Skip to main content

The Flat Earth

Image result for flat earth

I saw a video recently by a flat Earther. (Never mind for now how it came about that I was watching such a thing -- largely by accident.)

What was odd was the bit where the flat Earther earnestly tells us that he doesn't want to be a flat Earther. It is, after all, a pain in the ass being an 'out' flat earther. It involves expounding on a conspiracy involving NASA and the analogous agencies of several other governments, lots of other people and institutions, etc., and it involves trying to dislodge everybody else's prejudice in favor of stuff that they have been taught since first grade. He doesn't want to be entangled in all this, our video host assures us. Because he'd much rather be about his day job.

What's the day job? Warning people about chemtrails.

I kid you not.

Personally, I know how he feels. I'd much rather not blog about the faeries who threaten vengeance upon us as a species for the cancellation of Sabrina the Teen-Aged Witch.  I'd love to lay the matter to rest and go back to disbelieving in faeries like most people and work on my day job -- leprechaun wrangling.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. HenryMay 18, 2018 at 8:00 AM

    Christopher,

    I googled "chemtrails," and Wikipedia states, "The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the false claim ... ." (They pay people to spread that claim?) Thus, his day job is in keeping with his being a flat Earther, so I don't understand why you write, "I kid you not." Well, I guess I do; you are observing that he is doubly a nutcase.

    Also, he is probably lying (perhaps to himself) that he doesn't want to be a flat Earther. He thinks that claiming that he doesn't want to be a flat Earther will make his claims that the Earth is flat more credible. And it's not a pain in the ass to him; he enjoys it or he wouldn't do it. Or perhaps he enjoys having a pain in his ass (and being one to others).

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristopherMay 18, 2018 at 9:09 AM

    Henry,

    You are right about the phrase "I kid you not." One would normally expect a flat earther making the point "I don't WANT to be a fat earther" to talk about some more conventional day job. "I'd much rather think about other things while I'm behind the wheel of the 18 wheeler I drive for a iiving. But my boss has me use GPS navigation, and that got me wondering whether the "G" in that acronym is a lie...." -- something like that.

    You're also naturally curious how chemtrail theory propagation could be a day job. When I heard this, I envisioned a YouTube channel or blog in which our conspiratorialist propounds these views while selling ads. To tinfoil hat manufacturers or whomever.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...
9 comments
Read more

The Lyrics of "Live Like You Were Dying"

Back in 2004 Tim McGraw recorded the song "Live Like You were Dying." As a way of marking the one-decade anniversary of this song, I'd like to admit that a couple of the lines have confused me for years. I could use your help understanding them. In the first couple of verses, the song seems easy to follow. Two men are talking, and one tells the other about his diagnosis. The doctors have (recently? or a long time ago and mistakenly? that isn't clear) given him the news that he would die soon. "I spent most of the next days/Looking at the X-rays." Then we get a couple of lines about a man crossing items off of his bucket list. "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." Then the speaker -- presumably still the old man -- shifts to the more characterological consequences of the news. As he was doing those things, he found he was loving deeper and speaking sweeter, and givin...
1 comment
Read more

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere.  At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak...
17 comments
Read more