the challenge isn't to let him enjoy life with his stupid ass conspiracy, it's to get him to realize for himself that he's been duped by both strangers on the internet and Conservative conspiracies. Deradicalizing and then radicalizing is hard as fuck

Exactly, the same mindset that takes you to “The entire geophysical establishment is wrong/lying about the shape of the Earth, so I’ll listen to this Youtube crank who says it’s a disc instead” will also lead you to things like “The entire medical establishment is wrong/lying about the effectiveness of masks & vaccines, so I’ll listen to this podcast crank hawking horse dewormer instead.”

well, it is. I mean, it's a low bar, but comparatively, yeah.

Pointing out stupidity online is a crazy experience. Most of the time you get answers like "who cares?", " you must be fun at parties.", "this isn't a (relevant topic) test, I'll make all the errors I want" etc. Not once in my life have I felt or thought like that, and I just can't imagine how those proples minds work.

The thing is, in their eyes they aren't stupid.

They think they have this secret piece of information, and everyone else is stupid for not knowing or understanding it.

But it is kind of narcissistic to think you found this extra information, which the people who have spend their entire lives researching the topic somehow have missed.

Like, I know people who claim the sea levels aren't going to rise because ice melting doesn't increase the water level. And claim all the scientists are wrong about climate change. When in reality the sea levels will rise because warm water expands.

If you put information out there, don't be mad when people put counter information back at you. I know far too many people who believe in alt medicine and talk freely about it, that it's getting harder and harder to bite my tongue. I don't care if you think Acupuncture works for you. The fruit diet worked for Steve Jobs until it didn't.

The truth is darker: For everybody who talks about the silly stuff there are two who don't, you just don't hear them cuz they ain't talking. Source: Closeted Quacko

Yeah, the whole "live and let live" movement has removed the social barriers to being a fucking moron. Ignorant people holding onto stupid beliefs should be made to feel bad by the people around them.

Humiliating people does not help them grow, study suggests

I think that’s what the internet has done for us, it’s removed that sort “social immune system” that prevented crazy ideas from spreading. Before, if somebody had some crazy ideas, the most they could usually do was rant to people on the bus/subway, maybe make some pamphlets, or some other small-scale thing to spread the idea. At best you might find someone on AM radio broadcasting at weird hours. Individuals would get exposed to it, but would likely never pass it on, this contained crazy ideas and they rarely got traction to spread.

Now the internet comes along, and suddenly crazies are getting hooked up with impressionable people easier than ever before. Crazy ideas have an almost endless supply of rubes that will eat them right up. Our social immune system can’t protect society from all the insane things flying around at high speeds all over the place now. It’s intellectual chaos.

Yeah, this is one of those stupidity litmus tests. Believing that the Earth is flat vs. round does appear at face value to be consequential, as the average person never actually has to care about the curvature of the earth. However, it's not really about the curvature of the earth, it's about critical thinking, listening to evidence, and having a sane and rational worldview.

There is physical evidence that the earth is round, and you can even test it yourself. Flat earthers will run these tests themselves (watch "Behind the Curve") and will still convince themselves that the tests are flawed and the Earth is flat.

And being a flat-earther isn't just a simple difference in belief about the natural world. It comes with the belief that most of society is brainwashed into believing in a round earth, that the governments of the world are all colluding to keep the truth a secret, and that there exists some great truth about the "Firmament" (the dome above the flat earth) that those in power benefit from denying society.

So it's not just some simple difference in belief. Flat earthers think you're a stupid brainwashed rube controlled by a global cartel of godless governments colluding to blind the world to the existence of God by denying the existence of the Firmament and and spreading the Satanic evil of scientific knowledge that suggests that all things in the solar system trend spherical and orbit one another.

Flat earthers hold roughly the same beliefs that the people who imprisoned Galileo, and they would do it again if given the chance because they are overwhelmingly MAGA-types, at least in the USA, where lunatic conspiratorial beliefs are quite common.

It doesn't matter in the context of effort/reward. He's not gonna listen, you lose cohesiveness, and there's just added stress overall.

And the job isn't exactly rocket science you can literally have downes and still stock shelves. Flat earthers are more about desperately wanting to believe in something that places you in an exclusive ingroup, not about legitimately proving something.

More stupid than oceans on the underside of a ball?

I agree with all this but want to gripe about the misconception that flat Earth is medieval.

People have known Earth is round since at least 350 BC when Aristotle wrote On the Heavens. And he didn't come up with it there, he was explaining how others knew it.

In medieval times they had not lost this knowledge and it was still widely understood that Earth is round. Flat Earth has been a fringe lunacy for thousands of years. In the 1800s it became popular for religious reasons and most flat Earthers today are actually creationists trying to dress up their beliefs as science.