In Search Of A Flat Earth

When I first poked at this hypothesis, I came away feeling that the best characterization was that it's an area of academic dispute where both sides have credibility and neither side can be accurately considered fringe or mainstream, in contrast to your initial comment. Nothing you have said has shaken that belief, and I have no relevant scientific expertise to offer in support of one side or the other. I have my personal opinion on which side I feel has the better evidence and prefer on the balance of probabilities, but what that opinion is is ultimately unimportant. That said, there is one thing that mildly concerned me when I read your first comment and that your later comments have only reinforced my impressions. You seem to be approaching this topic from an evangelical perspective, and not a scientific one: that there is a core belief, this needs to be disseminated to as many people as possible, and that anything that challenges that belief needs to be swiftly eliminated. Your rhetoric--"Neanderthal", "black eye for geology"--does not help your argument. I only bring this up because I saw a video over the weekend [1] discussing Flat Earthers and some of the argumentation style they used, and on reflection, it was striking how similar your comments were, just on an acceptable opinion rather than a loony idea. [1] [VIDEO]

It's pretty easy to find other sources that cover the same survey that is shown in the graphic of the grandparent's comment. (Business Insider, for example: [LINK] ) Keep in mind this survey was in May and I'd be willing to bet the numbers have grown, as I've watched QAnon grow, multiple mainstream Republicans have embraced them (and won primaries ) and the Vice President was slated to attend a fundraiser put on by a QAnon group until days of pressure forced him to cancel just days ago. I've watched HN downplay gamergate. I've watched it downplay climate change (until recently, finally). I've watched it downplay anti-intellectualism at every turn, whether it be flat-eartherism, anti-vaxxers, or qanon, there's this purveying sense of "it will all work out", and that's just completely out-of-touch with reality. Here's a fun one for some background on QAnon, and how the rest of the world perceives it/us right now: [LINK] And for a complete understanding of how Flat Eartherism proud anti-illectualism has DIRECTLY LED US TO QANON, this video is invaluable: [VIDEO] It spells it out step-by-step and I'd love to hear someone try to respond to it. I haven't even expressed any of my own political feelings but I'm sick of watching people use ovenmits to talk about the fact that the anti-intellecutual, pro-conspiratorial actors are by and large self-identified as "conservative", or "Republican" or "pro-Trump". We can't keep acting like this isn't the case. All of these issues, politics,

You don't need to send anything to 35k feet; you only need a camera with a decent telephoto lens and a long lake on clear day with calm winds. From one shore of the long lake, view objects at the far shore from normal standing height using the camera+lens. If you then carefully lower the camera to the ground, you can watch objects (boats! people! small buildings!) dissapear behind the curvature of the lake's surface. Dan Olson ("Folding Ideas") demonstrates this experiment in the video[1] I recommended in an earlier post[2]. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK]

Nothing about QAnon is inherently viral, there's no real rhyme or reason to QAnon theories and they contradict each other half the time. QAnon is just the latest adaptation of solipsistic, uncritical, and delusional thinking that started long before the internet and will continue long after it dies. Ever wonder what happened to flat earth theory? That used to be the "viral" bad idea of the time, but if you look around now it's practically dead. It's dead because flat earthers have moved on to QAnon [1]. "Wealthy democrats drink the blood of children" is literally a random stupid idea that only spreads because these idiots all talk to each other. It could be anything; In a different decade they would instead be talking about the Freemasons, or a flat earth, or the Jewish agenda. The common theme is not the idea or the politics, it's the broken mentality that creates a worldview in which nothing is your fault, everything bad is caused by inhuman others, and you are one of the few smart enough to see what others cannot. It's foolish to think that censoring these people actually solves anything. Because you never addressed the broken psychology that attracts them to this garbage in the first place, they'll continue finding other outlets, your attempts to censor them only feeding their delusions further. Censorship might help you avoid them on the internet, but let's see if you can avoid them at the polls. [1] In Search Of A Flat Earth [VIDEO]

