[neilk]

Some of the original flat earth theorists seem to just be playing around, having fun with the idea of scientific authority. One of them explained gravity by positing the earth was a flat disk accelerating upwards at 9.8m/s^2, forever.

Where is the energy coming from? Why isn’t the atmosphere stripped away? Why isn’t earth white hot or achieving relativistic speeds? These problems can be dealt with enough special pleading and creative physics. They can stay one step ahead of their critics, forever.

I got very into studying flat earthers for a while. The fundamental contradiction is that they claim to be resisting authority but for their claims to work you have to take more and more on faith and accept that there are unresolvable mysteries.

Which is actually what they’re more comfortable with! They are usually in some sort of cult, or an authoritarian version of a mainstream religion.

[chungy]

I've never been sufficiently convinced that most "flat earthers" are actually serious about it. The movement seems to consist of a large ratio of people claiming such just to troll.

[mbfg]

And certainly now there is youtube monetization to keep you going promoting flat earths.

[mistermann]

That's my intuition too, I think it's hilarious how worked up people get.

[pixl97]

There is another group that uses the same tactics....

>“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

The issue with a group that plays idiot, is they attract a lot of idiots.

[chungy]

Flat-earthers aren't by their nature demonizing and dehumanizing groups of people. If done in sincerity, they merely disagree with consensus about the nature of the planet we're on.

It's quite a drastic change from that to anti-semitism.

[soco]

But are the flatearthers spreading just this one fringe theory? Because once riding the conspiracy train there's usually lots of extra luggage...

[mistermann]

> Because once riding the conspiracy train there's usually lots of extra luggage...

See also: the human consciousness (circa 2023, Western culture style) train.

Gaze in amazement at all the confident claims of "fact" in this thread, that are derived from the imagination of the claimant.

Oh, but of course, everyone is "just expressing their opinion", of course. And the question of whether each person was conscious of it at the time shall not be discussed, because that would be "pedantic", "sea-lioning", "not the purpose of this forum", etc.

This planet is surreal.

[mojo74]

Agreed. What I can never understand is where the conspiracy train bifurcates. By and large we would all accept a forest exists but not these guys: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/flat-ear...

It must be exhausting being them.

[sebzim4500]

Yeah but basically every flat earther is also at minimum anti-vax.

[wen_1k_btc]

And your evidence for this completely made up fact is... ?

[mistermann]

This itself is a rather clever "tactic" (comparing something to anti-semitism, arguably the most powerful psychological phenomenon on planet Earth, and then allowing readers to form their own conclusions about the initial proposition...and, human minds have been thoroughly trained on how to "correctly" respond to "anti-semitism"), though I do not necessarily think you are doing it with conscious intent.

> The issue with a group that plays idiot, is they attract a lot of idiots.

Well, that depends on whether one is "measuring" on a relative or absolute scale, and a subjective or objective one....and also: whether one is able to think in these higher dimensions, that are all around us (and inside us) all the time.

Take HN for example: on a relative scale, this is a highly intellectual forum. But on an absolute scale, I wonder how impressive it is.

[cuteboy19]

Maybe Einstein can help? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle

It's not clear why gravity needs to be "explained" in such a manner though. Nothing about our current theories of gravity requires the gravitational body to not be flat

[raattgift]

> Nothing about our current theories of gravity requires the gravitational body to not be flat

On the contrary the bulk behaviour of the source matter demands an ellipsoidal Earth: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_equilibrium#Deriva...>.

One might attempt to banish magma, lava, and other indicators of fluid flow (the oceans, the atmosphere, planetary differentiation generally) and imagine an infinitely rigid lipped/walled plate underneath. However, then:

An eternally-accelerating flat plate does not generate the Weyl curvature tensor which a set of plumb bobs or zero-length springs can measure.

Even before General Relativity, such measurements were undertaken and characterized as smooth functions of distance from the Equator less than sixty years after Newton e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairaut%27s_theorem_(gravity)>.

[freitzkriesler]

Keep it simpler, these are people who don't understand mirages.