Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to continue our streaming between the Lines series and discuss behind The Curve, the 2018 documentary film by Daniel J. Clark that takes a look at flat Earthers, their belief that the Earth is a disk and not a globe, and the communities that have sprung up around this.
Now, while many often will simply dismiss flat Earthers as simple or foolish, this film allows the viewer to see what the flat Earthers are saying and where they're coming from, while also hearing from experts on the subject and giving context in various forms. And it does it in a way that's very engaging and can help the viewer contextualize what's going on.
Joining me today is a man whose secret to becoming all the rage is that he's always angry. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, are you ready to do something incredible today?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Man, leave me alone.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: There we go.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: All right. Now we're recording this on the winter solstice of the year 2021 for our heliocentrics out there, and that would be December 21st. And before we begin, I want to warn that there will be spoilers in this podcast from this 2018 documentary.
But to jump right in, Tunde, tell me your general thoughts on someone or people holding the belief that the Earth is flat in the 21st century.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: You know, it made me appreciate the show Ancient Aliens that I used to rail about.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Interesting. Tell me how.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: No, just that we tend to think of people believing in things that we think of as a little bit simple or whatever, as people like ancient cultures that they did rain dances and certain things, and that we're so much smarter. And one of the things that this documentary did was do a good job in showing how even in the 21st century. That's why I like the way you posed that first question of kind of, what do we think about people that believe that the Earth is flat in the 21st century? Because I think the majority of us in this society. I was thinking about this last night, kind of preparing my head for today. The Earth being flat is one of the few things in the Earth amongst humanity, globally, like every culture, race, religion, that most people have accepted as some sort of fact.
You know, like the three major religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
There's a lot to argue between them, and people take those things very personal and to their heart and emotional, but none of them disagree that the Earth is around.
And so what it made me realize is we're the same humans as we were a thousand years ago, 3,000 years ago, 5,000, 10,000 years ago, that created all the kind of cultures prior to now that fed into our belief system today. And so what, what, what kind of this documentary did for me, and that's why I thought it'd be, you know, I'm glad we're talking about it today for a show because it went from me looking at the title and thinking something that would be a little bit laughable and absurd, like, haha, who are these idiots that believe in the flat Earth to like after watching it or during watching it, appreciating that, like, nah, you know what, I don't agree with them and I clearly do think that, you know, well, no, we'll get into it in this conversation about, you know, why maybe why they believe something that most of the Earth's or most of humanity considers settled. But it made me appreciate that this is kind of humanity, right, that we're always going to have a part of our society that's going against the grain, that doesn't want to conform, so on and so forth. And so that's what it made me kind of appreciate is not so much, you know, I never kind of, I try not to look down on anyone. So it wasn't about making fun of these people, but more of taken something that to me at first did seem laughable.
And not that this made me believe at all anything about a flat Earth, but more appreciate that, you know, hey, look, even people on the fringe need to be heard. And if we want to help these people come into what the rest of us consider is, you know, maybe a normal thought and the ability to analyze information that could have them accept that it's a sphere, you know, that the Earth is round, we definitely shouldn't shun them and make fun of them. That's kind of what I got from the documentary.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, for me it was similar. I looked at it from a historical standpoint and just you look at the Earth being flat as a mental, as a belief, as a construct that you may have. And that's probably, if you look at the expanse of human history, more of the norm and where we are now is more the exception.
Now that's with.
As our tools of measurement became stronger and more precise, that's when that paradigm started shifting, notably once you started getting into astronomy. But even before Copernicus, there have been people who put that forth, you know, mathematicians and so forth in various cultures going back into the ancients but that never caught hold until people could actually look up with some, with a greater level of precision. So, but it unequivocally, if you're on a sphere of a certain size, looking around, it will look flat, you know, and so, like, what the folks are leaning into is kind of that initial phase of observation and just saying, look, that's. That's as far. That part makes me feel comfortable, so I'm just going to stop there. And so, yeah, it gave me an appreciation for almost like how strong our brains are and that we can kind of have lock ourselves into anything and then work our. We lock ourselves into any belief or to. Or thought process and then work backwards from there and ignore what we don't want to see and so forth and focus on what we do. And I say this, it's impressive in the sense that you can, with all of the stuff that's around, you walk around saying, I think that this thing I'm on is a flat disc with rings of ice around it, and so you can't get past Antarctica or whatever. And it's just like, wow, people genuinely believe this. It's not a troll job, at least for a good number of them. It's not a troll job. Like they're looking at. This documentary has people out there trying to look for proof and it's like, wow, that's amazing. And you know, but again, and if you, but if you Transported someone from 2000 years ago right now and, you know, had them talk to me and then had them talk to a flat Earther, they would look at me like I was crazy, you know, like, oh, yeah, around Earth. Are you talking about. Why aren't we falling off, you know, yada, yada, yada.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Well, it's. It's interesting because I'm sure, I mean, this is what got Galileo in trouble, right? Is. Is I'm sure even 2,000 years ago, there maybe there's ample evidence that cultures prior to that, you know, whether it be the Egyptians, the Greeks understood that the Earth was, you know, kind of rotated around the sun.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: That was like the elites, though, like the people building, you know, like the mathematicians and all that. It wasn't like rank and file people.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: As far as we went up, as far as we.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: That's what I mean. Like, it's just that the knowledge has been there. And I think that was probably the tension at the time too, where, you know, especially when you didn't have what we have today, right? Satellites and kind of planes where we all can go around, you Know, a lot of people have into other countries and go quickly around the world and it's like, okay, I get it. This thing is big enough that it feels flat when I'm on the ground, but I get it, it's a big.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Sphere.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: And even the ability. We have telescopes, all that kind of stuff now. But I'm sure the tension was similar back in the kind of ancient times where you're right, there was an elite and not, and I want to be careful when I say that not an elite because they're better, but an elite because maybe with wealth and time they were able to educate their kids and all that. You're right. And people doing mathematics, physics were able to come to conclusions because of, you know, just doing these things over time and having, you know, just basically science, right, Canceling out things that didn't meet equations and facts and going with those that did. And then you're right, the person that's sitting there building the temple or the pyramid and all that isn't as educated.
