Uncommon Sense

Preamble

The brain has been hurting much over the past four years. It started back with the US general elections and Donald Trump feeding nothing but lies and gross exaggerations to an increasing base that caused huge divisions in the USA. His promoted reality was not and still is not one that that is consistent with actual reality. However, he has achieved much with a seriously rusted on base of supporters who only believe his words and no one else.

Covid times realised a massive uptick of crazy conspiracies which still perpetuate and draw more into them. Our Social media platforms have become a breeding ground like a virulent plague spreading for which there is no vaccine. Those that believe, believe and there is nothing to be said to persuade them otherwise.

I started coming across Flat Earth sites that defied my scientific imagination and knowledge. Filled with dodgy pseudo science and mixed with an unhealthy dose of religious fanaticism they defy my concept of common sense and appear to be a direct attack on reality itself. The following discusses the journey into this World of unreality and un-common sense. Read on……..

Definitions to consider while reading

Common Sense: sound and practical judgement based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.

Confirmation Bias: to search, interpret, favour and recall information in a way that confirms/supports prior beliefs or values.

False Equivalence: Equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning.

Apophenia: To perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.

Common Sense – the definition appears to be simple enough even for the lay person to understand. Indeed, as part of our upbringing our parents try to instill a concept of common sense into us. “Make sure you use the traffic light walk signs, get home before dark, take your raincoat as it will rain, don’t get drunk and drive and preferably don’t get drunk at all as your stupid button will get turned on”. Unfortunately, the last one was ignored a few times in my late youth, but Mum and Dad were correct as it is common sense.

Common sense is also recognising the truth of a proof. If observation confirms something then it is truth. I have observed the truth of the Earth being a round spinning ball with an atmosphere in space, which orbits around the sun for roughly 365 days to make a year. The proof?

Standing on the escarpment at Eucla way back in 1985 on the south coast of Australia and looking inland over a very flat plain. The smallest of planet curvature can be seen.

The coriolis effect (please look it up if you don’t know) and low pressure weather systems spinning in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemispheres.

A simple experiment at home: bottle full with water, upend and in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction spin the bottle of water to empty. Depending on which hemisphere you are in, the water will exit the bottle faster in an anti-clockwise or clockwise direction. Repeat a few times to make sure. As with any science, repetition reinforces the proof.

To back up my observations are some pretty startling photographs of our dear planet from near space as well as observation of the International Space Station doing its orbiting donuts. It is established common sense to know that the Earth is a sphere, not a perfect one but close enough.

Was it boredom in early December 2023 that had me clicking to the video section of Facebook? Am unsure, but in many ways wish I hadn’t as a gaping giant Fluffy Bunny Rabbit hole opened up before me. The very first one that I witnessed had a headline of “5 Rules that prove the Earth is Flat”. I had never known that there were ‘Rules’ and with the interest piqued I clicked.

Rule Number 1 – “Common Sense dictates that the earth is flat as globe earth science is obviously impossible to believe”. It went further to state that “only critical thinkers know that the earth is flat as they have common sense ….. and those people that don’t have the common sense to see this are in fact stupid or brainwashed or both“.

I guess I am incredibly stupid without any critical thinking or common sense. I was laughing so much reading this absurdity that I never did read Rules 2-5 as it just wasn’t worth the time to hurt the ‘brainwashed’ brain that much.

It did lead to more sites, the vast majority being TikTok that had migrated over to FB. I started commenting using established knowledge to counter the absurdities presented. Nothing I stated mattered of course as plainly I was wrong in everything I stated according to the repliers. Not just wrong, but incredibly naive, stupid (of course), informed to never procreate, need to improve my third grade education, Satan has taken me, being told to read while at the same time being informed that ALL books are full of lies (had to laugh at the contradiction in that).

The longer the dive went on the more disconcerting my observations became. There really is a strong push on these sites to throw away all books, ignore proofs of established research, knowledge and any formal education as our mind has been under ‘their’ control all the time.

Their? Well, NASA, the Illuminati, Freemasons, Rothschilds, Rockafellers, much maligned George Soros and of course Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Elon Musk get dishonorable mentions. Scientists and plain old Science? It’s all fake and besides, Scientists are all being manipulated by those mentioned above.

