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Ask HN: How do I Convince someone the Earth isn't flat

4 pointsby shyn3over 1 year ago
Ran into a few religious people who suggest the earth is a firmament. How do I prove it's not round/sphere.

13 comments

cratermoonover 1 year ago
&quot;the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;28&#x2F;bullshit-asymmetry-principle&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;28&#x2F;bullshit-a...</a>
jfengelover 1 year ago
The trivial way is a phone call to a friend in a different time zone. It&#x27;s dark there; it&#x27;s not dark here. It&#x27;s just past dawn here; the sun is at the highest a few time zones east. More phone calls to more places and it&#x27;s pretty quickly apparent that the angle to the sun is exactly what you&#x27;d expect from a sphere and not from a disk.<p>Not that it matters. Flerfers have had decades coming up with increasingly elaborate and absurd cosmologies. They don&#x27;t understand them, but that&#x27;s what science looks like to them as well, so they figure it&#x27;s your word against theirs. And since their word is the Bible, they win.<p>If they were genuinely curious, there are a million ways to show the roundness of the earth. But there are zero ways to demonstrate it to a person who is fundamentally incurious and doesn&#x27;t want to know.
h2odragonover 1 year ago
Why do you need to prove them wrong? Have they given you doubt the world is round?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;physics.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;26427&#x2F;what-is-the-simplest-way-to-prove-the-earth-is-round" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;physics.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;26427&#x2F;what-is-th...</a>
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mtmailover 1 year ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hitchens%27s_razor" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hitchens%27s_razor</a> &quot;What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.&quot; Let them bring evidence of Earth&#x27;s flatness.
yaspover 1 year ago
Don&#x27;t waste your time?
alex_lavover 1 year ago
Just go find different people to talk to
jjgreenover 1 year ago
Meet them at night, point to the moon, walk away without saying a word.
gwnywgover 1 year ago
Out of curiosity, what religion was that?
clouddroverover 1 year ago
&gt; <i>Ran into a few religious people who suggest the earth is a firmament</i><p>The firmament is the sky, not the ground.
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zgsover 1 year ago
Ignore their idiocy. Such folks cannot be convinced by mere facts.
iefbr14over 1 year ago
Did they, by any chance, mention elephants and a big turtle too?
lphillips0825over 1 year ago
Ask them to take you to the edge of the Earth and show you where you can jump off. &#x2F;s
hardkorebobover 1 year ago
You don&#x27;t. You respect their mind. Simple. Make love not war of any kind.