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Flat Earth

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Tila Tequila also believes that the planet is flat and one rule of life is to believe the exact opposite of what Tila Tequila believes...I know that Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted a lot of fancy science shit, but it's the "Duude" that got me. That's straight guy talk for "Bitch, I can't!"
—Michael K.[1]

Flat Earth (also known as the Flat Earth myth, the Flat Earth theory, Globe Skepticism, Globe Denial, flat-Earthism, Earth shape theory, less commonly platygeism, and intelligent geography for parodists of intelligent design) refers to the pseudoscientific belief that the Earth — which the vast, vast majority of the population imagine in their heads as this big spherical thing (or oblate spheroidal thing, pedants) — is actually a geocentric flat disk. Yes, people actually do believe this, although this belief usually involves some form of religious fundamentalism. Modern flat earthism revolves around a quasi-religious, cult-like system of gurus collaboratively grifting their marks.[2]

Flatlining brain activity[edit]

The characteristics of flat-earthism[edit]

The flat Earth conspiracy cult/grift, and interaction with its proponents can be described with following concepts:

Fractal wrongness[edit]

If the flat-Earth model were correct, we would need to throw the majority, if not all, of our current knowledge of science clean out the window, especially physics, geology, and all of astronomy. While some fields such as medicine might not be inherently incompatible with the shape of Earth, fractally wrong flerfs[note 1] also tend to oppose things like vaccines, COVID masks, gender studies, etc.

Ad hoc reasoning[edit]

When confronted, they typically have their own explanations for their views. The "evidence" they provide is ad hoc and generally pulled out of their asses. The piecemeal rebuttals do not actually work together to form any model, and they admit it.

The only aim of the rebuttals is to shift the burden of proof. The lack of model that explains the phenomena of the physical world (celestial objects, seasons, day/night cycle etc), forces everyone in the cult to memorize statements and to fake understanding. This explains why most flat-earthers have a tendency to talk very similarly to each other, and often cite the same sources and arguments and repeat the same—

Thought-terminating clichés[edit]

Endlessly repeated statements and tautologies like "Water can't stick to a ball", "Gravity is just a theory", or "Pressurized gas needs a container" serve two meanings: The cult leaders use these as recruitment propaganda, and cult members usually scream them as a response to the cognitive dissonance they feel when challenged.

Gish gallop[edit]

Those the cult looks up to (the gurus running the grift) are in charge of defending the community. These gurus are faced with the impossible challenge of beating reality, and its nasty bias that favors logic, college-level math, and peer-reviewed, sound science, so the gurus resort in rhetorical tactics, especially Gish gallop. For an example see this debate between Dave Farina and Flat Earth Dave. The tactic is also imitated by the cult members fighting off their cognitive dissonance.

Unified conspiracy theory[edit]

If the flat Earth was true, hiding it would require the most elaborate conspiracy in the entire world.

The conspiracy would employ tens of millions of people. It's obvious that we would need the involvement of every major government entity - especially (though by no means limited to) their militaries and almost 200[3] space agencies. Essentially, every professional and amateur astronomer, physicist, geologist, meteorologist, rocket scientist and engineer, architect, pilot and politician in the past five hundred years would have to be in on it. All work they put out, every course, lecture, seminar, and talk, every paper and book, every project, every video, would be built on a lie. It would also mean the Moon landings never happened. Who else would have to be involved? All shipping companies, all airline companies, any transnational company that moves their goods around the world, odometer manufacturers (who would be VERY DEEPLY involved), satellite TV providers. Oh, and let's not forget about cartographers. Furthermore, all of these people need staff, tools, facilities, entire supply chain systems, and they'd be producing meaningless junk, decade after decade.

This conspiracy would also be completely pointless. Life for the vast majority of the human population would not be changed in any way if the Earth were revealed tomorrow to be a giant hockey puck instead of a sphere an oblate spheroid. What would be the point of spending all of this time, effort and money into making people think that the shape of the Earth is different? If you ask a flat-earther about this you won't get much of a response. Some might claim that it is "to hide God", which is stupid: there are much simpler ways of accomplishing that, like simply suppressing religion.

Revealed flat Earth would not change the local politics, at all. We have unused resources sitting around us, right now, in much less adversarial conditions than the supposed Ice Wall (Antarctica on flerf model). On the other hand, would the the Ice Wall hide behind itself a fully automated luxury communism, there would be no need to oppress this world. If the resources were truly limitless, why not bring everyone there? If on the other hand the point is to maximize global wealth disparity, why aren't people being shipped from the Ice Wall paradise to our world? In either case, millions of people would uphold this conspiracy without reaping any of its benefits, and not one of them is complaining about it. There are no flat Earth whistleblowers. No one concerned with the well-being of 3.5 billion poor people missing out on the resources. Not a single student is puzzled by and calling out the supposed indoctrination, or making noise when they finally drop the bomb: "We've been lying to you about everything your whole life." Nobody has fought the power. That is, until now.

The supposed, hundreds of years old, perfect plot, is now being exposed by a few high-school drop-outs making YouTube content. And for some reason, the co-conspiring governments don't want to deploy their literal assassination squads, like the ones in Russian Alpha group, and GRU Unit 29155, Mossad's Kidon, CIA's SAC, or North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau. Russia has murdered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in a pointless war over resources, but disappearing the tally count of about 200,000 flerfs (or just their cult leaders) is too big of a hassle. Finding all targets at the same time wouldn't even be too hard, given that Flat Earth Dave's app tracks and leaks the precise geolocation of every flat-earther using the app, whether they've opted in to its friend-finder feature or not.

Considering all this, it really goes to show how big of a tinfoil hat you'd have to be wearing in order to block out that much of reality.[4] Even fucking Alex Jones thinks flat-earthers are ridiculous.

Projection[edit]

Last but not least, flat-earthers have an extreme tendency to hypocritically project everything wrong with their cult, and life, to their surroundings:

  • Religion: They are not the ones relying on blind faith, it's the science that's a religion, and that's trying to hide… …God.
  • Oppression: They are not the sheep being exploited by their cult leaders, we are.
  • Individuality: They claim fierce independence, yet they parrot their leaders' thought terminating clichés.
  • Orthodoxy: They're not pushing an agenda, they're just asking hard questions. Also, anyone questioning their world-view, (even gurus capable of integrity and introspection like Jeranism), is immediately branded a government shill.
  • Source criticism: They're not the ones taking anything at face value, but TruthSeeker42069 knows what's up.
  • Knowledge: In fact, all of science is wrong — except the part they managed to gain an intuitive grasp over during primary school. They're not too dumb to get the rest of it, "it's just where the lies begin".
  • Reasoning: They don’t need to be told what’s true, they’ve got ‘common sense’, which is absolutely different from when the scientific community uses their head when building the body of knowledge.
  • Testimony: They claim science is all about blindly trusting what others have written about, but the 1600 year old Bible and the cult's own lore from the 19th century are 100% reliable sources.
  • Progress: Mainstream physics is a hoax — except when it's busy sputtering atoms onto silicon wafers to build processors that render the very videos questioning its validity.

