Flat Earth Theories

This Is Uncomfortable

After a nine-month hiatus, the hosts return to discuss the mechanics and psychological drivers of Flat Earth theories. They explore historic

Key takeaways

• Samuel Rowbotham used the 1838 Bedford Level Experiment to claim that a boat did not appear to dip over six miles of water.
• Flat Earth proponents often believe Antarctica is a massive ice wall guarding the edge of a disk-shaped world.

Main topics

• Flat Earth Theory
• Conspiracy Psychology

Notable quotes

The earth is flat. As flat as it comes.

Conclusion

The episode offers a deep dive into the intersection of fringe science

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Morning. All right, cool. Do you want to clap? Speaker 1 (0:03) Yeah. Three, two, Speaker 2 (0:06) one, Speaker 1 (0:08) two, three. Speaker 2 (0:13) Okay, I mean like a little bitty bleep. It's fine. I'm sure it'll be okay. We'll Speaker 1 (0:17) figure it out. Speaker 2 (0:20) It's fine. This is fine. Speaker 2 (0:23) Okay, you want to like get into it, get in it, and then we'll talk about our like catch up or whatever? Speaker 1 (0:28) Yeah, sure. Speaker 2 (0:30) Okay, hold on. I gotta turn you down. Yeah, turn you up. Hold on. Speaker 1 (0:36) I'm gonna hit those two while you get comfy. Speaker 2 (0:41) Okay, let me know when you're ready. Speaker 1 (0:45) Ready? Speaker 2 (0:50) Oh, I haven't done this in so long. I feel so awkward. This is uncomfortable. Speaker 2 (0:55) Hang on, I want to do that again. That was way too close. Okay, ready? Speaker 1 (0:59) This is uncomfortable. Speaker 1 (1:03) that was Speaker 2 (1:04) definitely the most uncomfortable i've ever felt whispering this is uncomfortable for this podcast what Speaker 1 (1:08) i like about this is that we're just uncomfortable from not doing this for so long but it's just gonna be extra uncomfortable hello yeah Speaker 2 (1:17) hello Speaker 1 (1:18) hi Speaker 2 (1:19) how are you how are you we've missed you I've missed the world. Speaker 1 (1:26) We're still Speaker 2 (1:26) here. Speaker 1 (1:28) We're still here. Speaker 2 (1:29) We're still doing it. Speaker 1 (1:31) Yeah, we're getting there. We really want to keep getting there because we like you and you seem to like us. So we're going to be coming back with more of this. For Speaker 2 (1:40) some Speaker 1 (1:40) reason. For some reason. I mean, I like us, but I get it. Yeah, Speaker 2 (1:45) get in, get comfortable. Strap in with your seatbelts because apparently gravity doesn't exist. Speaker 1 (1:52) I was trying to make some kind of Speaker 2 (1:54) pun. Today. Today we're going to talk about a group of people who are very special and believe that the earth is flat. Speaker 1 (2:06) As flat as it comes. One of my favorite things about the research for this is that even flat earthers themselves cannot agree on so much. There are so many different versions of flat. I can't wait to hear what you think of that. Okay. All right. Let's talk about flat earth theory. Speaker 2 (2:23) Yeah, so first, let's check in with everyone. It's been like nine months. We've been neglecting this podcast. We're here for you guys still somehow. Hello. Sorry we've been gone. Not sorry. We've been dealing with a lot of life, you know. But also been doing a lot of Speaker 1 (2:41) cool life. Tell them what you've been doing, Katie. I'll also do the same, but you do your thing. Speaker 2 (2:47) Oh, you know what? My coolest thing that I've done in the last nine months is I bought a house. Speaker 1 (2:52) you did congratulations congratulations to our Katie Speaker 2 (2:56) oh okay so everyone talks about how great home ownership is and I'll tell you how great home ownership is because the very first night we were in our house um one of our toilet like lines broke and flooded our bathroom and our master bedroom with toilet water so we had to clean up yeah it was great and then the very next night um I got a kidney stone And I ended up in the ER. Oh Speaker 1 (3:23) my Speaker 2 (3:23) God. And it was wonderful, which is not related to homeownership, but it was still like a great kickoff to the new year. And I was thinking the other day. I don't know why, but it seems like every single year, all of the shit hits the fan first of the year. Yeah. And then it kind of like, you have this mentality of like, you're going into a new year. It's going to be great. You make New Year's resolutions or maybe you don't, whatever. You're turning over a new leaf, essentially. And Speaker 1 (3:48) then Betty White dies. And Speaker 2 (3:49) nothing really seems to go right. Like life's like, haha, bitch. Nope. Slaps you right in the face. Speaker 1 (3:55) Yeah. Speaker 2 (3:56) So, but other than that, it's been wonderful and I love it. And it's. crazy I still feel like I'm living in an Airbnb and not my house that's so cute that's Speaker 1 (4:04) cool yeah Speaker 2 (4:05) how's your kidney stones Speaker 2 (4:09) Um, I hated that experience from start to finish. I do not recommend it towards anyone. Drink your water. Would Speaker 1 (4:16) not recommend. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:18) Cool it on the red meat. Maybe if you can. Uh, it was, it was really painful. Uh, and I really messed up last year and I let my insurance lapse for the month of January. And so at four in the morning, I woke up with extreme pain in my side. And I knew immediately that something was way wrong. It was nothing like I'd ever felt before. And I full on thought I was dying. And I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a hypochondriac or that kind of person to think that. So I paced around my house dry heaving from so much pain and crying for like four hours because I didn't have health insurance. And I was so afraid of how much it would cost if I went to the ER. And it was just like gas or whatever. And so after four hours of doing that, I was like. I could barely stand anymore because I was so exhausted. So I woke up my boyfriend. He was like, we're going to the fucking ER right now. And so I got in and they asked a couple of questions and they're like, oh, you have a kidney stone, basically. So they gave me some really great drugs. Yeah. Well, they gave me some really great drugs and they gave me a CAT scan and I paid quite a bit of money for that. But I expected it to be like tens of thousands of dollars. And I was able to negotiate down to like one third of what they wanted to charge me. So that was cool. But also. this health care system yeah some work Speaker 1 (5:42) yeah the fact that you needed to do all that the fact that you waited that long to go to the er because you were like well i don't want it to be a false alarm and like get charged a whole money is just so indicative of the health system that we have just the whole like american ideal of like well i I'd rather risk dying than knowing how much this hospital bill is going to be because, and not saying that to you, but just saying that it's like what the American mentality is because of how bad our healthcare system is. Speaker 2 (6:12) It's wild. The simple fact is that you should not be living in fear of some bill that you're going to receive if you legitimately need medical care of any amount. It doesn't need to be extreme pain from a kidney stone. It could be a skin fucking knee and you need someone to clean it out because you don't have the means to do that at home. I Speaker 1 (6:34) wish the last barrier in the world was just like, oh, I'm afraid I can't afford this. I really wish that that was a reality that we had here, but maybe one day. Speaker 2 (6:45) Yeah. So anyway, getting off that soapbox and onto another one. Speaker 1 (6:50) The earth is round. Speaker 2 (6:52) How is your nine months been? Speaker 1 (6:57) Um... Speaker 1 (7:00) Cringy, transformative, painful, annoying. I'm here. I'm doing really... solid work that I'm proud of. And I mean that professionally and I mean that like personally on like my own healing journey as us therapied millennials like to say. I'm doing what I can, I guess is the best way that I can put it. And I'm actually doing pretty well. I don't want to make it sound too grim. It's just, you know, obviously the state of the world is what it is. And I've got a pretty full plate over here personally. Speaker 1 (7:37) it's not always the easiest to stay on top of those things, especially, I don't know, one of the things I've been thinking is that, like, I might, this might not be, like, based on founded in depression and anxiety, those might be secondary to like undiagnosed ADHD, which would answer a lot of questions and then provide a lot more questions. So I'm kind of just trying to deal with like my focus, honestly, like on a personal level, like my focus and how that affects my mental health and like being able to get my work done. But honestly, overall, I'm doing really well. The dog is good. The husband's good. The mom is good. Good. We're chilling. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:15) Life is difficult. Life's painful and exhausting and we're all doing the best we can. And that's something to be proud of for sure. Speaker 1 (8:22) Honestly, I think that's the biggest thing too, is like learning to cut myself and my loved ones some slack and just realizing like, I'm just hypersensitive. The world is not constantly ending. Like it's okay. Has been a really, really cool lesson. Yeah. I've been Speaker 2 (8:37) struggling with that lately too. It's just, I'm, mine's manifesting in the form of, I think everyone's like. done with my shit or like mad at me or annoyed by my presence in their life and that's been real fun to work through Speaker 1 (8:51) Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:52) So. That one's tasty. Anywho, let's step out of this realm of reality. And Speaker 1 (8:59) go into a two-dimensional one. Speaker 2 (9:02) Yeah, and go into a realm of... Speaker 2 (9:07) Some advanced, adaptive, interesting thinking. Okay. Speaker 1 (9:11) All right. I'll take that. Speaker 2 (9:12) I don't Speaker 1 (9:12) really know what else to call this. Yeah. No, it is. It's a lot of thorough cognitive dissonance. I can't think of any other word for it. It's been fascinating to look at, but I want to hear what you've been looking into. Speaker 2 (9:24) So let me preface this by saying that I was trying to explain some of my talking points today on what I want to say today to my boyfriend last night. And the amount of times I had to use... the air quotes with my fingers to like explain to him