It's not about real financial problems. There's that too, but people in that situation don't spend days protesting, they usually work a lot or are looking for, or do something that helps them escape their problems. QAnon, fascism, conservative ideology all have "social order" in common. QAnon of course drives it up to 11+, it's a full blown doomsday cult, with Trump being some kind of figurehead. And there's always something that threatens the status quo, their place in society. Immigrants, globalization, China, muslims, mexicans, antifa, gays, transgender frogs, liberal elites, uppity n....s. Recommended long, but very insightful video: [VIDEO] Naturally facts don't matter. You mentioned globalism, which indeed displaced many people from jobs, but this has always been ongoing. A hundred years ago this change was even more drastic. But back then this wasn't "weaponized". (Then the unions came, but then they too faded as technological changes dispersed big groups of homogeneous workers.) And now modern political parties try to play on these identities. (Mostly through candidates, as they locally present themselves, and naturally try to mobilize people.)

Perhaps a better example: Jewish people are telling you the earth is round so that way they can distract you from the fact they're kidnapping children and drinking their blood. A fantastic video on the topic of difficult to debunk, but easy to produce content [VIDEO] .

And if you want a chaser for any flat Earth material check out [VIDEO] "In Search of a Flat Earth" probably the best documentary I have seen on conspiracy theories.

So the second-order effects of YouTube banning content, as you point out, are interesting and hard to predict. The question is should fear of second order effects prevent YouTube from taking action towards a desired first order effect? For some context, prior to Youtube changing the algorithm, flat earth videos basically created the modern flat earth movement [1]. It's likely that this effect can go the other way, too. I like to think that people are less drawn to conspiracy theories etc. when they are socially well-connected. The trouble about the pandemic is that there is a negative feedback loop: we have these socially isolating restrictions because there is a deadly virus, and one reason the virus remains unchecked is, in part because a subset of socially isolated people are drawn to misinformation. [1] See the documentary In Search of A Flat Earth for more details: [VIDEO]

The harm people cause by holding believing false beliefs is rather complicated at times, yet extremely important and impactful nonetheless. For flat earthers in particular this video sheds some light on why their way of thinking is harmful: [VIDEO] To be extremely reductive, allowing false beliefs into one's web of beliefs corrupts it. This typically gives rise to a multitude of other false beliefs. Flat earthers almost never only believe one obviously false conspiracy theory. They become epistemically susceptible, and worse still, they tend to spread these awful ways of thinking with great zeal. In the more general case, I recommend you learn about the ethics of belief. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on the topic is a good starting point: [LINK] Maybe someone can come along and answer your question in a more succinct yet equally (or ideally more) convincing way. This request that you commit several hours to educating yourself is the best I can do at this time.

Folding Ideas on YouTube put out a documentary on YouTube which I think is a great example of this approach (complete with a nifty and thorough visual experiment on the roundness of the Earth, and a still-topical plot twist halfway through): [VIDEO]

Belief in Flat Earth is most definitely not a joke for a very large group of people (though it is absolutely a joke for a much larger group of people). It is part of a wider movement of biblical literalism and conspiracy theories describing an international anti-christian plot. The fact that it is easily disproved isn't really a problem for these kinds of conspiracy theories. It actually kind of acts as a purity test for members. Kind of like how scams still use the "nigerian prince" trope, because it ensures only the most promising marks fall for it. A great documentary on the topic by Dan Olson aka Folding ideas: [VIDEO]

Dan Olsen published a video [0], last year, outlining his experiment on Minnewanka Curve and the ideology driving people who deny his, and similar results, demonstrating the curvature of the earth. While there is no artificial structure, he observes that trees on the opposite side of the lake are obscured by the water surface. He also published raw footage of the multiple recordings he took as a separate 28 minute video. [0] [VIDEO] 90 minutes

