[immibis]

They don't need to. If only 1% of the people are able to access censored content and therefore hold censored ideas, the majority will treat them as crazy pariahs.

It's the same mechanism that makes us consider the 1% of flat earthers crazy. Sadly the mechanism works based on how many people believe a thing, not whether it's true, so it can also block true things if only 1% of people believe them.

[shkkmo]

We think flat earthers are crazy because it is a fairly trivial thing to prove them wrong. If you believe something that is that easily disproved AND widely understood to be so, there is clearly something wrong with you.

[throwaway290]

We don't think that people who think there's a bearded man in heaven are crazy, even if that's crazier than thinking earth is flat.

We don't think they are crazy because they are not 1%, they are majority.

Most people think flat earthers are crazy not because they proved them wrong. Just most people around them think flat earthers are crazy and that's enough.

[Loughla]

No we think flat earthers are crazy because it's trivial to prove wrong, whereas religious belief is a matter of faith that can't really be proven one way or the other, regardless of how silly the belief is.

They're just different.

[immibis]

There is no way to prove that the earth isn't actually flat but every observation conspires to make it look round. For instance some flat earthers say that the atmosphere reflects light in the exact way that makes it look round.

Take any phenomena on a globe earth, describe the exact same thing in flat earth coordinates and then say that everything weird in the equations is a new physical effect you just discovered.

[JumpCrisscross]

> describe the exact same thing in flat earth coordinates and then say that everything weird in the equations is a new physical effect you just discovered

…which have other consequences that are easily disproven.

Flat earthers are empirical cosplayers. It mostly seems they just want something to argue about and couldn’t come up with anything original.

[pcthrowaway]

I don't believe I've seen a flat earther explanation of foucalt's pendulum yet, but perhaps they have one

[immibis]

"Pendulums just do that."

[shadowgovt]

That's a void argument.

If every observation conspires to make it look round, it's round because observation is all we have. Refusing to accept observational evidence that forms a coherent explanation is either anti-science or anti-definition-of-words. This justification for flat earth exits the realm of scientific inquiry and enters the realm of Cartesian evil demons, a hypothesis even Descartes rejected.

[immibis]

Well yes, nobody who truly believes in scientific inquiry believes the earth is flat. But that just pushes the problem one meta-level deeper: people who don't believe in scientific inquiry are shunned only because 99% of people do, not because it's better even though it is better, and if 99% of people opposed scientific inquiry the situation would reverse. (it is reversing in the USA)

[wkat4242]

Until you travel around the world? Try that on a flat disc.

[shkkmo]

> Take any phenomena on a globe earth, describe the exact same thing in flat earth coordinates and then say that everything weird in the equations is a new physical effect you just discovered.

You can't actually do that in an internally consistent way. (Or atleast I've never seen it.) It isn't only interally incosistent but those theories also break down if you look at them too closely. That's why so much of flat earthism relies on conspiracy theories that are used to justify ignoring phenomena rather than actually investigating it.

[throwaway290]

> No we think flat earthers are crazy because it's trivial to prove wrong, whereas religious belief is a matter of faith that can't really be proven one way or the other, regardless of how silly the belief is.

that you even say this may show how you learned to live with it because majority around you believes it and your human brain considers it suicide to go against the tribe. (Or maybe you believe it yourself)

it's trivial to prove there's no heaven or hell. Maybe as trivial as disprove flat earth.

Flat earth is very similar to religion. It's a belief. It perpetuates because people around you believe in flat earth and if you tell them how they are crazy then you will be outcast and lose friends and family. And hey spoiler alert this is the same reason you don't call religion crazy, because anywhere in the world 99% you have religious friends or family (except maybe north korea or china, then replace religion with dictator cult). Flat earthers are just unlucky because they are very small minority

[shkkmo]

> it's trivial to prove there's no heaven or hell.

You're conflating physics and metaphysics.

> Flat earth is very similar to religion

You seem to have a beef to pick with religion. There are religious groups that do function similar to flat earthers, but that isn't true of all religious groups and many of the smartest and open minded people in history have been religious.

If anything, by making this comparison you are legitimizing idiocy.

There's a big difference between taking a position on unknowable metaphysical topics and refusing to recognize or even look at evidence when presented to you.

[throwaway290]

If you think I am legitimizing flat earthers you really don't get the point. I am just saying that for 90% of people belief in this or that mostly dictated by people around them.

> unknowable metaphysical topics

religious people often conveniently shift goalposts to make sure what they say is always beyond knowable. We launched satellites and found no heaven above? fine, it exists in some other way. No soul detected? our technology is not good enough. Flat earthers do almost the same thing just they use conspiracy theories instead.

If you want to find a difference between religion and flat earther theory, Christianity for example (not sure this applies to all religions) is supposedly helping humans live together better, like: be kind, do to others what you want be done to you, don't steal/kill/rape etc. But that's not really related to how it's proven or factual.

[wkat4242]

Who cares about the tribe?

I have no issue saying I think religion is BS. I don't care if I lose friends over that tbh.

I just don't normally do so because a) it won't change their mind and b) I don't care what they believe. I still think it's crazy but that's fine. Everyone is a bit crazy anyway. And c) I prefer focusing on common ground than contradictions.

But tribes are overrated in this day and age. If you don't fit in you can just find another one that you do gel with. This changes over time too.

[throwaway290]

You and everyone except psychopaths cares about tribes even if you don't think you do. Tribe = society. Social exclusion = death.

You can find new friends thanks to internet. Flat earthers and religious communities have more strong relations IRL than us here

[wkat4242]

> We don't think that people who think there's a bearded man in heaven are crazy, even if that's crazier than thinking earth is flat.

Um speak for yourself.

I think most of us atheists do think that but we're too polite to not say it. Besides, it won't change anything so there's no point.

[shkkmo]

Equating flat earthism with religion is just ignorant. They are not epistemologically equivalent. Normalizing flat earth beliefs like this is actively harmful.

[wkat4242]

Well I think flat earthism is less crazy. Flat earthers believe in a physical phenomenon, they just don't have the ability to verify their hypothesis in person. This is really how science works. Where they do wrong is ignoring evidence when presented but at least we're taking about a physical thing we can see.

Religions believe in a guy in the sky who promises to look after you after you have turned to dust after you do some arbitrary things during your time on earth. Most of their followers don't even actually do these things and are pretty bad people but still believe they're going to be looked after through some creative brain twisting. For this there is no evidence and no ability to even obtain it. The only thing they have is some old books.

I think the latter is more crazy in essence. Of course most flat earthers aren't actually interested in evidence and I think most of them just say they are in order to troll.

Also flat earthers are much less of a problem in the world because there's only a handful in them and most of them are in the US where they don't really stand out in terms of craziness considering the state that country is in. It's in a post-fact state anyway for most of its population.