What the Flat Earth movement is really about[edit]

The shape of the Earth might actually be the least important belief of Flat Earth.
—Dan Olson[5]

While debunking flerfs' lies hits all the right spots of fun and not too easy, all of it fails to address the nature of the Flat Earth movement. Dan Olson's video essay In Search of a Flat Earth discusses among other things the nature of Flat Earth, and it may very well be the greatest analysis of the cult out there. You should watch it at least until Part 2.[note 2]


Further analysis

Like Olson points out, flat-earthers' aim is to simplify the world, the complexity of which has exploded. This is reflected in what Thomas Winship, who wrote Zetetic Cosmogony (a corner-stone of flerf crankery), said: "Modern astronomical teachings affirms [—] that the stars and are worlds and suns, some of them equal in importance to our own Sun himself, and others vastly his superior; that these worlds, inhabited by sentient beings, are without number and occupy space boundless in extent and illimitable in duration"

In other words, science threatens flerfs' narcissistic worldview of being the God's chosen being, and thus, the center of the world. Their concern is, that if the world is bigger than mankind can ever explore, then we are not the point. Ergo, the Bible is not true, and there is no God, which in turn means death will be the permanent end of the individual's experience, and that thought is scary.[note 3]

Flat Earth is a cult, and with that comes cults' power dynamics. The cult provides a simple system, where the truth is what the flat-earthers make it out to be. The cult leaders state one must "empty their cup to be able to refill it", which signifies how fundamentally incompatible the belief system is, and how the cult expects complete rewriting of the individual's worldview. In the cult environment, the societal chaos is replaced by orthodoxy towards the central doctrine. As long as the doctrine is not challenged, it allows very lively discussion and brain-storming to fill the gaps, to explain why the cult's central thesis is true: simple "proofs" of why the Earth is flat, who are "they", and how and why are "they" hiding the true shape of our world.[note 4]

Thus, flat Earth provides a liberation from the school-years era of "oppression", where wrong (or just dumb) ideas, or wrong connections between ideas, were called out. This creates a breeding-ground for crankery, and repels any, and all logical people. The echo chamber that forms, functions as a walled garden for narcissistic grifters, who are naturally gravitating towards the group to leech off money and admiration from uneducated, gullible, and often desperate people. The cult's ultimate currency is not progress from logical inference, but loyalty, and in exchange for that, the marks (slang term for suckers) get to experience belonging, community, meaning, and (at long last,) a sense of superiority. The extreme anti-establishment nature of the cult rejects contradictory evidence and those stating it, which shields the central narrative. As Olson said, fact checking serves as a filter to keep counteracting forces out. This gives the grifters a carte blanche, and removes ridicule the marks' quixotic struggle would face.

The inconsistent and contradictory ideas do not matter to flerfs. The goal is not to establish the objective truth. Like QAnon, flat Earth treats facts (and lies) as game pieces to attain the real goal. As Olson points out, "flat-earthers' goal is to un-explain the world, as real explanations impede with their politics". As Olson said about QAnon, "the goal is to find filler to justify support for authoritarian policies directed at people they already don't like", with the aim of making systemic issues go away by silencing those pointing them out.

As the true believer flerfs' goal is to "red pill everyone" to give them "personal sovereignty and newfound belief in God", recruitment while maintaining group cohesion becomes the top priority inside the group. Internally, group dynamics of shunning the non-believer is usually enough, but recruitment of new members requires explanations. The set of explanations does not seek to pass Occam's razor, but energy minimum of explanations and thought terminating clichés that maximizes recruitment with minimal work. This materializes as propaganda that snow-balls from fallacious nuggets into eight-hour long compilations. Re-use of content in new videos minimizes work and the repetition serves both as rehearsal and as the "repeat a lie long enough, and it becomes the truth" propaganda 101 tactic. The cult leaders instruct the members how to do low-effort recruitment: passively expose them to the material, and instead of engaging with their questions, steer them to the cult's lore.

As on organizational level modern flat Earth was never much more than an instance of the online grift, "redpilling everyone" mainly served to maximize the number of marks, and lack of action frustrated flerfs. Because of this, flat Earth mainly served a function in the radicalization pipeline: It was the last stepping stone of losing trust in society and its institutions. The next stone would be taking political action.

The QAnon conspiracy promised "The Storm" and "The Great Awakening", basically a fascist new world order. As fascism is more or less just "society as a cult", many flerfs believe they can thrive in it with the one resource they have an endless supply of: loyalty. After QAnon nabbed most of the flerfs, the flat Earth movement has been a shadow of its former self, consisting mostly of active members' circle-jerk webinars and conventions, and the grifters operating on whoever chose to remain in the cult, or whoever happens to stop by on their way through the radicalization pipeline.

Relativity of wrong[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Wronger than wrong

Isaac Asimov used the idea of a flat Earth in his essay The Relativity of Wrong to make a point about the progress of scientific knowledge.[6] He pointed out that the notion of a flat Earth is wrong, but the idea of a spherical Earth is also wrong, as the shape of the Earth is better described as an oblate spheroid (because the Earth is wider than it is tall, flattening out at the poles while bulging around the Equator). Asimov went on to say how these theories aren't equally wrong (and believing such a thing as a flat Earth is "wronger than wrong") but that they do have use.

An architect working on a small building site would have no use for "Spherical Earth Theory" and would assume the ground is flat, but another designing a bridge, would. A designer of novelty globes wouldn't need to compensate for the oblateness of the earth, but those sending satellites into orbit do (in fact the distortion has quite a dramatic effect on inclined orbits).

Modern flat-earthery tends to be not even wrong, however.

Preface to debunking[edit]

First things first. The Earth can not be both flat and a sphere at the same time. This isn't a false dilemma — the two mutually exclude one another. Either the Earth is flat, and all of established science is completely wrong, or the flat Earth is completely wrong, and the people spreading it are cultists and/or scammers.

Natural sciences are not soft sciences like sociology or political science, where there are different frameworks that explain the topic, with none objectively more valid than the other. Natural science deals with, and explains objective reality, and thus, it has no room for second best theory.

"But theories are just theories!"

Our everyday "I have this theory that when one is tired, their nose bleeds more often" is what science calls a conjecture. A conjecture is just an idea. A conjecture that can be tested is called a hypothesis. The testing is done using the scientific method, with a scientific experiment, that must be able to disprove the hypothesis. If it doesn't disprove it, then the experiment supports the hypothesis. If there are competing explanations, over time new experiments rule them out. Once there's sufficient evidence no other explanation is better, we start calling that explanation a scientific theory.

The theories are rarely perfect, but the process ensures they only improve over time. E.g., the model of atoms in the atomic theory has evolved from John Dalton's 1803 idea of atoms being tiny particles, to J. J. Thompson's 1904 plum pudding model, to Rutherford-Bohr model by Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford in the 1910s, followed by our modern quantum mechanical model. Even the scientific method has evolved and improved over the centuries. This pursuit of knowledge in a way that's capable of introspection is not a problem, neither is any imperfect intermediate step towards the right direction: All models are wrong, but some are useful.[note 5] The real problem is those who claim to have all the answers, and those who ask society to take steps back just because it suits their politics.

In the 19th century, scientists really thought the Earth was stationary. At some point scientists like Viviani ran into precession of pendulums, that they could not explain with their current model. This created the need for a better model, and with the Foucault's pendulum rotating Earth eventually won.

For the globe model to remain the prevailing figure of the Earth theory, it must explain as many things as flat Earth for it to be even considered, and more to be accepted. Which it does. Thus, there's nothing suspicious or strangely convenient about the globe model being able to trivially debunk everything flat Earth proponents — both old and new — say.

Despite this, flat-earthers still continue to misrepresent and distort the truth, using lies — either direct or by omission — and every rhetorical trick in the book, to make it seem flat Earth explains more phenomena. Time to torch their bullshit.


Empirical evidence for the spherical shape of Earth[edit]

The Earth[edit]

The Moon[edit]

The Sun[edit]

The Stars[edit]

Celestial Mechanics[edit]

Celestial Objects[edit]

Astronautics[edit]

Astrophotography[edit]

The Conspiracy[edit]

Experiments[edit]

Over the centuries, experiments have been performed to determine the shape of the Earth.

Joint Experiments[edit]

The Final Experiment (2024)[edit]

See main article for this topic: The Final Experiment.

David Weiss' peer-reviewed experiment (TBD)[edit]

In February 2025, Flat Earth Dave agreed to design and take part in a rigorous, bipartisan, scientific experiment, with Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, with the goal of getting it published in a peer-reviewed, accredited journal. The preliminary idea was to measure the curve with a straight flying plane's altitude, as a function of flying distance. Weiss did his best to weasel his way out of this one, but in the end, couldn't find an excuse. The experiment design meeting will take place in June and August, 2025.


Meanwhile, Michael Toon, who hosted the episode above, is reportedly searching for an extra-long measuring tape to size up Weiss' long face.

The Glober Experiments[edit]

The Cavendish Experiment (1797)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: The Cavendish experiment

Foucault's Pendulum (1851)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Foucault's pendulum

Alfred Russel Wallace's Reproduction of the Bedford Level Experiment (1870)[edit]

See main article for this topic: Alfred Russel Wallace's Reproduction (1870)

Aether drift experiments[edit]

Luminiferous Aether was a hypothetical medium thought to be responsible of carrying electromagnetic radiation (visible light, X-rays, etc), similar to how air carries sound waves. The aether drag hypothesis proposed that aether was dragged along by moving matter, such as Earth. If this was the case, then either aether moved with the Earth, and there was no relative movement, or, there was relative movement called aether wind, and it would be detectable with instruments at rest on Earth's surface.

