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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2805 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is the earth actually flat?

My feeling is:

It's not about the truth. It's about them being recognized through the effort they put into their conviction. Most of them aren't crazy enough to actually believe it. Many of them believe it because it's a controversial subject - i.e. it causes people to get angry, not that it's actually of any value - and they want to feel like they know the truth, even if there's a ton of evidence against their belief three seconds of googling away.