And I'm sure it was difficult for that educated elite class to try and educate people that didn't have the foundation of knowledge. And of course, which goes back to.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Like you said, which goes back to they didn't have the time, they didn't have the ability. They had to put food on the table. They didn't have time to be learning about abstract concepts.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: And that's why I tie into, like we see today, that I'm sure, just like today, because it's human beings, there were people within those communities and those societies that also had other ideas on what to do with the population.
So they could also drive wedges and say, well, look at these elites that think they're somewhat smarter than you.
What do they know about the world being round? And look, it's flat and da, da, da. And they use that just like we have politicians today that knock scientists and people that have to explain complex things that aren't easy to explain, that take some sort of. In order to absorb it, it takes a certain level of foundation of knowledge as well. So that's a, you know.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: But one thing I wanted to add to that also, and this to your point, the.
There's an appeal to the flat earth.
Everything is centered around the Earth. You're in a dome that, you know, is kind of like, then that's. That's all. It's all about humanity. It's all. It centers humans again into our existence. Which was part of the appeal for flat Earth in the past, was part of the Reason when the Christian church adopted it a couple, you know, 1500 years ago or whatever and kept and held onto it. And they were the ones, you know, persecuting people in the Middle Ages, you know, as far as saying that the Earth wasn't flat and we weren't, you know, the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. Like there's something that feeds that. Like the human ego is very powerful and we can't ever forget that. Like every generation, when they think that the world's going to end, they always think it's going to end when they're alive. You know, like there's a self centeredness that we have that is just part of us as well. So the flat Earth fits that as well as saying, no, no, no, we're not just some insignificant speck rotating around a sun. The sun is more important than us. The galaxy's more important than us, the universe, we're just a speck in the unit. Our galaxy is a speck in the universe. Like that really minimizes the importance of humans, you know, whereas flat Earth, someone created a disk and it's all about us. And they put all these tricks in to make us think all this other stuff and you know, like they're working extra time trying to fool us. That really centers us in our existence in terms of what all the stuff that's happening is all about doing something to or for us.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's also, I mean, you make a good point because as you're saying that I remember part of the documentary near the beginning where the main gentleman, Michael Sargent is, is, is.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of the main flat Earth guys.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I'm sorry, I think it's Matthew Sargent is, he's, he's describing why he believes the Earth is flat and his whole description is rejecting what, what kind of, you know, science has taken as fact. And most of us take a look, meaning that the Earth spins around the sun at a certain speed, but it also spins, you know, at 1,000 miles an hour or whatever on a daily basis. And he's just like, that's so implausible, all this. And then you're right.
But then they create this whole new story about the Earth being this flat disk and the, you know, that the, at the edge of the disk the ice sheets are 200ft high and that's kind of the edge of the Earth. And, and so that's what got me thinking because part of it is, I think exposure as well. And I think that's what I Kind of felt like part of this stuff is all about the experience that a lot of people have and then how it forms their belief and whether it's fulfilling or limiting.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Well, that was one of the quotes from the documentary that stood out to me was Dr. Joseph Pierre was talking about how people tend to form belief based on two things, one being their gut feel, kind of intuition and then the other being their experience.
And but what one thing that stood out to me about that was that those are feedbacks, you know, like your, your experience is going to influence your, your, your gut feel on things. Your intuition. One and two experience is very specific and limited. You know, like your experience, who you interact with.
We don't. In mathematics and so forth, there is things called sample size, which means in a one off anything can happen, it's very random. And so trying to make broad proclamations off of one off situations is very difficult because of the randomness. Sample size meaning if you have 10 or if you have 100 or if you have 10,000 or if you have 100,000 or a million examples and you take the average, so to speak, of those, then you're able to come to a much healthier conclusion because the randomness is muted out. Basically in the same way that, and I mean, just to simplify it, in a basketball game a Guy can go eight for nine for three point, you know, making threes. That doesn't mean he's 80, he's going to make 88% forever. You know, over the season it may balance out that he's hitting 40% consistently and that's. So that person is in that context considered a good shooter making 40% of those. But in any individual game they may go 0 for 5 or they may go, they may go 2 for 5, which 40% or they may go 4 for 5 or 5 for 5. And so that randomness exists in smaller samples and then you get that out in larger samples and that's kind of what you're talking about with experience. Experience is always going to be limited because you know, it's like when we talk about anecdotal performing beliefs off of anecdotal because it's always going to limit you from, to your own limited perspective and you'll never be able to have sample size from the, from just your own experience.
