886: Flat Earthers | Skeptical Sunday

22:37It's usually like, well, if you're such a effing idiot, you're so educated, Mr. Lawyer, that you would know this. And then some other people will start to be like, you're just denying God. You're going to hell. And I'm like, whoa, I thought we were talking about science and earth. And And suddenly you just went, they'll quote a Bible verse and block me or say something really hateful. Yeah. And I haven't really met anybody who's been able to sort of entertain these conversations. Not that I spend a ton of time dealing with it. It's just that usually they devolve really, really quickly into stuff like that or they stop responding.

23:08Okay. So if we can move away from these basic observations that the ancients were able to make, and we fast forward to today, we have modern science. Of course, we have satellites, telescopes, rockets. We've been to space. We've taken pictures of everything in the solar system to some degree. We've sent probes to other worlds. What is their response to all that? Is it just all fake? Yes, yes, that's it. All of that is fake. Oh, God. Space is fake. The probes are fake. The pictures are fake. It's fake. All of it's fake. It's NASA. It's the government. It's a conspiracy. It's CGI. They like to say CGI, which I don't even think they really know what that means, but that's their only tactic.

23:48If they don't like something, it's CGI, it's fake. And this is idiotic. You know, again, as we just discussed, we knew Earth was a sphere thousands of years ago. We don't need pictures of the Earth from space. We don't need to send probes anywhere. We've known it's a sphere for so long. But it doesn't work anyway when they say CGI and things like that because, you know, images of the Earth in the Apollo missions in like the 60s and the 70s, these are film photographs. There's no computer involved. They're not computer-generated images. These are film photographs. So that's number one. Number two, they like to talk about NASA.

24:21NASA does not have a monopoly on space travel. They're one of many space agencies in different countries. Other space agencies have also sent crafts to the moon and other things. So it starts to break down this narrative of one corrupt, lying organization. It just doesn't work. We have space agencies all over the world. But to go even further, even if you were going to just talk about NASA, let's pretend that only NASA has ever been to space. It still doesn't make any sense. It's NASA staffs, I don't know, 20 ,000 people, something like that. It's got an enormous staff. To think of a conspiracy where you have to spend this much money, you have to give 20 ,000 people full salaries to sit in a room and do what are they doing?

25:02They're not doing anything, right? I use this in one of my debunks. They're just George Costanza with the Penske file, right? They're sitting in the room waiting for the day to run out. Who is going to spend that much money to propagate something like this? It's not how money works. If it's a conspiracy to maintain power and wealth and you're spending this much money to propagate it, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah, that's a good point, right? Because if they're not designing rockets because rockets are fake and they're not studying space because space is fake, you have to have those people, one, salary and benefits, but two, just not say anything, not admit that they don't do anything all day.

25:36Yeah. And that seems a little bit like a little bit much. and that's just the one agency. It's like, man, so China, Russia, the United States, and what, North Korea are all in cahoots on this one? Right. Like Iran? I mean, it's a good point. There would have to be so many people, so much effort, such a monumental scheme. What is the payoff? It requires an even bigger conspiracy. Okay, so who do they think is doing this and why? Is it like the Freemasons, the Illuminati? What is it? Sure. It has to be a layer above all the national governments, right? Mm-hmm. But they don't have that. It's just the government.

26:11They don't even consider this in this like international scope. Singular global government. I don't know. It's just the man. It's essentially the man or lizard people or I don't know, just some nameless, faceless organization. Earlier, you said something about how some of them talk about God. Yeah. And so I have heard them say that the point is literally to hide God. Ah, OK. Right. So they want biblical creationism. And this is ridiculous because most people in the world believe in God. Most people. I didn't know that. And they know the earth is a sphere. So it didn't work very well if it's trying to hide God.

26:46Everybody believes in God. So some try a little harder than that. And they have like an actual objective. So earlier you were talking about the Antarctic ice wall. So yeah, you've seen the thing. You've seen the little, the dinner plate. And you've seen how Antarctica is the wall around, right? They say that there's more stuff beyond that, right? So that's not the edge. That's not the end. And if you can trek past that, there's more stuff. There's more land. There's more resources. So like there's more oil that they can have. Sure. So they're spending trillions of dollars a year to staff millions of people and build rockets that don't go anywhere so they can hide oil.

