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Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

willpatrick.co.uk

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Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#71

Post by shadowgovt »

lm28469 wrote: post #53
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…

Ah yes, the famous "I don't like them so they shouldn't be able to live"... Since you're willing to deny people's basic rights such as "working", following your logic, someone could argue that you obviously lack empathy and shouldn't be in a managing position or anywhere above the very bottom of the hierarchy ladder No matter how smart you think you are there will always be someone who think you're as dumb as a rock,…

if you live in a place where being allowed to work by other people is a prerequisite for living, I suggest doing something about your barbaric local culture.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#72

Post by Jtsummers »

kmnc wrote: post #35
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?

Take the parallel postulate. It holds in Euclidean geometry but not in others. Am I an idiot for not using that postulate (and its implications)? No, I'm starting from a different set of assumptions than someone studying Euclidean geometry. As a consequence I'll reach different conclusions than someone studying Euclidean geometry.

Neither of us are idiots, we both know what we're doing. The conflict is when I make an assertion about geometry (general) that doesn't hold for geometry (Euclidean) (or the reverse, the other person makes a general assertion that doesn't hold for non-Euclidean geometry). Unless we sit down and compare our base assumptions (axioms), we cannot resolve this apparent conflict.

I'm not saying this is universally the case, there are contrarian trolls and idiots out there, but oftentimes people are reasonably rational but are starting from different positions. This leads to conflicts in politics, economics, religion, and, yes, the understanding of the physical world. It's not helpful to call them all idiots because many times they aren't, they just have different base assumptions (or priorities, often, in the case of politics and economics). And calling them idiots only leads to an emotional, not rational, "discussion". Take a step back, don't be a jerk, and listen to them, work backward to the actual point of disagreement and then focus on it (or not, once discovered you may realize there is no resolution that will satisfy either or both of you).

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#73

Post by BrianOnHN »

rgoulter wrote: post #48
BrianOnHN wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this won't be a popular comment, but based on the descriptions in the article, the flat earthers seem very similar to the Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice). The clear distinction is the absolute unwillingness to listen logic without screaming what-a-about conspiracy A, or conspiracy B, or C. Or the classic "your just a socialist" inbetween talking about their social security and medicare benefi…

> But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the hack that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following. Jonathan Haidt describes this as "morality binds and blinds". The full quote being: "Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the wo…

> each team is composed of good people who have something important to say

This is what makes this "abuse of the amygdala" a hack. The flat-earthers/trump-supporters don't have anything "important" to say unless you want to give credit to their conspiracies.

That said, they are indeed screaming loud and clear that there is a significantly large segment of people with certain mental dispositions that are being abused by leaders in the top ranks of our government and society.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#74

Post by shkkmo »

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,…

Well, epistemologically, there is a big difference between YEC and flat-earth.

Flat earth can be confidently debunked in quite a large number of ways, including direct experience.

YEC is, at its core, fundementally undisprovable. There really no way to prove that the universe wasn't recently created by some force with a consistent apparent history. Indeed, there are philosophers who have made strong arguments that we live in a simulation which makes such a "created with history" scenario seem more plausible.

> If you accept this premise, then there is actually a logically defensible line of reasoning that leads you to Christianity

I rather doubt that. You may be able to show that some of these beliefs are logically consistent given that premise, but that is a far cry from showing that they are logically derivable from that premise as you seem to be saying.

I do think there is data that will persuade these people, but nobody is willing to out the time and effort in to do so. (Since these are quite divergent beliefs, any education program would probably need to be customized on a per person basis.)

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#75

Post by CodeAndCuffs »

brightball wrote: post #61
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,…

Inerrancy is a whole other bag of chips. I teach a Sunday School class and one of my big topics is man made rules that aren’t Biblically supported. Inerrancy falls in that camp from my reading. There’s a single verse that the basis for the entire doctrine. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be…

You may enjoy some of Pete Enns' books. Namely "The Bible Tells Me So", Which dives into biblical inaccuracy head first. It's not a "Oh well, if you apply some mental gymnast it's okay" book. It's "Here's a bunch of reasons inerrancy makes zero sense and here is why that's okay and doesn't mean God isn't real".

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#76

Post by toss1 »

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.

Sure, if "Stupid" is limited to the inability to form a sequence of connected thoughts, it is probably the wrong word.

If it encompasses the inability to reliably connect thoughts to reality, inability to trust anything other than naive constructs and actively distrusting others (which will certainly limit the problem space in which they can work), then it serves as a good shorthand.

Do you have any better suggestions (that aren't full sentences or paragraphs)?

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#77

Post by renox »

GijsjanB wrote: post #40
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.

I'm not sure there is really a big difference if you accept this magician then you usually also accept impossible things..

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#78

Post by BrianOnHN »

eurekin wrote: post #58
BrianOnHN wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this won't be a popular comment, but based on the descriptions in the article, the flat earthers seem very similar to the Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice). The clear distinction is the absolute unwillingness to listen logic without screaming what-a-about conspiracy A, or conspiracy B, or C. Or the classic "your just a socialist" inbetween talking about their social security and medicare benefi…

This actually would explain a lot from my environment as well. Different country, different parties and issues, but that triggered responses - same story

If only "Thinking fast and slow" (kahneman) was distilled into something easier to swallow.

These concepts aren't new. They're also universal truths about human nature.

Everyone wants to think that they're in control, at least in their head. But until they come to terms with the fact that they are not in control, they will continue to do detriment to themselves and others. See "alcoholics anonymous" (AA) for evidence of this.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#79

Post by Covzire »

natcombs wrote: post #65
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,…

YEC is not closely related to Flat earthers. I know many YEC that refute flat earth theory completely. The overlap of the two is small, but maybe there are a few outspoken ones on Reddit (it’s always the outspoken ones isn’t it?)

Just a hunch, but I think the correlation of flat earthers to schizophrenia is a thousand times stronger than any other.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#80

Post by manfredo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #56
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…

I wonder if you had a strategy for reconciling the theory of the flat moon with flat Earth? Believing in both at the same time is extra-tricky, and that's what caused me to get banned from the Facebook flat-Earthers. If the moon is flat, perspective distortion should make it disk-like, and nobody's observed a disk-like moon. So either the moon is round (and the fact it only shows us one face is some extra-fancy trick…

Even if the moon were a disk, the angle it makes relative to a normal vector coming out from ground demonstrates a spherical earth.

You don't even need to factor in the moon, this can be done with the stars. In a flat earth, the same stars would be visible when you're in the southern too of south America as in the northernmost top of north America. This isn't the case since the earth is spherical.

Heck, even just the timing of a sunrise is sufficient. In a flat earth the sun would rise simultaneously across the globe... er, disk. But of course that's not the case. It's daytime in half of the world at any given time.

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