Evidence is the key. I don't know where you stand on the Gettier problem debate (is all knowledge just JTBs?), but the Gettier problem and black swan events show that all the evidence can point to one thing, yet something else might actually happen. So, did you really know, or did you just believe? I guess flat-earthers just reject what 99.9% of people accept as knowledge and hold it instead as competing belief with whatever alternative system quacks well enough to pass as a duck in their squinting eyes.

I haven't, and you probably haven't, though if you have, I'd love to hear that story. As I said, they're skeptical of authority and need to run the experiment themselves; some will even flip on flat-earthers who run the experiment and change their minds. Only those who perform the experiment and still refuse to accept the outcome are deserving of being left to their own crazed devices. Until then, they're just ignorant and/or weird.

I know someone who is almost 40 years old that has never left his hometown. He's a reasonable person who holds gainful employment, but from our conversations, he's never been in a skyscraper, flown on an airplane, taken a road trip into the mountains, or even hiked up a large hill, for that matter. He also lives in a land-locked city, so he's never seen the ocean. As such, he has never directly observed the earth to be curved. With all due respect, many people like him do exist in the world, and perhaps you're not acquainted with people like him.

However, he is not a flat-earther because he spends much time on the Internet reading about the way the world works outside his hometown. Basically, he believes in the truthfulness of large institutions, which really is why you and I believe the earth is round; that is, we haven't actually performed a bona fide experiment (not just going in an airplane or up a mountain) to measure the curvature of the earth for ourselves, but we trust the results of those who have, and we also accept that certain technologies like GPS as it is currently implemented can only work if the earth is round (not just in satellite orbits but also the slight-but-critical relativistic shift from a geosynchronous satellite).

>when the contrary idea takes enormous leaps of faith to consider, it seems weird to me to believe something for the sake of it.

That's cool, but many people are capable of believing in something for the sake of it. One fact that stands out to me is that we all use some amount of faith to accept that the earth is round, though perhaps not quite a leap's worth.

Flat-earthers are definitely wrong about the shape of the earth, but even they admit the sky is blue, assuming they aren't afflicted with some unfortunate variety of colorblindness.

In my observations of flat-earthers, they're people who reject the consensus surrounding a particular fact because they haven't observed that fact for themselves, which doesn't make them bad people or even crazy. I do rather enjoy their attempts to measure basic scientific facts about the earth, such as when a group of flat-earthers used lasers and the ocean to measure if the earth indeed has curvature. When the evidence incontrovertibly showed the earth indeed has sufficient curvature to match the scientific consensus, many participants were quite shocked. As long as they adjusted to the consensus, or even hypothesized another theory they felt worth testing, they're not crazy, just skeptical of authority.

Of course, this is also true in engineering disciplines as well. Perhaps the greatest software engineering work is the Linux kernel. Open the repo, and navigate to a random line in a random file. The odds that you will understand exactly--and I mean exactly--what occurs on that particular line on your first read without an explanatory comment is relatively low. If, however, you consider header files, libraries, how the file fits into the broader kernel, language features, and additional contextual information, your ability to understand that line of code increases significantly.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/brb3.70338

https://www.texasinstituteforneurologicaldisorders.com/uncat...

https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-...

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/heres-what-happens-to-your...

I'll even throw in an AI-generated answer from the less-than-eloquent prompt "sugar addiction brain":

> Sugar addiction triggers neurobiological changes in the brain’s mesolimbic dopamine pathway, specifically affecting the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. Consuming sugar causes a surge in dopamine and endorphins, creating a pleasurable "high" that reinforces consumption. Over time, this repeated stimulation leads to neuroadaptation, characterized by:

> Downregulation of D2 receptors: The brain reduces its dopamine receptors, requiring more sugar to achieve the same effect (tolerance).

> Altered gene expression: Changes in receptor availability in the midbrain and frontal cortex.

> Hippocampal damage: High sugar intake can reduce new neuron production, impairing memory and learning.