The aether drift experiments have never been used to prove Earth's shape (this has been known since antiquity), or movement through space (which has been known since James Bradley's 1725 discovery of stellar aberration). This hasn't stopped flat-earthers from lying blatantly about both applicability, and the result supporting their crankery.

Airy's Ether drag test (AKA Airy's Failure) (1871)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Airy's failure

Michelson-Morley experiment (1887)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Michelson-Morley experiment

Michelson-Gale-Pearson experiment (1925)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Michelson-Gale-Pearson experiment

Jesse Kozlowski's Cooper River Lake Curve Experiment (2016)[edit]

Jesse Kozlowski is a surveyor who has been debunking flat-earthers by basically doing his job. Kozlowski uses "reciprocal vertical/zenith angles" to prove the curvature of the Earth. In this case, by measuring with a theodolite the reciprocal angles of two different targets at 7,311 feet from each other in the Cooper River Lake with the same elevation, using the water as the level reference. On a flat Earth, the sum-up angle for these two targets would sum up not more than 180º, and thus there would be no reciprocal vertical/zenith angles. However, Kozlowski measured that the angles of each target were higher than 90°, with a sum-up zenith angle higher than 180º, thus proving the Earth a globe.[7]


These reciprocal zenith angles experiments (shared by McToon) have also been replicated by Walter Bislin and The Maine Surveyor (see below), confirming again the curvature of Earth:


Dan Olson's Lake Minnewanka Curve Experiment (2020)[edit]

See main article for this topic: Lake Minnewanka curve experiment.

The Flerf Experiments[edit]

Every once in a while, flat-earthers do try to actually walk the talk, and perform experiments themselves to disprove globe and confirm their pizza land.

Samuel Rowbotham's Bedford Level Experiment (1838)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Samuel Rowbotham's Experiment (1838)

Darryle Marble's spirit level experiment (2017)[edit]

In 2017, Darryle Marble tried to prove the Earth flat by taking a spirit level to a plane.


At the cruising speed of 450 knots, the plane has to adjust its pitch by one degree every 8 minutes. Human pilots make less than half-a-degree corrections every few minutes. Modern autopilots make 0.1 degree corrections at the rate of roughly 10-20 adjustments per minute. These adjustments are imperceptible to human senses.[8] In Marble's video, the spirit level's bubble absolutely does not stay still. The pitch compensation for the Earth's curvature is drowned in other disturbances from turbulence etc.

Marble also seemed to assume the change in pitch would remain constant, because he expected to see the bubble constantly move towards the other end of the spirit level. This completely fails to understand that in the globe model, gravity is always towards the ground, i.e. the geocenter of the Earth, and thus, the spirit level, when propped to the angle that's perpendicular to the zenith, will not detect the curvature. This is because the gravity well that affects the spirit level changes constantly as the plane travels along the curvature.

So because the spirit level can not detect plane's orientation in the inertial frame of reference, and because the documented bubble movement in the video easily explains 0.1 degree autopilot corrections to pitch, this experiment fails to disprove globe.

Jeran Campanella's flashlight experiment (2018)[edit]

During the filming of the 2018 Netflix documentary Behind The Curve, Jeran Campanella, yes, the same Jeranism who later went to Antarctica with The Final Experiment group, recreated the Bedford Level Experiment with a flashlight, and he managed to prove the Earth, a globe.


Bob Knodel's RLG experiment (2018)[edit]

During the filming of the same documentary, another flat-earther, Bob Knodel, bought a 20,000 USD ring laser gyroscope (RLG) to measure the drift caused by the Earth's rotation 360° / 24h = 15° / h. Knodel proved Earth to be, a globe.


Mike Hughes' rocket experiment (2018)[edit]

In 2018, "Mad Mike" Hughes launched himself to the sky on a home-made rocket, in the hope of documenting the non-existence of the curve.



Hughes reached the height of 1,875 feet which just under 5% of commercial airliners' cruising altitude (38,000ft). Needless to say, the altitude was not enough to show the curve. Still, the experiment proved beyond any doubt Hughes had the largest balls in the entire flatsphere.

Hughes died in a subsequent attempt in February 2020.[9]

The scoreboard[edit]

Adding to the experiments by flerfs

  • the two experiments done at TFE (24 hour Sun recording, and the scale measurement), and
  • the Bedford Level Experiment replication by Dan Olson,

we get to the scoreboard.

Proved The Earth Flat Proved The Earth Globe Failed to Disprove The Globe Failed to Disprove Flat Earth
Flerfs 0 2 2 0
Globers 0 3 0 0
Total 0 5 2 0

Firmament fleers[edit]

Over time, some flat earthers have made it out of the cult. Here we celebrate them for getting their lives back.

Escaped the firmament
Name Left the cult on Reason for leaving
Jeran Campanella 2025/01/07 Doubts after TFE[10]
Patricia Steere 2025/02 Doubts after TFE[11]
Robbie Davidson 2025/02 Doubts after TFE[12]

Congratulations everyone!

History[edit]

See the main article on this topic: History of Flat Earh


Online resurgence[edit]

Sadly, the flat Earth model is gaining popularity — or at least more vocal proponents — via the Internet, especially on various nutcase-enabling platforms like YouTube.[13] The starting point for the resurgence can be considered to be flat-earther Mark Sargent's first YouTube video FLAT EARTH clues Introduction he uploaded in February 2015. The central arguments of the video are about

  1. There existing no 360 degree camera footage from outside the ISS (there now is),
  2. There being no non-composite images of Earth (there is a whole album, and another), and
  3. There being no straight flights from South America to Australia (there is).

Funnily enough, the video also confirms the existence of pressure gradient which proves gravity exists, and which disproves the firmament, as pressurized containers have equal pressure regardless of altitude.

Flat Earth seems to be rooted in complete and active suspicion of all authority and an assumption that Mainstream Science™ is just one big, faceless monolith — spreading lies to keep the public in the dark about, er... Some nefarious end! NASA, being part of the Illuminati according to the flat-earthers, is possessed of infinite money and control while at the same time being so incompetent they leave easily-spotted mistakes in their propaganda that expose the whole thing. Flat-earthers like Jeranism make videos filled with a mix of Gish Gallop and creative misunderstanding, willful ignorance, and flat (hah!) denial of facts and evidence to the contrary.[14]

The flat Earth movement shares many of the same beliefs and goals as the Alt-right, and have even adopted Alt-right memes into their online presence. They created a variant of Pepe the Frog called "Fepe," or "Flat Earth Pepe."[15]

Fundamentalist endorsements[edit]

Motives for advocating a flat over a round Earth despite evidence to the contrary vary. Many young-earth creationists who think it's 6,000 years old don't go so far as to say that it's not round.[16] However, there are some particularly nutty evangelical flat-earthers.[17]

Modern geocentrists make a point of distancing themselves from the flat-Earth belief. Charles K. Johnson based his flat-Earth belief on a hyper-literal interpretation of the Bible (asserting that Jesus' ascent "up" into Heaven is proof of a flat Earth, since a round Earth would have no "up" or "down").[18]

A flat-Earth movement also exists within fundamentalist Islam, based on a literal interpretation of several Qur'anic verses (see the "Religious views" section below).

While we're on the subject, a common claim by people who arrive at flatheaddery from the Religious Fundamentalism direction is that the globe is a lie propagated by the Satan-controlled media in an attempt to draw people away from the Bible. Although one would think that if Satan had that kind of power, then they'd simply ban Bibles outright.

To demonstrate the error in thinking of these people (who have apparently never heard of metaphors or hyperbole), let's look at a passage likely very near and dear to their hearts: God setting his bow in the sky after Noah's flood to celebrate his promise never to do that again. According to Hyperliteralist logic, this means that every rainbow ever (even ones produced from garden hoses) is actually all the same specific object, an actual warbow that might potentially be seized by human hands and used to fire arrows one day.