27:25That's like the best steel manning I can do on this. Yeah. So basically the Arctic Antarctic is a giant ice wall around a flat earth. And supposedly there's more, maybe that's the end, or maybe there's more behind it that the elite Illuminati lizard people are hiding because that's where they have their secret bases with unlimited amounts of resources. Pretty much, yes, that. Yeah. Apart from conspiracy, they've got to have something. They have to offer some kind of evidence supporting what they're saying. What do they bring up as evidence for a flat earth? there has to be more than just the rumors or the assertions, right?

27:59They've got to have something where they're misinterpreting or showing something. I mean, it's pretty light. Really, most of it is just pointing at real science and going, nah-uh, they don't really offer any evidence. The best that they have, and honestly, it's not that bad. If you went thousands of years ago, it wouldn't be that bad, is they just go, it looks flat, right? If you're walking around or you get on a hill and look out there, it looks kind of flat, right? And that's honestly the best talking point that they have. It looks flat. I've gotten that talking point. I had somebody tell me that the Earth was flat.

28:30This is, I interviewed Shaq, you know, because he was pretending to be a flat earther for publicity. And on my show, he's like, it's not flat, you idiots, I'm joking, right? And somebody emailed and they were like, no, the Illuminati got to him. He had to change his answer. He probably heard that it was flat at some high-level meeting where Shaq was and he accidentally spilled the beans. And I said, come on, man, what are you talking about? He goes, I'm a pilot. I've never seen the curvature of the earth. And of course my next question was what kind of planes do you fly? And the answer was not giant planes that go really high where you might see the very obvious curvature of the earth that I see when I look out the window from my plane seats when I'm flying commercial aircraft to other places, right?

29:10Yeah, or he's just lying about being a pilot in general. That's what I think, yeah. So what is it that they think they should be able to see? I mean, I don't know, it's like, Like, remember like Le Petit Prince? Remember those like little books? Sure. On the cover, you'd see the little guy and it's that tiny little planet that's got like a house and a tree on it. Yeah. I think that that's what they think that you should just walk and like feel like you're walking downhill always or something like it should be so obvious. But it's ridiculous. The earth is really, really, really big. Like if you draw a circle on a computer with, you know, a graphic software or whatever, and then zoom in, zoom in, zoom in.

29:45And let's say you could zoom in 80 ,000 times or whatever. You'd have a line. You'd be looking at the edge of the circle. It'd be a line. You could not detect the curvature if you zoom in enough. So it's just the idea of scale is just completely lost on these people. But then on top of that, you have to sprinkle in all these lies. So they claim that there's pictures of things hundreds of miles away. I've heard people say, oh, somebody took a picture of something a thousand miles away. And, you know, you've got YouTube videos, dramatic action movie soundtracks. And look at this observation. I'm busting the globe.

30:16I took a picture of something a thousand miles away. No, they didn't. No, they definitely didn't. They're always lying. They're lying about the altitude of the observer. They're lying about the height of what they're looking at, right? How tall something is. Obviously, if something's much taller, you're going to see it from further away. They're lying about how far away it actually is. They're often lying about what the object is. They'll say it's like such and such mountain that's 500 miles away, but it's actually a different, much closer mountain. They like to do the Chicago skyline from across Lake Michigan, right?

30:46And they'll say, oh, you shouldn't be able to see that. It's like 50 miles or something. But they're looking at tall skyscrapers, very tall skyscrapers. So they're taking something where they're looking up like a calculation of how far away you should be able to see something at sea level. And then they're applying that to these tall skyscrapers and neglecting to acknowledge that you can only see the tops of them, right? You can't see the front door of them. You can see the tops of them. Well, why? Why would the bottom halves be missing, right? Why are the top halves magically floating? I wonder why.

31:16Maybe it's the curvature of the earth. It's just the complete inability to apply critical thinking. This does seem like a rather weak argument, I guess. So what about their widespread science denial? What kind of science do they misrepresent to try and cobble together an argument? You touched on some of this, but it just seems like there's other incentives here, and I want to get to those in a sec, because there has to be some other reason why you would even bother dealing with this. But what other science do they say, look at this science, that says that we're right. Because I saw this documentary on Netflix.

31:48I think it was called Behind the Curve. And they're doing all kinds of stuff with lasers and everything. And they seem to have these science, but the science never works and they've always got to do a different experiment because they're looking for a specific result, right? But what kind of science have you found that they're using? Yeah, or in that particular documentary, you have the flat earthers who accidentally prove the earth is a sphere. Right, like over and over again. And at the end they go, oh man, we got to really figure out how to get to the earth is flat or we're done here. and it's all on the mic.

