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Re:Notes from a Flat Earth Conference by jfengel on Thursday August 20, 2020 @12:10PM (#24224740)
I can't really find any word for "No amount of data is going to persuade them otherwise." than "idiot". They may be able to constrain their idiocy to certain domains -- after all the early history of the planet (whether 5,000 or 5 billion years ago) has no real effect on your daily life.

But in my experience, it nonetheless creeps out to affect other areas of their life. YECs are often afflicted with other conspiracy theories, not just flat earthers but also climate denialsm, and these days, COVID denialism.

I find that the assumption isn't so much the teleology as the group superiority. It's not so much that the Bible is inerrant as that they are the ones who hold the truth, and those who disagree must in all cases be wrong -- and not merely wrong, but out to get them. The appeal to teleology is more about literal divine right, that "God shed his grace on thee". That leads them to make alliance with those who don't accept young-earth creationism but nonetheless share their nationalistic, chauvinist, xenophobic aims.

Re:Notes from a Flat Earth Conference by lisper on Thursday August 20, 2020 @01:19PM (#24225770)
> I can't really find any word for "No amount of data is going to persuade them otherwise." than "idiot".

That's because you find the data persuasive. They don't. That in and of itself does not make them idiots.

Re:Notes from a Flat Earth Conference by jfengel on Thursday August 20, 2020 @01:43PM (#24226100)
It's not just that I find the data persuasive, but that I find data persuasive. They don't. They reject the notion of data when it doesn't suit them.

That makes them not merely wrong, but dangerous to me. They will go out of their way to make my life worse, without being able to judge the cost to themselves. Regardless of what derogatory name I choose to call it, our outlook is fundamentally at odds. They've shown repeatedly that they wish to use it to harm me, and my names for them are going to be negative.

Re:Notes from a Flat Earth Conference by lisper on Thursday August 20, 2020 @01:55PM (#24226259)
Look, I'm on your side. I agree that YECs are both wrong and dangerous. My point here is that you cannot effectively oppose them on those grounds. They believe that you are wrong and dangerous, so the situation is symmetric. A mere belief that the opposition is wrong and dangerous cannot prevail on its own.
Re:Notes from a Flat Earth Conference by jfengel on Thursday August 20, 2020 @02:20PM (#24226571)
True. It just illustrates how deep a problem we've got here: once you've gone down the rabbit hole, there's no way back.

The only solution, if any, is democratic: containing the damage and reducing the numbers. They cannot be persuaded, but other people can. And unfortunately, I don't think that's all that effective, either -- in part because they ally themselves with other conspiracy theorists who insulate them from some of the consequences of their actions. They may not agree, but don't attack each other, and bolster common causes. Enough to win elections, especially when geographic, demographic, and historic quirks assign more political power to some regions than others.

If it were just creationists, they'd be (relatively) harmless kooks. As it is, they're always a step away from theocracy.