[contravariant]

If there's anything that flat Earth theories prove then it would be that there is no objective truth that can be universally agreed upon.

So sure we can suppose that there is an objective truth (ironically this point is also debated), but who do you trust to be its arbiter?

[AnimalMuppet]

There is objective truth. The earth is objectively not flat. There are people who don't agree with that (or at least who say they don't), but the earth is objectively not flat, whether or not some people don't agree. Not only that, it's provably not flat. So those who don't agree, well... they prove the contrariness of human nature, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[contravariant]

For all intents and purposes there is always an objective truth, the hard question is when you consider it proven.

Even for the flat Earth theory it's hard to dismiss it offhand. I mean sure there are plenty of experiments you can do to show that it is pretty close to a sphere. But who do you trust to do those experiments?

Either the person fact-checking needs to do the experiments/research themselves (which doesn't scale well) or they need to trust other people to have done the experiments. However at that point you're simply placing the word of some people above the word of others, which is not objective at all.

And even assuming you've actually picked honest people acting in good faith you're still relying on people to not be confidently incorrect, which I can fairly confidently say is always going to go wrong at some point.

[goatlover]

> Even for the flat Earth theory it's hard to dismiss it offhand. > I mean sure there are plenty of experiments you can do to show that it is pretty close to a sphere. But who do you trust to do those experiments?

All the various people who have done them, some of which can be repeated by anyone motivated enough, and all the technology that relies on it being the case. This was known to the ancient Greeks. One even calculated the circumference within a reasonable accuracy.

[VLM]

The Earth is objectively and unironically flat from the point of view of some, in fact many, narratives.

Certainly the architectural drawings of my house do not include a "bulge" in the basement due to heretical sphericalness.

All discussion of my basement floor being flat within about 1/2 inch need to be censored by big brother to save us all from free and independent thought.

The purpose of arguing about what should be censored is to distract from the argument of should there be censorship at all. Classic divide and conqueror strategy. Nobody ever gets asked if they should have concentration camps or not, they only argue about competing paint schemes and honorary mottos.

[AnimalMuppet]

I never said flat-earthers should be censored. I said they are objectively wrong, no matter what they claim.

And when they argue that the earth is flat, they aren't arguing about whether it's flat on the scale of my basement.

[ptero]

The problem is that almost any positive statement can be shown to be objectively wrong. "F=m * a", "x^2 = -1 has no solutions", "light travels in straight lines", etc. There are always conditions under which those are true or are good approximations for specific purpose.

Spelling out those applicability conditions explicitly is critical in research publications (but even then, only used for the topic under investigation). In all other contexts such pedantry is impossible. My 2c.

[diffeomorphism]

So? Wrong information is fine, misinformation is the problem.

[goatlover]

No, that just means that some people ignore or discount objective facts for ideological reasons. The Earth is roughly a sphere, and that is empirically provable.

The arbiter should be well established science, history, math and logic. Of course there is still room for plenty of debate where the matter is not already settled by overwhelming evidence. That's where there shouldn't be an arbiter. But for factual matters like the Earth being (roughly) spherical, there's no actual debate. Just belief that goes contrary to the evidence.