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A SciManDan interview with an ex-flat Earther.

Does the video also explain how he became a flat Earther in the first place?

My hypothesis is that 99% of flat Earthers are LARPing, trolling, or otherwise having fun pretending to believe in something that doesn't matter and that they know isn't actually true.

And the other 1% are legit crazy.

Is this video about a guy who sincerely reasoned (badly) his way into believing the Earth was flat, and then one day finally confronted evidence that contradicted this belief? Because I don't believe that guy actually exists. I might watch a video that showed he does exist, and that explains his reasoning into and later out of the belief.

Or is it a video about a guy who spent some time having fun pretending to believe in a flat Earth, and gave it up when the novelty wore off and it stopped being fun?
 
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theprestige said:
Does the video also explain how he became a flat Earther in the first place?

My hypothesis is that 99% of flat Earthers are LARPing, trolling, or otherwise having fun pretending to believe in something that doesn't matter and that they know isn't actually true.

And the other 1% are legit crazy.

Is this video about a guy who sincerely reasoned (badly) his way into believing the Earth was flat, and then one day finally confronted evidence that contradicted this belief? Because I don't believe that guy actually exists. I might watch a video that showed he does exist, and that explains his reasoning into and later out of the belief.

Or is it a video about a guy who spent some time having fun pretending to believe in a flat Earth, and gave it up when the novelty wore off and it stopped being fun?
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I suppose you could actually watch it. But, to be fair, when I "watched it" I was making breakfast so I mostly listened. To answer your question however. Yes, he did seem perfectly sincere in his previous belief. He had been persuaded mostly by watching Flat Earth videos on YouTube. He did admit to only being 99% sure and was walked away from his belief in the main by at least a pro-Globalist YouTuber (he did mention a name, not SciManDan). His biggest pre-revelation failing he admitted was that he did not know much science. And, yes, he has been deserted by his old friends and accused of being an underground stealthy shill for Scientism. It is worth a listen at least.

:th:
 
I watched it. One F-E name he* mentioned was Nathan Oakley, who apparently also has a YouTube channel.

*"He" in what follows means the interviewee, Seek truth Speak truth. His YouTube channel is


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8QUo98zQ7HlFFykAc0Z3EA


What wasn't clear to me from the interview was the process by which he became unpersuaded by F-E arguments. He said something about "compressing" photos but exactly what he meant wasn't explained sufficiently for me to understand.

He did say that he put a video on his channel explaining his reversal of position, but I haven't watched it yet.
 
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theprestige said:
Does the video also explain how he became a flat Earther in the first place?

My hypothesis is that 99% of flat Earthers are LARPing, trolling, or otherwise having fun pretending to believe in something that doesn't matter and that they know isn't actually true.

And the other 1% are legit crazy.

.................................
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I would beg to differ. Following some of these nuts for a while (an endless source of entertainment), I am shocked how many of them are so obviously certifiable. Scary stuff, actually...
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I suppose you could actually watch it. But, to be fair, when I "watched it" I was making breakfast so I mostly listened. To answer your question however. Yes, he did seem perfectly sincere in his previous belief. He had been persuaded mostly by watching Flat Earth videos on YouTube. He did admit to only being 99% sure and was walked away from his belief in the main by at least a pro-Globalist YouTuber (he did mention a name, not SciManDan). His biggest pre-revelation failing he admitted was that he did not know much science. And, yes, he has been deserted by his old friends and accused of being an underground stealthy shill for Scientism. It is worth a listen at least.

:th:
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The ones I know of are Professor Dave and Conspiracy Catz aka Baldy Catz.
 
GT/CS said:
The ones I know of are Professor Dave and Conspiracy Catz aka Baldy Catz.
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Don't know the Dave debunker, got a link so I remember to give him a look?
I passed on Dan's vid last weekend just because it's extra long at 30 mins, but I expect I'll watch it this weekend.
 
Something I have not considered is some of these flat Earthers really don't believe it is flat.
 
Steve001 said:
Something I have not considered is some of these flat Earthers really don't believe it is flat.
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Theprestige may have been exaggerating for effect, or not... I think it's 90/10 with the LARPers ahead.
Don't think that makes it any better though. [emoji20]
 
Jim_MDP said:
Theprestige may have been exaggerating for effect, or not... I think it's 90/10 with the LARPers ahead.
Don't think that makes it any better though. [emoji 20]
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On the other hand, it's not very bad to begin with. As woo goes, flat-eartherism doesn't really matter. It's not like they're anti-vaxers or holocaust deniers.

For almost everybody, almost all the time, it totally works to treat the Earth as flat. Even people in roles where it's actually necessary to account for the roundness of the earth, that's only a small part of their overall lives.

Even long-distance airline pilots. They'd probably notice the Earth was round. But even if they didn't, as long as they followed their charts and navigated by the numbers, it wouldn't matter if they sincerely believed the Earth was flat.
 
curious cat said:
I would beg to differ. Following some of these nuts for a while (an endless source of entertainment), I am shocked how many of them are so obviously certifiable. Scary stuff, actually...
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Same Here. I'd say 99% sincere, 1% ironic. Some of the formerly sincere claim ironic later on to try and mitigate the humiliation. And yes, the willingness for large numbers of people to gleefully abandon reason because YT told them to is quite scary.
 
theprestige said:
On the other hand, it's not very bad to begin with. As woo goes, flat-eartherism doesn't really matter. It's not like they're anti-vaxers or holocaust deniers.