Celebrity endorsements[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Appeal to celebrity

The rapper B.o.B., who has had several hits including "Nothin' on You" and "Airplanes", outed himself as a flat-earther in 2016 and released a diss track called "Flatline" aimed at astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson's nephew, who is also a rapper, released a counter-diss track in response.[19] Astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss wrote in Slate such views can be useful — even if grotesque — when they can be used to check our assumptions. He proposes three clear reasons why the Earth is round: the time zones, the seasons, and the Global Positioning System.[20]

Confusing their ball game proficiency with an understanding of spheres in general, four NBA players also come out as flat-earthers, including Shaquille O'Neal.[21] (He was joking.)

Tila Tequila has also endorsed flat-earthery[22] — which seems contradictory, considering she's also endorsed Hitler,[23] whom we don't think was a flat-earther.

In November 2024, another rapper, Lorenzo Dechalus (prof. Lord Jamar), expressed his flat Earth crankery on Godfrey's podcast and offered to debate Neil deGrasse Tyson.[24] The heavyweight champion of astrophysics was unavailable, but, on January 15, 2025, during a 20 minute "debate" with Professor Dave, Dechalus got his ass handed back to him.[25]

Christian flat Earth apologetics[edit]

The universe according to the Old Testament.
World picture from Christian Topography (c. 6th-century).
Even a layperson today can observe that the Earth is not flat.
Answers in Genesis (even they look smart next to flat-earthers!)[26]
When I first became interested in the flat-earthers in the early 1970s, I was surprised to learn that flat-earthism in the English-speaking world is and always has been entirely based upon the Bible.
—Robert Schadewald[27]

Many Biblical literalists claim the Bible disproves evolution and other scientific theories prima facie. Since there is no real debate about the shape of the Earth, these passages call Biblical literalism into question. The irony of flat-earthers encouraging people to stop blindly accepting what they've been taught and do their own research has not gone unnoticed, considering that the primarily cited origin of flat Earth ideas is indeed the Bible.

In numerous passages, the Bible claims that the Earth is a flat disk and/or rectangular, usually implicitly. Whether or not the Bible "really" says this is often debated — but if the Bible was written by people who lived in societies who were unaware that the Earth is a more or less spherical object which orbits the Sun, then we would expect this view to be reflected in their writings. Presumably, God's concern would be the salvation of their souls, so it's difficult to see why clearing up the true shape of the Earth would be important for that endeavor.

Biblical flat-Earthism is very rarely accepted. Wilbur Glenn Voliva even offered $5000 as a prize for anyone who can prove that Earth is not flat. Of course, his predictions about Earth ending in 1923, 1927, 1930, and 1935 also failed.[28] Teaching about spherical Earth was banned in the schools of Zion, Illinois, at that time.

Former President of the United States Jimmy Carter mentioned flat-earthers in passing (though he was actually speaking against mandatory teaching of creation science):[29]

There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.

Appeals to the Bible[edit]

What the Bible actually says about a flat Earth is clearly a matter for debate amongst Christians. But it is certainly both instructive and amusing to read how some Christians clearly see a flat Earth while other Christians attempt to dismiss their claims as poetry, dreams or something which is "obviously" not to be taken literally.

The king seeing all the earth[edit]

  • "Daniel 4:10-11. In Daniel, the king “saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth… reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds.” Only with a flat Earth could a tall tree be visible from "the earth's farthest bounds" — this is impossible on a spherical Earth, or is the tree a rocket?

Theological rebuttal: The strength of Daniel 4:10-11 as an argument for a flat Earth is considerably reduced by the fact that this part of the Book of Daniel recounts a dream experienced by the Assyrian king of Babylon. Thus, it does not necessarily refer to an actually existing tree or make any statements about real cosmology. This interpretation would seem to indicate that biblical literalists do not even know how to read the Bible properly. This is also quote mining.

Jesus seeing all the kingdoms[edit]

Shows why you couldn't see all the kingdoms. To be fair, you can suggest that those outside of lines of sight are not kingdoms.
  • Matthew 4:8: "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain [spaceship?], and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world"
  • Luke 4:5: "And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time."

Theological rebuttal again: The strength of using Matthew and Luke as flat Earth claims is reduced by the fact that "kingdom" is a human construct. If you classify all the places on Earth that you can't see from that particular location as "not kingdoms", such as barbaric tribes and non-monarchies, it can be fitted within that description. However, how the devil knows that those places are not ruled by kings (again, the concept of "king" is also a human concept) is not exactly clear.

You could also go with the idea that Satan simply showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world over the course of a trip around the equator or in sequence, because the text does not imply that they were shown together.

Yet another possible interpretation is that only kingdoms in the then known world (southern Europe, northern Africa and western Asia) are meant, which could be seen from a point in space not far above the surface of the Earth. Take your pick, flatheads.

The Earth is a circle[edit]

  • Isaiah 40:22: "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth (Earth’s orbit?), and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy (map), and spreads them out like a tent to live in."

Jews and Christians use this quote to "prove" that the Bible implies that the Earth is spherical, although the word is "circular", and may refer to the perception of a 360 degree panoramic view. Some scholars point out that Isaiah never uses the Modern Hebrew word for sphere Kadur, anywhere.[30] It is not clear to Theists whether this is relevant, because the interpretation of the word Kadur in the Bible is disputed by Theists. This line probably does refer to a flat model of the earth, since an alternative translation is "He sits enthroned above the vault of the earth," a reference to the firmament.

The passage describes the Heavens as like a canopy, not the Earth. This interpretation would seem to indicate that Biblical literalists do not even know how to read sentences properly.

Some non-flat-earth Christians maintain that this entire text is intended to be poetic in nature, as it talks about God holding the dust of the Earth in a basket. Either this, along with everything else, is meant to be a metaphorical description, or God has a really big basket.

"Four Corners"[edit]

  • Isaiah 11:12 "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners [north, south, east and west] of the earth."
  • Revelation 7:1 "And after these things I saw four angels standing on four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree."

As with the Daniel quote, modern Jews and Christians, who have been educated by Science, don't take this literally; to them the events described in Revelation are a series of visions, rather than an accurate description of the world (which would indicate that you shouldn't take the Holy Bible literally). Another interpretation of this verse is that four corners of the Earth don't refer to literal four corners but to cardinal directions, which is further supported by the description of the four winds which are commonly referenced by their cardinal direction. An additional consideration is that Leviticus 19:27 refers to the "corners of the head"; this means that either A)the authors of the Bible had no problem with using the word "corners" non-literally while discussing round things (which would give the absurd implication that they used idioms and figurative speech just like everyone else ever), or B) The Ancient Israelites had heads like Minecraft Characters (in spite of all fossil evidence to the cont-- Oh wait...). Take for example the modern idiom "The Ends of the Earth." If Isaiah or Revelation had been written today, then this would be the phrase used, and then thousands of years later fundies would take this as proof that the Earth is shaped like a string or rope.

Even ignoring all the above rebuttals and debate amongst Christians about what the Bible "really" says, there's still the issue that if we are indeed meant to read the Bible this hyper-literally, then that would imply that when Jesus said we were to be "like doves," that he meant we were to grow feathers, eat mostly seed and fruit, regurgitate crop milk, and make mostly cooing noises.

The problem, of course, is that the very people who insist the Earth is flat because of (their) literal interpretation of the Bible, when pressed on the above points, retreat to a non-literal interpretation of those points, thereby undermining their whole argument that the Earth is flat because the Bible literally says it is. Essentially, they can pick and choose what parts of the Bible are hyper literal or not.

Islamic flat Earth apologetics[edit]

A globe, with a spherical triangle connecting Mecca, the North Pole, and Yogyakarta
Muslims pray facing the Kaaba in Mecca. In the "flat-Earth map" the Qibla will not consistently point to the Kaaba.[31]

Some Islamic fundamentalists possibly believe the Earth is flat, using a literal interpretation of several Qur'an verses. In fact, medieval Muslim scholars, like Christians of the same era, readily accepted Greco-Roman astronomy and used a Ptolemaic geocentric model of the universe with a spherical Earth.[32][33] This would make modern Islamic flat Earth apologetics a step backwards. In 1966 the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abd al-Aziz Bin Baz, is rumored to have declared "The Earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment." However historians such as Robert Lacey believe that this quote was misinterpreted (and that Ibn Baaz was actually asserting that the Earth doesn't orbit around the Sun — but not that the Earth was flat).