But I want to look at the documentary did a lot both in the subtext and then actually just outright talking about the different types of psychologies that come up with people who either desire to find and believe in conspiracy theories or that conspiracy theories or the rejection of the status quo appeals to what stood out in those areas about you or.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Oh, man, a lot stood out. Because what was interesting, I think they did a great job with this documentary of not trying to paint these people as any way. They kind of showed a different, what I would call spectrum of psychology.
So it's funny, I wrote some quotes down here, so bear with me.
Cause one guy was definitely what I would consider more fringy. And he was just what I. Well, you know, kind of a guy they gave a lot of time to in the interviews. And what I mean by fringy, I mean really out there. He said. So I quote here, Biblical cosmology is a geocentric cosmology. That's why they are hiding the truth. So for him, he was more of a paranoid guy using the they and the powers that be.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: And his was also religious based on that.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: So in order to justify some of that stuff, then he has to believe that dinosaurs weren't real. So, you know, he begins to have to take down other kind of, you know.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well, evolution is not. And then, you know, they took down evolution. Yeah. Yep.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: And like you say about the religion, then the one that. That got me that otherwise, say he's definitely more on the fringe is, you know, he said, NASA means to deceive in Hebrew. And so I kind of thought of, okay, this guy's kind of that traditional kind of conspiracy guy that's got all the kind of greatest hits, as you say about, you know, Jews are the reason, you know, everything's bad.
You know, now he's got to somehow equate NASA with deceive, you know, in Hebrew. So we know that, okay, so the Jews are to blame.
Dinosaurs aren't real. It's about the Bible. The powers that be are trying to hide us from, you know, the truth and all this stuff. So I said, okay.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: He actually used the term force sun worship.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: So I figure, okay, so he is a good example of what we would. I think most of us would consider definitely like a more fringy guy.
But that's why I said that they did a good job not painting all these people like that. So then I get back to like the main gentleman, Matthew Sargent. You know, I found him more of a kind of everyday psychologist, like a normal person that you and I could have a beer with and not think, man, this guy's absolutely bonkers. But his was more of. It was a lot for him. I felt it was just a lot of his ego, whatever he's been through in life. He found his community with this and his ability to be a leader within this community.
So there was a lot of self convincing language with him and kind of ego and emotion became attached to this story. And this, what I kind of wrote down in my notes here is a journey. And he says, once I had my arguments down over this time, he kind of got hooked. And then he says, I made connections to dots that no one had done before. So with this guy, I felt like, okay, so he's more of down, just down his own rabbit hole.
And his ego's now attached to his own kind of feeling of grandiosity that he's figured something out that no one else has. And then the last one, I'll get off my high horse here is the lady, his kind of partner, who was the other kind of, you know, one of the two main characters in the documentary. Her name was Patricia Steer. What I found interesting about her, and I know we discussed this was her psychology was similar to his of finding the kind of connecting dots where she saw and not wanting to believe kind of the greater kind of scientific story.
But she also became a victim of paranoia from those within the community that wanted to target her and say that she was fake and all that. So that was a very interesting look that you rarely see within some of the stuff that somebody who's an avid, almost like if we can call it a conspiracy theorist and kind of proud of it, then gets kind of attacked by people within her own group that are calling her fake and she can't understand why and she's a plant from the government. Exactly like.
And I just found it fascinating that wow, this like this kind of cannibalizing of paranoia within this community.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Well, and at one point she actually. You pointed this out to me. She actually was saying, man, you know, I look at how I wonder if these people actually know that they're misleading or if they just are so down that the tubes they can't see. And then that makes me question my own self sometimes.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: It was fascinating.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say for me that I would say categorically. I thought there were a couple of types of psychology that stood out that I'm not going to use any kind of technical names because I think I would rather describe them.
