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Reporter Shares Experience of Visiting a Flat Earth Convention (vice.com)

Tom Usher, reporting for Vice: I arrived at the venue -- a Jurys Inn hotel -- on a wet Saturday morning, to discover that the event was essentially a small carpeted convention room boasting a few cameras, some stalls selling merchandise, and 70 or so attendees watching PowerPoint presentations beamed onto a wall. As I entered, I was offered a gift of "fluoride-free" toothpaste. This made perfect sense, given the location. A popular conspiracy theory states that governments across the world have been putting fluoride in our water supply to tranquilize the masses, despite the fact the only piece of "evidence" for this theory -- which involves both the Nazis and the Communists -- has been widely discredited. With the tone set for the day, I sat down to watch some speeches.

The speakers all seemed well aware of how "globe-earthers" view the idea of a flat Earth, i.e. ludicrous, and their talk of the current scientific establishment felt very "us versus them" -- a nice bit of truther tribalism. One speaker talked at length about the moon, and how its orbit proved the Earth couldn't be spherical, which seemed a little counterintuitive. Another talked about how the Egyptian pyramid structure points toward clues that the Earth is a flat diamond shape, supported by pillars. Between sounding off about the Vatican and the fact that the establishment has indoctrinated us to believe all sorts of things, including that the Earth is a sphere, a third speaker suggested that cancer is caused by negative emotions and argued that dinosaurs didn't exist.
The story also explores why some people still believe these long-debunked theories. Further reading: The bizarre tale of the flat-Earth convention that fell apart (CNET).

3 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Flat earth for the in crowd: by Kohath · · Score: 0, Troll

    "Russians in cahoots with Trump stole the election"

    Same "us versus them" tribalism. Same conspiracy theory thinking, where belief gets wrapped up with ego and group identity, creating a motivation that transcends facts and logic.

  2. Re:Yeah - it's all quant and cute... by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 0, Troll

    You are probably one of the tranquilized masses that is spoon-fed the ludicrous lies and conspiracies of the liberal media and the scientific establishment. You probably even believe in climate change even though our president confirmed it's nothing but a Chinese conspiracy! LoL! You are such a tool! Watch more Fox News and be purged from leftist idiocy. All hail very stable genius!

  3. Re:Psychosis / Mass Psychosis by Luthair · · Score: 0, Troll

    The christian bible has been used for just as much justification of violence as any other.