![]() ![]() Not surprisingly, antivaccine material and other terrible health information are also passed around in conjunction with flat-earth ideas. Which reminds me, I have to wrap this column up so I can get to the Secret Jewish Cabal That Runs the Global Media meeting. “But he was also pointing out how dinosaurs were faked.” The presenter tapped into the mother lode of conspiracy thinking by recommending a virulently anti-Semitic book that allegedly reveals what's really going on behind the scenes. “One thing that really surprised me at a convention I went to,” Marshall said, “was how little material was about the flat earth.” For example, he saw a presentation by a conspiracy theorist about the New World Order and the Illuminati. And if people clicked it, that solidified that link.” Flat-earth belief, quirky and perhaps humorous on its own, thus became part of what Marshall called “an ecosystem of conspiracy theory.” “So you'd be watching a video about moon-landing denial,” Marshall explained, “and YouTube would say, 'I think someone who's a bit into moon-landing denial might also be into the flat-earth theory.' And it would float it there as a suggestion. YouTube's recommendation algorithm appears to have then amplified the signal by bringing flatearth info to the attention of fans of other questionable notions. It always goes level, so there's no way it could stick to a ball. ![]() Proof number three: water can't stick to a curved surface. Proof number two: even if you go up a mountain, the horizon looks flat. Marshall said the video content was straightforward: “Proof number one: the horizon looks flat. Then, in 2016, some YouTube videos threw gasoline on the two-dimensional fire. “And so were winning those arguments … and in winning those arguments, they were converting even more people.” “And so they were stomping into these arguments, saying, well, what about photos of Earth from space and what about ships going over the horizon,” Marshall said, “not realizing that those were the first things thought about.” And they had convincing, if incorrect, responses. While those factions fought at conferences, other attendees were actually round-earth accepters who thought it would be fun to mix it up with the flat-earthers. “But there's more than one way to think it's flat … some people believe that Earth is actually an infinite plane in all directions … and so when I first came across the flat-earth movement in 2013, this was quite a vociferous debate.” “Some do believe it's a disk,” Marshall said. society has taken on the Sisyphean task of “encouraging curious minds and promoting rational inquiry.” And Marshall has become well versed in why on Earth people would believe it's flat. Although coverage by our friends at quoted him as saying in a 2017 documentary, “I'm going to build my own rocket right here, and I'm going to see it with my own eyes what shape this world we live on.”Įither way, Hughes's demise put flat-earth belief in the news briefly, which got me to dig out an interview I did last year with Michael Marshall, project director of the Good Thinking Society. His fatal launch was apparently general daredevilry and not an attempt to gather data for flatearthism. Hughes was a famous flat-earther, one of a growing group who do not accept that Earth is an oblate spheroid (which it is). On February 22 “Mad” Mike Hughes died when his self-built steam rocket crashed shortly after takeoff.
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