Mohammed Yusuf, founder of terrorist group Boko Haram, stated that the Theory of Evolution as well as spherical Earth teachings should be rejected because they are against Islam.[34] In a 2007 TV debate, an Iraqi Astronomer, Fadil Al-Sa'd, tried hard to push the ideas that the Earth is flat and Qur'anic verses also support that the Sun (also flat) is much smaller than Earth and revolves around it.[35]

As in all cases of proof-via-scripture, it's just a question of making flat-earthery fit by cherry picking your preferred translation so it fits your pre-existing beliefs.

Appeals to the Qur'an[edit]

Islamic cosmology by Zekeriya Kazvinî. The cosmic bull bears (Kujata) the earth-disk (rimmed by Mount Qaf) and stands on the fish (Bahamut).

Qur'an 18:47

And (remember) the Day We shall cause the mountains to pass away (like clouds of dust), and you will see the Earth as a levelled plain, and we shall gather them all together so as to leave not one of them behind.

The Muhsin Khan and Shakir translation seem to use "levelled plain"; other translations, apart from Yusuf Ali, which says "level stretch" rather than "levelled plain", which clearly suggests that God is f@#king punching mountains flat like the badass he is the Earth is a disc.

Qur'an 20:53

Who has made earth for you like a bed (spread out); and has opened roads (ways and paths etc.) for you therein; and has sent down water (rain) from the sky. And We have brought forth with it various kinds of vegetation.

Translations again disagree on this. Like a "carpet" and like a "cradle" are also popular.

Qur'an 43:10

Who has made for you the earth like a bed, and has made for you roads therein, in order that you may find your way.

Other translations of this "like a bed" indicate that it's metaphorical, with "resting place" being the most popular use. The Dr. Ghali translation still uses "cradle" in place of bed.

Qur'an 43:38
Till, when (such a one) comes to Us, he says [to his Qarîn (Satan / devil companion)] "Would that between me and you were the distance of the two easts (or the east and west)" a worst (type of) companion (indeed)!

One presumes that this is a tacit admission that there is an absolute point marked "east" and a point marked "west" which isn't possible on a globe because it wraps around. It's not entirely possible on a flat Earth, either as there is no fixed reference. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, set on a flat disc, they use radial co-ordinates of "hubward" (meaning toward the centre) "rimward" (towards the outside) and "turnwise" and "widdershins" for clockwise and counterclockwise respectively. Analogous with east and west on a globe, there are no fixed points on this reference frame.

Qur'an 78:6

Have We not made the earth as a bed,

Only Muhsin Khan says "bed". The rest are "expanse" or variations of it. Dr Ghali continues with "cradle". One has to ask, if someone walked up to you and said that the Earth is like a bed, wouldn't one usually think they meant it was a small, warm, and comfortable thing you sleep in and which a parent lovingly prepares for their child? "Flat" is usually quite far down the list of words associated with beds, and indeed if one wanted to describe something as flat, they usually pick something much closer to two-dimensional, such as parchment.

Qur'an 79:30

And after that He spread the earth;

Ironically, the flat-earthers would have been better off with Dr Ghali here, as he is less ambiguous about it: "And the earth, after that He flattened it (for life)."

The irony strikes back[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Irony

Faking photos[edit]

And the original Mars photo can be found where?

Some flat-earthers, who dismiss all photographs of space as fake ― without giving any criteria for what would constitute a genuine one, other than incredulity ― have been known to use deceptive means for making their case. Essentially, they have done the very same thing that they accuse others of doing. The image at the right is among the first that one finds upon searching for “flat Earth” in Google Images.

Convincing, right? Not so fast. The alleged photo cannot be found in the NASA archives, because it was done by YouTube user Danny Wilten. It just showed how the Martian landscapes captured by spatial probes could be photoshopped from one taken in Ireland, not that such a thing actually had taken place.[36] To date, no photo of Mars has been shown to correspond to one taken on Earth,[37] which would be the relevant proof. But it also raises the question, what exactly do these space deniers expect to see on other worlds? Do they expect other rocky planets to be radically different from barren places on Earth? But more importantly, if these photos are so evidently fake, why bother lying? And even if they are fake, it doesn't necessarily mean that the Earth is flat. Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence.

Faking quotes[edit]

Since there is nobody in the actual scientific community supporting a flat Earth there is a need for the flat Earth community to cherry-pick quote anybody important for an argument from authority. And who no other than Nikola Tesla! The most cited scientist by/for cranks! In 2016, flat-earthers started to share this "quote" from Tesla:

Earth is a realm, it is not a planet. It is not an object, therefore, it has no edge. Earth would be more easily defined as a system environment. Earth is also a machine, it is a Tesla coil. The sun and moon are powered wirelessly with the electromagnetic field (the Aether). This field also suspends the celestial spheres with electo-magnetic levitation. Electromag levitation disproves gravity because the only force you need to counter is the electromagnetic force, not gravity. Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable.
Though free to think and act, we are held together like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them, each of us is only part of a whole.

While the last sentences in italics are from Tesla, the rest of the quote is actually from some random Facebook guy called ‘Darrell Fox’. However, this hasn't stopped flatties from believing and sharing this false quote. Also, needless to say really but, Tesla was not a flathead.[38]

Using spherical Earth mathematics[edit]

Screenshot of the source code in Flat Earth Dave's app reveals the code uses the Earth obliquity (axial tilt) in it's code.

In his video "Flat Earth Dave's App Massive Security Breach" Michael Toon revealed he had been sent a decompiled version of Flat Earth Dave's app Flat Earth Sun & Moon Clock. The app's friend finder feature was found to determine the distance of friends by using the Haversine formula, which "determines the great-circle distance between two points on a sphere given their longitudes and latitudes." This proves Flat Earth Dave is fully aware of the Earth being a globe. The decompiled source code also revealed a plethora of security issues that affected all of its 203,793 users.[39] These issues were also analyzed by Dave McKeegan two weeks later.[40] McKeegan showed source code from the app that uses the constant OBLIQUITY = 0.40927971 which is the Earth's obliquity (axial tilt) in radians.

Another example of flatties using spherical Earth mathematics is the flat-earther Shane St Pierre's model, which is basically an outright plagiarized copy-paste of Walter Bislins' Flat Earth Dome Model, both code and text. Flat Earth debunker JB Aerospace has not only shown in Shane's plagiarized code uses heliocentric parameters such as RadiusEarth: 6371.0, // km and DistSun: 149600000.0, // km but JPL ephemerides, which are NASA's calculations of the orbits of celestial objects based on observations that flat-earthers reject (such us spacecraft observations), and physical models which flat-earthers also reject (like Newtonian physics).[41][42] Walter not only noticed and called out Shane for doing a "flat Earth James Somerton" but he updated his simulator by adding those previous heliocentric parameters as variables, which if it were changed then "the App fails and makes wrong predictions", like with the Final Experiment for example. (See: Flat Earth Dome Model only works Based on the Heliocentric Model).

Insecurity for you, insecurity for me[edit]

In his Feb. 7, 2025 follow-up video[43] Michael Toon revealed a security researcher had tried to report the app's vulnerabilities to Weiss, but the support email Weiss had given Google did not exist. Toon also showed the app claims to collect no data at all, but it clearly did collect PII. It thus violates both Google's ToS, and GDPR, especially as the server is hosted in Finland. Weiss misrepresented the publicly accessible data as "hacker who had gotten into the API, and he claimed all leaked data was publicly shared with other users" except the password. Weiss claimed they had changed everyone's passwords and notified users about the issue. Weiss called the whole thing a "nothing burger by anti-flat Earth trolls". Instead of looking into mirror about his failure to deploy any, let alone modern password hashing practices, Weiss blamed users, who might have re-used the password in other services.

