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Back in the early 2000's, well before most social media sites existed, I had a coworker who shared with me a number of questionable theories, one of which was b

by guyzero 23d ago

Back in the early 2000's, well before most social media sites existed, I had a coworker who shared with me a number of questionable theories, one of which was basically this. He also believed very passionately that plate tectonics was wrong. Unfortunately social media didn't invent brain worms.

EA-3167 23d ago
Social media gave a geographically distributed population of the “quirky” and their natural predators the grifters a chance to mingle on a global scale. It didn’t invent anything, but it’s a vector for the pathogen.
rsynnott 23d ago
Plate tectonics was super controversial at one point. Would be a common one for conspiracy theorists of a certain vintage.
NoMoreNicksLeft 23d ago
Depending on how much older he was than you at the time, he might genuinely have been taught in high school that this was wrong. Only in the early 1970s did that even start to gain traction. If he was taught by one of the hold-outs that esteemed a pre-tectonics geologist, it'd be pretty natural to think like that I imagine.
- guyzero 23d ago
  oh he understood what plate tectonics was proposing very well, he just completely rejected it in favour of many distributed prehistoric oceans and a lot (a LOT) of erosion. It was weirdly congruent to phantom time theory.
NotThatFast 23d ago
Was he reading Neal Adams? I have to admit - Expanding Earth is hard to debunk! I think because like Flat Earth many of the observations and elements therein are accurate - they just get the overall picture wrong. Like stealing the ball with 4 sec left running down the court no defense in sight for the winning layup and missing - comically bouncing off the backboard. Alas, I believe most crackpots mean well, they just aren’t very good at the sport
- ecshafer 23d ago
  Many of the more esoteric conspiracy theories are hard to debunk. Lets take the earth if round, prove it. You can bring up many cases, sails disappearing behind the horizon, goemetry, etc. but actually doing these measurements and calculations cold is pretty hard. And whenever you bring up a fact, they will dismiss it out of hand. Tectonic plates, I believe they exist, I have seen the evidence in books. But I doubt I could prove it, I've never really studied geology or anything like that. And if I were to debate someone who believes they weren't real, I would probably lose as they would bring up obscure papers, incidents, etc. which I wouldn't be able to refute well.
  - colechristensen 23d ago
    You don't particularly need calculations, just have friends around the world or even a couple hundred miles away, get on a video call to prove the world is round. Whatever your pet theory of how the sun moves across the "flat" earth can be contradicted with a couple of facetime calls.
    - ericmay 23d ago
      I’ll do you one better, you shouldn’t even spend any time engaging in a debate with people who believe the earth is flat because they don’t want to change their mind. It doesn’t really matter if the earth is flat or not, for them it’s about being part of a community of people who believe in something that society tells them is wrong. There is no changing minds besides the 1 in a million you hear about and so all the calculations you could do would never work, sadly.
      - colechristensen 23d ago
        If you're so disinterested why are you talking about it now? Better to focus your attention on something you're not going to be so dismissive and negative about unless your hobby is being an asshole.
        23d ago
emmelaich 23d ago
There were plenty of conspiracy sites pre-2000. I think a lot of them shared mindspace with USA late night talk radio. Also, usenet.
hudmal 23d ago
Okay. Look at the moon. Look at every other planet not currently protected by an atmosphere. They all have craters. This fact is ignored by rote Geologists. "All the high and low points on the planet are due to plate tectonics and erosion!"
deleted 23d ago
[deleted]

by guyzero 23d ago

EA-3167 23d ago

Social media gave a geographically distributed population of the “quirky” and their natural predators the grifters a chance to mingle on a global scale. It didn’t invent anything, but it’s a vector for the pathogen.

rsynnott 23d ago

Plate tectonics was super controversial at one point. Would be a common one for conspiracy theorists of a certain vintage.

NoMoreNicksLeft 23d ago

Depending on how much older he was than you at the time, he might genuinely have been taught in high school that this was wrong. Only in the early 1970s did that even start to gain traction. If he was taught by one of the hold-outs that esteemed a pre-tectonics geologist, it'd be pretty natural to think like that I imagine.

guyzero 23d ago
oh he understood what plate tectonics was proposing very well, he just completely rejected it in favour of many distributed prehistoric oceans and a lot (a LOT) of erosion. It was weirdly congruent to phantom time theory.

NotThatFast 23d ago

Was he reading Neal Adams? I have to admit - Expanding Earth is hard to debunk! I think because like Flat Earth many of the observations and elements therein are accurate - they just get the overall picture wrong. Like stealing the ball with 4 sec left running down the court no defense in sight for the winning layup and missing - comically bouncing off the backboard. Alas, I believe most crackpots mean well, they just aren’t very good at the sport

ecshafer 23d ago
Many of the more esoteric conspiracy theories are hard to debunk. Lets take the earth if round, prove it. You can bring up many cases, sails disappearing behind the horizon, goemetry, etc. but actually doing these measurements and calculations cold is pretty hard. And whenever you bring up a fact, they will dismiss it out of hand. Tectonic plates, I believe they exist, I have seen the evidence in books. But I doubt I could prove it, I've never really studied geology or anything like that. And if I were to debate someone who believes they weren't real, I would probably lose as they would bring up obscure papers, incidents, etc. which I wouldn't be able to refute well.
- colechristensen 23d ago
  You don't particularly need calculations, just have friends around the world or even a couple hundred miles away, get on a video call to prove the world is round. Whatever your pet theory of how the sun moves across the "flat" earth can be contradicted with a couple of facetime calls.
  - ericmay 23d ago
    I’ll do you one better, you shouldn’t even spend any time engaging in a debate with people who believe the earth is flat because they don’t want to change their mind. It doesn’t really matter if the earth is flat or not, for them it’s about being part of a community of people who believe in something that society tells them is wrong. There is no changing minds besides the 1 in a million you hear about and so all the calculations you could do would never work, sadly.
    - colechristensen 23d ago
      If you're so disinterested why are you talking about it now? Better to focus your attention on something you're not going to be so dismissive and negative about unless your hobby is being an asshole.
      - 23d ago

emmelaich 23d ago

There were plenty of conspiracy sites pre-2000. I think a lot of them shared mindspace with USA late night talk radio. Also, usenet.

hudmal 23d ago

Okay. Look at the moon. Look at every other planet not currently protected by an atmosphere. They all have craters. This fact is ignored by rote Geologists. "All the high and low points on the planet are due to plate tectonics and erosion!"

deleted 23d ago

[deleted]