I am fascinated by the sub-culture of people who believe that the earth is not in fact a sphere, but a disk. Instead of having ice caps at the poles of a sphere, they allege that there is a huge wall of ice around the edge of the disk, which holds the waters of the oceans in. The thing that is interesting about this is that it is such a weird, seemingly insignificant hill to die on. In this world-view NASA, of all people, are the shadowy enemy pulling the strings and convincing the world of a big lie. How precisely they stand to benefit, aside from having funding (and honestly not that much funding) to do their jobs, is a mystery to me. When we consider the idea that a crime has been committed, what is the motive?
My basic position on all conspiracy theories is that if we look at the history of conspiracies enacted by the US government, they have mostly failed to be covered up or carried out. People are mostly pretty disorganized, sloppy and chatty, so the idea that we could keep some massive, shocking secret like this under wraps just seems very unlikely. Watergate with it’s bumbling burglars, self-incriminating president and general air of shambling ineptitude is what I usually point to. I know that some conspiracy theorists would probably try to claim that this is in fact a double triple false flag wrapped in a cover up, or something, and that someone is playing 12 dimensional chess against us, but I prefer more occams razor type explanations.
That is not to say that there are not in fact conspiracy type operations carried out with impunity by the US government. The Iran Contra and the massive domestic spying by the NSA come to mind. The fact is that none of these were fully successfully concealed, instead they were more or less revealed, but then brazenly allowed to happen by the politicians in power. In my opinion the US government is much more likely to piss on your head and tell you it’s raining then successfully cover anything up. They rely on the cooperation of the media, judiciary and a compliant public to commit their crimes in more or less broad daylight, and then simply tell us that in fact they are not crimes and you are crazy if you believe otherwise.
The flat earthers, with their conventions, YouTube channels, theories and counter theories, represent a strange tribe of reality builders who have all agreed to go off and live in a weird bubble together of their own making. I think this phenomenon represents a few things. One is the desire to escape mundane reality. Reality can be depressing and if we can instead believe that we are the rebel forces bravely resisting a shadowy conspiracy, this can give a sense of meaning and agency in an existence which can lack those things. Additionally it provides community and significance for the participants. If you can find a group who agree with you that they are a persecuted minority of truth tellers and that you are all in this together, that feels good. You are not alone, you are part of a community of people who believe as you do. It’s almost fulfilling a function of a religion in this sense, providing a sense of meaning in the face of meaninglessness, and a community of people to reinforce that system. The fact these type of very strange, frankly stupid and unconvincing theories can get traction and attract adherents tells us something about our age. If I were to hazard a guess it’s that people feel so alienated, lonely and lacking meaning in their lives that they will latch onto almost any absurd idea if it offers the chance to alleviate those feelings.