Next, Toon showed the application included the user's location inside every uploaded packet, even if the user did not opt-in to the app's friend finder feature, and that this information is tied to the user's name and email without their consent. He showed an e-mail by Weiss where he blamed globe Earth proponent "trolls" for the data breach. Weiss claimed to have "enlisted an A-Team that had fixed the security problems, and prevented the use of the service's API. When Toon invited Weiss to join a live stream event to defend his app, Weiss responded with a cease and desist notice which basically threatened Toon with a SLAPP lawsuit. The demands were to "Cease and desist from making or promoting false statements regarding the breach", and "retract any prior statements that falsely suggest more than 100 users were compromised."

According to Toon, the following day (on Oct. 17, 2024) Weiss received complaint on X from user who had received same reset password over email. This is wrong on so many levels. The user is never supposed to receive a password over email. They should be sent a link with a rapidly expiring token that allows changing the password. As Toon commented to the user, it was only possible if the server still stored the passwords in plaintext, i.e. without any protection. Weiss later sent a new message to his users telling them their passwords were changed, but they could continue the current app session without logging back in with the new password. Toon then revealed the reason the app could do that, was the app doesn't perform password verification even upon new connections that lacks the session token. Instead, merely spoofing the user_id or the device_id of a user, was enough to login to someone else's account, read their messages, or impersonate them in the conversations. Furthermore, both the user_id and the device_id were available via the public API meaning what the server accepted as a password, was available on the server even if passwords were hashed. Another massive issue Toon highlighted, was the app's location accuracy was so high it allowed determining many users' home addresses. Weiss' "mitigation" strategy to these issues was obfuscation: he only changed the API domain name. He also put the service behind Cloudflare, which only protects from DoS attacks — a non-issue.

Finally, to highlight the absolutely batshit crazy level of lack of security, Weiss' included his personal $DOME shit-coin PRIVATE KEY in the source code of the application, that he shipped to his 200,000+ users.

On Feb. 6, 2025, after the industry-standard 90 day notice period, Toon and his team of security professionals published their findings on GitHub.

For now, all the vulnerabilities remained unfixed.

Antisemitism[edit]

Flat-earthers have often complained that NASA had ex-Nazi collaborators working for them, such as Wernher von Braun. This was indeed true (see Operation Paperclip)[44] but ultimately this is a poor reductio ad Hitlerum argument in the end: "Why should I trust a space agency on its topics of expertise, if it also has antisemites in it?"[note 6] Fortunately, almost all those scientists are dead (or retired), so that worry is unsubstantiated. However, the irony is that, bizarrely, many popular flat-earthers have spread some kind of antisemitic conspiracies themselves.[45] So much so that Answers in Genesis (in an astounding stopped clock moment) noticed this too.[46] And even to the point of faking pictures of Hitler being a flat-earther! No kidding:

Here are some examples:

  • Edward Hendrie, who in his book The Greatest Lie on Earth: Proof That Our World Is Not a Moving Globe constantly blames Jews, "communists" and "Zionists" for everything, who "control the mass media, which they use to propagandize the people into pushing the politicians into doing their bidding against God and his anointed"[46] (he may as well have titled his book Mein Kampf 2.0). Hendrie has also written two entire books accusing jews of replacing "God's commands with Satan's Babylonian dogma" by founding communists and rising Hitler into power (we kid you not)[47] and ordering 9/11...[48] He is an antivaxxer too.[49]
Antisemitic poster used in Eric Dubay's YouTube video 200 Proofs Earth Is Not a Spinning Ball.
What you see? Was I right?
The Earth’s fucking flat - holocaust denied
Hitler was cool and not a bad guy
Talmudic Jews have control of your mind
Eric Dubay - Once You Go Flat Rap"

Twice! (which it isn't a lot but it's weird he did it twice, right?)

Nazis took on the Jews and they lost
Germany knew just exactly what it’d cost
They made the ultimate sacrifice for us
Their voices are screaming from the grave listen up
Hitler shut down the Rothschild banks!
——Eric Dubay - Goyim Revolution"

In some way, this is unsurprising too, since a flat Earth would require some kind of New World Order conspiracy theory. They often land not far away from the oldest grand conspiracy in the book: the International Jewish / Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory.[70] After all, if a spherical Earth is fake, what else is fake? Maybe the Holocaust? Am I right B.o.B.?[71]

Do your research on David Irving

Stalin was way worse than Hitler

That’s why the POTUS gotta wear a kippah
B.o.B - Flatline[72]

So if they were really worried about Nazism, they could excise the ones in their cult community.[note 7]

Common counterarguments that do not refute flat-earther claims[edit]

Just because the thing you're trying to prove happens to be correct doesn't necessarily mean that the "proof" you're trying to use is valid. As such, some of the arguments people use against flatheads have almost as little thought put into them as the ones the flatheads themselves use. Stay away from these arguments. Inverse stopped clocks will be handed out at the ticket booth.

The shadow the Earth casts on the Moon is round![edit]

This one is more nuanced than it first appears, prohibitively so. Ordinary moon phases are caused by the Sun shining directly upon the lunar sphere from various angles: we see its horizon swivel around. Aristotle observed that during eclipses a bit of Earth gets in the way and casts a shadow on the moon that is always curved to some extent, from our perspective on Earth.

How else would eclipses of the moon show segments shaped as we see them? As it is, the shapes which the moon itself each month shows are of every kind straight, gibbous, and concave — but in eclipses the outline is always curved: and, since it is the interposition of the Earth that makes the eclipse, the form of this line will be caused by the form of the earth's surface, which is therefore spherical.
—Aristotle, On the Heavens[73]

On the other hand, for a coin held in front of a flashlight (flat Earth with Sun below, moon above): oblique lighting squashes that shadow more severely before warping further onto the same spherical moon.

Contrasting eccentricities to characterize fractions of Earth's silhouette isn't worth it.[74] Much less entertaining the flat model where an always-above Sun emits upwardly-curved light across the sky at the moon.

Eratosthenes's shadows proved a round Earth![edit]

Eratosthenes's experiment assumed a Sun sufficiently large and distant that its rays are near-parallel when they reach earth. Guess what happens when you swap that for a small and near sun?

The experiment was not about the shape of the Earth. Earth was suspected to be spherical because of Earth's circular shadow on the Moon, and because ships were observed disappearing hull first. The experiment was about measuring the radius of the Earth assuming it was spherical. Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference to be 250,000 stadia, or, 40,000 km, which is extremely close to the modern value of 40,070km. From that, he calculated the radius to be 6366 km, when the modern value is 6378km.[75]

But the moon landing![edit]

*cough*

Gravity would pull a disk that big into a spherical shape![edit]

If someone is dumb enough to deny a fact as basic and demonstrable as the shape of the Earth, then do you really think they're going to accept a concept as advanced as an intangible cosmic force that even scientists don't fully understand yet? People knew that things fell long before Newton, and those who thought to ask why came up with their own explanations. As it is, the most popular flathead explanation (that actually makes sense anyway) for spilled milk not hovering midair is that the Earth is constantly accelerating upward at 9.8m/s^2.

Proof by humor[edit]

Me: The Earth is 71% water

Scientist: Yes. True.
Me: And practically all of that water is uncarbonated
Scientist: Okay, sure. Not sure where you're going with this but
Me: So the Earth is flat
Scientist: ...
Me: ...
Scientist: Listen here you little shit[76]

Reverse Flat Earth conspiracy theory[edit]

Another crank belief that is gaining just as much, if not more, momentum in the tubes as the flat Earth itself is its mirror image conspiracy: the Reverse Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory (lame title, but we'll think of something else later). As you may have guessed, the idea here is that the flat Earth theory isn't merely false, it's actually a fake conspiracy that was made up by the powers that be to make "genuine" truth seekers look bad.[77] Unsurprisingly, however, said clowns who make this unfounded claim often believe in other sorts of crankery that are almost as moronic as the flat Earth itself. Actually, if you haven't guessed, this is the whole point. The point is to knock down the flat Earth as "obviously" wrong to give their own form of crankery credibility. At least one conspiracy loon who rejects the flat Earth even says space itself is a hoax![78]

In short: no, you do not get any bonus points for rejecting the flat Earth if you regurgitate other sorts of crankery and conspiracy bullshit. Looking cute like the kitten near the dinner table doesn't cut it, so don't try it.

