Folding Ideas
17 HN recommenders · recommended in 17 months, 2020–2026
1:16:17 · 4.9M views · Sep 11, 2020
Dan Olson's 76-minute essay on flat earth belief, built around a hike to a lake to test earth's curvature. It examines the community, how YouTube promoted it, and how it connects to wider conspiracy thinking and QAnon.
HN treats it as the definitive, compassionate documentary on why people fall into conspiracy theories.
20 comments from Hacker News
It's pretty easy to find other sources that cover the same survey that is shown in the graphic of the grandparent's comment. (Business Insider, for example: [LINK] ) Keep in mind this survey was in May and I'd be willing to bet the numbers have grown, as I've watched QAnon grow, multiple mainstream Republicans have embraced them (and won primaries ) and the Vice President was slated to attend a fundraiser put on by a QAnon group until days of pressure forced him to cancel just days ago. I've watched HN downplay gamergate. I've watched it downplay climate change (until recently, finally). I've watched it downplay anti-intellectualism at every turn, whether it be flat-eartherism, anti-vaxxers, or qanon, there's this purveying sense of "it will all work out", and that's just completely out-of-touch with reality. Here's a fun one for some background on QAnon, and how the rest of the world perceives it/us right now: [LINK] And for a complete understanding of how Flat Eartherism proud anti-illectualism has DIRECTLY LED US TO QANON, this video is invaluable: this video It spells it out step-by-step and I'd love to hear someone try to respond to it. I haven't even expressed any of my own political feelings but I'm sick of watching people use ovenmits to talk about the fact that the anti-intellecutual, pro-conspiratorial actors are by and large self-identified as "conservative", or "Republican" or "pro-Trump". We can't keep acting like this isn't the case. All of these issues, politics,
> It's not the FE that's attractive, it's that they're people who put very little value on social conformity and thus can be honest in a way that "fit ins" can't. There's a marvelous video [1] that Dan Olsen of Folding Ideas did as a deep dive into the community of Flat Earth and how it manages to survive. The TL;DW (though it really is worth the watch) is that people both want and need community, and all communities have ways of signaling that you belong to them. Sometimes it's language, sometimes it's clothes, sometimes it's behaviors--the "qualifications" vary wildly by group, but in many cases from the outside the exhibited behaviors of a group (e.g., believing in flat earth) don't jive with the rest of the perceived individual (e.g., scientifically literate) until you factor in that the behaviors don't have to matter beyond ensuring membership to a group. A whole lot of things make a lot more sense to me when seen through that lens, including a lot of organized religion. People just want to belong, and often the "price of entry" is inconsequential vs. the payoff of belonging somewhere. Thanks for sharing your story. It helps me to understand the "Why" of some of these things, and helps me feel more connected to my fellow beings. [1]: this video
One of the best analyses of this whole thing I've seen is "In Search Of A Flat Earth" by Folding Ideas: this video Essentially, professing absurd beliefs is a sort of shibboleth to demonstrate in-group membership. The absurdity is the point , because it differentiates them from outsiders. Normal people make true or factual statements all the time, that's not a good differentiator! The statements need to be false and/or absurd to function for their intended purpose. The Flat Earth mythos isn't even that outlandish compared to mainstream religions, and well within the same wheelhouse as the type of beliefs used to identify the in-group in cults. Scientology comes to mind, but there are many others. I highly recommend watching the entire video, because there is a lot more to the phenomena than I initially suspected.
Belief in Flat Earth is most definitely not a joke for a very large group of people (though it is absolutely a joke for a much larger group of people). It is part of a wider movement of biblical literalism and conspiracy theories describing an international anti-christian plot. The fact that it is easily disproved isn't really a problem for these kinds of conspiracy theories. It actually kind of acts as a purity test for members. Kind of like how scams still use the "nigerian prince" trope, because it ensures only the most promising marks fall for it. A great documentary on the topic by Dan Olson aka Folding ideas: this video
There’s a great YouTube essay called “in search of a flat earth” that explores this phenomenon. It’s definitely worth a watch- it sort of lays bare the mindset of a group of people who want the world to be a simple, familiar place where there is certainty about everything. And, the host actually goes to a really long, calm lake and using a camera, shows the curvature of the earth in a visceral, visual way that is way more moving than I thought it would be. this video