that this is what people believe and it's out there um i feel like i have arthritis my fingers now but anyway so today we're talking about the flat earth theory and flat earthers And I want to start by saying they have a website. Is Speaker 1 (9:57) it the .org one? Speaker 2 (9:58) Yeah, the flatearthsociety.org. It doesn't really seem like it's been updated since 2016, but the forums are still super active. And man, are they a fun rollercoaster ride of emotion. Let me tell you. It's like an equal mix of people arguing over this theory and a lot of people just like unloading like it's some live journal or... tumblr so if you'd like to peruse that feel free it's fun uh flatworththeory.org also i had i don't know about you but i had a pretty difficult time finding the exact number or a rough estimate of how many people actually believe in this theory but i was able to find um like just poll results so for example there was a 2017 poll where one percent of american people thought that the world was flat and six percent weren't sure it was flat or round and then the remaining amount of people believe the you know universally accepted theory that the earth is round but in terms of legitimate numbers of how many people actually believe this or consider themselves flat earthers or involved in the flat earth society it's really hard to find concrete numbers i'm not sure if you had the same research results i Speaker 1 (11:12) did i saw the same um so i saw smaller polls this one said it had like 72 000 votes but it also said 96,000 or 96,000, 96%, uh, firmly believe the world is round one. Speaker 1 (11:27) 1 % used to firmly believe the world is round but now have doubts. And 1 % voted, I firmly believe the world is flat. Speaker 1 (11:37) 0 % stated, I used to firmly believe the world is flat, but now have doubts. And the reason that that part is included is because in another poll from a smaller sample, that one had like 4 % or something. And then I am not sure what I believe on this issue was another 1%. So 96 % is pretty solid. I'm over like 72,000 % or 72,000 people. But this is like a smaller, this was like 2018. And this is, I think it says it's done by. YouGov is the name of the research firm. And there were only 8,200 respondents in this one, but still 84 % of them said that they always believed the world was round. 5 % stated that more recently they have doubts about the world being round. 2 % stated, I always thought the world is flat, but more recently I'm having doubts. And then 2 % have always believed the earth is flat. Which is that was one of like the reason that one of my questions is that like did flat earthers ever go away? Because one of the new research things that I saw was that like mostly in 2016 after the emergence of like some pretty thorough YouTube documentaries, that was kind of the emergence of like the newer flat earth ideology, I guess. But also it kind of had to be disproven. a long, long time ago, right? Like a lot of philosophers and astronomers had to say the world was round and prove that mathematically. So I was trying to see, I don't know if you saw anything about if there's just always been this like fringe group of people who believe, which I'm sure there is just because of how many people exist. But I don't know if these are the same flat earthers that have just, you know, predated us confirming the world was round. Do you know what I mean? Speaker 2 (13:25) Sure. I think that with every conspiracy theory, there's always going to be a group of people who believe it. But in terms of volume of people that believe in the Flat Earth Theory, I think it's diminished substantially. Okay. Speaker 1 (13:39) Yeah, which, yeah, from these survey numbers, I guess that's the thing, too, is like the 2 % kind of answers my question. I have always believed their world was flat. Somebody had to teach them that or they had to find that information somewhere, you know, so that makes sense. Speaker 2 (13:52) Right. So I kind of touched on, I mean, you know, being the middle school paper writer that I am, I started with the definition of what a flat earth theory is. I went to the very beginning origins of kind of what I found as. like where this all kind of started. And then I went into modern day and what people believe. So I'd like to start with the definition, which is organizations and individuals, which make claims that the earth is flat while denying the earth's stericity, contrary to over two millennia of scientific consensus. Pretty straight to the point. So what I kind of found in my research is that there was this guy named Samuel Rowbotham who started all of this idea with something called the Bedford Level Experiment in 1838. So essentially what he did was he found this stretch of river called the Bedford, sorry, the Old Bedford River, and he carried out observations along that river because it was a really straight line as rivers go. for over six miles. So his claim was that the earth was a globe. The surface of all standing water would have a certain convexity to it. So every part would have to be a part of an arc to a circle. So his idea was if I put this boat in the water and I send it on the river and I put, you know, a flag three feet above the top of the boat on the mast, over