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My Parents Are Flat Earthers

jameshfisher.com

151–160 of 216 posts

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#151
post #33

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 bet…

Another possibility is that among the many beliefs a person has, focusing on belief perfection is "over-fitting" (as we are always accumulating more knowledge), and that some misfit beliefs just happen to be really socially detrimental despite that many kooky beliefs don't cause people to exercise violence or harm against their neighbors.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#152
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is interested in this, I strongly recommend Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, although I'm sure pretty much all geeks over a certain age have already read it. Religion, memetics, hackers, and the human mind are all tied up in a really good sci-fi book.

And after you have read it try The Diamond Age by the same author. I never know which of both books fascinated me more.

Both novels are set in the same world, with The Diamond Age being some time after Snowcrash. They even share characters, though it's not immediately obvious.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#153
> But the Moon’s dimensions show the designers used the metric system

How does looking at dimensions affirm that metric system was used?

> They live in respectable houses, and host meals with respectable friends. They eat well. They travel for holidays, by plane, all over the Earth.

The OP tells as if this is a good thing. However this is the scariest parts of all. Because who knows these people can as well be the next presidents.

> As a Flat-Earther, having your theory rejected only re-confirms the Illuminati’s brainwashing campaign.

A good point, which even most of the political strategists DO NOT implement. "Pushing extreme ideas does not swing votes."

Conclusion: OP seems like he has given up on trying to come up with good ideas to deal with fallacies of his parents. This might seem cute at first, but there isn't a sense of realization that this might be very harmful to the society as a whole.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#154

I read quite a bit of the discussion here, and I’m struck: People railing against anti-scientific attitudes by spouting the first shit they made up that makes some intuitive sense to them about psychology and/or group dynamics. I wonder if anyone else sees the irony?

I'm reading it as well, and where you see "spouting the first shit they made up", I see interesting thoughts and theories. I don't see irony, and I don't understand where your angry, superior point of view is coming from.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#155
post #62

I feel like this whole flat earth craze is more like tide pods than anything else. There are very few people who actually believe the earth is flat just like there are very few people out there who were accidentally eating tide pods. Its a practically nonexistent problem that everybody can't seem to stop talking about. Everybody who seems to talk about it that I ever see mostly do so as a gaff or some other reason. I…

> For me, where this type of stuff come from is more interesting. Is it pure trolling at its core or is there another reason for spreading the idea that these are problems? Is it some kind of experiment to see where the masses are at psychologically?

Actually many conspiracists think that its promoted by government agencies to discredit other(more plausible) conspiracies by association with Flat Earth(same people believe in X+ Flat Earth, so X is as implausible as Flat Earth).

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#156
post #62

I feel like this whole flat earth craze is more like tide pods than anything else. There are very few people who actually believe the earth is flat just like there are very few people out there who were accidentally eating tide pods. Its a practically nonexistent problem that everybody can't seem to stop talking about. Everybody who seems to talk about it that I ever see mostly do so as a gaff or some other reason. I…

It's shocking to me how many people don't realize that a great deal of flat eartherism is pure trolling.

I've come to the opinion that there isn't a hard like between trolling and actually believing in something, or actually expressing a genuine negative emotion. I think, in practice, "trolling" is much more than just a synonym for "kidding".

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#158
post #60
post #33

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 bet…

I feel that you've nailed this PERFECTLY. These are also my thoughts after watching many hours of flat earth videos and talking in person to people who believe in flat earth. The discussion is always emotional and often ends with namecalling. It's really apparent that this is not only a discussion about facts, but something they are deeply invested in emotionally.

Nobody wants to be a nobody who goes to work every day, makes PowerPoints that nobody cares about every day, goes home every day, watches TV every day, and in the end amounts to nothing special, nothing memorable, because there's nothing interesting or unusual in life - just boring stagnant nothingness, no moral framework to guide you to heroic status, day after day until you croak.

It's certainly the case that identity politics meets the same need, which is why adherents are so aggressive and get so emotional when the ideology is attacked. If you aren't religious then how do you know if you're a good person or not? Christianity is at heart a methodology for convincing yourself you're a good person, and getting back on track when you sin. Following Christ's teachings makes you good, and if/when you fall to temptation and don't, you can pray for forgiveness and restore your goodness. Pretty simple.

The concept of original sin gets added on because otherwise there might be people who claim they aren't sinners, and that would annoy those who are taking it seriously and trying to genuinely be better people. It's quicker to argue "in fact we are all sinners due to the crimes of our forefathers" than to drill into that person's life specifically and try to identify specific instances of sinning, which is high effort and likely to upset people. By claiming everyone is tainted by original sin, nobody can opt out of the purifying rituals of praying for forgiveness - probably a good idea for community cohesion.

But if you're not religious and nobody else is, then there's an absence of any philosophical framework to tell you what makes a good person good, vs just a morally ambiguous nothingburger. Unless, of course, you sign up to the tenets of identity politics and feminism, in which case goodness comes from supporting minorities and - if you are a straight white man - admitting to your original sin and going through various highly visible purifying rituals that stand in for praying for forgiveness, like stating you will definitely try to hire and promote more women in future.

In the end the moral needs it all meets is the same. Take away the underlying ideology by pointing out its contradictions and flaws, and people are at risk of losing the feeling of goodness that is so important. So of course they go on the attack.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#159
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that putting climate change and flat Earth into the same category is not totally fair. While the geometry of the Earth has been pretty clear for millennia and the local CO2 level can be accurately measured, many more subtle questions on climate change still don't have clear cut answers.

If you want to make that argument, then be aware that many more subtle questions on the Earth's geometry still don't have clear cut answers. That is, as "geometry" becomes more and more refined, there are questions of why the the continents are they way they are (Wegener's theory wasn't rejected until the 1900s!), why certain volcanoes exist where they are, why certain rock formations exist where they are, etc. That'…

Geometry, geography and geology are different things.

There are no outstanding subtle questions about the Earth's geometry as far as I'm aware. It's not a perfect sphere but we have literally mapped the surface of the Earth with detailed 3D point clouds - we can model the geometry down to near arbitrary levels of detail, and we do. Look at Google Earth!

Questions about how the Earth got into its current state and why it looks the way it does are not geometric questions.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#160
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the same brain space is used by futurists too. Magic batteries, dehumidifiers, a/c units, rockets, tunnels, Mars colonization, integrated neutral/digital systems. People want to feel like they are a part of a new age of knowledge set apart from the intellectually content masses, and feel like they're more honest in breaking free from the doctrine handed down by elites. And no. It's not fair to say that about…

> There are many reasons why people believe their religions. What are those reasons in your opinion?

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. — K.Marx
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