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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that the example debate is over flat-eartherism, which is one of those things on which all rational people agree. So therefore all the people on the other side are simply not playing the rational argument game - they're delusional or trolling.

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That was a tongue-in-cheek example that many (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/factche...) considered to be lighthearted, uncontroversial and settled. In case you wonder, we agree with this user's debate on the matter :) https://www.kialo.com/7216

Depends on what you mean by "rational". My understanding is that many flat-earthers of course don't seriously believe the earth is flat, and the argument is made as a form of artistic expression, which is to say that it is meant to demonstrate that rationality can be abused and does not inherently lead to truth.

One of Asimov's I, Robot stories did a similar thing, with a robot on a space station making rational arguments against the existence of earth.

Of course, there are also nutters...

There are also religious extremists who believe that a flat earth is strongly implied in the Bible. If I remember correctly, they point to a passage in which someone is shown the whole world, and the “idea” is that obviously you can’t see the whole surface of a sphere at once. sigh

Plus yes, nutters, obligate contrarians, and conspiracy theorists.

Would you please stop posting generic Reddit-style comments to HN? Religious flamewar is off topic here.

That wasn’t my intent, but I’ve also never been on Reddit so wouldn’t know. I didn’t realize that a religious precept from the 6th century was still so hot as to be flaming either.

That's silly. This is God we're talking about, if God wants to show you the entire surface of the earth at once I'm sure they can pull it off. Probably still has the blueprints if nothing else.

I’m with you, but religious extremists and rationality are like oil and napalm. It always struck me as odd that for religious types, “because god said so” isn’t enough. I guess it highlights a difference between just faith and scriptural literalism.

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