And these first two I want to mention are kind of related. It's kind of. There is a. They don't want you to know. Like there's and. Or I know something that most people don't like that there's an appeal to that type of kind of psychology, you see that in books, you see that everywhere. Like oh, or web pages when they're trying to get clicks. Oh, here's five things that the powers that be don't want you to know about. Blank. And there's something appealing to humans, you know, to our psychology, at least some humans, our psychology in that, like, oh, I'm going to tell you something that somebody's trying, somebody's trying to keep away from you or that most people, most of these sheep out here don't know. And there's an appeal to that, you know, like you can as long as you preface whatever you're going to say with that. You'll get some people just because they're really drawn to the idea of, of that of being in the know, being in the in crowd. And there's the other piece that stood out is I saw that people felt that or that they felt powerful themselves in rejecting what else, what the status quo or whatever the standard belief was or whatever. I'll use this term again. The quote unquote in crowd believed they felt power. There was perceived power in saying no, you know what, screw that, I don't believe that. And regardless of why they didn't believe it or their justifications they came up for not believing it, how plausible their justifications were. They felt stronger and almost like standing up to a bully and that they felt like they were this, this other stuff was being forced down their throat. And they were like, no, I'm not going to allow this to be force down my throat. I'm just gonna say no. And so I thought that aspect of it was interesting too. And so more so these types of things could. I could see how they could draw if that type of mentality was fit with someone's personality, they could be drawn to this almost regardless of the content of the. What you're saying no to. You know, you could be saying no to anything. And so like I thought that from that standpoint it was very interesting to see the types of almost personalities or psychologies that would make someone drawn to these types things. Not necessarily they're drawn because like, because of the other things, because flat earth centers humans existence and so forth, but just that this was a way to stick it to the man, you know, or this is a way to know something and be in the know on things that other people don't know. And you're then better than all these other people because you know this and they don't. And so it was really interesting. One thing before I Kick it back. Actually though, when you talked about the, you said the one guy that was really out there. I mean, I think the documentary made it pretty clear that the, the Matt Boiling guy, the guy who was a former NASA illustrator, he was the guy that was the most out there and he was attacking. That was the guy that it was positioned as being the guy who wanted to be the king of flat earth. And you know, he was almost considered the originator even by, you know, other people there. But then he wanted his own fiefdom and. But it became more of a community and less of a top down type of thing. So he became, he became skeptical of it or whatever. So. But that goes to that interplay that you're talking about where they're sniping from different camps within the same group, so to speak, or at least within the same belief, which is not that uncommon. We see that kind of thing all the time when there's people that may have a similar goal or thought process. They may not agree on everything. So it was, you know, but interesting to see those types of things at play between what you could say, the more fanatical versus the less fanatical or whatever.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and you bring up some good stuff that I'm going to follow up on. I mean it's, it stood out to me. I wrote it down here when he said that. Standing up to a bully because it's true. I mean it's interesting. I see it also what I do for a living in the financial markets, you know, like, like science and like talking about space and these big ideas or like climate change. Right. The financial markets are pretty complex and they deal and they have big numbers, right. There's trillions of dollars sloshing around every day. There's a lot of things that make markets move that is hard to understand and no one person knows it all or else somebody would have figured it out and been a trillionaire already.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: That's the guy who made the flat earth I got.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Maybe you're right, he's that rich that he just changed physics. So maybe you're right. You know what, maybe we gotta join this thing.
So. But my point is because I hear it in kind of coming from even some of my clients, right, that you know, I had one guy tell me once that the government has this secret account that they just can inject money and take money out of the markets like that. You know, just up this thing. And man, if you knew how big, like the, the just the US treasury market's $100 trillion in size. Like, yeah, for them to affect that, that block of money would have to be so big. Like, where would they even hide it? You know? And it's just, it just. So what I'm saying is that's how you get things like, oh, it's the globalists, or it's, you know, like we talked recently in a show that people start getting scared of big firms like a BlackRock or a Vanguard because they just have a lot of money and they're going to take over the world.
So it's a similar. When you said stand up to a bully, it made me think of that where.
That's where then it becomes where the sense of community is important. And we could say it this way too.
In some ways, that is a human thing, right? We could say that, let's say African Americans culminated in the 1960s with the civil rights movement as a group that was kind of standing up to a bully, quote, unquote, from a societal standpoint. And in a long, in a long, drawn out way.
And so it's fascinating because I think the new technology, as we've discussed a lot, the Internet. And like you saw how during the documentary, they'll cut back to him bragging about, oh, we got a million views on YouTube. We got this, we have this many members. And when he's talking about, I remember him, him talking about, when you believe in the flat earth, you can't really date people anymore. So we started this dating site. And what I think happens with something like this, why generally people like you and I, without kind of watching these things and thinking the way we do, tend to look at people like that as almost crazy and fringy is because we're looking at it truly just from the facts and evidence thing, like, oh, it's just, how do you think the world. Like I said, well, you could just take a flight to Australia and see that the water turns a different direction. But what we miss is that sense that it's deeper than that for them, there's a sense of community. And that, yeah, you're right. Like as a group, they're standing up for something and against someone else. And that brings me. And then I'll turn it back. That brings me back to one of the scientists near the end when they asked him, how do you think you combat this? And he was very interesting as a scientist. He said, I think actually people from my side, meaning the scientific community, are more of the problem right now. And he said, what we need to do is have more empathy. And then they went when they had the conference near the end.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Well, let me. Before you go too far away, because one of the things, though, I think you can't go too far in one direction because, yes, there is a facet of standing up to the bully, but also with someone like you, or I'm not looking to shun anyone.
And so, in a sense, you also have to keep in mind, and we saw this as well, that some who take up a belief like this, they're doing it because they want to almost be a counter culture. You know, like, they. It's not. So there could be. It could be based in a feeling of general shunning, but that doesn't mean that every single person has shunned them. And so it may be received by someone else who was just, you know, just a person is saying, oh, this person has decided they want to go in a direction that is, that pushes back against the. The norm that I am, and I'm one of the norms. And so it's. I think it's both. From that standpoint. I. The reason I jumped in, though, is because I want to discuss the point you just made.