Seems like a good, well thought out article. If you're looking for more depth on this subject, I found this video very good [VIDEO] (though I was already a fan of Folding Ideas)

One of the best analyses of this whole thing I've seen is "In Search Of A Flat Earth" by Folding Ideas: [VIDEO] Essentially, professing absurd beliefs is a sort of shibboleth to demonstrate in-group membership. The absurdity is the point , because it differentiates them from outsiders. Normal people make true or factual statements all the time, that's not a good differentiator! The statements need to be false and/or absurd to function for their intended purpose. The Flat Earth mythos isn't even that outlandish compared to mainstream religions, and well within the same wheelhouse as the type of beliefs used to identify the in-group in cults. Scientology comes to mind, but there are many others. I highly recommend watching the entire video, because there is a lot more to the phenomena than I initially suspected.

There’s a great YouTube essay called “in search of a flat earth” that explores this phenomenon. It’s definitely worth a watch- it sort of lays bare the mindset of a group of people who want the world to be a simple, familiar place where there is certainty about everything. And, the host actually goes to a really long, calm lake and using a camera, shows the curvature of the earth in a visceral, visual way that is way more moving than I thought it would be. [VIDEO]

> It's not the FE that's attractive, it's that they're people who put very little value on social conformity and thus can be honest in a way that "fit ins" can't. There's a marvelous video [1] that Dan Olsen of Folding Ideas did as a deep dive into the community of Flat Earth and how it manages to survive. The TL;DW (though it really is worth the watch) is that people both want and need community, and all communities have ways of signaling that you belong to them. Sometimes it's language, sometimes it's clothes, sometimes it's behaviors--the "qualifications" vary wildly by group, but in many cases from the outside the exhibited behaviors of a group (e.g., believing in flat earth) don't jive with the rest of the perceived individual (e.g., scientifically literate) until you factor in that the behaviors don't have to matter beyond ensuring membership to a group. A whole lot of things make a lot more sense to me when seen through that lens, including a lot of organized religion. People just want to belong, and often the "price of entry" is inconsequential vs. the payoff of belonging somewhere. Thanks for sharing your story. It helps me to understand the "Why" of some of these things, and helps me feel more connected to my fellow beings. [1]: [VIDEO]

> […] last year's video on NFTs. * [LINK] * [LINK] See also the 2020 video that starts out on Flat Earth, a belief that is waining… because people are going to Qanon: * [VIDEO]

Highlights include: - "In Search of a Flat Earth" (2020): [VIDEO] - "Line Goes Up" (2022): [LINK] - "The Future is a Dead Mall" (2023): [LINK]

I figured your link would be this one: [VIDEO] (Folding Ideas, "In Search of a Flat Earth") He takes a couple of their claims seriously about what one will see when attempting particular experiments involving a very large lake, attempts them, sees the results one would expect if the Earth were curved, and reports this to some flat earth community forum, refining the experiment as they suggest ways he may have screwed it up, and continuing to find curvature (obviously). The real story is how they react to contrary evidence delivered entirely on their terms, and where that community was heading four years ago (beware—I guess—that part also becomes necessarily "political"). [EDIT] I guess I buried the lede for this site's interest, which is that the video devotes a fair bit of time to how the Youtube "algorithm" took a little success for Flat Earth videos as a cue to aggressively promote them to people it identified as maybe liking them (those inclined to fall down that particular rabbit hole—which involves a lot more than just the specific belief that the earth is flat), but now flat earth is in decline, because that and other "algorithms" started sending the same folks to... Q-anon content instead. Incidentally, there was a somewhat-big documentary on Flat Earth some years ago that included some folks from a flat earth convention trying some experiments very similar to the ones depicted in this video (involving visibility of objects across a large lake), with predictable outco

This was a fantastic YouTube video on flat earther beliefs from a few years ago: [VIDEO] Spoiler - they mostly switched to QAnon instead.