32:16Oops. Those are the guys actually that did that live stream initially that got me into the... Oh, okay. Yeah. I owe them a beer if I ever meet them because it definitely has been lucrative. For sure. And I have them to thank for it. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I mean, they have these like couple of little things that they latch onto, like water. They love to talk about water a lot and they have these little catchphrases. So they say, water finds its level. They all say this, water finds its level. So what they mean by that is that like, okay, if you look at a glass of water, the surface of the glass of water, it appears flat, right?

32:51If you look at a bathtub, it looks pretty flat. If you look at a swimming pool, it looks pretty flat. If you look at a pond, it looks pretty flat. So they extrapolate from that that an ocean is also flat, which is ridiculous. It's the not comprehending scale. It's about the amount of curvature that should occur over the length of these, right? How much of Earth's curvature should be visible in a glass of water? None, right? How are you going to see that there? But an ocean is really, really big, right? The Pacific Ocean spans a very sizable percentage of the circumference of the Earth, so there's going to be curvature.

33:25But they use this word level. They don't really know what level means, right? Level just means if you have a vector representing the gravitational force, so gravity is pulling everything towards the center of Earth's mass. And so you have that vector going from wherever that object is to the center of the Earth. Level means perpendicular to that. So like a little T. That's all that level means. And so water molecules are individual objects. Every water molecule is getting pulled to the center of the Earth. And so an ocean isn't like a solid block of ice. It's like extending out into space, right?

33:57They're all separate water molecules. They're all getting pulled to the center of the Earth. So a very large body of water is going to exhibit curvature because of how big it is. So looking at a glass of water or a swimming pool or whatever it is, it doesn't translate. It doesn't make sense. Ah, it just makes sense, right. So you're gonna have curvature into that body of water as well, naturally, because of, well, gravity. Yeah, gravity. You know what you definitely wanna bring on your journey to the edge of the Antarctica ice wall? Something from the fine products and services that support this show.

34:27We'll be right back. Thanks once again for listening and supporting the show. All the deals and ways to support the show are on the deals page, jordanharbinger.com. slash deals. Consider supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. How could everything be flat or level or whatever they want to call it on a flat earth? How do they explain tides? You kind of said before they need the moon inside and outside the dome that's not real. But how do they explain the tides? Yeah, this is one of the funniest things to me. It's a perfect example of how it's all ad hoc. They try to explain one little thing, but then everything else falls apart.

35:02And when you point it out to them, they just get angry. So they have this like water is level, water is flat, whatever. But tides exist, right? Tides are a thing that undeniably exists. The water level goes up and down at the coasts. So if the earth was flat, tides would be these little mounds or like little hillocks of water that just kind of float around the world for no reason. Something has to account for rising and lowering of the water level. And And so they don't even bother. It's just so funny to me that with tides, it means that even if the earth was flat, the water would not be flat or level or whatever word that they're trying to use here.

35:39So the entire talking point is completely invalidated. All you have to do is look at tides. That is the thing that exists. But they love this water stuff. They have another catchphrase. They love to go, show me water sticking to a spinning ball. Right. So the challenge is that in order to substantiate the idea of oceans adhering to a sphere, a spherical Earth, they think we should be able to wet a ball like a tennis ball, spin it really fast and all the water should magically stay on it. And they think that that's a sensical thing to say. Okay, so I do understand the logic there, but I'm a little confused about what that has to do with anything, because there's obviously other forces involved on a tennis ball that's in our atmosphere subject to the Earth's gravity.

36:24It doesn't really relate to the point they think they're trying to prove. No, it certainly doesn't, and you're right to be confused. There's a lot of stupid to unpack here. First of all, it's this thing, make it stick to a spitting ball as though the spherical shape of the earth, the sphericity is what makes water stick to it as opposed to some other shape. It has nothing to do with the shape. It's just gravity. It doesn't matter if you're holding a ball, right? It's just the earth is really, really huge. It generates a huge gravitational field. So things stay on earth. So they're complaining about a ball.

36:56It doesn't mean anything. It could be a cube. It could be any object, right? But then you have the spitting part. So the spinning part, they think that the Earth is spinning really, really fast. They go, oh, it's spinning a thousand miles an hour, blah, blah, blah. So everything should fly off. Or if you imagine like a merry-go-round that's spinning insanely fast and kids are just like flying off of it, right? The Earth spins once per day. That's literally what a day is. Think of the hour hand on a clock. You know how slow the hour hand on a clock goes? So the Earth is spinning half that fast.

