Priming: How Flat-Earthers Lead Their Victims to Believe Things That are not There

Priming is a manner in which exposure to early information influences the behavior of an individual later on, without them being aware of it. Flat Earth personalities employ this technique to instill specific biases and opinions in the mind of their targets, and for example, to lead them to believe all footage taken in space were faked.

If someone wants to spread flat Earth follies to other people, they would need to “explain” the existence of photos and videos taken from space. There’s no way other than to invent a conspiracy theory: they have to assume that space agencies, astronauts and other related parties are all lying.

One way to do it is to take some of the videos taken by astronauts from space, then add captions and narrations to present the videos as if they were faked. They will find things they think can be regarded out of place, then add leading “explanation” before the video telling that there is “weirdness” in the video the viewer is about to see.

Using such techniques, flat Earth personalities attempt to condition the viewers to presume what was stated in the leading captions and narrations, and what is shown afterward only serves to enforce the belief. The viewers accept it not because of what is shown in the video, but because of what was told before the video is shown.

That is the psychological explanation on why flat-Earthers can see things that are not there, like harnesses that make astronauts float, bubble in space, etc.

If the viewers cannot think critically enough, they will turn emotional and become victims of flat Earth indoctrination. The conspiracy is the most emotional part of the flat-Earth concept and will be the most memorable in the mind of most flat Earth victims. That is the reason they like talking about the various conspiracies more than the actual scientific basis of flat Earth. Many discussions that start with scientific arguments will be steered away and turned into conversations about NASA, Apollo, etc. Even though the shape of the Earth is something that can be concluded from simple observation we do ourselves, without any involvement from NASA or other space agencies.

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