Hi
I've been reading about Flat Earth Theory since a long time now and something always baffled me: how such a big scale conspiracy can exist.
According to what I read, the conspiracy exist in order to get some funding tunneled through NASA, to fund who-knows-what projects.
Another thing I found was to keep secret continents outside the "Ice Wall", to exploit their resources.
Whatever the reason, it raises some questions.
Bear with me, it'll be a bit long.
In order to enforce such a conspiracy, you'll need to involve all the astronomers in the world, or, at least, the vast majority of them.
There are approximately 10000 astronomers (
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/6328/how-many-astronomers-are-there-in-the-world-today), so that's already a big number.
But wait, if you want to make everybody believe in a round Earth, you'll need more, like cartographers. I don't know how many there are, but a few thousands is a good guess.
Also, in our modern days, we have planes, so if we don't want the pilots to find out that the maps are cheated, we need to trick the instruments. So, we need the aerospace engineers involved too: +90000 (
https://studentscholarships.org/professions/527/employed/aerospace_engineers.php).
So, let's round the total to 100000 people. That's one level.
Because now, we have to involve some politicians too. And all the people to manage the logistics of collecting/transferring the money. Although you can have a large amount of them outside of the conspiracy, that adds some level of complexity which will increase the risk of leaks.
And that's not finished. Until recently, everything related to space was in the hands of a very few agencies: NASA (USA), Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (EU).
But in the past 20 years, new ones were created: JAXA (Japan), CNSA (China), ISRO (India), UAESA (United Arab Emirates)...
And more and more private space companies were created too. In US (SpaceX, Blue Origin...), China (i-Space), even New-Zealand (Rocket Lab).
It add a few thousands more people.
Those national agencies and private companies are launching satellites, so they need their theory correct.
Those satellites provide services, so there has to be a device somewhere. According to some Flat-Earther, satellites don't exist, but they are actually high-altitude balloons. So, it would involve all the people building those balloons too.
If we consider the "continents-beyond-the-Ice-Wall" thing, we have to add all the people transferring whatever comes and go there.
I could continue, but you should see my point, now.
We are speaking of hundred of thousands of people involved to have that conspiracy stay secret, without any leak. For several decades or even centuries, it bring that number to millions, potentially.
You can look at the study in that article to convince yourself how unlikely it would be:
https://www.popsci.com/how-many-minions-can-you-have-before-your-conspiracy-fails/I find it very hard to believe that, since the Flat Earth Theory exists, nobody could find 1 whistle-blower to expose the Round Earth conspiracy, with some evidences.
I'm not stating that the Flat Earth Hypothesis is false, just that the arguments presented for a Round Earth Conspiracy are, at best, weak.
I'd like to listen to your arguments in favor or against that conspiracy.
Have a good day.