Just a thought experiment, let’s say the earth is flat, looks like many professionals would know, including

  • Pilots/ATC/sea captain

  • Land surveyor and civil engineers

  • Astronomers and Geologists, at least the one dealing with experimental data

  • Militaries, at least radar operator and artillery

Just these categories are already a lot of persons, I assume I miss a lot of others. So how many person does it make in total ? 10 % of the population ?

  • neidu@feddit.nl
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    10 months ago

    Anyone who lives near the sea an can see ships disappear behind the horizon.

  • Omnificer@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The guards that patrol the ice wall.

    Entirety of NASA. Entirety of NOAA. Meteorologists. Cartographers. Everyone who works on Google Earth. Every engineer who works on satellites, rockets, and planes. Physicists.

    However, I do think 10% is probably too high an estimate. While these are a lot of people in a lot of areas, they represent pretty small demographics each.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Literally everyone with eyes and a functioning brain who has ever charted the starts, flown in a plane, or looked out to sea. I’d wagers that’s far more than 10%.

  • chaogomu@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    Since flat earth nonsense is just rebranded creationism, the only being who really needs to be part of the conspiracy is satan.

    Then anyone who tells you that the earth is round is either deceived by satan, or is a satan worshiper.

    This makes it super easy to dismiss anything that would hint at reality, like ships sailing over the horizon.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    GPS is in on the hoax, too. Think about how much they had to hide the fact that those satellites can’t “orbit” a flat disc…

  • Wolf Link 🐺@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The entirety of Australia, because Flat Earthers often deny that this continent even exists and claim that it’s the “counterweight” of the plate or some sh*t like that, and everyone living there is a paid actor employed by NASA to cover up The Truth

    No idea what Flat Earthers living IN Australia think of this tho…

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      10 months ago

      The thing about flat earthers is that they don’t believe one thing, pretty much every group has a different believe system. The chance that a globe eartger and a flat eather have a similar system they believe in is higher than a flat earther and another random flat earther.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    10 months ago

    I was going to add other groups that would have to be in on it, but it is only required that you are all not real.

    I am real. My family is real. But outside maybe 30 miles from my house, no one else needs to be real.

    Sure, I can and have driven farther, but the trackers alert the actors. This has the advantage of the Earth’s population can be just a few hundred thousand total.

    Why? Clearly, I am the last truly important person, for reasons that are not yet clear.

    So … 50,000 people are in on it at least. And they are… 40%+ of the Earth’s population.

    Edit: to finish the thought. OP’s 10% puts those in on it at 800 million people. My 50 thousand is a much smaller number.

  • s38b35M5@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    You’re forgetting that with the microchips in vaccines, they can control our thoughts, so most of the participants don’t need to be willing or aware. Cuts it down to just a few people in control of the 5G vaccine chip program.

    You’re welcome.

    • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      And the “few people in control” are members of which out-group…? All aboard to Q-land, everyone. Final stop, domestic terrorism.

  • Ryru Grr@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Mathematicians. On a sphere, you can make a triangle that consists of three 90 degree angles, adding up to 270. A flat triangle will require that all angles add up to 180, i.e. 60, 60, 60.

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’m not sure that works though. For it to have all three angles at 90 degrees, wouldn’t it need to cover a full 1/8th of the planet? Flat earthers would at lest understand that much. They would just deny anyone had measured that accurately. After all, anyone could go up in a spaceship to see the true shape of the earth, but only bigger governments and a few shitty billionaires have the means to do so.

  • Conyak@lemmy.tf
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    10 months ago

    More than just people. Some form of greater intelligence has to be at work since anyone can run a simple experiment to prove it’s round.

    • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      The ending of the Netflix documentary where the flat earthers prove the earth is round is hysterical.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    This is a bit extreme, but maintaining a conspiracy with lots of “insiders” isn’t impossible. Just think of how many people worked on the Manhattan project.

    First you compartmentalize, so that only a core few know the whole picture. Then you threaten everyone involved with serious jail time for informing. (This is why we know Bob Lazar is full of shit, where he telling the truth, he’d be in prison)

    It’s true that secrets can’t be kept forever, but they can be kept for a while.

    The flaw in flat earth is not the number of conspirators, but the purpose of the conspiracy. It all falls apart when we ask why the government wants to keep flat earth from the public.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Manhattan leaked before they even started work.

      From memory, a sci-fi magazine seller figured it out, just based on address changes. He even figured out it was likely an attempt to make an atomic bomb. The USSR also had it completely compromised. The first soviet bomb was basically a direct copy of the American one.

      That was also with most/all the workers in 1 location. They also had a very good reason to maintain security (grunts on the ground, not just leadership).

  • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    10 % of the population ?

    More or less… good estimate BTW.

    In any case, a lot of people… way too many to cover up a lie that big.

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
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    10 months ago

    It’s actually just me. I mind control everyone else. It’s easier if I have some “nutjobs” as an opposition who know the real truth. And more fun for me.