Flat earth conspiracy spreads globally

[kellyb]

There ought to be consequences for being wrong about flat earth.

Consequence-free contrarianism is its own reward.

Then Joe goes with the "we're all right and enlightened, and the problem is you" technique, which convinces NOBODY besides yourselves, if that.

you've joined an online hate group masquerading as "skepticism".

That seems a bit extreme. I don't see anyone here taking that position. Not bullying, sadism or hate.

It's just hate and sadism and bullying, and they're super into it, Puppy. People get addicted to that stuff online. Stop giving these weirdos cover by legitimizing them with your quasi-participation in it, and rationalization of it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

What conversation are you having? Who are you talking to?

 

[kellyb]

What conversation are you having? Who are you talking to?

I'm talking to Puppycow. I'm hoping the Darat chimes in, since he's our actually benevolent "dictator" here.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited for breach of rule 0 and rule 12

 

[JoeMorgue]

*Laughs* Jesus. Watching someone get triggered over the very idea of telling people they are wrong to this degree, crafting fantasies about hate-cults.

I almost want to thank you. I couldn't have written a character to prove my point better.

 

[Puppycow]

When you just try to cause psychological pain (with some sort of humiliation, or low grade social torturing, or gaslighting...things YOU personally NEVER do) to people for expressing a viewpoint you see as misguided, it doesn't persuade them. It just makes them seek a place free from "you" to work things out and suss out the wheat from the chaff in this BS-laden world .

You say "we can't even get simple agreement on basic, demonstrable facts," but the hate group doesn't start there with people and work it out from there to the actual logical deduction. You (to whatever extent you are part of the hate group) don't go for the agreement first, like "you" should. You go right into low-grade psychological torture "you" think they "deserve" (oh, vomit) for not being so sure about that fact and needing persuasion.

It's so anti-social and counterproductive and the exact opposite of the good and pure skepticism Sagan promoted. Please tell me you can at least kind of see that. You're a skeptic, but your crowd you fell in with? These folks are just sadists. That's all. Nothing else to see here. They've been given a "cover" to do what they do because of the troubeling reality of how conspiracy theories and some specific types of other woo online can result in real damage aspect, but impure motives are going to result in effed up outcomes every time. It almost definitely drives some of them into "alt light" stuff, to "alt right" ******** ending with them listening to true believers in the "human biodiversity" stuff. Or whatever it is those people fall into where they find the authority figures they seek if they're not taught how to become ********-proof.

Puppy, you have got to go apostate on the hate group, or you are complicit in the harm.

So if I understand correctly, the point you're making is that being mean to people is counterproductive. You said something earlier about how this is why people vote for Trump. Because they're sick of being sneered at by the "liberal elites" so they vote for a pugnacious populist who will stand up for them. OK, fair enough. That's a valid point. But I don't think the motives are what you ascribe. Skeptics are just people too with limited time and patience for nonsense. I certainly don't have the time ot patience to hand-hold every conspiracy theorist and gently explain the flaws in their reasoning. Lord knows I've tried. It has never worked. So I guess the best thing is just ignore it and let them figure it out for themselves. Or not.

 

[kellyb]

You said something earlier about how this is why people vote for Trump. Because they're sick of being sneered at by the "liberal elites" so they vote for a pugnacious populist who will stand up for them. OK, fair enough. That's a valid point. But I don't think the motives are what you ascribe.

It's part of how you get q-anon and pizzagate and Benghazi!!!! and all that other stupid **** making Trump possible.

The motives with these hate groupers are absolutely sadism and the fun of being part of a dog pile and bad things like that. It's not altruism, that's for damn sure.

 

[Hellbound]

Yeah....no.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

It's part of how you get q-anon and pizzagate and Benghazi!!!! and all that other stupid **** making Trump possible.

The motives with these hate groupers are absolutely sadism and the fun of being part of a dog pile and bad things like that. It's not altruism, that's for damn sure.

Gwyneth Paltrow has 1.3 million followers on FaceBook. This Forum has fewer than 1000 active members.

To blame skeptics for the creation of magical thinkers is the height of . . . ..

We are still staggering out of the Dark Ages.

 

[carlitos]

You know, "liberal elite" should really mean something more than "believes in the world as it actually exists."

 

[Hellbound]

You know, "liberal elite" should really mean something more than "believes in the world as it actually exists."

Pretty much.

The issue with things like Flat Earth isn't so much the belief itself; it's the absolute repudiation of the ideals of freethought that lead to that belief. To hold a Flat Earth belief in this day and age takes an astounding level of ignorance...not just that, but it requires one to actively refute the foundations of freethought: a rejection of logic, reason, and empiricism. A denial of objective reality, a refusal of fact. It relies on that aforementioned revelation and dogma to exist.