Yes, initially it was fun to dive and thinking that this is a tiny proportion of our planet’s population. But, this tiny proportion is still quite large. More than one site has well over 200,000 followers and many shares potentially impacting on the cognitive processes of millions.

Recent study in the USA found that 66% of younger adults believe the Earth is a Globe. The good thing is that the other 34% didn’t all believe the flat earth theory (about 10%), it was more that they were ambivalent to thinking about the shape of the planet. A Brazil study found that 7% are convinced that the Earth is flat which doesn’t appear to be much but it translates to 15 Million people.

Who are the deep divers? The results of the Brazil study provides a measure of insight. Quite conservative religion with the rise of Evangelicals is a fertile ground. Within the old testament, the “Firmament” of the waters, waters under heaven and lights in the firmament of heaven are all part of the six days of creation.

In the context of Flat Earth, the Firmament is what protects us and that is why Elon Musk’s rockets explode as they keep on crashing into it. Ultra conservative Christians (especially prophet based sects) World wide believe this to be the ultimate truth. In recent times there has been a cross over in the same belief to ultra conservatives in Islam. Once God is invoked, there can be no rational science based conversation.

Fortunately the ultra conservatives are a minority, but a noisy one within the different faiths. Still, this translates to many more of this belief than a mere 15 million Brazilians. What does it all mean and does this really matter? 15 Million people in Brazil matter and if that 7% of Brazil’s population is extrapolated across the Globe we are most likely approaching 560 Million or more that have beliefs that defy and are in denial against known facts of our existence.

Others? Is a mix of lonely and fearful souls from conservative backgrounds that really want to understand the nature of things, but find the mainstream science something complex and therefore feared, to be mistrusted. Generally their locations are in country areas away from the Cities and it makes one wonder what level of education they received and indeed what sort of life has been lived since.

I have engaged with some and found them to be the rare polite ones that just seek to understand. Is as if the education system, multi-generational religious indoctrination combined with the isolation bubble have let them down badly without the cognitive tools to see past belief into facts. Ignorance has been forced upon them and these sites make everything sound so easy and convincing, especially when those that look already have established mistrust of the rest of society and the sound application of science.

Those that set up and run the Sites?

My diving visited 37 different sites. Time and time again my strictly non computer nerd searches kept on seeing “Digital creator” and “Video creator” as the credentials. Approximately 50% of these sites created in the last 12 months, 40% during Covid times and the other 10% no earlier than 2015.

Digital or Video creator doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the accuracy or veracity of the information. But given the weight of follower numbers, many just straight up believe every word or insinuation uttered.

Only 20% state their real name, 60% operating under pseudonyms and the balance with names related to Flat Earth. At least the Flat Earth named sites attempt to promote stuff that have a measure of logic, but it is expressed as a pseudoscience that fails scientific scrutiny rather than proven applied science. Yet again, those that follow and comment believe the pseudoscience over the applied science.

Those that create the Sites may have genuine beliefs based on strict interpretation of Biblical writings especially regarding the firmament. If that is what you believe, then no amount of discussion to the alternative from the likes of me will sway you from what you see as the truth of your belief. Fair enough that you think within an unshakeable Belief bubble. It is no use informing that you are being manipulated in this to ensure full control of you by those expousing the Flat Earth diatribe from their pulpit. Assuming that God exists, the creation of a spinning ball in space with an atmosphere to host life is far more of an astonishing feat than a two dimensional flat Earth.

Other Site creators are just grifting away doing it to feed their narcissism, controversy, money, clickbait, likes, followers, to disseminate this misinformation in a manner to mess with the minds of the fearful and scientifically illiterate, to cause a measure of chaos and mistrust of what we witness and the World that we live in.

Maybe those Spruikers of the ‘good word’ about Flat Earth really do understand the concepts of Confirmation Bias, False Equivalence and the condition of Apophenia. This messing with the mind has become rife in our digital world from Podcast celebrities through to those that run the sites discussed.

It appears they will not be finished until we have been dumbed down, numbed down and confused back to the times when only those at the controls possessed the knowledge of the way of things and we existed in enforced ignorance.

We must never go down this path of ignorance again and this uncommon sense must be challenged and dismantled. Easy? No, but I for one will still keep the light of common knowledge and common sense burning.