@f3d8bb94  this is one of those cases where I’d say it’s important to talk to [at least] a person who has the perspective to find out why they believe it.  Have you?

A great many over the years… For like a week I joined a few flat earth FB groups for exactly this purpose.  So very often when I talk to people who have perspectives that are so different from my own I figure out, through discussion, why they believe what they believe, generally because they’re working with a different set of facts or premises.

They do indeed tend to have a different set of facts.. often ones very easily disproven, but most of them are too lazy to actually check the facts, they just hear it and adopt it… Why is often a bit unclear since they are the less logical choice of the facts presented.  I know a few people with really out there beliefs, and when I chat with them I figure out the factually disagreements we have, so their ideas are sometimes rather sensible, given their inputs.

Given their facts as axioms, then yea, no doubt their conclusions track… thats not the part that baffles me. What baffles me is they adopted these nonsensical things as facts when they are so easily tested and dismissed or even in many cases common sense can invalidate it alone. 

 @b05df304 so I think that’s the key, focusing on the different sets of facts, working on coming to some consensus with them over what is true.

You started by saying you were astonished by the theories, but given the alternative sets of facts, it shouldn’t be so astonishing.

Its simply people working from a different playbook, and often having very predictable ideas based on the facts they’re working with.