>These mechanisms drive compulsive intake, cravings, and withdrawal-like symptoms (such as anxiety and irritability) when sugar is removed. While not formally classified as a substance use disorder in humans, the behavioral and neurochemical parallels to drug addiction (such as bingeing and loss of control) are well-documented in preclinical models and supported by human neuroimaging studies.

As an example, let's say Congress deemed fidget spinners a serious hazard to society. Congress can take two broad approaches to deal with them: (1) regulate, or (2) ban. In the first case, any state laws regulating fidget spinners could theoretically continue to exist, so long as those laws do not conflict with the federal laws and states are allowed to have additional regulations beyond those federal. In the second case, those laws become moot, as fidget spinners are not allowed.

Another reason why this works can be seen in the dynamics of data control laws like the HIPAA, COPPA, and CCPA (they're not privacy laws but data control). If you are an entity operating in the US covered under HIPAA or COPAA, it doesn't matter if your corporate headquarters are in California or Delaware; you must comply with those laws. With the CCPA, California decided that it wanted additional data control laws in the vein of the EU's GDPR, and that's their right because (1) no existing broad-scale federal data control law currently exists and (2) the Constitution does not give Congress the exclusive power to regulate data flows.

That's not to say I think event prediction markets are good. In fact, I think they should be banned. That doesn't change my analysis of the current situation.

Information on bots on Bluesky is limited, but from digging around for a few minutes, Bluesky users report 15-40% of their followers are bots. You seem fairly confident about Bluesky having far fewer bots and fewer foreign agents, so if you have a good link on Bluesky bot and foreign influence statistics, please share it here!

Point being: as this feature works perfectly fine in Airplane Mode, you don't need an internet connection to use your Remarkable.

[1] https://transistor-man.com/flying_nimbus.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery

Also, keep in mind that a stock price discounts expected future cash flows. Is it likely that SpaceX will have a near-peer competitor within a few years? No, it's not, and that market share is being priced-in.

Your observation that the doctoral degree system has always been that way is precisely my point: the world has changed, and new forms of training are needed to complement the paper-publishers. The PhD system is broken in part because it's catering to multiple audiences when it should regain its focus on its core mission. That being said, many people want to do research but don't want to work in academia; in fact, I think their numbers are far greater than the academia-oriented. My idea caters to those people, and I think all parties (students, schools, industry, government, the general public) will benefit in this arrangement with almost no drawbacks.

From a degree-focused perspective, it's somewhat unusual that U.S. universities almost exclusively assign PhDs, save for the professional degrees (e.g., MD, PharmD, JD). Multiple types of bachelors and masters degrees exist, and those degrees are certainly differentiated from one another. In some European countries, the ScD is a terminal degree higher than a PhD.

After thinking about it, I came up with a straightforward solution (at least in STEM): offer more than one type of of doctoral degree. Every program will have at least two doctoral programs: a Doctor of Philosophy, and a Doctor of Science/Engineering/Mathematics/etc.

The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program is academia at its core, where the students in this doctoral program are explicitly seeking an academic teaching or research position as their career path. The coursework and educational activities are explicitly aligned for this area.

The Doctor of Science/Engineering/Mathematics is focused on creating a top-of-the-line researcher intended for industry or an FFRDC. Those students receive a different type of education which explicitly gives them the deeper research skills and connections needed to become an accomplished industry researcher.

The two programs are equally rigorous but have different end goals in mind. This specialization is overdue, and most departments already have a fuzzy line separating the "academics" from the "practitioners."

In general, pursing a doctoral degree requires a certain degree of financial stability. The successful doctoral students usually came from wealthy families, whereas the ones who struggled the most also struggled with finances. I believe it's essentially impossible to perform truly novel academic research when your personal finances are volatile. I also firmly believe that graduate student unionization is an elitist mentality that must be unilaterally opposed, as it is guaranteed to destroy any constructive academic culture.