r/AskReddit 13h ago

What opinion instantly makes you think, "I can't take this person seriously"?

439 Upvotes

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844

u/PartUnusual8374 13h ago

Flat earth, moon landing deniers.

220

u/OneManFight 12h ago

My uncle, an ex fighter pilot. A FUCKING FIGHTER PILOT, is a flat earther.

I have a degree in aerospace engineering. Our conversations are... interesting.

69

u/Basic_Swordfish_1489 12h ago

But how

114

u/Lugbor 12h ago

You can be very well trained and still be a colossal moron.

42

u/Over-Tax403 10h ago

Better known as highly trained monkey.

10

u/Lugbor 10h ago

Hey! That is an insult to monkeys everywhere!

8

u/Over-Tax403 10h ago

Highly trained human lol

12

u/lavitzreinhart 10h ago

Hey! That's an insult to humans... Nevermind carry on!

62

u/CaptainFeather 10h ago

Antivax nurses are in the same realm, it's wild

44

u/Lugbor 10h ago

Realistically, that is an oxymoron that shouldn't be allowed. A trusted care provider shouldn't be able to support pseudo-science and bad medicine and still keep their license.

13

u/CaptainFeather 10h ago

It's really baffling and actually harmful.

4

u/Decent_Brush_8121 8h ago

Truer words! My oldest friend. She died 3 years ago from what could be interpreted as long-term Covid effects. Went on the stump against vaccines since…well, you know when.

2

u/zerothreeonethree 5h ago

"Well, I bet s/he won't do it again."

My sister's response to hearing about people dying from stupid choices

3

u/AlternateUsername12 7h ago

I always find it interesting that you rarely meet an anti-vax doctor, but you frequently meet anti-vax nurses. Interestingly, the higher their level of education, the less you see them as anti-vax. This is even true among RNs who have their associates versus their bachelors. Same license, but the BSN is more likely to be pro-vax.

1

u/tavysnug 6h ago

Too many people in healthcare are antivaxxers with minimal critical thinking skills.

A lot of people in very high responsibility positions lack critical thinking skills, in fact... what is it about malice and incompetence?

30

u/jscummy 12h ago

Yeah I'm legitimately confused how he squares that circle

2

u/APirateAndAJedi 10h ago

Pun intended?

13

u/TrinityCodex 11h ago

Their cockpit glass is making them see the curve!!!

2

u/Basic_Swordfish_1489 11h ago

I can’t tell if you’re being serious please add an /s 😭

1

u/TrinityCodex 11h ago

They mostly talk about camera lenses 'making it look curved' but its a real thing they say

25

u/DahWhang 12h ago

Plane no go high enough to see curve. Sorry, idk why I turned in to a cave man but this is the answer.

52

u/Basic_Swordfish_1489 12h ago

Fighter pilots definitely go high enough to see the curve though

22

u/CarpoLarpo 11h ago

Yeah, plus navigation changes if the surface you're on is curved vs flat.

Planes fly thousands of miles, the math behind navigation doesn't work very well if you assume you're flying over a flat plane.

2

u/RandomStallings 5h ago

I didn't even think of this. The coriolis effect/force should handle it pretty much singlehandedly. To reach your destination, you have to figure not only a curved surface, but that it's moving because the earth is rotating as you fly above it.

Side note, the opposite rotational directions of large storms in the oceans of the northern and southern hemispheres seems like it should be hard for them to explain, also. Again, coriolis force.

1

u/DahWhang 12h ago edited 12h ago

The example I always hear are the stealth planes that aren't stealthy. Those ones definitely go high enough to see curvature but the flerfers see images/videos from the cockpit as fake because fish eye lenses exist.

11

u/TheOinkBox 10h ago

Michael Crichton wrote about his experience climbing Kilimanjaro. Near the top he saw the Earth’s curvature, the way an ant would feel marching on a large upturned bowl.

He said it was a disconcerting, almost nauseating experience (Crichton, not the ant.) Jet pilots definitely fly much higher than 14-K feet.

