Everyone appeals to authority in the sense you use this phrase because no one has the time to to argue out everything from first principles. In a discussion about why flat earthers are wrong I’d make an argument that shows they are wrong. In a discussion about misinformation and how easily duped people are in general I wouldn’t make such an argument since it isn’t pertinent.
A person who thinks "flat earthers are stupid" because "everyone knows", and not because of the actual reasons this is true, is not smarter. The flat earther also knows everyone knows the earth is round. You didn't display any knowledge they don't have.
How can you tell the earth is round is a pretty insightful question. The difference between us is that I understand that people coming to recognize truth from falsehood, including making mistakes and falling in the way, is more important than reaching the correct result. Which is why I'm not afraid of disinformation, because I think people need to not be afraid to think and ask questions and take a path where they don't get the correct result right away.
Mine while, you wish for people to avoid thinking and defer to authority. It's extremely relevant, it's at the core of my argument, that's what this discussion is all about.
The system failed the flat earther not because it prevented the false information from reaching them. The system failed to properly educate them to recognize truth from falsehood, and instead taught them, like your attitude, to rely on authority. The only difference between you is that their trust in authority has stopped. And their reasoning is bad because they never used them.
You inability to understand what is irrelevant complication, and your deferral to authority and expertise even when you are perfectly capable of understanding, is your own problem.
Here are two quote you said:
> "(There are no right questions, only right answers.)
A point that does not pertain to what I said. I said nothing about “right” questions."
> "Asking the right questions requires some perspicacity."
You also say "The thoughts were completely wrong". There are also no wrong thoughts, only wrong conclusions. A person afraid to "think" wrongly as the narrative so strongly tries to program people, is infinitely dumber than a person who doesn't constrain his thinking. That's what they want to happen. Amazing there are NPCs like you who avoid "wrongthink".
There are people who know a lot and understand nothing. Knowledge is spewing up complications from set theory. Understanding is being able to tell, by the context, that this is completely irrelevant.
You appealed to authority to even tell me that the earth is flat. You didn't say that we can observe the curvature from measuring distances, from doing an experiment with ships masts disappearing into the horizon, or any other way even ancient people figured it out. It's true because "The knowledge that the Earth is spheroidal has been known for many hundreds of years. ".
People "knew" the sun rotates around earth for thousand of years. And the truth won despite it being against the "authority". And nothing will change that understanding, even if some string theory will discover the 11th dimension or whatever, because that will be irrelevant in the same sense that set theory is irrelevant to 1+1=2. For these same reasons you don't need and shouldn't appeal to authority.
Appeal to authority is only knowledge. Zero understanding.
I said nothing about "doing the research". A person who deferred to authority and knowledge to answer a question is always inferior to a person who tried to understand and failed. A person appealing to authority is just trying to mirror someone's intelligence. A parrot who repeats a correct sentence is still dumber than a human saying a wrong sentence.
A parrot who repeats "vaccines are good" because he heard that is always the greater fool than the anti vax who says vaccines are bad.
A parrot who says 1+1=2 because set theory shows less understanding than a kid with an abacus. The parrot is saying irrelevant things while the child isn't.