Ask A Genius 1355: Flat Earth Beliefs and the Psychology Behind Conspiracies

Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/04/12

Rick Rosner: I’m not going to spoil it. The first episode of the seventh season of Black Mirror, featuring Rashida Jones, is about enshittification. Look it up—it’s a term coined by Cory Doctorow. It describes how tech services often start great but gradually worsen over time. This episode focuses on a personal tech service that increasingly takes advantage of people. I will not say more because you should be able to enjoy the show without any spoilers. What would you like to talk about?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I wanted to discuss Rick Rosner versus America. That topic requires more extensive research and would probably take a lot of time.

Rosner: What do you mean by that?

Jacobsen: Similar to our previous discussion, I want to conduct thorough research and get your perspective. Some fascinating work has been done. I’m trying to focus on concrete things—things supported by evidence. One study looks at seven of the most outlandish beliefs.

Rosner: All right. Could you give me a couple of examples?

Jacobsen: Topics like ancient aliens, claims that aliens built the pyramids, Sasquatch, ghosts—things like that. I want to approach it systematically.

Rosner: Want to start with a flat Earth?

Jacobsen: That’s a good one.

Rosner: I’ve been arguing with someone who believes in flat Earth.

Jacobsen: Recent data in the U.S. is limited and varies by source, but a 2018 YouGov poll found that 2% of Americans firmly believe the Earth is flat. About 5% of Americans expressed doubts about the Earth being round. So, roughly 7% either believe the Earth is flat or are uncertain about its shape.

Rosner: All right. When someone believes in something thoroughly debunked by overwhelming evidence, it points to a psychological need to be wrong—to embrace nonsense. Now, there may be people who are so uninformed that they believe the Earth is flat because no one has ever explained it to them appropriately. But I think those individuals are a small minority.

There are also people with IQs below 70 who are too cognitively impaired to grasp complex concepts. But for most people who hold a belief like that—and the rest of the beliefs you’re going to mention—it seems to stem from a perverse psychological need to believe that there’s a conspiracy behind everything, that nothing accepted as common sense is true, and that we live in a Matrix-like illusion maintained by aliens, Jews, or some dark cabal.

It fulfills a distorted psychological need in them—to walk around feeling as though they’re among a special elite who have “seen through the fiction” and know the “truth” about the world. The most famous movie representing this worldview is They Live, starring “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, released in 1988. In it, Piper’s character comes into possession of a pair of glasses that let him see the aliens living among us who are secretly manipulating humanity.

It is a paranoid view of the world. It is driven by a desperation to feel special. As we go through the list of commonly held, completely absurd beliefs, what I am saying will keep coming up. Some people are disappointed with their lives. They go to Michaels or, in the past, to Jo-Ann Fabric—before Jo-Ann filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2024—and they engage in crafting or scrapbooking to find a controllable, satisfying way to make things that give them happiness.

I argue that people who believe in conspiracies are doing something similar: soothing themselves and compensating for what is missing in other areas of their lives.

Apologists for MAGA supporters often say economic uncertainty pushed them there. That may be true. If you have a low-paying or unstable job, cannot make progress, bad things keep happening to you and the people around you, you get cancer, and no matter how many jobs you work, you are still drowning in debt, driving an unreliable car—people will turn to comforting fictions, even if they suspect they are false.

And if you believe in them long enough and hear enough arguments in their favour—which will happen if you immerse yourself in those kinds of media—you will be reinforced. Those sources always have explanations, stories, and facts supporting the worldview.

Think of Germany before Nazism. It was a population in despair. They were humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I—then referred to as the Great War. They were forced to pay massive reparations. Then came hyperinflation in the early 1920s. Their money became nearly worthless. Their savings were wiped out. There was national frustration. Hitler exploited that desperation.

So, when people believe in nonsense, it often comes from what is missing in their lives.

Jacobsen: So you’re attributing this to emotional reasons?

Rosner: Yes. There is absolutely no rational reason to believe the Earth is flat. The evidence for a spherical Earth is overwhelming and consistent.

But if someone stumbles onto a flat Earth website, there’s a flood of technical-sounding information that attempts to explain away everything—every observable fact about a round Earth.

Satellites, for example. I have not looked into this deeply, but I have heard secondhand about some of those arguments.

Jacobsen: Well, satellites—let’s do it. Let’s challenge their arguments. I have them here for you.

Rosner: All right.

Jacobsen: What about the argument from historical and religious texts? Some interpretations claim that ancient scriptures describe not only a flat Earth but also a stationary one. The argument is that religious scripture and ancient texts justify a flat, unmoving Earth—completely stationary.

Rosner: If someone is unhinged enough to believe that, there’s nothing I can say. If you’re that far gone, then your life is built on a foundation of nonsense, and there’s probably no helping you. There are plenty of people—Christians and Muslims—who embrace scripture without filling their lives with extraneous or misleading ideas. You can be religious and still accept scientific findings and observable truths. But the reasoning breaks down when you start delving into scriptural interpretations so profoundly that you dismiss observable evidence.

I am sure there are passages in religious texts that warn against uncritical acceptance or blind faith in any argument just because a religious authority has asserted it. I do not know exactly how the Pharisees were defined historically, but they are often characterized in spiritual literature as people who practice a form of piety that is disconnected from practical wisdom.

Such scriptures do not encourage the denial of sensory evidence or natural phenomena. They are meant to offer spiritual insight that can guide personal behaviour rather than undermine rational understanding.

Jacobsen: What about the claim that NASA and other space agencies show inconsistencies in their photos and videos from space? The idea is that it’s all part of a global conspiracy to hide the truth for financial gain.

Rosner: Yes, to hell with people who believe that. NASA has been around for over 60 years. Of the millions—if not billions—of images they have captured in space, some are grainy, taken from different angles, under various lighting conditions, and with varying exposures. Of course, there will always be a few individuals who selectively highlight images that appear to contradict one another.

But that means nothing. It is simply noise—misinterpretations that appeal to those predisposed to doubt widely verified information. It is manufactured reasoning for those eager to be deceived.

Someone on social media always examines thousands of photos of celebrities—Kristen Bell, for example—searching for one image taken in a specific lighting condition, where it might resemble a physical trait that can be misconstrued. Then, suddenly, that isolated observation is presented as “proof” of an entirely different claim. For many observers, these examples are not compelling evidence.

You and I have been discussing topics like the Big Bang and informational cosmology for over ten years. Even though we sometimes gravitate toward our ideas, we strive to maintain skepticism and critical thinking about our claims.

However, those who hold onto unfalsifiable beliefs do not apply the same level of skepticism to their assertions. When a slight doubt arises, they often return to echo chambers where their existing views are constantly reinforced. In doing so, they retreat into comfortable but untestable delusions. There is no mechanism for challenging or disproving these ideas once they become insulated from counter-evidence.

Jacobsen: Nothing you can tell them will make them admit any mistake. What about those who conducted experiments to disprove a spherical Earth and renounced their flat Earth beliefs?

Rosner: Well, good for them. I do not know much about them, but good for them.

Jacobsen: Those are notable exceptions: u/FormerFlatEarther, u/HelicopterExperiment, u/StarHemispheres, u/LaserExperiment, u/ConspiracySkeptic, u/ShipHorizon, u/EvangelicalUpbringing, u/MoonPhases, u/GlobeProof, u/AtmosphericRefraction, FlatNoMore, TruthSeeker99, @GlobeBeliever, Anonymous Conference Attendee, Shaquille O’Neal, Kyrie Irving, and an unnamed British Researcher, have publicly shared their journeys of renouncing flat Earth beliefs.

Okay, how about this: flat Earth proponents argue that long-distance airplane flight paths make more sense on a flat plane than on a globe. They claim that pilots would need to make constant downward adjustments to account for Earth’s curvature.

Rosner: That makes no sense whatsoever. It is not very smart. I have been fortunate enough to take many flights.

Once, I thought I would enjoy an empty seat next to me on a flight back from England. The doors had been closed for several minutes, and then, at the last second, they moved over this squirrely woman who had gotten into a fight elsewhere on the plane. She was somehow friends with the crew, so instead of getting kicked off, they relocated her—to the seat next to me.

It was nonstop for 12 hours: kick, squirm, fidget. It was not very good. But if you track your journey during a 12-hour flight, you are clearly flying across the globe.

You can see how it all fits with a spherical Earth. You may not be able to perceive the curvature clearly out the window, but you can tell the Earth is not flat. You cannot see a thousand miles in any direction. You might be able to see about 60 miles before the Earth curves away—there is your horizon.

Okay, next.

Jacobsen: Some argue that water naturally finds a level surface and would not conform to a curved shape. They say oceans would not remain in place on a spherical Earth without visible barriers. Therefore, they conclude that a flat Earth makes more sense.

Rosner: No—not. That is wrong on every level. Gravitation causes matter to attract other matter. The shape that results in the lowest potential energy—where everything that can roll downhill already has—is a sphere. That is just how gravity works.

It is basic physics. We have comprehensively understood gravity since Newton more than 350 years ago.

Even water droplets demonstrate this. When they fall, they form spheres due to surface tension. The attraction between water molecules pulls them into a spherical shape in the absence of other forces.

When you blow a bubble, surface tension does not pull it into the shape of a plate; instead, it forms a sphere.

It is simple math. High school-level math.

All right, next one.

Jacobsen: Some argue from visual observation. They claim that, using the naked eye, the Earth appears flat.

Rosner: No, it does not.

