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In Search Of A Flat Earth

Folding Ideas · documentary · Watch on YouTube

Media, journalism & propagandaGaming culture & analysisReligion, belief & skepticism

What it is

Dan Olson's 76-minute essay on flat earth belief, built around a hike to a lake to test earth's curvature. It examines the community, how YouTube promoted it, and how it connects to wider conspiracy thinking and QAnon.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN treats it as the definitive, compassionate documentary on why people fall into conspiracy theories.

  • 17 people recommended it
  • 15 different months
  • 9 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “this video is invaluable”

    Explains how flat earth anti-intellectualism led to QAnon

    listennexttime, 2020-09 · Strong recommendation · in “Remembering my father”

  2. “A fantastic video on the topic of difficult to debunk, but easy to produce content”

    Difficult to debunk but easy to produce content

    jesseryoung, 2021-02 · Strong recommendation · in “Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]”

  3. “probably the best documentary I have seen on conspiracy theories.”

    Documentary on conspiracy theories

    th0ma5, 2021-05 · Strong recommendation · in “There’s no such thing as a tree, phylogenetically”

  4. “complete with a nifty and thorough visual experiment on the roundness of the Earth”

    Compassionate documentary with lake experiment on earth's roundness

    MrAwesome, 2022-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Study conspiracy theories with compassion”

  5. “A great documentary on the topic by Dan Olson aka Folding ideas”

    Why flat earth belief persists as in-group test

    cyborgx7, 2022-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Umberto Eco on common features of fascism (2016)”

  6. “One of the best analyses of this whole thing I've seen”

    Absurd beliefs as in-group shibboleth

    jiggawatts, 2023-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Interesting”

  7. “Explores flat earther mindset and shows curvature visually”

    fallingfrog, 2023-06 · Strong recommendation · in “Dunning–Kruger effect and flat-earthers: An exploratory analysis”

  8. “There's a marvelous video [1] that Dan Olsen of Folding Ideas did as a deep dive”

    Deep dive into why people join communities like flat earth

    tenacious_tuna, 2023-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Who's Seeking New Friends?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: flat earth, folding ideas, qanon, youtube algorithm, misinformation, dan olson

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