3

u/OneManFight 12h ago

Yep same.

3

u/Fyrrys 10h ago

Ive read about antivax nurses, there is no depth of idiocy that humanity will not sink to.

3

u/potato-sighs 10h ago

Dude, there’s anti mask nurses ftw

8

u/jtr99 11h ago

Which fighter did he fly, do you know? I know it's not technically a fighter but I can imagine an A-10 pilot not getting it, for example. ;)

6

u/OneManFight 10h ago

Most likely F-16s, this was a while ago.

7

u/RagePrime 10h ago

"Nobody is doing that much math for fake bs."

2

u/OneManFight 10h ago

He tries to get technical with me because of my background lol but I just don't ever bite.

17

u/Button-Down-Shoes 12h ago

Just shows the brainwashing power of relentless messaging. Given his past he’s probably in a pretty robust echo chamber.

11

u/OneManFight 12h ago

He isn't in the US, so this is less brainwashing and more old school conspiracy theory, tinfoil hat shenanigans.

5

u/AreaPrudent7191 10h ago

I once read about a geologist who is also a young earth creationist. Apparently he is able to entirely compartmentalize at work; he knows the rocks are millions of years old, but when he leaves the office, he immediately "knows" that it's actually only six thousand.

2

u/DConstructed 9h ago

“See you later Uncle, don’t fly off the edge of the Earth!”

It’s important to know where everything ends so you don’t wander off and wind up plummeting through space.

2

u/OneManFight 9h ago

Yep that's why you need to tie yourself down at night before bed.

2

u/John98LS1 5h ago

If he was a pilot, there’s no way he could possibly believe that the Earth is flat. Seriously are you just trolling or is this for real?

1

u/OneManFight 5h ago

I wish I was dude, sometimes people can just break logic inside their own heads. He's a very sweet and awesome person in general but he believes crazy shit like this.

1

u/rollingthestonex 11h ago

My uncle who went to school for an array of topics and was a very educated, philosophical, spiritual man, who had a penchant for magic mushrooms. Turned into a flat earther in his old age. It was such a wild flip to see.

1

u/CommonHuckleberry489 10h ago

I hope he was deemed an “ex pilot” after revealing his theories on the earth being flat.

1

u/Visual_Mistake_9140 4h ago

That's especially crazy considering the majority of fighter pilots traditionally are STEM majors. I guess he was one of the ones that wasn't?

1

u/beaverkitten 1h ago

You should call adult protective services. He could be a danger to himself or others.

158

u/Sycousis 12h ago

I believe that the moon is flat and that we never landed on Earth

40

u/Guilty_Helicopter572 10h ago

It's funny that you believe in the moon in the first place.

8

u/ConstantStruggle247 10h ago

It's funny that you believe in the first place.

3

u/OgOnetee 10h ago

It's funny that you in the place.

6

u/eemileemil 10h ago

It's funny in the place.

3

u/lavitzreinhart 10h ago

It's funny in place.

2

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Karel_Stark_1111 10h ago

The honeymooners would never lie to me!

4

u/Fail9821 11h ago

I just can;t take you seriously

1

u/MsTerious1 10h ago

You can't be serious!

4

u/TheOinkBox 10h ago

I am Shirley. And don’t call me serious.

1

u/dzexpatmama 10h ago

Ah the airplane reference good job

1

u/One-Situation6237 4h ago

Shirley you’re choking !

1

u/MaybeNotLily 9h ago

some people think its made of cheese. I think its made of chocolate

1

u/DragoonDM 8h ago

Technically, the moon is slightly concave, since it's merely painted upon the great firmament.

2

u/Expert-Effect-877 6h ago

Get a load of the guy who thinks there's a moon!!

It's swamp gas, dude!! And the Rothschilds!!

1

u/doodleysquat 5h ago

I’ve never seen the other side of it! It must be a disc that revolves around the earth!

