Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> skeptical of the earth being round

I’m skeptical that these people truly exist outside of the internet wanting it to be true.



> I’m skeptical that these people truly exist outside of the internet wanting it to be true

I'm not, just like I'm not skeptical that climate change denialists truly exist outside of the internet

there's simply no valid argument to warrant skepticism of either, given the ease of locating evidence that both do


Sure there is. Ease of proof.

I can walk outside and prove gravity.

I can find a million pictures of the earth taken from space, look at a globe and view trade routes that circumnavigate it. I can also look to the sky and see the sun and moon are clearly circular which makes a pretty good case for a pattern.

Climate change or the age of the earth are based on a whole lot more interconnected bits of science that even if you studied your entire life you could not truly say that you understand. You’re putting your trust in layers of science that add up to a certain conclusion (which is good). When people are given good reasons to believe that science and peer reviews aren’t always legitimate it undermines that process of trust building on trust.

Modern aviation is layer upon layer of science building on each other, but I can easily watch a plane takeoff to validate all of those processes.

That’s it in a nutshell. If you can easily replicate it, it’s easy to trust. If you can’t, it’s not…especially when it’s used to drive politics.


as far as I can tell, you weren't asked to prove either climate change or a round earth, or any concept at all

recall the tangent we deflected to was the mere existence of round earth deniers, climate change deniers (read: people), both of which do, in fact, exist as real people in the real world, as can be easily confirmed by anyone researching the topic in good faith, like I said

anyhow, back on topic: the proposed alternative just doesn't seem better than the status quo, no matter how you've sliced it so far, for the reasons given in my original post and ignored by you


> there's simply no valid argument to warrant skepticism of either, given the ease of locating evidence that both do

I wasn’t proving either, just validating skepticism


you weren't able to do so, since "X is ridiculous to deny" is orthogonal to "there exist people who deny X", and the latter is the tangent deflected to. Like I said, anyone actually spending ten seconds researching the topic in good faith would discover that both round-earth denialists and climate-change denialists exist in real life, no matter how ridiculous their beliefs

anyhow, back on topic: the proposed alternative just doesn't seem better than the status quo, no matter how you've sliced it so far, for the reasons given in my original post and ignored by you


I explained plain as day how it’s easy to be skeptical of anything that can’t be verified quickly and then explained the difference.

There’s not a lot left to say if you’re going to ignore that.


>I explained plain as day how it’s easy to be skeptical of anything that can’t be verified quickly and then explained the difference

maybe, maybe not. Problem is, that's totally, absolutely, and completely irrelevant to your tangent, which was: you doubted the existence of round earth deniers in real life

(when they do, in fact, exist, just like climate change deniers, no matter how ridiculous either of them or their beliefs are)

see, you neglect that some people are also skeptical of things which CAN be verified quickly, for many varied reasons which we'll for expedience summarize here as "the dumb", and many of these round-earth-denying, perhaps climate-change-denying people are in the "we're losing faith in science!!!1" crowd

which brings us back on topic: the proposed alternative just doesn't seem better than the status quo, no matter how you've sliced it so far, for the reasons given in my original post and ignored by you




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: