Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything

Daily Beast reporter Weill focuses this insightful and surprisingly empathetic survey of conspiracy theories on the history of Flat Earth theory, “the ultimate incarnation of conspiratorial thinking.” She traces the belief’s origins to a 19th-century utopian English commune and profiles modern-day believers including “Mad Mike” Hughes, who died in February 2020 while attempting to reach the earth’s upper atmosphere in a homemade rocket. According to Weill, conspiratorial thinking is not some “weird pathology,” but part of the same “powers of abstraction that make humans good at detecting patterns.” She documents spikes in conspiracy thinking during historical periods of “rapid industrialization and income inequality,” and links the resurgence of Flat Earth theory in the early 2000s to Y2K paranoia and 9/11 trutherism. Weill also delves into Pizzagate and QAnon, arguing that the “flat earth and pro-Trump movements share strands of the same conspiratorial, counter-factual DNA”; details how Big Tech’s efforts to stop the spread of misinformation have backfired; and notes that “real-world communities” can pull people out of the rabbit holes they find online. Weill’s immersion in the Flat Earth community and acknowledgment of her own conspiratorial thinking gives her reporting a refreshingly compassionate slant. The result is an illuminating take on a much scrutinized subject. (Feb.)