[_gabe_]

> I believe the world is round

This isn't an opinion or a belief, it's a verifiable fact. We know the world is round because: if you travel east you'll eventually arrive at your starting destination; if you stand on a ship's crow's nest you can see further than the crew on the deck because of the curvature of the earth; if you fly a plane and make two 90 degree turns and travel an equal distance, you will end up at your starting point due to the curvature of the earth; if you go to space in a space station, you can visually verify that the earth is round.

Cargo culting acolytes will believe the earth is round with no explanation as to why. Just because you believe the right thing doesn't mean you're not cargo culting. If you can't explain why you believe what you believe, you're simply believing to follow a particular crowd, regardless of the validity of the belief.

[deltasevennine]

Sure.

I simply use this "world" example because everyone here is in the same cult as me: "The world is round cult." When I use it, they get it. If I were speaking to a different cult, I would use a different example.

You will note, both flat earthers and non-flat earthers have very detailed and complex reasoning for why they "believe" what they believe. But of course most members of either group have Not actually went to space to verify the conclusions for themselves.

[_gabe_]

My point was most people do cargo cult and that's bad, no matter what. And the notion that you have to go to space to know the earth is round is flawed, as I tried to illustrate using several examples that didn't necessitate traveling to space to infer that the earth is not flat.

After all, Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the earth with approximately 0.5% margin of error[0]. Since they didn't have rockets in 250 B.C, it should be clear that there are other empirical methods to test these hypotheses.

To reiterate, cargo culting is always bad. If you don't have a reason for what you believe, then there's a chance your belief is flawed and it would behoove you to research your question and prove to yourself the validity or invalidity of your belief.

[0]: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_geodesy/geo...

[deltasevennine]

Yeah I get it. But What I'm saying is that there are many times when nobody can truly prove which whether they're in the cargo cult or the other people are in the cargo cult.

So programming is one such thing. There are stylistic camps everywhere and nobody knows which one is the cargo cult, INCLUDING the neutral camp where people say everything is a tool depending on the context.