> I described a means of acquiring a line that I believe most would accept as meeting our ideas of "straight" that was consistent with my interpretation. Which

> I described a means of acquiring a line that I believe most would accept as meeting our ideas of "straight" that was consistent with my interpretation. Which, as I said, involves throwing away the 2-sphere and substituting a cylinder. Which does not strike me as a valid interpretation of anything. There is no cylinder anywhere in the problem. Saying "I will only count a Euclidean straight line going off into space as a straight line" would be one thing--still not really applicable to the problem, but the Earth is embedded in a Euclidean 3-space so at least you're dealing with something that's actually there. But saying "I will not count a great circle on a 2-sphere as straight, but I will count as straight a circle drawn around an imaginary cylinder that I just made up" is something else.