The world is not flat.
The World is not FLAT
Shocker, Right?
Ugh!
"Flat-Earthers" are the worst. Up there with climate-change deniers and anti-vac loonies. When did this sudden craze of anti-science become so popular?
2016. 2016 is the year populist ideals and anti-logic mentalities were, unfortunately, validated.
I've written about this before, but there has been a drastic shift in western culture in the past 12 months that essentially changes the landscape when talking about freedom of speech or practical humanistic progression.
Let's start with the basics: "My Truth" is not a valid English phrase. You can have your perspective, and you can have the truth - you can't have your perspective being perceived as the truth. Fact is fact, the truth is the truth. If it were different, the criminal justice system would be a hell of a lot different.
Now, before anybody gets their 'you're a hypocrite because you advocate for adaptability in prior blogs' jam on, I want to address the succinct difference between failing to keep up with social trends or technology versus dismissing logic, science and reason altogether.
Wait, I just did.
Off the back of 50+ years of continued progression in humanity and, therefore, the most rapidly advancing social evolution in human history, we've managed to backslide a decade as a civilization, and have the audacity to celebrate it.
So now we see a rise in cultist flat-Earth movements, despite said flat-Earthers' using technology developed by science to invent the satellites that rely on actual-earth physics that allow their keyboard-warrior tendencies to be exercised. Vaccines have been proven to be overwhelmingly effective for decades and have all but eradicated diseases such as polio from western civilization yet anti-vac idiot groups are on the rise in unfathomable volume. Climate-change deniers have suddenly appears out of the woodwork in greater numbers than ever, despite increasing extreme weather conditions, and nobody appears to be denigrating their ability to express themselves.
In all honesty, If I were a politician right now I would have to introduce a bill to advocate for a common-sense filter and actively mute people in the world trying to actively regress humanity towards a destructive, pathologically ignorant journey into oblivion just because "they know their truth".
Fuck your truth.
You don't get to have a truth. You don't get to decide a fact. Despite political lobbyists best efforts, there is simply no such thing as 'alternative facts'. The laws of physics, and science, and universal powers that be decide that for you. You get to have a perspective, and that's all it is. An opinion. Your recollection of a situation or your personal views towards an occurrence in history. Your mental status is infinitely more questionable than universal law.
And if your perspective is in direct conflict of scientific fact that has been concluded from hundreds of thousands of hours of genius-level research far beyond the comprehension of ‘ya basic’ humans of the now, you receive the right to shut the f*** up - because you're patently wrong - and science has said so.
Now I realise the initial reactions of conservatives, the majority of baby boomers and perhaps even some extremely undeveloped left-wing social justice warriors will be quick to dismiss my paragraphs above as erroneous drizzle slated from some know-nothing who "doesn't know how the world works".
Please know though, that you're typing that from a keyboard developed by science, transmitting binary data through multiple interfaces onto a computer, phone or tablet developed by science, and ultimately will be transmitted to a satellite in the sky that works based on a spherical Earth, again developed and maintained by multitudes of science.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of "I believe therefore I'm right" advocates prancing around in the 21st century is the sheer stubbornness of their opinion, regardless of how flimsy their logic is to back it up. Arrogance and ignorance; it's a horrible combination - one that is far too common these days.
Humoring a "Flat-Earther" and arguing to the point of algorithmic miscalculations in the theory of the flat Earth is simply useless when trying to drum sense into this methodology of thinking. Simple mathematics is dismissed in favor of theories of religious conspiracy that the powers that be created the 'round earth' theory for civil obedience back in medieval times when churches ruled the Earth. Points such as:
Why is the moon always a crescent as opposed to a flat 1/2 at all times of the year?
Explain the horizon at a beach?
Explain satellite imagery?
Rockets.
Planets.
GRAVITY
Explain why it's impossible to look down 2 wells at least 10m deep at least 50km apart and see the bottom of the well at the same time during the normal rotation of the Earth?
There's about 14,000 other obvious reasons that flat Earth theory is about as dumb as anti-vaccine or climate change deniers now - but here's the real problem: We're humoring these people.
Politicians and corporate businesses are trying to appease these idiots because they appear to make up more than half of the Earth, at this point. I mean they voted in Trump! The epitome of every single thing that is wrong with Western Civilization right now; those who are are born rich get where they are through continued nepotism and wield incredible power despite an iQ just shy of a glass of water and not being able to read off a teleprompter effectively.
And people agree with them.
Maybe it truly is time to stop letting the people have their say.
- Tom