by It would be shocking for some to know that there are still flat earth believers who say the shape of the earth is like a disk or plane. They disregard the scientific concept of the earth being a globe. Who are these people and from where do they come from? Surprisingly they mostly belong to developed and other countries in the west.
The Flat Earth concept is scientifically disproven and no experts or scientists support this theory. Physicists disregard this theory and have given scientific rebuttals to it too.[1][2][3] Even though this concept is unscientific but the problem relies on people outside natural science who tend to hype this old argument. Just like how natural science is facing this problem, something similar is happening in social science too. Like flat earthers, there are still people who believe in concepts like socialism. Socialism is also a concept disproven in economics and not taught in economics too. Economists have disproven socialism with different arguments.[4][5]
Socialists in earlier debates portrayed their theory to be “scientific”. This was done to advocate central planning which is very much needed in any form of a collectivist society. But, a theory in economics is scientific when it follows the science of economics rather than natural sciences. If the science of economics is used in physics, then that’s not science but wrong methodology. There was an epistemological fallacy in socialism which believed planning commission to have all knowledge about the economy.[6] They used quotes like “nothing is impossible” to act like “scientists” but were later proven to be wrong on many terms.
Now, no economists are socialist in the purest form, even though some might believe in welfare or unions but these are not ironically only compatible in a free and capitalist society. This makes socialists very much similar to flat earthers. Both sides are factually proven wrong, and both have been shown pieces of empirical evidence too (socialists are shown their historical failures and flat earthers are shown photographs) and yet they are still reluctant to challenge their thoughts.
Flat earthers have different theories to support their claim (just like socialism has its type). One of them says that the earth is in a disc shape and the north pole is at the center, the sun moves around the north pole and that leads to day and night. Now, before laughing at this let’s ask them to bring any evidence of such claims. With technological advancement in this era, there would be a way to prove this claim. Here, we aren’t even asking for this to be proven theoretically/mathematically but just show an image. But can they? There have been many images of the earth shown and all say it is a globe. Now, the only possibility of flat earth claims to be right is when all physicists/geographers are dishonest and have some personal grudge against wise flat earth believers or that they are wrong but if they are then that has to be proven too. Or just show the edge of the world.
Socialists follow the same trend; they call the subject of economics “capitalist propaganda”. But, socialism earlier was part of economic discussion, and the reason why it is no more being simply because of its failure both theoretically and empirically. Not just socialist states went into economic crisis but also lead to the formation of authoritarianism/totalitarianism. The examples of socialist failures are many; India, China, Israel, UK, USSR, Venezuela, etc… But, let’s say “these aren’t real socialism” then where has been real socialism applied? If it hasn’t then that itself proves the system to be a utopia. To get away from this, there are examples of Sweden given, but no, Sweden is not socialist rather it is in the top 10 of free economy index.[7] Apart from that, they are still ready to put forward another argument that socialism didn’t fail, why? Because public education and healthcare are an example of socialism. How’s that “real socialism” now? These services may not be very market-friendly but they are surviving on the foundation of markets, the output and wealth created in the market are the reason why these services are alive and not ironically they can only prevail in a free and capitalistic society. Also, if a system is right then it needs to be proven in the long run, showing short-run successes and ignoring the long-run consequences of it won’t change anything, Come on! Once upon a time, the socialist leader country named USSR doesn’t even exist anymore.
Physicists/geographers and economists should ignore or keep themselves away from such debates in their research which have no meaning (which they have been doing). These kinds of debates were surely important 100 years ago or even before. Now, there are no legitimate experts and scholars found supporting such claims. Maybe due to this, the gods of flat earthers and socialists have changed from scholars to random YouTubers or celebrities. If you are right about what you claim then prove it, citing already disproven papers and bad mimicry sounds on YouTube videos won’t help anybody change facts.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/mg73v8/the-ancient-greek-astronomer-who-discovered-that-the-earth-isnt-flat
[2] https://physicsworld.com/a/fighting-flat-earth-theory/
[3]https://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/8wRiLexg1N2IOXjeK2BKcL/How-Aryabhata-got-the-earths-circumference-right-millenia-a.html
[4] https://mises.org/library/economic-calculation-socialist-commonwealth
[5] https://fee.org/articles/the-use-of-knowledge-in-society/
[6] https://spontaneousorder.in/understanding-the-knowledge-problem/
