Flat Earthers

[leggo PE]

The Social Dilemma is all about the dark side of social media; very little coverage on the good things about it. Most of the people they talk to are people who used to work at the big name social media companies, and have defected. They talk about the mass amounts of data collected by all the Facebooks/Googles/Twitters/TikTok/etc., increased rates of suicides in young girls, the lack of checks on what is true or not, increased polarity/radicalizing of people on the left/right, the role social media has played in fake news, the users of the sites being the "product" sold to advertisers, the way social media's goal is to you to get addicted to it so they show you more advertisements... For instance, the advent of the Instagram stories, where they keep playing until you tell them to stop, and before you know it, you've spent half an hour watching Instagram stories when you were just trying to watch one story by you friend or someone you follow. Like, how it's the goal of these social media companies to prey on the part of your brain that gives into wanting attention. Any social media company's main goal is to get you on them as much as possible.

Of course, this may all seem like it's common sense. Of course social media companies want you on their site as much as possible! But the way this documentary does it painted it in a very effective light for me to want to get actually myself uninvolved with nearly all of them. I mean, I like knowing what my friends are doing, but I have other means of knowing what they're up to, and I don't need to share everything I'm doing all the time, either.

They also make a point of saying that social media plays a huge role in a big underlying problem in American society right now, which is the understanding of what is "true" or not. If large amounts of people start to question what is even true (I think this was where the Flat Earthers were mentioned?), it can degrade society as we know it.

 

[Dleg]

 

[P-E]

 

[Dleg]

 

[wilheldp_PE]

 

[Dleg]

I've been hearing about these wackos over the past couple years, and recently discovered that a pharmacist I know believes in this shit whole heartedly. He constantly posts on Facebook about it, and uses all sorts of flawed mathematics that he clearly doesn't understand to try to justify it. Nothing will convince him otherwise. What disturbs me most (aside from the movement starting in my home state of Colorado, and apparently headed in part by an engineer) is how this illustrates a poisoning of thought, where people start to genuinely doubt science yet believe in the most improbable, massive conspiracies, all fed by manipulative messages that you can't trust scientists, educated people, professionals, etc. because they must be personally benefitting from it. The Flat Earthers may seem to be the most idiotic of these groups, but the basic tenets underlying their rejection of science are the same as those behind the anti vaccination movement and - yes - climate change denial as well as anti-evolutionism. Because these other erroneous schools of thought were viewed as slightly less absurd and even socially advantageous (in certain religious or political circles), enough people are apparently willing to apply the same level of doubt and skepticism to any number of other scientific theories and fact, especially if it begins to seem popular to do so within their social groups.

I'm worried that the Flat Earthers are just the beginning of a potentially catastrophic expansion of this type of thinking. The start of another Dark Ages, where progress stalls because science becomes distrusted or even illegal in favor of religion, superstition, and mob rule. While I personally believe that religion can coexist with science, as it has for the past few hundred years, I do think that we've been too weak and tolerant in our response to anti vaxxers, creationists and the like, and if we don't start to more vigorously stand up for science and fact, we could very well be condemning our descendants to a much lower quality of life, and eventually threatening our own science-based profession.

http://secondnexus.com/technology-and-innovation/flat-earth-society/?utm_content=inf_10_1164_2&tse_id=INF_230818c094c911e7aba2ffcf7683ccd7

I'm doubling down on my initial assessment of where humanity is currently headed.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I just...don't...understand. What does NASA or the federal government stand to gain by lying about the earth being a sphere? From what I can tell, the flat-earthers started as an offshoot from the chem-trail conspiracy theorists. They were/are batshit, but at least I can understand their concern if they believe in chem-trails (i.e., the government is surreptitiously drugging us for some unknown goal). But I don't understand what the government stands to gain by getting us to believe that the earth is spherical instead of flat.

 

[Supe]

I just...don't...understand. What does NASA or the federal government stand to gain by lying about the earth being a sphere? From what I can tell, the flat-earthers started as an offshoot from the chem-trail conspiracy theorists. They were/are batshit, but at least I can understand their concern if they believe in chem-trails (i.e., the government is surreptitiously drugging us for some unknown goal). But I don't understand what the government stands to gain by getting us to believe that the earth is spherical instead of flat.

They're just hiding all the aliens and secrets on the other side of the earth we can't see, and don't want anyone to find it. Kind of like how a kid cleans his room by shoving everything under the bed.

 

[DLD PE]

I'm doubling down on my initial assessment of where humanity is currently headed.

My opinion: There have always been and there will always be uneducated people, people who can't think reasonably and objectively, and conspiracy theorists (which basically stem from the aforementioned). The age of the internet has given these people a larger platform and therefore, an opportunity to reach out and expand their influence. In my opinion the best weapon against such people is to ignore them.

 

[jeb6294]

I just...don't...understand. What does NASA or the federal government stand to gain by lying about the earth being a sphere? From what I can tell, the flat-earthers started as an offshoot from the chem-trail conspiracy theorists. They were/are batshit, but at least I can understand their concern if they believe in chem-trails (i.e., the government is surreptitiously drugging us for some unknown goal). But I don't understand what the government stands to gain by getting us to believe that the earth is spherical instead of flat.

Well apparently the chem-trails weren't working and that's why the Gov't conspired with China to invent COVID so we'd all line up to get drugged/microchipped voluntarily.

 

[Dleg]

I just...don't...understand. What does NASA or the federal government stand to gain by lying about the earth being a sphere? From what I can tell, the flat-earthers started as an offshoot from the chem-trail conspiracy theorists. They were/are batshit, but at least I can understand their concern if they believe in chem-trails (i.e., the government is surreptitiously drugging us for some unknown goal). But I don't understand what the government stands to gain by getting us to believe that the earth is spherical instead of flat.

Some of them (no idea what percentage) appear to be upset because they think evidence of a round earth proves the Bible wrong and will turn people into atheists.