37:28Oh, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. Right. That's literally what a day is. Yeah. Yes. There is a centrifugal force, though. There is an outward force due to the rotation of the Earth, but you can calculate it. It's a very easy calculation to do, and I did it in one of my debunks. It's something like 300 times weaker than the gravitational force. So nothing is flying anywhere due to the rotation of the Earth. But the third part, this is the most hilarious part. So they think that if you wet a tennis ball and the water drips off, oh, look at that. The ball didn't hold on to the water, right?

38:00Well, why did the water drip off? It falls to the Earth because of the gravity of the Earth. So this demonstration of Earth's gravity that they're looking for fails in their eyes because of Earth's gravity. That's how incredibly clueless these people are. All right, let's talk a little bit more about gravity because this is, again, confusing to me. We were all taught that planets are spheres because of gravity. Really big things crush themselves into spheres because of huge gravitational force. So how do they explain the fact that a flat Earth just isn't doing that? Do they not believe in gravity?

38:37Surprise, surprise. They deny the existence of gravity as well, just like all the CGI photos, blah, blah, blah. Gravity doesn't exist. There's no gravity. Okay, but then why do things fall down in their model of the world? I mean, certainly they can't deny that. I mean, we've all fallen down. We've all dropped things. It's true. Yeah, amazingly, they don't deny that things fall to the ground, but they have no way to explain this, but they try, bless their little hearts. So one of the things they say, it's density and buoyancy. Okay, density and buoyancy. I've heard those two terms, especially with fluids, but what does that have to do with anything here?

39:12Yeah, not much. I mean, buoyancy is a reactionary force to gravity. If you try to calculate buoyancy, there's an equation for calculating the buoyant force. It contains gravity in it. There's a G for gravity. Okay, the thing that doesn't exist, they need it to calculate the thing that they says does exist. Okay, correct. But of course, they don't know equations and physics and things like that. So get rid of buoyancy. That doesn't make any sense. But density is even worse because things fall down, right? Things accelerate towards the ground, right? And so something is causing objects to accelerate.

39:44Density is a scalar. It's just mass per unit volume. It's just how much mass is in a certain volume. It's not a force. It doesn't accelerate anything. It doesn't cause motion. You just you weigh it and you go, oh, it's this many grams per cubic centimeter or whatever. It can't make things move in a certain direction, right? You know, the acceleration due to gravity at Earth's surface is 9.8 meters per second squared. This is irrefutable. You can demonstrate this with that with any object. And this is calculated using Newton's law of universal gravitation. So you plug in Earth's mass, you plug in Earth's radius or, you know, essentially where you are and you can get this value for G.

40:20And then you can see if you change altitude, this value will change. even latitude, there's an equatorial bulge, right? So actually the radius of the earth is not constant. It's a little bit larger at the equator and a little bit smaller at the poles. Sure. So actually the acceleration due to gravity is slightly different as you change latitude. You can measure this. So this is all very flawlessly consistent. This model is everything works perfectly with it. They can't explain it away, but they bring up density because they need something. Sure. Gravity destroys everything for them. So they say density.

40:56And the reason they do this is because they know that denser things displace less dense things. So like a rock falls through the air because the rock is more dense than the air. The rock sinks in the water because the rock is more dense than the water. So this is an observation. It's a very simple observation. But they think that that's the end of the story, right? That's all they need. But they can't explain why down. They're saying that something that is more dense displaces things that are less dense. But if you drop a rock, the air around the rock is less dense everywhere. It's not just down that's less dense.

41:28Why doesn't it fall up? Why doesn't it fall sideways? Oh, yeah. I never thought about that. That's a good point. I mean, honestly, the air becomes thinner with altitude. So technically, the air above the rock is less dense than the air below the rock. So by their logic, everything should fall up. Why don't things fall up? Right. It's almost as though there's this force pulling everything to the center of the earth. and that's why things fall down. They cannot grasp this. So how do they then explain the fact that the atmosphere thins as you go up? Do they just deny that as well? Most of them do.

42:00I mean, I think that they just don't know that and then they don't wanna like learn anything. So this is actually one of their other little gotchas is they go, how does an atmosphere exist next to the vacuum of space? And so what I imagine is in their heads is that they think that science proposes that you have this thick atmosphere, right? You've got this gaseous atmosphere with no variation in density. It's just the same everywhere. And that goes up and up and up. And then there's an arbitrary line where it stops and then space. They know that space is a vacuum, but they don't know what a vacuum is.

