You can't make this shit up. Flat Earthers

[jc203]

Per Atticus:

Schizophrenics have all sorts of delusions and no rational person makes fun of them for that. My point was that many (most?) people who say really stupid things have neural problems that impair their cognition significantly. It's not just a matter of ignorance or naïveté.

Yeah, of course it is uncivil and counter productive to confront the mentally ill or cognitively impaired directly.

I once worked in a psychiatric hospital for a year and spent 8 sometimes 16 hours daily with psychotic/profoundly neurotic folks in a lock-up environment where clients were often ignored or treated with condescension or ridicule, typically by other patients or 20-year plus employees who were only there to collect a paycheck.

It was a dismal place where thorazine was used way too often in situations where staff was simply outnumbered by people acting out. In some instances it was tough to discern if aberrant behavior was symptomatic of mental illness or merely a natural function of living 24/7 in close quarters with a large crew mentally ill people. We do an extraordinarily poor job of helping emotionally/neurologically distressed populations.

But none of that means "normal" people (whoever that may be) should engage with or accept delusional ideas out of respect and sympathy. Moreover, delusions can be sources of amusement (flat earth's, for example), even the subject of great literature.

In three decades of teaching I thought a lot about whether there is a difference between cognitive impairment and stupidity. It is, for me, a line of thought that quickly becomes a quagmire. There are millions of ways to be smart or stupid. And cognition "problems" in one realm of behavior may be cognitive gaps in some other endeavor. Or not...

Anyway, students who were regarded as dumb or crazy by teaching staff mostly believed that the teachers were dumb or crazy. Flip a coin...

[odelltrclan]

I got that..I don't think Semenya should compete as a woman either.. but still can't deconstruct that sentence.. doesn't matter but does make me a lampooner or lampooned?

No, it is saying some people have no problems accepting men as women or women as men, in spite of biology, yet rush to mock some who believe the earth is flat. I just find it a little ironic. Nothing to do with Semanya.

[gh]

well, if you'll allow me to quote The Waco Kid:

<<You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.>>

[user4]

I know zero about this community of flat earthers buy im going to guess that their average IQ is about the same as the US average. In short, there is probably nothing organically wrong with them.

[lonewolf]

I know zero about this community of flat earthers buy im going to guess that their average IQ is about the same as the US average. In short, there is probably nothing organically wrong with them.

Yep, they ain't all simple farmers..

[Atticus]

We do an extraordinarily poor job of helping emotionally/ neurologically distressed populations.

Amen to that, both institutionally and by the average citizen's interactions. Most chronically homeless people are mentally ill, but many people treat them exactly the opposite of what Jesus (the man) was hoping for (not to get all religiousy):

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

[bambam1729]

Proof that Earth is curved - 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick near Indy. David Feherty's comment "This course is so long you have to take the curvature of the Earth into effect."

Now with new clubs and balls its not very long at all.

[user4]

Yep, they ain't all simple farmers..

I have lived and visited in every part of the country. I have asked pre-GPS directions of natives of every state. I can say this much for the rural areas, they know what direction north and east are and they know that south and west are their opposites. If you ask them how to get somewhere they can tell you everything you need to know.

Contrast that with urban areas, you can as an urbanite how to get to a place or road 1/2 of mile away and 6 out of 10 of them simply dont know. Ask them which direction is north and they look at you like you are from another planet.

I admit I have some fun with it, did a test once on an urbanite (college age) from New England asked them if New York City was north or south of here... yes sir, they said north.

[jc203]

Where I live the only people who can reliably point out the compass points are surfers who are often in the water at dawn and dusk and study the contours of the coast line in relation to swell directions.
Add knowledge of geography to care for mentally ill on the list of things Americans do poorly. Does that mean we are dumb or are we neurologically challenged?

[user4]

Where I live the only people who can reliably point out the compass points are surfers who are often in the water at dawn and dusk and study the contours of the coast line in relation to swell directions.
Add knowledge of geography to care for mentally ill on the list of things Americans do poorly. Does that mean we are dumb or are we neurologically challenged?

It means that unlike the surfer most urban Americans have zero to gain by knowing such things. It is why I dont know how to play sudoko or why I cant recognize the difference between merlot and pinot noir.