Analogue Boy
Bar 6
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2005
- Messages
- 13,547
I wonder if Flat Earthers enjoy 3D movies.
They enjoy and are validated by being in a group of like minded people, that is 'flat-earthers'.Conspiracies are very real things. But a conspiracy requires a motive. the conspirators (has to be more than one) are trying to push an agenda. What would be the agenda of the flat Earthers ?
In the first place, it’s not helpful or correct describe some of these thing as ‘stupid’. Even if one takes the view that this is ‘criticising the action not the person’, it’s heard as pejorative and if you want to kick off a row with almost anyone go down the ‘stupid’ route. Almost no-one thinks they are stupid, and if you really want to change someone's mind, this is exactly how not to do it.
In the second place, a lot of perfectly intelligent people believe in irrational things. That on its own undermines any argument based purely on the intelligence of the believer.
What you are perhaps suggesting is that there is a lack of ‘critical thought’, as applied to the beliefs in question. Critical thought can be thought of as exercising the general forms of thought most conducive to sorting the true from the false – or ‘the art of being right.’” (van Gelder 2001).
So one must draw the correct or most likely answer from the available information, using induction, deduction and (then) interpretation and in doing so overcoming bias to make a sound judgement.
It turns out critical thought does correlate with IQ but also with FFM ‘openess’ and also, unlike many other measurable traits or abilities, this is something which can be improved and one can be trained for. If anything, we ought to spend more time on critical thought at school level, including many of the various rhetorical tricks used to confound ones critical facilities (straw men, circular reasoning and so on). That's certainly make politicians' lives harder.
Even so, with good critical thought facilities, we are, as human beings, susceptible to peer pressure, almost hard-wired cognitive biases and also, our own strong innate desire to belong to a group (Sharon’s point about conspiracy theory dynamics is solid).
In other words it isn’t as simple as ‘people are stupid if…'
However, in the case of their belief in a Flat Earth, they obtusely refuse to understand something that they clearly have the ability to comprehend.
This depend on one's frame of reference. We consider 'rational' to be the centred around deductive logic e.g. 'modus ponens', one of several classic deductive forms)When Flat Earthers go to such lengths to build complex schemes to disprove something that has been proven beyond doubt with abundant and readily available evidence, I can only say that they are wilfully being irrational. Whether we use the word "stupid" or some other word to describe wilful irrationality is then just a matter of labelling.
- Religious convictions (the bible says the earth is flat)
Even the dimmest mediaeval peasant would know that a (roughly spherical) apple or turnip could be divided into four quarters; he would also be only too well aware that there were more than four winds.
maximus otter
But does it? I’m an atheist, but out of mild interest l typed “Does the Bible say that the Earth is flat?” into Google. The first response lists fifteen Bible verses allegedly “about Flat Earth”. The only two which could remotely be considered “Flat Earthy” (IMHO) are:
Isaiah 11:12 which refers to “the four quarters of the earth”, and;
Revelation 7:1 which talks of “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth”.
Even the dimmest mediaeval peasant would know that a (roughly spherical) apple or turnip could be divided into four quarters; he would also be only too well aware that there were more than four winds.
maximus otter
Ha ha, a good point! That would be an impossibility... unless the Earth was indeed flat!There is also the part where Jesus is hanging out with the Devil on a mountain big enough to see all the Earth from.
I wonder how 'Them' telling us that the world is a globe would keep the population under control. Maybe to stop us all running to the edge for a look over the side? I don't think that the shape of the planet would make me behave any differently to my usual.
Having communicated this same question with the Flats, they insist that the truth that is being hidden is that beyond the mountains of Antarctica (the Mountains of Madness imo), that form the ring around our part of the endless flatness of the world and keep our oceans in, there are endless fertile lands with abundant resources. If we discover this, we will all try to escape the "illuminati run bondage gulag" we apparently live in. Sounds great no? It's a classically American fantasy. The dream of an endless frontier. On the other hand, this illuminati run bondage gulag sounds like a great name for a nightclub.
There's just a howling void out there.Ah. So that’s where the clouds go after they pass over the mountains of Antarctica. Where do they go after that though?
I’m thinking everything goes all Pixar once you reach the outer hub.
I wonder how 'Them' telling us that the world is a globe would keep the population under control. Maybe to stop us all running to the edge for a look over the side?
I don't think that the shape of the planet would make me behave any differently to my usual.
Maybe, if enough people ran to the edge, the World would tip over?
Oh good. Another one.There's just a howling void out there.
You mean there's another howling void?Oh good. Another one.
But does it? I’m an atheist, but out of mild interest l typed “Does the Bible say that the Earth is flat?” into Google. The first response lists fifteen Bible verses allegedly “about Flat Earth”. The only two which could remotely be considered “Flat Earthy” (IMHO) are:
Isaiah 11:12 which refers to “the four quarters of the earth”, and;
Revelation 7:1 which talks of “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth”.
Even the dimmest mediaeval peasant would know that a (roughly spherical) apple or turnip could be divided into four quarters; he would also be only too well aware that there were more than four winds.
maximus otter
Ah. Forget I said that. Nothing to see here.You mean there's another howling void?