oursin: Hedgehog saying boggled hedgehog is boggled (Boggled hedgehog)
oursin ([personal profile] oursin) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2024-09-09 12:08 pm

Well, this is at least a bit, er, unusual

I am falling for an amazing woman who is a flat-earther. Can I reconcile my diminishing respect?

I am a divorced man, raising two sons alone and getting back into the dating world at 43 years old. I am a few months into dating this absolutely amazing woman and I’ve enjoyed it very much. She seems to be the total package in many, many ways! She is kind, thoughtful, empathetic, soft, genuine, intuitive, honest and many more beautiful characteristics. I truly am falling for her and I feel we could have a long, beautiful future, but I just recently found out she is a flat-earther. I was absolutely shocked. At first, I thought she was kidding. After some discussion, she deeply believes flat earth conspiracies, suggests that I’m just following what I’ve been told, and does not seem very receptive to learning more about it.

I cannot eloquently explain how disappointed I am, or why! It defies all logic, observable facts, and is absolutely absurd. I feel like I’ve lost so much respect for her and I cannot seem to reconcile that feeling with how I care about everything else she is. And to make matters worse, she is teaching her kids to believe the same thing. I am a very mathematical and science-oriented man and I could even sit her down and show her some basic maths, but I doubt that would go well!

How should I handle this? She seems annoyed when I bring it up, and I probably didn’t handle it very well at first. I seriously care for her but I also am struggling with respecting anyone who believes such a nonsense conspiracy theory they learned about on YouTube. Please help!

Eleanor says: I like the idea that there’s something intellectually deficient about you “following what you’ve been told”, when she learned this from YouTube, and when she’s teaching her kids to follow what they’re told – by her. This is one of the big problems with fighting conspiracy theories: they often don’t have much internal logic. What counts as evidence? What counts as falsification? Under what circumstances are you meant to believe stuff? Instead of consistent answers to those questions, conspiracy theories often give you principles topiaried to fit the target belief.

At one level, yours is a question about what role beliefs should play in a relationship. To be sure, some people can set aside deep disagreements in loving relationships (though usually the disagreements are moral or political).

But some beliefs aren’t so easily set aside.

Our beliefs aren’t just a barometer of what we think is true. They’re also bound up with what we value; our attitude to how thinking itself should work. What do you trust? What kinds of error will you risk? When will you count something as true? All of us have to navigate these questions daily as we figure out what to doubt and what to treat as settled. They’re not easy questions. As William James pointed out: “believe truth” and “shun error” are two materially different goals that tend to pull in opposite directions.

Each of us has the chance to decide what kind of thinker we’re going to be; which values to embody in our mental lives. That freedom can be the ultimate realisation of adult agency. To discover that someone you fancy has used it to just stick YouTube in one ear and be done – that would be disappointing.

So here’s my question to you: you obviously face a huge disagreement of fact. To what extent do you also have a disagreement of value? Is this a weird one-off belief that doesn’t make sense with the rest of her mental life? Or is this how you find out her answers to what she values, what she’ll risk and who she trusts?

It’s one thing to have some topics where each of you is pretty sure the other is wrong. It’s another thing to have totally different attitudes to how thinking itself ought to work. This disagreement isn’t just about whether the Earth is flat. It’s also about the whole mental ecology that gave rise to that belief.

If what you have here is actually a deep value disagreement, that might start to grate on her too. Nobody likes to feel condescended to. She’ll be able to sense it if you feel like you’re deigning to stay with her, and it won’t serve either of you to wind up in a dynamic where you’re the rational one and she’s the fool. If you’re going to be together, it has to be as equals.

A relationship can go fine despite a difference in belief. A difference in deep values is much harder. Only you know what you’re facing here, and whether you can respect each other despite it.

lokifan: black Converse against a black background (Default)

[personal profile] lokifan 2024-09-09 12:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, my understanding is that statistically believing in one conspiracy theory usually means you believe in multiple, especially with something as extreme as flat-earth. I actually like the answer here, because it's absolutely true that it's not a question purely of the individual silly belief but everything underlying it.

For me, I do think I'd need to at least broadly align on questions of which authorities we trust and why with any long-term partner, even if we come to different conclusions on particular individual questions.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2024-09-09 12:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I was going to say something similar. There are reasons why people who believe one conspiracy theory are likely to believe others. It seems to be partly that conspiracy theorists share an attitude of "we know the Truth, all the so-called experts are lying to you, but we're smart enough to see through it" and partly that it's self-reinforcing. Someone who believes that the Earth is flat, or that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the US government for nefarious reasons, or that covid is harmless (but also a nefarious Chinese plot to destroy America) spend time with people who share that belief, who rarely believe in, or talk about, only that single shared conspiracy.

Which leads to things like RFK Jr. not only believing and spreading lies about childhood vaccines, but tweeting recently that he intends to Do Something about the chemicals that people think are in airplane contrails.
lokifan: black Converse against a black background (Default)

[personal profile] lokifan 2024-09-09 12:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Yep! I'm in the UK so the specifics are different, but my BFF's sisters believe a whole mix of 15-minute cities, elites want to bring the global population down to some tiny number, autism is caused by heavy metals*, chemtrails, blah blah blah. I don't know if they'd be vaccinated for covid if their mum wasn't a retired nurse and highly vulnerable, so someone who was willing and able to push.

*apparently more heavy metals around does make autism more likely, but the conspiracy theory version is wildly OTT and often leads to mistreatment of autistic kids
jadelennox: Michael Gorman, former ALA president: "I R SRS LIBRARN. THIS R SRS THRED" (liberrian: lol gorman)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2024-09-09 02:15 pm (UTC)(link)

yeah, once you believe that, at a minimum, tens of thousands of scientists, public servants, and mathematicians, and engineers are lying to you for no particular gain, you're going to believe a whole lot of unhinged. there's no way around it.

melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2024-09-09 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I think it's not entirely true that believing in one conspiracy theory means you will believe in others - even most hardcore skeptics have one or two things that might fall under "conspiracy theory" that they believe in. And some "conspiracy theories" do turn out to be true! (For example, I don't think anyone who believes "many religious organizations have been covering up widespread sexual abuse by people with power" or "a lot of police departments cover up misconduct by officers" is particularly likely to fall for false conspiracies.)

But once you have accepted anything that requires "at a minimum, tens of thousands of scientists, public servants, and mathematicians, and engineers are lying to you for no particular gain," and this has been going on for generations, and the coverup is so solid that it holds together more logically than the truth -- you've accepted the over-conspiracy, and over the last 20 years that has basically become synonymous with the old-fashioned anti-semitic archconspiracy, even if individual adherents don't quite realize it.
Edited 2024-09-09 17:57 (UTC)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2024-09-10 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I think the "no particular gain" part is important here. Those cover-ups of widespread sexual abuse were and are partly about abusers protecting each other, because they want to stay out of jail, and keep their jobs and their good reputations.

Even some of the anti-vax conspiracy theories come with a reason for why the alleged conspirators are lying about vaccines (often the belief that doctors are getting rich from selling vaccines).

I have yet to see a Flat Earth claim that contains any motivation beyond "They don't want you to know the Truth."
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2024-09-10 05:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Flat Earthers will give motivations that make sense to them - there's a die-hard cohort around since the 15th century who still think the Earth is flat because the Bible says so, and any evidence otherwise is just Satan tempting us. But yeah, the current crop since it got inexplicably popular on Youtube a few years ago, if they give any motivation at all, mostly say that The Cabal is using it to test their methods - after all if they can get people to believe the earth is round they will know that those people are ready to believe *anything*! (not stopping to consider that this argument works a lot better in reverse, like a lot of conspiracists' arguments.)

And not to online diagnose, but a lot of the people most firmly in those worldviews are pathologically paranoid in that way that runs into solipsism - the conspiracy isn't targeting the whole world, the conspiracy is targeting *me*, I'm living in a smoke-and-mirrors world where everybody I know and everything on TV is lying to me, in particular, because I am a Target because of (things my brain is certain are true for mental illness reasons.) The internet has made it really easy for people in that situation to find other people who will reinforce them in really bad ways, unfortunately.
ioplokon: purple cloth (Default)

[personal profile] ioplokon 2024-09-09 01:42 pm (UTC)(link)
The real question is who does she think is concealing the shape of the earth, and for what purpose. Generally the answer is uh... bad.
jadelennox: Michael Gorman, former ALA president: "I R SRS LIBRARN. THIS R SRS THRED" (liberrian: lol gorman)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2024-09-09 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)

ooh, ooh, I know this one! It's the Jews.

(It's always the Jews. Sometimes it's the Masons, but usually that's because the Masons are vaguely exotic and dangerously eastern and Jewish.)

lilysea: Serious (Default)

[personal profile] lilysea 2024-09-09 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
while I am aware of the historical context (blood libel, pogroms, antisemitism and more)

conspiracy theories which posit a secret Jewish organisation pulling strings behind the scenes always seem so utterly irrational

because if a Jewish organisation had that kind of power, there wouldn't have been a holocaust which killed 6 million Jewish people.

Like, surely if there was a secret organisation [which I don't believe for a minute], it would be white AngloSaxon Protestant cis heterosexual men running it?

But I guess people who embrace these kinds of conspiracy theories have utterly abandoned all logic.
adrian_turtle: (Default)

[personal profile] adrian_turtle 2024-09-09 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
because if a Jewish organisation had that kind of power, there wouldn't have been a holocaust which killed 6 million Jewish people.

Aha! So you see how it all fits together! The conspiracy theorists understand [as you and I and the mainstream media and all the historians of "reality" do not], that there was NOT a holocaust which killed 6 million Jewish people. Jews just say there was, to make respectable right-wingers look bad. Something something woke virtue-signaling...

https://conspiracychart.com/

princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2024-09-09 03:38 pm (UTC)(link)
thanks for the link to the chart. that's really great.
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2024-09-09 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)

because if a Jewish organisation had that kind of power, there wouldn't have been a holocaust which killed 6 million Jewish people.


Which is why "it didn't happen" or "it happened but it wasn't nearly as bad as six million people" is central to nearly all of them.

(Except one weirdo fringe which claims it did happen, but it wasn't Hitler's fault, some of his buddies did it for him as a gift. I don't even know what they're trying to promote here. Like, I understand "mainstream" Holocaust denialism, but wtf even is this one?)
dabbleswithpoisons: (Default)

[personal profile] dabbleswithpoisons 2024-09-09 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I mean, some people do also claim that it *did* happen, a bit, but (((The Zionists))) did it in order to guilt the rest of the world into letting them do genocide etc, so there's that.
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2024-09-10 05:45 am (UTC)(link)
That’s new to me, but it makes sense as an argument - you hate the Jews and would like to discredit them, well, they killed millions of their own is definitely gonna discredit them.

Of course, and this goes without saying but I’d rather be sure, it’s untrue and slanderous.
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[personal profile] dissectionist 2024-09-09 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
And even if right now it’s the only conspiracy she believes in, I’d think the chances are near-certain that it’ll expand over time as she gets radicalized into other batshittery. What happens if the next one is QAnon or a similar conspiracy that generally leads to harm against others and/or self-harm?
matsushima: but love has left a window in the skies (truth teller)

[personal profile] matsushima 2024-09-09 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
"Flat Earth" is past the antisemitism point of no return on the Conspiracy Chart, way up there in "detached from reality"-land with Qanon and more obviously abhorrent beliefs. I guess someone who thinks there's something off about the official narrative of JKF's assassination might be a little bit of a weirdo but otherwise grounded in reality…

…but someone who believes the earth is flat? … yeah, no. LW needs to dump her, change his phone number, and not ever let her near his kids.
Edited 2024-09-09 22:00 (UTC)
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2024-09-09 11:13 am (UTC)(link)
It defies all logic, observable facts, and is absolutely absurd.

Believing a conspiracy theory is a lot like joining a cult - the facts don't matter, the feelings do. There's something she's getting from the belief and, I'm guessing, the community of other flat-earthers that's filling some sort of need. If LW is trying to apply reason, that's why he's failing.
minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)

[personal profile] minoanmiss 2024-09-09 12:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh hey I've (kinda) been here. I was getting to know a beautiful girl when I found out she was a Creationist, and (not least since I'm an exvangelical) I just could not anymore. I felt like a dreadful snob but I knew I could not reconcile with the Creationist view of the world and of science and of logic. I'd spent my childhood trying to do so.

