My Parents Are Flat Earthers • Hacker News Board

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#171

Post by darkpuma » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #156

darkpuma wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Just so we're clear, I'm saying that it's very obvious that a large number of people who say the earth is flat know the earth is round, and are pretending to believe otherwise because it gets people like you upset, and they enjoy that.

Ironically they aren't the ones with a tenuous grasp on reality; their targets, who mistake their statements as genuine, are the ones who are mistaken.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#172

Post by coldtea » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

spinach wrote: post #116

mabbo wrote: 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 don't think it's about control as it is about conceit. I don't think human conceit can be underestimated. This really became clear to me from reading The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. Humans want to believe everything is created for them, the universe was created for them, it's at the basis of a lot of the beliefs people hold. Then they want to cling to this belief of superiority. And because they came there through…

>I don't think it's about control as it is about conceit. I don't think human conceit can be underestimated. This really became clear to me from reading The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. Humans want to believe everything is created for them, the universe was created for them, it's at the basis of a lot of the beliefs people hold. Then they want to cling to this belief of superiority.

The thing is, for Carl Sagan and his proponents, proving others wrong is also their way to feeling superior. It's very common to the whole "sceptic", "mythbusting", etc crowd.

It's like the verity of the fact doesn't matter, it's all about feeling better than others.

In my theory, the "control group", a normal person, would say, ok, the earth is round, but wouldn't care to convince other people either way, nor to make it into some kind of campaign to get them to see the light.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#173

Post by rdiddly » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #158

M4v3R wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ident…

So it's all vanity and narcissism, basically! Needing to have a sense of how awesome you are. To me, the nothingburger feels like a lot less pressure. Less to live up to.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#174

Post by rdiddly » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #3

Increasingly with life these days, I feel like I am an actor in a play where the producer sees less and less of a role for me in the production as the curtain keeps raising on increasingly chaotic scenes - so I end up feeling disconnected and distant from something that I was immersed in and enjoying, and am now just an increasing befuddled and alienated observer. The uptick in flat earth theories among other things…

I'm laughing grimly because I know the feeling. I like your stage analogy. The antidote I use is to carve out my own small space... My own show, as it were. Also I think it helps to get away from the information firehose and be outdoors in a natural or quasi-natural environment for some hours. Gives you a different kind of understanding of what's real.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#175

Post by squirrelicus » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

paradoxparalax wrote: post #123

squirrelicus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religions are a combination of unbelievable fairy tales and rational teachings with thousands of years of deep thought about and iteration on how to make a better world. Secular ethical thought is still in its infancy and highly disjointed; and it's not clear that it's even possible to achieve what many religions have without the unbelievable fairy tales. Remember, as much as Buddhism might teach you to be... well, C…

Those fairy tales, I would bet that , if let's say for example Jesus, existed in reality as a person(not clear) He maybe didn't speak any of those fairy tales. They are inventions made by distorting and contorting what was originnaly said by the Thinker, most probably with malicious intentions. Now there I am not clear, but in the case of Buddha, when he walked on earth(most probably true, if not already proven) I am…

Siddhartha Gautama was a Hindu. His whole schtick was "why are the Gods incapable of eliminating suffering? I'll sit under this tree until I find out."

Definitely not an atheist. He merely believed, as most Buddhists traditions believe, that the gods are not relevant to acheiving Nirvana.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#176

Post by squirrelicus » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

ykevinator wrote: post #149

squirrelicus wrote: post #103

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…

It's the same. There is no logical difference between believing in flat earth and believing in spermless conception

There is more to Christianity than unbelievable fairy tales like spermless conception.

Read Matthew. You'll be surprised how... American it sounds. Basics we take for granted like "the blind leading the blind" are scriptural and religious, and things that are easy to forget how to name and call out without the religion.

Indeed, the foundation of capitalism, the right approach to differences in natural ability, and how we should view equality are found in Matthew 25. Just read that one if you can't stomach the Bible in general.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#177

Post by scarejunba » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

tntn wrote: post #138

scarejunba wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s all just layers of shit for people who are incapable of knowledge acquisition. Maybe one thing is piles of chicken shit mixed with pig shit and the other thing is one pile of horse shit but it’s all just shit. Flat Earth crap, anti-vaxxers, chemtrails, Scientology, Mormonism. They like to draw distinctions between them but it’s all just a matter of the kind of shit. Waste of time trying to say which one is stupi…

There are distinctions between them. Some of the things you mention make claims that fall into the domain of science (I.e. are falsifiable) and some do not (those regarding spirituality, miracles, etc). That is an important and worthwhile distinction. Incidentally, a lot of the problem of the anti-vaccine movement is not the facts (though there is a lot of that, too) but rather risk analysis. It is extremely probable…

The distinctions are fictional. The standards for evidence falsifying are placed arbitrarily high post acquisition of evidence in order to ensure no evidence falsifies. It is a useless way to spend time.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#178

Post by medion » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #105

medion wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with Buddhism, only because while it is the only major religion that actually makes sense to me, I can't overcome the cultural disconnect as a white westerner, attempting to adopt ways of thinking which are so culturally different & abstract. Science at this juncture is the only method of looking at the world which appears rational to me, however unfortunately science doesn't have answers to the poetry of…

If you haven’t read it I’d highly recommend “The Universe in a Single Atom” by the Dalai Lama. He is one smart person, and I found it both delightful and thought provoking. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/100629

This looks good, ordered.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#179

Post by klibertp » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #170

tntn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing how hard it is to convince flat-earthers that the earth is not flat with how ridiculously easy it is to prove the the earth is not flat. I (and the original comment you responded to) are discussing the second of these two.

Those two things are not distinct. It is manifestly untrue that it is easy to prove that the earth is round because there are people who have seen this alleged proof and remain unconvinced. The fact that you (and I) think those people are idiots is not probative.

You are both using implicit (so far) and incompatible definitions of "proof" & "proving".

(Just thought that I point it out in case you guys missed it (sorry if you didn't, just trying to be helpful here) but wanted to continue the discussion)

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#180

Post by tntn » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #170

tntn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing how hard it is to convince flat-earthers that the earth is not flat with how ridiculously easy it is to prove the the earth is not flat. I (and the original comment you responded to) are discussing the second of these two.

Those two things are not distinct. It is manifestly untrue that it is easy to prove that the earth is round because there are people who have seen this alleged proof and remain unconvinced. The fact that you (and I) think those people are idiots is not probative.

I mean, sure, if you want to go down the route that nothing is falsifiable because the government is putting hallucinogens in the water so you can't trust anything you perceive, or whatever.

But if that is the case, it is impossible to prove or disprove anything, so it doesn't make much sense that you claimed flat earth is "not even close" to two religions in terms of difficulty of disproving (there can be no rank of everything is impossible). I'm not sure what you were going for there. Probably still you think Scientology and the Book of Mormon are "dumber" than flat earth theory simply because they sound weirder to you, which is fine, but not really a response to 'sonnyblarney's original comment.