In short, it is "WrongThink", in the sense of someone not thinking correctly. And I make no allowances for it.

Now, taking that and assuming I'm sharpening the knives for my new pogrom is quite a bit of an intuitive leap...another that seems to rely more on revelation than on logic and reason. But there are some people that you simply can't reach to change their minds, whether you're mean to them, or not, because they actively resist rational thought.

I do believe in "more flies with honey" and so forth, but at a point where you lay out the honey and the flies spit on it, accuse you of poisoning it, and try to bite you...the only thing you can do is either walk away or get out the flyswatter.

ETA: Well, technically, flies are even more attracted to bullstuff. But covering ourselves in that is the whole thing we're trying to avoid as skeptics, I thought

 

[trustbutverify]

How did y'all come across the word "skepticism" to describe yourselves?

Who appointed you the guardian of skeptical purity?

 

[DuvalHMFIC]

Who appointed you the guardian of skeptical purity?

Please try to keep up, Carl Sagan appointed her!

 

[JoeMorgue]

Okay I can't believe I'm having to explain this to grown person but here we go.

The comparison on opposition to Flat Eartherism with some like Pizzagate is, and keep up with me here and let me know where I lose you, Pizzagate is factually incorrect and Flat Eartherism is factually incorrect.

*Very slowly, as if speaking to a child* Being adamant you are right when you are right and being adamant you are right when you are wrong are different things.

"Facts Exist" used to be something we could agree on, no matter how much we disagreed on what those facts where, but we're in the Post-Truth era now.

 

[dudalb]

A.People have a right to believe and say really stupid crap.
B.I have a right to ridicule it and show that it is stupid crap.

 

[dudalb]

Though this thread seems a better fit for the General Skepticism section .

 

[Pope130]

Though this thread seems a better fit for the General Skepticism section .

The idea of a flat Earth would fit better in General Skepticism, but the implementation of the cover-up, and the lie that the Earth is nearly spherical, would seem to fit into the Conspiracy area.

The conspiracy comes in because hundreds of thousands of people have traveled by sea or air in the southern hemisphere who would have noticed that the distances are much greater than a globe would indicate. They must all be lying to us for some reason.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The idea of a flat Earth would fit better in General Skepticism, but the implementation of the cover-up, and the lie that the Earth is nearly spherical, would seem to fit into the Conspiracy area.



The conspiracy comes in because hundreds of thousands of people have traveled by sea or air in the southern hemisphere who would have noticed that the distances are much greater than a globe would indicate. They must all be lying to us for some reason.

If the guy who fuels planes for London to NY flights decides that they really only need some small fraction of the fuel used on a trip from Cape Town to Buenos Aires, because that's so much further on the flat earth, then telling him he's wrong is not some kind of psychologist torture. It's fact versus fiction.

 

[Puppycow]

The idea of a flat Earth would fit better in General Skepticism, but the implementation of the cover-up, and the lie that the Earth is nearly spherical, would seem to fit into the Conspiracy area.

The conspiracy comes in because hundreds of thousands of people have traveled by sea or air in the southern hemisphere who would have noticed that the distances are much greater than a globe would indicate. They must all be lying to us for some reason.

To believe in flat earth in this century requires you to believe in a massive conspiracy theory. You have to believe that anyone involved in the aerospace industry is involved. Anyone who has traveled to Antarctica. It also requires a lot of willful ignorance.

I'd like to note that one of the best proofs of globe earth is simply the photographs we have of the earth from space. These are perfectly valid forms of evidence and simply declaring them to be fake is not a good faith argument. You either have to declare them fake or concede that the world is round as shown by the photos. But simply not accepting that goes against what you want to believe doesn't make the evidence any less valid.

 

[trustbutverify]

The idea of a flat Earth would fit better in General Skepticism, but the implementation of the cover-up, and the lie that the Earth is nearly spherical, would seem to fit into the Conspiracy area.

The conspiracy comes in because hundreds of thousands of people have traveled by sea or air in the southern hemisphere who would have noticed that the distances are much greater than a globe would indicate. They must all be lying to us for some reason.

It's called mass hypnosis, Mr Elitist Weisenheimer.

 

[kellyb]

A.People have a right to believe and say really stupid crap.
B.I have a right to ridicule it and show that it is stupid crap.

It's absolutely your right. I begrudge no one their anti-social, hedonistic pleasures as long as they're still technically legal.

I'm just noting that it has nothing to do with skepticism. It's online hate group mob behavior with absolutely no socially useful function, and it does demonstrable harm.