There was Dr. Spiro Michaelicus, and at the same time, there was also, I think it was a physicist, Lamar Glover, speaking, and they had them kind of going back and forth and talked about how the scientific community is oftentimes, and then maybe the public at large is hostile to these people, and we kind of push them into these. Into the fringes or into the corners and so forth, which I thought was very interesting, but I want to talk about that. And then also just if what your reaction, and you've touched on it already, but just the extent to which community has been built around this and like, this becomes a source of joy, a source of, of, of bringing people together and almost like I said, in a counterculture kind of way, you know, like that. What, what, what was your kind of, you know, reaction to seeing how, like, it almost, it brought people together, to talking, oh, you know, it doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter what you are. If you come together under flat earth, we accept you. You know, and all that kind of stuff, which, I mean, that's, That's a great mentality to have for our community in a way.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: And, you know, there's so many other examples in life. I mean, whether you say from, you know, aa, Alcoholics Anonymous to, you know, when they used to talk about gangs like Crips and Bloods, you know, all the studies, why do young men join gangs and it's all for the same reason, a sense of community, a sense of family.
I say AA not to, you know, compare, you know, the flat earth people to alcoholics or someone with an issue like that. I just mean that people that are alcoholics usually feel outcasts from their own society. Families, things like, they go to AA because they've got to that point. And what they find there generally is a community that accepts them. Like you're saying, like the guy said, we accept you no matter what the rest of society says.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: Let me say that a little differently. Yeah, actually that's what it is. I think it's less that they lacked that before. Cause they may or may not have lacked that before. They may have turned away from that before. But more so, I think that illustrates how powerful it is to have a group in your corner no matter what, you know, whatever. And so if you're going through a tough time in your life or if your life is just tough, then having a group that you feel like accepts you no matter what is something that's very powerful and is very strengthening for people. Yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: And I think with the Internet, that's why I get back to a little bit this new technology.
And we've identified in other discussions as well, whether it was the new technologies of Cinema and radio 100 years ago that led to some disruptions in society or the new, you know, the printing press back in the Renaissance area that led to disruptions of, you know, the power of the Catholic Church in Europe.
The Internet is causing these disruptions in our society. Because one of the things it's allowing to do is get people from anywhere to be able to form a community and group and give people the emotional power and strength to have voices that they otherwise may not have had. And it's challenging, you know, our order and our status quo. And so it's, that's why it's interesting because during the conference they had the one gentleman, I don't remember, I remember he's wearing a brother with dreads with a blue shirt, a blue polo. He actually also asked the scientific community, he kind of said, he was like, if, if, you know, what we would want is for scientists and those who are like that way not to look down on us. And again, it's kind of the same message. Like at some point there's got to be a communication between, you know, that group and others. If, you know, we don't want to see this anti science type of community growth. I'll put it.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, that was the Lamar that was Lamar Glover, I believe. And he was, he was actually, he was a scientist, but he was very critical of how. What he was speaking on at that time to other scientists was people coming from non traditional places.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: And how they're treated and so how you can actually, you isolate people because of their background or whatever, and then you almost push them into these places and in fact, basically saying science is losing critical thinkers because it's not taking the time to welcome them, so to speak, and it's making them feel like their place, their, their way to their path to feel good, so to speak, is by rejecting, you know, this. Whatever the status quo is. You find the status quo and you reject it. And yeah, the, I thought the, the community piece was very important as well in that it made it look like for. Again, for certain mentalities or certain people, if you view things a certain way and not factually, but just if you, if your impression of the world, like there are different personality types, it makes it seem like the place to be, you know, like that wouldn't necessarily look to me to be the place to be. You know, I'm not. I don't view myself as kind of a. I don't have this need to rebel, so to speak. Like, and I'm not a trusting person by and large. You know, like, there are a lot of things where I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm like, yeah, you know, the standard explanation for this or the standard explanation for that, that's probably fabricated and, or it's something that has been harmonized over so people can keep making money or so that somebody can have uninterrupted power and so forth. I generally look at money and power as trying to manipulate the course of events, oftentimes in order to keep things a certain way. Like just for example, you can look at aspartame, the artificial sweetener. And there is a lot of. There's a lot out there with that in terms of whether that is something that's harmful, whether that's something that's okay, but it's something that our government allows to be sold and so forth. And so there's people, conspiracy theorists that will go and say, oh, well, this is proof that the government's trying to poison people and all that. And I look at that, I'm just like, well, no, there's somebody who's making money selling it. So of course they're going to lobby, you know, everything and they're going to have. And they've done that, you know, like, so to Me, I seek simpler answers, but that doesn't necessarily make me different or better or anything like that. It's just saying, like, there is health and good, good, good things in society for challenging the status quo.
The community, though, I think a lot of times puts that where, when there's a community involved with it, like you said, then instead of just having skepticism or saying, okay, maybe I believe, maybe I don't, it almost says, okay, if you actually come all the way down this path with us, then you then come into our group, then you then become one of us. And instead of being, okay, well, instead of being the skeptic who everybody's kind of looking at, like, you're not really with us, you know, and then you're not really with the, the, the, the people in the fringe either. You're just kind of a loner. You're just a skeptic.
