The Flat Earth conspiracy theory is strictly a modern online movement, rumored to have begun as a prank, that gained momentum among people who mistrust authority through the power of social media.
There is a persistent myth that Europeans in the Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat. But that is a 19th-century fabrication to sell Columbus Day, not historical reality.
Ancient Greek scholars developed the concept of a spherical Earth that was embraced in Europe. Other cultures had also come to the same conclusion.
But some people choose to regress instead of advance.
Reddit user Straight-Hold1651 asked:
"A family member constantly wants to debate that the Earth is flat, how would you respond?"
Don't Bother
"There's a flat earth documentary from a few years back where they did experiments to prove the earth is flat. They spent a lot of time and money on equipment only to prove the earth is round and still denied it."
"Moral of the story? Don't waste time on people determined to remain ignorant."
~ HolyC4bbage
Pick Me!
"What they want is validation that they are the smartest guy in the room. It’s narcissism. That’s all it is. What he wants to do is just piss you off or eventually agree with him just to make the conversation stop, but to him it’s he’s beaten you in some game."
"I knew guys like that too, claimed man kind has never been to the moon. There is no arguing with them, no debate. They’re just idiots, so don’t argue with them, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
~ zero573
Map It Out
"Ask them to do some sort of experiment that disproves the round earth theory or proves the flat earth theory. I argued with a couple flat earthers in my bar for a while once."
"The thing that stopped them for a minute was they were showing me a map of the flat earth, and they had been saying I was taught wrong, so I asked them if they knew the person who had made the map."
"Like how do we know that I was taught wrong and you were taught right? It's secondary knowledge from both parties."
~ TheresNoAmosOnlyZuul
Edgy
"Where's the edge?"
~ brickiex2
"They say that anyone who finds the edge and talks about it is silenced by the world's government, but you wouldn't be able to hide something like that."
~ Savitar5510
"Wow. The world's government must be constantly disappearing all sorts of airline pilots and whole crews and full planes and all the sea captains and crews and all of their families and employers and reporters and all their families constantly, to keep the cover up going..."
"How do they manage all that? ... When did all this disappearing start?"
~ brickiex2
Why?
"The flat earth stuff just falls apart when you ask them what the evil unseen powers gain by hiding it."
"But in my experience, most discussions with truthers are ultimately a waste of time cos you can't offer any proof they'd accept."
~ bantharawk
The Matrix
"Tell them 'The real Earth was destroyed thousands of years ago. We are in the 7th iteration of the Matrix, and this version is round."
"Have them prove you were wrong."
~ CaptainNanners
Look Up
"I once saw a flat earther website assert that if the Earth was round and orbited the Sun, the constellations that we see each night would change with the seasons..."
"Genuinely the easiest conspiracy theory of all time to disprove. You just have to go outside at night and look up."
~ TheSonOfDog
Defining Moment
"Ask them to define things instead of disputing things."
"Such as:
- What city or town is nearest the center.
- What city or town is the furthest from the center.
- In a straight line between the 2 above continued to the other side, what is the furthest along that side.
- What is the distance between those furthest from the center city."
"No flat Earther can answer those questions. Insist that they do or no debate is possible."
~ Needless-To-Say
Out Crazy
"I handle conspiracy theorists by out crazying them."
"They say, 'the Earth is flat'."
"I say, 'The REAL Earth was eaten by the lizard people 500 years ago, wake up sheeple!'."
~ HuffFlex
Just Don't
"By never talking to someone that dumb again."
~ Accountantinkc
"You can’t argue with stupid and leave it at that."
~ mywifeslv
Yes, And...
"And square."
"What?"
"The Earth is flat and square. Something you flat-earther round conspiracists want us all to believe. But we know better. You’re part of Big Round. It’s square. Prove me wrong."
~ LarsThorwald
Historical Reference
"Ask them what route the Japanese took when they attacked Pearl Harbor."
~ CaptainScootiePants
Very Punny
"This is not in my sphere of interest, and it tends to turn in a circular argument."
"Anyway, do you want to see my colony of sentient snails?"
~ Werthead
Do Not Engage
"Do not engage."
"Say 'not interested, sorry'."
~ asian_chihuahua
Questions
"I had a 2.5 hour conversation with a flat earther and it was one of the highlights of the last decade for me. I actually had a list of questions I'd always wanted to ask one of them."
"At the top of the list was going on to Google Flights or Travelocity and looking up flight times to places that should take a very long time on a flat earth. The first problem I ran into was that this person didn't have an official map that we could use as a reference."
"There are a bunch of different flat earth maps, apparently. So, we settled on one that was 'good enough, I guess' according to him."
"Since this person had flown from the west coast to the east coast, we used the time taken (5 hours) and compared that distance to two points on the flat earth map that should take more than 25 hours (I think it was Brazil to South Africa) and saw on various online sources that the flight only took around 8 hours."
"After we found a few more examples like that, I asked, 'Are all pilots and every single person that's ever taken one of those flights part of the "conspiracy"?' Because apparently it's just all a big conspiracy perpetrated mainly by NASA."
"Unfortunately, this wasn't the slam dunk counter to the flat earth like I thought it would be. I got a lot of 'I don't know's' and 'Maybe that map is wrong'. I think the whole concept was just too confusing for him."
"Then I worked through a few other salient points proving the earth is round and learned more things like how the sky is made out of water (and that's why it's blue) and got frustrated by this person's inability to follow a logical train of thought without jumping onto some random tangent. It was fascinating, really."
"But then I stumbled on a point that really flummoxed him. So, apparently, NASA is getting billions of dollars because of this round earth hoax."
"Faking the moon landing and pretending like they're launching satellites into space are all just money grabs. So I asked him, 'Why do they have to pretend that the Earth is round? Couldn't they fake the moon landing and pretend like they're launching satellites from a flat Earth? What does being round have to do with it?'."
"And then his brain just stopped. Not sure what it was about that particular line of thought that caused that reaction, but that's how the conversation stopped."
~ Raptor01
How would you respond?
@winnieharlow/Instagram
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
