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Comment count is 33
Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2017-11-29

It *seems* flat earth is a mainly US thing. Could it be a result of their woeful education system?

Also I like how Vice do not seem to be even trying for journalistic neutrality, this is edited purely for laughs, but seriously fuck these people.


Chicken the Did - 2017-11-29

Oh don't get me started.

Oh, you got me started. This is a subset of young earth creationism. The flat earth is of course how ancient cultures and more importantly the BIBLE(tm) which is a meatloaf of those ancient cultures described the earth. So these people are gripping onto fundamentalist teachings with all their might. No matter what kind of science you try and throw at them their faith contends that mankind lives inside of a six thousand year old magic fishbowl because God.


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2017-11-29

Well why is religious fundamentalism to the point of absurdity so prevalent in the US?
Could it be a result of their woeful education system?


betabox - 2017-11-29

Woeful education, heavy religious influence, hatred of government resulting from a pathological worship of FREEDOM!!!1!

You know, the Republican agenda.


Simillion - 2017-11-29

It's a long buildup of tacit approval of faith-based education. See: abstinence-only education, evolution not being taught in schools, lack of restrictions of teaching/sharing religious ideas in classrooms, social media self-perpetuating values that faith Trumps science in education, and the entrusting of our states with all of the educational standards for K-12 education (see: No child left behind --> every student succeeds act, basically completely removing a national/federal role for educational standards)


memedumpster - 2017-11-29

Other theocratically strong authoritarian nations do not have a flat earther problem, and the one nation that ranks stupider on tests than the USA, Spain, doesn't either.

I think it comes down to the fact that Flat Earth Belief is so far up the ladder of "stupidest shit Americans believe" that it averages out to happening more often, just by virtue of there being worse things we believe in.

Like our politics.


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2017-11-29

Interesting.. also lol Spain!


Raggamuffin - 2017-11-29

Big country problem: In a country of 350 million, you can find a million people who believe in just about anything. That, and Americans are very into the idea of having one's own view of the world, cutting your own path and "keep your authority to yourself thank-you-very-much."

Sometimes that results in amazing things, like inventions that change the world. Sometimes it results in stuff like this.

Anyway, here is a live stream of earth from the ISS:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload


Old_Zircon - 2017-11-29

Actually, even ancient cultures generally knew the earth was a sphere, it's really a fairly recent concept that came out of fundamentalst Christian sects after the European Renaissance.

I mean, I'm sure some REALLY, REALLY ancient cultures did, but it had been generally debunked before Old Testament times.


Old_Zircon - 2017-11-29

Let's also not neglect to givedue credit to the fact that the main source of education in history and science is basic cable.

I know far more than one person with an advanced degree who genuinely believes in ghosts and magic and stuff.


SolRo - 2017-11-29

are we talking a STEM advanced degree or a finance/arts/politics "advanced" degree?


cognitivedissonance - 2017-11-30

Alternate theory: America has long mythologized the amateur Renaissance Man, going back to Ben Franklin. Distrust of the academy is as built into American DNA as distrust of episcopal hierarchy in religion. The central core of Americanism as a heresy is that it presupposes that the United States is distinct from the methods and sins of the rest of Western Civilization, which is not merely patently untrue but a bias of cognitive dissonance we all deal with in our internal thought processes daily. The same impulse that causes Americans to distrust mainstream academic scientific method is the same impulse that made Joseph Smith write a new gospel where Jesus bypassed Europe entirely and appeared to a non-existent group of native Americans... because we feel we are unique in the continuity of history.


Old_Zircon - 2017-11-30

SolRo, STEM is utter bullshit. (not the disciplines it represents, but the STEM concept) but yes, the people I have in mind are mostly trained as architects and engineers.


Raggamuffin - 2017-11-30

OZ: just curious, what do you mean by the "STEM concept" being bullshit? I don't really know what you mean by "concept" here.


garcet71283 - 2017-12-01

Actually it's a misconception that general European thought ever held the Earth as flat. This was a more so a peasant superstition due to the total lack of education among the general population. The academic consensus was that the earth was round but at the center of the universe. This was the ruling theory going way back to the Greeks, but even then there were theories that proposed the Sun was in fact the center.