Helping Flerfs[edit]

I have a mental illness that makes me think that people will change their minds if I present the correct arguments with the appropriate facts and data.
—@Dialectiks [79]

As with all grifts with a cult-like structure, there are two parties. Those making the T-shirts, and those buying them. The grifters selling the T-shirts can not be convinced to stop. Like Upton Sinclair said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." The grifters lack the skill set, job experience, and connections to maintain their current lavish lifestyle in honest jobs. They would also be giving up their narcissistic supply. They've already lost the only thing they stood to lose: their reputation. Thus, they have zero incentive to look for something better out there.

Similarly, the marks, almost never wish to learn the truth. What is actually happening is something comparable to spiritual bypass, where the flerf is actively avoiding their mental health issues, difficult life situation, or dissatisfaction in life, by escaping into a fantasy world where they are the protagonist fighting "the real powers that be". In this case, according to flerfs, the ones that have hidden free energy the Christian God, spirituality, scientific knowledge, and easy access to hidden natural resources that any average Joe can just pick like dandelions. Or not.[note 8]

The cult group has usually long since replaced any real friends and family, and led to loss of job and the place in the normal society. With nothing to go back to, majority of the flerfs would rather die, than accept their entire identity is based on a lie, and return to their void of objective reality. Thus, the marks are almost never available to be convinced. Especially via internet feuds. This is evident from when flerfs are asked "What would convince you that you're wrong?", their most common answer is "Nothing". This shows their belief is unfalsifiable both from the viewpoint of arguments (impossible requests and endless goal post shifting), and from the viewpoint of faith ("Flat Earth is Gods truth, and I choose to believe, and refuse the overwhelming counter-evidence"). Scammers have known since the late 19th century, that once the mark sees the scam as something that's going to make them better off, they can not be convinced by knockers (=debunkers). They refer to this state of mind the mark has, as the fever.[80]

As the flat-earther Mark Sargent said, "flat Earth is the last conspiracy people will believe". This has some truth to it, in that were it true, everyone would have to be in on it against the flat-earthers. Flat Earth is also the boundary between "harmless" crankery, and political radicalization: For many, the next step was QAnon.[5] There are no woke flat-earthers, and dedicating resources to help flerfs sends an awful message to every not-awful person that could use the help.

Flerf marks are the symptom of a failed education, social work, and mental healthcare systems, and thus at the root, the only solution starts with corrective public spending policy.

See also[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Rebuttals of flat Earth conspiracies[edit]

  • The Globe: How the Earth Became Round, James Hannam (Reaktion books, 2023) ISBN 9781789147582
  • Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything, Kelly Weill (2022, Algonquin Books) ISBN 9781643752198
  • How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason, Lee McIntyre (2022, MIT Press) ISBN 9780262545051
  • Weird Earth: Debunking Strange Ideas about Our Planet, Donald R. Prothero and Michael Shermer (2020, Red Lightning) ISBN 978-1684350612
  • When the Earth Was Flat. Studies in Ancient Greek and Chinese Cosmology, Dirk L. Couprie (Springer, 2018) ISBN 978-3-319-97052-3
  • The Earth Is Not Flat, Gordon S. Brooks (2016, Createspace) ‎ISBN 978-1530207923
  • Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, Christine Garwood (2008, Thomas Dunne books) ‎ISBN 978-0312382087
  • Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians, Jeffrey Burton Russell (1997) ISBN 978-0-275-95904-3

Scientific papers against a flat Earth[edit]

Yes. They do exist... Real scientist did in their free time what flat-earthers should have done in the first place: making predictions with their models. (Spoilers: they all fail).

  • Boyd, John P. (2020-03-27). "Meteorology and Oceanography on a Flat Earth" (PDF). arXiv:2003.08541 [physics].
  • Boyd, John P. (2022-05-20). "Polaris: The Mathematics of Navigation and the Shape of the Earth" (PDF). arXiv:2206.07491 [physics].
  • de Marez, Charly; Corre, Mathieu Le (2020-01-06). "Can the Earth be flat ? A physical oceanographer's perspective". arXiv:2001.01521 [physics].
  • Tort, A. C. (2014). "An exercise on Gauss' law for gravitation: The Flat Earth model". Physics Education. 49 (6): 629–631. doi:10.1088/0031-9120/49/6/629. ISSN 0031-9120.
  • Kuzii, Olena; Rovenchak, Andrij (2019-05-01). "What the gravitation of a flat Earth would look like and why thus the Earth is not actually flat". European Journal of Physics. 40 (3): 035008. doi:10.1088/1361-6404/ab0bba. ISSN 0143-0807.

External links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Flat-earthers are often referred to as flerfs, or flatties.
  2. To a newcomer the video will appear overreaching, but it ages like fine wine as you get familiar with the rabbit hole, that is, as you learn to understand the cult.
  3. Each of us has 13.8 billion years more experience about being unalive, so, what's so special about death anyway?
  4. This is similar to how QAnon's drops were "decoded" by the hivemind on imageboards to maintain engagement, and to come up with suitable evidence of the conspiracy.
  5. The flat Earth model is wronger than wrong, but still useful if you want to extract wealth from suckers.
  6. Call us when NASA starts taking a position favorable to Deutsche Physik, then we'll hear you out on this one.
  7. It seems that for many flat-earthers the problem with nazis is that they worked for NASA rather than they are nazis.
  8. To any flerf reading this thinking all of this is crazy: Try taking 30 days off the flat Earth world completely, and be alone with your thoughts about the state of your life and mental health. When you realize how uncomfortable you are, realize it proves the point: flat Earth is an escape and an excuse to procrastinate fixing all the things actually wrong with your life.

References[edit]

  1. "Rapper B.o.B Is A Flat Earth Truther", DListed 1.15.16.
  2. "Flat Earthers: What They Believe and Why". Scientific American.
  3. Awesome Map of Space Agencies Around the World by Nancy Atkinson (June 26, 2012) Universe Today.
  4. Dolan, Eric W. (2023-06-14). "Flat-earthers are overconfident about their own scientific knowledge but exhibit low scientific literacy, study finds". PsyPost. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  5. Jump up to: 5.0 5.1 Olson, Dan (September 11, 2020). "In Search Of A Flat Earth". Folding Ideas.
  6. Answers in Science on The Relativity of Wrong
  7. Jesse Kozlowski, Surveyor (2016) "Flat Earth Proof? – Perfectly Flat Level Lake"
  8. Wolfie6020 (Sept. 22, 2016). "Do aircraft change attitude to follow the curvature of the Earth?". Via YouTube.
  9. Doubek, James (Feb. 23, 2020). "Daredevil 'Mad' Mike Hughes Killed In Crash Of Homemade Rocket". Via npr.org
  10. Campanella, Jeran (Jan. 7, 2025)."I’m exiting the cult.". Via Telegram.
  11. Steere, Patricia (February 2025). "Steere's letter read by Jeran Campanella". Via youtube.com
  12. Davidson, Robbie (Feb. 23, 2025). "I've come to a new conclusion about the shape of the earth. I was wrong.". Via youtube.com
  13. Diaz Ruiz, Carlos; Nilsson, Tomas (16 May 2022). "Disinformation and Echo Chambers: How Disinformation Circulates in Social Media Through Identity-Driven Controversies". Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. 42: 18–35. doi:10.1177/07439156221103852. S2CID 248934562.
  14. Carlos Diaz Ruiz, I watched hundreds of flat-Earth videos to learn how conspiracy theories spread – and what it could mean for fighting disinformation. theconversation.com, 27 June 2022.
  15. Aric Toler, “No Safe Spaces on the Flat Earth” – Emergent Alt-Right Inspired Flat Earth Online Communities. bellingcat.com, 7 June 2017.
  16. They Think the Earth is Flat? Answers in Genesis, 9 August 2008.

    Unlike young-earth creationism, flat-earthism is not scriptural and has no profound theological implications. There are (mostly poetic) passages that could be cited by flat-earthers, such as Revelation 7:1, which refers to the 'four corners of the earth' — but these are most clearly interpreted as figurative.

  17. For example, consider the apocalyptic end times World's Last Chance group, that provides a pile of steaming flat Earth bullshit wrapped in weird evangelical terminology.
  18. Robert J. Schadewald, The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet. Science Digest, July 1980. Archived from the original at lhup.edu.

