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Tucker Carlson appearing on Joe Rogan experience speculated that UAPs are real, but are not alien visitors from other planets but supernatural in origin and always has been here. More recently he claimed to have been mauled by a demon in his sleep, which resulted in physical marks (more probable culprit - one of four dogs in the room?). His suspected demonic activity today - the invention of nuclear weapons:
Why are apparently kooky beliefs entertained by top influencers on the right? Cadence Owens also came out as dinosaur truther and flat-earth curious.
Is Tucker trying to become the next Alex Jones? Is this part of an op to associate historical revisionism and opposition to the ruling regime with insanity?
I think these people have been in the spotlight for so long, mouthing other peoples opinions or regurgitating talking points, that when they are finally allowed to be themselves they don't know where and when to stop. They already stepped over the line to follow their convictions. That line was much clearer and held more immediate consequences than belief in flat earth Satan bigfoot or whatever.
If everyone gave an earnest list of views they hold or are curious about or share any sort of odd thing that gave them an emotion that they felt was worth exploring the umpteenth time they have to fill 30 minutes of dead air I think there is not a single interesting person left that doesn't hold to some odd belief. Hell, most people are so uninteresting that they would never get to a point of being a political talking head in the first place.
On the flipside, the lunacy people believe on 'the left' is no different. As an example: most people believe in a theory of human evolution that's much dumber, consequential and more immediately and obviously wrong than flat earth.
But more directly to Tucker, it feels like he's throwing away a sort of sacred status he built for himself. He could always present himself as kind of untouchable. From a persona perspective it's like he decided to give himself a weakspot. Feels like an odd thing to do for a man like him but, barring it being a conspiracy by TPTB to weaken a persona that's becoming too powerful, it's just a whatever.
I get that its fashionable in this space to dunk on the "blank slatists" but this is a pretty dumb take that seriously oversells the rigor or "hardness" of fields like psychology and anthropology while underselling the significance of things like basic navigation, land surveys, and wireless communications to modern society, or the disciplines of physics and astronomy historically.
The spherical nature of the Earth along with its approximate circumference has been widely known in the western world since classical antiquity, and to the degree that flat-eartherism exists today outside of a "birds aren't real"-esque joke it seems most prevalent amongst PMC types who, interacting with the world chiefly through screens, seem to have difficulty thinking in three dimensions.
Contra the popular meme, 15th century sceptics weren't expecting Columbus to literally "sail off the edge of the earth" they were expecting him to run out of food and potable water before he even got a third of the way as the approximate latitude and longitude of the spice islands he was trying to reach had already been well established. Furthermore the sceptics were entirely correct in that it was essentially blind luck that Columbus stumbled upon the hear-to undiscovered island chain of the Bahamas just as his supplies were running low.
I think you are misrepresenting where people get their beliefs from. Most people don't look at any evidence for or against in some rational vacuum. We're just told what is and what isn't. Most of the time in a setting where we are completely incapable to question what's being said. This is true for the roundness of the earth and the 'leftist' theory of evolution. To compare and contrast two narratives that are believed in the same way on a basis that's irrelevant to why they were believed in the first place is missing the point of the comparison.
I think that's a big part of why flat earth guys can exist in the first place. Most people have no idea why they believe the earth is round and are completely incapable of defending their belief without appealing to a higher power. Same for the 'leftist' theory of evolution.
Outside of that, I'd argue that population differences are much more immediately obvious, like I said in my comment. It's very hard to get a good first hand look at the roundness of the earth or experience the curvature in action. But it's very easy to notice different phenotypic differences between population groups.
Fact of the matter is that population differences are just as real as the roundness of the earth. There is no wiggle room or 'softness' to this fact.
This runs contrary to my experience, though brief, running through flat earth circles and debates. I found the most common character type to be working class dudes used to relying on their own senses and to a lesser extent belligerent basement dwellers. I'd find it very interesting if PMC types were going in on flat earth.
Possibly but I am unconvinced. In all my years I have encountered a total of three unironic flat-earthers in the wild (that I am aware of) one of them was litterally a rando at the bar who would rant at length to anyone willing to listen (or unwilling for that matter) about Elon Musk and who certainly fell into the stereotype of "irreligious male of low socio-economic status". The other two were both upper middle class women one was some sort of health-care/social worker and the other worked in finance. My impression is that those two women are the sort of people who are actually watching all those flat-earther, q-anon, zietgiest, ancient aliens, videos and believing them.
I have a hunch that there's something going on with the female propensity towards secret knowledge, whisper networks, and true crime documentaries but i don't know.
I wasn't talking about where flat earthers get their beliefs from, but everyone.
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