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Chris Porter on Flat Earthers (Original Post) greyl Apr 2021 OP
Fat Birthers trusty elf Apr 2021 #1
I have studied Flat-Earthers for 4 YEARS. Here are my results: DetlefK Apr 2021 #2
Heard nt greyl Apr 2021 #3

DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
2. I have studied Flat-Earthers for 4 YEARS. Here are my results:
Sat Apr 17, 2021, 05:34 AM
Apr 2021
1. Flat-Earthers don't give a shit whether Earth is flat or not.

Flat-Earth is nothing but a conspiracy-theory: Flat-Earthers are entirely boring and unremarkable people of low education and with nothing to show for in their lives. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut they subconsciously desire a higher social status, as all humans do. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut that would require hard work. Soooooooooooooooo Flat-Earthers resort to a simpler approach: They declare that there is some hidden secret in the world and that they are privy to that secret and that by consequence the whole rest of the world is either too dumb to see the truth or evil for suppressing the truth.

Flat-Earthers don't care about evidence, about scrutinizing experiments, about mathematics and physics. It's all about them living in this parallel universe where they are geniuses and heroes. And have friends.

Flat-Earthers love to talk how the Earth cannot possibly be a globe. If you get bothered by a Flat-Earther, the easiest way to send him running is by asking him for evidence that Earth is flat.



2. There are as many Flat-Earth-models as there are Flat-Earthers.

It's a social rule among conspiracy-theorists that you DO NOT cast doubt on somebody else's beliefs. If you do, you will get cast out and lose your friends for offending them.
Consequently, you MUST NOT EVER claim that somebody else's Flat-Earth-model is false and that your's is correct.
Consequently, Flat-Earthers go out of their way to not discuss what flat Earth is like.

For example, there are two "The Flat Earth Society". Each has their own website and online-forum and claims to be the real "The Flat Earth Society". How did that happen?
Well, there was a schism. One Flat Earth Society is more pseudoscientific-minded, with experiments that prove Earth being flat. (I got banned from their forum several times for asking too many questions about the validity and accuracy of their results.)
The other Flat Earth Society is full-on LUNATIC with time-travellers, people who have seen aliens, how we live in a matrix, how moonlight is magical and cools things down, the electric universe theory, the time-cube theory, the mud-flood theory...

This multitude of Flat-Earth-claims creates the problem that the scientific method is based on first making a claim and then testing that claim. In order to avoid testing flat Earth and having to provide scientific proof that Earth is flat, Flat-Earthers have invented a new definition of what the scientific method is and insist that every scientist ever has gotten it wrong.




3. There are scammers who pretend to be Flat-Earthers in order to fleece real Flat-Earthers for donations.

The most famous example is the Youtube-Flat-Earther Nathan Oakley. While another Flat-Earther was in a livestreamed debate on the shape of Earth, Nathan Oakley panicky wrote him in chat (forgetting that the chat was public...) to immediately sabotage his opponent's argument of a certain lighthouse-experiment and to change topics to something else, because (quote) that lighthouse-experiment is "perfect globe-proof".

Nathan Oakley is in real life an unemployed actor who runs a Youtube-channel where he livestreams shows where he insults and belittles people from the Flat-Earth-debunking community. He plays this over-the-top Alex-Jones-style character who continuously screams at you and won't let you finish a single sentence. And he absolutely loves rape-jokes and accusing people of being pedophiles. And the Flat-Earthers love him for it.

I once asked Nathan Oakley in chat something about Flat-Earth. Without answering my question, he asked me what "mass" is. I gave a short but physically accurate and sophisticated answer, for which he DID NOT have a memorized talking-point at the ready. So he banned me from his chat within 5 seconds.

I asked two Flat-Earthers what they think about Nathan Oakley. Whether it bothers them that a fake Flat-Earther is lying to real Flat-Earthers for money. They said, they don't care, because Nathan Oakley is spreading the message.







TL;DR
Flat-Earthers don't give a shit about Flat-Earth. It's all about maintaining this parallel universe where they are geniuses who are smarter than everyone else and where they are heroes fighting a world-wide conspiracy.
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