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Reality Television 2025: Flat Earther’s head into space LIVE

Posted on Apr 6, 2017April 6, 2017 bn-lf300_1215co_16h_20151111182500-9129268 tk

I recently had the misfortune of speaking to a ‘flat-Earther’ and found the conversation entirely incredible. I had previously heard that a movement, of sorts, had started with the noble intention of taking us back to the Middle Ages, but I didn’t actually think that anyone took it seriously. But, in a Mormon-esque manner, as many had believed that Joseph Smith wandered into a forest and transcribed a book with golden plates, some are now stoical and regimented in their belief that if you walk too far, you might fall off the edge of the world. They even have maps and misguided scientific facts to prove it.

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Never mind the Moon, the horizon, night and day, star constellations, round-the-world flights, astronomy, time zones, gravity and the myriad of evidence to prove what we already knew, you just can’t change their minds. It is good to challenge the textbooks and ask questions; it isn’t good to brainwash people and spread fake news and bad science. If the world is really flat, what happens when you reach the edge? Do you respawn in 10 seconds? Actually, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen’s visit to the South Pole was not sufficient as apparently we’ve never crossed the giant ice barrier that surrounds the flat planet.

So I thought of a brilliant idea. Actually, I didn’t think of it at all, I saw it in a comments section on Reddit, but the idea was brilliant nonetheless. What about a reality television show that films a group of Flat-Earther’s as they board a SpaceX Dragon V2 and head into orbit? Can you imagine their heads exploding with cynicism as they scream aloud with fear and disbelief? It would be an immensely entertaining television show and far more watchable that dancing with the stars or Pop Idol.

The show would start by interviewing the subjects about their theories on the world and they’d give some rather outlandish quotes and questions that they’d seen on a YouTube video, providing the audience with barrel of laughs. Then they’d meet each other and talk and become very incorrigible, before heading to get suited up and boarding the Dragon on top of a Falcon 9. The cameras would watch their every move and study with great detail whether they were starting to believe that the science books and telescopes might have been telling the truth, or whether the cynicism was taking over and they started to grumble about a conspiracy.

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We could get a hot host as above and they could make a series out of it and have weekly launches for the non-believers, and interview them afterwards to see if they’d found sense. Although, given that they were willing to believe the world is flat in the first place, it isn’t entirely certain that they wouldn’t have another excuse readily conceived.

Now that the price of rocket launches is dropping drastically due to SpaceX’s reusable rocket successes, I am sure it will not be too long before we can make this television and social experiment a reality.

What do you think? Should this be the reality television show of the future? Let me know in the comments or on Facebook.

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