I wonder if some self-professed flat-earthers (emphasis on those who are members of the Flat Earth Society) are into it only to — let’s say — meet 
other flat-earthers, and believing that a genuine flat-earther has some vulnerability that can be taken advantage of (while not considering the possibility that the person they believe to be a “genuine flat-earther”, is simply someone else just like them — a social loser sniffing around for action.
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I dunno, I hold religious people’s view of fantastical deities with no proof in plenty of contempt myself.
I’d be willing to bet I’m far from the only one here.
We ignore these people and what they believe because we’ve allowed society traditionally to normalize such a belief, and only in modern times is questioning that belief and its lunacy on a widespread and even global level considered acceptable.
100 years ago, you’d be brow beaten for calling religious people lunatics, or worse.
Nowadays, there are more people who believe in rational things, except the ones that still don’t have doubled down to dangerous levels of belief, where rationality has left the building, and they would rather believe they will be spared by some god from a pandemic than wear a mask, or believe the earth is round, or any number of other fact based rational views of the world.
And it’s just my opinion- but its precisely these people with this type of delusional thinking who are often exactly the ones lately that are killing us with their ignorance as a whole.
I have nothing against people believing in something bigger than themselves for mental comfort, but when that belief leads to death and misery for those around them I get angry.
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We’re partial to the Earth changing shape to suit Our mood, as long as We are not making any important decisions on that whim.
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The main difference is that one group has been around for millennia (or decades if you subscribe to the American tendency to even recognise cults like the Mormons or Scientology as religions). They’ve been grandfathered in.
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People who believe in a God get a pass that only goes so far, as far as I’m concerned. I have no problem with anyone having a belief in a higher power, so long as they keep it quietly to themselves, but as soon as that turns to aggressive promotion of their beliefs, stating that their world-view is the only one that counts and everyone should swallow their ‘party-line’ hook, line and sinker, that’s when my hackles rise!
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I once clicked on a flat earth meme on Pinterest and was inundated with that stuff for months. So, I have some questions about flat earth but I’m afraid to ask google.
So I’m asking you people…
On the flat earth where does the sun go at night?
And on an unrelated note, at what point in the last 6,000 years did the dinosaurs die out? What happened to them? And why did the humans survive?
(Ummm, wrong answers only obvs)
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I use private browsing windows to run searches like this. It’s not just for porn.
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I’ll be right back…
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Oh. This is easy. There wasn’t space on Noah’s Ark for the dinosaurs and unicorns. Humans were on the ark and are God’s children. This is covered in Genesis. Dinosaurs are called out explicitly in the story of the ark.
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The turtle that carries the world needs vitamin D too.
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Right - I’m back.
I traveled incognito to the the Flat Earth Society and learned that the sun floats above the surface of the Earth travelling in a circle. It shines its light like a spotlight, the lit parts experience day and the dark parts experience dark.
This is clearly horseshit as I have personally witnessed many sunsets and even a couple of sunrises.
Imma call this one busted.
About the dinosaurs, I learned the following…
“During the global Flood, many were buried and fossilized but two of each kind survived on Noah’s Ark. They eventually died out, due to human activity, climate changes, or other factors.”
I’m largely ignorant of geology and paleontology and have little curiosity about either, so I find this answer entirely satisfactory.
Myth confirmed!
Thanks Incognito Internet!!
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I love how the flat-earther map at the beginning of the vid looks as though the earth were a sphere, cut and deflated like a beach ball, then pressed out flat. It’s almost as though the flat-earthers can’t get around the whole sphere idea to begin with. Weird.
Just finished this: https://www.amazon.com/Allure-Immortality-American-Florida-Renegade/dp/0813064406 about Cyrus Teed and his Koreshan Unity cult. They took the flat earth to the inevitable next step, curling it in on itself until the surface of the world is on the inside of a hollow sphere. (Which is itself composed of layers of various metals and the sun is an invisible electromagnetic battery and so on and so forth never mind) Their motto was “We Live Inside” and after moving the cult from New York to south Florida Teed teamed up with a devout mathematician to prove it, with the Koreshan Geodetic Survey of 1897. This involved repeated measurements across miles of coastline with this thing – http://archive.naplesnews.com/special/from-the-archives/throwback-thursday-koreshan-geodetic-survey-1897-ep-1299124454-340445041.html , designed to extend a perfectly straight line which, being aimed apparently parallel to the ground at its start would inevitably trend apparently downward along its course as the earth curved up to meet it. The survey resulted in complete success. They kept good records of the instruments and measurements, and here’s a nice website based on that data that explains how they could have gotten it wrong all innocently – https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/morrow.htm All in all a very fun cult, lots of stuff online, and the book referenced above is especially recommended
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This guy was definitely blinded by something he mistook for science.
He also says no single person understands all the bricks our view of the world is built upon.
Almost as if to call for some humility. But I might be mistaken.
I especially liked his explanation that many people feel lost in a world that is shaped by large entities and systems the people themselves have no longer any influence on. “Exposing” fundamental truths as manipulative lies is one way to rebel against that.
And the systems that produce these people are systems that failed them and many others, if only by providing them with proper education and a way to participate constructively.
I think it’s pretty much random who ends up on which side of the fence, it’s mostly a result of who your parents were and what people you met. The “system” does a really bad job at equality of opportunity.
So maybe after all it does make sense to understand why people think the earth is flat, and not settle for “they’re idiots”.
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As an atheist I really don’t want to defend religion but there’s a Popperian (?) difference between an unfalsifiable god and a cleary falsifiable flat earth.
The existence of god can’t be proved true or false and ultimately depends on faith. To an empiricist, that means statements such as “god exists” or “god does not exist” are effectively meaningless. If such statements cannot be proved true or false, they’re futile and vacuous; no knowledge can come of them; no wisdom can be gained. It’s like the claim that I’m being followed by an invisible, undetectable elephant that avoids all attempts at being noticed. Who cares?
On the other hand, there is empirical evidence that the earth is an oblate spheroid, as well as empirical evidence that it is not flat. The fact that these sad people don’t want to accept that evidence is their problem, not mine. Science doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.
So yes, there is a difference. In terms of empiricism, one statement is meaningless, while the other is just wrong.
Importantly, it doesn’t make either of them true.
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I think you might have just solved the flat earther mystery!
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Vaguely related to the topic, but it always amuses me that when you think about it, Terry Pratchet’s Discworld makes far more sense in the mechanics of how a flat earth could exist due to the reason it’s largely powered by magic.
Far simpler than the extreme mental gymnastics required for a non-magical flat earth to exist… 
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If not, I hope people still appreciate that I had to spend time in an ugly, shadowy corner of my mind for that. A couple of cat/puppy chasers helped afterwards, though.
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Yea, I feel the same way.
The one thing this guy didn’t touch on - perhaps because he was focused more on the science - is the idea that in order to have a conspiracy that the earth is flat and we’re being lied to means you are operating under the assumption that a MASSIVE amount of people (too many to likely even calculate) would have to be in on it.
And not only in on it now, but in on it since… like 1000 years ago.
While I mostly agree with you, I found this video was worth watching. He didn’t set out to debunk these people, as that’s clearly unnecessary. He instead tried to understand how they came to reject actual science in favor of this literal nonsense. Armed with this understanding, maybe we can learn how to communicate with them and help them out of the bath of stupidity they’re drowning themselves in.
I see a huge crossover between QAnon, the right-wing, religious evangelicals, and flat-earthers, as their arguments are all essentially rooted in the same non-logic. Learning what’s corrupted one group may help understand what’s corrupted the others.
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