this is how it SHOULD be.

always

A civil discussion? About the flat Earth?

That makes me happy beyond words

🙂 it actually IS possible!

what a concept

The issue is I tend to get muted very quickly for asking difficult questions, which makes civil discussion... difficult, to say the least

yeah I would say it might be due to the reason I mentioned above. there is so much trolling activity that it puts people a bit on edge. it's not an excuse for bad behavior...just a possible explanation

there is no excuse for getting ugly

No, there really isn't an excuse

but we all sometimes say/do things we regret later

This is true

the real challenge here is the lack of video. some pyschologists estimate that circa 70% of communication is non-verbal

meaning...we could be losing 70% of the message just using text

Tone doesn't convey well over text

YES

It's generally limited to "EXTREME EMOTION" and "normal emotion"

lol. spot on

But the emotion being conveyed is always up to context clues

I mean sArCaSm is a thing now thanks to memes

right. good point

I think we lose appreciation for the very fact we're all here! can you imagine telling someone 500 yrs ago that one day people from across the world can communicate with each other in seconds?

we take it for granted

let's not abuse it. let's take advantage of it

I go for win/win scenarios

I agree. Regardless of the fact that we may disagree on _why_ it works, we all know that it does work

lol. right

So, how'd you get into flat Earth?

how many hours do you have?

🙂

short answer...I've always been a truth seeker..and while working on a prototype for one of my companies I was listening to a podcast (dont like music so much..I go for learning)

I'd say about 15 minutes total before the sleep meds kick in

lol

and the flat earth topic came up and it was new to me so...I had to find out more

I'm a PhD scientist so I guess I have a natural curiosity about how stuff works

so.....that started me on the journey

True. Out of curiosity, what was your doctoral thesis on?

apologies but I don't share that. it's such a very niche field that it would be easy to self-dox. but the general field is Chemistry

The general field was all I was interested in, so you're all good

😉

Hey @Flat Earth PhD