My Parents Are Flat Earthers • Hacker News Board

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#31

Post by owenversteeg » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:49 AM UTC

jerkstate wrote: post #2

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

I mean, the simple explanation is a) that there are flights that cross part of Antarctica, and b) that there isn't much there. The Southern Hemisphere is pretty empty.

There's Sydney-Santiago, but apparently that doesn't always cross Antarctica depending on winds.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#32

Post by kungtotte » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #12

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.

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...

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#33

Post by mabbo » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:52 AM UTC

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.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#34

Post by sonnyblarney » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:53 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #14

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.

'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.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#35

Post by enraged_camel » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

kungtotte wrote: post #27

mirimir wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just have to accept that most people are not rational . They don't experience reality through a scientific (for lack of a better word) perspective. Most believe in some sort of magical deities or spirits or life force or whatever. Most operate with a physical model of reality that's clearly pre-Galilean. So flat Earth? Why not?

My working hypothesis is that most people lack the intellectual capacity to understand these things, and they haven't the fortitude to accept that they don't understand or don't know something. So instead of attempting to understand they select some imagined model that does make sense to them and act as though it is truth. Challenging them is difficult since they are so invested in their fancies being true; the alter…

>>So instead of attempting to understand they select some imagined model that does make sense to them and act as though it is truth.

Furthermore, the reason they are attracted to such models is that it gives them the sense that they are a member of a small, exclusive group of “enlightened” individuals who have it all figured out.

There is a reason con men go after such people.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#36

Post by aryehof » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

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.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#37

Post by jerkstate » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

richev wrote: post #16

weirdos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also has to do with a lack of options, if technical difficulties are encountered. The threshold for error and malfunction is much, much more extreme. While planes fly over mountain ranges, Antarctica is similarly dangerous, but without good reasons to attempt overflight.

Don't feed the troll :-/

wow, what? now you're a troll if you don't know why runways are not normally distributed on planet earth?

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#38

Post by perl4ever » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:57 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #28

TomMarius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Can you please support this claim with credible data? Sincere question - I'm just reading a book recommended by Bill Gates that claims that the world is way better today than it was 20 years ago.

Gates' claims are entirely concerning a world wide decrease in people living on "pennies a day". This is essentially just that group of people who lived outside the economy entirely now finally entering it. It really has nothing to do with the conditions of the average person already living in a money based economy. We have seen a decrease in US median income over the last however many years [1]. The way rent tends t…

"It really has nothing to do with the conditions of the average already living in a money based economy."

I'm not sure the median American is representative of the global citizen "living in a money based economy". I have not read Gates' book, but I think it likely you are being overly dismissive.

I think the average person in the world has an income of maybe $10K a year, which is not "pennies a day", but it's low by American standards. It seems at least plausible that people on this level have become better off.

Life expectancy has been decreasing in other places besides the US. I was just reading an article that said it's down in the UK. Russia hasn't been doing so well either, I seem to recall. But I figure there is a biological limit and the newest medical tech doesn't have much effect in the aggregate. So it's the countries that still have low life expectancies that are going to show uniform gains.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#39

Post by sonnyblarney » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:58 AM UTC

pkkim wrote: post #30

TomMarius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Can you please support this claim with credible data? Sincere question - I'm just reading a book recommended by Bill Gates that claims that the world is way better today than it was 20 years ago.

I have not read Bill Gates' book, but I have heard little dispute that the material conditions of the working class _in the developed world_ have not improved much in the last forty or so years. The "elephant curve" is the best simple depiction I've seen of this: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/09/17/s... The article goes on to describe why it's not quite so bad as the original graph made it seem…

Material conditions have improved almost universally, but it doesn't mean that social cohesion is any better.

It just means we're not dying of a bunch of things, our homes are heated and we do less dishes etc..

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#40

Post by michaelmrose » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:59 AM UTC

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.