The modern concept of the Middle Ages "flat earth" comes from the bullshit Columbus myth we teach our kids. He didn't set out to prove anything scientifically, he was a businessman who wanted to find a cheap alternate route to Asia. The only thing in question was the precise dimensions of the Earth, and what land masses were unmapped. And even this they had a pretty good idea of due to 1500 year old math (Greeks, Romans) calculations that were in the ballpark.

What pisses me off about these assholes more than anything is that they perpetuate the myth that Europe somehow collectively got stupid for 1000 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and reverted to barbarism. The "Dark Ages" was not an all encompassing phenomenon and progress did continue, albeit not at the rate in the Roman Empire.


Chicken the Did - 2017-11-29

The irony is that hundreds of years ago people died horrific deaths trying to prove the contrary. This is like pissing on their graves.


Mister Yuck - 2017-11-29

I don't think anyone died for this stuff in the West in the last few hundred years. The Earth being round was accepted by Aristotle, and therefore by pretty much dogma to every educated European until the enlightenment. I don't think the church ever tried to suppress the idea.


Bootymarch - 2017-11-29

Oh look, a whole bunch of ugly burnt-out white people.


garcet71283 - 2017-11-29

I've actually encountered more African American folk that buy in to this sort of thing than any other group. I suppose it could be a per capita thing living in the Seattle area.


cognitivedissonance - 2017-11-30

Seattle has a lot of black nationalists and P-Funk mythology. I encourage it and wish them good luck.


Marlon Brawndo - 2017-11-30

Neil DeGrasse Tyson had a feud with some rapper over this.


yogarfield - 2017-12-01

B.o.B

He wants to fly a balloon or rocket or something up there to take a picture and prove it and he only needs your help and $1,000,000.

https://www.gofundme.com/show BoBthecurve


garcet71283 - 2017-12-01

I worked with this one African American gentleman who would lecture me on how the Jews and the government conspire to portray Jesus as white when he was African. I told him that Jerusalem is in the Middle East and he probably was Middle Eastern. He had nothing.

On other occasions he spoke about the fake moon landing, shadow governments and the Rothechilds.


yogarfield - 2017-11-29

Stop the flat earth, I want to get off.


Scattersane - 2017-11-29

I just discovered a childhood friend of mine became one of these guys.


Chicken the Did - 2017-11-29

Not a friend of mine but this poster who had appeared somewhat normal on a forum I lurk at just let it all hang out the other day. He posted that that the data on the North Korean rocket had to have been faked because traveling at that height it would have 'smacked into the firmament' and been destroyed. Then other flat earth craziness bubbled up like 'The ISS is actually underwater! NASA lies!' and plenty of 'God' and 'Jesus' tossed in randomly. And this wasn't like somebody doing a thing. This guy sincerely believed what he was posting.

The mods quietly deleted his post so I can't link it.


cognitivedissonance - 2017-11-30

I had a coworker who accidentally admitted to it. Nobody would talk to him or make eye contact with him the day after the election, he was dead to us.


GravidWithHate - 2017-11-29

People want to feel important. Everyone is trying to contextualize themselves as being part of some great struggle, against a vast and organized conspiracy.

It produces some crazy shit, but I'm sure emotionally it beats admitting that when you die, you will amount to a certain amount of paperwork and a some days of domestic cleaning.


Old_Zircon - 2017-11-29

The irony is that you don't even need a conspiracy theory anymore when 8 old white guys pretty much orchestrate everything out in the open, for all intents and purposes.

https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/an-economy-f or-the-99-its-time-to-build-a-human-economy-that-benefits-everyone -620170


cognitivedissonance - 2017-11-30

But the thing is, it's not a conspiracy, because they all personally revile each other and work to undermine each other's pet projects, even though their broader project is collusion on neoliberal capitalism.


garcet71283 - 2017-12-01

Can I trade in dark cyberpunk future for something else?


Marlon Brawndo - 2017-11-30

But what should I do with all this nasty soap that is obviously giving me the Plague?


garcet71283 - 2017-12-01

Soap?!?! That's the least of our worries with all these cats around!


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