To me this is the strangest conspiracy theory yet, the earth is flat.
A believer in flat-Earth conspiracies took another shot at shooting himself toward the stratosphere in a homemade rocket. Once again, it fell flat.
“Mad Mike” Hughes, a self-proclaimed daredevil who rejects the fact that the Earth is round, posted a video on his Facebook page about two weeks ago saying that he planned to launch himself from private property to an altitude of 1,800 feet (550 meters) on Saturday, Feb. 3. Hughes had canceled and delayed launches before, so it wasn’t really clear whether Saturday’s event would happen. His homemade rocket sat on the “launchpad” in Amboy, California, for about 11 minutes before it … didn’t go anywhere, as shown on a live video of the event.
Nevertheless, it spotlights a subculture that is increasingly gaining notoriety online.
That subculture is flat-Earthers, people who argue that centuries of observations that the Earth is round (including astronaut photographs from space and the fact that round-the-world travel itineraries work) are either mistaken or part of a vast cover-up. Instead, flat-Earthers argue, the planet is a disk. Exactly what this looks like varies by who is theorizing, but many flat-Earth believers say that walls of ice surround the edge of the disk, and that the planets, moons and stars hover in a sort of dome-shaped firmament above Earth, much closer to Earth than they really are. [8 Times Flat-Earthers Tried to Challenge Science in 2017)
What is the appeal of all this, distrust of the scientific elite, and a need to see it for themselves. Psychologists have suggested that conspiracy theories offer social belonging, the need for meaning and control, and feelings of safety in an uncertain society. I am trying to get my head around this but am having a problem following this thought process. To believe that the earth is flat in this day and time with all the evidence out there and the sheer impossibility that the earth is flat, and yet to believe that it is, simply makes you stand out as being totally crackers, which is probably closer to why these conspiracy theorists promote their nonsense. This one is not even believable. I think the object is go against anything that the science community or medical community has proven as fact.
Flat-Earth theories aren’t new; in the modern era, they date back to an English writer named Samuel Rowbotham, who came up with a variety of creative interpretations of cosmology in the mid-1800s. There was a smattering of interest in the 1950s with the creation of the International Flat Earth Society, but today’s resurgence of the theory seems to derive from social media, said Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England. Minor celebrities, such as rapper B.o.Band TV personality Tila Tequila, have boosted the conspiracy’s profile by tweeting about their skepticism that the Earth is round. This is what I mean, you stand out looking like a total numb nuts.
Many thanks to LiveScience
Conspiracy theories can give believers a self-esteem boost and allow them to feel good about the groups they belong to. Some studies suggest narcissism and conspiracy belief are linked, Douglas said, and many conspiracies divide the world into “good guys” (e.g., the moral YouTube star setting out to find the truth) and “bad guys” (e.g., the government, or a given ethnic group).
I studied for my graduate degree in Psy at U of H , and I am either out of the loop on this but I think narcissism is closer to the truth about why these people belong to these groups. They are smarter than the next guy always, so therefore these conspiracy theories are right up their alley. With all that is going on in the world today, this kind of stuff is number one on their agenda. I no longer have any patience with this delusional thinking. Analytical and critical thinking was never something these people experienced and the worst part is, they hold on to these bizarre theories.
If you don’t hear from me within the next few days, I have fallen off the edge of the earth. Sigh
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