What happened to the flat earthers who demonstrated that the earth is round in the netfilx documentary ?
What happened to the flat earthers who demonstrated that the earth is round in the netfilx documentary ?
A few year back, there was a Netflix documentary about flat earther. They've done a couple of experiment to prove that the earth is flat which (Spoiler alert) demonstrated that the earth is round.
So now that these persons have demonstrated scientifically that the earth is round. How are they doing ? Still flat-earther ? or did they give up with the amount of evidence they collected ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know a guy who was involved in some of those "experiments" and spent a considerable amount of time and money on them. He still is very adamant that it just proves that there is some other unknown confounding variable that just proves that the experiment was valid and that the designers of the flat earth already expected the experiments. It's really depressing. I used to really respect him when I was younger.
I think they’re voting for Trump.
They illuminati killed them for their insolence
Most probbably just doubled down and made excuses. The main takeaway of the documentary was a lot of those people are just lost/lonely and being part of that club gave them a sense of belonging to a group of similar people.
Yea I'm glad the documentary uncovered that. It really shows why someone would get into this despite it being pretty easy to prove otherwise (even inadvertently proving themselves wrong) they have this little community of friends.
There was a short segment on 60 Minutes (maybe?) back in 2020 before the elections where they interviewed someone who had deprogrammed himself from Qanon.
It was the same story. He had no friends IRL, no social support, he had turned his mom onto Qanon and she was still down the rabbit hole.
He said that was the part that kept him in it for so long, even once he started questioning things. All his "friends" and close relations were part of the cult and he would have to cut ties with everyone or worse, they would turn on him and attack him as a traitor.
It would be sad if these online-cults weren't so damaging to society.
Did you watch the movie? Because the experiments showed that the earth was round, they decided that there must have been something wrong with the experiments.
Flat Earth Follower: "So what was the result of that laser gyroscope experiment we all gave you money for?"
Flat Earth Leader: "Well it showed a 15 degree an hour rotation... So we think 'heaven energies' are affecting it."
Flat Earth Follower: Nods happily, knowing he doesn't have to change his beliefs.
The documentary was called "Behind the Curve" and featured Bob Knodel. Unfortunately he passed away this year. https://www.robertsfhsc.com/obituary/RobertBob-Knodel
It looks like you still believed in the theory though. He had a YouTube channel that was devoted to flat Earth conspiracy.
The experiment he was involved in was the gyroscope one. The documentary showed what happened after his experiment "failed": he decided the experiment was flawed and needed to be refined.
The aftermath of the wood slats with holes experiment at the end wasn't shown, but based on the rest of the documentary (and the history of people with conspiratorial beliefs) it's almost certain they did the same.
RIP to Bob, though. I hope his friends & family are coping well.
he decided the experiment was flawed and needed to be refined.
Ah yes, the scientific method:
- Make an observation or ask a question
- Gather background information
- Create a hypothesis
- Create a prediction and perform a test
- Analyze the results and draw a conclusion
Share the conclusion or decide what question to ask nextDiscard the experiment if it doesn't support your preconceptions
You are correct, I had forgotten about the last experiment with the light shining across a distance. For some reason I thought that the gyroscope was the one that they ended on.
Bob may have been confused about the shape of the Earth, but he was still a person with family and friends. A good thing to remember about all of these people.
I'm sure they changed their minds... /s
Going to suggest the folding ideas YouTube channel on the same topic.
https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=m2b1gAkCOlDOnCle
Spoiler: his hypothesis, well supported in my opinion, is that a large proportion of those formerly in flat earth are now neck deep in qanon, and since the film was made many are now into other conspiracy stuff. The election was fake etc.
Also, his video of minnewanka lake is just perfect flat earth debunking.
There is not a lot to laugh about with flat earthers. The theory stems from Christian fundamentalism, and it is tightly connected to the christofascist movements trying to coup the USA at the moment.
And no, they are not going to give up their beliefs, because they didn't come by them through rational thought, so rational thought isn't going to disprove it for them.
Just to piggyback off this for the uninitiated:
If the Earth is round, then that means Earth is just like any other planet; one in a trillion.
Flat Earthers are convinced "space" is an illusion, all the celestial bodies are there to trick us into feeling insignificant.
If the Earth is flat, then we are special.
Truth is: we aren't, not in any cosmic sense.
It's not specifically about those same individuals, but I want to mention Dan Olsen's documentary In Search of a Flat Earth, which touches more on the ideology of the flat earth movement, and how it's developed in recent years. No spoilers, peeps!
It might asbwell be: when his experiment failed, he got told to "pray about it and try again"
I saw some of them in the zoo last sunday.
... And it's rather quite... interesting... how long this has been going on...
It's been a while since I saw it, but I remember most people thought something was wrong with the experiment setup or equipment.
Appreciate the spoiler alert
It came out in 2018...
The documentary details ideas of the flat Earth from different perspectives, including prominent flat-Earthers Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere...
After the release of the film, Sargent and Steere both claimed their fanbase has grown considerably.
That's unfortunate, but understandable, I guess. As for the others, I see one has a following that use his last name as sort of a religious title, and didn't feel like clicking on the flat earth website to add to their ad revenues...