Flat earth conspiracy spreads globally

JoeMorgue said:
You're not making sense. You have a chip on your shoulder about something and you're speaking in code.

Stop it.
Click to expand...

Stop acting like a member of some culty hate group out to squash all freethought.
 
Okay... is this one of those troll persona's I'm supposed recognize as some amazing Poe?

You're off your rocker. Either you're trolling or you have a legit mental illness. Either way, we're done.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay... is this one of those troll persona's I'm supposed recognize as some amazing Poe?

You're off your rocker. Either you're trolling or you have a legit mental illness. Either way, we're done.
Click to expand...

Or you've joined an online hate group masquerading as "skepticism".
 
Just to toss this out here, flat earth belief doesn't even qualify as freethought, in the philosophical sense. In fact, it's almost exactly the opposite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought
Freethought (or free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma.
Click to expand...

So blabbering about freethought meaning "flat earth" is just a display of one's own ignorance.
 
Well. I couldn't not have asked for a better example of what I was talking about. If I had actually described someone reacting to be told they are wrong like you have, it would have been dismissed as a strawman.
 
I think first there seems to be a question of what "freethought" means, but also a question of what boundaries exist in an actual society when your thoughts leave your immediate surroundings and go out into the world.

I realize that being on one side as opposed to another often leads to an inherent double bind. If you're against hate, you cannot meet haters on level ground, if you're against violence, you can't shoot the person who is shooting at you, and so forth. But I balk when it seems we must stand by and watch while those we truly believe to be wrong call us names and trash the earth around us. You are not the only one free to say things. I am too. At what magical point does expression become "squashing" for one side but never the other?

Freedom of thought is not freedom of action. You're free to think that the earth is flat or that Adam's children rode dinosaurs to school, or that coal is clean, but setting aside the sinophobic rants, no, I don't think you should teach that crap in my schools or run my country with impunity on the premise that opposition is improper.
 
"I absolutely freaked out," Weiss tells CNN in a phone interview. "It literally whips the rug out from underneath you."
Click to expand...

Why would a rug pulling out from you matter, since gravity isn't a real thing?
 
bruto said:
I think first there seems to be a question of what "freethought" means, but also a question of what boundaries exist in an actual society when your thoughts leave your immediate surroundings and go out into the world.

I realize that being on one side as opposed to another often leads to an inherent double bind. If you're against hate, you cannot meet haters on level ground, if you're against violence, you can't shoot the person who is shooting at you, and so forth. But I balk when it seems we must stand by and watch while those we truly believe to be wrong call us names and trash the earth around us. You are not the only one free to say things. I am too. At what magical point does expression become "squashing" for one side but never the other?

Freedom of thought is not freedom of action. You're free to think that the earth is flat or that Adam's children rode dinosaurs to school, or that coal is clean, but setting aside the sinophobic rants, no, I don't think you should teach that crap in my schools or run my country with impunity on the premise that opposition is improper.
Click to expand...

Well stated :)
 
kellyb said:
How does flat earth theory hurt anyone, though?
Click to expand...

Flat Earth is anti-science. They claim that Gravity is a myth, and that space doesn't exist.

If left unchecked to fool more people, whom they are hurting with their ignorance, we could one day be seeing people on education boards demanding that their flat-earth "science" is taught, just as we see those demanding that Young Earth Creationism is taught. More so we will start to have them appearing on the boards and committees that fund the likes of LIGO and projects such as the Kepler Telescope.

There is a US President in power currently that believes a lot of Conspiracy theories, including Climate Denial, and has caused and allowed major damage to the environment in just 3 years. What happens when a Globe Denier manages a similar feat and disbands NASA and demands that those involved with it are prosecuted for steal tax payer money?

These are the very real potential harms of it, and if we wait until it gets that far, then it's going to already be too late.
 
kellyb said:
How did y'all come across the word "skepticism" to describe yourselves?

You know Carl Sagan would be horrified by you, right? But Sagan's skepticism is for pussies or something?
Click to expand...



“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

― Carl Sagan
 
bruto said:
I think first there seems to be a question of what "freethought" means, but also a question of what boundaries exist in an actual society when your thoughts leave your immediate surroundings and go out into the world.

I realize that being on one side as opposed to another often leads to an inherent double bind. If you're against hate, you cannot meet haters on level ground, if you're against violence, you can't shoot the person who is shooting at you, and so forth. But I balk when it seems we must stand by and watch while those we truly believe to be wrong call us names and trash the earth around us. You are not the only one free to say things. I am too. At what magical point does expression become "squashing" for one side but never the other?

Freedom of thought is not freedom of action. You're free to think that the earth is flat or that Adam's children rode dinosaurs to school, or that coal is clean, but setting aside the sinophobic rants, no, I don't think you should teach that crap in my schools or run my country with impunity on the premise that opposition is improper.
Click to expand...

:bigclap

Or, to quote Mr T:
 
kellyb said:
Or you've joined an online hate group masquerading as "skepticism".
Click to expand...

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

Speaking only for myself, I don't hate anyone simply for holding false beliefs. I try not to hate anyone, but skeptics are only human too, after all. Annoyance and exasperation that this is still a thing and that we can't even get simple agreement on basic, demonstrable facts might better describe how I feel about it.

I would like to know what a better approach would be, since calmly and matter-of-factly explaining the actual facts seems to have negligible effectiveness.

How does flat earth theory hurt anyone, though?
Click to expand...

There's a quote from the Chernobyl miniseries:
What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn't matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is: "Who is to blame?"
Click to expand...

It's interesting that people who believe that the earth is flat all seem to also believe a host of other conspiracy theories. You have to believe that the moon landing was a hoax. You have to believe that any photograph taken of the earth from space is fake. You pretty much have to believe that NASA, and astronomers, and the whole of modern science is a vast conspiracy to deceive the people.

It's hard to put my finger on precisely what specific harm follows from this, but I really do wish that we all at least had a common set of facts to work from. I can accept differences of opinion. But when we can't even agree on the basic, objective facts, I do think that harm follows from that. We splinter into opposing camps, each of which has a fundamentally different worldview. It's near impossible to work for common goals, such as combating climate change, if a large group of people don't even believe that climate change is real.
 
Puppycow said:
That seems a bit extreme. I don't see anyone here taking that position. Not bullying, sadism or hate.

Speaking only for myself, I don't hate anyone simply for holding false beliefs. I try not to hate anyone, but skeptics are only human too, after all. Annoyance and exasperation that this is still a thing and that we can't even get simple agreement on basic, demonstrable facts might better describe how I feel about it.

I would like to know what a better approach would be, since calmly and matter-of-factly explaining the actual facts seems to have negligible effectiveness.



There's a quote from the Chernobyl miniseries:


It's interesting that people who believe that the earth is flat all seem to also believe a host of other conspiracy theories. You have to believe that the moon landing was a hoax. You have to believe that any photograph taken of the earth from space is fake. You pretty much have to believe that NASA, and astronomers, and the whole of modern science is a vast conspiracy to deceive the people.

It's hard to put my finger on precisely what specific harm follows from this, but I really do wish that we all at least had a common set of facts to work from. I can accept differences of opinion. But when we can't even agree on the basic, objective facts, I do think that harm follows from that. We splinter into opposing camps, each of which has a fundamentally different worldview. It's near impossible to work for common goals, such as combating climate change, if a large group of people don't even believe that climate change is real.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom