What should/can we all agree on?

[Lumpenproletariat]

Aren't there some facts of life, or REALITIES, that we do all agree on, or that we SHOULD all agree on? and yet some of these realities or facts of life are disbelieved, or disputed?

I.e., at least on some questions there is dispute, or there seems to be, and yet the facts are known, or the proof is plainly there, such that these questions are really PSEUDO-disputes which should not be debated anymore as anything seriously in doubt. Because the truth is plain enough for any honest person to see.

QUALIFIER: it's a legitimate rule that we should
"Question everything!" no matter what.

Also -- "Question authority!" Or, question it still again, even though perhaps it has been firmly established as the truth, or as a reliable source of truth. We're never absolutely certain about it, or there's a hypothetical possibility of error, so there's never any harm in going through the proof again, review the facts again, check the sources again. Even if it's only an armchair philosophy exercise. Such armchair philosophy is legitimate, even necessary, to keep us honest.


BUT, aren't there cases where the truth has been established, in the practical sense, and yet there is widespread error about it, or dishonesty or evasion of some kind, and the truth of it is being dismissed or obscured or suppressed in some way? or the questioning of it is suppressed or curtailed? like a taboo topic?

These are cases where those who know the truth want to present the facts and yet are not getting through, because there's a dishonesty of some kind which prevails and which prevents the truth from coming out. Maybe because someone gains a benefit from having the truth suppressed, or from preventing the discussion of it.

There are probably hundreds of examples of this. From politics, religion, philosophy, history, science. The point here is to produce a listing of such examples, and obviously not everyone agrees on what are the best examples of this. Some examples will be disputed, and so the argument will be whether this or that example is really a legitimate case of it. The point then is to dispute the particular examples -- I'll give a few here -- and anyone can add to the list, giving other examples, or dispute this or that example.

First, here's a simple obvious example which no one should disagree with:

The earth is round (rather than flat).

So, can't we all agree that at least this is true, even though it was not believed 10,000 years ago and even today some pretend to disbelieve it -- either something is wrong with them, or they're playing a joke of some kind. Or -- something is out of whack that they dispute this clear case of a truth which should be obvious to everyone -- from the evidence, not from indoctrination.

So, this example proves the point, that there are some facts or realities that seem to be disputed and yet are not seriously in doubt, because "all the facts" are in, or are established and recognized. And so there's no need to seriously debate this for any practical purpose, even though philosophically it's always good to review the evidence again, and again, etc. (because of the "Question everything!" rule). But there other less obvious cases of truths which are popularly denied or disputed in spite the facts.



examples of facts/truths which everyone should recognize

⬤ The Labor Theory of Value (as taught by Smith, Ricardo, and Marx) has been totally debunked, as it is established and recognized that the Law of Supply and Demand, not the quantity of labor, is what determines the value of anything that is bought and sold.

⬤ There is no evidence that a nation must strive for a "favorable balance of trade" in order to make its economy healthy (or healthier), or that it must penalize imports if necessary to offset a "trade deficit" (where imports exceed exports) on the premise that a "trade deficit" does harm to the economy. (Or, the premise that a "trade deficit" does harm to the economy is false.)

⬤ There is no general social need to "create jobs" -- rather, there is only the general need to get necessary production performed, which in some cases even requires destruction of some jobs (replacement of them by machines to do the work at lower cost).

⬤ If God really exists (or "there is a God"), such as is taught in the major religions and accepted as a hypothetical possibility in most philosophy, then this God entity never required anyone ever to perform animal sacrifice ("blood atonement") rituals, as many Jews and Christians still pretend to believe (even though they probably know better).

⬤ The historical Jesus in the 1st century probably did the unusual healing "miracle" acts depicted in the Gospel accounts, and also resurrected back to life after being killed, or if not, at least the historical evidence tells us that he did, and so the evidence from history has to be rejected in this case for some reason (or the evidence is wrong in this case).

⬤ Donald Trump is guilty or legally accountable for having provoked the crimes committed on Jan. 6 2021.

⬤ Immigrant labor (even illegally hired) is necessary for the U.S. economy, and the U.S. standard of living would decline if the labor laws excluding this labor should be enforced.

⬤ Many of the laws have to be broken at times in order for society to function properly, even some laws which should exist because they still serve a function despite the partial nonenforcement.


All the above are disputed by this or that large segment of society, and yet all are proved by the facts and cannot seriously be disputed. Or, the dispute of them is due to dishonesty or something else wrong with our society causing people to miscommunicate or evade/suppress the truth.

Of course one can list hundreds of other examples.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

I chose the last option - keep arguing. There are some branches of maths where 2 +2 doesn't equal four. The earth is not a perfect sphere but classed as an oblate spheroid. Supply and demand doesn't always function as the economic theories suggest. While there may have been a person that is known as Jesus now, there is no evidence for his specific activities. I agree with the rest of the points in your post.

 

[Bronzeage]

Why should I question everything?

 

[TomC]

First, here's a simple obvious example which no one should disagree with:

Here's a couple of more appropo examples.
1) The earth is close to 14 billion years old. The earth is close to 5 thousand years old.

2) Earthly species are the result of millions of years of natural selection.
Species were brought into existence in a week.

I'm not exactly sure why Young Earth Creationists have lost faith in a roundish earth, while keeping faith in the other big parts of Biblical science. But they have. Google Ken Ham for more information.
Tom

 

[abaddon]

There's a basic, universal, indisputable fact that's even surer than evolutionary thought or really any scientific theories.
And that is consciousness. All that is known is known by consciousness. And Descartes was right with his cogito - to experience is to know, in a way that any doubt of it can only be inattentiveness or ideology, that experiencing happens. All the rest of reality (insofar as sentient beings can know it) is derivative.

Consensus knowledge isn't a consensus on facts about "external reality". It's a consensus on experiences -- it's people trying to extrapolate speculations about "external reality" from those experiences.

This might seem like "angels on pinheads" philosophical talk because most humans are by default naive realists and they rarely re-think that basic assumption. We tend to imagine the world comes in through the senses straight to a "me" residing "inside" of a skull. That's very naive unthinking but it's also incredibly hard to shake. But there are pragmatic reasons to deconstruct naive realism. It's an obstruction to knowing the role our minds play in constructing and presenting to each of us a "world". And there's no complete description of nature without including mind in it.

Amazingly to me, consciousness has been disputed. Like religionists denying aspects of reality that don't fit their "theory of everything", some physics-mimic positivists have declared that consciousness is an illusion. They start with the premise that physics is true. So for a phenomenon to "really exist", it has to be accounted for in physics. Else it only *seems" to exist but doesn't really. (Nevermind that physics isn't designed to know all reality, cuz they also assume positivism is true and positivism presumes the supremacy of physics).

The reason this argument is bonkers, is you can't have an illusion of "seeming" except in consciousness. So the argument to "it only seems like it's there" actually demonstrates consciousness because the very seeming is consciousness! The argument is on a level of stupid with Samuel Johnson trying to refute Georges Berkeley's idealism by kicking a rock. "I refute it thus!" he shouted and kicked a rock... thereby demonstrating that his mental experience of a mental foot striking a mental rock resulted in mental pain.

The world does not come in at the eyes and ears and mirror itself inside your brain. The world is [re}constructed in the brain and "you" are in that construction and so you are in effect inside your own universe. It doesn't matter which "worldview" is true -- whether physicalism or idealism or panpsychism, or whatever the fuck else anyone believes, the "things" you see "around you" are permutations of consciousness. Look at the world like it's here in "your" mind with you, like you're having a very consistent lucid dream, and you'll be that little bit less deluded.

 

[steve_bank]

Nothing is certain except death and taxes - This famous quote about taxes originated with Benjamin Franklin in 1789. Over 200 years later, it still rings true.

One thing is sure, endless debate on that which can never be resolved will exist until the last two humans around to debate.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why should I question everything?

(Is this trip necessary? Does this require another Wall of Text?)

The rule "Question everything" doesn't really mean that you literally have to question everything you encounter. No one is able to do that -- there's not time. We have to make decisions, survive, do the daily tasks, and to question every speck of dust before we can act, or to disbelieve anything in life until we first scientifically research and prove it, would make living impossible. The truth-seeker is entitled to do this research and proof in any particular case, but is not required to in all cases.

So this rule means freedom to question everything, or something like not submitting to any demand or rule or authority that cannot be scrutinized or questioned, like to someone claiming infallibility, or like a rule or formula claiming to be universal and to be followed by everyone, or in all conditions, in all places, everywhere in the universe, without reservation, without condition. Rather, there should be sufficient reservation or satisfaction that whatever is dictating something to us can be questioned, or has been questioned, and tested, or put through a process to demonstrate its reliability as a standard for guiding decisions, or as a source for what is true.

Even "2 + 2 = 4" can be questioned, in the sense that someone must be allowed to give their refutation of it, and any such claimed refutation has to be considered -- maybe not by everyone, but by someone. There may be a reason why such a formula or truth statement should be accepted, as inherently true and irrefutable. And yet even so one has to at least give the explanation why this kind of statement must be true without any exception. So some explanation is required -- even if the rule has to be true in all possible cases. Even then there has to be an explanation why this rule has such status.

So "Question everything" doesn't literally demand that nothing is ever assumed without proving it. Rather it means the "proof" does exist, or there is an explanation why a rule holds true -- possibly in all conceivable cases -- and that this explanation is available to us, whether we choose to experience the explaining process or not. So it's subject to being examined, and nothing is immune to being examined to determine its validity. And the choice to examine it, analyze it, scrutinize it, seek flaws in it, etc., is always open to us, and we're free to exercise that choice. We're entitled to an explanation why any particular rule or authority is legitimate.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

For all practical purposes, some facts/truths have been established.

There are some branches of maths where 2 +2 doesn't equal four.

Even so, everyone knows, including those mathematicians, that 2 + 2 = 4. They are not really telling us that we are mistaken when we claim 2 + 2 = 4. And if they teach math, they teach the students that 2 + 2 = 4. So they do agree that 2 + 2 = 4.

Is the Earth not really "round"?

The earth is not a perfect sphere but classed as an oblate spheroid.

Being "round" is not necessarily to be a "perfect sphere." What we all know is that "The earth is round rather than flat." And spheroid is "round" even if it's not a perfect sphere, but an imperfect one.

If need be we can make it even more explicit: "The earth is round like a ball rather than flat." That is a fact everyone does agree with -- how could any honest person insist that the earth is flat rather than round like a ball? unless they're playing some kind of word-game? -- even though the flat earth was believed 50,000 years ago by most humans. It's not about "perfect roundness" but about being a ball kind of shape rather than flat.


Is the Law of Supply-and-Demand debunked?

Supply and demand doesn't always function as the economic theories suggest.

Which economic theories? Of course there are many theories which might need to be improved. But the basic theory is correct, that more supply = lower value, and more demand = higher value. This always is true, but it's difficult to measure the quantities demand and supply, and it's difficult to identify the "value" over time, as it varies with the unpredictable ups and downs. Or even unmeasurable ups and downs. But when the supply and the demand can be measured easily and correctly, the value always goes up as demand rises (all else being equal) and also goes up as supply decreases (all else being equal). When does the law of supply-and-demand not function this way?

When you choose complicated scenarios, the "law" gets more difficult to apply. But in all the simple scenarios, where it's easy to test, supply-and-demand always does function as it's supposed to.


No evidence about the historical Jesus?

While there may have been a person that is known as Jesus now, there is no evidence for his specific activities.

It's true that there's very little such evidence. But it's incorrect to say there's "no evidence" or zero evidence for his activities. There's almost no evidence for some historical characters, like Zoroaster, e.g. (less evidence than for Jesus). But even for Zoroaster it's agreed by all the experts that he founded a new Persian religion or religious philosophy, which is one "specific activity" of his.

Maybe in some cases of these known facts/truths the probability of it is only 98%, rather than 99.99%. Maybe even 96 or 97% (slight uncertainty). So my claim is not that there's absolute certainty about it. But it's well-enough proved (very high probability) that something is usually wrong when educated persons claim to disbelieve it. It's easy to give examples of believers, religionists, etc. claiming to believe contrary to established facts -- clinging uncritically to their traditions -- but there are also examples of disbelievers and skeptics and Gospel-debunkers who make up stories in order to prove their case.

 

[lostone]

We all want a world where everyone can do as well as possible

 

[steve_bank]

1.Disagree, 2+2 = 4 in arithmetic, the + operator has more than one use.
2. Disagree, the Earth is not round. It is oblate spheroid.
3. Disagree, left and right are the equally unbelievable.
4. Disagree, see 3.
5. Disagree, a principle of western liberal democracy is freedom to choose beliefs. There is no mandate that you mus choose.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Amusingly, I thought up the other day common situations where 2 + 2 =4 can be a misleading or ambiguous claim. Incidentally, I thought a similar thing last year that would have applied to a certain thread but I never posted it then.
It is to do with objects, not pure mathematical numbers.
2 pies + 2 pies = 4 pies. 2 whole pies + 2 half-pies = 4 items, but only 3 whole pies. So, in this and many similar familiar cases 2 + 2 = 3 or some other number.

 

[steve_bank]

When Unknown Soldier appeared on the form he argued that because across mathematics the statement 1 + 1 does not always algebraically add up to 2 that math was wrong.

In philosophy the problem is always narrowing the scope and possibly of interpretations.

We commonly say the Earth is round but in fact it is not. We commonly say planets revolve around the Sun, but in fact the Sin and planets rotate about the center of mass of the solar system.

Instead of 2 + 2 = 4 if it was stated that if I have 6 apples in one pile and 3 in another then the total is 9 I;; say we can all agree it is always true. Or you could say arithmetic is always correct.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

1.Disagree, 2+2 = 4 in arithmetic, the + operator has more than one use.

To say "the + operator has more than one use," whatever this means, does not deny the fact that 2 + 2 = 4. To deny that 2 + 2 = 4 you must give an example where 2 objects + 2 additional objects do not add up to 4 objects.

2. Disagree, the Earth is not round. It is oblate spheroid.

Again, this is semantics. The correct way to state the fact we all know is true is: "The earth is round rather than flat." And "round" can include "spheroid" as part of its meaning. This is what we understand when we say "the earth is round."

A half million years ago "the earth is round" was contradicted by the evidence known at that time, so most humans did not believe it, but thought the earth was flat. (I.e., they had the thought of the earth being flat rather than round, not the words, and that thought they had was incorrect.)

3. Disagree, left and right are the equally unbelievable.
4. Disagree, see 3.

?

5. Disagree, a principle of western liberal democracy is freedom to choose beliefs. There is no mandate that you must choose.

Of course there's no "mandate" about what to believe which is enforced.

But there is a kind of philosophical mandate to choose reason above prejudice/emotion/superstition/etc. We should believe what the evidence says is true. We are not to invent truths/facts of our own, but should recognize facts which are demonstrated to be true. E.g., science. And much of this truth is known with probability, or a high degree of evidence, rather than with 100% certainty.


Again, there are some facts we should all agree on -- but which we do not all agree on. Or, there are some who say they don't agree (maybe they're lying -- it's not certain, but they're wrong to deny these established facts).

 

[steve_bank]

Lumpy,how's it going?

You miss my point.

In the context of the OP and the idea we can all agree 1 + 1 is always 2 is false for reason's staed. If it was stated as if I have one apple in each hathen I have two apples in total then I'd say we can all agree,.

Or if the statesmen was qualified as 'in arithmetic 1 + 1 always equals 2' then I'd say we can all agree,

'1 + 1 =2 ' is often used as a coloquial eprssion used to make a point but it is not unversally true synbolically.

In matth,science, and engineerng there is a lmited set of Greek letters used as symbols that do not aways mean the same thing.

For an example you can look at Unversal Soldes thread on the topis.

Or in compex numbers 1 + 1i does not equal 2. It equals 1.4142136, square root of 2.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

truths people don't want to hear
or unpopular truths which are suppressed for fear of offending someone

or "Inconvenient Truth"

Claims like "2 + 2 = 4" and "the earth is round rather than flat" are not something seriously argued anywhere, and there's no point in suggesting such claims might be false or that a debate on these serves a purpose. Maybe the Law of Gravity is another example -- no one says gravity doesn't exist.

These established facts serve as extreme cases, archetypes, to show that there are some facts or truths which we all agree on, and which we conform to for good reason -- maybe for practicality. But there are some other established facts about which there is serious debate or disagreement, or contradiction of the established facts, and it's these which need debate and yet which are neglected because there is something wrong or dishonest going on. Maybe it's difficult to identify exactly what the error or dishonesty is.

some examples:

"There are studies which show that" --

⬤ increases in the minimum wage do not cause job losses;

⬤ face masks do not protect against Covid or other contagious illnesses;

⬤ vaccinations are ineffective or do more harm than good;

⬤ hiring immigrant workers has no downward impact on wage levels;

⬤ higher gov't debt is needed to "stimulate the economy" and create prosperity;

etc.