For almost everybody, almost all the time, it totally works to treat the Earth as flat. Even people in roles where it's actually necessary to account for the roundness of the earth, that's only a small part of their overall lives.

Even long-distance airline pilots. They'd probably notice the Earth was round. But even if they didn't, as long as they followed their charts and navigated by the numbers, it wouldn't matter if they sincerely believed the Earth was flat.
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I'd be more concerned about the overlap between this and other more harmful beliefs, while the woo aspect of it is, as you say, pretty benign believing in it requires the support of the theory that there's a massive world wide conspiracy to hide the truth and actively mislead, once you've bought into this I don't see how you can not be easy pickings for any other claimed conspiracy, including the harmful ones. I mean the idea that combined vaccines are promoted by 'Big Pharma' purely because they generate massive profit (yes, I know that's at the very mouth of the anti-vax rabbit hole and it goes a lot deeper from there) is utterly wrong, but compared to flat Earth belief it's reasonable as hell.


Incidentally, what do Flat Earthers see as the end game for 'Globists', what do the powers that be get for all the centuries of effort they put into making us sheeple believe the World is round?
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Incidentally, what do Flat Earthers see as the end game for 'Globists', what do the powers that be get for all the centuries of effort they put into making us sheeple believe the World is round?
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In their minds, globists take away the divinely inspired nature of humanity.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
[omitted]
Incidentally, what do Flat Earthers see as the end game for 'Globists', what do the powers that be get for all the centuries of effort they put into making us sheeple believe the World is round?
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The only answer to "Why world-wide conspiracies?" I've ever been able to figure out is:

So that the people/reptoids/Illuminati/whoever who totally control the world can control the world even more.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Incidentally, what do Flat Earthers see as the end game for 'Globists', what do the powers that be get for all the centuries of effort they put into making us sheeple believe the World is round?
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To undermine common sense so Satan (in all his various forms) can more easily control humanity.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I'd be more concerned about the overlap between this and other more harmful beliefs, while the woo aspect of it is, as you say, pretty benign believing in it requires the support of the theory that there's a massive world wide conspiracy to hide the truth and actively mislead, once you've bought into this I don't see how you can not be easy pickings for any other claimed conspiracy, including the harmful ones. I mean the idea that combined vaccines are promoted by 'Big Pharma' purely because they generate massive profit (yes, I know that's at the very mouth of the anti-vax rabbit hole and it goes a lot deeper from there) is utterly wrong, but compared to flat Earth belief it's reasonable as hell.
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Flat-eartherism as a gateway drug? I'm not sure it works that way. If they're prone to CT-ism, any CT is as good a starting point as any other. If flat earth didn't get them into anti-vax, it would have been the other way around. Or at least, stopping flat earth CTs won't stop people getting into other CTs instead.

... is how I see it, anyway.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I suppose you could actually watch it. But, to be fair, when I "watched it" I was making breakfast so I mostly listened. To answer your question however. Yes, he did seem perfectly sincere in his previous belief. He had been persuaded mostly by watching Flat Earth videos on YouTube. He did admit to only being 99% sure and was walked away from his belief in the main by at least a pro-Globalist YouTuber (he did mention a name, not SciManDan). His biggest pre-revelation failing he admitted was that he did not know much science. And, yes, he has been deserted by his old friends and accused of being an underground stealthy shill for Scientism. It is worth a listen at least.

:th:
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Yes, if you wanted to know if certain question was addressed in a presentation, a good start would be to watch it. I did and found it quite good and informative. The ex Flat Earther and host spoke of one Eric Dubay who wrote a book titled 200 proofs - proofs that the Earth was flat. I googled it and watched another presentation disproving the proof of 20 or so of the 200. The proofs were really quite pathetic and some blatantly dishonest.

I guess most of us are familiar with the many ways we can prove the earth is a globe. Tests like observing a boat disappear as it moves away on an expanse of water, or measuring the Suns rays angle at the same time at different latitudes, and so on.

It occurs to me that the spin of the Earth, and the spin rate, could be demonstrated by measuring the difference in weight of a mass at different places. The weight would be least on the Equator (because of centripetal acceleration) and greatest on the poles.
 
Thor 2 said:
Yes, if you wanted to know if certain question was addressed in a presentation, a good start would be to watch it. I did and found it quite good and informative. The ex Flat Earther and host spoke of one Eric Dubay who wrote a book titled 200 proofs - proofs that the Earth was flat. I googled it and watched another presentation disproving the proof of 20 or so of the 200. The proofs were really quite pathetic and some blatantly dishonest.

I guess most of us are familiar with the many ways we can prove the earth is a globe. Tests like observing a boat disappear as it moves away on an expanse of water, or measuring the Suns rays angle at the same time at different latitudes, and so on.

It occurs to me that the spin of the Earth, and the spin rate, could be demonstrated by measuring the difference in weight of a mass at different places. The weight would be least on the Equator (because of centripetal acceleration) and greatest on the poles.
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I've been following the Flat Earthers since before the days of the Internet. As SciManDan points out -- the FEs do not have a coherent theory. The explanations to explain solar, stellar and lunar motions and day and night all contradict each other. The Ice Wall is particularly hilarious.
 
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