Why Did Flat Earth Suddenly Become Popular Again?
(CNN)"I don't desire to be a apartment Earther," David Weiss says, his voice weary as he reflects on his personal enkindling. "Would you wake upwardly in the morning and want everyone to think you're an idiot?"
But Weiss is a flat Earther. Always since he tried and failed to discover proof of the Globe's curve four years ago, he's believed with an evident passion that our planet is both flat and stationary -- and it's turned his world upside down.
"I admittedly freaked out," Weiss tells CNN in a phone interview. "It literally whips the rug out from underneath you."
Now, Weiss finds it wearisome to associate with the majority of people -- though he "unfortunately" still has some friends who believe in a round Earth. "I accept no trouble with anybody that wants to believe we live on a brawl. That's their pick," he says. "Information technology'south just not something I resonate with."
Weiss' preferred customs is those who share his life-altering conventionalities.
And that community is vast.
This week, the businessman attended the third annual Flat Globe International Briefing, held at an Embassy Suites hotel in suburban Dallas, Texas. Organizers told CNN that about 600 others went as well.
Previous conferences have taken place in Raleigh and Denver -- while Brazil, Britain and Italy have also held flat-Earth conventions in recent years.
The event's schedule resembled any corporate conference, with some fairly noticeable twists. Speakers gave presentations including "Infinite is Faux" and "Testing The Moon: A Globe Lie Perspective." Awards for the year'south best flat Earth-related videos were handed out. And believers reveled in an opportunity to meet several of the movement'south nigh influential minds.
"We've all been communicating online (but) this brings us together so we tin shake easily and give each other hugs," says Weiss. "We can collaborate, nosotros can make new friends. Because gauge what, our sometime friends... we lost a lot of friends."
On a clear solar day, the curvature of the Globe can be seen from an plane window. But remarkably, the hundreds of flat Earthers at the Dallas gathering were just a minor portion of the motion.
People in every pocket of this spherical planet are rejecting scientific discipline and spreading the discussion that the Globe is apartment.
At that place's no clear written report indicating how many people have been convinced -- and flat Earthers similar Weiss will tell you without evidence there are millions more in the closet anyhow, including Hollywood A-listers and commercial airline pilots -- but online communities have hundreds of thousands of followers and YouTube is inundated with flat-Earth content creators, whose productions achieve millions.
A YouGov survey of more than 8,000 American adults suggested last yr that equally many equally one in six Americans are not entirely certain the earth is round, while a 2019 Datafolha Institute survey of more than than 2,000 Brazilian adults indicated that 7% of people in that land turn down that concept, according to local media.
The flat-Earth community has its own celebrities, music, merchandise -- and a weighty catalog of pseudo-scientific theories. It'due south been the subject of a Netflix documentary and has been endorsed past figures including the rapper B.o.B.
Each twelvemonth, more flat-Earth events fill the calendar, organizers say.
"I've never seen annihilation grow this fast," says Robbie Davidson, the founder of the Dallas briefing. "I would say that within 10 years, the numbers are going to be astounding... next year, there's going to be a briefing in every major country in the world."
But experts are wondering if the movement is really harmless -- and whether we're even approaching the edge of its influence.
Falling off the edge
When Davidson kickoff heard that people really exercise believe in a apartment Globe, "I simply laughed and said, 'they've got to be the stupidest people ever.' Who in their right mind could believe something then dumb?"
A couple of years later, Davidson was setting up the first international flat Earth briefing. Like most of the speakers at the consequence CNN spoke to, he was convinced subsequently he decided he couldn't prove the Earth's roundness.
For Davidson, a born-again Christian, the most logical explanation for the conspiracy of the millennium goes like this: "Let'south just say in that location is an adversary, in that location is a devil, there is a Satan. His whole job would be to effort to convince the world that God doesn't exist. He'due south done an incredible task disarming people with the idea that we're only on a random speck in an infinite universe."
The reality, says Davidson, is that the flat Earth, sunday, moon and stars are contained in a "Truman Show"-similar dome. From there, pitfalls can exist easily dismissed -- similar photos of the Earth from infinite, which flat Earthers believe are photoshopped. "This all goes abroad if they put a 24/7 camera feed on the moon," he adds.
And Davidson quickly constitute a large online customs assertive the same matter. "I thought doing a conference would just take it to the next phase where the media and the world volition look at it and say, 'wait a minute -- something must be going on. This is not but some internet fad, or a agglomeration of crazy people online. They're now meeting in buildings.'"
He has a few things he wants to make clear to a flat-Earth novice. Firstly, and about chiefly -- "none of usa believe that we're a flying pancake in space." The community just believes that space does not exist, the world sits yet and the moon landing was faked. The jury is out on gravity -- but as Davidson notes, no 1 has ever seen it.
Secondly -- no, you won't fall off the border. While apartment Earthers' views of the earth vary, nigh believe the planet is a circular disk with Antarctica acting every bit an water ice wall barrier effectually the edge.
And thirdly, modern flat Earthers have little in common with the Apartment Earth Society, a group that has existed for decades and has more than 200,000 followers on Facebook.
That organization, some speakers told CNN, is a government-controlled body designed to pump out misinformation and make the flat-World cause sound far-fetched to curious minds. Davidson calls their theories "completely ridiculous."
The Flat Earth Social club told CNN: "We are non a authorities-controlled torso. We're an organization of Flat Globe theorists that long predates most of the FEIC newcomers to the scene."
