[vita17]

The earth isn’t flat. It’s not round either. Nor is it spherical. But we shouldn’t give up trying to describe its shape because no model will be sufficient. Rather, the earth can be thought of as flat, as round, as spherical, as elipsoidal, etc. The problem with flat earthers isn’t that they believe the earth is flat. Eveyone believes this. It’s that they approach knowlege as a fundamentalist taking the plain meaning of things without nuance or context.

[yathern]

EDIT: Sorry I came off very grumpy, I apologize. I'll rephrase.

I think nuance isn't so much the issue here as much as it is mistaking the map for the territory. A flat earth model has it's uses. Primarily for human-scale travel and mapping. But the topology of a sphere is inarguably far better than a flat plane. And if someone was to make the same mistake with a spherical model, they'd get a lot further before things break down.