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The original Flat Earth "movement" was an exercise to show that it is impossible to prove anything without some leaps of faith about the nature of the Universe
by lupire 2y ago
The original Flat Earth "movement" was an exercise to show that it is impossible to prove anything without some leaps of faith about the nature of the Universe or interpolating between gaps in definite knowledge..
There is always an assumption that can be denied. Turtles all the way down.
Later it grew into to a haven for a certain kind of mentally ill person and grifters that profit from them, illustrating the philosophical Problem of Subjectivity: malice cannot be reliably distinguished from stupidity.
- lisper 2y agoIt's a little more nuanced than that. The flat earth movement originated with Samuel Rowbotham who actually conducted an experiment in 1838 whose results (he claimed) demonstrated that the earth was flat [1]. I think it's arguable that he was engaging in the scientific method in good faith. --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment