What Would It Take to Change Your Mind?

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i like to think that maybe there is a moment of consideration. Is there something that, if you encounter a flat earther, you could disable? Let's go outside and look, or look through this tle copers,. Or some simple task you could do that you and the other person could agreethat. Well, i can't guarantee agreement, but one of the best things you can do is go watch the sunset. Go to the beach and watch it set over the horizon. That's what id prescribe for someone who's challenging their beliefs. And at the end of the day, you know, i'm kind of a space geek. I love that we have this cool

Since 2015, there has been a spectacular boom in a nearly 200-year-old delusion — the idea that we all live on a flat plane, under a solid dome, ringed by an impossible wall of ice. It is the ultimate in conspiracy theories, a wholesale rejection of everything we know to be true about the world in which we live. Where did this idea come from

Michael Shermer speaks with journalist Kelly Weill whose work covers extremism, disinformation, and online conspiracy theories in current affairs. The conversation is based on her book Off the Edgewhich tells a powerful story about belief, polarized realities, and what needs to happen so that we might all return to the same spinning globe.

Shermer and Weill discuss: the binary/black-and-white thinking of conspiracy theorists; how Flat-Earthism is ultimately a conspiracy theory about how NASA and the government are covering up the biggest secret in history; how Flat-Earthism is a proxy for other conspiracy theories (i.e., 9/11 truth, QAnon, and anti-Semitic beliefs about nefarious Jewish organizations conspiring to achieve world domination); and the role of social media in propagating conspiracy theories.