What do flat earthers actually believe?

What do flat earthers actually believe?

Author
Discussion

hotchy

4,471 posts

126 months

Thursday 7th November 2019
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Your just non believers. The earth is flat! How else do you explain clouds? Makes no sense. Exactly... they are the mystical overlords of schwenway!

Plus once as a boy, I fell off a wall. Surely if the earth was round I'd fall diagonally towards the soft grass. Nope, straight, flat, down.

Beware.

Tehe.

Fools the lot of you.

LimaDelta

6,520 posts

218 months

Thursday 7th November 2019
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I've said this before on other threads like this but there is a huge correlation between cannabis smoking and belief in conspiracies. I wonder if the two are somehow linked? hippy

durbster

10,264 posts

222 months

Thursday 7th November 2019
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The Netflix documentary Behind the Curve covers a lot of it. It seems it's not really anything to do with the shape of the earth and is more a manifestation of how human minds work.

There's research into Tribal Psychology which I think sounds the most plausible explanation. This podcast explores it:
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2019/03/01/yanss-146-...

You Are Not So Smart said:
...the latest evidence coming out of social science is clear: Humans value being good members of their tribes much more than they value being correct, so much so that we will choose to be wrong if it keeps us in good standing with our peers.
It makes sense that we are instinctively tribal and will accept pretty much anything that gains us acceptance. It's a large reason people get sucked into extremism and cults - we will convince ourselves of the most absurd beliefs if it means we have somewhere we feel like we belong. Extremist recruiters know this and exploit it.

It's why no amount of evidence or facts will help some people change their minds, as I'm sure we've all seen on Pistonheads. hehe

durbster

10,264 posts

222 months

Thursday 7th November 2019
quotequote all
LimaDelta said:
I've said this before on other threads like this but there is a huge correlation between cannabis smoking and belief in conspiracies. I wonder if the two are somehow linked? hippy
Absolutely agree with this too. In my experience, people who smoke a lot of weed seem much more susceptible to fall for conspiracy theories.

kuro

1,621 posts

119 months

Saturday 9th November 2019
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Scimandans YouTube channel has some real gems such as this idiot.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&amp...

Doofus

25,817 posts

173 months

Saturday 9th November 2019
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kuro said:
Scimandans YouTube channel has some real gems such as this idiot.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&amp...
Bloody hell! Will either of them actually get to the point?! Gave up after four minutes of tedium.

JuniorD

8,626 posts

223 months

Tuesday 12th November 2019
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kerplunk said:
I met a 'real' one last year at a festival. She said the round earth lie is the work of the devil and it's been going on for centuries. When I mentioned empirical observation she said she'd done some test involving standing on a hill (or cliff?) so she'd seen it with her own eyes. She referred to 'luminaries' in the sky - took me a while to realise she meant the stars - they're not gazillions of miles away after all, they're very close. Yes Tim Peake is in on it too. I would have taken the piss a bit more but before we got onto the flat earth stuff she'd been quite generous with her tequila and things so it would've been impolite!
Did you get to explore her black hole?

Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Tuesday 12th November 2019
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He was making good progress until the point where he asked to see Uranus.

kiseca

9,339 posts

219 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
I'm in this camp, more or less biggrin

One "believer" in particular made me take this stance. He believes the earth is flat and is determined to build a rocket that he can fly, and prove it. He can't afford the rocket but is getting lots of publicity which is helping him fund it... I guess there are a few people motivated enough to either see him prove himself right, prove himself wrong, or spectacularly kill himself, that they're willing to pay him to succeed.

Personally I think he is a genius, and I suspect he doesn't think the earth is flat, but in taking a flat earther stance publically, he's basically crowd funding his own personal rocket trip. Brilliant!

As an aside, I never thought the earth was flat, but I thought of flat earthers recently when on a trip to a country near the equator. A friend I was with noticed and pointed out that the quarter moon looked odd because it was oriented like a smile, with the two points equally high above the horizon. We're both used to seeing the quarter moon oriented more to one side, so one point is much higher than the other. It looked like the moon had basically been rotated around it's access. We're both from European countries.

Truth is, of course, it is us who have been rotated, not the moon. We're used to seeing it from a different angle because we've travelled around the surface of a sphere. EDIT... or maybe that's not the truth and just an assumption we made because of a bias to an existing belief?

DOUBLE EDIT: This guy agrees with me at least http://ryanmarciniak.com/archives/839

It made me wonder what reason a flat earther would have come up with.




Edited by kiseca on Wednesday 13th November 13:00

mikal83

5,340 posts

252 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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You toob Scimandan Flat earth fridays and tinfoil tuesdays always a good laugh

jshell

11,006 posts

205 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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It's not a conspiracy, per se. It's a Trojan Horse for Christian fundamentalism.

flacko

123 posts

55 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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durbster said:
Absolutely agree with this too. In my experience, people who smoke a lot of weed seem much more susceptible to fall for conspiracy theories.
and the church is full of alcoholics. substances make your mind weird eh?

Toaster

2,939 posts

193 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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Zetec-S said:
Apparently the planet is a disc surrounded by a big wall of ice at the edges.



Muzzer79 said:
I have to say I am curious as to how FE'ers think one can navigate around the Earth if it's flat.
I guess they just see it as one big Hyper loop?

Apologies for changing your text but it amused me smile

CanAm

9,202 posts

272 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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Zetec-S said:
Apparently the planet is a disc surrounded by a big wall of ice at the edges.
Not necessarily; one of their theories is that beyond "the wall" is an ice field "of indeterminate size".



bristolbaron

4,819 posts

212 months

Wednesday 13th November 2019
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Derek Smith

45,659 posts

248 months

Thursday 14th November 2019
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Some/many/most believe the world is round, or perhaps an oblate sphere. It is just a bit of fun for s/m/m.

It's similar to those who suggest they believe the world is 50,000/5000/5 years old. I'm certain that most know it's rubbish but only spout it to show they are one of the clan.

People are weird. The problem with that is that we are all people and are all weird. We all believe something that is nonsense.


Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Thursday 14th November 2019
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What nonsense do you believe?

(Just asking)

anonymous-user

54 months

Thursday 14th November 2019
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I’m pretty sure most flat earthers are just having a laugh.

It’s a club for trolling and taking the piss out of other conspiracy theorists.

JuniorD

8,626 posts

223 months

Thursday 14th November 2019
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El stovey said:
I’m pretty sure most flat earthers are just having a laugh.

It’s a club for trolling and taking the piss out of other conspiracy theorists.
I've a friend who appears to a total contrail believer and now he's onto 5G in a big way. I can't tell if he's taking the piss or serious.

anonymous-user

54 months

Thursday 14th November 2019
quotequote all
JuniorD said:
El stovey said:
I’m pretty sure most flat earthers are just having a laugh.

It’s a club for trolling and taking the piss out of other conspiracy theorists.
I've a friend who appears to a total contrail believer and now he's onto 5G in a big way. I can't tell if he's taking the piss or serious.
As in chemtrails?

What’s the connection with 5G?

I see at my kids school some of my son’s friends think it’s a laugh to pretend they believe in chemtrails, I don’t think any actually do though. I think flat earth belief is like that but more of a club. Like a club for people into the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy or whatever, a bit cult like but not actually a cult. Just a laugh.



Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 14th November 09:52