As ridiculous as FE seems, prima facie, until it's proven false, I keep my mind open to plausible explanations for why:
A) the moon landings were all fake and we've never "been back"
B) there are no actual photos of the entire earth from space (unless you believe the sizes of the continents are changing by 30-60% every decade or so)
C) the only people on earth that we give billions of dollars to, to go to space, are faking any, let alone much (or all) of the footage, using green screens, parabolic "zero gravity" flights, actual hair spray to make their hair stand up, underwater studios (unless you believe in air bubbles in space)
You might say "but these items have better explanations than FE". Well let's hear those theories also. Let's not shoot down those who are proposing an outlandish, yet mostly comprehensive, theory, one that explains these anomalies as well as a plethora of others, like how did they use radio frequencies that don't even purportedly bounce off the ionosphere to communicate hundreds of miles during WWII, how can the horizon be seen above an item whose entirety should be hidden behind it, why is Antarctica, aside from a tiny portion, entirely off limits to most civilians, how was Felix Baumgartner able to slowly float up to nearly 30 miles without drifting a thousand or more miles because of the earth's rotation, etc.
Suggestions that these things are not even worthy of discussion, on a forum dedicated to conspiracy theories, have to be disingenuous.
Original Research
Let's not also forget that FE researchers are literally the only conspiracy theorists doing original research. These people will buy lasers that cost thousands of dollars, cameras, etc., and go to some large body of water (large lakes, bays, etc.) where they can test their hypothesis with an actual experiment. Everything else I see on here is pure speculation, or videos of interviews involving various professionals with dubious backstories (Malone, etc.).
Does it Matter
Pertaining the "would it even matter" argument, you honestly don't need a lukewarm IQ to imagine how much it would matter, if FE was real.
Principles
Most of us are here because we couldn't speak freely elsewhere, because "hate has no place on our platform" type communist bullshit. Now we're going to make the same kind of rules, especially banning arbitrary content that is desired by a clear majority, on a platform with already-existing mechanisms for getting rid of low quality postd (downvoting, hiding)? If FE posts are banned, this place is no better than TGA, and don't even pretend to be pro constitution when you can't even stand up for free speech about a conspiracy theory in a conspiracy theory forum.
I'm out of here, for good, if FE is banned. Aside from spam, illegal, doxxing, banning has no place on our platform.
"antivaxxers are incapable of questioning"
It's the same logic. banning the discussion of a conspiracy as a whole is overzealous and undermines the very foundation of this forum. What we should be doing is endeavoring to ban all bad faith discussion, which is a lot more difficult for sure.
Any ideas/suggestions?
Lots of “no”s - very few “here’s what could work instead”
it's definitely a tough one, but banning whole conversations is not the right answer.
I suppose one step would be to make the posting of ad-hominem a bannable offense. For example:
Person's A and B would be fine, as they are engaging in legitimate discussion. person C brings nothing of value to the discussion and only serves to stir emotions. person C, in my opinion should receive a warning or a ban.
I think this has been what mods have tried to do all along. I've seen this topic turn uncivil more than any other. I suspect mods are tired of changing diapers, but would like to see what they have to say about this.
yeah, just ban all globetards for being rude retards.
Ehhhh - we all left r*ddit for, among other things, their carebear censorship policies (but I don’t think any of us left because of how Flat Earth was treated there) so I kind of feel we need some leniency on stuff like ending your sentence with “what are you, retarded”. Maybe I’m wrong on that.
But what I can see making sense is the removal (on a gradient obviously) of “one issue posters” - they do fly in the face of the principle of genuine good faith discussion.
I think I’ve seen you on KiA, so i mean someone like imp coming here and only posting his crazy shit about {women} being behind everything wrong with the world. Same for the people who blame their stubbed toe on the bankers, same for the people who derail conversations by trying to shoehorn FE into every single comment they make.
So to combine our points - if someone’s only contribution was derision and derailment, I think they’d do well with some kind of (community? Meta posts? Private? idk) talking to, moving up if they keep things up
But I agree, the approach of “should we ban this topic” seems to have had so many “potential“ drawbacks attached that the core matter got glossed over for a discussion on freedom of speech. However like 800 comments in the vote thread and easily another 200 across other threads shows these are important issues for many/all of us
Reddit went to shit because it refused to gatekeep forum sliders and they wormed their way into positions of power, then took over.
If you don't want this place to become reddit, we need to protect the forums from bad faith actors.
that would work out perfectly. all globetards would be banned, as they can't have adult conversations.
A mirror is what you need
yeah, do the research you retard, so you stop believing jews when they tell you the Earth is a globe
I never advocated for banning FE, I'm just pointing out the argument.
And yeah, if "anti-vaxxers" are posting "Vaccines cause autism", instead of asking if they cause autism or posting information suggesting the link, and they won't consider the alternative?
Ban 'em.
I think another layer of nuance needs to be introduced: if somebody has reason for "vaccines cause autism" to be the only topic they want to discuss yet can keep their comments in discussions where it belongs, I don't think they should be banned even if they aren't supporting every comment with links.
OTOH if they're injecting that everywhere, it's just spam at that point.
That's what FE has been here, although I can't speak to recently.
The truth is not spam. The globe delusion is the spam.
This is the first good faith discussion I've seen here on the topic, and notice that FE itself isn't even being discussed.
You have 0 basis for your claim but I'll give you credit, you finally made a comment without using the word khazarian! Lol
Here’s another suspect argument.
Ban.
Ban these shills.
They are all outing themselves.
Shut up, if you aren’t a shill all you’re doing is undermining the point of actual subversion by accusing everyone who disagrees with you.
Fuck off.
You’re spending far too much time engaging with shills.
If you think this many people are gonna argue in favor of FE, you might be a moron.
Fuck you for defending these intellectually bankrupt stooges.
They don’t deserve engagement. They deserve ridicule. There’s no point in engaging with shills and useful idiots.
Anyone who engages with them in a genuine way only perpetuates their psyop.
That guy has a better track record as a contributor than you, yet you accuse him of being a shill. Ergo you’re either a fucking retard or a shill yourself. Neither of those lend themselves to productive contributions