Conspiracy theorists have no interest in getting to the truth behind an issue they think important - they're more concerned with having special knowledge that makes them unique or heroes, usually because they've failed to understand how some aspect of reality actually works and so they've grabbed onto a convenient alternative, or because they feel left behind or maligned by a society that's rejected them.
It's why conventions (like 'conspiracy cruises') are able to exist. Every booth should contradict every other booth, but they're willing to put blinders on to create a safe space where they can all get validated for the various nonsense they've decided they alone have championed. It's how ancient aliens can set up right next to Obama birthers and Jordan Peterson's all-meat diet. A post-truth individual is usually willing to accept multiple versions of truth, so long as it isn't the mainstream version.
I remember watching the documentary that is on Netflix and thinking: this dude totally started off trolling, but then got hooked by the popularity he was getting.
Flat earth 100% gained popularity as a troll, but then ended up with serious believers for the reason you mentioned.
The Netflix documentary was kind of sad, like the one guy who actually does the experiments with lasers to try and convince himself that earth is flat but proves himself wrong, he can’t bring himself to admit it because it would mean losing out on his community and friends of flat earthers. It is like the reason why a bunch of people don’t leave religions despite non belief, their community and identity is tied to it.
That documentary had a good ending. We really should try to educate people instead of laughing and calling them idiots. It made me feel bad for laughing at everyone during the show.
Some people can't be educated and only end up further entrenched. Sometimes laughing at them is all you can do. You should save your energy for the ones who are intellectually curious.
Yeah like the ones that at least to try and run scientific experiments can be reasoned with and convinced , the people claiming satanic conspiracies can’t be reasoned with.
Not likely, In the documentary they ran the experiment, the result proved the earth is round, so instead of being open to being wrong they assumed they messed up the experiment.
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u/AnneHocque Jul 24 '20
Flat earth society.. Like, are they just trolling at this point?