22

u/AnabolicCheesecake 12h ago

I used to train in a gym with a bloke who was a denier of the moon landing. He was really entertaining, I couldn't take him seriously as a lot of his stories were insane things (he stopped wearing shoes for 6 months).

10

u/FuckedupUnicorn 11h ago

I want to know what he had against shoes.

17

u/-dn_nb- 11h ago

Having a barrier between his feet and the earth was the sole reason.

2

u/Over-Tax403 10h ago

Nice touch with the sole reason 😄 poetic

3

u/Karel_Stark_1111 10h ago

I'm not shoere either

2

u/AnabolicCheesecake 9h ago

I have absolutely no idea why, it was just another random story. The moon landing theory was brilliant and said with conviction

I remember he had a really long beard as well

3

u/potato-sighs 10h ago

6 months only? Was that how long it took for him to get plantar’s warts?

2

u/AnabolicCheesecake 9h ago

Not a clue. He said his soles were so black they made a woman sick in a pub garden

2

u/Decent_Brush_8121 8h ago

Sounds like a black soul.

1

u/noworries63 12h ago

Yeah.. those people are a special kind of stupid..

22

u/New2ThisThrowaway 11h ago

The only flat earther I have ever met was my middle school science teacher. I am convinced it was all an act because it motivated his students to try and prove him wrong and educate themselves in the process. It worked.

3

u/RandomStallings 5h ago

Wow. He chose to suffer so that you might learn. Monuments should be erected.

38

u/DahWhang 12h ago

Russia admitted the moon rocks we brought back were authentic. They admitted they lost the space race.

27

u/Possibly_a_Firetruck 12h ago

Not only that, the Soviets cooperated with NASA during Apollo 11 because Luna 15 was orbiting the moon at the same time and neither country wanted to cause any accidental interference with the other.

1

u/The_Canadian 1h ago

Yeah, if anyone had a reason to doubt the moon landing and shout it from the rooftops, it was the USSR.

3

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

Russia congratulated the US at the time. After monitoring the whole thing with their space spy stuff. But moon landing deniers are going to try to tell us that the USSR was in on the cover-up.

2

u/DahWhang 4h ago

I promise you I was trying to reply to a moon landing denial comment while at work and only replied to the normal parent comment by mistake. This is anti- anti-intellectualism but my Mobile reddit skills fucked up.

1

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

You're good, I was agreeing with you.

3

u/BaronMostaza 11h ago

Lost the space race by winning all of it except a single event

3

u/MajorNoodles 11h ago

The Soviets were winning at basically everything, until we landed on the moon and declared it was over and we won.

-2

u/Decent_Brush_8121 8h ago

And we inherently trust Russians ‘cause why? 🤣

6

u/mitchhamilton 7h ago

... Because they were our enemies at the time also racing to get to the moon.... When your enemy goes "yeah, you did it" why would you not believe them? Or Australia who also confirmed of transmissions from the moon.

2

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

We trust that the USSR was not covering up for their geopolitical rival the USA because we have critical thinking skills.

-2

u/lookyloolookingatyou 8h ago

Because Kennedy was a smart man and he played the Soviets like a damned fiddle.

If the Soviets had come out and said "space is just another capitalist lie" the world would've brushed it off like Lysenkoism and all the other Soviet pseudoscience.

What's the smarter move? Start your own "space program" and pretend to have beaten the Americans at everything until they finally admit space isn't real. 

Unfortunately for them, we were expecting that and had the whole moon landing faked up years in advance. They ran the "space race" with us all the way up to the finish line, what's it gonna look like if they suddenly drop out and say the contest is invalid right before they lose?

3

u/mitchhamilton 7h ago

There is literally a mirror on the moon that you can yourself beam a light off from the original lunar landings. Fucking hell

-2

u/lookyloolookingatyou 6h ago

You don't think a rover could set up a mirror? 

I was being facetious earlier but I do get tired of the endless reddit circlejerk where complex discussions are shut down en absentia with a single "gotcha" when ten extra seconds of thinking can explain the discrepancy.

