It is a true story that people exist today who believe that the Earth is flat. It is not a true story that the Earth is flat. If you believe the Earth is flat, this blog isn’t for you; it’s for the rest of the population that unanimously agree that you’re just… so dumb. There is not even a question to your dumbness. It supersedes all other qualities you might possess.
It’s really hard to tell what is parody and what is sincere because the whole concept defies all logic
Anyway, who gives a shit. Like, Flat Earthers are dumb, fine, but that dumbness is about as harmless as a small child who believes in Santa Claus. Consider the progress that women have made in the last few thousand years, and remember that the backlash against that progress has stemmed from the exact same ideas every single time. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about women’s issues in the 1700s that modern Men’s Rights Activists would have problems with today. Women are invading men’s spaces! Women are fundamentally different from men and are therefore incapable of learning anything, from the basic fundamentals of education to computer programming! Anachronistic arguments are all dumb, but believing ancient myths about the geometric shape of the Earth is pretty damn benign compared to oppressive, yet equally obsolete beliefs about women.
Fuck, there are just as many scientists that believe that the Earth is flat as scientists who believe that global warming is not a man-made catastrophe! Believing the Earth is flat isn’t going to cause the literal extinction of our species, but hey, let’s focus our energy on tweeting about how dumb this other idiot on social media is, right? When I actively search for Flat Earth theories, my results are pretty much entirely those “debunking” Flat Earth theories or parodying the belief. Next up, I guess Neil deGrasse Tyson will use his wealth of knowledge to “debunk” the belief that there is gold at the end of the rainbow by dedicating the rest of his life to tweeting about light refraction and its irrelevance to mineral deposits.
Come at me, deGrasse Tyson!
The points against caring about Flat Earthers are pretty strong. But if you listen to some of the arguments of those other, more harmful anachronisms, something interesting happens.
Let’s look at anti-Vaccers: equally dumb to everyone else in here, but listen to their arguments. Big Pharma is either actively trying to poison them, or is selling snake oil for a quick buck, or any number of cons that ultimately mean that they do not have the best interests of the population at heart. And the truth is, they don’t! The makers of OxyContin have been actively murdering hundreds of thousands of citizens for years by selling an addictive killer under a deceptive marketing scheme. Or when Martin Shkreli raised the price of a life saving drug from $13.50 to $750 a pill, effectively killing off his less affluent clients. The problem is, pharmaceutical companies are not dedicated to pharmaceuticals, they are dedicated to making that quick buck. The very reason that climate denial exists despite no credible evidence to refute it is because rich people want to create some wiggle room in the truth that allows them to continue to make extravagant short-term profits at the meager cost of our entire planet.
Your best interests are to give me money; then we’ll both be happy!
The truth is that within a neoliberal ideology, everything must be commodified, which in turn commodifies truth. Reality is shaped by those who seek to profit from it, and as more and more of these lies are revealed, more and more the truth begins to look like a lie. Can we really blame someone for thinking the Earth is flat when we’ve been told for so long that cigarettes don’t cause cancer? That lead-based paint, asbestos, thalidomide, and so many others, are completely harmless? Those in power bank on their monopoly on “experts” to greedily manipulate the truth, and we wonder why skeptics arise in the most inconceivable arenas.
Certainly there are other areas of power that strangle the concept of truth for their own benefit. Politicians are notorious for morphing the truth to suit their aims (or the aims of their benefactors). Same with the clergy. So long as there is a discrepancy of power, there will be elites who use whatever means they can to reshape the world to reinforce or augment that discrepancy.
So do we need to care about Flat Earthers? Ehn, no. Maybe dedicating our energy to disentangling authority from power would be a more effective use of our time.
Blog for Chumps 
Blogs for chumps by a CHUMP
Aw shoot, you got me!
No time for chumps, moving on
You do realize “GOD SAID””
everything that leads to the idea of a flat earth and the firmament to seperate the waters from above the firmament from the waters below and god called the firmament heaven. So the Morning and the evening were the second day”
Dumb chumps are we?
I believe your fanciful friend also said “judge not lest he be judged”
You need to get over the idea that you can disrespect everything and then just ask for forgiveness 🙏
Chump!
It is ASTONISHING how much effort you put into talking utter shit about open-minded people. You create this to “reassure” people who wouldn’t bat an eye at the idea of Flat Earth Theories, which according to you, is the dumbest bullshit ever imaginable.
Now if it is so stupid and unbelievable, why do “smart” people need to be reassured?
This is not me conspiring against you for making a very dramatic attempt to keep “smart people” from ever untangling their stressed out, anger driven minds caused by following what they were told was true and became an dull, devoid of entertaining imagination, manipulative degenerate who work for peanuts and still get fucked by the same people, but only to lash out at “stupid people” to make smart people continue feeling like their education and lost money in that avenue non obsolete.
And then try to convey to anyone who gives a shit that you actually give a massive shit to do all of this…. just to call FE’rs DUMB……
OHHH WAIT… and to say WHY WASTE THE ENERGY!!?!! WHO CARES!??!!
You do…. CLEARLY
This article is about common conspiracy theories that point to a monopolization of false “expertise” that do, in fact, hold a modicum of truth, like the anti-vaxxers I describe who appropriately mistrust Big Pharma. I don’t think we actually disagree – we are too often fucked over by those who claim “the truth” who in fact don’t have our best interests at heart and are lying to us (like the tobacco companies, the oil and gas industry, etc. that I identify in the article), and this betrayal leads many of us to seek out alternative facts with varying degrees of consequences. Perhaps the article wasn’t clear; my goal wasn’t to reassure anyone, but to get people to question why conspiracy theories seem to be cropping up more and more. Perhaps the ones with power who pay us peanuts are to blame for their misrepresentations of the “truth”?
I use the concept of the flat Earth as a framing device because it *is* stupid. If the word “stupid” has any definition at all, it should be for the Flat Earth theory since the Greeks proved a spherical Earth around the 3rd century BC – around the same time they invented the zero. So if we accept that the belief that 1 – 1 ≠ 0 is stupid, then presumably we ought to carry forward the same standard. I use it as an extreme example to compare it with other areas of truth and conspiracy that are hazier, making the definition of “stupid” more nuanced – is an anti-vaxxer stupid for mistrusting Big Pharma, for instance? That depends, and perhaps that’s something we should be having a conversation about.
If you are so worked up because you believe in a flat Earth, then I apologize. I do state pretty explicitly at the beginning that this article isn’t for you, and perhaps that’s where you stopped reading. “Stupid” can be a harsh word, and I try to be less antagonistic in my current writings, but this was written five years ago back when the Flat Earth theory was much more in vogue. Perhaps if I were to write this again, I would focus on the idea of the flat Earth as being stupid rather than the subscribers of that belief.
Anyway, thank you for reading! I hope you maintain your passion and continue to question those with power.