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this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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The movie is called Behind the Curve, and imo is a great move.
It doesn't try to ridicule the people in it. Instead it tries to make a point that if a group like the flat earth society is being made fun of rather than engaged in discussions, then the gap just gets larger and the problem worse. (If everyone else makes fun of you, you avoid them and stay in the community that supports you.)
As far as I can tell, Mark Sargent is still believing in those theories and continues doing his part in it. This doesn't surprise me, he's quite prominent in that community and I guess if he stopped, he'd lose quite a lot of his personal achievements, friends, hobbies, etc.
I don't know about the others who were in the movie, it would be interesting to know. Especially about those who were directly doing the experiments, yeah.
It tries to show that good faith engagement is better than ridicule, but in the end it shows that flat Earthers are so contrarian that they will actively ignore the results of their own experiments and engaging in good faith is pointless.
Basically, treat all humans with dignity. In psychiatry you're told to treat all patients with good faith, but don't let the guy who thinks he is Napoleon run the hospital.
By default all humans should be treated with dignity unless they are causing direct harm to others. Flat Earthers are kind of an edge case because their anti science and evidence approach is tied in with the antivax movement so they are harming others indirectly.
MAGA idiots, racists, and other hate filled people do not deserve dignity. In amedical setting, sure, but not in the real world where they are causing harm.
"Don't let the horse run the hospital"
-John Mulaney
I didn't even know a horse could do that!
Why not, they are great at running.
Generally in most cases schizophrenia isn't catching whereas poisonous stupidity spreads. It's important to keep the disease from infecting too many new adherents. Think of humor as containment.
Unfortunately, the guy who thinks he's Napoleon usually does run the hospital and most other organizations.
My takeaway is there is something driving that contrarian attitude. We need to figure out how to address those underlying causes rather than exacerbating them through ostracization.
Really good documentary. I watched it while trying to engage over at reddit's AskTrumSupporters. It was interesting to see that community become more and more radicalized as the years went on, as the insane bullshit piled up. Helped me come to terms with the fact that engaging on that level is counter productive if anything.
The problem with flat earthers is that they don't listen to reason.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
The takeaway I got from the movie is it's not really about the theory, it could be literally anything that brings people together. It's just about being part of a community and being respected somewhere. Of course you can't logic someone out of that.
-Upton Sinclair
...But also his friendships, and entire sense of worth.
I don't remember if it was said in the doc itself or it was a video discussing the doc (I think Hbomberguy), that said "they (flat earthers) are attempting a form of science".
To me, what that says is, if they were intellectually honest with genuine curiosity, then they would've changed their views in the face of contradictory evidence. Time and time again, they showed that they weren't willing to do that even after seeing the results of their own experiments.
As you said, they've staked too much on this notion that the Earth is flat and can't afford to give up the grift now.
You're right. It isn't about proving something with science. It's about the community. In this community you always hear the same things over and over again, so if you start questioning your beliefs you also have to question all this "evidence" you saw. You have to question all your beliefs. The beliefs that you defended in the Internet and real life against other people. Doing so can cause an "existential crisis". It isn't comfortable to question yourself. Humans don't like change, so they won't question anything and hold onto their beliefs, since it's easy. Also all the people always positively engage with each other so breaking with your beliefs also means breaking with your social circle.
Yeah. It's totally the sunken cost fallacy. They mistakenly think that there is too much to lose to change their minds and cut their losses.
Have you considered that there is actually more virtue in containing stupid than trying to rescue it. The audience for such communication is rarely the person afflicted because its almost impossible to convince such folks its the folks at the margins who might be convinced either way.
Consider an imaginary belief say 0.5% of the population believes that flu can be treated by shoving pancakes up your ass. If ridicule keeps the percentage at 0.5% instead of growing to 1% its incredibly virtuous whereas more respectful treatment of the belief might help you convince 0.01% to stop shoving starch in their rectum while allowing the mental virus to spread to far more people.
This theory is applicable everywhere. Every time you engage with a crazy person or a nazi imagine your audience is the other folks reading the discussion not the person you are engaging.
That if is doing a lot of lifting. One of the points of the movie is that people and media was laughing off the flat earthers and they grew in strength to have a national movement.
One of the indications the signals we perceive automatically regarding whether an idea is "truthy" is that something is either prevalent, common, worthy of considerations (2 sides), laughable, stupid, immoral.
Balkanized feed driven experience can help expose people to erroneous signals eg seeing pro flat earth things constantly because it was selected to be like previously engaging content and confusing that with it being commonly believed.
Treating an idea seriously in other venues only makes this signal problem worse not better. If they were capable of reasoned argument they wouldn't be flat earthers to start with the only thing between them metaphorically or perhaps literally shoving pancakes up their ass is the type of social signals they are getting. I believe that ridicule is a net positive in deterring stupid beliefs because it deters SOME folks from believing whereas respectful argument is virtually worthless again when dealing with such folks.
Consider the same flat earther is all over the net speaking the same nonsense hundreds of times per year. Nonsense and ridicule is seen by hundred or thousands of folks whereas everyone is still talking to the one asshole. It's pretty easy to see why it ought to be a net positive.
Hey now, don't kink shame. I'd be fine with people shoving pancakes up their ass. It's better than the bleach some of them drank to try and kill coronavirus.
These people deserve to be ridiculed. It’s time we stop catering to these Idiots and allow them to face the consequences of their ignorance. Same with the MAGA minions.
What consequences are there for being a flat earth idiot?
I don't understand how you can see a comment that says "being mean is unproductive" and conclude "we should be mean anyways"
Do you carry the same principle for fat shaming?
Fat shaming is such a bad analogy, I wouldn't dream to mock someone for their body.
Mocking someone for the factually wrong "theory" they scientifically disproved themselves.... That's fair game.
What if an individual believes in flat earth theories because of a mental disregulation they suffer from?
You don't have a choice over whether or not you're fat. If you ask a fat person if they want to be fat, I can guarantee that the vast majority of them will say no.
Believing in flat earth, on the other hand, is a choice. The people in the Flat Earth movement don't want to leave; in fact, when faced with contradictory evidence, they just dig their heels in.
The village should not change for the village idiot.
I agree, except WTF is catering to flat earth?
Didn’t they also establish that Sargent is a hyper-religious Christian and that the majority of American flat-earthers are? If this is a religious belief for them then there’s absolutely no hope that they’ll change their views.
It's mostly a religious belief. There are a couple of Bible verses that say things like "the earth will be rolled up like a scroll" and "spread to the four corners of the earth".
Biblical literalists cannot handle the Bible being incorrect about anything, so it's everyone else that's wrong.
Much easier to rearrange reality to fit your perception rather than alter your perception and admit that you're possibly wrong.