• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Flat earth conspiracy spreads globally

shemp

a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
shemp
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
Messages
69,606
Location
The U.S., a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Does it hide a darker core?


(CNN) - "I don't want to be a flat earther," David Weiss says, his voice weary as he reflects on his personal awakening. "Would you wake up in the morning and want everyone to think you're an idiot?"

But Weiss is a flat earther. Ever since he tried and failed to find proof of the earth's curve four years ago, he's believed with an evident passion that our planet is both flat and stationary -- and it's turned his world upside down.

"I absolutely freaked out," Weiss tells CNN in a phone interview. "It literally whips the rug out from underneath you."

Now, Weiss finds it tedious to associate with the majority of people -- though he "unfortunately" still has some friends who believe in a round earth. "I have no problem with anybody that wants to believe we live on a ball. That's their choice," he says. "It's just not something I resonate with."

Weiss' preferred community is those who share his life-altering belief.

And that community is vast.
Click to expand...

The story of idiots who are immune to irony.
 
Again the whole "Flat Earth" shtick in its current form is just one big piece of anti-intellectual performance art, a bunch of sad twatdonkeys who are being wrong for affect to rail against a world they see as too focused on being right.

The subtext is a sad little man jumping up and down screaming "Lookit me being proudly and stubbornly wrong about something so basically obvious you couldn't strawman a more ludicrous example and still functioning in my day to day life, don't you feel stupid for all that effort you put into being right about everything?"

It's the seeds of a new "I'm proud to be wrong because I live in a world where being wrong doesn't have consequences" movement.
 
Last edited:
Oh to be sure there's still some of the old classic religious based flat-eartherism and just plain old legit nutcasery around in the margins to be sure, but I think the driving force behind the more, almost meme based resurgence version of it we've been seeing in recent years is probably more in line with what I was saying.

An exasperated push back against the strawman version of people who "just have to be right all the time" is in there somewhere I think.
 
I'm not sure that this "Flat earth conspiracy spreads globally" qualifies for a global spread. I do think that there is a part of them that don't believe the world is flat and are just trolling. Then there are the stupid, that believe what mankind disproved centuries ago.
 
They might claim to not want to believe in it, but the reality is that if you give them the evidence that they are wrong, instead of going "Hey I was wrong, I don't have to believe it any more" they scream at you and call you names and declare you as a sheeple shill paid off by NASA.
 
JoeMorgue said:
It's the seeds of a new "I'm proud to be wrong because I live in a world where being wrong doesn't have consequences" movement.
Click to expand...

There ought to be consequences for being wrong about flat earth. Frankly, I think the whole lot of them should be taken out to the edge and pushed off it.
 
PhantomWolf said:
They might claim to not want to believe in it, but the reality is that if you give them the evidence that they are wrong, instead of going "Hey I was wrong, I don't have to believe it any more" they scream at you and call you names and declare you as a sheeple shill paid off by NASA.
Click to expand...

This.

Flat earth is a gnostic cult for those who need to believe that they are among a small minority of truly clever people who are too clever to be fooled like the great masses of their intellectual inferiors. When you start dismantling their fantasy cosmos with things like junior high school geometry you get to see how insecure they really are.
 
Maybe we should think of it as just another religion. With its own "revelations" for "the elect" and so on. They're like the Scientologists, or something. Maybe less organized than Scientology, but give it time.
 
smartcooky said:
There ought to be consequences for being wrong about flat earth. Frankly, I think the whole lot of them should be taken out to the edge and pushed off it.
Click to expand...
You know that NASA wouldn't let that happen. They have thousands of troops stationed in Antarctica at the ice-wall.
 
Every religion is silly. Doesn't mean everything silly is religion. Flat earth is just another CT. I certainly know lot more people who believe in chemtrails.
 
People who believe in chemtrails tend to be the same bunch that believe in flat earth, fake moon landings, bigfoot, and UFOs. This mind-set goes with the territory and seems to know no bounds.
 
Are people sincere about this? I had the impression a few years back that self professed flat earthers were entirely playing characters for lols. Are some of them sincere now?
 
Dr.Sid said:
Every religion is silly. Doesn't mean everything silly is religion. Flat earth is just another CT. I certainly know lot more people who believe in chemtrails.
Click to expand...

OK, but what is the conspiracy? Also why? If the world is flat, why pretend otherwise? Seems like a conspiracy without an obvious motive to me.
 
Cavemonster said:
Are people sincere about this? I had the impression a few years back that self professed flat earthers were entirely playing characters for lols. Are some of them sincere now?
Click to expand...

It's hard to know, but I don't know if it really matters whether they're "sincere" or not. The effect on the rest of us seems to be same either way. That is, it doesn't really affect me. I can't reason them out of their belief either, any more than I could talk a sincere religious believer out of their religion using reason and facts.

If they aren't sincere, then engaging with them seems to be a waste of time. But even if they are sincere, it still seems to be a waste of time in the same way as arguing with a religious zealot is a waste of time.
 
Puppycow said:
OK, but what is the conspiracy? Also why? If the world is flat, why pretend otherwise? Seems like a conspiracy without an obvious motive to me.
Click to expand...

This rather reminds me of Mitchell and Webb's take on the motive for faking the moon landings

"Wouldn't it be great to make everyone think we'd landed on the moon? That'd show the Soviets.

"What would it show them?"

"Well, they'd think we'd landed on the moon and they'd be all afraid. Do this right and the Cold War could be over by 1971."​

NOTE: I doubt there would be anyone here who hasn't seen this, but its good for a laugh, so here goes

 
Puppycow said:
It's hard to know, but I don't know if it really matters whether they're "sincere" or not. The effect on the rest of us seems to be same either way. That is, it doesn't really affect me. I can't reason them out of their belief either, any more than I could talk a sincere religious believer out of their religion using reason and facts.

If they aren't sincere, then engaging with them seems to be a waste of time. But even if they are sincere, it still seems to be a waste of time in the same way as arguing with a religious zealot is a waste of time.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it matters much.

But in a broad sense, I'm alarmed by rejection of basic science and logic. Climate denial, anti-vaxxers etc. The larger a foothold those things have, the more alarmed we should be as a society.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom