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Off the Edge
Book

Off the Edge

Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything

Kelly Weill
Algonquin Books, 2022
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Kelly Weill offers a history of the improbably durable belief that the Earth is flat, and thereby illustrates how conspiracy theories spread. Flat Earthers argue that a conspiracy keeps the true shape of the flat world secret from the misguided masses. Other outlandish conspiracies also appeal to Flat Earthers, and the internet amplifies these fabrications, Weill warns. But the web alone can’t explain or eliminate the tendency to conjure conspiracies. Human imagination enables people to make good discoveries as well as bad assumptions. Rather than debating Flat Earthers, says Weill, empathizing with them might be the best way to guide them back to the spherical world.

Summary

Belief that the world is flat has endured since an Englishman popularized that claim in the 1800s.

Some people believe the world is flat even though astronomical and mathematical analysis proved by the fifth century BCE that Earth is a globe. The flat Earth theory spread among English communes in the 1800s, gained acceptance among religious groups in the United States in the early 1900s, and attracted people who believe manned flights to the moon were staged. The internet fueled the theory’s surge in popularity in the second decade of the 21st century.

Believers vest in different versions of the Flat Earth theory. Many believe the world is shaped like a plate, encircled by ice and capped by a vast dome. Most doubt the existence of outer space. Some dismiss gravity as a misconception. In chaotic times, Flat Earth and other theories rife with conspiracy offer relief for some people’s anxieties about the unknown. Anyone can fall victim to believing conspiracy theories because the human capacity for abstract thinking can support beliefs with no grounding facts.

Samuel Birley Rowbotham coined the Flat Earth theory.

Samuel Birley Rowbotham...

About the Author

Kelly Weill is a journalist at the Daily Beast covering extremism, disinformation and the internet. Previously, she reported on culture for Politico.

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