    Johnson's beliefs are firmly grounded in the Bible. Many verses of the Old Testament imply that the Earth is flat, but there's more to it than that. According to the New Testament, Jesus ascended up into heaven.

  19. Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson Drop the Mic in His B.o.B Rap Battle
  20. How a Celebrity’s Silly Belief in Flat Earth Can Be Useful by Lawrence Krauss
  21. "So, apparently Shaquille O'Neal is a flat-Earther, too".
  22. "Neil DeGrasse Tyson Gets Into A Rap Battle With B.o.B Over Flat Earth Theory".
  23. "Yikes! Tila Tequila Was Removed From Celebrity Big Brother for Pro-Nazi Views".
  24. In Godfrey We Trust Podcast (Oct. 7, 2024). "Lord Jamar Proves Flat Earth To Godfrey | Offers To Debate Neil deGrasse Tyson". Via YouTube.
  25. Farina, Dave (Jan. 11, 2025). "Crapping All Over Flat-earther Lord Jamar Live on Godfrey's Podcast". Via YouTube.
  26. Mark Looy, Getting To Be as Flat as the “Flat Earth” Argument. Answers in Genesis, 19 April 2005.
  27. Robert J. Schadewald, The Flat-Earth Bible. Archived from lockhaven.edu, 2020.
  28. Gardner, Martin (1957). "Flat and Hollow". Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.
  29. Carter slams Georgia's 'evolution' proposal
  30. In His Name by E. Christopher Reyes, p. 568
  31. Jurisprudence of Qibla by Mohamed Nabeel Tarabishy (c. 2003) International Astronomical Center (Abu Dhabi).
  32. Ragep, F. Jamil: "Astronomy", in: Krämer, Gudrun (ed.) et al.: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill 2010.
  33. "Measuring the Earth, Classical and Arabic". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
  34. Nigeria's 'Taliban' enigma
  35. Iraqi astronomer goes on TV to explain why Earth is flat
  36. NASA Hoax: Mars Rovers Discovered Staged at Devon Island, Canada (Video). robscholtemuseum.nl, 26 August 2016.
  37. Images Show Mars Rover Photos Shot on Earth? No, Here’s Proof. True Strange Library website, 23 August 2017.
  38. The “Earth is a Realm” Quote Misattributed to Nikola Tesla Flatearth.ws
  39. Micahel Toon (Oct. 15, 2024). "Flat Earth Dave's App Massive Security Breach". Via YouTube.
  40. McKeegan, Dave (Oct. 31, 2024). "Exposing Flat Earth Dave's Sales Pitch". Via YouTube.
  41. JB Aerospace (2024-03-02). Do the Flat Earthers Finally have a Working Model?. Retrieved 2025-02-02 – via YouTube.
  42. JB Aerospace (2024-03-06). Do the Flat Earthers Finally have a Working Model? Part 2. Retrieved 2025-02-02 – via YouTube.
  43. Toon, Michael (Feb. 7, 2025). "Scam App Leaks All Users Data: 90 Day Disclosure". Via YouTube.
  44. Fauzia, Miriam. "Fact check: Nazi scientists were brought to work for U.S. through Operation Paperclip". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  45. "Inside the Flat Earth Conference, Where the World's Oldest Conspiracy Theory Is Hot Again". web.archive.org. 2018-11-18. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  46. Jump up to: 46.0 46.1 "The Modern Flat-Earth Movement and Anti-Semitism". Answers in Genesis. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  47. Hendrie, Edward (2012). Bloody Zion. Edward Hendrie. ISBN 978-0-9832627-6-3.
  48. Hendrie, Edward (2011). 9/11-Enemies Foreign and Domestic. Great Mountain Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9832627-3-2.
  49. "Vaccine Danger: Quackery and Sin (Paperback or Softback) by Hendrie, Edward: New Paperback or Softback (2023) | BargainBookStores". www.abebooks.com. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  50. Rebuttals to Eric Dubay’s "200 Proofs Earth is not a Spinning Ball" FlatEarth.we.
  51. "Eric Dubay: 200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball (1:56:31)". Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  52. Why the Holocaust denial (July 8, 2018) Eric Dubay.
  53. Dubay, Eric. "Adolf Hitler vs. The Jew World Order". AtlanteanConspiracy.
  54. "Joe Rogan's 'Globalist' Flat Earth Debate Hints at Anti-Semitism". Inverse. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  55. "Tila Tequila Truly Believes the Earth Is Flat and Won't Stop Yelling About It on Twitter". The New York Observer. January 7, 2016. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  56. Tila Tequila, Jew(?), Converts to Sexy Hitler Tablet Magazine. December 9, 2013.
  57. Herron, Antwan (2016-06-08). "Tila Tequila Is The Racist Celeb Who Thinks They're Relevant But Never Really Was". Wear Your Voice. Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved 2021-10-01.
  58. "Seig heil! ("✋")". Twitter. 2016-11-19. Archived from the original on 2016-11-20. Retrieved 2016-11-20.
  59. "Why we should have listened to Flat Earth believers (even though they were completely wrong)". The Skeptic. 2021-02-05. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  60. Just had my main TikTok with all of my videos banned indefinitely. I’d like to note I was in good standing and had 0 violations. by @Kaleb5D (7:07 PM · Nov 28, 2023) Twitter (archived from 4 Dec 2023 02:54:07 UTC).
  61. "Kaleb.fe, [[TikTok]] - flat Earth advocate FAIL". Retrieved 2023-12-04. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  62. "Miniminuteman on Kaleb". TikTok. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  63. "Charlie Keeling Over on Kaleb". TikTok. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  64. "Charlie Keeling Over on Kaleb part 2". TikTok. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  65. "AverageGlober on Kaleb". TikTok. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  66. First I will wake up my fellow brothers and sisters to flat earth, after I will wake them up to the evil that is Jewry. This religious sect literally admits that if we understood what they taught about anyone outside their religion that we would openly kill them. It’s time for us to study what they teach about those who are outside the confines of their religious teachings. Any person with a soul that reads the Talmud should publicly support antisemitism, in my opinion it is our duty to not only support antisemitism but to normalize it. by @Kaleb5D (12:40 PM · Dec 2, 2023) Twitter (archived from 4 Dec 2023 02:59:22 UTC).
  67. Sure bud. You wanna try and defend Jewry after seeing this? Be my guest. by @Kaleb5D (9:51 AM · Dec 2, 2023) Twitter (archived from 4 Dec 2023 03:03:25 UTC).
  68. Repost to trigger jew sympathizers. If you respect me and what I’ve done as far as exposing truth, I demand you sit and watch “Europa the last battle”. Go to http://Odysee.com and search for the documentary, and you will not only understand why I hold antisemitic views, but I guarantee you will stand in my corner of anti Jewry. by Kaleb5D (1:36 AM · Dec 3, 2023) Twitter (archived from 4 Dec 2023 03:06:07 UTC).
  69. "Patriot12bravo on Kaleb". TikTok. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  70. "'In the Conspiracy World, Judaism Is Always Suspect'". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  71. Read, Max (2016-01-26). "B.o.B Just Dropped an Anti-Semitic Flat-Earth Diss Track on Neil deGrasse Tyson". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  72. "B.o.B - Flatline". Retrieved 2023-03-18.
  73. On the Heavens by Aristotle (350 BCE). Translated by J. L. Stocks. book 2, part 14.
  74. "Aristotle's most famous proof for the rotundity of the Earth". Flat Earth Society forum. 2020-05-09. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
  75. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "Imagine The Universe - The Earth". Via nasa.gov.
  76. Me: The Earth is 71% water… by @LadyDragonfly@universeodon.com (Aug 04, 2023, 05:29) Univsersodon (archived from 14 Oct 2023 16:31:51 UTC).
  77. In 2017, let's put the flat Earth theory to bed
  78. 44 | 'Super Earth' Discovered, 14 Light-Years Away (Fitting Day for Bullshit Space News)
  79. @Dialectiks (July 8, 2024). "I have a mental illness that makes me think that people will change their minds if I present the correct arguments with the appropriate facts and data.". Via Twitter.
  80. Maurer, David W. (1999) [1940]. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game (reprinted). New York: Bobbs Merrill / Anchor Books. p. 297. ISBN 0-385-49538-2.