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My Parents Are Flat Earthers

jameshfisher.com

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Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#181

Post by repolfx »

rdiddly wrote: post #173
repolfx wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, I'm the same, I'm OK with seeing myself as a morally ambiguous person. But I might not be that way forever, and I do deeply understand the need for a moral framework. It's not vanity and narcissism.

Really, seeing how the current culture wars have been playing out has for the first time given me a real appreciation for religion, even though I'm not religious. Christianity and similar religions seem to have a much more positive affect on people's lives than red/blue or black/white style tribal chest-beating. I don't fear religious people. People who have replaced religion with identity politics though, bear more resemblance to crusaders than they might like to admit. The mentality is not merely "if I believe these things, I'm good" .... it's also "and I must convert unbelievers, to cleanse the world of evil beliefs". It actually quite strongly resembles the early stages of the Abrahamic religions.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#182

Post by tntn »

scarejunba wrote: post #177
tntn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not talking about falsifying it to the people who believe, and probably nothing will change their mind. I'm talking about looking at the claims, determine what evidence would be sufficient to disprove them, and determining whether that evidence can be acquired.

For flat earth, it's easy. I ask myself (not a flat earther) whether the earth is flat, walk outside and make any one of the many observations that indicate the earth is round, and call it a day.

For other things, it is not so easy. Is there a god? How could you disprove that to yourself (different than choosing not to believe because of a lack of positive evidence)? Did Xenu bring billions of aliens to Earth a bajillion years ago and kill them all? Probably not, but how would you even disprove that? It left no trace other than spiritual beings that remain on earth and cannot be detected.

I remain convinced that the specific claims impose their own difficulty to falsify (and yeah, many are designed to be hard to falsify). But yeah, I agree these exercises are a pretty useless way to spend time.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#183

Post by scarejunba »

tntn wrote: post #182
scarejunba wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not talking about falsifying it to the people who believe, and probably nothing will change their mind. I'm talking about looking at the claims, determine what evidence would be sufficient to disprove them, and determining whether that evidence can be acquired. For flat earth, it's easy. I ask myself (not a flat earther) whether the earth is flat, walk outside and make any one of the many observations that indica…

Oh. Right. We have no disagreement. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#184

Post by sonnyblarney »

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.

"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. "

No, it's not 'alleged proof' it's 'proof' and the people who do not believe it obviously have some kind of problem.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#185

Post by wanderer »

gfosco wrote: post #104

I don't see this sentiment elsewhere so I'll share it... I enjoyed reading this article but I think it's really f ked up he wrote this about his parents.

I wonder if the author realizes the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to be drafted. In World War II Germany, they paid dearly for this refusal. Belief in a flat earth seems like a minor failing compared to the moral strength the Witnesses have shown in resisting one of the demands of "civilization" on its members.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#186

Post by kthejoker2 »

coldtea wrote: post #172
spinach wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Carl Sagan's proponents, perhaps, but not the man himself, who was exceptionally patient in the face of illogic and unscience.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#187

Post by squirrelicus »

Koshkin wrote: post #160
oAlbe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

"The gulags are a great idea" - Lenin.

Marxists don't deserve a seat at the table of moral philosophy, no matter what your professor might have told you

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#188

Post by squirrelicus »

oAlbe wrote: post #129
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…

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

Religions distill generations of solutions to psychological problems we all face.

Job: what do you do when tragedy strikes, when it feels like God and Satan have plotted against you? Don't destroy your own foundation; the tragedy wasn't your fault.

Abraham and Isaac: if sacrifice makes a better future, what if we sacrifice the thing we cherish most in hope of the best possible future? God will never expect you to sacrifice your child; there is a limit to the efficacy of sacrifice. Sadly a lesson the brutally immoral Aztecs never learned.

Christ as Redeemer: it is possible that even the worst among us can be saved from the hell they choose to create. There is divinity in each and every person that must be respected. It's tempting to prescribe the worst punishment and exile for those that make bad or antisocial choices. But more often than not, what they need most in order to rehabilitate is love. They can be resurrected from the death of nihilism.

These small examples are lessons that were learned by countless generations before them. Codifying them and passing them on was critical to the thriving of the societies that respected them.

We reject them at our peril.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#189

Post by lisper »

tntn wrote: post #180
lisper wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> if you want to go down the route that nothing is falsifiable

It's not me going down that route, it's the flat-earthers.

> Probably still you think Scientology and the Book of Mormon are "dumber" than flat earth theory simply because they sound weirder to you

No. You are raising a straw man here. It has nothing to do with dumbness (though I do admit I find some aspects of Mormonism and many aspects of Scientlology to be pretty dumb.) Nearly all religions are "easily" proven false simply by the overwhelming evidence that there is no afterlife, that mind is a function of brain, and when the brain dies, the mind dies with it. That's for a "generic" religion with no specific claims about the nature of the afterlife, whether or not there are deities, etc. etc. Scientology and Mormonism (to cite but two of many noteworthy examples) go on to make many more specific false claims, each one of which makes the theory easier to debunk.

But of course this is not going to convince anyone who adheres to a religion, which is my whole point. There really is no difference. Religion and flat-eartherism both have equal scientific tenability (i.e. zero). People adhere to these beliefs for other reasons. And in both cases, those reasons are not entirely illegitimate.

Re: My Parents Are Flat Earthers

#190

Post by lisper »

klibertp wrote: post #179
lisper wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

See my response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18957158
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