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Comment by shroom | Hacker News Reader

No matter the outcome this will not end well.

About flat-Earth theory some arguments may seem valid but how wouldn’t it be easier by starting off explaining how something, now, everyday like GPS or satelites would work if the Earth was flat?

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Your treating this as a scientific issue, but it's not.

This is is social issue: there are people that just don't believe anything anymore.

No, you've got that backwards. There are people that will believe anything.

.. so long as it's not the thing that those other people believe. Tribalism over reality.

Well, they believe one thing and then they claw onto that belief like their life depends on it.

Almost like if it was a religion.

It's not about believing everything or nothing, I think: it is more about how to filter things you believe. Believing something is a way to be part of a group, and it seems to me that most humans (including me) tend to feel better when they are recognized as a part of a group. Conspiration theories offer an easy way to feel part of a very well identified group (made even stronger by the sensation of being a somewhat repressed minority): for some people this can be much more rewarding than accepting the rigor of actual science.

>some arguments may seem valid

Which ones?

Well. To begin with, if the Earth was round, like some people believe, it would fall rolling from the giant turtle's back.

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