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Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

willpatrick.co.uk

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Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#31

Post by corndoge »

toss1 wrote: post #5

Sadly, this is another topic of questions to add to job interview filters - ask about the moon landings & vaccines. Anyone subscribing to any of this conspiracy nonsense, especially as an identity is (pardon the language) too effin stupid to work in any serious technical endeavor - if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason, what will they ignore on your project? Plus, their deeply ingrained ideas that…

> if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason, what will they ignore on your project?

And yet there are & have been brilliant engineers with uncommon beliefs, e.g. Terry Davis.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#32

Post by burlesona »

> All this is to say that rational questions and arguments miss the point entirely. These are not rational beliefs, nor even really beliefs. They are more like identities, firmly established and fiercely defended. Their existence is not a happy one, either. It seemed to me that they were commonly the product of deep personal and social tragedy.

This seems to me to be the chief problem of social media. We live in a post-truth world that is more intensely tribal than ever before. Reason, and the ability to form consensus, seem to be dying or dead already. That worries me rather a lot, as it is the foundation of democratic society, and without it I’m not sure how long democratic society can continue.

In the authors description of the flat earth ers he says:

> ...you operate from a position where your worldview is driven by your identity, not from what can be scientifically or objectively observed, or what the experts tell you.

We can sit here and scoff at the tiny minority of fringe conspiracy theorists out there, but my observation is that people have taken this same approach to mainstream politics, deciding on an identity that aligns them to one side or the other, and then losing all ability to see that it is possible for their side to get something wrong, or the other side to get something right.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#33

Post by mellow2020 »

mcculley wrote: post #8
toss1 wrote: post #5

Sadly, this is another topic of questions to add to job interview filters - ask about the moon landings & vaccines. Anyone subscribing to any of this conspiracy nonsense, especially as an identity is (pardon the language) too effin stupid to work in any serious technical endeavor - if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason, what will they ignore on your project? Plus, their deeply ingrained ideas that…

"Stupid" is not a useful way to generally describe the people vulnerable to conspiracy theories. I have met people who are relatively intelligent who fall into these. See also: religion, politics.

It's easy to explain -- just not to people whose salary whose salary depends on not understanding it, who keep shaking their heads as the predictable results of the boat they won't rock roll in.

> people want some understanding of what's happening, but they're not getting it from the media, they're not getting it from the intellectual classes, they're certainly not getting it from the government

[..]

> it's happening all over and I think you can trace a good deal of it to the effect of neo-liberalism. It had a goal remember: the goal of neo-liberalism was to transfer decisions away from the public to the hands of private power and to atomize the population.

-- Noam Chomsky, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiCeqySVhCE&t=20m55s

> the individual citizen has very little possibility of having any influence - of making his opinion felt in the decision-making. And I think that, in itself, leads to a good deal of political lethargy and stupidity. It is true that one has to think first and then to act - but it's also true that if one has no possibility of acting, one's thinking kind of becomes empty and stupid.

-- Erich Fromm, https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll...

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#34

Post by Jtsummers »

lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

In a different fashion, I found myself physically surrounded by YECs at a job many years ago. It was a surreal experience. They definitely aren't idiots, many were among the best I've seen at technical work.

But like you said in (2), they start with different assumptions. Their logic is totally sound if you agree with the assumptions. I spent some time reading and watching YEC material to have a better understanding of their positions. While there were certainly some really stupid arguments, most were sound but based on either an assumption of the existence of God (unprovable either way) and some implications of that, or a flawed understanding of physics/chemistry/biology. The latter were the only arguments that could be refuted because they were the only ones where you could point out the specific flaw in reasoning.

Until you find the difference in assumptions, you can't effectively argue against their position. And, then, only by talking about the assumptions and not the conclusions/implications.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#35

Post by kmnc »

lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

So, they are idiots. If no logic can change their minds then isn’t dismissing them as idiots the best course of action?

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#36

Post by mynegation »

I did not pay a lot of attention to this. In my mind flat earthers were an odd group of people participating for fun in an elaborate make believe. Sort of like watching WWE together with beers pretending those are real fights.

I mean, contrary to a popular parable, people knew that the earth is round for a very long time and Eratosthenes made an estimate of earth radius 2200 years ago.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#37

Post by Humdeee »

umvi wrote: post #22

I used to be a flat earther. No, I didn't actually believe the earth was flat, but I loved the outrage it provoked and the attention I got when I told people I was a flat earther. I also enjoyed trying to defend my position and call out (valid) logical fallacies round earthers were making. It really forces you to improve your debate skills when you have to defend an impossible position. Lastly, there was a social asp…

To summarize, would you say you were a great troll? I apologize if I interpreted it that way...

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#38

Post by isaachier »

cma wrote: post #30
lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to Christianity?

It doesn't. But trying to convince them to abandon Christian literalism would require an alternative that satisfies this need for purpose.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#39

Post by dsr_ »

cma wrote: post #30
lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to Christianity?

Because they come to the discussion wearing a filter that tells them that some things are Truth and other things are Heresy: notably, that stories from their culture are True and cannot even be compared to stories from other cultures, because that is Heresy.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#40

Post by GijsjanB »

lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

It's fine to come up with some magician who created our world and is looking at us through his/her terrarium, if that makes you feel warm and cosy. It's a whole other level to claim the world is flat and/or just a couple of thousand yours old. Than you're just an idiot.
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