It, the, it pulls you more towards the fringe because the fringe then say, hey, if you're skeptical, man, join us and we'll accept you and everything like that. So I found that the community actually does, like you said, with the Internet and having these communities virtually. You don't have to be all in the same town anymore. It actually grows the, or it enhances the appeal and it allows these things to grow even more. And from that I want to ask you, so, like, do you think this, like, kind of what we're seeing here is a regression from a consensus? You know, like there, there has been traditionally a consensus beyond the ultimate fringe, you know, absolute fringes, that the planet is a, is a globe, you know, and that it's rotating around the sun, and then the sun is, you know, our solar system, and then our solar system is moving around the Galax with a supermassive black hole in the center of it and so forth, and keep going on into eternity until infinite.
Do you see this kind of regression from consensus as more of a phase or a blip? Because the exploding types of new technology or a sign of things to come.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Man, that's tough to answer.
I think it's going to be kind of like eugenics was right. People are going to have all these ideas and they're going to want to prove them factual. And again, the kind of scientific method will win the day. Because if people are genuinely, you know, looking at facts and using physics and mathematics, you know, those kind of facts just don't change.
So, you know, we may have, you know, you and I might be long dead. It may take a few generations to cycle through this kind of stuff. To get right back to where, you know, we were when you and I were born in terms of having the majority of a population understand and have a consensus. Because it's a good, way you put it, that we're losing consensus.
And that's what I'm saying. I think it's just another period of human history where the kind of new technology and kind of just. We're coming out of the Old 20th century Industrial Age into something new, and it's causing some disruption. And you bring up a good term when you use the word skeptical, because it reminded me. They did. One of the scientists did a great job discussing this concept of what he called a skeptical observer.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is the point of science, and it's pure correct. Yeah.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: The idea is that the observer must also be skeptical of their own theory.
And with. Through observation, if their own theory and their own hypotheses are proved false, then they accept it.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: And so.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: And so it got me thinking again about things that we've had in our society, whether it be birtherism, you know, the election lies, all those kind of stuff where when people are shown proof of these things, they still tend to reject it, because now their. Their emotional and their ego is so hardened to that way of belief that then to acknowledge that they were wrong is more painful than. Than not.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: And so they addressed that, actually. Remember when they said these things become a matter of identity, like, these beliefs become part of your identity. And then therefore, you can't. You can't. You can't reject your own identity once you've. Once you've adopted the belief into your identity.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's why, I don't know if you remember, kind of. It was towards probably the last 10, 15 minutes of the documentary, where I think it was the gentleman, Matthew Chargen's mother, who he was sitting with, they interviewed, and they asked her, you know, the documentary folks asked her, do you think the earth is flat?
And so she says, I want to see proof that the Earth is not flat.
So that's kind of where I'm coming from. My prayer is that the truth will be revealed. And I thought about it, like, that's such an interesting look at how human beings think once they're baked into an idea, because like we talked about, there's all kind of evidence that the earth is not flat. Well, hold on, hold on, hold on.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Hold on, hold on. Yeah, I took that completely different than you do.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: She's being a good mom.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: I think she's being a good mom.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: I think that's who I was going.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: To sell her son out.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: All of that.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Like, part of me, part of me, I don't believe this stuff, but part.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Of me was thinking, but, I mean, I'm not going to knock her as a mom. I'm sure she's a great mom. But I was thinking, man, if I saw my kid going down this rabbit hole, you know, I'd have stepped in a long time ago and be like that. She might have. She might have.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: And then she knows her kid, you know, so maybe she's trying to maintain a relationship. I saw that as her being a good mom because she didn't say yes. So she clearly wasn't gonna encourage it. But she said what she thought she could say to not, like, just sell him out on the documentary, but also to not endorse it herself, you know, like, so I thought that she was trying to walk that line, and so I actually respected that. Like, all right. As a parent, it's like, all right, I'm sure she talked to him about it. She kind of indicated before that she had talked to him about it before, and it was just like, yeah, I'll.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Give her the benefit of the doubt. She's a great mom.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Well, let me tell you this, though, what piece you said, because you were talking about, like, with birtherism or whatever, and how people, even when proof is presented, they won't accept it. And that gets into confirmation bias and so forth. You avoid the proof. But I will say this, and that's true. That's a human thing.
And it was discussed in that. As far as the psychology of it, where once something becomes a matter of identity, it's almost, if the question is asked, what could be shown to you to show you that what you're saying is not true? If the answer is nothing, then you know, you've reached that point to where you're just in this and you're no longer there because. Because of a true and honest belief that you're on the right side, but you're there because it's just part of your identity. But scientists are guilty of this as well. Especially in our society when we're dealing with various things, whether it be pesticides or all types of things that we deal with, where the science will ultimately come out and say, hey, this isn't good.
But industry, for example, will then buy their own scientists to refute it. And it's like, well, hold on. How are you buying scientists? What do you mean? Like, so are these people not using scientific method? Like, are they dollars worth More than being a skeptical observer. And so I think we have to acknowledge our own humanity. And I think that type of stuff causes people to lose faith in science as a process because it's like, yeah, you guys are all uninterested absorbers when you're talking about my stuff, but when you're talking about, you know, some chemical that some pharmaceutical companies making, then, yeah, you guys are no longer uninterested observers. You're just like me, so to speak, and so screw your other, you know, things that you're saying with all this authority. So I get that, and I think that science sets itself up for that. But I'll say this as part of this just being part of our humanity.
Think about it like this.
We as humans don't even have a consensus on death.
