On discerning pseudoscience from potential revolutionary knowledge

[Ninshub]

Red Pill Junkie meditates on the topic as it concerns the anomalist/Fortean community:

How Illogical Ideas Can Topple Nations: Flat Earths, Falling Moons and Hollow Doctrines

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” the old saying goes; but it may also be true that “uncertain times foster uncertainty,” even towards long-held ideas and once-cherished beliefs. As an anomalist I confess to holding mixed feelings about that, because whereas I welcome the healthy questioning of dogmas defended by academicians out of stubborn tradition who refuse to look at new evidence (e.g. the work of Schoch, Hancock and Bauval to name but a few ‘modern heretics’), I consider the refusal to accept anything that is supported by the status quo just as equally stubborn, and gives me cause for concern –as it should you, too.

When does one stop being a free thinker and starts becoming a contrarian? When does one’s fascination with alternative ideas turn into an obsession? When does one’s seemingly harmless interest in conspiracy theories transform into toxic thinking that poisons our entire view of the world? When does one paint a line inside the rabbit hole and decide “this is as far as I go”?

(...) But now, in 2018, I have to begrudgingly admit the writer had a point in raising the alarm. And that as members of the Alternative/Fortean community, we do need to be more careful than most when it comes to try and discern worthless pseudoscience from potential revolutionary knowledge, and we also need to be very explicit when we enter into the realm of pure speculation; lest that in pursuing our passion for promoting ‘heretical’ ideas questioning the Status Quo, we don’t end up throwing the Reason baby with the dogmatic bathwater.

[Ninshub]

Did anyone take a look at the Joe Rogan video with a flat earther (or globe earth skeptic?) that Red Pill posted in that article? It's hysterical.

I think about that a lot, especially when I see heated discussions like the one extracted from the famous The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, in which long-time friend of Joe’s Eddie Bravo refuses to accept the (seemingly) simplest of notions: that the Earth is round.

Red Pill Junkie meditates on the topic as it concerns the anomalist/Fortean community:

How Illogical Ideas Can Topple Nations: Flat Earths, Falling Moons and Hollow Doctrines

This thread has been up for awhile and I see only two members like this. I wonder why?

This thread has been up for awhile and I see only two members like this. I wonder why?

Who knows Steve, but you felt it was noteworthy enough to post about. I wonder why?

Who knows Steve, but you felt it was noteworthy enough to post about. I wonder why?

 We both liked it; I wonder why?

 We both liked it; I wonder why?

Yeah I wonder.

This thread has been up for awhile and I see only two members like this. I wonder why?

Four so far.   Maybe the middle ground isn't as popular as having a polar position?