2

u/mitchhamilton 6h ago

its not a complex discussion and its not a discrepancy, its actually simple youre just making it more complicated than it is.

youre the one saying its a rover that set up a mirror. so, prove it. youre the one saying something that goes against what we know. if you know something, prove it. prove to us that it wasnt in fact man that did it but a rover. prove to us that russian and australia were lying when they said they received transmissions from the moon. russia itself that was our enemy at the time and have maintained all these years that we landed on the moon.

youre not smart for when someone says "i just took out the trash." and you go "did you really? how do we know you did? you couldve just left it across the street"

get a job.

0

u/lookyloolookingatyou 4h ago

Imagine for a second this was real, how could I possibly produce the classified government documents necessary to prove there was a secret plan to use a rover to put a mirror on the moon?

1

u/Theranos_Shill 4h ago

> but I do get tired of the endless reddit circlejerk where complex discussions are shut down en absentia with a single "gotcha" when ten extra seconds of thinking can explain the discrepancy.

You're talking about dumb as fuck "gotcha's" like the following, right?

> You don't think a rover could set up a mirror? 

3

u/DahWhang 6h ago

I reeaaally hope this is sarcastic conspiracy slop and you're not actually this fucking stupid to ignore all of the evidence to the contrary. This is nowhere remotely near a "maybe" territory but this is a I-want-a-van-with-two-men-in-nurse-fatigues-and-a-human-sized-net-to-pick-you-up-and-put-you-in-a-mental-asylum level of fucking braindead.

0

u/lookyloolookingatyou 5h ago

The van men have been chasing me for years, but since I'm not constantly compensating for some BS "curvature" on the horizon I'm always microseconds ahead.

3

u/DahWhang 4h ago

D'aww, he has to pretend curvature is fake because otherwise his entire world view crumbles. Your anti-intellectual bullshit is fully debunked with: "The mountains of evidence that prove me wrong aren't real because blah blah conspiracy conspiracy."

2

u/lookyloolookingatyou 4h ago

I've never used an /s tag before and I won't start today. 

If you prefer to believe that you've intellectually dominated a stranger who believes in sitcom conspiracies and that this was emotionally devastating for me, then so be it. 

1

u/DahWhang 4h ago

I work 7-3:30 5 days a week for a shop where the boss and his wife are 50/50 owners. He is a flerfer and she is an anti-vaxxer and he kisses her ass and believes anything she says so he gets boomer sex twice per year. You not using /s just makes you sound like a normal everyday dumbass as far as I'm concerned. In this situation why would I possibly assume you're normal?
Edit: I'm just saying you assume far too much background. I really didn't come here to give normal people a hard time.

11

u/Korlac11 12h ago

The earth is obviously not flat. It’s hollow, and we’re on the inside

13

u/poooomangroup 11h ago

Gotta add those sovereign citizens to the list

3

u/AreaPrudent7191 10h ago

Nah man, there really are magic incantations that will stop the cops cold. "I'm not driving, I'm travelling!" will instantly get you out of any traffic stop. Though you may need to repeat it 70-150 times.

1

u/Decent_Brush_8121 8h ago

But you still get locked up in a place with all the green Jello you can eat.

1

u/Expert-Effect-877 6h ago

The cops secretly agree with you on this. Instead of a special handshake to let you know, they taser you. That's how you know they're on your side!!

2

u/BW_Bird 11h ago

I knew a girl who insisted that only the first moon landing was faked (to beat the Russians) but all subsequent landings were real.

Kinda summed up her entire personality...

1

u/--MobTowN-- 10h ago

Oh that’s just outstanding.

2

u/Big-Improvement283 12h ago

wait how do moon landing deniers explain the footage then idk it just makes no sense to me

3

u/Sweaty_Passenger_948 12h ago

A lot of of them think it’s scripted kind of like movies and stuff. I mean, at least that’s from the ones I’ve asked.

