And now for another story about how some people will tell themselves absolutely anything to avoid believing science.
Comedians and political commentators The Good Liars recent visited a Flat Earth Convention—that is, a meet-up of weird right-wing conspiracy theorists who believe the Earth is a flat plane surrounded by "ice walls" that keep you from going off the edge and we've all been lied to about it all our lives.
There are of course myriad things about this contention that make absolutely no sense, but the one thing they haven't been able to rationalize away is how the Sun works if the Earth is flat.
Until now that is! Because The Good Liars' Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler recently spoke to a man who has that whole Sun thing all figured out—and it's so absurd The Good Liars said "it almost broke us."
Selvig asked a man at the Flat Earth Convention "if the Earth is flat, where is the Sun?" He responded:
"When you say 'the' Sun, there is no 'the' Sun."
Hmm?
"Everybody has their own Sun, literally...Literally everybody has their own Sun, there's a different Sun for everybody."
This is where we remind you that this is a real person who genuinely believes this and also probably votes in all elections, local, state and federal.
Anyway! Selvig, as one would, then clarified if this man was actually saying that everyone has their own, personal Sun—and as much as we all wish the answer he got was "no, of course not, that's insane," that is not what happened.
The man instead replied:
"That's correct. The Sun is never more than 50 miles away at any given time."
Selvig then countered by asking why the Sun doesn't get bigger when you go up in an airplane, but don't worry—the Flat-Earthers have this figured out too!
"The closer you move to [the Sun] the farther it moves from you, it's like a rainbow."
It was at this point that Selvig said, "this is going to break me," but the man hadn't even said the most bonkers part yet.
"The Sun is literally not a thing...It's not like a burning ball of gas or any of that bullsh*t...It's a light in the sky. It's cold."
So there you have it folks! Everything you've ever been taught, experienced, observed or concluded via common sense about the Sun is a lie! It's just a cold lightbulb assigned to you specifically at birth that dangles up there or something. Neat!
Obviously, people on the internet found this both hilarious and horrifying.
@TheGoodLiars Cats alone prove the earth isn't flat. They would have knocked everything off.— (@)
And you thought the conversations you had to endure with your rightwing family at Thanksgiving were bizarre...