On the one hand, yeah. Worrying about stuff that you have barely any control over won't get you far. But on the other hand, that guy's vote counts as much as yours. And if he already believes such silly conspiracy theories as the flat earth theory, he will be easily swayed by whoever is the loudest contrarian.
the challenge isn't to let him enjoy life with his stupid ass conspiracy, it's to get him to realize for himself that he's been duped by both strangers on the internet and Conservative conspiracies. Deradicalizing and then radicalizing is hard as fuck
Yah, it's not so much what he believes, but that he displays a lack of critical thinking skills or even common sense. That's just how it came to the surface.
Right and that should be the target of our efforts. Not fighting over scientific research they've already decided to reject. Encourage them to think more critically. You can only encourage someone when you have their ear. You only have someone's ear when they're comfortable around you. Demeaning someone's intelligence and telling them their world view is a toxic lie, is a quick way to convince them they'll only ever be at odds with you.
This guy’s vote counts as much as yours. I.E. next to nothing.
Depends on where you live. California, Texas? Yeah close to nothing in comparison with someone from Wisconsin. For some reason that I keep getting told isn't political favoritism.
The problem is that flat-earthers aren't just that. They usually believe in all kinds of other kooky stuff as well, and some of those beliefs pose an active danger to society.
Exactly, the same mindset that takes you to “The entire geophysical establishment is wrong/lying about the shape of the Earth, so I’ll listen to this Youtube crank who says it’s a disc instead” will also lead you to things like “The entire medical establishment is wrong/lying about the effectiveness of masks & vaccines, so I’ll listen to this podcast crank hawking horse dewormer instead.”
There’s always an implied “them” hiding the conspiracy as well. It’s just a couple of short steps from flat earth to “jews will not replace us”.
To be fair, the medical establishment did lie about it, but not because of some weird "big mask" or "big pharma" conspiracy, but because they have a tangible impact when used by large groups and overselling them would have better outcomes than underselling them.
It's a classic problem those in power have to deal with: tell the truth and get an underwhelming response, or oversell and get a better response.
Don't take horse dewormers though, that's just dumb.
Don't need a podcast when the president at the time was telling them to take the horse dewormer.
Yup, the root of flat earth conspiracy y theories is that some group is fooling everyone to enrich themselves. If you keep scratching through the layers it's always jews that are behind it.
It's just antisemitism cloaked in a ridiculous conspiracy.
Weird that the OOP thinks it's "intellectual superiority" to simply have your facts straight.
1: Why do you always have to be right?
2: You were literally bitching about getting a raise and losing money. That's not how that works!
1: Anecdote lawyer politicians taxes useless idiot not even a Republican talking point drivel.
2: Stare and say nothing.
1: Implodes a month later by sending out emails to everyone across the company about work being work and gets fired.
2: Goes back to work short staffed.
I miss when people were ashamed of being stupid, now they feel proud about it.
Pointing out stupidity online is a crazy experience. Most of the time you get answers like "who cares?", " you must be fun at parties.", "this isn't a (relevant topic) test, I'll make all the errors I want" etc. Not once in my life have I felt or thought like that, and I just can't imagine how those proples minds work.
The thing is, in their eyes they aren't stupid.
They think they have this secret piece of information, and everyone else is stupid for not knowing or understanding it.
But it is kind of narcissistic to think you found this extra information, which the people who have spend their entire lives researching the topic somehow have missed.
Like, I know people who claim the sea levels aren't going to rise because ice melting doesn't increase the water level. And claim all the scientists are wrong about climate change. When in reality the sea levels will rise because warm water expands.
It's often that they think those people know but aren't telling the truth. Then more and more people start agreeing. So they're not the one person who figured it out, it's a revolution!
See here's the thing, if you believe silly stuff and keep it to yourself, that's fine. People who believe in silly stuff never keep it to themselves though.
If you put information out there, don't be mad when people put counter information back at you. I know far too many people who believe in alt medicine and talk freely about it, that it's getting harder and harder to bite my tongue. I don't care if you think Acupuncture works for you. The fruit diet worked for Steve Jobs until it didn't.
Acupuncture is a bit of a different animal though, there's been some research coming out that it triggers a different layer (connective tissue iirc) in ways that we don't really understand but seem to promote beneficial responses through triggering various receptors and nerve responses. I would still group it closer to alt med but it's one of the ones I think might have a grain of usefulness underlying a bunch of less helpful ritualism.
The truth is darker: For everybody who talks about the silly stuff there are two who don't, you just don't hear them cuz they ain't talking. Source: Closeted Quacko
How do you know? People could believe in all kinds of dumb shit and just not tell you.
I mean those types already gave us the Bible, how much worse could it get?
Flat earthers generally vote for people who are hell-bent on erasing workers' rights. That's why I would be arguing.