"It probably goes without proverb that we find no joy in this sectarianism, or the elevated emotions that surround some of our disagreements," the group added in response to criticism from speakers at the conference. "We wish the Apartment Earth International Conference organizers all the all-time, but nosotros remain steadfast in our own convictions."
Merely apartment Earthers don't pretend to have all the answers. "People don't really know 100% what (the Earth) is, we're simply questioning what we're existence told it is," Davidson explains.
Several members of the community have carried out their own experiments, like bringing spirit levels onto airplanes, that have supposedly proved their thesis.
They oasis't. To exist absolutely clear, the Earth is not flat -- as NASA explains in a fact sheet aimed at fifth to 8th graders.
Simply most adherents say they're just curious, as all good scientific minds should be. "We dear scientific discipline," Davidson insists.
'It's hard to interruption out of that mindset'
Still, about adherents demonstrate plenty of anti-scientific tendencies. It'southward hard to find a flat Earther who doesn't believe virtually other conspiracies under the dominicus; a flat-Earth conference is invariably besides a gathering of anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers and Illuminati subscribers, to name a few.
Information technology's that hyper-skeptical mindset that helps flat earthers answer the big questions -- similar who's hiding the true shape of the planet from us?
"The ruling elite, from the royal family to the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds ... all of those groups that run the globe, they're in on it," says Weiss.
But "once you lot become into flat earth, the other (conspiracy theories) go knocked down into another tier," says Mark Sargent, a filmmaker and stalwart of the motility who was featured in the 2018 Netflix documentary "Backside the Curve."
"Everybody hither, they've got their summit 20 conspiracies -- and you could walk around door to door and those top twenty would differ from person to person. Just everybody'south number 1 is always flat Earth," he tells CNN.
It helps that the grouping has a common target. "Nearly of our ire is pointed towards NASA. That's our staff of life and butter," Sargent says of the agency flat Earthers believe is ultimately backside the conspiracy.
But why, and how, could people believe a conspiracy theory so out of this universe?
"People, in essence, are merely trying to understand the earth," says Daniel Jolley, a senior lecturer in the psychology of conspiracy theories at the Uk'due south Northumbria University. "And they're looking at the world in a gaze where they're biased in their thinking."
"They may have distrust towards powerful people or groups, which could exist the government or NASA, and when they expect towards evidence that makes sense to them ... this world view (is) endorsed," he says. "It's difficult to suspension out of that mindset."
Scientists have likewise noted that a social motive draws people to conspiracy theories -- the desire to "maintain a positive view of the self and the groups we vest to," equally social psychologist Karen Douglas of the University of Kent says.
And few groups have as stiff a community every bit flat Earthers.
"This (conference) is an outlet for a lot of people that might otherwise get ostracized by friends and family and co-workers. When they come here, they know it's absolutely a safe infinite," Sargent says of this week's event.
But maybe the most of import driver is an underlying need for ability and control. "People want to experience safe and secure in the earth," Douglas says. And ability comes from knowledge -- no matter how questionable it may be.
"When you find out the Earth is flat ... and so you lot become empowered," Weiss says.
That feeling helps believers to sympathise the globe better, as they see it. "Y'all feel like you've got a better handle on life and the universe. It'south at present more manageable," adds Sargent.
'Information technology's not going to damage anyone'
Sargent could arguably exist regarded as the godfather of the modern flat-Earth movement. "If you got into flat Earth, at that place's a really high chance y'all read into my stuff outset," he tells CNN.
But he had assist -- it was the advent of YouTube that gave him a platform to spread his own views, which he says the motion "wouldn't exist without."
"Apartment Earth was a rampage watch on YouTube," he adds, aided by algorithms and personalized recommendations that turned flat world research into a never-ending rabbit hole.
Earlier this twelvemonth, YouTube started burying those videos and reducing recommendations of "borderline content," but video makers like Sargent feel it no longer makes much difference. "Anything on social media is always going to be helpful if it goes viral, right?" adds Davidson. "Well flat Earth has gone viral."
CNN has contacted YouTube for comment.
But the declared rapid growth of a movement and so enthusiastically rejecting fundamental scientific beliefs does have some worried.
"It seems that increasingly, people don't trust scientists and experts, or their motives," Douglas says. "More than research needs to be done in this area, and I'm certain at that place are some positive consequences to assertive in conspiracy theories, but early indications suggests that they are more harm than assistance."
"I don't say this often, but look -- at that place is a downside," admits Sargent, reflecting on the movement he helped encourage. "At that place's a side effect to flat World ... one time you go into it, y'all automatically revisit any of your former skepticism."
"I don't think they're only linked," Sargent says of flat Earthers and populists. "They kind of feed each other ... it'south a slippery slope when yous think that the authorities has been hiding these things. Suddenly, you become one of those people that'southward similar, 'tin you trust anything on mainstream media?'"
For Davidson, the side by side phase is to argue leading members of the scientific customs, simply "they simply laugh at us and say, 'you lot guys are dumb.'"
But he's not deterred.
"Information technology'south touching everyone ... it's not going abroad, and it's not going to irksome down," Davidson says of the motion. "This thing is out of the tin."
This story has been updated to include a response from the Flat Earth Society.
Why Did Flat Earth Suddenly Become Popular Again?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/16/us/flat-earth-conference-conspiracy-theories-scli-intl/index.html