There is a growing percent of the population of people who reject millennia of established science, replicable empirical evidence, and experiments they can do themselves, and believe the earth is actually flat.\u00a0 When confronted with the collective human knowledge, and reason,\u00a0 you are answered with denial and conspiracy.\u00a0 It may seem easy to dismiss ‘Flat-Earthers’ as a harmless fringe group;\u00a0 however, they are but a group of people illustrating we are losing a war many of us didn’t know we were fighting.\u00a0\u00a0 People may look down upon them as crazy for believing something so obviously false.\u00a0 Why would they reject objective reality when facts stare them in the face?\u00a0 Unfortunately,\u00a0 they are far from the only ones.<\/p>\n
With an astounding, overwhelmingly clear majority,\u00a0 scientists are, and have been, telling us climate change is happening.\u00a0\u00a0 Furthermore,\u00a0 our activities are contributing to the problems.\u00a0\u00a0 We are already seeing the effects now, and it is projected to only get worse as weather events increase in both regularity and severity, as well as severe disruptions to food-chains and over all extinctions of entire species as a whole. \u00a0\u00a0As with the Flat-Earthers,\u00a0 Climate Change Deniers are a real group of people.\u00a0\u00a0 They too flatly reject the evidence provided to them.\u00a0\u00a0 While some may do so for purely financial gain, for self interest (a.k.a. evil), the motivation of rejection for the rest may be less evil on them and more evil on the people who put them there.\u00a0 Anti-Vaxxers too.<\/p>\n
In all cases, Flat-Earthers, Climate Change Deniers and Anti-Vaxxers,\u00a0 there are figureheads who actively rally the troops, as it were, and encourage people to be irrational under the guise of rationality.\u00a0\u00a0 When I stop to reflect upon this, and zoom out, this is not all that different than what I see happening all over the country.\u00a0\u00a0 This is the war we are losing, that we didn’t realize we had to fight.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This rejection of reality,\u00a0 of evidence,\u00a0 of critical thought, is older than I am.\u00a0 I feel, since it is now being openly challenged by people like me,\u00a0 people who are used to just getting their way are trying their best to maintain control and demonstrate their intolerance for being challenged.<\/p>\n
In certain churches across the country,\u00a0 leaders of those church offer messages of intolerance and hatred while hiding behind one book that potentially teaches love and forgiveness.\u00a0 As such,\u00a0 we have a constant stream of voters and legislation that go against America’s values:\u00a0 be they racially discriminatory,\u00a0 sexist,\u00a0 favoring one religion over another,\u00a0 homophobic, et al.<\/em> \u00a0We have certain states that openly try to alter the map to intentionally cheat minority voters, and purge voter rolls of them.\u00a0\u00a0 They try to think of any way they can tip the scales to only get ‘the right people’ to vote.\u00a0\u00a0 Even when voters approve their own ballot initiatives, certain legislators will overturn the people’s will.\u00a0\u00a0 Even when the nation elects someone with a clear majority,\u00a0 certain electoral college electors will overturn the people’s will.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even when voters vote in a new government,\u00a0 certain lame duck sessions will sap as much power from the incoming government as possible.<\/p>\n All of this is now happening with a minority support.\u00a0\u00a0 When you ask how this is a good thing,\u00a0 you are met with the same kind of irrational zeal that Flat-Earthers, Climate Change Deniers and Anti-Vaxxers have.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn’t stop there either.\u00a0\u00a0 Entire media megaphones feed this particular population with manufactured malice and constant conflict.\u00a0\u00a0 Tribalism is the name of the game.\u00a0 It’s all about winning, while we are losing on the people who focus on the short term and the rejection of reality, instead on: gross income inequality, spiraling healthcare and education costs, unlimited dark money flowing into and corrupting the political process, our degrading environment, human rights issues including imprisoning children,\u00a0 needless trade wars while ignoring concerns like our workforce being left behind in a globalizing automated world, foreign interference and\/or ownership of our highest levels of government and future interference into our election processes and social infrastructures, and more.<\/p>\n The majority of this country, poll after poll shows,\u00a0 has clear visions on the direction we should head in and it’s not the path we’re on.\u00a0\u00a0 The powers-that-be are doing what they can to continue to line their pockets while the world burns around them.\u00a0\u00a0 Even worse,\u00a0 they’re doing their best to convince whoever they can that fire isn’t hot and smoke is just fine to breathe.\u00a0\u00a0 George Carlin once taught us: “The quality of our thoughts and ideas is only as good as the quality of our language.”\u00a0 When the powers-that-be succeed in convincing people to: reject reality,\u00a0 be incapable of listening to anyone but a chosen cult leader, and that it’s good to hurt yourself as long as your enemy gets hurt too,\u00a0 that’s a truly dangerous place to be in.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That’s the America we live in today.<\/p>\n This Veteran,\u00a0 trying desperately to break the shackles of PTSD,\u00a0 implores people to apply some real critical thought to yourself and the world around you:\u00a0 No,\u00a0 Black\/Brown\/Yellow\/White people aren’t inherently bad by the virtue of being such;\u00a0 No, women aren’t inferior aren’t by the virtue of being such;\u00a0 No,\u00a0 people of different sexual identities\/orientations aren’t wrong just because your old book said no just as you don’t appreciate it when people exclude you because you like your old book;\u00a0\u00a0 Information is not automatically incorrect because it does not fit your narrative,\u00a0 it is best to gather the evidence and form a conclusion as opposed to start with a conclusion and try to cherry-pick evidence, this will mean reforming your conclusion from time to time as new evidence presents itself;\u00a0 Evil exists, and it has,\u00a0 but it is ok to admit you were wrong and get back on the right path;\u00a0 divided we are weak but united we are unbreakable.<\/p>\n Life isn’t a team game.\u00a0 ‘Owning the Libs’ as one side likes to say isn’t a long-term viable strategy of success, as they are harming themselves in the process as well.\u00a0 We’re all in this together,\u00a0 and this anti-intellectual trend only sets us all back or does us all irreparable harm if not quashed soon enough.\u00a0 Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has said: “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” and I find it fitting here.\u00a0\u00a0 We know more know about this war of anti-intellectualism than we have ever before.\u00a0\u00a0 Since the end of World War II we were on the road to better and brighter things but the blowback of the Civil Rights Era has hit America, and by extension the world, hard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Facebook and other Social Media has brought to life sharp divisions that many of us knew, but we see it in real time and amplified by millions of voices.\u00a0\u00a0 We were losing a war that we didn’t even know we had to fight.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 all is not lost and we must win.\u00a0 We will win,\u00a0 not just for those who fight but for those who are misguided and mean well.\u00a0 We will win for a better tomorrow, for it is not really a ‘us vs. them’ kind of boots-on-the-ground tribalism fight.\u00a0\u00a0 We have a much better idea of who is pulling the strings, and we’re coming for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a growing percent of the population of people who reject millennia of established science, replicable empirical evidence, and experiments they can do themselves, and believe the earth is actually flat.\u00a0 When confronted with the collective human knowledge, and reason,\u00a0 you are answered with denial and conspiracy.\u00a0 It may seem easy to dismiss ‘Flat-Earthers’ 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