Yeah, the whole "live and let live" movement has removed the social barriers to being a fucking moron. Ignorant people holding onto stupid beliefs should be made to feel bad by the people around them.
The whole “live and let live” movement normalized far-right talking points in my country, then the "live and let live" movement suddenly disappeared...
Like 15 years ago there was this flat earther at my office job. He was a smart kid and knew his sql good but he was just obnoxious with his assertive opinions on just about everything.
One day he brings in this fancy mechanical keyboard and is all smug about it. The keyboard has all these led lights on it and all that jazz. It's also really loud.
After a couple of weeks the sounds of the keyboard, and him with all the other shit, start pissing most people off in office. One day the kid goes for lunch and someone takes his keyboard. They smash the hell out of it and replaces it with a normal quiet keyboard.
He comes back from lunch and frantically looks for his keyboard. He starts interrogating everyone there, with tears in his eyes, no one says anything and they go back to work. The kid goes to HR crying about his keyboard and all that shit. HR takes a couple of weeks and talks to everyone. No one snitched so not much could be done. They just tell him to use a normal keyboard.
After that the kid stopped talking out of his ass about everything. He didn't mention flat earth or any of his crazy opinions. Like 6 months later he quits and that was the end of it.
I had a young kid at work a few years ago that was so excited when some new revelation proved the earth was flat. I never talked to him again and fortunately he was part of a layoff a month or so later.
I don't think one follows from the other though eh?
We used to make fun of people like this. Humiliate them. Alas, no more. Everyone's opinion is now valuable.
Humiliating people does not help them grow, study suggests
I think that’s what the internet has done for us, it’s removed that sort “social immune system” that prevented crazy ideas from spreading. Before, if somebody had some crazy ideas, the most they could usually do was rant to people on the bus/subway, maybe make some pamphlets, or some other small-scale thing to spread the idea. At best you might find someone on AM radio broadcasting at weird hours. Individuals would get exposed to it, but would likely never pass it on, this contained crazy ideas and they rarely got traction to spread.
Now the internet comes along, and suddenly crazies are getting hooked up with impressionable people easier than ever before. Crazy ideas have an almost endless supply of rubes that will eat them right up. Our social immune system can’t protect society from all the insane things flying around at high speeds all over the place now. It’s intellectual chaos.
I can totally understand not really wanting to engage with these stupid people but to suggest that it doesn't matter that he believes that is disingenuous.
If he's stupid enough to think the Earth is flat then he is stupid enough to do other things in his actual job wrong or in a dangerous manner.
Yeah, this is one of those stupidity litmus tests. Believing that the Earth is flat vs. round does appear at face value to be consequential, as the average person never actually has to care about the curvature of the earth. However, it's not really about the curvature of the earth, it's about critical thinking, listening to evidence, and having a sane and rational worldview.
There is physical evidence that the earth is round, and you can even test it yourself. Flat earthers will run these tests themselves (watch "Behind the Curve") and will still convince themselves that the tests are flawed and the Earth is flat.
And being a flat-earther isn't just a simple difference in belief about the natural world. It comes with the belief that most of society is brainwashed into believing in a round earth, that the governments of the world are all colluding to keep the truth a secret, and that there exists some great truth about the "Firmament" (the dome above the flat earth) that those in power benefit from denying society.
So it's not just some simple difference in belief. Flat earthers think you're a stupid brainwashed rube controlled by a global cartel of godless governments colluding to blind the world to the existence of God by denying the existence of the Firmament and and spreading the Satanic evil of scientific knowledge that suggests that all things in the solar system trend spherical and orbit one another.
Flat earthers hold roughly the same beliefs that the people who imprisoned Galileo, and they would do it again if given the chance because they are overwhelmingly MAGA-types, at least in the USA, where lunatic conspiratorial beliefs are quite common.
It doesn't matter in the context of effort/reward. He's not gonna listen, you lose cohesiveness, and there's just added stress overall.
And the job isn't exactly rocket science you can literally have downes and still stock shelves. Flat earthers are more about desperately wanting to believe in something that places you in an exclusive ingroup, not about legitimately proving something.
it's anti science, it's dangerous, and i won't condone anyone giving them a pass
Anon wouldn't have gotten anywhere with that argument anyways. If your goal is to make them stop believing then you have to ask questions without seeming like you're leading him to a certain conclusion in any way.
This! I've had by far the most success by asking simple questions and having them come to the realization themselves. Forcing your view down their throat never goes anywhere. Their guard goes up and it becomes a matter of pride.
What are some good points to make them come to the realization themselves?
sorry, I wouldn't trust anyone with those beliefs in any position of responsibility.
i see you still need to assert intellectual superiority :)
Yes they do, in the same way I wouldn't hire someone who thinks the Internet is run by Santa's elves. There's a bar.
But he votes and talks to other voters. Our lives are in their vocal minority hands.
