I heard this story once where someone claimed to know originators of flat earth nonsense were college kids trying to be funny by keeping a straight face claiming something absolutely absurd (the earth is flat) to each other and people around campus and the whole thing started that way eventually spreading to people who weren’t in on the joke.
It really scans. A lot of the crazy far right stuff seems to have originated with 4chan trolls having a laugh and idiots taking them seriously.
It seems to be a pattern for a lot of the troubling thinking of the day: unreasonable information spread for laughs being picked up by people unable to tell the difference and the idea takes on a life of its own eventually building up a class of people who know better figuring out how to make money from it and a class of people who don’t eating it up and spreading it.
It really scans. A lot of the crazy far right stuff seems to have originated with 4chan trolls having a laugh and idiots taking them seriously.
It seems to be a pattern for a lot of the troubling thinking of the day: unreasonable information spread for laughs being picked up by people unable to tell the difference and the idea takes on a life of its own eventually building up a class of people who know better figuring out how to make money from it and a class of people who don’t eating it up and spreading it.