You know, like. And so, like, you can look at this in the same way as you look at religion. There are a lot of things that people believe with all their heart, and that's fine. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but there is.
It's part of our humanity to believe before. And more than we can prove faith. You know, like, we believe either what makes us feel good or what makes our lives, you know, makes things simpler. So it makes it, you know, makes us allow. It eliminates cognitive dissonance, things like that. We believe things for a lot of reasons. So I don't think this is a blip. I mean, maybe the, the flat earth itself.
Belief may wane at some point, but there'll be other. There'll always be certain beliefs that are out there, so to speak, or that are easily proven as false that people will hold, I think, because I think that's just part of the human experiment. Experience.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's interesting. And, you know, it's definitely, you know, you go into the. Definitely 30,000ft with, with, with the fact that, yeah, I mean, that's, that is part of the human experience.
And I think that's what makes, you know, instead of being scared of these other viewpoints and all that, you know, I'm, I'm. I'm, you know, more seeing it as. This is what makes humanity just beautiful in its own way too. Like, this is where you get the Rembrandts and Picassos and, and, and, and the Elon Musks and, and all these others that are, you know, pushing the edge and the envelope of our cultures and our ways of thinking and nonconformity.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it.
I'm not going to do what everybody else did. Yeah.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: And this is why it never worked. Whenever someone has tried to just do something to just wipe a certain, you know, group off the earth or to control, you know, society with an iron fist, you know, too, too much and too long. Because, you know, human beings are, you know, would. They'll rebel and they'll, and they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll strive for, you know, I guess the things that are in the Bill of Rights, you know, you know, freedom individually, individuality, things like that.
And so that's where like one of the things.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Well, but I mean, I think it has worked over throughout the course of history. Those things, it just ultimately ends up falling apart. But I mean, it's not like nobody's ever been able to put those in place.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: No, I know. What I'm saying is it's really. I mean, the word that comes to mind is the word I've used in the past, Entropy. Right. Things go from order to disorder and then form a new order again. And it takes time. Doesn't happen necessarily.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: That happens in authoritarian settings, iron fist settings, and in more free settings as well.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: No, you're right. That's what I mean. Like, like, if you look at really long periods of time, I mean, most societies have been through various versions of them, you know, when given enough time. So. And one of the things that stuck out to me too was there was a gentleman who was using. He, he was interesting because he was one of the flat Earth believers, flat Earthers who actually was trying to use a scientific method to test his hypothesis. So he was. He had somehow secured a big laser that could point across miles, I guess, of distance.
And he had this whole thing that if, if the Earth is a sphere, then at some point the laser, if you're holding it up, you know, the target miles and miles away, it should. It won't be at the same distance as if you held it up, you know, right. When it's, when it's all in proximity.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be at a different height and.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: Yeah, and what he said, which was interesting to me because again, I think it comes back to some of this comes back to just people's experiences as they're forming and growing up. He said the most. And I quoted here, the most amazing thing I learned is how difficult experiments are.
I didn't give enough credit to people who do experiments.
And it kind of reminded me of a former president who, when he was campaigning is kind of like, oh, you know, we can fix health care. Healthcare is so easy. It's so easy.
And I think most people in this country recognize that the healthcare system in the United States is pretty complex. It's just not some simple wave a wand and you just change things. And then after getting through some political stuff and trying to make changes to the healthcare laws that was in place and unsuccessfully trying to make those changes, he was interviewed and in his interview he said, who would have thought healthcare could be so difficult?
And that's the thing is like, someone like me or you might say, well, yeah, well, how could you think something like that would be so easy in the first place? You got 300 million people in this country. There's all these different layers and all that. And I think with someone like this, with this laser test, like, I'm somebody who went to well funded, you know, high school, college. You know, I was, I was a pre med major actually, before I switched to finance. So I, I remember being in, in like the laboratory type of setting and doing chemistry experiments and biology dissections and all that.
But I remember doing that stuff at a younger age, like 14, 15 in high school is actually what got my mind curious about going to, you know, trying to go to med school and doing other things. And it's actually what keeps my mind curious about doing things like this podcast with you and learning things like we learn and all that. And so what it made me go back to is not that this is going to fix it for everyone, but for the larger society. I mean, education is important. And I think, you know, a lot of this also reflects the, the inability of things like critical thinking due to the lack of broad funding of education in our country for the last couple generations.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: Those two are related because the critical thinking piece, I would say even the education that we're doing now leans away from critical thinking.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: It's all standardized tests and all this stuff.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: It's memorization as opposed to thinking.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Yeah, because what he said, what stood out to me is I didn't give enough credit to people who do experiments and kind of who thought it would be so difficult. Not just thinking back. Like, I mean, these aren't things I think about every day in my 40s now. But as soon as I heard that quote, it made me just think of when I was a kid in these high school labs and experience. And it kind of like, I just remember, like, yeah, of course this isn't easy. Like, I remember trial and error.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: What I thought you were gonna say is I thought you were gonna bring up Dunning Kruger, which is, you know, one of the psychological, well, psychological aspects or conditions so to speak, where people who lack a lot of knowledge in something overestimate their proficiency. And so. And that's what that was. Basically. It was like, oh, I've looked at, I've seen, you know, with this. I've done it in my head, so let me just do it in real life. But you, you meant, you didn't mention the, the, the prior experiment. They did, remember, with the laser gyroscope, that guy and then the other scientific. Scientific ish guy. That they were trying to prove these things scientifically. Where they got the laser gyroscope, which if that was something that. If the laser gyroscope would. If it was a rotating globe, it would drift and if it was a flat earth, it would stay still. And so they got any boys, like $20,000, they bought it and they were like, yeah, we're going to prove that this thing is going to stay still. And then it drifted and they pressed. So much confusion. And they tried to modify it this way, that way, it kept drifting. And so. And then they were just like, all right, well, we just got to do something else, you know, like.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: So that was, that was the key. Because did you see at the very end during the credits they showed after the laser guys experiment also proved him wrong and proved that after the height on the.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Yeah, the height of the laser guy.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: You heard him say, well, that's some. That's interesting. It's kind of like, that's interesting. We gotta figure out what's going on.