I love how it is considered to be intellectually superior even though you’re stating easily verifiable facts that we also should have learned while being kids.
Fuck that. You’re wrong, and here’s why.
Just because they set the bar low, doesn't mean it's not still intellectual superiority to step over it. The fact of the matter, as you pointed out, is that they were taught everything you're about to say in elementary school. The fact that they didn't learn the earth is round implies there's more going on in their head than a lack of information.
I'm inferring from your tone that you're not planning to compassionately listen to their perspective to provide constructive criticism. So yeah, it sounds like you're going to spend a few minutes calling them stupid. Which has no benefit other than stroking the intellectual part of your ego. It actually will likely make the world a worse place, because you'll present yourself to them as someone they don't want to be like. Further entrenching them in their views.
While I understand where you are coming from, and respect you for your perspective, I disagree.
See, science does not care about feelings. It’s not that it makes me feel smarter, as I probably learned 90% of the things I know the hard way. I learned the hard way, because I USED to think I was smart or clever. Now, I don’t think like that any more. Now, I realize that every day I can learn something new and that I will never know anything expertly.
If someone calls you out, because you’re clearly saying stupid things, you should probably realize that maybe you ARE wrong and to maybe educate yourself further, so the next time you don’t look like a fool.
It is not my responsibility to baby an adult who has never had their beliefs challenged.
Normal day at the NASA factory
This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.
More stupid than oceans on the underside of a ball?
😂
More stupid than the earth being millions of years old? Everything would be old and rotten if that were the case.
not as stupid as some of your comments elsewhere.
I believe in truth and that facts do matter. I also teach young people. Being a wage earner was not a bad thing, but I yearn for the freedom to live an easier life, eventually. I want that for everyone. False beliefs are traps that hold people back from being their best selves. Carry flat-earth beliefs as a core foundation and look at what differences it would make. Geostationary satellites, and all the tech jobs that go with servicing that sector, just disappeared. Ditto solar. Travel to distant places, and time zones, becomes an insolvable problem. Your co-worker is holding his life back by believing in medieval superstitions.
It is a kindness to challenge people to find what is true.
I agree with all this but want to gripe about the misconception that flat Earth is medieval.
People have known Earth is round since at least 350 BC when Aristotle wrote On the Heavens. And he didn't come up with it there, he was explaining how others knew it.
In medieval times they had not lost this knowledge and it was still widely understood that Earth is round. Flat Earth has been a fringe lunacy for thousands of years. In the 1800s it became popular for religious reasons and most flat Earthers today are actually creationists trying to dress up their beliefs as science.
This happened to me, except it was an antivaxxer coworker, and he gave me his preventable disease right before I was supposed to be going on an international ski trip with friends for my birthday. I wanted to murder him :)
so this is where we're at? fuck it? let them believe what they want? yeah, we're fucked.
At the wage-slave bit, I was hoping that anon would try to raise the coworker's class-consciousness.
In a sense, they are on the same side.
It's flat, we all are.
Nah dude flat earthers actually show up to the polls, unlike anon. Gotta start showing up anon!
Given that stupid and uninformed (or misinformed) people get a vote on topics that affect me, no. I'm not gonna let slide that people believe outright provably wrong bullshit. It's still a problem.
Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas inbred
There's a lot more inbreds than scientists.
Fortunately those people got to see Biden-the-corpse for themselves in the last debate. I thought it was hopeless too, but the tide is turning. Hopefully we can blast through the deep-state/election fraud wall in November.
You want to put Trump back in...? Did you forget how he ran things 2016-2020, plus Jan 6th, a literal (but horribly executed) coup attempt?
Given the rulings from the recent rulings from the Supreme Court, Trump will be emboldened to do whatever he wants "with immunity". I just can't wrap my head around how anyone thinks this is a good idea.
Haha, it’s so funny that this guy believes in ridiculous “science” like flat-earthism. Anyway, I’m going to wander crowded indoor areas without a mask during a pandemic, see ya!
Man, a lot of comments on here are giving me reddit debate lord vibes. People talking about "the truth matters", but the way a lot of them are saying, it sounds like they just want to ego boost and dunk on/bully someone that they perceive as inferior; which I suppose could also be called "asserting intellectual superiority".
Chances are that any argument you use on them is something they've already heard, and the more you push and demean them the more defensive they will probably get, and the harder it will be to convince them. And even if you did manage to pressure and shame them into believing the earth is round, that won't suddenly make them good critical thinkers.
The best way to convince these people of reality is to just say "You really believe that?" and "That sounds complicated" when they talk about it. Or you can laugh in a friendly way and say "Who told you that? They're trying to trick you."
These people respond to emotions, not facts. Just tell them someone is tricking them. They want to have friends and special knowledge.
[lemmy disliked that]
Eh nah. Pointless debate and argument is kek
Anon has found the way of the masters
