Flat Earthers
As a child, I remember hearing the idea that long ago, everyone thought that the earth was flat. Then at some point in time, people somehow figured out that it isn’t. It was the axiom that was used to explain to kids about human progress. Once upon a time, we didn’t always know everything, and in the future, we’ll know even more.
Historically, there’s mixed evidence as to weather any culture actually believed that the Earth was flat. It’s likely however that a typical person born as a peasant, that never learned to read or write, who spent their life living in a small community, maybe as an agricultural worker, may well have never actually given it a moment’s thought. If asked, they may well conclude that the earth is flat.
There are still un-contacted tribes, such as the famously hard to contact people living on North Sentinel Island. It’s an astonishing thought that people living on that island, with planes flying above them, may indeed not really understand that they’re living on an oblate spheroid.
What’s even more incredible, is that there are educated western people who claim to be skeptical of that fact. These are the flat earthers. I’ll put my cards on the table, I do not believe that the earth is flat. Honestly, I don’t think there is even any evidence you could show me to make me think otherwise.
How to become a flat earther
The claim made by this tiny group of eccentrics is that they’re either skeptical that the earth is round, or convinced that it’s not. My take is that it starts out as a bit of a joke. It becomes a fun competition between them to challenge themselves on the creative ways they can think to cast doubt on something that is largely self evident, and explain away all the evidence that “proves” it’s not flat.
For many it stays there, just a quirky bit of online humor where you can meet similarly open minded individuals. Perhaps for a few others, they go past a precipice in their mind where they forget that they’re joking, where they really do perhaps start to believe. I think to get this far it requires an active willingness to believe. You might call it faith. There may well be a crossover with how people become religious later in life.
Defining faith
Just briefly, let me explain how I define faith. A belief is not a choice. I believe that a square has four sides of equal length. I believe that some time before I was born, the UK had a Prime Minister named Winston Churchill. These are things that I think are true. I can’t think they’re untrue. It’s involuntary.
Faith is the act of choosing to believe something. You will yourself to believe it, even if in the cold light of day, you don’t. It’s driven by emotion, and that’s why they call it a leap of faith. Once taken, the faith can lead to what is basically a genuine belief. As long as the faith remains, it stops being a choice, you can’t not believe it.
If you are a flat earther
I’m not going to try and convince you that the earth is flat. Maybe you’re a true believer, maybe it’s just a bit of fun, my plea is not to make the case for the earth being a sphere. What I want you to realise, is how important you are. The strength of our species lies in our adaptability. We can use our cunning intelligence, our versatile bodies, our ability to survive on a variety diets, to survive and thrive in every corner of the globe (pun intended). That, and one final ingredient. I don’t think it has a name, but it’s the unique ability possessed by some to believe something, in spite of enormous opposition in all forms.
The flat earthers endure ridicule, isolation, even death (I googled a bit about it before I started writing) for their belief, and yet they often thrive, not in spite of it, but because of it. (except for when the parachute didn’t deploy) People who have been gifted, or cursed, with this quality will get nowhere, almost every time. There will be occasions however, when the eccentric oddballs, the square pegs in a world of round holes (another pun!) will turn out to be right, or at least they will stir the pot in such a way that progress is made.
The problem with the idea of a flat earth, is that it has no end. It’s like a black hole. It sucks you in and it only destroys. Once you pass the event horizon, there is no return. Your gift, your talents, will be forever wasted. The world needs people with an open mind and a stubborn character more than ever (* source required).
The ultimate conspiracy
Perhaps the idea that the earth is flat, is the ultimate conspiracy. An idea crafted to be so captivating, so audacious, so impossible, that it proves irresistible to the kind of people who would be the ones that might otherwise become a modern day Copernicus.
Looping back round to the idea of faith. What is the faith that underpins a belief that the earth is flat? The answer is subjective, but it seems to be little to do with the curvature of the horizon, and more to do with an unquenchable thirst for there to be more than meets the eye. It’s one of the oldest stories ever told, from Plato’s allegory of the cave, to taking the red pill in The Matrix.
My Plea
We’re being robbed of the most potent ingredient in the collective minds of humanity. So here is it, my plea to the flat earthers - just drop it. Find something else. I’m not saying accept the earth is a sphere, accept that there’s no conspiracy to keep up trapped behind the wall of ice that surrounds us, I’m just saying let it lie. Find a new angle to pursue. I guarantee if every committed flat earther went on to pursue a new idea, something great would come of it.