode "Our" "Moral certainties"

\- He believes Trump is the answer the world needs \- He believes Global
warming is a myth created by Al Gore so he could take billions from the
government \- He believes brown skin makes you less intelligent because your
DNA prohibits you from excelling, "Nature has chosen white DNA" \- He believes
the Rockerfeller's control the world through manipulation and bribery. \- He
lives in South Africa, yet is obsessed with Palestinian Politics. \- He has a
programmer son, and a Scientist Daughter, but routinely sends conspiracy
theories to both of us to the point where I no longer interact with him

I spent many hours researching why this could happen. Why would a person
abandon all reason and persue his own beliefs so fervently? It turns out that
people are prone to conspiracy theories via their personality. They don't
understand the world, dont trust the government, and therefore latch on to an
explanation that explains the whole world to them. Anybody trying to explain
the difficulty of the situation to them is therefore an "attacker".

The reason Flat earth is so insidious is that it has brought 3 active
communities together. 1) The conspiracy crowd who does't trust the government
("The man") 2) Religious Christians who interpret the bible literally. ("The
four corners of the earth") 3) Muslim culture being exterminated by christian
"integrity". Christians view the muslim community by default as heathens. 4)
the obvious crazies.

so you have 3 powerful, emotional motivators steering this conspiracy. to the
point where good science is being applied well, to poor premises.

I was listening to a pod cast about this where the scientist in question was
impressed by the level of scientific control over the completely insane
premise.

I have not solved this problem or re-connected with my father. It is ongoing
and the misinformation is just horrific. Right now I feel that humanity is as
divided as ever, with corporations taking their biggest cut.

I honestly expected a completely different outcome to the freedome of
information we have today. I expected enlightenment, but instead got people
doubling down on their own beliefs and researching points to support them
because emotions at the end of the day are more important than truth.

------
aaaaaaaaaab
I remember stumbling upon the Flat Earth Society back around 2003. I was
convinced it was one of those elaborate ironic jokes/hoaxes that we used to
have back then (bonsai kitten, World Jump Day, etc.)

------
purplezooey
We're heading to the apocalypse quickly.

------
ToughMandrill
Is it true that flat earthers really exist? Or are they conspiring against us
to make us believe that they believe in a flat Earth?