time, theoretically, if the earth was round, I would see the boat dip into the water and the the mast the flag on the mast would drop over time so he thought at one mile it would drop down eight inches two miles it dropped down 32 inches and three miles it dropped down 72 inches so he held a telescope eight inches above the water and watched this boat with the flag go down the water for six full miles and the boat didn't really dip at all so he's like aha the earth is flat the boat did not dip i saw all of it the whole time six miles Speaker 1 (15:51) Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (15:52) All right. What I think Samuel failed to realize is that the earth is much larger than a couple of miles around. But anyway, his conclusion was that the earth is a flat disc and that centered at the, it, that disc is the North pole. And then all around its Southern edge, which I think if you're talking about a disc talking about it, Southern edge is a little confusing, but I think essentially the edge is a, uh, Wall of Ice, a.k.a. Antarctica. So Speaker 1 (16:25) we're just like in a Truman rink. Speaker 1 (16:28) Of ice. Okay. Okay. Speaker 2 (16:30) Yeah. And just throughout time, there's been a lot of reliance on passages from the Bible that talk about, you know, the four corners of the earth and stuff like that, that people who also believe in this theory tend to lean into because it's, you know, they take the Bible as legitimate truth and they take it literally and say, well, if it's four corners of the earth and you can't be around, so the earth is flat. Well, the website of Flat Earthers, the... flat earth theory website says that they don't collectively believe in a certain religion they do acknowledge that there are a lot of similarities or things that they reference in the bible they talk about you know hinting that the earth is flat and that that's why they kind of lean into those i Speaker 1 (17:13) did see and did want to bring up that there were many connections to creationist beliefs in the foundations of the beliefs for this which i thought was really interesting And that like, what can talk more about like the inclination to believe in conspiracy theories later, but the creationist connection surprised me. I'm glad you brought it up. What Speaker 2 (17:34) is that about? Speaker 1 (17:36) I think it has to do, I mean, okay, honestly, so when we were talking about, when I say I want to talk about conspiracy theories in general, I think that what we forget is that these types of systems and types of beliefs are going to attract a certain type of explorer, right? Like if you're looking for a certain type of idea to fit. whatever narrative you're looking for, it's going to attract, like this is deductive reasoning or this is inductive reasoning instead of deductive. So if you are looking for the same answer, you're probably going to have started from a similar point. So I think that that might be the connecting idea of like, if you're already inclined to believe in something like creationism, you are already probably more inclined to believe in something like this because it takes the same type of inductive. reasoning where you have the answer you want and you're just going to build from there to form the question so that that is the answer. Does that make sense? Speaker 2 (18:34) Kind of like tunnel vision. Yeah, Speaker 1 (18:35) 100%. Do Speaker 2 (18:36) you think that there's any sort of connection between conspiracy theory beliefs and what people call faith in religion? Like that kind of train of thought or thinking, it's very similar in that you kind of just have to have faith in these things because you can't really prove otherwise. Speaker 1 (18:52) It's interesting you ask that. I was listening to a podcast about, it was one of the people who kind of does research into conspiracy theory beliefs. And he was talking about how one of the people he talked to at a flat earther convention was giving him this like very interesting explanation for how like the UN logo already represents, like they acknowledge flat earth. But his Speaker 2 (19:15) explanation kind of had to do with like how like, Speaker 1 (19:17) oh, in Spanish, Speaker 2 (19:18) the letters Speaker 1 (19:20) are like something about some. it being backwards, it's like O-N-U, so that it backwards would be UNO, which represents one, so that it's some reference to the First World Order. And then, you know, the guy's answer to that was like, well, does he know that UN is already one in French, right? Like, you don't need to go in this, like, big circular loop of logic to find this, like, if you're saying it's about the First World Order, UN is UN, which is, that's... That's one in French. So like that's already the thing that you're looking for. But you found this very intricate system that applies to you because you are Spanish speaking. So even though like French is also a Latin language and you could have jumped to that conclusion much more simply, I think it just has to do with like, oh, I'm finding a very specific scenario to fit this very specific question. Long, long, long answer short. Yes, I do think that it has to do with like. Faith or the type of belief or. Speaker 1 (20:21) information that faith takes, which