When the only argument a debater offers is: there's a "study which shows that . . ." -- we know probably the claim being made is false. Today you can pay a think tank to produce any "study" you want to prove whatever you're promoting.

In some cases the "studies" are partially true but are distorted to convey disinformation to the public and thus leading to negative consequences. In some cases the "studies" even are awarded Nobel Prizes, because the dishonesty leads to politically-correct feelings and comfortable social relations with the masses. So, this not about whether "2 + 2 = 4" -- not about extreme cases where the truth is too obvious for there to be any debate.

And at the same time needed dissemination of debate about critical matters -- e.g. climate change -- is discouraged for fear of offending popular sentiment (i.e., the need to appease the demand for cheap gasoline and low electric bills).

What is needed is a list of other examples -- where the need to appease popular sentiment seems to override the need for correct information. And also there's a need to examine each example to see if it really does fit this pattern.

I.e., PATTERN of promoting a popular sentiment -- a belief/crusade going contrary to established fact. Such as the "studies which show that . . ."

The need is to expose further examples of this. And critically check each example to verify if it really is a correct example of this pattern, or if rather the popular sentiment is really the truth and the "established" facts are actually wrong. We can't assume that "populism" is automatically wrong in all cases. Each case has to be examined.

Isn't supply-and-demand a fact of life which we wish was not true because it's always getting in our way? Are there some crusaders who try in some perverse way to pretend that the Law of Supply-and-Demand is just a myth? just another oppressive dogma imposed onto us by the ruling elite? Those crusaders would be praised by the mindless masses whose demand for "entitlements" has no limit. If a certified scholar would do a "study" which debunks the law of supply-and-demand and publish this in a book, wouldn't he become an instant popular hero? and wealthy celebrity?

It would become a status symbol to have his book on your library shelf. Isn't this how Karl Marx has become such a hero even praised and quoted today? by telling the mindless crybabies the lies they wanted to hear?

 

[steve_bank]

Lumpy, you keep adding 1 + 1 and getting 3....love those math metaphors.

The Earth is neither flat nor round.....a closer approximation is an oblate spheroid.

Since the Earth is flattened at the poles and bulges at the Equator, geodesy represents the figure of the Earth as an oblate spheroid. The oblate spheroid, or oblate ellipsoid, is an ellipsoid of revolution obtained by rotating an ellipse about its shorter axis.

Figure of the Earth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Looks like there are both Flat Earthers and Round Earthers.


Suppl;y and demand is a general economic principle but is not always exactly true in practice. It is more of an deal model.

Competitive free market capitalism requires equal access to resources which never really happens.

 

[Bomb#20]

We commonly say planets revolve around the Sun, but in fact the Sin and planets rotate about the center of mass of the solar system.

That can't be how it works. Consider a simple three-body problem: the earth, the moon and Sputnik. The center of mass of the system is 5000 km above the center of the earth; the earth revolves around that point once a month with a radius of 5000 km. Sputnik was only 230 km up, so if Sputnik had been revolving around the center of mass of the earth-moon system rather than around the center of mass of the earth then it would have crashed back into the earth within a day of launch when the earth orbited right into Sputnik's path.

 

[Shadowy Man]

The Earth is neither flat nor round.....a closer approximation is an oblate spheroid.

I agree with the earlier statement that this is a semantic game. An oblate spheroid has a specific geometric definition while the word “round” does not so these are not terms that are naturally in conflict with each other. It is high pedantry to insinuate that oblate spheroids are not “round”.

Your sentence is a bit silly and I would hope you don’t keep repeating it.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Facts/Truths which are established

vs.

Popular Sentiment​

3 more examples, to explain what my point is:


Ticket Scalpers

Everyone hates ticket scalpers, and yet no one can say what is wrong with these entrepreneurs. It is a fact, based on economic fundamentals, that ticket scalpers are legitimate speculators or investors in our society, who perform a service for consumers and who profit in proportion to their contribution to the economy.

No one can say what harm is done by ticket scalpers in comparison to other speculators in the marketplace. Of course anyone in business can commit fraud in one form or another, through false advertising or peddling something inauthentic. Ticket scalping might be a practice needing some regulation or oversight, to ensure honesty by the operators. But basically it's as honest as any other business offering a needed service to the public.

So this is an example of The Truth/Facts vs. The Popular Sentiment.



Jesus and the Money-Changers

Everyone sees Jesus as a champion of someone, maybe the poor, because of his assault on the money-changers in Jerusalem. And yet there was nothing wrong about the money-changers, nothing dishonest about them, nothing criminal, nothing impious or contrary to the civil or religious law.

They were performing a legitimate service for the Temple authorities. This Bible story is only a symbolic cheap shot at those who handle money, possibly making a legitimate profit -- bankers, speculators, landlords, pawnbrokers -- who tend to become scapegoats for the ignorant and superstitious and for demagogues seeking power.

Possibly it was not really Jesus who attacked the moneylenders, but someone else trying to start a riot, and perhaps Jesus being nearby got blamed for it as someone conspicuous as a troublemaker of some sort. Whatever the explanation, this is an example of a false narrative which is popular in the culture, showing how people sometimes choose to believe totally contrary to the known facts, and the social pundits and propagandists seize upon such delusion, in order to make themselves popular among the ignorant masses and promoting a dubious crusade of their own by means of the scapegoating technique.


Replacement theory

There are different versions of "Replacement" as something controversial. One kind of "replacement" which is universally condemned is that of high-paid workers being replaced by machines or by cheap labor in order to save on costs. This is reviled as "bottom-line" inhuman cruelty by greedy companies which put "profit before people" and disregard their "social responsibility" to provide good-paying jobs for society.

But the legitimate function of the companies is to serve consumers, not their employees, and when the value of the workers decreases, because of competition, the company's social obligation is to replace those workers with whatever gets the same production done at lower cost.

The math is simple: Consumers are 100% of the population, whereas the uncompetitive workers becoming less valuable in an industry are a small percent, maybe even less than 1% of the population. Instead of doing what's right for the whole nation, the demented crusaders obsess on a few workers who should become more competitive in the economy, and they demand that the whole society must make a sacrifice to save the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" of the uncompetitive workers, so that the general welfare of the society is sacrificed in favor of propping up someone's wage level artificially in order to save those uncompetitive jobs.

So here again the popular sentiment goes contrary to the established facts, or against the overall good to be gained by letting the market competition determine the buying and selling and the prices and wages.



So the examples I'm citing are that of popular delusions, or popular false narratives in our society. These delusions are seized upon by someone crusading for a cause of some kind, or driven by a perverse instinct, and thus there is a blind acceptance of lies, or falsehoods, to promote the delusions, and there is abundant evidence and facts, from history or science, to easily debunk the delusions or falsehoods.

These facts are not the same as the "2 + 2 = 4" or "earth is round" type, which are universally recognized. But there are other facts which also should be recognized. The fact of the moon-landing in 1969 is almost universally recognized, and other facts too are well-enough established that it is legitimate to say that these are some facts we should all agree on, even though there are some demented crusaders who seem to deny these facts, for whatever perverse reason.

There could be different kinds of reasons why these well-established facts are denied by the demented crusaders.


The question is: What are some other examples of well-established facts which are denied by a large percent of our society?

Examples like: denial of the moon-landing, the Anti-Vaxers crusade, Holocaust-deniers don't really fit this truth-vs-popular-sentiment pattern, because the majority, maybe 90% of the population, do accept the established facts in these cases as based on the evidence and published information.


So, what are some other examples of truth vs the popular sentiment? where the popular mindset goes contrary to the known facts? and -- for the majority -- the facts are disregarded in favor of the popular sentiment?

 

[steve_bank]

The Earth is neither flat nor round.....a closer approximation is an oblate spheroid.

I agree with the earlier statement that this is a semantic game. An oblate spheroid has a specific geometric definition while the word “round” does not so these are not terms that are naturally in conflict with each other. It is high pedantry to insinuate that oblate spheroids are not “round”.

Your sentence is a bit silly and I would hope you don’t keep repeating it.

Colloquial versus factual. in daily communications we could not communicate if all communication were in detailed facts.

Metaphors and analogies are important. as are simplified terms and images. A round Earth is fine in routine speech, I would hinh nothing of it. Whne says that Earth s rond and we can all agree as part of an argument that is different.