She was so beautiful, but I couldn't.
Edited 2024-09-09 12:13 (UTC)
adrian_turtle: (Default)

[personal profile] adrian_turtle 2024-09-09 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I can see that. I can accept Theistic or Old Earth Creationism, (though I understand why it might be triggering to someone with your background.) Young Earth Creationism shows a whole different approach to reality.
Edited (Added "theistic") 2024-09-09 16:42 (UTC)
dabbleswithpoisons: (Default)

[personal profile] dabbleswithpoisons 2024-09-09 07:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I think that's the core of it, isn't it? It's fundamentally not 'can I be with someone who believes this particular thing?', it's 'can I be with someone who *has a whole different approach to reality*?'
minoanmiss: Nubian girl with dubious facial expression (dubious Nubian girl)

[personal profile] minoanmiss 2024-09-10 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Yep. As a black girl I had already tried dating people with a whole different view of reality than mine and I had learned it did nothing but cause my harm.
princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2024-09-09 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a strange and interesting problem. I know a guy who otherwise is totally functional and intelligent, trained as an engineer, but he belongs to a cult based on interstellar aliens intervening to shape life on Earth.

Luckily I never was faced with the decision on whether to date him.
lilysea: Serious (Default)

[personal profile] lilysea 2024-09-09 02:28 pm (UTC)(link)
My father has ***a geology degree*** and works as a geologist

but was a creationist christian
princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2024-09-09 03:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, the amount of compartmentalization needed to make that work is pretty boggling.
minoanmiss: Minoan youth carrying vase, likely full of wine (Wine)

[personal profile] minoanmiss 2024-09-09 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
My mother was a microbiologist and a creationist christian. *gives you a rueful smile and a fistbump*
lilysea: Serious (Default)

[personal profile] lilysea 2024-09-09 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
My first concerns would be

1. is she fully vaccinated against COVID, measles, polio, whooping cough etc?

2. does she go to the doctor when she gets sick? does she take antibiotics or antifungals when it is medically appropriate to do so?

basically, I'd worry that flat earther = also doesn't subscribe to modern medicine, in a way that may endanger LW and other people
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)

[personal profile] cimorene 2024-09-09 02:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah exactly. Conspiracy theories are a problem that usually has severe practical implications eventually because they don't believe in science or evidence-based knowledge.
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2024-09-09 02:10 pm (UTC)(link)

I almost posted this one, it was a doozy.

matsushima: but some nights I still dream of you (dead dreams)

[personal profile] matsushima 2024-09-09 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
She is kind, thoughtful, empathetic, soft, genuine, intuitive, honest and many more beautiful characteristics.
🚩🚩🚩

Maybe I'm overreacting but this is how everyone describes cult leaders before the whole situation goes to hell.
Edited 2024-09-09 22:02 (UTC)
castiron: cartoony sketch of owl (Default)

[personal profile] castiron 2024-09-10 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
You know, LW, there are quite a lot of kind, thoughtful, empathetic, soft, genuine, intuitive, honest, etc. women out there who aren't conspiracy theorists. What say you find one of them?
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)

[personal profile] firecat 2024-09-10 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
I know most people aren’t like me in most ways, but I find it difficult to imagine the kind of dating where it takes a few *months* to discover the person one is dating has beliefs this wacky (unless they’re deliberately hiding it). I mean doesn’t everyone begin falling in love by staying up all night sharing opinions on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and doing mutual dives into Wikipedia, etc.?
librarygeek: cute cartoon fox with nose in book (Default)

Must be an inlander, Islanders can see the curvature

[personal profile] librarygeek 2024-09-10 12:54 am (UTC)(link)
I was born and grew up a block from the Atlantic Ocean. I used to look out the third story window and watch the ships, including sailing ships. I would idly watch for the top of the ships at the horizon line regularly.

I sincerely hope that woman never goes to the ocean, her own observations could give her a panic attack. But that's as much care as I could extend to her, if I met her in person, I'd probably be excusing myself from the conversation as quickly as possible!

As hospital chaplain intern, I did hear some pretty odd beliefs, but flat Earth out of touch with reality and the level of medical crisis needed for intake at a major teaching and research hospital... That's when I know to get one of the senior chaplains. I'm not to change their beliefs, but I also know when I'm over my head! Every patient deserves spiritual/emotional support, but I may not be the right person for this patient.
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2024-09-10 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
How long have you been dating, sir? If she is your first serious contact: don't just run, but OMG RUN NOW.
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2024-09-10 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)
I was thinking about his dating time post-divorce. And the way some men don't like to be wifeless long. One of my friends had his mother die, and his father was married again about three months later. (I don't know what sect, but it is a nasty and *-phobic one.)
bikergeek: cartoon bald guy with a half-smile (Default)

[personal profile] bikergeek 2024-09-10 05:12 am (UTC)(link)
When I first encountered Flat Earthism I thought it was a spoof, kind of like "Birds Aren't Real", intended to mock conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.