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I think the flat earth conspiracy is, in itself, a conspiracy. I think it is deliberately and cynically being pushed to condition people to produce an emotional response to certain magic words. The left has been trying to use environmentalism and climate change as a wedge to drive their agenda for decades and more recently, they've been trying to tout themselves as on the side of "science". However, they have a problem because people distrust the appeals to authority and demand evidence and climate science is really complicated for Karen with 102 IQ to explain to Cletus with 90 IQ. "Science denier!" seems like a ridiculous slur because no-one "denies" the science in your smartphone and the people claiming it can't back up their assertions.
What is needed is a strawman science-denial movement, one that carries with it all the vestiges of a genuine conspiracy theory, the kooky maths, the jpeg-artefact-ridden boomer memes, the dissenting "experts"- but is so insane on its face that it can all just be dismissed with peels of stupid laughter. No thought is necessary. These people are science deniers. They are reality deniers. You can't prove they're wrong, but you don't need to, they're crazy. Cletus and Karen can both enjoy a good laugh together at their expense. This is flat earth.
It creates a cultural consciousness of "science deniers" being a thing that actually exists and which can be dismissed without asking for evidence. So next time Karen says that climate skeptics or people opposed to transgender kids are "science deniers", Cletus remembers the flat earthers and assumes these are the same people. The CIA invented the term "conspiracy theory", this is just an extension of this tactic.
