Comment by acdha

> But, most of the resources poured into the Flat Earth movement are pure waste, with very little benefit whatsoever to the “Body Economic”. There are not very many “trickle down” benefits from the resources being spent.

> Even if the scammer buys a bunch of gold chains and sports cars that they don’t really use, those resources are “participating” in the economy in a way that the wasted investments that don’t involve a scammer are not.

Are you saying that people in the first case are taking their money and burning it? Because if not I don’t see how you could make that statement without more research - if the flat earthers are printing books, selling videos, hosting conferences, going on “fact finding” missions, etc. then they’re generating economic value as well. Much less of it in absolute terms given the relative population sizes but you can’t just assume everyone is Scrooge McDuck sitting on a huge pile of money.