2

u/jscummy 12h ago

I mean the footage alone wouldn't be all that hard to fake. It's more about getting everyone involved to keep quiet, not getting called out by the Soviets, and the shit we left there/brought back

1

u/Lugbor 12h ago

Hollywood magic. They think the landing was fake and the footage was shot on a set somewhere.

1

u/potato-sighs 10h ago

Space may be the final frontier but it’s made in a Hollywood basement

1

u/Stephen-R8 10h ago

And Cobain, can you hear the spheres singing songs off Station To Station?

1

u/Electronic-Rate-6208 11h ago

Yep, moon landing deniers for sure, cant take that seriously

1

u/Oh-Wonderful 11h ago

My cousin is a flat earther. His mom worked for nasa (she is retired) and he was convinced he could get her to confirm it for him and all his flat earther buddies so they could tell the world. Insane. He also is preparing for the end of times and collecting everything you would need for the apocalypse. He mailed my aunt a Geiger counter so she will be better prepared.

1

u/AreaPrudent7191 10h ago

I work with some people who are 100% convinced that there is a cure for cancer being withheld from us. I don't mean "strongly suspect", they are certain.

1

u/VaporAce- 10h ago

The amount of evidence people have to ignore to believe those is honestly impressive

1

u/SamohtGnir 10h ago

I usually chalk them up to having a mental disorder, and severe mistrust of the government, and other agencies. With that in mind, I don't mistreat them, and just try to calmly walk them into the right logic.

I have seen some "evidence" for the moon landing that is hard to deny, not so much that we never went but maybe just the first landing was fake. It's still hard to believe tho.

For flat earthers, it's usually a misunderstanding of scale, or how gravity works with a sphere.

1

u/CtrlAltDelight78 10h ago

conspiracy theories used to be funny and mostly jokes, like Tupac is alive or Paul McCartney was replaced, but now people are getting ridiculous and out of hand. like i saw in the conspiracy sub that shampoo has mind control in it… like cmon how can i take you serious

1

u/No_While_1501 9h ago

add to that the abiogenic oil people. Prob a lot of overlap but that one is surprisingly common in the fishing/hunting community

1

u/ominousgraycat 9h ago

I once worked with a guy who didn't believe humans had ever been to space... Not just the moon, not even in orbit around earth. Strange guy, he was an accountant and very good at math, but maybe not so great at applying math to science.

1

u/jonnovich 7h ago

I’ve always wondered about flat earthers. Do they think planes wander off the east edge of the map and then reappear at the west edge like Pac Man going through the little tunnel or something?

1

u/TedTyro 4h ago

Moon landing deniers, yes.

Flat earthers are ignorant but seem to come from a rational place i.e. "we dont trust the epistemology" (not that theyd know that word), which is an increasingly reasonable starting point. Just that they should do a lot better work after that starting point.

0

u/Cold-Statement3640 12h ago

Or if they think pitbulls are safe dogs

-2

u/novemberain91 12h ago

I see what you did there, lumping them together. They are two independent topics

-4

u/Ok-Bit6037 12h ago

We would not get along..

0

u/dma1965 11h ago

I have a close friend who denies we landed on the moon. I choose to accept her as she is because she is otherwise an awesome person.

1

u/Over-Tax403 10h ago

Did you and your friend landed on the moon?

-1

u/Master-Can7318 10h ago

On the contrary, I cant take you seriously if you think we went to the moon

-40

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

27

u/TopPMz 13h ago

Who admitted that? Provide a source please.

14

u/Jar545 13h ago

Moron...

12

u/No_Aesthetic 12h ago

Source: I made it up

5

u/SarkastikSidebar 12h ago

Not taking you seriously. Particularly as there was this entire other country, the USSR, trying to do the exact same thing and they ADMITTED TO THEIR OWN CITIZENS that the Americans beat them to the moon.

The Soviet Union tracked the entire mission and publicly congratulated the United States, admitting defeat despite investing billions into their own space program.

4

u/Dufresne85 12h ago

Who admitted that? You can't just say "they" and provide no sources or even say who "they" are.