I have been getting lots of flat earth posts in my FB feed lately. It is all so crazy. I know a few people believe it, but is it mostly trolling like the Birds Aren’t Real folks? If not, god help us
Do people really believe it? I’ve always assumed it’s one big joke.
I know one who was raised on it. He told me that when he was a kid he remembers when his dad bust out laughing when the call from the moon astronauts to the president happened as his dad was sure it was staged. This and other storied have me satisfied that he truly believes it, and so does/did his dad. But also he won’t challenge it either, he accepts it and though I did work through his belief and proof (which fails), he won’t accept anything, even in his own belief, that does not actual work or runs counter to it.
On edit, Marketplace forum? Hehe Yes I guess they are trying to sell something. Reported for forum change.
Apparently, evolution has passed some of us by. 
Moved to IMHO.
I think there’d be a huge selection bias adding to the impression that Flat Earthers are also trolls, because a Flat Earther who is trolling attracts much more attention than one who is quiet about their belief. In other words, I think I’m likely to notice Flat Earthers because they’re also trolling, so I’m missing any who aren’t trolls and can’t get an impression of their numbers.
This guy seems like he was for real:
We had a contractor who seemed to really believe it. We would just let him blab on about the giant wall of ice at the edge and all that crap. Our neighbours, who also use him, tried to debate with him but he had a BS answer for everything.
I kind of already regret asking this, but: why?
Like, if a guy (a) believes the Earth is a flat disc, and (b) looks up at night, and sees the moon right there — what, he can’t figure astronauts could rocket from a disc to the moon the way other people figure astronauts could rocket from a globe to the moon?
Most flat earthers believe there is a firmament dome over the Earth, and that stars and planets are just lights embedded in the firmament. The moon is just a local (local as in 100s of miles above the Earth) light source.
You most likely can guess why. But the answer is (put on old clothes you don’t mind getting dirty for this trip):
1 The hard dome over the earth (which the US apparently tried to nuke a hole in it, never mind that water is up there and would flood the world - as even if God promised never to do that again, people apparently still can ). This hard dome means there is no spaceflight of any kind. The ISS and other visible satellites are really planes to deceive the population (and perhaps help spread contrails). - And going down the rabbit hole further, the reason for all this is Satan created the illusion of a ‘ball earth’ to get people to question the scriptures by controlling the governments and pushing the ball earth, and thus lead them away from the true God.
2 The moon is only a light, not an object. Going further (Hope you didn’t take off those old clothes yet) he has speculated, It may even be lensing off a rotating dome and actually stationary, or at least not where it appears to be depending on the model.
I’m not sure the two options (trolling vs. actual belief) are mutually exclusive. Also, I’ve come to believe that many people don’t hold firm or reasoned opinions on a variety of matters. They’re uncertain or frankly indifferent, but espousing fringe theories is “more fun” for them and, most importantly, it gets them attention online they otherwise wouldn’t receive.
If a rando posts to social media that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, they won’t get much attention. But if they post a crackpot flat earth theory, the post gets greater engagement and potentially blows up.
In short, social media incentivizes fringe and extreme tendencies among people who don’t hold well reasoned or firm beliefs to begin with. IMO, anyway.
I tend to think the opposite about firm beliefs.
There are more of them out there than we previously knew but one of the powers of the internet is they are now much more easily identified (self- or otherwise). Social media doesn’t incentivize their beliefs but the very nature of social media means those beliefs draw more attention from others than they used to and provides a more accessible gateway to people inclined towards such beliefs who may not have been able to easily run across them in the pre-internet era.
When did Flat Earth beliefs also come to include Solid Dome beliefs? I hadn’t heard that wrinkle before, though IANAFE so maybe it’s been there since the beginning.
Considering “flat Earth plus celestial spheres” was the dominant model for the universe in Western philosophy since literally the Middle ages, I’d say “hella long time”.
The ancient Greeks knew the Earth was spherical.
I’ve always felt the same. In this day and age it seems impossible to think the earth is flat. I mean, I suppose there will always be a few nutjobs out there on any given topic but they are so few and far between as to be barely worth noting. But, it does seem there are more than I think out there who genuinely believe in a flat earth. Thankfully, still not many.
Eratosthenes calculated the earth’s circumference in 240 B.C. (and he did a remarkably good job of it considering the time and tools available)
Which suggests they knew the earth was a globe even before that. That’s just when someone bothered to figure a way to measure it and go to the considerable trouble at the time to do it.
I’ve been getting this too. I suspect it’s because I keep interacting with it, even if just to mute it.
I am rather addicted to Flat Earth debunking videos on YouTube, and I would say there is a fairly even mixture of trolls who know full-well that the Earth is a sphere, and genuine believers, who, through a combination of poor education, conspiratorial mindset and cries for attention, really eat up the rubbish that the trolls feed them.