He didn't wanna believe that it was right. And that's what got me thinking about things like the big lie with the election and all that, where no matter how many audits, lawsuits and all that go against people that think the election was stolen, it doesn't matter anymore. Right?
[00:47:48] Speaker A: And that's what that is. I think that was the key takeaway here is what you're seeing a lot of these kinds. Once it goes from being SC skeptical to being kind of baked in, the non conformity becomes part of the identity. The. Like, I cannot come back to the group. I cannot come back to say, okay, yeah, because I've made non conformity a part of my identity. And once it becomes a part of your identity, you are, you're, you're just in the bag for that no matter what happens. So that's what you observe in these cases. And that's what I think is what you want to observe. You can be skeptical, you can be open minded, but what you have to do is. And it's not easy to do because you know, this is, you know, just, this is humanity. And but you have to remain, try to not allow these things, these skepticism or of any particular thing to become part of your identity. Because once it does, you're no longer capable of thinking about it rationally and actually looking at these things critically and trying to come to truth. It only becomes about finding something that confirms your identity.
[00:48:50] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's where I think leadership becomes so important. We've seen it. I mean you talk about the big lie. I mean when you have people in power supporting these things, then it's much easier to understand that they can catch like wildfire. Because the people in these groups and who want to believe it also can point and say, well look, that person's saying it. Because one of the things I found interesting was when they were interviewing Matt Sargent about kind of how, why this is taking off now. Why is the flat earth thing in the last couple years becoming so big?
You know, he cited people like Kyrie Irving and Shaq, you know, the former NBA player and current NBA player. And he was like, well look, they're saying it, they're on this train. So it's kind of like, you know, I felt like, wow. So it's, it wants that community reinforcement, community reinforcement and to be able to say, well look, look at these guys are wealthy NBA players. If they can't be stupid, you know, they, if they're saying it, then it's okay to say it. So it's just another. That's why I felt it was such a, it was such a good way, this documentary to see this side of our society, humanity that as we said it permeates every other part, whether it's our politics, whether it's how people feel about Wall street, you know, religion, like you mentioned.
[00:50:01] Speaker A: And.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: But that's why the flat earth thing is such an interesting way because the flat earth topic is kind of a non threatening topic for most of us, you know what I mean? Like it's not as hot as religion or some of these other politics. Like questioning someone's belief system with one of those might get you shot.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: And when you say religion, by the way, it's not to question anyone's particular beliefs, it's just to point out that you are like with the premise of many religions is hey, you're going to have to believe this, whatever this is, and unquestioned, so to speak, you know, like it's going to be okay. You're going to lock in here and believe this. And like I said, with death like, death is a physiological thing, a biological thing, but then from a religious standpoint, it could be a pathway to something else. You know, like. And so that's what I mean. Like, there's no consensus there. From a humanity standpoint. Some religions might say death goes to here, or some religions say it's only temporary, and then it comes back and whatever. So with all of those, I think that if you look at it as just part of our humanity, you can understand it a little bit, and then maybe you can show some empathy for it and we can bring more people back to the fold. Because, again, I think the skepticism is good. It's just once the skepticism goes too far, then it becomes an issue. And you really bring a good point about the leadership, because I would have never thought until recently how many people could be convinced that without evidence that something like an election involving all these states, all these. It wasn't like, if you tell me the 2000 election was flipped, I could believe that. I mean, it was a Supreme Court decision that said, stop counting votes, but you're talking, like, four or five states and tens of thousands of votes, and, like, that you can convince so many people.
It shows you with leadership and repetition really can do with our humanity and once things become part of our identity. So, yeah, man.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: In other words, that's called propaganda. But that's for the next show.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there you go. There you go. So. But yeah, I mean, it's still, you know, that's propaganda, though. That plays to the greatest hits of our humanity.
That stuff works for a reason.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: So that's why I love the Wall street ones. That's why. And the guy with the NASA thing about the Jews, I'm like, yeah, it's great. The Jews are always the canary and the coal mine.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
You know, you're going down a certain path.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Once you start getting blamed, it's like, okay, I know where we're going.
I've seen this. This rodeo before, but.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: But I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate it for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. You can get us anywhere. You get your podcast, download it, subscribe, rate, review, tell us what you think. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: I'm Tundeguana.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you next time.
