Some people who ostensibly believe that 'the Earth is literally flat' probably are in fact just pretending to and are literally agents of NASA e.g. working to set up this poppinjay. I would imagine that about fifteen years ago it had been getting a bit too socially-acceptable to believe the moon landings didn't actually occur as NASA et al. has maintained, so they then had created an intentionally-ridiculous strawman to detract from this fact and also to polarize the issue. Speaking publicly about the legitimacy of the moon landing now, as purported by NASA, a person would then have to assume the suspicion of being a 'flat-Earther'—as projected by many people. There are many others who would now, who wouldn't have previously, become put-off by alternative moon landing information simply because it has been tarnished by flat-Earth nonsense: YouTube videos of official landing footage are now intercalated with obnoxious flat-Earth videos, also making it difficult to suggest to others that they ought to view them. But think I get what you're saying because this thread is actually titled The Earth Is Flat, Intellectuals Weep, which besides being more nonsense because no serious 'intellectual' would actually 'weep'—they'd likely be appalled—it may serve to imbibe Ray Peat's ideas with a sense of illegitimacy when perceived by many people.
Haha... Exactly! Hard not to notice the subversive tactics of the flat earthers suddenly everywhere online these days!