That guy has my utmost respect.
To admit he was wrong and change his worldview (quire literally) when confronted with evidence, this is not easy. Mad respect.
and not delete the previous videos
It takes a big man to admit his mistakes and I am that big man.
Glad to see his views got more well rounded over time.
Has anyone seen Behind the Curve? Most of these flat earth people seem to possess some level of critical thinking, just... not enough. That, or their pride or obstinacy get in the way. At the end of the documentary, a team of flat-earthers perform an actual, well thought out experiment. It's... well, just watch.
Best part? Immediately after this, they discard the results of the experiment saying the premise was faulty. Somehow.
The problem doesn't stem from their critical thinking skills, but rather, a combination of indoctrination and religious beliefs which cause a series of presuppositions to supersede the conclusions the rest of us have taken as presuppositions.
In some sense I admire their dedication to challenge established facts about reality, that should be done in general.
To clarify the statement about indoctrination and religion: many people are not aware that flat earthers are religious wackjobs. Their thought process is as follows:
"If the universe contains trillions of celestial bodies and they're all spherical, then we are inconsequential. It must be the case that we are special, and earth is not a sphere, but is flat."
Some flat earthers will claim space doesn't exist, even though their bible tells them God created other planets.
Well, Columbus, Galilei, Kepler & co. challenged what was considered "established fact" about the shape and place of the earth in their times.
It is not wrong to challenge what is considered "established facts". Problem is when you discard results that are going against your preoposition. I wouldn't consider flat earthers to be particular religious as a crowd though. At least in my country they mostl come from the esoteric scene, where you get a mixed bowl of esoteric nonsene, conspiracy theories, and fascist ideology.
One thing to point out is that Columbus wasn't challenging established thinking about the earth's shape, but rather its size. The educated populace at the time was on the ball with the earth being a sphere.
And the critics of Columbus WERE RIGHT! He was vastly underestimating the size of the earth. If North America hadn't existed and it had just been one big ocean, he and the expedition would have perished in the middle of nowhere. Of course, the size had been calculated before his expedition (the actual values turned out be extremely close to what had been calculated), so he should have known better. There's a reason he had trouble getting funding for his expedition...
I'm still somewhat frustrated that our history classes taught (maybe still do, I've been out of high school a long time) that all the naysayers thought the earth was flat.
My recollection is that Columbus was also wrong about its size. He thought the distance from Europe to Asia via the Atlantic was much smaller than it really is, but got lucky and found the Americas on the way
Try being in their shoes: you set up an experiment to prove the earth is not flat and is indeed round, you run the experiment and at the end you realise your experiment fail and would prove the earth is flat. Would you changwe your point of view ? I know I wouldn't, I would immediately assume I am an idiot and messed up the experiment, because I am so much convinced it is round, it would be much more realistic to assume I messed up.
If I do it 10 times and each time the result is 'flat', and 99.99% of scientists in the field say it's flat, at that point I would do some self evaluation to see why I was so hell bent on being wrong
If I'm grifting people into giving me money to prove it's flat I'll keep doubling down until that teat runs dry.
This. This is exactly it. Commonly referred to as cognitive dissonance where when presented with evidence differing from that of one's beliefs, they will discard said evidence as faulty and will double down going deeper into their wrongfully held beliefs. Cognitive dissonance can be overcome but it is very difficult to do so, especially if you aren't willing to entertain the idea that your beliefs might be wrong.
I feel like it's been memory holed, but I remember 00's flat earth being genuinely smart people using it to illustrate the ridiculousness of teaching creation beside evolution, which was a push around that time. It was a Church of Satan style mockery, but I guess the arguments were too convincing.
I member... i learned of it from a vsauce video i watched when it first dropped. Was mindblown years later when ppl were touting the flat earth society seriously. Their tagline was literally, "We Have Members Around the Globe!"
Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.
This is what happened at the Donald on reddit. It was a place to meme Trump's idiotic presidential bid. But as soon as he got real chance at the election it was soon overran by the MAGA crowd.
The smart people may have started it, but the dumb people listened and took it as gospel.
Watch out, there will be a true church of Pastafarianism before we die.
RAMEN BROTHER, PRAISED BE HIS NOODLY APPENDAGE!
I'm kinda hoping for a Cthulu Church myself. Can you imagine how cool the aesthetics of the building would be?
It was a weird blend of that and true believers. Then the people there for the joke of it all got weirded out by the crazies and left.
Good ending
3 months is a very short time to come... (Puts on glasses)... Full circle.
YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAAAAAA
Honestly, well done to him.
Far more respect gained when someone realizes they’re wrong and changes their view then stubbornly sticking with incorrect beliefs
Who profits from flat Earth? Do they sell exclusive models and atlas' or something?
No idea. Maybe donations, fees from conventions, ad revenue...?
Yes conventions, donations, revenue off YouTube videos
Trolls and people who sell merch and tickets to conventions. Same as alien believers
Flat earthers are easily radicalised into right wing belief like "The world is controlled by Jewish lizards" and "the election was stolen from Trump" and "the vaccine contains a bill gates microchip that makes you gay". And right wing conspiracy theorists will willingly spend their life savings on Alex Jones dick engorgement supplements while generating culture war controversy to draw political attention away from actual issues like climate change and worker's rights that may harm big business interests.
Think of it this way: in the mediaeval age, you armed your peasants with shields and spears and had them protect your keep. In the information age, you arm your peasants with conspiracy theories and twitter accounts and have them protect your untaxed billions.
The people who benefit from division, confusion, and inability to determine information from misinformation. Aka, the rich and powerful.
Redemption arc
Damn, actual personal growth being displayed on the internet? Such a rare thing I find myself wondering it wasn't all staged. How messed up is that?
Also, how messed up is it that it worked, cause I'mm'a go watch all of these.
I am crazy impressed that anyone could follow that path and not just drop off the internet in shame when they realized. I hope if anything I view in the same manner ever comes up as fabricated I'm as brave.
I wonder which kind of arguments made him change his mind; the evidence based ones or the ones calling him an idiot.
My guess is neither of those. People don't really base their world view on facts. Maybe his life situation improved, he found a healthier community or a hobby
Probably personal connection paired with facts and persistence.
It's not easy changing someone's mind. You need a lot of dedication, especially if they're in a community that reinforces their belief.
likely the former because calling someone an idiot isn't going to change their mind
IIRC another YouTuber did a response video to his, disproving everything he said. And it opened his eyes.
Seems like most of the older videos from the meme aren't on the channel anymore, at least not under the same upload. Guess he didn't want someone to stumble upon them and be misinformed
they are, the titles just got changed
