• cattywampas@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    “People are smart, they can handle it.”

    “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”

    **I do want to nit pick at the above quote and point out that 500 years ago everyone knew the earth was round, though heliocentrism was the new hotness.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      The ancient greeks knew that it was possible for The Earth to orbit The Sun. They went for the geocentric model, because their math predicted that if The Earth orbited The Sun, then the other stars were “impossibly far” away from us.

      Which TBF, is an accurate description of what is actually occuring. A single light year is impossibly far, much less the actual distances involved.

      • cattywampas@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        It also wouldn’t be possible to prove heliocentrism until the invention of the relatively advanced telescopes of the 16th and 17th centuries.