They could try, but not even China could build an impregnable firewall.
"Sorry, you can't use this evidence that exonerates you - it would be bad for the government."
It's the same mechanism that makes us consider the 1% of flat earthers crazy. Sadly the mechanism works based on how many people believe a thing, not whether it's true, so it can also block true things if only 1% of people believe them.
We don't think they are crazy because they are not 1%, they are majority.
Most people think flat earthers are crazy not because they proved them wrong. Just most people around them think flat earthers are crazy and that's enough.
They're just different.
Take any phenomena on a globe earth, describe the exact same thing in flat earth coordinates and then say that everything weird in the equations is a new physical effect you just discovered.
If every observation conspires to make it look round, it's round because observation is all we have. Refusing to accept observational evidence that forms a coherent explanation is either anti-science or anti-definition-of-words. This justification for flat earth exits the realm of scientific inquiry and enters the realm of Cartesian evil demons, a hypothesis even Descartes rejected.
…which have other consequences that are easily disproven.
Flat earthers are empirical cosplayers. It mostly seems they just want something to argue about and couldn’t come up with anything original.
You can't actually do that in an internally consistent way. (Or atleast I've never seen it.) It isn't only interally incosistent but those theories also break down if you look at them too closely. That's why so much of flat earthism relies on conspiracy theories that are used to justify ignoring phenomena rather than actually investigating it.
that you even say this may show how you learned to live with it because majority around you believes it and your human brain considers it suicide to go against the tribe. (Or maybe you believe it yourself)
it's trivial to prove there's no heaven or hell. Maybe as trivial as disprove flat earth.
Flat earth is very similar to religion. It's a belief. It perpetuates because people around you believe in flat earth and if you tell them how they are crazy then you will be outcast and lose friends and family. And hey spoiler alert this is the same reason you don't call religion crazy, because anywhere in the world 99% you have religious friends or family (except maybe north korea or china, then replace religion with dictator cult). Flat earthers are just unlucky because they are very small minority
You're conflating physics and metaphysics.
> Flat earth is very similar to religion
You seem to have a beef to pick with religion. There are religious groups that do function similar to flat earthers, but that isn't true of all religious groups and many of the smartest and open minded people in history have been religious.
If anything, by making this comparison you are legitimizing idiocy.
There's a big difference between taking a position on unknowable metaphysical topics and refusing to recognize or even look at evidence when presented to you.
> unknowable metaphysical topics
religious people often conveniently shift goalposts to make sure what they say is always beyond knowable. We launched satellites and found no heaven above? fine, it exists in some other way. No soul detected? our technology is not good enough. Flat earthers do almost the same thing just they use conspiracy theories instead.
If you want to find a difference between religion and flat earther theory, Christianity for example (not sure this applies to all religions) is supposedly helping humans live together better, like: be kind, do to others what you want be done to you, don't steal/kill/rape etc. But that's not really related to how it's proven or factual.
It isn't "shifting goal posts"...It's called updating your beliefs when the evidence proves them wrong. Many religions have a strong history of doing this and it is something that flat earthers don't do.
> Flat earthers do almost the same thing just they use conspiracy theories instead.
If you don't understand the epistemological difference, you should try educating yourself. There is quite a bit of scholarly work on this...
I have no issue saying I think religion is BS. I don't care if I lose friends over that tbh.
I just don't normally do so because a) it won't change their mind and b) I don't care what they believe. I still think it's crazy but that's fine. Everyone is a bit crazy anyway. And c) I prefer focusing on common ground than contradictions.
But tribes are overrated in this day and age. If you don't fit in you can just find another one that you do gel with. This changes over time too.
You can find new friends thanks to internet. Flat earthers and religious communities have more strong relations IRL than us here
I could totally not live in a small country town where I'd be forced to pretend to be religious and care about sports. And I'm into other stuff like polyamory that small communities tend to hate.
So yeah that would be hell for me. I probably would end up excluded.
I also tend to change pretty radically every few years or so. Including finding a new country to live, new hobbies etc. So I have few long term ties anyway. I like it like that. I tend to feel trapped in too stable situations.
You seem to be specifically trying to show how you're not like most people, so in a way you support my point!
> So yeah that would be hell for me. I probably would end up excluded.
Why hell, if you don't have ties anyway and you are fine? You are contradicting yourself
> I also tend to change pretty radically every few years or so. Including finding a new country to live, new hobbies etc. So I have few long term ties anyway. I like it like that. I tend to feel trapped in too stable situations.
Yeah so if your long term ties were religious or flat earth you would likely be that too. Because people don't usually fuck with long term ties. Re my point
I would mind being excluded, like I said I do have communities, I just find them to fit me not change me to fit them. Most communities I'm in are also super open and accepting of that anyway.
In a small town this would be difficult obviously, and things like poly and lgbt are more hated there.
> Yeah so if your long term ties were religious or flat earth you would likely be that too.
My parents were religious when I was young. They had me baptised. But by the time more stuff had to happen (communion I think?) I had already decided I hated religion and wanted nothing to do with it. My parents were ok with that. My grandparents were pretty pissed because they were really catholic but I always hated that side of the family anyway.
Um speak for yourself.
I think most of us atheists do think that but we're too polite to not say it. Besides, it won't change anything so there's no point.
Religions believe in a guy in the sky who promises to look after you after you have turned to dust after you do some arbitrary things during your time on earth. Most of their followers don't even actually do these things and are pretty bad people but still believe they're going to be looked after through some creative brain twisting. For this there is no evidence and no ability to even obtain it. The only thing they have is some old books.
I think the latter is more crazy in essence. Of course most flat earthers aren't actually interested in evidence and I think most of them just say they are in order to troll.
Also flat earthers are much less of a problem in the world because there's only a handful in them and most of them are in the US where they don't really stand out in terms of craziness considering the state that country is in. It's in a post-fact state anyway for most of its population.
They can learn from Russia. Censorship in Russia now surpassed China. TSPU are now in every ISP facility. They pass all traffic through them and allow arbitrary bans of specific resources/protocols/etc in specific cities or whole regions.
idk how "open" would this mean but drastic changes are coming.
Would be great for the Chinese if true though.