42:32So they think a vacuum is like a vacuum cleaner. Space should be sucking all of the atmosphere up into space. There's a lot to unpack with that. Yeah, I just remember learning all of this in like elementary school and middle school. Okay, so gravity keeps the air here just like everything else. The atmosphere thins as you get higher. I mean, it's so painful because I've tried to come out this with an open mind because I watched a bunch of flat earth videos thinking like, okay, I don't want to get one side of the story. A lot of what they see is even more ridiculous than I expected. We didn't even necessarily cover some of the stuff where they're just like, well, God, well, magic.

43:05It's weird because I don't care if you're an atheist. A lot of my very religious friends are not like, yeah, there's a magic dome above the earth and there's angels above that. And the stars are just little holes in the firmament where divine light shines through. It's like, that's just kooky. So how does the fad even exist right now? Why are people falling for this? Why is this revived? Or was it always around and we just didn't pay attention to it? It's a very good question. It's very hard to answer, especially with the internet. I mean, it is a revival. This isn't like a new thing. There was actually a wave of this in the 19th century.

43:42There was this guy called Sam Robotham, I think is what his name was. He wrote this book, Zetetic Astronomy, and he was peddling all really kind of the same stuff that they all say. But he would kind of travel around and peddle this stuff and like sell things and, you know, just be kind of like a snake oil salesman with this stuff. But then I can't quite pinpoint when it was. It might have been around 10 years ago or so. This started resurfacing on the Internet. And so there's a lot of people who are like, oh, this was like a meme on 4chan. And people were like trolling with the dumbest thing that they could think of.

44:13And then some people took it seriously and started running with it. Some say it was a psyop. by the CIA to like see what the dumbest thing is that they could get people to believe. I mean, that sounds like a lot. It's actually not that ridiculous. I don't know if I believe that or not. But whether it is people actively trying to manipulate the masses in accepting outrageous falsities, like to see what they can get away with in the future, or if it's just grifters, it got a little bit of traction. It's not that popular. There's not that many people who fell for it. but you now have like this little community of flat earth priests that are vying for supremacy or you know each of them wants to be like the top flat earther and have like the most accolades like the most respect in their little community and they have their little videos and they have their live streams they even have like a little conference that a couple hundred people go to and they make money off of this they sell apps they sell shirts they have like this little bit of celebrity status in the community so they're not going to give it up i mean the main ones they know that they're full of it.

45:11They know it's crap, but it's their social circle. It's their self-worth. This is all they have. So it's very sad, but I think that's the case. Yeah, I think this makes a lot of sense. And I saw, again, documentaries about this, not least of which is Behind the Curve, which we'll link in the show notes. They sell books, they sell models, they give talks that are probably paid, or at least it gives them a chance to shill their books. And yeah, they're getting online clout. They've got their social circle or their fame from that little niche that they've carved out where like they're the guy who came up with a way to explain the tides.

45:42So they're like the Nobel prize winning scientist in their little corner of nonsense, non-science, because they're the ones that came up with a way to explain something that everybody else knows is false. And it's just, it is a grift is where I'm leaning. Like if I found out podcasting was killing puppies every time I released an episode, I would feel bad for a second and then cognitive dissonance would kick in and I'd start saying, well, there's too many damn puppies anyways. I'm doing a public service, getting rid of the extra puppies because I can't stop podcasting because this is how I make my living.

46:13And I don't want to stop podcasting. The thing is, I can podcast about whatever I want. I don't have to pick something because I know someone's going to go, aha, he admitted that he's biased because no, I can podcast about rainbows if I want to. I don't have to podcast about flat earth just to burst this bubble. But I really think the social angle is interesting because this is the grift. This is how they're making their money. This is Now they're getting their ego stroked. And so their incentives are spread this far and wide so that they get more members of this kind of ridiculous, goofy cult.

46:42Yeah, no, that's true. And in fact, many of them end up moving on to like QAnon or anti-vax or other like NWO stuff. What's NWO? New World Order and like shadow government and stuff because they have this flavor of global conspiracy. But any flat earther that starts doing this, within six months starts to quickly realize, oh my God, this is totally indefensible. There's no way to pedal this without sounding like an idiot. So some of them hang on to it. Some of them kind of start to move on, but it's just really weird. It definitely seems like it's fading at best. It's holding steady. It's definitely not growing.

47:23I mean, you can look at like the numbers on these channels because they have their little live streams weekly, or some of them do it daily. and the numbers are abysmal. They'll get like less than a thousand people on the live stream. So it's like if there were millions of people waking up to the truth, this is their identity. They'd be watching this stuff. And I do think that content from myself, there's other debunkers as well. I think it does help because there are people who are vulnerable and might fall for some of this stuff. And if they can see somebody in a very articulate manner, just break down the ridiculous things they're saying and show how idiotic they are, it can help people kind of come back to sanity.

47:58I've definitely had people email me and just be like, wow, dude, I'm a little embarrassed, but I almost fell for that. Thank you. You showed me how ridiculous it is. But, you know, again, it's a gateway conspiracy. So every flat earther is a climate denier and a moon landing denier and an anti-vaxxer and ended chemtrails. And it's the bottom of the barrel. So there's no such thing as a flat earther who doesn't subscribe to some other conspiracy. They subscribe to all of them because it's the most preposterous one at all. So, you know, I don't fixate on flat earthers anymore. I mean, I did my fair share of debunks because it was fun and silly.

48:31But, you know, I have moved on. You know, it is all intertwined, right? We can't really ignore any flavor of science denial. It's all a rich tapestry and it is doing tremendous damage to society. So it's good to keep it on the radar, I guess. Yeah, thank you so much. We're going to be doing more Skeptical Sunday episodes with you, with Andrew Gold as well. So really appreciate it. And thank you for sharing some insight into this bizarre pseudo cult, Dave. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Hope you enjoyed this one with Dave. We're going to have more with Dave and from Andrew Gold.

49:03Don't worry, we've got a good rotation of Skeptical Sunday coming here. All suggestions are always welcome. Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We always get something wrong in each of these episodes. I know you want to let me know, and I always appreciate it when you do. When you do, try to leave us a suggestion for a future episode as well. Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts in the show notes. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram, or connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Dave at Professor Dave Explains on YouTube.

49:33Of course, we'll link to that in the show notes as well. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who needs to hear it, like somebody who thinks the earth is flat. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on this show so you can live what you listen.

50:05And we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview of The Jordan Harbinger Show about why people believe and want to believe conspiracy theories. Pretty much anybody can fall for these theories. Pretty much anybody can start watching a YouTube video. and because a lot of these YouTube videos are very, very compelling, then they get sucked into it and they start believing one thing and then they start believing another thing. It becomes very understandable that they would believe these things. It's just regular people who have just kind of got sucked down a rabbit hole. It may seem ridiculous to everybody else, but from their perspective, it makes perfect sense.

50:42They're doing it because they think they're on the side of good. So that's one of the reasons why I debunk. I want people to focus on real issues and not on the fake issues. When people start to make significant life decisions based on their conspiracy theories is where it becomes a problem. Getting out of the rabbit hole isn't just like casting away all these false beliefs. It's kind of climbing up into a world that's composed of all these new real beliefs into the light, the actual real things that are going on. And you can see more clearly what's going on in these other areas because you've got the light of reality helping you there.

51:17There's harm done to the world, I think, if a significant number of people are making decisions based on things that are entirely false, things that are anti-science. My whole reason for doing this is based around increasing the amount of truth in the world, increasing the amount of facts and science in the world. But if things are left unchecked and if conspiracy theories continue to rise, there is this growing division within the country. So that could be a dangerous thing. To learn how to help our friends and family escape the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, check out episode 363 with Mick West on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

52:16and misinformation. It's called the Conspirituality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future, to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies. An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that.

52:46From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspirituality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspirituality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored in part by Everything Everywhere Daily. You've heard the phrase, learn something new every day. Sounds nice, but do you actively do it? That's where Everything Everywhere Daily comes in. This podcast makes it effortless. Just 10 minutes a day, you'll walk away with a fascinating fact, a slice of history, a science gem.

53:14It's no wonder the show has climbed up to the top as the number one history podcast. It covers history, science, technology, geography, and stories of remarkable people, always in a way that keeps you hooked. Not sure where to jump in? Start with these favorites. The eruption of Krakatoa, nature's fury in one of the deadliest volcanic events ever recorded, or the spice trade, how a handful of spices changed the course of global history. If you want to make learning effortless and fun, check out Everything Everywhere Daily. It's quick, fascinating, and a perfect way to stay curious. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.