I had one of the less pleasant (i.e. thoroughly unpleasant and verbally abusive) Flat Earthers absolutely nailed-on to be a supporter of you-know-who, so it was a genuine shock when in a clip during a recent youtube debunker’s video, he was insulting about said Individual. I was honestly quite taken aback that he wasn’t a fan. I do imagine the Venn diagram of FErs and supporters of he who shall not be named is almost one circle though.
No you just laugh at them. Engaging with them will only gratify them if they are trolling or convince them their view must be worthy of consideration if they are not.
I know one who I accept he believes it, though his proofs normally are either untestable by the average person, non-sensical, or if they can be tested by the average person actually fail for a flat earth.
His dad also was a flerfer, and has expressed his believe that the ball earth is a plan by Satan to try to discredit and lead people away from what the Bible says about the earth (which I also feel falls into the same categories that what he believes here I don’t actually see much in scripture.)
I’ve bought a ticket and attended a Bigfoot convention. There were booths offering all sorts of Bigfoot memorabilia. I ran into a few people I knew there, who were also just attending to look at the wackos.
Like many CTs, this belief has no real consequences, unless of course the believer tries to navigate somewhere. It is a meaningless assertion of individuality or something, akin to wearing a purple cocked hat all the time or some other idiosyncracy.
You’re right - I mean, it should be possible to point out that if the horizon is in the lower half of the image, barrel distortion will never make it appear more convex than it is, or indeed, it should be possible to demonstrate that the camera used has a rectilinear lens, but it’s pointless - all flerf demands for evidence are rhetorical.
Yet a lot of times the cops let them go with a warning or their case is dismissed which to them means they were correct in their beliefs.
Except their response is “Nuh uh. That’s not proof.” We had a thread here where I repeatedly disproved other posters’ belief (it was not Flat Earth) and the responses were, “No. I’m right therefore I’ll ignore your proof.” When the mods wanted to close it I compared it to talking to flat-earthers.
The only person on Youtube that I think honestly believes in a flat Earth is CC. Chris from Westchester County. New York.
Water level test when at altitude in an airliner: if the level of the liquid points ABOVE the horizon, voila.
Or at least that’s what you all said to each other to save face. We know there were / are some Bigfoot believers in your circle. 
Viewed at the micro-level you’re right it has no consequences. They can go about their daily life, drive to another state, or even board a plane to Europe and their odd beliefs don’t impede much.
But…
The kind of mind that believes FE nonsense doesn’t only believe FE nonsense. It believes all sorts of other nonsense. Or can be readily persuaded to believe all sorts of other nonsense.
IOW, it’s a mind that’s putty in the hands of folks spewing disinformation. Millions of those putty-brains just voted for the end of the USA as we know it.
So no, not harmless. Not at all.
The only “flat earther” I know is someone who doesn’t believe in a flat earth at all. He just likes going all over the internet and trolling people to see what he can get them to believe. I’ve occasionally wondered if at least some of those sites are full of trolls who think they are convincing other people that the earth is flat when in reality they are all just attempting to troll each other.
stand on RR tracks & look down them; don’t they appear to get smaller & come together at a distance. However, if you walk down the tracks they are still the same width. You’re just showing them some weird parallax / camera trick which can easily be debunked…but unfortunately, their mom is calling them upstairs for dinner so they can’t debunk it right now.
Even if they themselves (flat-earthers) launch the homemade rocket?
As with all of your nuttier conspiracy theories, for a lot of people this sort of thing makes them feel special and important. So they do sincerely believe it, because to not do so would be emotionally crushing; they would no longer be the ones who are clever and not “bots” or “NPCs” or “indoctrinated.” And the longer they believe it, the most emotionally important it is to them.
Exactly this. What flat earthers, and every single other conspiracy theorist actually believe is “I am the only smart person in the room, everyone else is a sheep who has no understanding of how the world really works”. This is why it is nearly impossible to talk them out of their beliefs, step one would be to accept that they were actually the dumbest person in the room the whole time.
You don’t even have to go into space.
Just set up an Equatorial tracker and a telescope, and point the scope at a random star. Note how it tracks the star.
Then, ask the flat earther how that could possibly work on a flat earth.
In both cases, how amazingly depressing. They really have nothing better to do with their time than spend time trying to troll and deceive others? how sad
The guy who is going on the Final Experiment seems to really believe also, and seems to think he will not see a 24 hour sun.
A lot of the rest of them are clearly grifters though, and make money on their channels.
The one Flat Earther I know is a believer - she believes in it because she is a fundamentalist Christian, believes in every CT out there (like chemtrails) and has absolutely no logical reasoning ability. A lot of them believe in the flat earth because that’s what they think the Bible says.
That there are trolls doesn’t mean that there aren’t believers. I know of a bunch of preachers who now think religion is garbage but who keep on preaching because their paycheck depends on it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of true believers.
You mean Jeranism? He’s already seen as a heretic to the Flat Earth community after his famous over-the-water proof when he said if he saw the light at 6 feet high it proves the flat earth and if it were 10 feet high it proves the round Earth (I forget the exact measurements but you get the idea). Guess how high the light had to be for him to see it.
There was a flat earther guy who launched a rocket, with himself inside of it. His intention was, I believe, to take photos proving the earth to be flat. Unfortunately his craft made an uncontrolled descent and he became the flattest earther.
I found out last year that a guy I used to know very well, is now a flat earther (as well as believing in a whole slew of other conspiracy theories such as chemtrails, microchips in vaccines, etc) he attended a quite fundamentalist kind of church and they asked him to leave because his views were too extreme.
At first glance, IMO that proves nothing.
Imagine the Earth really was a finite flat disc. One that is rotating about an axis inclined 90-23 = 67 degrees to vertical (=opposite of gravity, perpendicular to tbe surface). So like a fast-spinning coin.
You’d observe the same motion of any single star as would be seen on the real sphere we have.
Where it gets harder (read “impossible”) is when observers at different points on the sphere or disc track the same star and compare measurements.
The two measurements are readily reconcilable on a sphere. Not so a disc. QED to anyone capable of thought. Which excludes all FE adherents by definition.