If the Earth were flat, you could see endlessly into the distance—at least until atmospheric haze blocked your view—but you cannot. You can only see so far. The higher you go, the farther you can see because you’re looking out over the surface of a sphere, but you still cannot see forever.

So, as far as personal experience goes, it does not support flat Earth claims. Use the evidence of your own eyes. You can stand in the middle of a desert or on a highway—maybe even on the salt flats—and at best, you might see eight miles. But you will never see 400, 500, or 1,000 miles.

Anything else?

Jacobsen: What about alternative cosmologies? For example, the idea that Earth is a flat plane enclosed by a dome, a firmament?

Rosner: Sure—Occam’s razor. We already have simple, elegant theories that explain all of this. The simplest theory is Newton’s theory of gravitation. It’s incredibly straightforward.

This firmament idea, on the other hand, is needlessly complex. It requires constant adjustments and elaborate justifications to make it work. It is not simple at all. It is just a story—comforting nonsense meant to soothe, like rocking psychobabies to sleep.

Jacobsen: Others argue from perspective and atmospheric effects—not just eyesight. They claim that the apparent curvature or the way distant objects appear to sink is due to perspective and atmospheric distortion, not the Earth’s shape.

Rosner: That is convenient—and no, it is not true. These arguments can be disproven with basic math.

A decent theory should not require layers and layers of caveats and exceptions to function. Occam’s razor tells us that the best theories work cleanly without a constant need for patchwork explanations to align with observable reality.

Jacobsen: Some claim electromagnetic or ether-based gravity explains it better. They argue that the Earth is accelerating upward or that some etheric force causes objects to fall, explaining weight and density on a flat plane without needing a spherical Earth.

Rosner: Then make it work. Make it mathematically consistent. Create a model that does not require endless modifications for every unique scenario.

Jacobsen: What about the argument that curvature calculations—such as horizon distance—do not match what we observe? Some claim these discrepancies support a flat Earth.

Rosner: I call bullshit. There are places where curvature calculations do not match precisely because of terrain. You might be standing on a mountain, a salt dome, or another elevation that changes the equation.

Your observations will not match standard curvature calculations if you are not on a level surface relative to the center of the Earth. Also, factor in the centrifugal effect from Earth’s rotation, which makes the Earth oblate—slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator.

Jacobsen: Then there is the idea of localized Sun and moon illumination. According to this theory, the Sun acts like a spotlight, moving above the flat plane and illuminating specific regions. This explains day and night cycles and even seasonal variation through focused rays.

Rosner: How complicated is that? We got rid of the—what do you call it—Ptolemaic system, with planetary epicycles. To make Earth the center of the solar system, you had to make the other planets move in spirograph-style curly cues to explain what we observe.

It was highly complicated. But once you make the Sun the center of the solar system, the epicycles disappear, and you’re left with simple ellipses. It is far simpler.

So this specialized Sun and special moon nonsense is all just unhinged hand-waving. And honestly, probably a small percentage of the people who believe this stuff may have serious mental health conditions. Some individuals may experience impaired reasoning due to underlying disorders that affect their ability to evaluate evidence or reach logical conclusions.

Imagine having to live with someone like that. Or maybe they are like this because they do not live with anyone or are socially isolated. There is no one to push back on their ideas. Some may rely on public assistance or disability programs, especially if their condition prevents them from maintaining regular employment—they are just too far removed from shared reality.

I have to go in about one minute.

Jacobsen: On that note, some advocates of flat Earth theory prioritize sensory experience. They argue that a flat, motionless Earth aligns with what we see and feel. They claim globe models rely on unprovable assumptions—like vast stellar distances—enforced by academic dogma.

Rosner: Again, these people should leave the rest of us alone with their delusions. It is healthy to challenge scientific ideas—most things in science do evolve—but that kind of pushback has to come from people who are not entirely unqualified.

Sure, every once in a while, a seemingly crazy idea turns out to be true. Take plate tectonics: the notion that the continents look like puzzle pieces and might have moved. Some thought that was ridiculous, but it turned out to be true.

And even then, the person who proposed it—Alfred Wegener—was not some wild-eyed lunatic. He was a meteorologist and geophysicist who gathered evidence from geology, paleontology, and climatology. So, he is not even a good example of a crank vindicated by science.

But if you dig through the history of science, you could find one genuinely eccentric person with an unusual idea that turned out to be right. Take the concept of germs before the invention of microscopes—imagine someone saying, “We should wash our hands and not breathe on each other.” That would have sounded like madness at the time.

Claiming there were invisible organisms—too small to see—that spread from person to person and caused illness would have seemed implausible without the ability to observe them. Eventually, germ theory became the foundation of modern medicine. So maybe someone who believed that early on would be an example of a seemingly crazy idea that later became accepted science.

All right, I have to go. I will see you tomorrow.

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