The ridicule of flat Earth theory is directly responsible for propagating the conspiracy theory to begin with.

It starts with the smug sense of superiority over a strawman that never really existed. People like to think that they are "above" the foolish beliefs of those who predate us, even though such beliefs weren't even being held. This opens up the potential for contrarianism that wouldn't otherwise have existed, and so the misplaced ridicule ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps feeding itself.

Is this an inevitable paradox of attempting to advance scientific literacy?